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Information Preservation and Data Havens?
tiltowait asks: "An interesting story on LISNews.com this morning about savvy U.S. students photocopying textbooks in Mexico then returning them for refunds got me thinking about data havens. There's already few places on the web where you can exploit countries having different copyright durations and eligibility. On the flip side, there's restrictions such as broadcast blackouts and country-wide firewalls. But just as the rich can use of international tax loopholes and in light of the recent file-sharing victory, are there any projects out there, beyond the P2P networks, to distribute possibly-protected information by any means necessary? For example, your company may already outsource labor, but what about an off-site backup in case of an FBI raid?"
It is wrong to copy textbooks....I'm not going to condone it...
But here's where I call bullshit...Why does there need to be a new edition every two-plus years on subjects that do not change at all? What new discoveries come in math? Do derivatives change at all? How bout sine and cosine? Hmm?
Anybody have an answer?
My MythTV HowTo
Cryptonomicon. (a book by Neal Stephenson)
Actually, being able to recover your data after the FBI walks off with all of your hard drives is a perfectly legitimate reason. It could even be critical.
Bear in mind that the FBI often confiscates things from people who are not party to the crimes being investigated. It's called "evidence." Sometimes evidence is in the hands of third parties.
The FBI also often confiscates things without ever actually filing a charge. You may or may not ever get your drives back, but if you do it's likely to take a few years.
If you are charged with a crime it doesn't take a great leap of imagination to realize that having copies could be a critical element in preparing your defense.
Back up early. Back up often. Back up not only off site, but off the radar.
KFG
many students spend >$350 per semester in order to rent the "proper" edition of a book that has not had any significant changes made to it in years, if ever. after 3 months the students "sell" the books back to the bookstore for around 1/4 what they paid, so the books can be put on the shelf for next semester, assuming there isn't a new edition required for the class.
people tolerate it because "college is important" and you "learn valuable life skills".
If you violate the AUP. And the only thing the AUP says you cannot do is violate Sealand law. The only thing Sealand law says you cannot do is have child pornography.Mbr>
All that says is that if you host child pornography, they will report you to the proper people and give them your AUP-violating material. That's it.
As long as your sensitive data isn't child porn, you'll be fine.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
This is just my personal opinion so if you don't agree feel free.
There is a fundimental difference between information and physical property.
Information can generally be used simultainiously by multiple people without interfering with any of the other users of the information (we can all listen to the same song/hear the same joke/run the same program without 'taking away' from anyone else who 'uses' the information).
Physical property can generally only be utilized by a single person simultainiously (Only I can use my car/socks/toothbrush during a specific point in time).
This is a big fundamental difference.
It would be nice if information could fit into the physical-property category but it simply doesn't.
The reason it sorta-kinda did for so long was that the copying mechanisms were rather slow/expensive and the end result was always a physical item (paper-book, chemical-film, etc).
Now we have finally gotten to a point where the information is more-or-less 'free' from the physical information-carrier.
The major publishing-house people (those that make the physical items that are used to carry information) seem to be hopelessly trying to re-combine the physical with the informational. This isn't going to happen but they are currently causing a lot of harm in attempting to do so. The longer this 'transitional period' takes the longer all the misery is extended.
The really funny thing in my opinion is that so many people in general also buy into the concept of 'information as physical-type property'.
I would ask that you honestly think about the harm this idea causes vs the 'good' that results from it. I think that if you really truely honestly evaluate it you will see that these laws are causing much more harm than any good that they could ever do from this point forward.
I feel that slowly we are outgrowing this outdated idea just like we outgrew other ideas that no-longer worked in our society. The only real question is how long it will take and how much suffering will be caused during this transition.
In my opinion the actions of the students in this article are much more helpful than harmful. They help bring to light the fact that this system is hopelessly broken.
I flat out reject the argument that just because a law exists that it is somehow a 'moral imperitive' that it is followed. Laws have no inherent moral function. Morals in themselves are not objective but always subjective. Think about the laws on slavery that used to exist if you need a point of reference.
I would also like to state that I make my living as a software developer and physical-media artist. I think/read a lot about history and economic issues and consider myself very much a pro-capitalist strong-physical-property-rights sort of person. I am NOT any sort of socialist hippie tree-hugger type that doesn't understand how the world works and wants everything for free.
Grr, that thought always gets my goat. The only thing that changed was that the US got it's first taste of what it was like to be attacked at home by a foreign aggressor. It sucks. It makes you angry. It makes you hate the people who did it. The rest of us have been dealing with it for centuries. Get over it. Your solution is part of the problem.
The Iraqi's feel no different by the way. If your leaders are acting suprised by the current outcome, they are either grossly incompitent, ignorant of history, or really don't give a toss about the future of Iraq. An occupying force is only ever welcome in any country when it is dispelling another occupying force.