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RIAA, MPAA Instigate U.S. Naval Academy Raid
LaikaVirgin writes "After receiving a letter from 'four entertainment-based lobbying associations', the U.S. Naval Academy has seized nearly 100 midshipmen's computers that allegedly had pirated media. It's good to see that the armed forces know who's really in charge."
The RIAA declairs on the war college? Man, they really are getting out of hand! BTW: My first First Post. Sweet!
Why did they take the computers?? They should have taken the pr0n..
Maybe they we're bugged 'cos of all the illegal copies of "In The Navy" by YMCA ;)
Are you local? There's nothing for you here!
Well if software/music/movies didn't cost so much I'd buy them... You all know how it is... I mean if I wasn't a money struggling 16 year old it would be different :D
I wonder if Bill Gates uses this excuse still...
_________ Help me get a PSP!
The Navy would be raiding RIAA computer ;).
Go ahead, I'll take the karma hit!
"Entropy is the bad-guy, and he is everywhere"
New official FSF business-model!
1: Write free software.
2: ?
3: Eat a banana.
4: Profit!
I really wonder how the academy was able to simple seize the computers. It said that the midshipmen were "given" a computer when the entered the academy, but paid back the value over time..... this would indicate that these computers were the property of the midshipmen. So unless they had a search warrant, how were they able to seize and search the computers?
1) Write free software.
2) ?
3) Sell the service of anal sex to gay men.
4) Profit!
Instead of selling the software itself we should sell the service of anal sex.
Unfortunatly, I doubt this is atypical of those serving under the government. While those actually running the systems are probably smart enough to not do such a thing, those using the systems may not be.
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
I mean, it will probably destroy the careers of those young men for doing something harmless. FUCK the RIAA until their bleeing assholes are full of the consumer's splooge, I say! Mutherfuckers, those kids are going to defend your fat lazy rich asses someday you CUNTS.
I always knew the Navy was full of pirates.
word.
A potentially devastating (to the mids) side effect of the raids could be expulsion. All the service academies have honor codes which preclude lying, stealing, cheating, or tolerating anyone who does. The _normal_ sanction for violating the code is expulsion. Given the USNA's administration seems to believe that the allegation of stealing is sufficient to seize the computers, it's conceivable the effected midshipmen may be booted for violating the honor code. Further, any of their roommates or other friends who knew that had the "illegal" material could be booted for toleration. Is their "offense" really so bad as to end their careers? It just might happen.
... aren't Navy personell in need of entertainment?
I know that I, for one, wouldn't want to play games like that with people who are willing to die so I can maintain my quality of life.
Now they are doing police work, what next they become the established goverment of the U.S. too.
Think about it; military schools are places where they punish you harshly for dumb shit, like not having the back of your belt buckle shined or having your underwear folded 4" across instead of 6". It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that breaking a real law in such an environment is going to be met with harsh consequences... no matter how dumb that law is.
2: Pray to our beloved god Richard Stallman. He shall be our only god!
It's safe to say those cadets are in a world of shit over this. Hilary Rosen has a lot to be proud of.
How long before we start to see corporate sponsership of our armed forces? Ideas like "Apple Navy", "AOL/Time-Warner Air Force" and "Dell Army" are becoming less outlandish.
On the plus side, the marketing would be interesting.
"...and the F-16 was all like beepbeepbeep..."
It's nice to know that they did this raid in time for the end of the term (assuming they are on the semester system, the term would end around the middle of December)
Secondly, why the hell did the USNA agree to do this? Where did the orders come from, the commander of the Academy, or someone higher up? Did the RIAA orchestrate the raid, or was it solely the Academy's doing?
Lastly, while I am sure that owning pirated MP3's is against the honor code, why are students found guilty expelled?
It's also important to note that the computers were issued by the USNA to the students, with the cost of the computers withdrawn from their pay. If they don't get the computers back, do they get a refund of what they have already paid?
'After receiving a letter from four entertainment-based lobbying associations'...
So does that means that the U.S. Propaganda Department have more power than the U.S. Naval Academy ?
Some might be offensed by such thoughts, but it is in some way a reality: America get as much (or more!) power abroad from Hollywood than from their military.
A message from the system administrator: 'I've upped my priority. Now up yours.'
to "Don't ask don't tell"?
Any sufficiently advanced man is indistinguishable from God
In the article, they mention:
"CD sales fell more than 5 percent in 2001 and dipped another 1 percent in the first half of this year, according to the RIAA."
Is there a good reference to how prices changed during this time?
Just put an end to their whole propoganda "we are going to get everyone and prosecute to the fullest extent of the law" shit. If there is one thing on earth you don't fuck with its people with the power to make it very difficult for you to operate. The US Naval Academy (as well as other military institutions) has stronger ties to business, schools and government than the RIAA/MPAA/etc/etc could ever dream of. These are the people that have strong influential power when it comes to basically anything regarding basically anything. Not only that but these institutions harbor great ill-will to anyone threatening the "future of our country" over something they'll see as extremely "trivial".
Also, once you piss one military institution off unless it's a battle between divisions (army vs navy etc) then none of them like you. I can already see alot of top brass talking about these Lobbying institutions especially since Thanksgiving is coming up. The word will spread and friends of friends, families who have made service life a career will hear about this. It will spread to public servants etc and this one action seriously just damaged any pull the RIAA/MPAA/NMPA and the Songwriters Guild had with government. Especially considering the state of affairs on the table now. Not only that but the owners of the equipment that was seized will truly remember this especially if they get article 15's as well as not knowing if you're fucking with the next (insert influential power here) or if one of those young men/women has a father/mother/aunt/uncle who happens to be a congressman or senator or what have you.
Some of the recording industry's biggest stars, such as Madonna, Mick Jagger and Eminem, have joined coalitions to combat the wholesale theft of music. The industry claims this threatens the livelihood of everyone from artists, songwriters and manufacturers to sound engineers and record-store owners and clerks.
:-).
Finally the industry realizes that these thuggish tactics are going to hurt their sales
I know you're just a troll but... Quote: Fuck the Canadians, let's take back what should be the property of the US of A. How in the hell can you take back what was never yours? Even your lame ass war back in 1812 I beleive, you guys tried to take us, and couldn't! You think Vietnam was the first war you lost - read your history books! Get your facts straight troll boy! 'Cause you sound like an ignorant American!
Soon as I saw the story on the front page I knew what awaited inside. Hundreds of posts from zitty geeks trying to be punker-than-thou by coming up with ever-more-obscure namedropping to make up for their lack of real style (or to pretend that they are actually old enough to have been involved). Drop the pretension kiddos. We all know that your Blink 182 CD is older than your copy of Bollocks.
I love how a whole new level of conformity has been created by the average bozo's efforts at individuality. It might almost work if your personal definition of individuality didn't depend so heavily on how you present yourself to others. I mean, what's the sense of being into bullshit like [insert pseudo-non-mainstream hobby here] if you can't talk about it to make yourself superior to your peers?
Kinda sounds like the Linux crowd, huh? "I'm so ALTERNATIVE by patching my kernel every day while you brainwashed Windows sheep meander in unenlightened tedium." Funny to think that if you had back all the time you spent tweaking and patching (for no good reason other than to say you have the latest version), you wouldn't know what to do with the workstation on your desk.
*sigh*
excuse the rant. caffiene has yet to be digested.
The military academies have a very strict code of honor. For a midshipman to be caught with something like pirated music would probably result in summary dismissal from the academy.
Evidence presented by the RIAA that midshipmen were engaging in illegal activites like this would really cause the administration of Annapolis to investigate quite carefully, and be VERY upset if this sort of thing was going on.
I feel sorry for these people - if they are caught with pirated music, their careers at the Naval academy are done.
"`Theft' is a harsh word, but that it is, pure and simple,"
If the letter contained that glaring inaccuracy, anyone competent in the law should have thrown it in the trash immediately. Copyright infringement is not legally, morally, theoretically or practically anything much like theft.
It never ceases to amaze me that even on slashdot I see people calling copying data "theft" and going unchallenged on it. Although it is a crime, and is often legally and morally wrong, it is not in any sense theft. Nobody can seriously dispute that. It's blatantly wrong and would be obviously counter-intuitive to call it "theft" if it weren't for the extensive propaganda we've all been fed to convince us otherwise.
It's bullshit, pure and simple, and very fragrant.
Some of the recording industry's biggest stars, such as Madonna, Mick Jagger and Eminem, have joined coalitions to combat the wholesale theft of music. The industry claims this threatens the livelihood of everyone from artists, songwriters and manufacturers to sound engineers and record-store owners and clerks.
I feel for these people, I really do. I say we set up a Paypal account to help keep Mick, Madonna and Marshall (emineminem?) fed and clothed. Oh sure, take me to task on this but honestly, shouldn't the RIAA present better examples than pampared, multimillionaire recording artists to make their case. I mean c'mon, Mick Jagger could never sell another record in his life and still live like a king, same with Madonna. This RIAA FUD is preposterous. These people can afford to buy their records, I can't and neither can a lot of people I know, that's just the sad reality of things right now. So I'm a thief, well I guess that's just a matter of perspective isn't it?
DUUUUDE, somebody set us up the bomb!
You know, you maybe onto something... I've often thought AOL confused the concept of subscription with conscription when giving out those damned CDs. Perhaps there is more to it...
"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
RIAA says they don't know, but its a really good deal for us:
http://www.riaa.org/MD-US-7.cfm
Would violate the Code of Conduct for the Cadets.
p ri nciples.html
"Moral and ethical development is a fundamental element of all aspects of the Naval Academy experience. As future officers in the Navy or Marine Corps, midshipmen will someday be responsible for the priceless lives of many men and women and multi-million dollar equipment. From Plebe Summer through graduation, the Naval Academy's Character Development Program is a four-year integrated continuum that focuses on the attributes of integrity, honor, and mutual respect. One of the goals of this program is to develop midshipmen who possess a clearer sense of their own moral beliefs and the ability to articulate them. Honor is emphasized through the Honor Concept of the Brigade of Midshipmen-a system which was originally formulated in 1951 and states "Midshipmen are persons of integrity, they stand for that which is right." These Naval Academy "words to live by" are based on the moral values of respect for human dignity, respect for honesty and respect for the property of others. Brigade Honor Committees composed of elected upperclass midshipmen are responsible for education and training in the Honor Concept. Midshipmen found in violation of the Honor Concept by their peers may be separated from the Naval Academy."
http://www.usna.edu/CharacterDevelopment/other/
If you feel like doing some math, the 2000-2001 numbers seem to be available in this article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/new_media /1841768.stm
I read an article about this yesterday, and was sure it was satire. A joke. Please tell me this was a joke. Please.
The masses are the crack whores of religion.
In the Pentagon, it became so common for the chart jockies to put together such enormous PPTs that brought down the internal networks at the Pentagon just shipping the PPTs around to the audience that the Brass had to ban/restrict its use. It was common for even the most ordinary presentation to contain movies, sounds sub programs, shooting stars.... Presentations typically ran to the multi-hundred megabytes.
I guess what I'm getting at is the DoD has a culture of extreme presentation and content bloat for no good reason. Seems to me that the upper management tacitly approves of massive media collection and sharing.
For all (/. included) that are trying to make this a RIAA/MPAA vs. The U.S. Armed Forces battle, it simply is not. This is no different than the seizure of computers, harddrives, etc., by colleges and universities around the country over the last few years. The writeup conjures images of soldiers in enemy waters having their navigational computers seized, when in fact it's merely a case of a bunch of students downloading music/movies on their government issued (owned?) computers.
Sensationalism gets everyone all riled up about what doesn't amount to much.
Of course I'm not happy about what happened; I wish someone would stand up to these multi-billion dollar industries. I do, however, feel that this really isn't that big a deal. Yes, it's technically a part of the government, but then again, don't try to tell me "midshipmen" wasn't purposely used instead of "students" for effect.
Forget all of the debate here on /. about whether or not copying copyrighted material is theft. For these 100 midshipmen, the real question is whether or not the Naval Academy will consider their acts as "theft" and charge them with violating the Honor Concept.
Naval Academy Midshipmen serve under an Honor Concept, which states:
"A midshipman does not lie, cheat, or steal."
Penalties for violating the Honor Concept include: reprimand, being sent to the fleet for a year (and maybe being allowed to come back), and getting thrown out of the Naval Academy.
Hopefully, the Honor Board won't get involved and these midshipmen will be subjected to only administrative discipline (loss of weekend liberty for a period of time, etc.).
You can count on one thing though - Everyone at the Naval Academy will get lectured on how they can't illegally duplicate copywritten material, and the next midshipmen who get caught won't get off so easily.
IAAUSNAG - I am a United States Naval Academy Graduate
144l. ph34r my 133t l3g4l 5k1lz!
The RIAA couldn't afford a computer!
(these are the best to arguments for communism that I've ever heard!)
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
..you pay the piper. I think that most copyright laws are immoral but it IS THE LAW. Should we not hold Navy Cadets and Goverment personel to a HIGHER standard?
Go ahead. Mod me down. I'm a not a Troll, I am an OGRE and you better say "Sir" when you call me that.
Slashdot, home of supporters of free software, free music, and free speech.Except for Moderators that disagree with you.
CD sales fell more than 5 percent in 2001 and dipped another 1 percent in the first half of this year, according to the RIAA.
eat my shit - i dont even listen to your fucking music...
Remember, only the RIAA is allowed to steal from needy artists. May God help anyone else who tries.
I do security
I mean honestly, they were using what is essentially a government network even if it was their own machine. The midshipmen were stupid. I am surprised that their superiors did not catch it before the RIAA did.
Gorkman
Sigh, let me take a page from my journal from this week. The **AA's influence on Universities is fucking sick. Pardon the language, I was absolutely angered.
God fucking damn it. So I was given a fairly simple assignment in my 160G Music Appriciation class. I have to listen to Verdi's Rigoletto and write some shit about it. Well, I fucking love Rigoletto but the only copy I have is at my mom's house on an LP.
So, I figure the internet will help me. So, I fireup ol kazaa lite. I do a search for Rigoletto and find exactly what I want. So, I start to download. I am getting literally HUNDREDS of BYTES per second. Mother FUCKER. So, I let kazaa do its magic and its downloading from 4 people and all at ass speeds. I message one of the people I am downloading from and he says he is on a company T1 line and has great speeds. So, I am being raped by my university.
Well, I call up the communications people. I tell them whats up and they say its illegal for me to download music from kazaa and that if I don't stop they will take away my connection. I told him the hell it is, Verdi's Rigoletto has been in the public domain for hundred + years and that is bullshit. He hung up on me after I said bullshit. I called back and got the same guy. I asked for his supervisor and the supervisor told me using kazaa was against campus policy. I asked him to point it out to me and he told me that I can not download copyrighted materials. I said fine, this is not a copyrighted material, so give me my bandwidth. He told me I was just SOL. They kept asking for my room # but I refused. The last thing I need is them trying to cut my fucking connection off.
God damn bastards.
The ultimate network admin tool needs HELP!
the RIAA was evading taxes?
Or because they need those downloaded mp3s to stop the reactor going critical?
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
- As others have noted, the middies had to have been smoking something to put anything on P2P from the Academy.
- The Academy just qualified for the Pearl Harbor Memorial Security Award by actually having an wide-open network.
- The Content Cartel just caused an entire year's worth of middies to get flushed down the tubes. People Who Count won't forget what this particular witch-hunt cost.
In the long run, this cost the Cartel so much good-will that it will take freaking million$ in bribes^Wcampaign contributions to repair the damage.Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Hacking the Network
Stress that the kowtowing to corporate interests is causing unfair reprecussions for the fine cadets at the USNA. The characterization of the offense as 'theft' is an outright lie. In time of war, how can we tolerate this kind of crass commercialism denigrating the contributions of the US Navy?
Use snail mail, they won't pay attention to an email. Don't let the RIAA have this kind of victory. The service academies are tough enough without this shit.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Who will be left to defend us?????
It takes more than a few good men to man an aircraft carrier!
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
Thanks.
a /1841768.stm shows data for:
The BBC's article http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/new_medi
2000: $14.3bn for 1.08bn cds = 13.24$/cd to
2001: $13.7bn for 0.96858bn cds = 14.14 $/cd
so it looks like a $0.90 increase per CD, which probably explains the drop in sales and shipments, but might actually be an increase in profit. I wish authors of stories like this would show both sides of the statistics they tout.
*AA's regularly violate the constitutional rights of us peons with impunity, but let's see how far they get going after the sons and daughters of congressmen and people of power. We should alert the *AA's to the rampant file sharing that goes on at schools like the Latin School in Chicago and Exeter back east. Let the children of the powerful feel the hand of the Man, then go whine to their parents (aka the Man's bosses). Perhaps then Hilary Rosen and Jack Valenti would finally receive the long-overdue crushing they deserve.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
I have legally bought every one of the full-length CD's, ripped at 196 kbps, sitting on my hard-drive. I'm at college and did not bring with me the physical compact disks on which I originally bought the content.
Am I a pirate? Is it up to me to prove that I'm not? ("Show me the original CDs" -- maybe when you replace scratched ones at production-cost...until then, why should I hang on to broken stuff?)
I dunno', maybe this digital-rights-management stuff isn't so bad -- it lets me prove that what's mine is mine.
Also, with DRM I can by doctrine of first-sale (which says that you can't impose limitations on what I do with a CD once I've bought it, including restrictions on who I resell the whole package to) says that I can buy someone's scratched CD "virtually" at half.com, and then, owning that CD, I have fair-use rights to the content on it.
Conversely, I can virtually sell the CD when I'm done listening to it. The Internet allows for instant transfer of virtual-property, so really there only need to be as many licenses floating around as concurrent listeners. It's like a superfast transfer of the physical compact disk -- if we had teleportation, and CD's that didn't scratch, we could have a communal pile of CD's, which you'd tele-take whenever you want to listen to them and tele-return whenever you're done. Only with "digital" rights and "virtual" property we do have teleportation of property. Interesting, interesting.
Therefore, in conclusion, DRM advocates -- BRING IT ON!!!
The sooner we have ubiquitous digital rights management, the sooner my audio software can play anything that exists in the world, by buying it at $4.04 when I begin to listen to it and selling it at $4.04 +/- 0.04 when I'm done.
I'm sure it would only take a few pennies per hour of listening to finance the logistics of such an operation.
So any reasons why this couldn't work?
Er... biggest stars? Madonna? Jeezus people, my brain still hurts from having to listen to her "Die Another Day" song, if you could call it that, at the beginning of the movie of the same name that I saw this morning! If she's one of the industry's biggest stars then that shows how sad the industry is these days. Eminem? I won't even go there... Mick Jagger? He's still alive? Maybe if the *AA cartels would cough up some REAL talent then people would have less of a problem paying for content.
According to the news item I saw, it wasn't internal PowerPoint that got banned, it was shipping the stuff worldwide via the DOD secure tactical network. That scrambled-and-encrypted-beyond-belief network hasn't got all that much bandwidth, and it was getting jammed by so much multimedia that real-time command messages were getting delayed or dumped. Thus, the order went out to keep the freaking desk-jockey multimedia slideware off of what is supposed to be a life-and-death real-time network.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
See thread...
Why is President Bush wasting all that money trying to track down and eliminate Bin Laden when he could simply report him to the RIAA for breaching their copyright.
Clearly the RIAA has far more power at its disposal than the US military and although Bin Laden has managed to evade the united power of the armed services, he wouldn't stand a chance against the recording industry.
Better still -- tell Hillary that Saddam has a huge collection of MP3s and boy-band CDs copied onto CDR. No need for a UN mandate, she'd be in and clean him out in no time!
But what I *really* want to see is the RIAA conduct a raid on the IRS computers to look for copyright breaches.
Now that would be great -- a real clash of the titans eh?
The sad thing is that it's the every-day Joe who's paying for all these power-plays -- either through our CD purchases or our taxes.
Couldn't they find something better to do with all this money?
People are all up in a huff that those gay translaters got dismissed a while ago, because that might adversely affect the "War on Terror" ... why isn't anyone making a big fuss that this isn't any better?
Oh yeah, right... Big Media controls the media... figures...
1) Soldiers fall under the UCMJ not the Constitution when it comes to legal rights.
2) These Naval Academy students face being bounced out of there for violating the "code of conduct".
3) Ragging on /. will NOT change the fact that the RIAA has the "current" law on their side.
If you don't like the law, then become politically active and lobby for change instead of wining that you think it is wrong.
"All battles are fought by scared men who'd rather be somewhere else." John Wayne
Not that it's any surprise around here, but this statement is a flat out lie. It would be one thing if the recording industry was engaging in a constructive debate somewhere, or at least sticking to facts, but instead they've chosen to deceive and lie to protect their way of doing business. Why can't our government recognize this and stop catering to this corruption? (I have a few ideas, but that's another story.)
This is very different from "walking into the campus bookstore and in a clandestine manner walking out with a textbook without paying for it." For one thing, it's not very clandestine - or at least there's no specific effort to make it such. Secondly there is no tangible good being "walked out" with. A closer analogy would be walking into a campus bookstore (better yet, a friend's house), and reading a textbook without paying for it. But, of course, that wouldn't serve their interests. Obviously this isn't a clear-cut issue, but lying to the public to get their way is just disgusting, and displays a remarkable lack of integrity, IMO.
just an idea, I know that we have the moderation system and all that but how about a simple text based filter that we can apply from our preferences to filter out trolls.
I still browse at -1 because every now and then I find something worth reading that has been modded to pieces because moderation failed.
MP3 Search Engine
There. Maybe the RIAA will will succeed where the US military has failed.
Well, I am half way through watching season 3. So far this is a really great show but I have yet to see seasons 1-2. If anyone has a good rip of those, I would apriciate.
Over some crappy music. These guys will be drummed out of the Academy, their careers over. Funny, but the guys who are dedicating their lives to protecting the record companies profits are ruined.
I will download a boatload of crap current music in the middies honor.
you fucks lost 1812 too! lol! you tried to conquer us, we tried to conquer you. you fucks lost EVERY FUCKING BATTLE ON US SOIL! we lost the battles in canada, we both lost. fuckin canuck
bleepbleepbleep. Did you even watch the vid? ;)
So, I think we can now safely conclude that the RIAA has an operation mounted inside the NAVY, how else do they know which computers to point out (I assume the NAVY has a little firewall, or are academy systems directly connected ?)
MP3 Search Engine
cuz you Canadians already had your asses owned by the Brits...
Why is the Navy kowtowing to (possibly) civillian law, when as a federal jurdistiction it is explicitly not subject to those laws?
C|N>K
THese people need to be stopped.
I wont argue about the legal issues, but they are NOT a legal enforcement entity.. They are a coporation... One with a bad track-record to boot.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I'm almost about to consider it a troll, but I'd rather believe you've listened to a little bit too much newspeak.
DRM may prove who owns what, but it will not matter. You will no longer "buy" or own any CD or DVD you have, despite owning the media it's on. It will simply be licenced, under the licence "negotiated" between the CD/DVD and your trusted computer. Most likely you'll get a EULA-clickthrough the first time you put it in your computer, if at all. It's not like you accept or decline the region restrictions on your DVDs either.
And you can no longer ignore it, legal or illegal EULA, as your DRM hardware will enforce it on you with no way of circumventing it without committing a federal crime under the DMCA.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
The Honor Concept states that Midshipmen are persons of integrity: they do not lie, cheat, or steal.
Legal eagles take note that it's not the letter of the law, it is the discernable motives that count in that fishbowl of a school. And I like that.
For the minute you try to legislate integrity, the situation expands or contracts to mock the legislation.
Legislation works well when there is no immediate threat. But in a lot of military situations, what's in your guts counts far more than your ability to spew sophistries.
So, these mids stand to be crushed. Military officers (and little ones in training) are held to higher standards than the general population, or even elected officials (who didn't inhale or engage in financial gymnastics).
I recommend everyone volunteer a little time on active duty, or some other service-oriented activity. Those who have might agree that you appreciate what you have a little more from
a) having stepped out of the civilian mode and
b) seen some other locations which aren't far off the Monty Pynthon Four Yorkshiremen skit.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Geez....when I was in the Army (saw Bosnia, Kosovo, Kuwait, Egypt, etc) when I got to Kosovo in 2000 I found one of the computers in my area had over 10 gigs of MP3s on it!
I defy ANYONE to go to ANY military base and NOT find at least 10 or machines with tons of MP3s on them.
Oh, yeah, and when they do, I want them to PROVE that they were "illegally downloaded".
You see, Uncle Sam is blocking p2p software AT THE BLOODY ROUTERS! YOU CAN'T USE FILE SHARING PROGRAMS AT ALL ON THE MILNET ANYMORE! And MP3s are put on the websense "kill list" so you can't even download them from the web either! They even blocked a anti-terrorism brief from us because the company that made it put it in MP3 format which we couldn't get through websense. Had to go through an unauthorized PROXY server to get it.
Go figure. After the Kosovo 2000 debacle with the MP3s, Uncle Sam is starting to block that crap. At least at the Army level. Air Force and Navy are a whole different kettle of fish.
I even RUN some of the networks the Army in Germany uses, and I can't get past it. The contractors that put the blocks in were pretty damn good at what they do.
...that elected Dubya. Get a clue - the civilized world doesn't think that Canadians are the dumb ones.
Military personnel are not bound under the same laws as ordinary citizens. They are under the UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice) and as such search and seizure laws are inapplicable. And before you flame, those joining the military agree under oath to accept these different laws upon joining.
You can have it fast, accurate, or pretty. Pick any 2.
Alright, fine. College students getting their PC's taken away because someone bribed the cops and they had reasonable suspicion of some sort that they were running a server. I don't like it at all, but this world sometimes works in a crazy, unconstitutional way. But our military? That just hits me over the head with a 9-iron. Does the corruption really go this far? So far to turn the men and women who are willing and able to give and take lives for us into ordinary college students? You'd think these guys' numbers are going to come up faster than ours, and they are willing to do the dirty work: you give them the respect they deserve because of this. I mean, really, if the media companies can pay off an officer or some higher-up guy to confiscate and interrogate without even decent suspicion; just on the magic word and call of some media company and some money on the side then how much money and magic words would it take for them to turn the military into their lap dogs? Or more concurrently, has it already happened? Even more unruly: we don't know if it's illegal yet because there is so much debate going on. Copying us much different than theft, especially mass copying and when you have millions involved. The media companies are not just trying to protect their rights, they are trying to extend them and going this far is really getting me on my nerves.
Candy-Coated Knowledge
I would love to see an episode of JAG about this issue :)
You're an idiot, we were pretty much "the Brits" (though not actually living on the the island itself). Yes, and the Brits own their asses. Canada was never really a country until the early 1900's. You are trying to show that we are weak just because we chose to keep our ties, but in all reality we wanted to keep them. That makes your point totally worthless.
Similar things happened at Hofstra University earlier in the year. The school recieved a letter from the RIAA and a bunch of people starting getting their connection turned off. I heard one or two supposedly had their computers seized by the fbi for sharing a lot of movies and stuff.
The school is acting as an ISP and because of the DMCA they are immune from liability as long as they investigate when they are notified by copyright holders that users on their network are infringing. Seizing the computers is a drastic measure that is probably not legal for the academy to do anyways. Only law enforcement can seize things.
I mean, the vast majority of people, anyway. I doubt I could find one person's computer on a collage campus that didn't have pirated content.
The trick would be finding people who are distributing huge amounts of the stuff. In fact, I'm not even sure it's technically illegal to have pirated content.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
We will have an army of one.
The RIAA will have to excuse us all for laughing when AlQuada bombs the RIAA and even the Navy looks the other way.
If I played the game the way the industry did, I would remember signing no contracts when I bought my CDs. Thus, I could do with them whatever I wanted to.
I'm guessing that since the computers were hooked up to the campus network the network engineers just gave the brass a list of the cadets who had large amounts of traffic coming across the common p2p ports (6346 for gnutella). Sounds easy enough to look for.
It's good to hear that the RIAA is harassing our armed forces right before the commencement of hostilities in Iraq. The RIAA should throw the book at these young men and women who will soon be putting their lives at risk for the sake of their country.
Just because you are putting your life on the line for the sake of our freedoms, doesn't mean you have the right to listen to illict tunes!
Keep this up RIAA! I hope you make sure to get lots of media coverage with this campaign.
New product for fall 2003:
/home.
Windows GP - Skirmish, Invasion and Global Theater editions. Featuring:
- IntelliSpend (avoid those pesky budget hassles and let us spend your budget for you)
- ActiveService (see the world! Meet new people!)
- WYSIWILAYBIU (What You See is What Is Left After You Blew It Up)
- Microsoft Paladin, Jihad edition - extract foreign binaries from your
- New incursion wizard
- MS massacre, P2P app lets you keep enemy lists and exchange munitions with them automtically (as used in Yemen).
Call now for special military contractor pricing...
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
Hmm, you know--with these four signatures at the end of the first letter, you might be able to do some fun things :D.
"`Theft' is a harsh word, but that it is, pure and simple," the letter stated. "... It is no different from walking into the campus bookstore and in a clandestine manner walking out with a textbook without paying for it."
Because I was thinking it was more like walking into the campus bookstore, reading a book, and leaving, maybe ocassionally coming back to re-read parts of it. I didn't realize that everytime I listen to a song on the Internet, that song disappears from existence.. no wonder music today sucks so bad.. I've been removing all the good stuff... damnit, how could I have been so stupid!
You know what they say about people who represents themselves in a court of law? Glad I'm not you guys.
Legal definition of property
Copyright myths dispelled
The actual law
Fair use & copyright resourse at stanford
More resourses pro & con
Intellectual property
I know people don't want to read and understand the above, but they certainly want to voice their opinion of the way it should be when the law comes after them. A little late IMHO.
Hmmm. The RIAA apparently has more clout than the United States Armed Forces. So let's court martial some of our finest cadets over the politics of yesterday's business model before we embark on war. Man, we have really lost our way. I had better call my bookie and place my bets on Osama bin Laden.
"'Theft' is a harsh word, but that it is, pure and simple," the letter stated. "... It is no different from walking into the campus bookstore and in a clandestine manner walking out with a textbook without paying for it."
Actually, it no different than walking into the campus bookstore, making a copy of the textbooks you want, and walking out with your copies.
Enyone who is saying this is not theft, but rather copyright infringment, is playing word games.
The problem with America this day is that no one wants to take responsibility for their actions.
And what is everyones excuse on slashdot who pirates mp3s? That the cds themself purchased from retailers are too expensive and are not worth listening to but for that one or two tracks, trying to justify themselfs.
Makes me sick.
Gotta love "what's right=matter of perspective."
I herby submit that killing you and dumping the body behind the house isn't wrong but a matter of perspective. "But, but that's hurting me", you say. Well that's a matter of perspective too. I know from my perspective I can't feel any pain.
But obviously we couldn't have a coherent society if we lived the lie that "ethics by perspective" would create. So we adopt the reality that some things in this world actually have a fixed point and don't sway to the whims of every tom, dick and harry. Especially the TDH that's commiting the infraction. "But, but you say, it's ok to take from those who can afford it". Funny thing about that position is how quickly that changes when the roles are reversed. It's always ok when your not the one who has to feel the effects (Hey! There's that perspective thing.)
Bah! "When I was a plebe..." upperclass would come to our rooms to play their games on our spiffy new 386s. And don't even get me started about the internet... about 50 of use knew how to use Procomm to connect to a mainframe that had external IRC and FTP access and that was about it. Of course,... "When I was a firstie..." we would go into the plebes' rooms to check out their spiffy new 486s with CD-ROMS...wow. Oh yeah... back then the academy still had a bowling alley under 3rd wing and pool tables in memorial hall but I digress.
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
imo, this just shows how far the RIAA and MPAA will go. No latitude. Not even to folks that, in part, protect the nation that protects their copyright laws, and probably deserves, if anyone of normal folks in the recourse of their lives, some entertainment in their lives.
They just hammered them down, knowingly and pointedly. If the RIAA and MPAA think this makes a point of their resolve, news for them--it just further my strong support against them, against their recent favored laws such as the Sonny Bono copyright extension act and DMCA, and against any new laws enforcing copyrights or the like, such as HR5211.
I don't care for the commentary re the military, for or against, but as to what the RIAA and MPAA has done, keep it up--piss off more folks.
I wonder if they sent a letter to the airforce saying Iraq had been pirating software in the no fly zone!!
The question is how did they find out about this ? If RIAA, just like BSA, offers a nice reward for such tips and someone took them up on their offer, it is possible that that someone broke a different and stronger set of rules (disseminating classified information, espionage etc). Based on that, RIAA can be forced (legally) to tell who it is. Then a public flogging is in order.
I think I'm not the only one who would just shoot them take the harddrive and run for the mountains am I?
NEVER SURRENDER your software to them, they are not the police and they cannot do anything to you if you don't open your door. Or if you just shut off your computer take out the harddrive, put it in your pocket and laugh at them.
I'm so glad I live in Canada and our government isn't constantly working to find ways to remove our civil liberties. But hey, whatever the government does is 'Alright'.
Just as long as the USA is still stealing oil and raping foreigners of their land and their way of life through mass media and propaganda not to mention warfare.
Fuck the USA.
[cx]
clickety click
Look, I know most /.ers are RIAA-paranoid but this talk about RIAA bribing officials etc. is stupid.
-- The networks at all of the military academies are owned and operated by the Dept of Defense, which (especially these days) has good reason and authorization to monitor any and all traffic over them. Use of the networks for unauthorized purposes = misuse of government assets. Doesn't matter whether that use is "okay" "illegal" or "fair use" content-wise -- every time a cadet / midshipman logs onto the academy network they click on an acknowledgement that it is a DOD site, may be monitored and will be used only for authorized purposes.
-- Cadets/midshipmen can only connect to the Net via their academy's network unless they use a cellular modem and a private account, not my choice for high bandwidth downloading. So any music downloads were pretty likely to have occurred over those DOD networks, against the regulations the cadets/midshipment agreed to follow.
-- Cadets/midshipmen know their use can be monitored. They all take IT / intro comp sci courses -- required. They also all have at least some cybersecurity clubs -- West Point has a student SIGSAC chapter and the academies have an annual cyber security competition, judged by some fairly heavy hitters at NSA.
And yes, I teach at one of the Academies.
"America - love it or give it back!" - Cathy Moomaw, Native American weaver
Why does the slashdot flag icon only have 12 stripes on it?
There's more at stake here than just, "Do these midshipmen posess copyrighted material?" Unless these kids are sharing the music via CD, they're misusing government resources--namely, bandwidth--to support an illegal activity. This may well be against the Honor Code at the Naval Academy; but in addition, one could make a case for it violating the UCMJ's Article 108, "Loss, Damage, Destruction, or Wrongful Disposition of Government Property."
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
I am forced to say this:
RIAA are terrorists. So bomb them, nuke them and detain them without their rights retained.
Stop being such nazis on arabs and realise who the real terrorists on u.s. soil (and elsewhere) are.
I'm sure it'll show in the end that all the planes of 9-11 really were not AlQaeda but RIAA.
So these people show up to work only to discover Navy officers waiting for them with search-and-seize orders? Can students expect FBI officials to be waiting at the doorsteps of schools? Will we no longer have DEA Enforcement, but RIAA Enforcement? Will LA students not need to worry about metal detectors at the doors, but file sweeps instead? How much longer is the RIAA going to whine to anyone they can write a letter to? More importantly, how long will it be before an organization finally says "No More" and puts their foot down...
In the military, just because you own something does not mean that you can do with it as you wish. Here's an analogy. As officers, we have to purchase our own uniforms. However, we are not free to use these uniforms in ways that are not permitted. If I were to take my uniform and wear it in violation of AR 670-1 ("Wear and Appearance of Army Uniforms and Insignia"), I could be subject to punishment under the UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice).
When you enlist (or commission, or contract [ROTC]) in the military, you sign a peice of paper acknowledging your submission to the UCMJ. Once you sign this paper, you must be prepared to follow all military rules and regs or face the consequences. Interestingly, you do not become immune from non-military prosecution, either. These midshipmen could very well be prosecuted by the USNA as well as the federal (or local, depending...) court system.
The important thing to remember here, as others have pointed out, is that cadets/midshipment are future officers and are expected to conform to a much higher standard than regular college students or even enlisted military. We are supposed to set a pristine example to our peers.
I feel sorry for these guys/gals but they're probably going to get screwed on this one. In a military academy, you can get tossed out for the craziest shit. A high school buddy of mine was tossed from the USAFA because his roommate cheated and he did not turn him in. And here is the really crappy thing--if you're a sophomore or above and you are kicked out of the academy (or quit...), you will likely have to re-emburse the federal government for the expense of your education. This expense can easily total $250,000 or more.
The userbase always degrades into a "It's not theft, it's ______" spat with no new ground broken in these discussions. Why not acknowledge it is what it is and that it's illegal and move on to talking about what happens to sailors who are caught? Compare that with the consequences of your average college kid. Anything besides the usual. There have been enough of these articles and "discussions" here that you'd think things would E-volve.
And how long are the editors of Slashdot going to continue posting these copyright infringement stories with a tone of "these people are victims," or "the RIAA is evil BECAUSE they're telling so and so to crack down on this"? I know the RIAA is evil, but not because they go after people who steal from them. Napster et al are NOT civil disobedience for 99 out of 100 people. I agree the Napster revolution was necessary, but the follow through, and the manner in which it was conducted have been so misguided that they are not having a positive effect. And the Slashdot editors aren't helping to fix the message. If the Napster generation had a clear and earnest message, they would get more done.
Actually, we are bound to the UCMJ *and* the rest of the laws that you non-military folk are bound to. If I get busted for public intoxication here in downtown San Antonio, I can be prosecuted by the City of San Antonio as well as the United States Army.
Just think, if HR 5211 hadn't temporarily flopped in House Judiciary this year, the RIAA could have gone in and personally dealt with those midshipmen themselves. And there's not a damn thing that the feds could have done to stop them, what with giving them the ability to do that in the first place.
if the soviets knew that the u.s. navy would roll over so easily, we'd be living in a different world today.
when paladium based ship control systems detect "on-board pirates".
2) send letters to companies of size X
3) companies make good and pay off
4) if X>1 with money gained repeat from (1) where X=X/2
5) mega PROFIT
As soon as they finished all the companies and universities, they will come after individuals, no doubt about it.
It's because the RIAA got wind of Saddam Hussein's pirated music archive!
That said, it's amazing that a group of people who live their lives by such a strict code of honor (Read it here if you're interested.) think so little about the issue. Computers weren't up to the task of sharing music when I was at USNA, but software piracy was rampant.
I know that I didn't even see the irony in playing my pirated copy of Doom for a few minutes before heading to Smoke Hall to sit on an Honor Board.
Lack of creativity is no excuse for not having a
I'm sure the original poster understands the point you're trying to make with your first paragraph.
In your second paragraph you mention that you think it is funny how things change when the roles are reversed. But that is just the main feature of perspective. And I'm sure the original poster was aware of that feature.
He's mainly explaining a big factor in human behaviour: When an individual perceives something as unfair, he will not find it immoral or wrong to go against it.
If it needs any more explanation, read the tales of Robin Hood. You know, the fellow in green with the arrows who stole from the rich and gave it to the poor. History is full of people who went against the law of their time and region and because well know heroes (for example, 2002 years ago, a fellow went against Roman law and we still know his name and speak of him as a hero for doing what he did (even though he got killed)).
Not just in the tales of Robin Hood, but also in reality, not everybody agrees to and follows every law. Do you never speed?
Be sure to take this list with you the next time you shop for music.
Yes, email is easily ignored by Congress; something more "personal" gets noticed. But due to the mail security required as a result of the anthrax attack, regular mail is now delayed for weeks or months to be screened and irradiated before it reaches Congress -- if it reaches Congress.
Fax is the recommended medium these days.
>Legal definition of property [lectlaw.com]
Again, the non-physical definition refers to the actual right to call the item yours. ie: The right to put your name on a project. It is theft if I download an MP3 by the Beatles and rename it to say "By: shepd". However, I didn't see anything in there that says it's theft if I'm simply in posession of the unmodified MP3.
>Copyright myths dispelled [templetons.com]
Contains no references to "theft".
>The actual law [cornell.edu]
For the US. Outside, this is much more likely to be it. The original Berne convention mentions no references to theft. I don't know about this revision.
Anyways, the last few aren't exactly legal help sites, so I'll say this:
I think it still stands that downloading music from KaZaa is infact copyright violation, and not theft. But IANAL, so YMMV.
>You know what they say about people who represents themselves in a court of law?
An intelligent person? Too bad that technically most all courts in the US are now military courts (look for the gold-fringed flags), and in a military court you really do need help.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
What does this have to do with the parent? Maybe my browser is broke but it looks like the parent is a joke about the "in the navy" song. If my browser is not broke than this person is doing something really annoying that I'm seeing a lot of lately. Basically what people are doing is just replying to the highest rated top level doc and hoping to be noticed. These posts should be marked Offtopic sinc really what they are doing is ruining the threads by posting where ever the hell they want instead of starting their own threads which would probably be farther down the chain.
I urge all mods to mod people like this offtopic and tell them to start their own dam threads. If everyone starts doing this this place is going to be even harder to read.
eminem's worried about theft of music. good. he has nothing to worry about then.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
I am a recent graduate from the fine institution of record. The computer's are not owned by the midshipmen until after two years. After that, they are wholly owned by the midshipman. However, I would imagine in this case that a warrant was obtained to seize the computers. (JAGs are easy to come by). The main issue is that the midshipmen are using the government network for things other than official business which is against the government's rules. If they get in trouble (which they most certainly will), it will be for the abuse of the network, not some silly letter from RIAA.
AS they are midshipmen and therfore under the UNIFORM CODE OF MILITARY JUSTICE (UCMJ) per article 2 subsection 2, all the naval academy had to do was cite them as being in violation of any of these three articles of the UCMJ. The highlights are my own.
.
SUBCHAPTER III. NON-JUDICIAL PUNISHMENT
815. ART. 15. COMMANDING OFFICER'S NON-JUDICIAL PUNISHMENT
933. ART. 133. CONDUCT UNBECOMING AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN
Any commissioned officer, cadet, or midshipman who is convicted of conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.
934. ART. 134. GENERAL ARTICLE
Though not specifically mentioned in this chapter, all disorders and neglects to the prejudice of good order and discipline in the armed forces, all conduct of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces , and crimes and offenses not capital, of which persons subject to this chapter may be guilty, shall be taken cognizance of by a general, special or summary court-martial, according to the nature and degree of the offense, and shall be punished at the discretion of that court.
Pay particular attention to article 134. This article basicly says that the military can charge you with anything as a crime on the spot. The only differnce between this and article 15 is that an article 15 does not reqiure a court martial. Once accused of being in violation of the UCMJ, the military is allowed to take immediate action. There is no innocent until proven guilty; your CO may take whatever action they see fit as long as it is within regulation ( Note about article 15 -- it is the only one of the articles noted above with set limits on penalties).
You can browse the entire UCMJ here
PFC Gruhn
U.S. Army, Fort Lewis
I Corps -- America's Corps
Just what the RIAA needs.. a complete audit by the IRS of everything includings its "campaign contributions."
Well it's getting late and this story will be off the front by morning.
1-There's three kinds of truths. His truth, your truth, and the truth.
2-I included a mix so people can see both sides of the issue.
3-One can't understand the law in just a casual sitting. Anymore than one can grasp Shakesphere at a glance. It requires depth of thought and understanding.
4-An effective defense is an intelligent defense, not an emotional one. That requires not just reading the words on a page, but both context and depth. Quite honestly for as much noise as the "./" crowd makes about the legal, and political systems, they display a woeful lack of knowledge about both. That lack of knowledge is an achilles heel, and one's enemies will use that.
So I recommend everyone who wishes an effective defense to bookmark all the above, and study them most carefully, for you know your enemies surely will, and though emotional rocks will make one feel better. They make lousy missiles.
No, it's like sneaking into the campus movie theatre or the amusement park without paying. Or jumping the turnstiles on the subway, so you can get a free ride without paying. It's about avoiding paying for something that cost someone else money to provide. How is that not theft of service, again?
When I hop the turnstiles on the subway *and then get on the subway train*, I am consuming a service provided by the subway in the sense that it is the subway that has to now incur the costs involved in transporting me (e.g. the additional energy required to accellerate my mass up to cruising velocity and then decelerate me down to a stop) that it would not have had to incur if I had not come into the subway. By not paying for this service provided by the subway while still causing them to incur the costs, I could be reasonably argued to be committing theft of service.
When my friend Joe burns me a CD using CD-R media that he paid for, on a computer that he paid for, using electricity that he paid for, then the person providing the service is Joe. (He is the one who is out the blank CDR, the electricity, and the time.) If he doesn't mind doing this for me, then I am not "stealing" any service, it has been gifted to me.
The artist who composed the music has incurred no additional costs (direct or indirect) coming from the specific actions of either Joe or myself. That is why the issue here is "Copyright infringement" and not "Theft" or "Stealing." Calling it "theft" or "stealing" just confuses the issue.
If you want to use the word "stealing" in a figurative or metaphorical sense, then you're free to do so. It might give voice to your emotions, but it does not clarify the situation any more than the analogous use of "that hussy stole my husband" clarifies a compound case of adultery and subsequent abandonment. If it is a sense of betrayal that you want to convey, then just say it. Don't call it stealing. It doesn't help communicate.
When DIDN'T it suck to be a mid? (special occasions aside) As for the final issue of the Log "MAX'EM" it was a damn good issue and is available in a propriatary Microsoft format (Presentations I believe).
-Savior of the Log '00
Geez, I hate these knee-jerk responses. If you guys had actually taken the time to read the letter, you'll see that it is not a letter accussing anyone of anything, but merely a "this is happening a lot at other places, so you should check up on it too" letter. And from what I read from the story, the Naval Academy just decided to do a random computer audit, which is entirely standard procedure in the military.
The cause of fighting for digital rights would be a lot easier if we weren't screaming bloody murder everytime the RIAA mails out a form letter!
Slashdot - Come for the creative thought, stay for the lesbians!
I have to wonder if the RIAA isn't shooting themselves in the foot in this case. A number of Naval Acadamy cadets have parents in powerful political places, especially some just an hour or so away down RT.50/95/395.
Moreover, it is not uncommon for a Naval Acadamy graduate to find themselves in polotics after a distinguished military career. One wonders some yeard downline if such acts won't cause some grudges to be paid out to the RIAA in spades.
We can only hope so.
--- have you healed your church website?
That a gold-fringed flag in a courtroom denotes jurisdiction is pure conspiracy-theorist myth. Falls into the same category as anything printed in the Weekly World News.
There are easier to read explanations of the flag myth, but this is the only one I could find on short notice: http://www.militia-watchdog.org/suss4.htm#fringe
Your fantasies contain the seeds of important concepts.
They are starting to look into downloading habits as part of security clearance investigations, too.
When a grad school classmate was up for a Top Secret clearance recently, the investigator who interviewed me asked a lot about my friend's computer use. SOme was to see whether he'd done any malicious "hacker" activities, but also whether my friend had ever "downloaded stuff he wasn't supposed to", or "copied any software" or "stuff like that".
The investigator was a computer illiterate (didn't even have email), but it was clear that he was supposed to find out if my classmate had ever possessed software or media files that would have violated copyright restrictions. "Have you ever dealt drugs? Have you ever been a Communist or terrorist? Have you ever used Napster?"
This was not for an IT job or with a tech-focussed agency (like NSA); it was for a policy analysis job with a government contractor.
While as a non-American I'm certainly not qualified to disagree, why put the fringe there and annoy so many conspiracy theorists? It doesn't make a lot of sense to leave it there if it is to serve no other purpose than to waste government money.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Course Syllabus - How to recognize theft.
"`Theft' is a harsh word, but that it is, pure and simple," the letter stated. "... It is no different from walking into the campus bookstore and in a clandestine manner walking out with a textbook without paying for it."
And yet strangely enough no one has ever been prosecuted for theft in any of these cases. People have been charged with copyright infringement but not charges of THEFT have ever been filed.
Extra credit assignment: Come up with 10 non-sequitor shop lifting examples to equate with P2P downloading.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
An oldie, but a goodie...
Windows NT Cripples US Navy Cruiser
7/28/98
Windows NT Cripples US Navy Cruiser
GOVERNMENT NEWS
GCN July 13, 1998
Software Glitches Leave Navy Smart Ship Dead In The Water
By Gregory Slabodkin, GCN Staff
The Navy's Smart Ship technology may not be as smart as the service contends.
Although PCs have reduced workloads for sailors aboard the Aegis missile cruiser USS Yorktown, software glitches resulted in system failures and crippled ship operations, according to Navy officials.
Navy brass have called the Yorktown Smart Ship pilot a success in reducing manpower, maintenance and costs. The Navy began running shipboard applications under Microsoft Windows NT so that fewer sailors would be needed to control key ship functions.
But the Navy last fall learned a difficult lesson about automation: The very information technology on which the ships depend also makes them vulnerable. The Yorktown last September suffered a systems failure when bad data was fed into its computers during maneuvers off the coast of Cape Charles, Va.
The ship had to be towed into the Naval base at Norfolk, Va., because a database overflow caused its propulsion system to fail, according to Anthony DiGiorgio, a civilian engineer with the Atlantic Fleet Technical Support Center in Norfolk.
"We are putting equipment in the engine room that we cannot maintain and, when it fails, results in a critical failure," DiGiorgio said. It took two days of pierside maintenance to fix the problem.
The Yorktown has been towed into port after other systems failures, he said.
Not officially
Atlantic Fleet officials acknowledged that the Yorktown last September experienced what they termed "an engineering local area network casualty," but denied that the ship's systems failure lasted as long as DiGiorgio said. The Yorktown was dead in the water for about two hours and 45 minutes, fleet officials said, and did not have to be towed in.
"This is the only time this casualty has occurred and the only propulsion casualty involved with the control system since May 2, 1997, when software configuration was frozen," Vice Adm. Henry Giffin, commander of the Atlantic Fleet's Naval Surface Force, reported in an Oct. 24, 1997, memorandum.
Giffin wrote the memo to describe "what really happened in hope of clearing the scuttlebutt" surrounding the incident, he noted.
The Yorktown lost control of its propulsion system because its computers were unable to divide by the number zero, the memo said. The Yorktown's Standard Monitoring Control System administrator entered zero into the data field for the Remote Data Base Manager program. That caused the database to overflow and crash all LAN consoles and miniature remote terminal units, the memo said.
The program administrators are trained to bypass a bad data field and change the value if such a problem occurs again, Atlantic Fleet officials said.
But "the Yorktown's failure in September 1997 was not as simple as reported," DiGiorgio said. If you understand computers, you know that a computer normally is immune to the character of the data it processes," he wrote in the June U.S. Naval Institute's Proceedings Magazine. "Your $2.95 calculator, for example, gives you a zero when you try to divide a number by zero, and does not stop executing the next set of instructions. It seems that the computers on the Yorktown were not designed to tolerate such a simple failure."
The Navy reduced the Yorktown crew by 10 percent and saved more than $2.8 million a year using the computers. The ship uses dual 200-MHz Pentium Pros from Intergraph Corp. of Huntsville, Ala. The PCs and server run NT 4.0 over a high-speed, fiber-optic LAN.
Navy prepares to take Smart Ship full steam ahead
Despite the USS Yorktown's setbacks, the Navy plans to use Smart Ship technology on other classes of ships.
The Naval Sea Systems Command in May awarded Litton Integrated Systems Corp. of Woodland Hills, Calif., a $138.6 million contract to build Engineering Control System Equipment and Integrated Bridge Systems for CG-47 Class Aegis cruisers. The Navy also might install the equipment on DDG-51 class destroyers.
Electronic Design Inc. of Metairie, La., filed a protest of the award in late May with the General Accounting Office. The Navy has issued a stop-work order that will last until GAO rules on the protest.
Smart Ship technology is also on the amphibious ship USS Rushmore, Navy officials said.
Blame it on the OS
But according to DiGiorgio, who in an interview said he has serviced automated control systems on Navy ships for the past 26 years, the NT operating system is the source of the Yorktown's computer problems. NT applications aboard the Yorktown provide damage control, run the ship's control center on the bridge, monitor the engines and navigate the ship when under way. "Using Windows NT, which is known to have some failure modes, on a warship is similar to hoping that luck will be in our favor," DiGiorgio said. Pacific and Atlantic fleets in March 1997 selected NT 4.0 as the standard OS for both networks and PCs as part of the Navy's Information Technology for the 21st Century initiative. Current guidance approved by the Navy's chief information officer calls for all new applications to run under NT. Ron Redman, deputy technical director of the Fleet Introduction Division of the Aegis Program Executive Office, said there have been numerous software failures associated with NT aboard the Yorktown. "Refining that is an ongoing process," Redman said. "Unix is a better system for control of equipment and machinery, whereas NT is a better system for the transfer of information and data. NT has never been fully refined and there are times when we have had shutdowns that resulted from NT." Hauled in The Yorktown has been towed into port several times because of the systems failures, he said. "Because of politics, some things are being forced on us that without political pressure we might not do, like Windows NT," Redman said. "If it were up to me I probably would not have used Windows NT in this particular application. If we used Unix, we would have a system that has less of a tendency to go down." Although Unix is more reliable, Redman said, NT may become more reliable with time. The Navy is moving the service's command and control applications from Unix to NT as part of IT-21. Under IT-21, the Navy also plans to modernize ships in the Atlantic and Pacific fleets with asynchronous transfer mode LANs. Large ATM networks running NT have already been installed on the USS Abraham Lincoln and USS Essex. But DiGiorgio said the LANs might experience a chain reaction of computer failures like those experienced on the Yorktown. That domino effect is inherent to the system design of shipboard LANs, he said. "There is very little segregation of error when software shares bad data," DiGiorgio said. "Instead of one computer knocking off on the Yorktown, they all did, one after the other. What if this happened in actual combat?" Although the Yorktown did not have backup systems, Redman said that future Smart Ships will have systems redundancy to ensure that ships can continue to operate. But DiGiorgio said that the Smart Ship project needs to do more engineering up front. "Installing a control system on a warship and resolving problems as the project progresses is a costly and naive process," DiGiorgio wrote in the Proceedings article. "Now, with the top people rotated off the Smart Ship Project, it would be wise for the Navy to investigate this fiasco more fully. Redman has a different perspective. "If it were me, I wouldn't say all the things that Tony [DiGiorgio] has said out of discretion and consideration for being a long-term employee," he said. "But I will say this about Tony, he's a very bright engineer." "Everybody plays the obedience role where you cannot criticize the system," said DiGiorgio, a self-described whistle-blower. "I'm not that kind of guy." GOVERNMENT COMPUTER NEWS Copyright © 1998 by Post-Newsweek Business Information, Inc. , a division of the Washington Post company. All rights reserved. Infowar.Com & Interpact, Inc. WebWarrior@Info-sec.Com Submit articles to: info-sec@info-sec.com Voice: 813-288-1955 Fax: 813-288-1985
Carthago delenda est!
Why put an eagle at the top of a flagpole? Why decorate the walls of a local courthouse with portraits of significant figures in local history?
Pure decoration. Nothing more. For each courthouse, there's generally an official, most likely a judge, with some level of authority over how to decorate the place, within a certain budget. That official gets to decide what portraits to put on the walls, and so on.
So, one judges thinks it's worth the budget money to spring for extra-nice flags (which can be purchased pretty much anywhere you can purchase the ordinary-looking flags). Another judge in another district may think it's more important to repaint the walls this fiscal year.
And if the city taxpayers think that the municipal judge is wasting their money... well, more often than not, local law has a way of dealing with it.
I don't honestly think most judges, in deciding how to make a courtroom look proper and formal, would waste a second thought on the reaction of anyone prone to jumping at conspiracy shadows.
Good judgment comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad judgment.
I'm not clear on where you and others get this off notion of the meaning of words. "Theft" is not in law or in common practice limited to the depriving another of a physical object. It applies equally to intangible. Surely you've heard of "theft of services"? Such as tapping into cable TV?
Also, why *are* you so concerned with distinguishing theft from copyright infringment? Do you think one is a crime and the other not? Even if you were right, you would have no defense in either civil or criminal court.
FWIW I *am* a lawyer, and you'd have trouble finding even a first-year law student who'd not agree.
Oh, and the gold-fringed flag thing is a hallucination. I worked for one of these alleged military courts, and believe me it ain't so. You'll assume I'm the part of a conspiracy, but I challenge you to find any legal authority for your claim.