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The Joys of School And "Website Protection"
jeffy124 writes "New Jersey Democratic Senator Bob Torricelli has proposed federal legislation titled the School Website Protection Act of 2001 that would criminally punish students who disrupt school networks, whether it be elemantary, high school, or college. Unfortunately, the legislation makes common acts like sending e-mail to a teacher an offense that can be investigated by the Secret Service and punishable by 10 years incarceration. It almost seems as if sitting at a lab computer and logging in is illegal."
1. If the schools servers suck, let them suck.
2. Do those things on your own time.
Just admit it. Defacing a website merits no worse a punishment than defacing a brick wall with a spraycan. Fines to cover materials and labor. And some community service.
Just as piracy merits no worse a sentence than is received for petty theft. 24 hours detained, tops. With no fine if you return the "stolen merchandise". Which I guess means just deleting it.
Get over the "seriousness" of these computer crimes. Save the decades long jail sentences for the real dangers to society.
The current trend in the USA is to make illegal almost everything possible, then bring charges against only those people you don't like.
My guess is two-thirds to three-quarters of current laws in the US today have no merit in themselves, but exist only to make enforcement and prosecution easier for the authorities.
"Simply sending an unsolicited e-mail to a teacher (as in teh teacher didn't request the e-mail) "
Please tell me you spellchecked that before you sent it.
Around here, it's generally DWBAWFGALABAAHTLGRCKMPIARN: Driving while black and wearing Fubu Gear, acting like a badass, and having too-loud gangsta rap cop-killer "music" playing in a residential neighborhood.
And I support the police in their efforts to stop it. I wonder if it's ever occured to these self-styled minority activists that the reason certain minorities are stopped in disproportionate numbers is that the cops observed that they commit a disproportionate number of crimes.
~~~
Students should be fully be indemnified and held harmless from school retrubition if they:
(1) Post facts or discuss school policies or staff on non-school operated web sites/message boards, even if truths result in harm to image of staff.
(2) Carry or use asparin, antacid tablets, cough syrup, and other over the counter common medication. "Common" being defined by anyhting that staff may use or has legally used.
(3) Read any political material that some teachers personally may dislike, such as the Libmaugh Letter, etc., during "free reading time".
(4) Carrying pocket tools, pocket knives, etc, not used in any sort of crime or intimidation.
(5) Students should also be secure that the contents of their locker possess all the same protections and gurantees as a persons belongings in their home from unreasonable search and seizure. e.g., no searches without court orders (orders from "school police" insufficient).
(6) All other school rules shall apply equally to all persons on school grounds ("equal protection"). e.g., Required uniforms for kids must require uniforms for staff and faculty.
(7) And finally publically available school code listings detailing all infractions, and penalties for violating. No more making up rules and punishments on the fly. Note from (6) that these apply to staff too. )
Furter any school faculty or staff caught violating the above rights should be put on trial with a student jury in a by the book fair trial, complete with sentencing and stiffer punishments for second violations, and all open to the public and media.
Of course schools will oppose this despite teaching the wonders of US freedom in their gov't classes because all opressors fear any sort of equality.
Senators (such as the one discussed in this article) have to worry about a few more constituents than a House member, so they touch very little of the constituent contact stuff.
2) Darn few people get to see a Senator - personal contact is necessarily minimal.
3) Darn few phone calls get through to a Senator - these are usually statistics too.
4) Very few written letters get to a Senator's attention, though this is your best bet. If you're very lucky, the response you get back will reflect a little official attention if it's an unusual request, thus prompting the Legislative Correspondent to maybe ask for some input on the senator's position.
I hate to respond AC twice on this same thing, but I was a little dismayed to see the parent gain yet another mod point despite being pretty much wrong.
Vague wording is no better than malicious wording.
This law is utterly unnecessary, and the potential abuses far outweigh the potential benefits.
There is no way that ordinary school disciplinary procedures could not handle this stuff. Should side-stepping windows nt permissions & playing Starcraft in the library be punishable by a maximum of 10 years in jail, while writing "PRINCIPL REED IS A FUKWAD" on the bathroom walls (requiring a repaint) will give you at worst a week's suspension? That's not what the bill says, you say, it's just a possible misinterpretation. Well, if a court could misinterpret it that way, then the bill should not be passed in its current form. If it's passed at all.
Schools are places of learning. Therefore we should encourage students to play with the computer systems and learn from them, not subliminally tell them that exploring what is possible on the system could cross a (very vague) line that could land them in jail. In its present form, the bill does that, and clarifying things to the point where the bill is not unacceptably vague would essentially just say "doing illegal computer things is even more illegal if you do them to a computer network."
No?
As far as the first goes, computers are tools. Whether it helps students in later life to know how to use the computer as a tool, the computer can help them as students. Our school's computer lab isn't primarily there so that students can learn to use computers; it's so that students can do schoolwork between classes, type things up, research things on the internet. At the (private) high school i attended last year, written papers were not accepted; all major assignments turned in had to be typed. Whether this is a good thing (reading typed material is easier for teachers than written material) or a bad thing (it allows kids who have a handwriting problem to remain with a handwriting problem), you can decide. However in my opinion computer labs should be provided as a courtesy to the students, so they don't have to go home to type things or check e-mail. (Especially since some of us live far from the school, and in some areas *gasp* schools and libraries are the only computer access the kids have.) The students need to use computers sometimes. The schools can easily provide computers for student use. How can you possibly argue against that? (if you were, i mean..)
As to the second, if students are interested in something they should definitely be given a chance to pursue that course. Good schools should enable students to grow in the ways they want to grow. (This is why i personally am a big proponent of networked schools giving students administrator powers, and kind of apprenticing them in fixing network problems and helping students and teachers in need. the bill which is ostensibly currently being discussed seems to go directly against that idea.)
As to the third, perhaps you are right; and i don't quite see why they put computers in elementary schools, to be honest. OK, maybe playing Jumpstart 2ndGrade for 20 minutes will give them some math exersize. But most elementary-level computer classes are overkill, and often are taught by teachers who don't know anything at all about the computers. These computer classes are, of course, pure soulfood to those few kids to whom computers seem magic and 10 PRINT "HELLO WORLD"; 20 GOTO 10 seems at first like the coolest thing in the universe, and they'll just gobble them up; still, for most of the students there, the need for such classes is uncertain. But beyond trying to find a way that the kids who just think "OOH! NIFTY BEEPING BOXES! WANT TO PLAY!" get ample time (if they so desire) to play and grow and gain experience with what the nifty beeping boxes can do (besides games)..
Overall, i'd say that mainly what your arguments seem to work for is the idea that computers used in schools need to be there for a specific set of clearly thought out reasons, not just "Uhh.. computers. There should be computers in the schools." BUT: What *are* you arguing, exactly, and exactly what relevance does it have to the bill this story is about?
"dumbest MCSE"
:) Or maybe it's too right. Hard to say :)
I know it's not an oxymoron, but something about the above phrase is just not quite right
Let me qualify that -- I don't really think there's anything wrong with doing good towards others; indeed, I've been known to engage in more than a bit of volunteerism -- but I *do* think there's quite a bit wrong with the belief that individuals are morally obligated to do good towards others, or that they are somehow evil people if they don't. I particularly detest the thought that individuals should be brought by force to do good towards others, which is effectively what such things as progressive taxation enforce. When I do volunteer work, I do it because it makes me feel good, or because it supports some cause which is aligned with my agenda; in short, I do it for me, as opposed to some mythical moral obligation towards others.
It doesn't matter how many people make over $250K without exploiting others. If they take money from others unfairly (without a consentually agreed-upon contract), they should be prosecuted for it (via civil law, mostly). If they gained it fairly (through mutually acceptable agreements), then they have every right to keep it.
The laws which a libertarian wants are not necessarily publically funded. They're almost entirely civil, rather than criminal, law; thus, no tax dollars are spent on having government representatives (ie. police) performing the investigations, and the only government involvement is providing the courthouse and judge -- and some libertarians (myself not among them) would say that these too should be paid for by those who use them. Trying to paint libertarianism as another form of socialism is far too many shades of wrong.
The impairment may not be intentional, but that their commands affect the computer most certainly would be. Either is a sufficient condition.
Students (like anyone else) can already be jailed for threatening or harassing others. The problem is that these existing laws are neither publicised or enforced. Before you start adding new laws (and talking about how publicising and enforcing them will make life better), try just publicising and enforcing the existing ones.
Or court fees. You don't object to those, do you? Yet, these are certainly a departure from "publicly funded by all".
Any form of non-publicly funded laws basically ammount to a bunch of libertarians who hire a private army to enforce their rules.
Bullshit. Just because I pay the court $xxx to process the papers I'm filing doesn't mean they're any more likely to rule in my favor -- presuming by non-publicly-funded you mean that enforcement costs (as opposed to the costs of those creating the laws) are paid for by those who initiate action.
Libertarianism is founded on the idea that ownership rights are absolute, and that you don't "initiate" violence. Well, yeah. YOUR ownership rights are absolute, and I should never initiate violence against you.
Hrm? When has a libertarian ever suggested to you that your ownership rights are less absolute than h{er,is} own, or that {s,}he has the right to initiate violence?
Should we respect the ownership rights of people whose ancestors stole land by killing the inhabitants? What if I'm a decendent of one of the original owners?
Incidentally, common law (inhereted by the US from England) resolves issues of this type. A party which has been using land for a long enough time (11 years, as I recall) gains ownership rights. Nothing in my libertarian background compels me to consider this unfair -- so it seems a reasonable means of resolving such a dispute.
Libertarianism is a philosophy of contradiction, Apply harsh rules to them, and make them pay for the privelage, but don't take any money from me or it's government initiation of violence and I'll come out shooting.
Utter and complete bullshit. Libertarianism holds that the same rules should apply to everyone; that people should pay their own actions; and (yes) that any entitiy, including the government, which takes without consent is morally in the wrong. The laws which a Libertarian government would enforce would be far fewer and simpler than those on the books today. It would have those initiating legal action paying for the use of the legal system (as opposed to your implications to the contrary) and is opposed to anyone coming out shooting.
I just can't believe that this was even proposed. How do these people stay elected? I really want to say something informative/interesting here, but I'm literally at a complete loss for words.
And people wonder why the education system is a shambles in the USA. Making it illegal to think outside of the box certainly isn't going to help any.
RFC2119
Prisons already have revolving doors... jsut take a recnet case where a double murderer will be set free ( after appeals ) becasue his confession to at least 7 members of his AA group are now consitered confidential becasue it's a religious group.
He spoke openly at the group about having nightmares about the killings... hello... does this strike anyone else as unusally assinine.
We can convict an employee of the crimes of his foreign company, but we cannot hold a KNOWN double murder in jail.
And what part of "individual liberty and personal responsibility" covers hiding behind someone else's e-mail address? Or have you not yet figured out the difference between libertarian and libertine?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Nonsense. Rand's novels are some of the most entertaining comic book parodies I've ever read.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
"No one in their right mind..."
Here on Slashdot, however...
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
If we keep this up I ain't gonna have no karma left at all. :-)
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
I was speaking of *un*intentional parodies.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Seriously, though, I only read "Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged" a couple of years ago, and was amazed that so much critical acclaim had been garnered by what to me read like old sci-fi and comic books with some half-baked political philosophy mixmastered in.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
..that Toricelli is trying to attract any attention that will distract people from his current troubles (ethics violations accusations)? Why else would he try to re-illegalize something already illegal?
This covers a key point.
If you haven't read Bruce Sterling's The Hacker Crackdown you might want to. One of the INTELLIGENT (or maybe aware is a better word) law enforcement officers interviewd described his first cracker case.
A bank had been cracked. Initially he didn't understand what was going on until someone used the phrase "someone broke into our computer".
Once that occurred the cop had a context and both got his man and made sense of cracking by understanding that cyberspace (or whatever word you'd like to use) is a SPACE and applying space related laws.
A school's website is a school's sign/office in cyberspace. You can't spraypaint your schools sign or office legally because that's vandalism. The same law should just be directly applied. You can't harass a teacher (or anyone else) with crank calls and the same should apply to Instant Messaging. Continue as needed.
The end result makes lot of sense because once you start mapping physical space to computer space you have guidelines. Everyone emailing homework isn't illegal because it slows the network because it is the same as everyone rushing in at the end of the day to turn something in. A failled login just turns into pulling on a door you didn't know was locked and then stopped when you figured it out.
We have all the laws we need, except maybe one that maps cyberspace to real space as a legal concept.
Herb
Herb
Again, feel free to sentence me to death if my questions annoy you. I'll come back in 5 minutes anyway. -Sythi
The UK is already beholden to the interests of the corporations. I dare say the same is true of most of Europe. The same is obviously true of Australia. It's true of every country that is even considering DMCA-like legislation.
So what does that leave? Homeschooling. And, as I said, once homeschooling gets popular (more precisely, once it threatens to get popular. Much easier and politically safer to make something illegal if it's not popular already), it'll be outlawed.
--
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
Federal legislation like this is even worse in that it might affect not just public schools, but private schools as well. The bill itself refers to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 8801), section 14101, but I'm not aware of how to track that down (Google doesn't come up with much of interest).
If it refers strictly to public schools, then private institutions (and the home, for homeschoolers) might be the only place where a kid can really be free to learn. This, to me, is ironic and more than a little sad.
I expect two things to happen if bills like this pass:
I don't know about you guys, but it looks to me like the good 'ol USA is slowly turning into its former Communist enemy, the USSR. Oh, there are certainly distinctions (power in the hands of the corps versus power in the hands of the Communist leaders). But I think they are distinctions without a substantial difference.
I think this trend will continue. The laws will get worse over time for the individual. I suspect only armed revolt will be enough to change it, and that won't happen because the general population doesn't have sufficient military strength anymore, thanks to expensive (so the general population can't afford them) high-tech weapons that give the government (and thus the corporations, since they are roughly the same thing these days) a millions-to-one advantage in firepower.
And nobody from the outside would provide military aid to those revolting, since the corporations are multinational and have sufficient influence over every government that matters.
Reading Slashdot is depressing sometimes, because the problems discussed there are usually things we can't do a damned thing about. I have a large sense of inevitability of the corporate police state.
Sigh...
--
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
I am not American but, if your senators are anything like ours, you started to lose him when you wrote the word "kernel" and lost him for good at "(called an "interrupt")".
Not that he will ever see this. But what are the chances on the Senatorial Clerk For Web-Based Reading Affairs being much better? Remember, the SCFWBRA is probably a very young, very green, too greedy, very just-out-of-college lawyer.
I think that if you want a good standing chance of being read, understood and even taken into account, you should imagine a world where the only operating system in existence is Windows 98 and the only applications ever written were those in Microsoft Office. There are plenty of examples just as good as the one you used. Even better ones, considering the havoc a kid with VBA and Outlook can wreck.
And by using expressions like "UNIX box", "ssh" and "analyzing the signal" you just marked yourself as the kind of hacker the lawmaker want to see in jail. Funny world, isn't it?
Senator,
I am writing to express my opposition to the the School Website Protection Act of 2001 (S 1252) and to urge you to vote against this bill.
This legislation to stop "hackers" in schools is misguided and (frankly speaking) fundamentally ignorant of the technological issues involved. In particular: Sec. 2 (a)(2) makes it a crime to:
The problem is with the phrase "affects or impairs." This makes ANY unauthorized action on a school computer, whether it is otherwise legal or not, into a criminal act, even if that act doesn't harm the computer in any way. This includes: moving a mouse, sending someone email, or tapping a key on the keyboard. This is because all of these actions cause a command to be transmitted to the kernel of the operating system (called an "interrupt") which causes the kernel to analyze the signal and the operating system to react accordingly. This doesn't slow the computer down by much, but it does slow it down as the processor(s) spend a few clock cycles processing each keystroke or mouse movement.
So let us take the following example: I attempt to log into a school UNIX box, believing that I have an account on that box (when in fact I do not). I create an ssh connection and type in what I believe are my login and password for that box. After being denied access, three times, I cut the connection. However, that UNIX box has been affected by my actions (the internal state of the machine changed as it decided not to give me access). Undoubtedly I intended to transmit the commands which caused this change, and obviously I was not authorized to do so. Under this bill, I have just committed a federal crime. Whether or not I will be prosecuted now depends on how zealous and paranoid the system administrators are, how ambitious the prosecutor is, how much fear the judge has about "evil hackers," etc.
Even if we were to remove the word "affects," it would not be enough; since the computer is slowed down ever so slightly by my attempts to log in, I have now "impaired" the computer also. In fact this legislation is overzealous unless the phrase "affects or impairs" is changed to "substantially impairs or substantially alters information stored on." This covers what I think Senator Torricelli trying to legislate against: denial-of-service attacks, virus transmissions, web page defacements, etc.
I might also point out that there are already several laws on the books which prohibit destruction of school property, in addition to regulations of the school. We do not need a federal law to protect schools; "evil hackers" already are subject to prosecution. If they cross state lines, they may even be subject to prosecution in *two* states. There is no reason for the Federal government to become involved, even on an interstate level.
I urge you to vote against this bill. It proposes a recklessly overzealous change in policy.
signature
Finding God in a Dog
I almost got suspended once for checking my email with pine in the school library during lunch one day. Next day, telnet was no longer installed.... damn them... that was annoying.
:)
What was really annoying, was that they took telnet off the computer lab computers soon afterwards..... I ended up keeping a laptop in my book bag after that..... was better off.... could use ssh
BTW, their excuse was that somebody "hacked" their cisco, and caused it to stop working compleatly..... well... thats what they told the teachers (yes, some were pissed about telnet disappearing) (they really had the router sitting on top of a water heater, and it fried it....)
bahaha. Old computers with zero sense of security are fun.
What would the modern day equivalent be? Does Windows come with the scripting engine out of the box these days? Could make for some fun at the computer store display.
Don't want anybody trying to sell things to the students?
I guess it would get in the way of Channel One.
I have a nine year old daughter, I have to make sure that she does not speak her mind in school. and I have to teach her to be quiet and non-descript to avoid expensive legal battles and other horrible things.. Sorry for the following language but.... What the Fuck has happened to this country? I should be teaching my daughter to speak her mind, to challenge authority when she sees that athority is wrong. (teachers hated me, espically when I chime in on a formula with a "umm, no that's wrong", or corrected the english teacher... in a nice way of course :-)
I still challenge authority every day. I have linux running in a all NT shop, I stand up at city meetings against stupid ordinances or laws (One city commisioner wanted to outlaw saying anything deemed "bad" against the city council.... she didnt like the fact that after her tantrum that she was in power and we couldnt do anything about it we quietly said "yes mine furer" (with the press present was golden!))
Everyone should challenge what they see as wrong,It's our duty and our right as a species. and the schools are forcing me to teach my daughter to be quiet.... or they'll take her away (a single father with custody? OMG, men are evil!... that's how courts feel... I spent thousands to get custody and they can take it any time they feel like it.) or outspend me in court... or smear me in public or the news...
makes you glad to be an american dont it....
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
What, you mean like they wouldn't do anything like arrest a kid and hold them in jail for 2 weeks without bail for breaking rot 13^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hsending an email?
Any HS mathematics department which allows graphical calculators but does not require either semiregular "check" tests in which the student is given problems that a calculator should not be necessary for and barred from using calculators on those tests, or require students to show their work in a methodical, step by step fashion, showing everything they do (to ensure that even if they did use the calculator, they can at least list the steps needed to perform the calculation without it..), has serious problems.
:) and to top it all off i accidentally used the +1 bonus on the original post.. how embarrassing.
There are some problems that arise with allowing the use of the calculator as a tool, and they have not all been ironed out (especially the questions that arise when some students have calculators that are significantly more powerful than those of other students) but in general having the calculator there enables math classes to take place at a higher level, with the students only having to work only with (and being tested solely on) the individual steps they take to reach the goal, not the exact number they regurgitate at the end.. and at least the calculator *FORCES* the teacher to shift their testing methods to make *absolutely sure* that every student knows exactly what they're doing..
This isn't very relevant. I'm sorry i brought it up. Sorry
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Actually, classes in computer programming go hand in hand with mathematics. Both subjects develop problem solving and critical thinking skills.
Our high school last year had a math class that was taught entirely in the computer lab so that the students could use mathematica. Between the ability to deal with high-level concepts quickly that using the computer gave them and a couple of extra periods a week, the students in this class-- despite being juniors-- were able to speed through both the junior and senior years of math to the point where they were all able to capably take the Calculus BC exam at the end of the year.
Meanwhile, the TI-83 calculators that were *REQUIRED* for my 9-12 math classes were as far as i can gather more powerful machines than the Apple IIcs at my elementary school (if you discount the lack of external hardware add-ons like a color monitor, sound, a floppy drive..). Where do you draw the line on "computers are not beneficial to students", when students are carrying around literal computers to help them in math? Where does "follow the steps in your calculus book to find the areas between these two curves" end and "translate the steps in your calculus book into TI-BASIC and use the program to find the areas between these two curves" begin?
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
I have a hypothesis that anyone who runs for election in a federal or large state election is crazy. (N.B.: For the states, this only applies to state-wide elections, for the federal elections, there is a gradation between representatives and senators.)
Recent events have tended to confirm this hypothesis. I think that paranoia with delusions of grandeur is the most common psychosis, though certainly schizophrenia of various stripes can also be observed.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Instead I told him how much I liked the idea since it would probably impact spammers and script kiddies
Yes. I don't care about freedom as long as I stop getting spam, and those damn script kiddies stop 4dm1n15tr4t0ring/r00ting my servers that I don't know how to admin.
Christ almighty Microsoft made it simple with Windows update, yet over 300,000 of you cannot get it right (Code Red). If you cannot secure a windows box (a daily check with Windows Update!! then please don't ever take any job (and quit if you currently have one) in the computer industry. Security does not come free. It never has. Not with life, not with computers.
Unix/Linux/Whatever OS you're running is easy to secure IFF you have a clue, or a clue stick handy to beat yourself with, and are willing to put the same effort you put in for security in other aspects of your life.
You, Mr. Anonymous Coward sir, are a twit. You're broken. Anyone who would give up freedom (even others freedom, they have as much right to it as you do) for security is broken. (Within reason. We should not become a bunch of murderous bastards for freedom, but we should also not become a bunch of slaves for security.)
You should fight against any freedom being taken away. You may not need that freedom now, but who knows when it may come in handy. Lazyness or money is not a legitimit reason to stomp someone elses freedom.
That said, I don't agree with spam, because spammers are not flipping the bill with their advertising, but knowledge should never be hindered from spreading. This kind of law can and will definately hinder it.
For a good time call www.sawkie.com
From what I can tell congress people are satires unto themselves. Sure there a few good congress people, but they usually get lost in the crowd of senators trying to draw attention to themselves.
I really believe that we need some sort of technology awareness course in the school system, so at least people don't take the FUD, spread by journalists, at face value.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
With the recent trend of putting computers in the classroom, this law is nothing but trouble. Is the Senator asking that we put a 5 year old who touches the computer without the teachers permission in jail? With this law it would be illegal to even move the mouse, doing so "affects" the computer. Maybe we should just station cops in every school to preven against computer affecting incidents. And when they aren't busy, maybe they could spare some time to make sure no one has a weapon on them.
When I was in (a Dutch) technical college in the early seventies, electronics/telecom dept., we were not allowed the use of a calculator.
One of the guys' dad had been on a trip to the US and brought home a Sinclair RPN calculator.
When it showed up at school the possibilities and the ease of use against the slide rule intrigued us.
But it was confiscated and a warning letter send to the guys parents to not let their boy use such dangerous tools, he'd grow up stupid this way....
Yet Boolean Algebra was a course item.
A few years later I joined an international company and I was the only one(!) that had never used a calculator, forget about a computer.
I've had a hard time catching up with those from other countries that were at more enlightened educational institutions.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Well, often.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
You're not the only one....
My friends and I pulled a number of things that, while childish and stupid, and certainly deserved punishment, would hardly deserve jail time.
I've been part of a number of computer pranks in both high school and college. Pretty much everyone I know with a computer background pulled the same type of things. Now we are all pretty successful. We certainly didn't deserve jail time for this. The two friends of mine who got caught and lost dorm ethernet access and their UNIX accounts scared us straight.
-Wintermute
I've emailed my Reps/Senators(Washington State) 3 times regarding various issues. In response I recieved a written letter each time. Sure, it was a canned response but they did get the message.
Most sigs are dumb. This is one of them.
I used to cruise as a teenager. Now it's illegal to cruise in front of the very drive-in used in the movie American Grafitti (Merle's Drive-in in Visalia, CA).
I used to go to the midnight movies to see RHPS and HM, now there is a curfew.
I used to carry a pocket knife to school. Doing so now will land you in jail.
When I wasn't feeling well I used to bring aspirin with me to school. Not anymore.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Here's a modified version of the letter. All I did was modify the language so that it said the same thing in a way that they should be able to understand (removing the technical terms). As before, do whatever you want with it, as long as you put your name on it!
:)
Dear Senator,
I am writing to express my opposition to the the School Website Protection Act of 2001 (S 1252) and to urge you to vote against this bill.
This legislation to stop "hackers" in schools is misguided and (frankly speaking) fundamentally ignorant of the technological issues involved. In particular: Sec. 2 (a)(2) makes it a crime to:
knowingly (cause) the transmission of a program, information, code, or command, and as a result of such conduct, intentionally affects or impairs without authorization a computer of an elementary school or secondary school or institution of higher education;
The problem is with the phrase "affects or impairs." This makes ANY unauthorized action on a school computer, whether it is otherwise legal or not, into a criminal act, even if that act doesn?t harm the computer in any way. This includes: moving a mouse, sending someone email, or tapping a key on the keyboard. This is because all of these actions cause the computer to perform an action.
So let us take the following example: I attempt to log into a school computer, believing that I have an account on that computer (when in fact I do not). After being denied access, three times, I give up. However, that computer has been affected by my actions. Undoubtedly I intended to transmit the commands which caused this change, and obviously I was not authorized to do so. Under this bill, I have just committed a federal crime. Whether or not I will be prosecuted now depends on how zealous and paranoid the system administrators are, how ambitious the prosecutor is, how much fear the judge has about "evil hackers," etc.
Even if we were to remove the word "affects," it would not be enough; since the computer is slowed down ever so slightly by my attempts to log in, I have now "impaired" the computer also. In fact this legislation is overzealous unless the phrase "affects or impairs" is changed to "substantially impairs or substantially alters information stored on." This covers what I think Senator Torricelli is trying to legislate against: denial-of-service attacks, virus transmissions, web page defacements, etc.
I might also point out that there are already several laws on the books which prohibit destruction of school property, in addition to regulations of the school. We do not need a federal law to protect schools; "evil hackers" already are subject to prosecution. If they cross state lines, they may even be subject to prosecution in two states. There is no reason for the Federal government to become involved, even on an interstate level.
I urge you to vote against this bill. It proposes a recklessly overzealous change in policy.
Regards,
Signature
I appologize for any ? where there should be ". I used abiword for the editing and cut/past came back with that smart quotes problem I though was limited to micro$oft! Be sure to modify the language for who your sending it too. If your senator is Senator Torricelli, you'll want to change his name to you. You'll want to ask him to withdraw the bill, not 'vote no'. In short, read it!
- AMW
Lets not forget the young NJ school boy (13 yr) who committed suicide
m l
s /05-13-CCQR1VHB.html
because he was suspended and allegedly threatened, by the his school
principal, to be incarcerated for breaking into his school's computer
system.
The slashdot story here:
http://slashdot.org/articles/01/05/14/0129236.sht
Actual article here:
http://www.nj.com/news/times/index.ssf?/news/time
This is a prime example of the effects of sever punishment laden on
young children. Instead of channeling their blackhat energies into
something constructive and leaving the punishment in the hands of the
school system, Torricelli, indirectly, wants to build more prisons so
that we can now through more young children into them.... which, by
the way, do a poor job at rehabilitating and sometimes making the
child even worse when he comes out.
Being a NJ resident I am definitely going to write Senator Torricelli
and offer the above story as a prime example of where this type of
legislation could lead too. You should to.
---
Bigup Brick City
-slams
With power comes responsibility. I believe that teachers should have power over students, but they should also be liable for abuses of that power. The system is WAY out of whack right now...teachers ARE in an untenable position.
But putting a law on the books that could send people to prison for sending an email that somebody else didn't like is, uh, a bad idea.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
OK, so you're saying that instead of having a class about "How to use the Internet approrpiately", we should just get the Secret Service to slap the kid with a felony rap. Holy disproportionate response, Batman!
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
But now, the Legislature wants to make this a FELONY. Hey, guys, a felony rap is a big deal. We're talking about totally ruining a student's life because he sent a rude email. Does this make sense?
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
--Ben
Simple. You expect that if you make over X dollars, your tax on that money is 100%.
How can someone propose this? Simple. In my eyes, nobody has every gotten mega rich (gates, rockafeller, dupont, etc) without massive abuses of the law, saved in many cases only because they were too rich to prosecute.
That precedent, when viewed along with the fact that nobody requires billions of dollars to live, makes it pretty simple to say that an upper limit on wealth wouldn't be a bad thing.
I'm not to 100k, just over halfway if you only count my 9 to 5.
But I still still think that limiting income to a certain value isn't a bad thing.
If I actually thought the system stood a chance of working, I'd vote for it instantly. However, I'm not foolish enough to think that the rich wouldn't find ways around it. It'd just hit a few upper-middle class types who couldn't afford tax dodges. The incredibly-rich would still be incredibly rich, and would continue to get more so.
How many people make over 250k (to choose an arbitrary number) without exploiting others?
It's, IMHO, a fairly small number. For the rest of them, it might cut into their motivation, but it's motivation for them to do things I don't want them doing to begin with.
I think you've missused a few terms in your post.
You seem to have equated democracy with capitalism, and both of these as the opposites of communism...
1) The USA isn't a democracy. It's a representitive democratic republic. That means it's got a constitution which is mostly untouchable, and you don't get to vote, "representatives" do it for you.
2) Democracy and capitalism are NOT related. In fact, a true democracy would likely be very socialist, because the poor (who vastly outnumber the rich, in ANY system) would vote for more wealth sharing.
3) The USA is a socialism. All we're arguing is the degree to which it is. All those laws a libertarians wants, which keep the poor from taking the means of production away from the slaveholders^H^Howners are publicly funded. No system except an anarchy can exist without some degree of socialism, by definition. (Unless you think 99.9% of the people wouldn't mind the other 0.1% fencing off all the land and renting them the right to use it...)
Libertarianism is a form of socialism where people have money taken from them, in a way that you approve of. And where you don't.
If you want ANY laws, law enforcement, or judicial services, that's a government. For a government to maintain even a semblance of impartiality, it has to be publicly funded by all.
"Paid for by those who use them"... Here's a hint, they already partially are. It's called bribes. You expect a system completely funded this way to be unbiased? What court would EVER find against Microsoft on anything if Bill was paying their bills?
Any form of non-publicly funded laws basically ammount to a bunch of libertarians who hire a private army to enforce their rules.
It's a nice fantasy world you've got there...
Libertarianism is founded on the idea that ownership rights are absolute, and that you don't "initiate" violence. Well, yeah. YOUR ownership rights are absolute, and I should never initiate violence against you.
Should we respect the ownership rights of people whose ancestors stole land by killing the inhabitants? What if I'm a decendent of one of the original owners?
Libertarianism is a philosophy of contradiction, Apply harsh rules to them, and make them pay for the privelage, but don't take any money from me or it's government initiation of violence and I'll come out shooting.
Yawn...
Vote Libertarian
If it ain't a Model M, it's a piece of crap.
Bullshit
If it ain't a Model M, it's a piece of crap.
Let's make a law that makes it illegal to pass a law about something that you're completely ignorant about.
I agree %100. I'd rather have to teach new employees how to use a computer than have to them how to think.
this post made me think of an section by ayn rand: (to paraphrase badly)
we can't control the lawful, so we have to make it so everyone breaks the law
i didn't think too much of that at the time of reading it but, it does seem like the us gov't is trying to make it to where everyone has boken the law at one point or another.
--holland
Not quite. Actually, I refuse to throw anything away (really pisses off my wife) and I also hate to let it go unused.
The irony is, I don't have DSL (thank you Verizon/NorthPoint. The latter for going out of business, the former for being dicks and not servicing my neighborhood) and all of that stuff is stuck on a dialup (which only works 50% of the time thanks to the LSR safety check). So despite this massive internal network (well, massive for a 1700 sq. foot house:) there isn't much outside connectivity. Which is fine.
Mostly, I have a bunch of circa 486/Pentium-I junk that can (just barely) decode mp3's and stuff like that. The Mame additions are due to some P-II stuff I'm starting to get. And I couldn't pass up that massive 20 GB drive when it came out a few years ago, so why not throw in a cheap little hub (which with all of this stuff MUST be replaced with a 10/100 switch:) and let the cheap boxes do cheap things, and let the big Linux box be the file server? Works great.
I guess I had too much time on my hands while my wife was pregnant, and you can only get so much pr0n over 56k phone lines:)
Now it's a good excuse to keep from changing diapers "sorry honey, I'm trying to run this Cat 5 under the carpet. I'll get the next one. Promise"
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Go read "High Tech Heretic" (Second time I've plugged that book this week:) It is totally on spot with what you are saying. I have a ten week old, and I must totally agree.
In this room alone, I've got three machines. One is a triple boot (Dos 6.22, Windows '95, Linux), one Progeny box, and one 'doze '98 machine. Plans include two networked mp3 players (need to find the money for some lcd screens, and then I'm ready to go) and two networked mame cabinets (one standup, one cocktail). And that's before I put all of the wireless shwag I ganked from work into use.
What is somebody in the school supposed to teach my kid?
BTW, in discussions with my wife about when jr. is allowed to hit the net, my response was: as soon as he can figure out how to get root and give himself permission. I've got enough O'Reilly, etc. books that he should be able to figure that out:)
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
While any criminal charges would of course have to go through the courts, punishments within the school system are often unchecked. Imagine this with a zero tolerance punishment system, as is so popular among school districts these days. Kid gets punished, has no chance to contest the charges or explain the circumstances, and the people in charge sometimes have to choose between giving a punishment they know is unjust or facing disciplinary action themselves for breaking policy. Sure you can try the courts, if your parents are rich enough to pay the lawyers.
"That's Tron. He fights for the Users."
Sounds like fun, but it's not. Imagine the reaction from the rest (~95%) of the world when they realize that a bunch of capricious nerds have shut down or derailed or disabled one of their toys (air travel, TV, etc). Imagine how you'd react to that sort of thing.
--
I can see a lot of geeky kids who aren't popular with other students or their teachers getting punished ... maybe as bad as what Skylarov is dealing with ... for expressing themselves in a way that many of their dumb teachers don't understand.
This reminds me of the first computer misuse act in the UK. One possible reading of it made the changing of the time on a digital watch a crime.
I sent him a letter:
----
Brazil has decided you're cute.
---- El diablo esta en mis pantalones! Mire, mire!
This is what happens when politicians who don't know anything about computers start drafting laws that concern computers. How can we expect someone who barely knows how to use email (and like opening email attachments ;o) draft a technical law? If we want things to change, we need to stop bitching about them on slashdot and contacting the people that represent us in government and make our views know. Don't bitch until you do something about it and that doesn't include posting here.
knowingly causes the transmission of a program, information, code, or command, and as a result of such conduct, intentionally affects or impairs without authorization a computer of an elementary school or secondary school or institution of higher education;'.
This is so vague that doing anything on a school computer could be considered a crime. Back in school, when a CS assignment was due, the entire network would grind to a halt as everyone was compiling their assignments on the server. Now I could have everyone else charged for hindering my work!
The conclusion to both these subjects is - we don't need more laws, we need better software. Adverts could _easily_ be removed if the software publishers (yes you too microsoft) included builtin ad-killing in their browsers that defaulted to the 'on' position so everyone could enjoy it. These companies are quick to develop systems that piss us off (like the PIII s/n) that default to 'on' but they wouldn't want to upset the advertisers by pissing them off. The school network is famous for having crap security (the sysadmin couldn't get a better job). Maybe if they cared enough to set-up a decent and secure network and didn't tempt the kids by putting their registration data/grades etc (ahh, i remember that) on the SAME BLOODY NETWORK, and didn't advertise the teachers email addresses everywhere. They wouldn't have so many problems.
-tfga
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
I'm a highschool student, and because of that law I'd probably be sitting in jail..
More than one have I had to break school district policy to make our computers even WORK. One time in AP Computer Science none of the compilers would work. So I generated a fix for them and even gave it to the admin who was SUPER pissed at me. Ended up that they used it at our other highschool because it wasnt working there. He talked to the principal about me "disrupting network operations". Luckly the principal knows me and didn't pursue it further. That would be a Level 4 violation, 5 days suspension..no questions asked.
Another time I used putty to login to my web server during homeroom (we werent doing anything) to both a) restart apache b) download a report for my next hour class. My advisor (total bitch) didn't understand anything I was doing and when she saw the black box popup she thought i was "hacking the grade server" and basically told me to get off before she reports me. I ignored her and again, I was reported. Luckly 5 minutes worth of explination to the principal got me out of it. This law would suck in the hands of people who dont know what they are doing. If my principal didnt trust me I'd probably be expelled by now, and that's breaking policy to HELP the school..damn lawmakers.
Some of the abuses you mentioned are -already- covered by law:
1) A threat of violence is assault.
2) Repeated nuisance mail is harrassment.
These things -should- be punished, but 10 years in prison is so strikingly moronic in most cases that I can't believe I'm reading about this in a reality from which I can't wake up.
1) A threat of violence should be reported to the police. Regular law should then be used. We don't need yet another stupid law.
2) Nuisance mail should be handled through normal school disciplinary means. Detentions, extra homework, suspensions, etc. Going to prison for ten years for repeatedly calling your teach a dick in email is absurd beyond comprehension.
Every time some lawmaker tries to offer "protection" from computer uses, I get a sense of just how far down the drain those lawmakers have taken us. I fear we shall not recover.
This bill is awesome! I love it! Here's what it means to me:
- 10 years in Federal "Pound-Me-In-The-Ass" Prison for running a tracert through a New Jersey school from California without authorization. Yay!
- 10 Years in Federal "Pound-Me-In-The-Ass" Prison for pinging a computer in a New Jersey school, because I'm a dangerous "L337 H/\x()R"
Someone PLEASE hit this Senator very firmly between the eyes and tell him to go back to his Jersey cow padduck, don'tchaknow?
-----
"Cogito Eggo Sum: I think, therefore, waffle."
Doesn't that sound like a cheezy line out of the movie Hackers? I mean, come on! What would you be more afraid of: Someone makes a threat on a schools web page (that hardly anyone ever visits if it's k-12), or grafitti in the bathroom stall? And no one even cares what people write in the stalls...
How can some cracker breaking in to a schools web server and defacing a page "strike fear into the hearts of the entire community?" This makes me so glad I'm no longer in High School. (Hopefully by the time most of us go to college we're above this)
As a friend of mine put it in the '60s:
B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Steve Ditko's "Mr A" or "The Avenging World".
B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I was speaking of *un*intentional parodies.
Actually these ARE unintentional parodies.
Ditko was quite impressed by Objectivism, and wrote and drew two comic books with several stories to try to promote it.
Unfortunately, Ditko was NOT Any Rand and the techniques that worked well for Dr. Strange and Spider Man did NOT work well to get the messages of Objectivism across. It came out as ranting and transparent propaganda. An unintentional parody of Rand in comic book form.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I have a great idea...
.. well .. let's just fucking kill them. After that, we'll have a country full of fucking idiots.
First let's elect a fucking idiot for a president. After that, we'll ban cloning and other important research, which will force most of the scientific community to move to other countires. After that, we'll setup some nice laws that will punish anyone that shows any kind of intelligence, especially people who are good with those computer things. After that, we'll take any student who shows any kind of intelligence and
Where the fuck is the US going?
--
microsoft, it's what's for dinner
bq--3b7y4vyll6xi5x2rnrj7q.com
it's a sig, wtf?
Remember kids, this isn't the first time Toricelli has sponsored crappy net.regulation. You know that spam disclaimer that says "THIS IS NOT SPAM ACCORDING TO S.1615"? That was his doing, though thankfully, that one died in committee. Of course, getting tough on those hax0r kids couldn't be a ploy to shift attention away from investigations for ethics violations, could it? Naah. All politicians are forthright and complete in what they say about their actions (Gary Condit, for example).
The truth about Scientology, Xenu, and you: Operation Clambake
If they can bring to bear enough support to re-instate the law, they in all probability could have brought enough to bear to prevent the law from expiring.
Secondly, your example is easy to figure out. You stood trial for the crime, and were found guilty. Later, the law ceased to exist. This does not automatically grant you freedom from your imprisonment. Consider somebody caught moonshining before the repeal of Prohibition: once Prohibition was repealed the individual might still have to serve out his sentence.
However, if you did appeal and won, you're done. Youv'e stood trial once. Double jeopardy attaches - you cannot be tried again.
www.eFax.com are spammers
Just require every law, other than the Constitution, to have an expiry date of not more than 5 years from passage, with renewal of the law requiring exactly the same level of support passing a new law would (i.e. (%50+1 of the house && 50%+1 of the Senate && (Presidential approval || 2/3 of the house)). This way, bad laws will be on the books for 5 years, then will have to stand against a populous that has seen the harm of the law.
Right now, it is almost impossible to get a law repealed. This makes it a lot easier.
It also puts an effective cap on the number of laws that can exist - after a while, Congress spends all of its time renewing existing laws and cannot pass new ones.
In effect, it brings about evolution for laws: survival of the fittest via competition for scarce resources.
www.eFax.com are spammers
Hey, under this law anyone who spams someone at a computer account in a school will get 10 years jail time! I knew there had to be some redeeming feature to it... ;-)
[TMB]
It's always refreshing to see our elected officials so committed to fighting crime.
Obviously, some crimes are more important than others... god forbid we allow teens to hack their poorly run high school webserver and post a nasty comment about an unfavored teacher... that'd be criminal!
Now I'm just waiting for the "Condit Child Intern Protection Act of 2001" to get proposed...
*scoove*
Rimbo's got a good point. There's another "geek's revenge" happening which may correspond to a paranoid (but someone's still after you) perspective: post-colombine zero tolerance rules.
Oddly enough, while this overreaction (when measured against statistical data showing the actual decline of Colombine-type activities) presumes to prevent youth on youth violence, the actual legislation ends up being a target used to protect the state.
It's time to set aside the tired "Republicans vs. Democrats" misdirections and recognize that both sides are having great success at eliminating annoying liberties under the guise of protecting us.
*scoove*
Somewhere I heard a comment about how liberals have been outstanding in getting anti-gun laws on the books, leaving them unenforced and pointing to how the lack of statistical progress justifies even more laws. Someone asked what would happen if they suddenly decided to enforce all of the laws they snuck in over time.
Civil libertarians need to watch for the same effect happening elsewhere - as it apparently is with Torricelli pushing this case. If teachers are being threatened (both of my folks are teachers as was my wife - and yes, it does and has happened to them as well), there are existing laws that apply.
It's as if we have a con game going on between legislators making unchecked power grabs by claiming to enhance people's "safety", totally backed by the stupid electoral marks that readily give away their rights for a false prize.
I've gotten ISP accounts cancelled, but the person always seems to resurface thanks to netzero Yea, the bad guys sure can be tough to prosecute. But I'm not sure a police state makes things any better, not to mention the cost in sacrificed rights to get there.
*scoove*
Yeah, but isn't that what we want? I mean, a society full of thoughtful, creative adults would seriously screw with the system. If the status quo is to be maintained, we must train children for boring desk jobs by putting them through assembly-line education where one size fits all and having an imagination is disruptive behavior. If children are allowed to be children, they might grow up into adults, instead of cattle. Cattle are much, much, easier to manage.
It has about as much chance of passing as the couple of dozen flag-burning amendment resolutions that pop up in the House every Congress. Tip-off number one: Torricelli didn't manage to attract even one cosponsor for it. Tip-off number two: Pat Leahy (chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, if you didn't know) is not a retard.
Sure, tear Torricelli a new one with your letter-writing. Maybe he'll catch a clue. But don't talk about this like it's five minutes away from becoming the next DMCA, because it isn't.
-----------------------
Nicotine free Amish .sig.
In HS my computer teacher decided to be an ass and changed my password. In the spirit of this joke, I promptly cracked the Novel network the computers were running on and changed his, along with fixing mine.
He figured this out about 2 hrs later and I go called to his office and everything got straightened out all fine.
It is really scary to think that I would have possibly gone to jail for this.
having worked both in a high school computer lab and in a undergrad/grad computer lab in college, here's a few tips that may make your life easier:
Tip The First: Remember the fable of the oak and the reeds. Don't armor-plate your machines; rather, build infrastructure so that your machines can recover easily from damage.
What this means is building disk images on a central file server for each class of machine in your area of responsibility, and then setting up the appropriate software so that you (or even a minimally tech-savvy teacher or student) can completely rebuild the machine from the ground up, just by inserting a floppy disk and power-cycling the machine. For PCs, do this using Ghost; for Macs, do this using RevRdist.
Real-world example: In the university lab in which i worked, we had about 50/50 Macs and PCs(running NT Workstation). in a little paper envelope taped to the side of each machine was a floppy disk, labeled with the type of machine for which it was appropriate (i.e. Power Mac 7200, OptiPlex GXi). if a machine was not working properly, all the user had to do was insert the floppy and power-cycle; the machine would boot from the floppy, then rebuild itself, then prompt to eject the floppy (in the case of the PCs) and reboot. voila. since we assigned all our IPs via DHCP, and since DHCP records were mapped to MAC addresses, the new machine would be able to connect to the network without additional intervention. printers and default shares would also be set up, as they were all in the Ghost/RevRdist images.
so yeah. every so often some yahoo would trash a machine (most often by accident), but generally either the perpetrator, or the next person to come along, would be able to rebuild the machine in a matter of five-ten minutes or so. i had been working in this lab prior to the adoption of this system, and i assure you that the amount of time we help desk techs spent with lab machines dropped to at least a tenth of what it had previously been.
Tip The Second: make users keep their stuff off of local machines! with NT Workstation, this was easy; Domain Users could not write to the C drive, and thus were obliged to keep their files on network shares (which were quotaed, and backed up). on the Macs this was tougher; we still made the same network shares available, and we published in large letters the policy that any local files would be deleted when the machines were rebuilt (which happened once a week, whether they needed it or not), and made absolutely no exceptions to this policy.
Result of all this: individual lab machines were as close as possible to dumb terminals. we even configured the Macs so that they ran most of their apps off of network shares, which meant that they rebuilt real fast. users' files were kept under control (both in terms of quantity and in terms of content) because we could check on them by looking at the central servers. as an added bonus, replacing damaged hardware was easy as pie; if one of the two kiosk machines in the basement library lost a hard drive, for example, i could grab a spare machine from the main lab, cart it down there, use the ex-kiosk's rebuild disk on it, and thus give the students something to use while i was replacing the hard drive that had failed.
hopefully you'll be able to use some of these ideas to make your life easier. building this kind of resiliency into a school network (which, unlike a corporate network, is ideally suited for this sort of setup) is a much better way to solve the problem than relying on harsh disciplinary action.
-steve
p.s. in the relatively rare cases when we did encounter a malicious user (i.e. kid repeatedly pours soft drink into PC, or whatever), we certainly did make sure that the perpetrator ended up in the hands of the proper disciplinary authority. but if you call the cops/principal in for every minor computer-related glitch, not only will your user base resent you, but you'll gradually lose credibility with the authorities you are invoking.
--- "We also were guided by the unlikelihood that anyone would face supernatural evil armed only with technology."
You obviously misunderstood me. I'm all for computer classes that actually teach (more than just spreadsheets and stuff). We have a C/C++ programming curriculum and we're working on implementing a Java class. In addition we have Cisco academy. I wholeheartedly support pursuits like that. What I don't condone, however, is to break into something or break through something just to see if you can. That's malicious, and it invariably causes problems.
...
I have a problem with you "technology assistants" in the schools, what you precieve to be 'hacking' is something totaly different.
Which is why I put hacking in quotation marks and said that I was using the word for lack of a better term.
In high school I was told that my technology class was going to be hardware/programing/etc, but it was nothing more than typing,spreadsheets, and databases, all of which I could finish many times faster than anyone else in the class
That's great that you were ahead, and it's a shame that the school didn't offer the class that they claimed to. I fail to see how any of that applies to me, or to, as you put it, Technology Assistants. The IT people don't write curriculum or the course catalog.
I played solitare! (this was '95 ish, win 3.11) Oh, but since I using the computer a different way than what you drones prescribed, I was 'hacking'. To make a long story short, they threatened to have me arrested, etc, but since I hadn't done anything that wasn't damaging we almost sued the hell out of them
I never said anybody should get into trouble for playing solitaire. That's ridiculous (although it's also a waste of time - your teacher should have had more work for you if you were completing the assignments that quickly). I'm not advocating severe punishment for silly, little, non-destructive things. I'm talking about damaging equipment and compromising the security of the network that it's my job to protect.
you should have had the machine 'fixed' in the first place.
That doesn't make any sense. I only need to fix them when they're broken. And if they're broken, it's usually because somebody did something malicious. Not always, but quite a bit of the time.
I am the assistant director of technology for a mid-sized school district in suburban Pennsylvania. I am one of three technical people whose job it is to maintain well over a thousand computers, about two thousand accounts on various servers, and the entire infrastructure, which, if we were a for-profit organization, would called an enterprise. That makes my life busy and sometimes difficult. But I do it anyway, because I love the kids and I know they need computer skills.
You know what chews up and wastes more of my time than anything? Fixing machines that some kid has "hacked" (for lack of a better term). Teachers and students expect to be able to use any computer in the district for their work, and rightly so. When someone intentionally breaks functionality (or does it inadvertantly while trying to break something else), it wastes everyone's time, especially mine. And it erodes everyone's belief that computers belong in schools.
Why is this legislation (or perhaps some similar but phrased better) needed? Because while most schools have rules about destruction of school property, they have no idea how to deal with "hacking" (again, for lack of a better term).
If it helps keep my systems running, then I'm fine with it. It's survival for me.
Legislators take a heavy handed, idiotic and completely incorrect approach in trying to bring some order to the chaos of the net. The average Senator proposing IT legislation is rather like me attempting to perform cardiac bypass surgery. Unlike the average senator, I have the sense not to attempt the surgery.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
This legislation is coming from a New Jersey senator. I live in New Jersey and admit this is the state which invented DWB as a crime.
DWB = driving while black.
rk
Rangers Lead the Way!
Edith Keeler Must Die
I am going into Grade 12 next year, and I took two computer courses last year. One was called "Business Computer Applications", and the other called "Information Technology". Well BCA was a complete waste of time. The teacher had no clue what they hell (she) was doing. I only took it because I needed a fine arts + applied skill credit (this was dual credit). Our marks were based on how many spaces we put before a line and stupid things like that. It was a complete waste of time. Anyways, the other course I took, IT was a little better. The teacher was nice (though a windows guy) and was at least somewhat competent. Anyways, I aced the course. We even watched flash stickman fighting animations, and other really sexual cartoons (like chicks naked and some body parts painted to pretend they had clothes on) on a big projecter. One of our assignments in the class was browsing through a site that happened to contain porn as well. All the teacher said was "ummm... whatever". For the rest of the class everyone was looking at porn (not one girl in the class, 30+ people).
Anyways, getting on to it... my school is really layed back with everything. They are just as ignorant about computer use though as most schools (especially the librarian). The computers are locked down... but there are numerous holes in the system that allow for anyone to get through. Their responsibility policy was like non existant. One person beside me in the class pulled all the CD trays from 5 CD drives on a row of computers and started throwing them around. Nobody was ever punished for anything they did in that class. I chatted on irc, and did tonnes of shit I wasnt supposed to (SSH, apache) and all the guy did was try to understand what the fuck it was. The class wasn't an animal house though (i may have really presented it to be, however).
All schools aren't really anal about it necessarily. However, it is scary how ignorant (in many ways) some of these school administrators and teachers can be.
Buying a Dell computer is equivalent to dropping the soap in a prison shower.
So are you voting in protest to the current regime? We owe it to ourselves and our posterity to use every legal means to correct this before resorting to a rebellion. The Constitution and Libertarian parties are working to limit the size of gov't. Are you supporting them? Are you voting for them? Are you petitioning your legislature for voting laws that are fairer to 3rd parties?
I voted for every CP and LP person I could in the last election. I'm considering running as a candidate in 2002. You may not agree fully with one or the other (or either, I suppose) but you know things are not going to improve if you keep voting for the Repubocrat duopoly.
I have zero tolerance for zero-tolerance policies.
Constitutionally Correct
Take your pick. Both are working to limit the size of government.
There are alternatives to the Repubocrat duopoly available. If you don't like the current regime, you have no excuse.
I have zero tolerance for zero-tolerance policies.
Constitutionally Correct
If congress had to work for a living, like the rest of us, then maybe they wouldn't waste our time making dumb laws so they look like they are doing something.
Isn't this the same Torticelli of all the strange antics on the Senate floor - the entire Beltway seems like a haven for sexual predators and nut cases!!
We don't need a missle shield nearly as much as a politician shield!
just leave me alone and i'll leave you alone - there - isn't that easier and better?
What we need is a geek union. Then, we display our power with a strike.
Like Mother Jones said: Direct Action gets the goods.
Of course, this is the same Senator Torricelli who is being investigated for illegal donations to his campaign. One DOJ official called him the "most corrupt politician in America". And that's with some tough competition, I'm sure!
What a delight this guy is.
Wikia
The senator (or, more realistically, whichever of his employees reads the letter) are probably not even going to be sure that you mean a computer when you say "box". I think the password example is a good one, but I'd shorten it down to:
For example, say I mistakenly attempt to log into the wrong computer in my school's lab. This simple act affects the computer, as it takes action to check my password and deny me access. No harm has been done, yet by this law I am now guilty of a federal crime.
I'd also point out that a) many schools, unfortunately, are largely dependent on the volunteer work and technical knowledge of their most gifted students to keep their computer systems running, due to a lack of teacher training in those fields and the usual absence of any dedicated school computer staff. Thus, this bill directly impacts the viability of computer technology in the schools. And b) since serious computer crimes are already covered by existing legislation, what purpose does this bill serve except to send young kids to federal prison for, at most, otherwise-noncriminal acts of mischief? Do we want to drive our children (our nations' future, bla bla bla) away from technology for fear of arbitrary criminal prosecution? Won't somebody please think of the children?
If I send email spontaneously to my computer science professor asking him something that I forgot to ask in class, I could now be in violation of a federal statute?!?! It is legislation like this that makes me believe more than ever in Cicero's old saying "More laws, less justice."
Go to Congress.org and email your congresscritters now, especially your senators. Threaten them that you will not vote for them, will campaign for other candidates, will donate to other causes and campaigns.... tell them their getting your vote and money is riding on this bill and that you are watching their every action regarding this bill like Big Brother!
Basically this law boils down to "Change the state of the state machine and go to jail."
Free Techno/Jazz/DNB/MI Music by guys obsessed with monkeys!
Torricelli said in a press release this week that he introduced the legislation after the Trenton (New Jersey) Times reported that a local school district had its home page defaced with what appeared to be a threat that referenced the 1999 Columbine massacre. Concerned parents reportedly kept their children home from school that day.
So how is this bill supposed to help? If the catch whoever did that there will certainly be severe repurcussions already (expulsion, counseling, etc...). It just seems to me that this law creates greater penalties, and a broader legal definitition of abuse. What's the point of that? Are they really going to give a 16 year old kid 10 years in jail because he defaces the school's web site? It seems to me his constituents got scared, and he drafted up something nasty-sounding to make them feel like "something is being done". I don't see this going through, though. It's just too vague.
"fist in the air in the land of hypocrisy"
If this bill was around a couple years ago this case might be rather more severe.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
Airport security is allowed to search your bags and if you don't like it you can leave.
But you _can't_ leave high school. Yes, there are private schools, but how many can affort 10k/year for high school, not to mention the frequent religous bent of private schools?
As for point (4), There are tons of reasons to carry some sort of tool. I carry a Gerber multi-plier everywhere, and it has all kinds of uses that wouldn't otherwise occur to you. I always argue that at a certian point, everything is as dangerous as anything else. Example: the blade on my swiss army knife is about 5cm long. This has approximately the same power to maim as an Onyx pen (this pen is really stiff and has a sharp point). Both can be used to puncture the side of someone's throat, but one is not allowed.
I wrote the esteemed senator as one of his consituents. I hope he reads it...
The problem that I've personally seen is that someone comes in and sets up the network and then a teacher who has seen a computer once in their life, maybe when they were in college becomes the "technology" expert at a school. Which is fine to deal with small problems. But things such as real security. Things like not making root passwords the high schools name or some such crap are overlooked.
.02 cents.
Then a kid with a clue comes in and wants to look around, he trys a couple of passwords and he's got root. Well he dosen't do anything that time but tells a couple of friends and then they decide that they also seen a computer once before in their life, so they go on AOL and find something stupid to do to the network, like deface the school website. Well they login a fuck it up and don't tell anyone.
Then back comes our kid who actually is interested in learning something. He sits down logs in and a couple of principles walk up behind him with the schools "technology expert" and proceed to expell the wrong student for the wrong reasons, because A) They don't know it wasn't him. B) Think the server can never be fixed. C) Are scared that he may be an alien and will suck out there brians if he gets enough computing power. D) Fucking morons and this kid should be in a networking class, so that he can lock his stupid friends out of the network.
Anyway, High School is bullshit and we shouldn't have laws about students vs. the man in school. We should just have more secure networks.
That's my
I am the root bridge.
On the one hand, we argue that "the settings on my computer ought to enjoy legal protection as private property: Changing them without my permission (such as adjusting my home page, or whatnot) should constitute assault or trespass." On the other hand, we argue that it's wrong for the government to legislate the same "protection" for a school's computer. Is this a paradox?
The "information age" brings up all kinds of problems like this, as society learns to deal with the unique nature of information, and as "information" (decoupled from material goods) becomes more and more important in the economy and life in general.
As others have pointed out, there are already plenty of laws in place that deal with "defacing" public property, like schools. And a website (or other computer-based system) is most certainly the "property" of the owner.
The problem comes when you try to "ban" Pop-Up (or -Under) ads. They are part of the content you requested from whatever URL you clicked on. Sure, they are an *unwanted* part, but there's no denying that if you hadn't clicked on that URL, you wouldn't have gotten the Pop-Up...
If you don't like ads, stick to websites that don't use them. (Duh!) And complain loudly to the site *owners* about the annoyance when you do find them. Don't complain to the SysAdmin, it surely wasn't his/her policy in the first place! Complain to the PR, sales, and service departments -- they have the power to change things, but they never will, as long as they figure most people will keep putting up with it.
Legislation is a crude and clumsy tool to use for a job like this. We've got way too many crude and clumsy laws on the books already.
Use your power of speech, while you still have the right to...
--jrd
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
In addition, violation of this section of the amendment would NEVER result in a Secret Service investigation, even after the proposed modifications of subsection (c). The authority of the Secret Service is confined to violations of sections (a)(2)(A) and (a)(2)(B) of 18 USC 1830, NOT section (a)(8).
That's if it even gets that far, which is wishful thinking, at best.
It seems like they feel the need to justify thier jobs by writing new laws that protect us from ourselves. Here's and idea, I'll vote for a politician that will spen his time abolishing bad laws. We need fewer laws, not more.
"The more laws, the more corrupt the state."
How much of junk a day you throw in near by garbage can next to your mailbox? Just delete the mail, it won't kill you :)
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
Besides, I've already graduated ;)
Looking for a computer support specialist for your small business? Check out
that either the open source community will find a way around certain laws or that the cracker community will find ways through them why don't they jsut stop and ask us what they should do.
I'm thinking perhaps oreilly and the other gangs of conventioneers should start dragging senators (not congressmen their votes don't have the impact that a senators does, the stature) to OSS conventions and dmcs protests and the like and educate them. they won't learn otherwise.
-
Nothing's new here. Every ten days someone's pulling this off in the senate or whatever you're calling your last straw of democracy in the U.S.A.. I'm feeling sad a nation is flowing into such a strict code and intelligent people know about it and there's not much you can do (please make a special forum or something for this). It's not deliberately law is turning into big brother but undelibarately due to strings of simple laws and simple people who make decissions who don't understand the big picture. Don't make my comment a flame but think about this. We can whine about this like allways and put the usual comments and get , but please oh please why don't we make a real forum for people who worry about these things and want to make a real difference, instead of making a little bit of slashdot karma on comments which are only screened by google and perhaps the infamous echelon bots. (yeah right!). If you have a good forum for it please post it.
...that it's ok to be a greedy, selfish, self-centred son-of-a-bitch?!?
You're using her as bait, Master!
When I was a senior in HS, I worked for the tech assistants for my last class, then worked in the theatre shop. I had a frequent need to use small screwdrivers, etc., in both places, and my house was over three miles away. If I'd had the money for a Leatherman or similar tool at the time, I'd've used it frequently. But since it has two 3" blades and a fish scaler that looks like a saw, it would've been illegal, and Michigan state law would have required I be expelled for an entire year.
also: you may have the option to leave an airport and use a different mode of transport, but you can't leave the schools. . . .
--
jonathon isaac swiderski
oberlin college, ohio
oberlin/lorain co. community service survey project:
http://members.evolt.org/jswiders/
-- "Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday" -- Don Marquis
What country are you in? Living near Washington D.C. myself I do not know of a single adult I have ever meet that did not know how to read.
Cattle have the added benifit of tasting really yummy with a little sauce and a side of veggies and a blooming onion! mmmmmm damn I am hungry.
I CAN'T trust nader.. How do you trust a man who says that if you make over X dollars, you will have a 100 percent tax ?
UPS Sucks
No.. Better one.. Federal Society of Computer Users and Specialists (FSCUS).
Would have been better if I could have used something starting with a K (instead of Users and Specialists) to make it FSCK.
UPS Sucks
I think the amount that he was referring to was like 100K (Hell. I'm almost there now with my 8 to 5 and my consulting work..)
UPS Sucks
What about the places in the country that have a lower cost of living (like the south and mid west) ? Is it fair that their 100K is more like 200K here ?
Its not a matter of would it work ( It won't ).. Its a matter of is it fair ? It goes against democracy (and borders on communism).. Why the fsck should the govt. get any of my money JUST because its over some arbitrary limit ?
The govt should have LESS money (and less function).. That's why I voted libertarian last election...
UPS Sucks
"Won't someone please think of the children?"
- --
"We did, Ma'am. Look, we're sewing little orange jumpsuits, and contracting out their prison terms to a company owned by Disney! Kids love Disney, right?"
-----------------------------------------------
--snip--
For example, I think that I have an account on a school computer, when in fact I do not. This could be because there are multiple computers at the school and I simply logged in at the wrong one. If I attempt to log in at this computer it will "affect or impair" its operation by using its resources to deny my login. I am then prosecutable under this law and subject to the whims of the school administration, system admitstrators, and the District Attorney.
--snip--
Aside from that I recommend you write your senators; include your address (to prove constituency), and use snail mail! They don't pay nearly as much attention to email, even from constituents.
"He's more machine now than man, twisted and evil."
Anyways, the bill seems meaningless in terms of adding additional protection for school computers. The biggest difference from the original bill is actually a change in language from:
"whoever...intentionally causes damage without authorization" [subsec. (a) paragraph (5.A)] and "whoever...recklessly causes damage" [subsec. (a) paragraph (5.B)] to:
"whoever...intentionally affects or impairs without authorization".
IANAL, but it seems to be there's a big difference between "causes damage" and "affects or impairs", considering ANYTHING one does to a computer affects the computer. And in a way, any program you run on a computer "impairs" the computer's ability to do other things (as quickly, say).
Network Security Tools and Services
Rapid 7, Inc.
That doesn't violate the other part of the legislation, which says it must affect the computer of the person it is being sent to.
-= rei =-
Then the winter came, and the Grasshopper died. And the Octopus ate all his acorns. Also, he got a racecar.
I feel I ought to point out that this person is not representative of Democrats in general, who generally tend to stand for the beliefs of the ACLU and individual rights. He will not have his party's support. He may, however, garnish some support from the other side. -= rei =-
Then the winter came, and the Grasshopper died. And the Octopus ate all his acorns. Also, he got a racecar.
"The goal of any republican or democrat".
That's rather naive, and quite a generalization.
-= rei =-
Then the winter came, and the Grasshopper died. And the Octopus ate all his acorns. Also, he got a racecar.
I think that's really stretching it. Far more than even the most vengeful court could see fit to prosecute as.
-= rei =-
Then the winter came, and the Grasshopper died. And the Octopus ate all his acorns. Also, he got a racecar.
Not true. Those people are the exceptions.
As a whole, the democrats support the beliefs of groups like the ACLU. There are exceptions to every group.
-= rei =-
Then the winter came, and the Grasshopper died. And the Octopus ate all his acorns. Also, he got a racecar.
1) The parent post wasn't specifically talking about the Senate. This voids 2, 3, and 4.
2) I disagree with your other post as well, but perhaps you were speaking in the context of a senator. And, senators vary *extremely* in the amount of constituents they represent. Broad, sweeping statements such as yours are innaccurate. Compare the constituents a senator from California has compared to a senator from Idaho. Its not even close.
3) Why are you posting AC? Are you afraid of moderation?
-= rei =-
Then the winter came, and the Grasshopper died. And the Octopus ate all his acorns. Also, he got a racecar.
The implication of the original post was just that - that Republicans and Democrats are only going to do wrong, but 3rd parties will do right. Republicans and Democrats vary greatly within their parties. A good number of them *are* for smaller government. Third-party candidates have no special "I'm going to be better than them" ability - they're human, too - just because they don't have a lot of support doesn't mean that their voting record will be better than any arbitrary Democrat or Republican's.
:) Its anything but a gravy train. I'd know, I watched what my uncle went through while he was there, what it did to his health, all he had to sacrifice. Its an every-waking-hour, tedoius, thankless job. The only reason people do it is because they want to fight for what's right. Unfortunately, intelligence isn't a factor to getting in, and thus, many of them are easily manipulated by professional lobbyists into thinking something is "right".
1. Not all do. Some try to dodge the issue because they believe in reduced spending.
2. If 1 occurs, 2 will.
3. While most republicans support 3, most democrats don't. The "we'll cut your funding" is almost exclusively a republican (but not every case, of course) maneuver.
4. Silly picture of congress
-= rei =-
Then the winter came, and the Grasshopper died. And the Octopus ate all his acorns. Also, he got a racecar.
Whenever he was home (which was seldom), we'd spend a lot of time talking to him. He'd usually have the letters to him read over in advance and the nuts thrown out, but all of the honest, sincere things from his constituents he would read. And whenever he was in town in his office, he'd always take in visits from the locals, no matter how out of it they were ;) (he once had one guy trying to get my uncle's support to help him get his job back - this person came by every single day my uncle was in town, and my uncle saw him every time and told him the same thing, that he couldn't help, until after about a dozen times, he asked the guy not to come back. So, yes, I assumed that most congressmen were like my uncle. You assumed that most were like the senator you worked for. We're both viewing the world through our own points of view; it can't be helped. However, I felt your criticism of my post was unjustly harsh. I was doing my best to encourage people to be politically active, and to use the most personal methods possible when contacting their elected officials instead of an email campaign which has no relevance, using my personal contact with my uncle and all of the many things we'd discussed (I lived in his house while going to college, though I actually had more contact with him at my grandmother's); encouraged people to be polite and express their points clearly. I'd think that you, a senator's staffer, should support such encouragement, and offer only constructive criticism.
:)
The parent of this thread may have been in error by referring to both the house and senate, but then, your complaints about that should have been to the parent, and not my post.
-= rei =-
Then the winter came, and the Grasshopper died. And the Octopus ate all his acorns. Also, he got a racecar.
This a copy of what I sent to the Senate Judiciary Chairman.
Dear Senator Leahy,
I do hope, as Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee that you can get S.1252 "School Website Protection Act of 2001" stricken from even being taken to the floor of the Senate.
As you can see from the article in Wired (http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,45752,0 0.html), the wording of legislation uses the word "affects" rather than "damages". Simply sending an unsolicited e-mail to a teacher (as in teh teacher didn't request the e-mail) whether pertinent to school activities or not, could be considered a federal crime under this legislation. This is a draconian wording. This would also mean that if I, a private citizen, wondered why a school website was so slow and sent out a simple "ping" packet to determine the speed (ping being a common tool used by system administrators and maintainers of websites, which I am), getting the computer to send a response would be affecting the machine.
On the worst level, even sending a http request (a request to view a web page) would be potentially criminal under this legislation. There is no point in protecting a website if it is suddenly illegal to view it.
Adding entries to weblogs also is affecting it.
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. - G.B. Shaw
As you said "It won't stop stuff from happening, but it will lessen it..", but shooting people when they jaywalk would lessen that too far.
The intent is not the problem, but the looseness of the wording is. That's like saying I can use "suitable force" to keep robbers away, but not specifying. Maybe I think land mines in my yard are suitable force. Without definition, we cannot determine right or wrong or draw the line for a logical argument.
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. - G.B. Shaw
People used to do this via telephone before. Unfortunately it is a standard part of being an educateor at a public school.
Once kids realised the joy of *69 or *53 to return calls or traced them, they tended to stop with the calls. As more students are nailed for doing stupid stuff with computers, then this too will slow.
One recommendation, like everything else. If you deal with lots of people, have a public account and a private account. That way when you want family e-mail, you don't have to dig through as much spam.
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. - G.B. Shaw
Okay, I'm confused -- this is federal, right? How can it be enforced? I thought federal legislation could only affect interstate activities or those involving federal property. I remember hearing how the civil rights law was pasted onto a transportation bill. So, I would assume someone would need to access a computer across state lines to actually trigger investigation by federal authorities. Does this mean that all schools are now federalized?
Geez, don't they realize that part of the learning experience is messing stuff up?
I was one who the teacher's trusted on the computers and even had me set things up but there were other students who were out to cause havoc just to see if they could do it.
Even I messed up from time to time. I bet playing doom after hours would be considered "disrupting the network." We were just having fun!!
Not hurting a thing.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
Isn't there some saying that reminds us that the most ridiculous clauses in a contract - the ones we think "that'll never be upheld if this goes to court" about are the very same clauses that often bring down otherwise watertight cases.
Get the Hell off my planet, you slimy mobster Bush!
Yo, mod this guy up. He has caught onto the simple fact that since ten year jail terms were introduced for teenage pregnancies, teenage pregancy stats have fallen.
....what, no jail for teenage pregnancies? What made the rates drop? Surely it wasn't just telling the kids that they can get pregnant if they're not carefull, and therefore opening them up to the idea of responsibility for themselves and their own actions?
Ooops!.. </SARCASM> (Sorry.)
Get the Hell off my planet, you slimy mobster Bush!
My school, after losing their T1 connection to the demise of One.Tel, recently installed a high-speed link from Telstra. This I have no problem with. What I have a problem with is that they have also installed the proxy-based filter WebSense (as in doesn't have any) to censor their access.
This means I can't access my email as the parent website (Subdimension) is filtered by WebSense as a "Proxy Avoidance System" because the website has an "anonymizer" feature on the site. I am forced to browsing "forbidden" websites (Slashdot is not one of them, thankfully) through Babelfish.
Needless to say that if this legislation ever catches on in Australia (let's hope it doesn't), it will make my efforts to "bypass" this "feature" illegal. This legislation obviously doesn't come from a mandate from the people. It's a result of technically ignorant politicians with a so-called moral conscience try to run our lives their way.
Self Bias Resistor
----------
When the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is no longer our friend.
So teachers get the same amount of spam and hate-mail the rest of us get.
So? Why destroy our educational system over that?
Technically, yes, it's still a bill. But we tend to forget that the amount of investment that goes into putting that bill on the floor in the first place usually gives it a good chance of passing.
ESPECIALLY if it's "for the children."
The "Geek's Revenge" -- being vastly more successful than the bullies who used to beat the geeks up in 7th grade gym class -- is about to be avenged upon by the lawyers and politicians. They never liked the brains or the bullies. It was easy to send the bullies to jail, but now they're waging war against us.
Okay, that's a bit on the paranoid side, but realistically now that they know they can push us around, having already passed and enforced the DMCA, what'll stop them from passing this law? It reminds me of a quote from the last year's political election. A pollster for one of the two big parties mentioned that he'd discovered that women universally respond positively to the phrase, "For the children," regardless of context. This law's already signed, sealed, and delivered. Forget free speech, forget rights, get ready to be ass-rammed by some guy named Guido for the next ten years.
And usually, by the time a law like this is even announced, the decisions have already mostly been made. "Write your Congressman!" is a naive call to action. What we need are pre-emptive measures to heavily favor our cause. What we should be sponsoring is not ex post facto protests and lawsuits, but making sure that geek-friendly laws are made from the beginning.
The EFF is doing great work, but what we really need is not a legal organization, but a lobbying organization.
In any case, any use of nmap is deemed to be a hostile activity, and make sure you have permission of a machines owner before using it on their machine.
---
To 'knowingly disrupt computer network' traffic or similar if it's not your own network?
Why do they make laws for acts that already are illegal?
Breaking and entering works for computers too.
DanH
Cav Pilot's Reference Page
Cav Pilot's Reference Page
UNIX - Not just for Vestal Virgins anymore
Fight Spammers!
This law will never go anywhere. Most politicians aren't as stupid as the guy who wrote this bill, and you'll find that out in a hurry-- it won't even get any floor time. Have you seen what it translates to? Here goes:
t ml. Basically, this law means that if you send an unauthorized e-mail that passes through a school system, you could get 1-10 years (5 years for spammers-- hmm, that's actually kind of neat!). The author of this bill could get 1 year just for writing to thank a school for supporting his bill.
"Whoever knowingly causes the transmission of a program, information, code, or command, and as a result of such conduct, intentionally affects or impairs without authorization a computer of an elementary school or secondary school or institution of higher education; [shall be punished by] ) a fine under this title or imprisonment for not more than..."
It goes on for a bit, title 18 section 1030 is available at http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/1030.text.h
It's pretty obvious that this bill wouldn't stand up to the simplest constitutional challenge. It's also pretty obvious that it'll never see the light of day-- even the worst bills that get passed make more sense than this. What's possible is that this will get amended to not be so mind-numbingly stupid, and will say something like "threatens or harasses", although a lot of that is already in 1030.
So, can we learn anything useful from this debacle? Only one thing: Bob Toricelli is duller than a bag of hammers.
Yes. We are apparantly aiming for that. Take an act that harms no one, that something like 60 million Americans do or have done: the peaceful, harmless act of lighting a plant on fire and inhaling the smoke, punish it with jail time and use it as an excuse to impose a police state.
Go further by starting a propaganda campaign that indoctrinates the youth with lies that they will inevitably find to be false (causing disallusionment), and two political parties that have the same effective stance on the issue, parties that will control the government for a very long time, and you have a scenerio where a large portion of the population will become, at some point, familiar with the interior of a jail cell.
(OK, I don't know if he was the one who said this first, but I first encountered this notion, stated more or less this way, in 1984.)
"Research is what I am doing when I don't know what I am doing." -- Wernher von Braun
Hack a corporation's computer with e-commerce credit card information: 5 years in jail
Hack a school's website with a weekly calendar: 10 years in jail
Look on the 16 year-old's face when the Secret Service are knocking on the door: Priceless
I happen to enjoy carpentry. I find it just as rewarding as coding, in many respects, and it allows me to create things that are of immediate use in the real world, such as, oh, holding up my computer. Also, if you know any professional woodworkers, they tend to be intelligent and imaginative people, not to mention artisans. Be careful with the insults, there.
I'll be sure to check out the book.
Every new form of media has it's own Requirimento
I know that by mentioning that I have a LAN in the house I must seem elitist, maybe even isolationist...that I'm possibly saying, "Hey, I've got my kids covered, screw the rest." but there's precious little hacking/learning/discovery going on with regards to these machines.
What I'm trying to say is that I don't like the thought of some rabid k12-sysadmin losing their mind and basically getting my kid in trouble for administrative shortcomings. Nobody should have to deal with their kid being kicked out of school for being intelligent. There's simply no sense to it.
I can't help but think that many people, who have been out of the school system for more than six years, still think that kids enjoy being sat down in from of a gelded computer and told to do something, and can't help feeling bored at the lack of options, or worried that they're going to do something and get busted for it. To me, this translates into anxiety.
The means (giving kids in k12 classrooms computers with a buttload of disciplinary measures attached) does not justify the end (warm fuzzy feeling that said children know how to click on the "Start" button and perform tasks designed to make them useful to a corporation that would rather hire people from another country because they're cheaper and better educated because--surprise--those kids didn't have computers in the classroom; they did what I did and simply learned it all in college).
To me, that's the short and sweet of it. The tools to become a good programmer (immagination, interest in computers, and problem solving) are developed or should be developed independenlty of computers. Think about it in the context of 20th century scientists who didn't have Beowulf clusters or Cray super computers. We're only now starting to model and prove just how good their thought experiments were.
I love working with computers, solving problems, and having fun with technology. And I'll be completely honest and admit that if I had to go to work in some office where I couldn't go certain places on the Internet, or I couldn't read my mail, or any number of insane restricitons, I would rather dig ditches. At least I'd be getting some exercise.
I think there's a sinister logic to conditioning kids to not be intelligent with computers. Where we punish the creative and reward the monkey pushing buttons--which is exactly what lazy sysadmins and pointy-haired management types like. If B.F.Skinner were alive today, he'd be making serious money doing studies on K12 kids and knee-jerk admin practicies.
Yep, during the industrial revolution we trained the little buggers to respond to bells and be good factory workers, and now we're teaching them to live in fear and revile using a computer and expect a lack of options/opportunites to be assoicated with computer use.
Someday this is bound to bite us in the ass.
Every new form of media has it's own Requirimento
I'd like to see school districts come up with a wavier to keep my kids off their precious computers. I'd sign it in a heartbeat. So should any other person who understands the k12 computer situation.
I want my kids to be something more than monkeys pushing buttons (yep, k12 level computing is exactly that, or your kid's suspended). I'd rather have them playing music, doing art, or learning how to do math.
I have a multi-node network at home with all sorts of boxen for them to play/learn on. WTF does any kid in k12 need a computer for anyway? Teachers don't understand them. Computers are wasted in the classroom. We would all be better off if computers were there for just the memo-fetishists and poledit-fetishists to enjoy.
Every new form of media has it's own Requirimento
ah... the novell password cracker disguised as a virus scanner.
adding DOS games to the user menus of whoever wanted them...
Actually, when Doom was introduced to the network it was actually sanctioned by the computer lab head, because it was not advertised on the network, you had to know where it was to use it. It was officially banned after A) someone let the secret slip B) the resulting traffic of EVERYONE playing doom clogged up the improperly zoned network. poot.
But there were still the Marathon installs hidden in the appleshare server, who knows when you might have a spare moment for a deathmatch?
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
...for a bowl of hot grits.
Yes indeed.
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
This does all smack of heavy-handedness though, these are children we are talking about, what purpose will criminalising their pranks serve? Laurence (very glad he lives in a liberal european country - despite the best efforts of the government)
"Hello, my fellow senators. I'm putting forward this bill which makes it illegal for those evil hackers with their evil grunge look to even speak evilly to evil friends about their evil hacking on their evil computers over the evil internet. It should put a stop to all computer crime instantly! Best of all, it's even got a catchy name: the DMCA."
"Sounds good to me!"
"Me too!"
"Yeah, let's give those hippy anarchists some congressional hell!"
"Best of all, I'm getting paid mucho dinero to vote for that bill!"
If you'll recall, the DMCA passed unanimously in the Senate.
Your point of course was absolutely correct, but you must remember that this particular congress thinks that computers are powered by manna, the internet was invented by Al Gore and built by Bill Gates, and doesn't understand why naming a cat "Five" is a joke.
--
Dyolf Knip
Being a son of two high school teachers, I have to appreciate this clause in the law. Numerous times in the past year, one or both of my teachers has received either blatant threats, hate mail, or nuisance emails to their personal email accounts, after giving them out as a way to encourage kids to ask for help when stuck on homework. Sometimes, it's been pretty easy to trace back (ie: people using their ISP email accounts), occasionally I've gone through the headers to figure out the originating IP, and then contacted the ISP to find the offender. It typically isnt hard to outsmart a high school student.
The end result, though, is depressing. Teachers trying to help decent, hardworking students by offering their email addresses are harassed viciously, and are offered no more defense than any person against everyday SPAM, unless there is a blatant threat.
Twice, emails with full headers in hand, I've gotten ISP accounts cancelled, but the person always seems to resurface thanks to netzero, juno, freei, etc, using a hotmail or yahoo email address. Police can/will/should do nothing unless there is a threat of harm, but it's a shame. I hope this law becomes widespread, well known, and strengthened by numerous precedents to the point that this kind of abuse declines substantially. Educators should not need to take the abuse they are often faced with. These kind of acts, hopefully, will keep the educators who truly care (they're the ones releasing their email addresses in the first places, right?) from taking abuse from students who dont, so that they can concentrate on teaching the students who want to make the best of the sad situation that is our public school system.
Mooniacs for iOS and Android
fyi. link on your sig is broken.
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
... knowingly causes the transmission of a program, information, code, or command, and as a result of such conduct, intentionally affects or impairs without authorization a computer of an elementary school or secondary school or institution of higher education
/con/con. The ONLY reason someone would do that is to affect the persons computer who clicked it. A student just happens to go to that website (without knowing what would happen) and it locks up the computer/server/etc.
Some random person who has a website has a blind redirection to
Random person who owns said website is brought up on charges...
This is NOT good. Heck, using up bandwidth might be considered a use of a computer that could affect a network. With a little cajoling someone might see fit to bring up owners of pr0n websites up on charges for deliberatly wasting the schools bandwidth, thus impairing the network.
I understand that there is a need to protect school computers... but (as stated in the article) -- this is not the way to do it.
I no longer go to school. I would have been in some serious shit then. My teacher found it amazing what I could do. They called me down to secure there systems. If something broke, who did they call :)
People wonder why the world is falling apart. Look at what these schools are pulling. So, maybe a law like this isn't the schools fault. But, they will inforce it to the stupied level. Think about it, a kid takes a butter knife to school to cut his sandwhich (or whatever). What happens, the kids kicked out of school and brought up on criminal charges. 5 year old kisses a class mate and is brought up on sexual harasment changes. Man, this shit makes my blood boil.
Ok, so I ranted a little off course. Still, 10 years ?! These are fscking kids where talking about. If a 10 year old starts playing around a little, gets caught. By the time his out of jail, WTF is there on the outside for him ?? Nothing, he will them become a carier criminal.
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Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Read up on his problems with fund raising irregularities. His bill is clearly pandering to the media for some headlines. One has to think about the disproportionate sentencing for a "cyber crime" when compared with things like illegal guns. Why is harrassment/vandalism/etc. a federal priority? Has this really become so widespread that a federal law is required? It reminds me of the supposed need for a flag burning amendment because of all those rampant flag burners running through the streets.
In a nation which struggles to achieve 50% moral literacy, isn't it a bit absurd to pursue book literacy. Book education is merely part of the process that encourages this "wilful illiteracy". Books also teach students to disregard rehtorical education. "Why learn vocabulary? I have a thesaurus do it for me!"
The growing focus on book learning is, to me, a symptom of the "children are adults in training" attitude. This warps children's developmental years, and is mostly the product of people who dislike children. People who spend time with children know that children need to act like children, not like adults. Children who spend too much time on books often grow to be withdrawn and isolated, often preferring books over the company of friends. Other children strongly resist being forced to use books, and react rebelliously, often violently.
Books are not a part of a healthy childhood. As a librarian, I have seen nothing to indicate that people who were exposed to books early in life gain any advantage over those who are introduced to them in the workplace or university. Often, long time users are at a disadvantage due to an unwillingness to learn new things about the text.
Books in schools reinforce an attitude that everything in life is preparation for something else. This is not healthy, and these are not the sort of values we should be imparting to our children.
Sadly, that is what people thought back in the days of the printing press. Michele de Montaigne lashed out against this in his essay L'institution des enfant.
I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.
We as a society are forgetting how to raise children and worse, we are forgetting how to approach network issues like security.
I'd prioritize that differently, myself. I do agree with you WRT the twin outcomes, though (destruction of kids/schools.)
--
Freeper Logic
I don't remember voting for the DMCA. Hell, I don't even remember voting against it. My own recourse is to not vote for my state senators that voted the damn thing into law...
there are no stupid questions, but there are a lot of inquisitive idiots
I had a Leatherman with me just about every day of High School, and used it occasionally. If I hadn't been a "good student", I could easily have been expelled. In addition, I had to bring a scalpel to school for Biology class. This is now against the zero tolerance policy.
___
__
Do ya feel happy-go-lucky, punk?
My old high school now does that one better. Children now must have a clear plastic or mesh backpack or purse.
___
__
Do ya feel happy-go-lucky, punk?
s/DCMA/DMCA I don't pay attention to the names of really _annoying_ laws that prevent my legal rights to make 1 back up anything. Hehe ;)
Reality is for those who can't face Science Fiction.
I really should hit preview more often ;) ;)
s/acting/attacking
Reality is for those who can't face Science Fiction.
I once helped a friend rename win.com to bob.com (the teacher's name who owned the laptop) and the teacher went ballistic. And of course I got blamed for it, even though I didn't do any of it. The reason I got blamed, because I was the only one there (this was at a FBLA Spring Conference) who knew _anything_ about computers. I had to explain to the teacher (he only used computers for grades and typing the weekly agenda sheets) what I did and how I could "fix" it for him. He gave me back the laptop after I promised I wouldn't "break" it again (seeing how I had to pratice typing or whatever my competation was that year). When we got back to school, I told my CompSci/SysAdmin what I did to the laptop, he just laughed with me and made me promise I wouldn't torment that particular teacher again.
A little side note to all of this. I brought with me a floppy to save my documents. And I come home, pop the floppy into the floppy drive, and my anti-virus beeped at me, saying the floppy had a virus on it. And I knew before hand, that was a clean floppy, no viruses, etc on it. And so I spent the rest of the year, with the SysAdmin killing the virus that had spread from the laptop to the network. Someone else had used the laptop before me. sigh.. Atleast I got to do something useful with my time then, instead of playing games & chatting on irc, I was that far ahead in my computer classes. Hehe
Reality is for those who can't face Science Fiction.
When I was in Junior High, I once set all the Apple IIes in the room to say "press any key" and then beep continuously if someone did. I knew the teacher (my friend's dad) would get a, um, kick out of it.
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
this bill was written to generate publicity
Like the article says, The Senator is just trying to get some press. He has no intention of getting the bill passed; it's blatantly unconstitutional anyway.
1Alha7
Live to be Moderated
I can see it now...a second grader being hauled off in cuffs because she trashed a directory due to inadequate system security on the school lan. What a perfect setup. blame the kids for idiocy on the part of school administrators. no need to train any professionals or hire anyone to do a thorough job...we'll just send the kids to jail if they try anything besides timed typing. That'll teach them. and woe be to the junior tech who knows more than the adults in charge. that will be against the law, by definition!
... isn't the right question.
...", give yourself a kick for all of us, please.
..." and give yourself another kick. Harder, this time, please.
The question is who votes against them. If your answer is "duh, not me
Time to implement a zero tolerance policy for political idiocy, I think. Write letters to the editors of the mainstream press, the idiot's political opponents (whoever ran against them last election will do, they'll probably pass it on to the upcoming opponent), and if you feel really inspired, the idiot's prominent constituents, like the mayor and city councillors of the idiot's base city, major fund contributors, etc. This will cost you a couple hours' work and a couple dollars' stamps.
Or say "duh, I couldn't be bothered
Darryl.
It seems stereotyping the typical slashdotter as a fearmonger is true.
Here we have some Congressman submitting a law that is related to computer usage (misuse) and everyone is accusing him of the worst crimes against humanity. (Disclaimer, I am not an American)
`(8) knowingly causes the transmission of a program, information, code, or command, and as a result of such conduct, intentionally affects or impairs without authorization a computer of an elementary school or secondary school or institution of higher education;'.
I can hardly see what's wrong with this. Email has been mentioned a lot, but the words intentionally and knowingly do actually mean that the student knew the damage to be done and still sent the email/file whatever.
I agree with most posters that there is no need for such a law since most school/college/university regulations and bylaws are capable of handling such situations, but that does not mean that it is a law from the pit of hell and that all students who email their teachers will end up in jail.
Grow up people. Work for change and don't just complain
And what are they going to do when the next generation of coders & geeks are all in jail? Who are they going to get to patch the IIS servers? Brings a new meaning to the word parole.
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
They don't seem to notice or care.
In any event I after that I rarely touched a computer at school, and I recommend all high school students do likewise to avoid trouble.
Have hope, however, the University environment is far better in that the sysadmins, professors, etc. will treat you as adults but generally expect tom-foolery from the student population, so they don't overreact if someone does something they don't like. Also, and this is a big one, they generally know what the fuck they're doing.
Dewd you would be like soooo busted!!!
This is why we have a group (congress) making decisions. The bill is just a proposal by one man who obviously does not understand, and there is no way that it will get through and become a law
or maybe, focus on a few grammar lessons... :)
my old sig used to be funny, but then slashcode ate it and now it's not funny anymore
We've had this rubbish over here in the UK with the Regulation of Investigatory Powers act (RIP-freedom-bill.)
All the standard George Orwell stuff is in it:-
Removal of the right to remain silent (10yrs)
Removal of the pretence of innocence until proven guilty (If I forget my PGP key I can go down for 10 years unless _I_ can prove I never had it)
Getting 10 years for telling anyone about being questioned (tipping off - 10years)
....the list goes on...
Perhaps they should make us all sign the Official Secrets Act at birth...
So, the old "Oops, clicking Delete does that!?" defense should continue to work just fine?
From experience with malicious computer users, there are always so many more idiots who accidently cause damage that you can nearly never prove someone did anything deliberately rather than was just plain stupid. Given the choice of ten years in jail or admitting to being stupid, I think I'd go with stupidity. Even setting everything up ready to go isn't knowingly transmitting it - not until the final command to send it - and we all know that we accidently fell on that enter key.
...slashdot misrepresents an article. The complaint about email was due to the vague wording of the legislation, that "unsolicited" email could be a crime.
While I hope to god this bill dies soon, the editors owe their readers more than just yellow journalism and fearmongering.
--- On the other hand, you have five fingers.
And I thought that was harsh....
I can't count the number of times recently that I've heard myself mutter, "If that was illegal when I was a kid, I'd be in jail now..." Are we aiming for our entire @#$@# nation to spend at least some time in the slammer, or what?
---
...so they won't have any room for him. ;)
+5:offtopic,but anti-American
When I was in high school, the school district tech people restricted the computers in the computer science lab so we could not compile, because "we could write viruses"... They didn't restrict us from exchanging exhorbiant numbers of TCP/IP packets though, so we played network quake. Once the tech people came in and complained to the teacher, who replied "they're testing the network for me", which REALLY pissed off the school techs...
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
I think we'd all agree that the DMCA is/was a stupid bill too... but it passed AND put Dmitry in jail.
quis custodiet ipsos custodes - Juvenal
This would've made my high-school Apple basic program a crime, eh?
Ah it was such pleasure watching from a distance as the librarian tried to get the image to stabilize...and gosh how did the computer know???
So I will join the chorus and say "Thank goodness I'm out of school, because I would probably be in jail now!" (Not for that BASIC program particularly. But then again who knows? Having to adjust the monitor caused the librarian all sorts of harm and damages and theft of intellectual property and loss of wages).
A bit OT, but it does follow that whole "authoritarian" feeling of schools (and senates...). My cousin was doing a spreadsheet in his 9th grade compsci class, the teacher didn't know squat and slapped the back of his head. So he got up and shoved the teacher. I guess this wasn't violence from being forced to use a computer on my cousin's part, but the teacher was violent probably because of his rabid fear of computers and that the students knew WAY more about lotus than he did... We laugh about this story a lot in my family...
I am thinking of a school I know. Picture lots of students sitting at their terminals waiting for the teacher to tell them what to do. Now the teacher says, "Don't log in until I tell you to." "Now, everybody log in."
Of course nobody can log in, and that computer went from being merely stubid to being a criminal because the transmission which she authorized affected the systems in unauthorized ways (A sort of a simple DDoS attack ;)
Sig: Tell all your friends NOT to download the Advanced Ebook Processor:
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
It is not the child's fault if the school does not provide a safe environment. It is fundamentally the schools fault if they fail to properly secure their networks (OK, a corporate workplace is different because its primary role is not education and the permissions required to do a job may be higher than they would in an academic setting).
This is insane. We as a society are forgetting how to raise children and worse, we are forgetting how to approach network issues like security. We don't give schools proper resources and then we punish the children. It is not only about destroying our educational system is about destroying our children. It is about losing the values necessary to properly raise them. That is the problem!
Sig: Tell all your friends NOT to download the Advanced Ebook Processor:
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
When dealing with a child you have to decide what is acceptable physical risk to that child. This is the same thing with network security, but with the notion that children are intensely curious and everything that you decide is acceptible risk will happen ;) but you assume that they will learn from that. The concept is partial sheltering which is not unlike a properly secured network.
My bigger concern is that losing sight of network security issues will cause stupid laws like this to be created and destroy our society on every level. Can you raise a kid properly with laws like these in effect? What if they governed other similar things, like one child hitting another child? Isn't part of learning being able to make mistakes in a somewhat safe environment? Isn't that why computer labs are supposed to exist (at least in a corporate setting, but, IMO, in an educational one as well).
Sig: Tell all your friends NOT to download the Advanced Ebook Processor:
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I thought I recognized this guy's name. It's not the first time we've heard from this guy. A while ago, Torricelli was working on spam legislation that effectively made spamming legal.
Liberty in your lifetime
[Stick Tongue in Cheek]
Here's Dasunt's patented way for teaching computer literacy:
Get a bunch of kids, all of the recent games, don't give them product keys, but give them a debugger, deassembler, and a hex editor, and a book on the basics of ASM code.
See, the trick is, to give them *motivation* to learn. ;)
Of course, this trick can be expanded to include later subjects. Want them to learn c/c++ in a linux environment? Just take away their windows machines, give them a windows game, the WINE source code, gcc, and a book on programming. If you want them to learn driver programming, just give them the latest vid card, any specs you can find, and some coding tools (this way they learn reverse engineering too).
Of course, this way has the added benefit of people learning computers to play games, which is all computers really are about to most people. ;)
[End Humor]
Btw, I agree 150% with people taking typing and learning how to use calculators, etc. The one semester I took in typing in 8th grade benefitted me greatly. Of course, to really hone your typing skills, just start mudding, it gave me a typing rate of 100+ wpm with no errors. When typos can be fatal, and you are mudding a few hours each day, you'd be surprized how good your typing gets.
Out of curiosity, being an average Canadian citizen, would writing a letter to your average American politician, serve any purpose? These laws have a tremendous effect on Canadians, and we should have a say as well.
Voting is just a formality, it's not like politicians and laws actually represent what the people believe.
Actualy makes sense, using M$ OS's would all most garentee that FEDERAL FUNDS are used to purchase the system blunting any juridictional defense!
This seemingly minor point is too well thought out for the rest of the bill; me thinks there is more here than meets the eye. Maybe M$ is funding this in some way (campain contributer?). Given the problems with M$ software acting in ways that are by default insecure, Linux/Unix is gaining market share in the server markets (CodeRed, SirCam32 endless list of others). Getting M$ only in k-12 would be a major marketing coup.
Scary, click the wrong button and a third-grader goes to juvy till he's 13 year's old! or simply go to jail because the OS bug hasn't been patched.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
the propsed law actualy had verbage like damage, deface, degrade; But it doesn't. Actualy I appreciate the complement, but most of us Yanks know that the US law enforcement and courts will sometimes enforce what our laws say rather than what the laws were supposed to say.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
None of this would be an issue if the schools had half-assed decent security. My school runs NT 4, and the password for "administrator" is "administrator". It's just stupid. They don't have any sort of security on the file server that holds the grades (they expect that no one will figure out how to access "network neighborhood" on any of the client computers). It's just stupid. Schools have a problem with students messing up computers? Of course! They have no security!
Quoted from the article:
:)
WASHINGTON -- Sen. Robert Torricelli claims he wants to put hackers who disrupt school computers in prison.
"Computer hackers who prey upon unsuspecting schools, striking fear in the hearts of entire communities with threats of violence, cannot go unpunished," the New Jersey Democrat said this week.
He's obviously been watching a little too much Slayers lately. Got Amelia on the brain.
If there's a castle floating upside down in the sky, then there's a castle floating upside down in the sky.
In the party of Joe Lieberman, this type of social control is becoming increasingly popular. Liberman wants to clean up Hollywood and video games; now Torricelli wants to police students.
Many would find this unsurprising had it come from the GOP. But it's time to understand that neither party is very enthusiastic about liberty.
For an illuminating look at this matter, see filmmaker Tim Robbins' current Nation essay:
http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0727-01.htm
... if you wait until after the bill becomes law and you comment on Torricelli's website from school, you'd be criminally liable.
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
As a recent high school graduate myself, I hear about laws like this and start quivering uncontrollably. This sort of sweeping regulation will do little, if anything, to stop the actual problem; even worse, though, it will make nearly any use of a computer a criminal action, to be dealt with at the discretion of the school.
Consider the following:
If these are already illegal, why do we need another law to criminalize them? If it is illegal to vandalize somebody's property, do we really need a separate law to cover mailbox bashing? Of course not--it was already covered by the vandalization law! So, if these acts are already illegal, how will passing another, totally redundant, law help the situation? "Oh!" "I didn't realize I that the laws already on the books meant I can't do that! Now that they've passed another law, I understand! I shall stop immediately!" Get serious. This law won't help anything.
To make matters worse, a law of this type will (not might, will) be used improperly against students. It's not a question of if, just a question of when. By using the language "affects . . .a computer" (editing for emphasis and clarity), any use of a computer is criminalized. Dictionary.com defines the word "affect" to mean "[t]o have an influence on or effect a change in." Now, last I checked, the Big Red Switch will cause a change in sthe state of a computer--do we really want to send our kids to a Federal Pound-me-in-the-Ass prison for turning on a computer? Sound outlandish? Maybe, but the language of the law makes it a possibility.
But of course, no teacher or school administrator would ever dream of taking advantage of a legal technicality to punish a student, right? Bah. I was frequently on the wrong end of my high school's computer policy, usually through no fault of my own (admittedly, sometimes I deserved it, but most of the time, no). Certain administrators would have used anthing they could have found to get me booted from the school. Many of the teachers would have supported me, but just as many would not have. Consider the average public-school teacher: overworked, underpaid, and resents the responsibility placed upon him by society, and society's lawyers. By and large, they want to stand up, give their lectures to a bunch of quiet, attentive students, then go back to their desks and have the students do their busywork. (Exceptions to this stereotype do exist, and I had some of them. Among the best teachers, and the best people, I have ever had the privilege of knowing--one of them was just awarded a national award for excellence in teaching. But I digress.) These teachers are annoyed by problem childred at both ends of the intellectual spectrum--at one end, the mindless, disruptive, "dropout" group, and at the other end, the intelligent, occasionally brilliant, disruptive ones. I was one of the latter (please excuse my lack of humility). In physics class, I would work out problems in my head more quickly than the teacher could on a calculator. Many of you (Slashdotters) are probably familiar with this feeling. Teachers , at least the "bad" ones, resent such students, and generally make their lives difficult in some way or another--I know they did for me. Now, consider the group of people most likely to be taking full advantage of the capabilities of the network. You'll find that they are approximately the same group. Now, even if the kids don't do anything wrong in the current sense of the word (damage/UCE/otherwise impair functionality), by even logging in, they're breaking the law. Let a teacher, who frequently understands computers almost as well as a Congresscritter, overhear him talking about Linux, or writing his own program, or using bash (/bin/bash), and all they'll hear is "hacker" ("cracker," to us). Particularly bash--they won't hear an acronym for Bourne Again SHell, they'll hear a term for destruction often applied to mailboxes. Put this perception in their minds, associate it with a student they already dislike, and you have a student who is automatically distrusted and prone to being accused of illicit computer use. Make everything criminal, and, well, you do the math. (Hint: don't ask my sophomore math teacher for help--my classmates and I had to correct half of everything she said.)
The point of this little rant is that a law like this will do no good, and that it will be used as a tool of retribution by resentful teachers toward any student who doesn't kiss ass like he's supposed to. Demonstrate proficiency on your English test, and you get an A. Demonstrate a little independence of thought and spirit, and you get five-to-ten.
"Make it ten--I am only a poor corrupt official."
"Make it ten--I am only a poor corrupt official."
--Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains), Casablanca
the wired article makes refrense to how a school web site was defased and had a thret on it that had parents keeping there kids home
our school had a threat writen on the stall of a girls bathroom that had parents keeping there kids home
does that mean threre should be 10 years jail sentens for efecting the facilitys in a girls bathroom?
hack the planet
If you access a school's web page, and that web server logs accesses (or has a counter), then you've altered data on the server and violated the bill (it isn't a law yet, thank God). Even emailing the school for permission to access their web site violates the bill; you have to use snail mail. Why not just close all educational web sites? That would sure "protect" them!
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
Lets hope that whatever schools have this rule do not run any non-gnu software. Otherwise if your computer crashed, it could crash the network, and you could be arrested for disrupting the system!
Luckily ~Linux~ seldom crashes, so this really would not be a problem. Use ~Linux~ and avoid breaking stupid laws... Thimk about it.
Clickety Click
I can see your point when applied to elementary school, but moving into middle and high schools, and even in the higer grades of elementary, the focus IS on preparing children for an independant life. And like it or not, you WILL encounter a computer at some point, and I think we'd be doing students a disservice by denying them at least a basic education in using them. And yes, maybe I wasn't the most social person in school, and maybe I preferred a good game of Quake to going to some party, but I like to think it'll all pay off when I'm making twice as much as the fools who took Woodworking instead of Computer Science.. Also, I would advise you take a look at some of the Jon Katz articles, where people talk about how these sort of things helped them survive theliving hell their education had become.. Of course, I'm only a college freshman, so I could be way off..
Torricelli has included an amendment on his proposed bill that would ban the use of linux operating system on any school computer, claiming that "only hackers use that stuff."
Got Freedom?
Thinking?
This is a rather absolute statement. As with most experiences, aren't balance and moderation the key here?
A kid who does nothing but play outside the first 12 years of his life is going to have some handicaps to overcome, also.
Is this observation or regret?
It's hard to believe sometimes the limited level of "net" intelligence most politicians seem to have these days, what the hell are they trying to do, put more school age kids in jail? Kid's are learning in school and they make mistakes, so let's put them in jail that should teach them! I'll bet this guy is an AOL user and is just all pissed off about those damn hackers sending him porn mail..jeesh.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.
knowingly causes the transmission of a program, information, code, or command, and as a result of such conduct, intentionally affects or impairs without authorization a computer of an elementary school or secondary school or institution of higher education
When i connect port 80 and request a page, and that request affects the server to return a page to me. I know very well that it would do so, and it was of course my intention to view the site, but no one permitted me to view it (assuming i was just someone who ocasionally passed by). So, i could be in jail for 10 years?!
Avoid .edu at all costs!!!!
Don't quote me on this.
Welcome to the real world.
Not Meta-modding due to apathy.
Principal: I'm sorry, Jonny, but what you did was very serious. You turned a computer on before your teacher said you could. As you must know, part of the booting process involves informing the rest of the network of that computer's presence. Thus, by turning on that computer, you knowingly caused information to be sent to every other computer on the network, without authorisation. I'm afraid I have no option but to inform the FBI and have you thrown in jail for the rest of your teenage life.
Jonny: Hang on. I'm sitting in my computer class, and I turn my computer on. Because I did so before the teacher explicity said "you can turn your computer on now", I'm going to go to jail?
Principal: Yes.
Jonny: Oh. Er. Shit.
...is this going to stop people from hacking into school networks. Maybe if the schools would beef up their security a little, maybe it would curtail most, if not all, the problem in a particular school district. I mean, my high schools security was a joke. Novell 3?? give me a break. If they're worrying about important documents being looked at... maybe they shouldn't store them on computers with outside access.
The answer to your next question will be 'not likely'.
We already have laws on the books that have been used effectively against teens as well as adults.
healyourchurchwebsite.com - WWJB?
...whew! I just have a great big belly laugh when those clowns in the senate are up to thier tricks... Observe this line:
...knowingly causes the transmission of a program, information, code, or command, and as a result of such conduct, intentionally affects or impairs without authorization a computer of an elementary school or secondary school or institution of higher education.
:)
By using the word "affects" in this bill basically makes it illegal (without "authorization") to even view a school's web site (viewing a website "affects" a machine by causing it to write information to the log files). Be careful next time you want to check out the football schedule on the web-page calendar!
Yessiree, before much longer Americans will be fleeing to Russia to escape the tyranny and opression. Orwell, eat your heart out.
(Of course, I'm assume by "computer" they mean a machine, and not the little kids in math class.)
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
I guess he wants to make sure he has plenty of company when he gets indited.
Computers are of secondary educational importance. Computer literacy is a non-essential skill. It is becoming less important as computer become more usable. Computer education is dehumanizing at a period in a child's life where human experience is vital to development. I've spoken to various teachers in elementary schools about this, and not one of them values computing as a learning resource.
In a nation which struggles to achieve 50% literacy, isn't it a bit absurd to pursue computer literacy. Most Americans refuse to read books. Computer education is merely part of the process that encourages this "wilful illiteracy". Computers also teach students to disregard mathematical education. "Why learn to add? The computer can do it for me!"
The growing focus on computer learning is, to me, a symptom of the "children are adults in training" attitude. This warps children's developmental years, and is mostly the product of people who dislike children. People who spend time with children know that children need to act like children, not like adults. Children who spend too much time on computers often grow to be withdrawn and isolated, often preferring computer games over the company of friends. Other children strongly resist being forced to use computers, and react rebelliously, often violently.
Computers are not a part of a healthy childhood. As a computer scientist, I have seen nothing to indicate that people who were exposed to computers early in life gain any advantage over those who are introduced to them in the workplace or university. Often, long time users are at a disadvantage due to an unwillingness to learn new things about the machine.
Computers in schools reinforce an attitude that everything in life is preparation for something else. This is not healthy, and these are not the sort of values we should be imparting to our children.
Denial isn't just a river in Italy
What an absoutely stypid idiea. Communication is the schools is key to the sucess of a student in any school and this bill practly blocks student-teacher communication.
Today's politicians, judges, lawyers, etc. all grew up and went through a large part of their lives w/o computers, hence some laws, like this one, overstep the bounds of their intentions. Whereas today's college Law student (at least those at the good Ivy League law schools (sorry, I go to school down the sreet from UPenn)) have computers of their own, and hence the better chances of understanding how they work, as assuradly there will a CS/Law double major, or at least law students with high interest in computing, computer law, and intellectual property issues. As time moves forward, more judges/politicians/etc will retire and such, and more computer-savvy politicians will take their place. Only then will sensible laws regarding and regulating the world of computers will come about.
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
If only they could criminally charge youth for MURDER. That would help me rest easier.
What a joke about criminally charging for high school pranks.
(Well, ok, I'm in Canada, besides which most of the teachers were playing too.... Some of them were MEAN shots even... I even had one class where the course objective was to "assemble computers from parts, assemble a network, and play network-Doom"...)
Hardware, software, and blinking lights!
And this is exactly why "hackers" are dangerous. They keep kids down by limiting our access to information so that we can't actually do anything about it (I'm talking the highly-technical type of stuff, like programming, logic design, hardware, etc). School exists to normalize us all, and keep down the radicals, or redirect them into "radical" acts like wearing shirts with a logo on them...
The internet is changing all that. There are now a small few young people who can do a lot of highly-skilled things at young ages, and these people are disgruntled. You get a lot of script-kiddies, but more serious types are showing up, and often enough are a real threat to the establishment, since we form our own views of society before they can make us conform.
So you're seeing a political revolution on the internet (Open-Source comes to mind, you know how the US feels about "communism"), and the corporations want to stop it at all cost (although this has little to do with this law in particular, other than supplying the hysteria on which it is based).
Then again, maybe I'm just jaded and paranoid.
Hardware, software, and blinking lights!
When I was 16, I got into some trouble when I sent some BBS mail to adults (educational administrators, actually) that was considered "threatening." I made a short trip through the juvenile court system, where I mainly learned that other people, who don't have as much understanding of computers, take these things a LOT more seriously than I did at that age. I was charged with telephone harassment, a special law in Wisconsin, becuase I used a modem over phone lines. I served 50 hours of community service for my crimes. I think the treatment I got was plenty enough to teach me my lessons: 1. find something more worthwhile to do with the computer, and 2. many adults have trouble putting the things that kids do in perspective. I definitely didn't need 10 years in a federal prison, as that would have taught me different lessons: 1. whenever someone messes with you, you fight him, and 2. don't drop the soap. Thus, I think the treatment I got under existing law was much more appropriate than what I would get under this awful proposed law. This also shows that there are definitely laws already in place that easily have enough force to slap some sense into an overly clever and reckless high-school prankster.
Information is officially now a controlled substance.
When i look at this topic i don't think its the schools sysadmins to blame or atleast not the ones at my school. Its more of less the few teachers and/or principles that saw hackers, read about the dark and evil world of mp3s, or think that they know exactly what a virus is. True there are some script kiddies out there that will go around the computer lab saying how 31337 they are and how they could take down this network but can they really? If anyone had the skillz to take the network down, why? First of they couldn't brag about it and second they couln't use the lab for the time the network was down. I think what the real problem is that we run windows.. the problem with windows is, A. it hangs up to much and B. there are to many shitty programs made to piss people of.. and crowd the already small hard drives. Yes there are alot of programs out there for linux but how many of these wankas will know hows to install them? Plus it would be a good idea to expose these kids to a multi os world like they're going to see when they get a job. Ofcourse some of the laws of this act are way to crazy to even consider a sollution to. im just saying what i think would honestly make the school networks more reliable.. and educational - lowtekneq
Carpe meam simiam!
I agree that item (4) has a problem. Why would you need to carry a pocket knife to school?
I also have a problem with item (5). The locker belongs to the school not the student. This is like arguing that a parent can't search their children's room because the room 'belongs' to the child. Now, a student's purse or backpack would be a different story but even then I could see an argument in favor of searches. Airport security is allowed to search your bags and if you don't like it you can leave.
It's things like this that make me shy away from even getting on a computer at school. I'm not sure what they want me to do or not. I've been accused of so many things I didn't do, I just stay away from it at school and get on at home.
Even when I'm fixing something a teacher requested, I'll get questioned by the board-wide administrator about things I've done at the computer.
So, the school goes on with their computer problems and I don't get accused of anything.
To a congressman, it's a matter of who voted for him. The answer, overwhelmingly, is wealthier over poorer, older over younger (not even counting the voting age), and "better educated" over slack-jawed yokel.
It is entirely evil how our government treats youth. I thought the driving laws here in PA were anal when I was 16. (I couldn't drive after midnight - it somewhat cramped my style, but a semi-reasonable law, I suppose.) Now, my little sister has to be in by 11pm, and she had to wait 6 months after getting her learner's permit to test for her "junior" license. I understand NY has laws even more anal than that.
So many laws exist to prevent the "damn kids" from old ladies, but until recently it was entirely suicidal for a politician to propose taking away a driver's license from a 90 year old virtually blind and deaf voter. It's still not a great idea politically for someone to bring that up.
A modest proposal: Allow kids of any age to attempt to pass the INS citizenship exam in order to secure voting privileges. We (rightly) allow recently naturalized citizens to vote... What about a 16 year old who can answer a bunch of questions about the USA that a lot of lifelong citizens can't answer?
also, and perhaps more importantly, virually all schools get federal money of some kind.
When will they stop?? Our government just seems to be so completely ignorant of techology. Part of the problem is that the older generation that current politicians make up is fearful of technology. And they also fear what the younger, more computer savvy generation can do because they don't understand it. :) ).
Senator Torricelli probably thinks that this is a way to stop hackers before they even develop their skills. But this is stupid, kids don't become malicious hackers at school and so what if they bring down the network? It happens all the time at most schools because no one competent is admin'ing it.
And in my H.S., most of us used to bypass the computer's security system all the time in order to play games. It was something silly like pressing Cntl-C to get into DOS. Plus, there was even a loophole that allowed me to read other people's files and write to their directories (though I didn't take advantage of any of it, honest
Ok, so yes, if a kid intentionally does something harmful, then he/she should be punished. But not with time in federal prison! Leave the discipline decisions to the individual schools.
The CS department at my university has two main servers. Each of these servers has had the benefit of thousands of bored CS majors tinkering with code to run on them. At this point, anyone trying to hack/port scan/bypass security or anything else has so many checks run on him, the people who wrote Carnivore would probably be surprised. And yet, under this law just about every person who wrote a script to run on them would be judged as "intentionally affecting" a computer. Hell, under that definition pressing the S key "intentionally affects" a computer, IT SHOWS A DAMN S ON THE SCREEN! This bill is completely worthless.
Give a man fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life!
I'm a Criminal Justice major at my school and am also a ROTC cadet. Being in my junior year, I've got a year or so before my senior thesis needs to get started on. So this article leaves me with a few questions. They are: 1. Will my professor actually be aware of this law? 2. If the professor actually does, how much trouble will I get in for e-mailing him or her a thesis which supports free speech? 3. Who has dibs on my ass, the military or the state?
It's insane -- absolutely undeniably, inconcievebly insane, to write laws, especially federal laws that make doing something in school against the law. Schools have been able to combat this by simply removing offenders from a classroom setting. Federal prosecution is utterly immoral. Ask yourself if you ever explored a computer that wasn't yours. I sure have, and I'm no convict, so why is it that they can throw a smart 10 year old in jail for the same?
Laws like these contribute to the 'urban legend' status of many laws, and detract from the law as a whole. In 50 years, people will be laughing at the stupid laws passed to take accountability away from schools. Just like laws passed in certain states that are incredibly stupid today, like laws against strawberries on ice cream (there really is one like that!!).
Of course, this could just be an extention of the plot to dummy kids down -- If a child is too smart, he gets thrown into the slammer. That way, only stupid people can graduate. This sounds strange, but I've found that stupidity is encouraged in some cases. It definetly helps the government lead the people by the nose using blind patriotism. Just an observation, but this is how nazi germany started -- people were taught to always believe the government knew best, and be blindly patriotic. When the people stop questioning the government, people get hurt. Just like the SS(secret service, not stormtroopers) taking your kid away for playing around on the local smb network at school.......
Sj Zero
Powerusrs Gaming
It's been a long time.
I don't know about number 4. I just graduated from HS and I can't think of one good reason why you would really need a pocket knife in your pocket. I can understand if you were say needing it in a class but thats more an exception than a common occurance. Although overall I think this sounds liek an interesting concept.
Reasons not to take a computer class in high school:
1. Computer use policies (ours, anyways) makes it to where if ANYTHING happens to the computer your assigned to, whether you did it or not, your responsible. Think about all the shit a student could fuck up and you get the blame.
2. Most teachers of these classes are grossly underqualified. I took a class that was MCSE training, and we did stupid office documents all year. Our teacher didn't have the slightest clue.
3. Why waste time with an idiot teacher and computer illeterate administration when you can take a psychology class or something.
scubasteve http://www25.brinkster.com/irx/scubasteve
The goal of any republican or democrat is to gain more political power for themselves. That's what fuels bills like these, not any real concern over "hacking." He'll appear proactive, and tough on crime to his constituents, and when they reelect him maybe he'll get an important seat in an important committee.
The real unitron has Slashdot ID 5733, and needs to change his sig.
No one in their right mind would mistake me for you.
Have you no sense of humor?
Or if really feel strongly about it, I'll change it to something suitably fake. But I used that address for the purpose of satire only, not to hide.
The real unitron has Slashdot ID 5733, and needs to change his sig.
might interest you.
The real unitron has Slashdot ID 5733, and needs to change his sig.
When i was a kiddlywink.... i was banned by my school for 1 year from touching any computers for breaking in and stealing games from our BBC micro lab. Had the school not had the authority to discipline me internally, i would not have continued on to become the fine upstanding IT professional i am today. I'm no digital mother teresa, but it tought me a thing or two about network ettiquite. If i'd gone to jail, you'd all be paying for my supper. word of advice from an old pro. if you do get busted and banned... (and if you're on the threshold of puberty), i highly reccomend focusing all that cracking testosterone onto one of the most uncrackable systems of all time. The human female! pm.