Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Archives, Leak, Fanfilm
Alacritech settles litigation with MSFT and BRCM An anonymous reader writes "Alacritech, Microsoft Corporation and Broadcom Corporation today announced that they have entered into agreements that settle all outstanding disputes between Alacritech and Microsoft, as well as provide Microsoft and Broadcom access to Alacritech's patent portfolio relating to scalable networking. (Previously mentioned on Slashdot here and here.)"
Sir, you have no right to read about your rights. Hobart writes "Richard Stallman has just posted on his personal website a request for his readers to 'Don't Buy Harry Potter Books,' and offered to leak the plot - in protest of the Canadian Supreme Court ruling forbidding the purchasers from reading the books they paid for. A memorable quote in the Times article says '...There is no human right to read.'"
Don'tcha think felony is a bit strong for a few button presses? ZombyHero writes "In a follow-up to a previous story, the 13 high school students from Kutztown, PA charged with felony computer trespassing for violating district usage policy are fighting back. They've hired lawyers have begun talking with the Assistant DA. As a former student of the school, I know that the district is used to getting its way. Hopefully this will knock them down a few notches."
Starship Exeter flies again! An anonymous reader writes "There's a new episode of Starship Exeter, a fan-made feature set in the original series Star Trek universe. The new episode, The Tressaurian Intersection, follows on from The Savage Empire, which was featured on Slashdot before. This time it's better than ever... better than the original series, in fact! You can watch the entire episode online."
Treasure hunts, commence. We've posted quite a few interesting applications for Google's mapping service; now phauly writes "I created an Animated Google Map (with some gnus and mozillas attacking Microsoft office) using Google Maps API. I think it would be easy to create real playable Games on Google Maps. For sharing ideas (and implementations!) I created the Games on Google Maps wiki page. For now some ideas are: risk, freeciv, freecraft, car races on real maps! Feel free to edit the page suggesting/revising/implementing ideas."
Should this guy have a right to erase his past creations?
Not any more. Semantics aside, it was publicly broadcast at the time. The world doesn't work like Outlook and its "Recall Message" feature, as much as you would appear to wish it did. People create history as they go through life.... or would you prefer some 1984-esque alternative?
Perhaps he should have lived by the old axiom of "Never say something that you wouldn't want repeated in court."
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
This is not a new problem.
You're viewing a website like a poster that you put up on your front door. Of course, a year later you have the right to take that down, and no one should be allowed to forcably place that back on your door.
But the web doesn't work that way. When I put up a website, I'm not putting up a poster; I'm setting up a news stand and handing out copies to everyone who walks by. Do I have a right to take back all of those papers I handed out, and disallow every person who took one from showing it to somebody else?
When you publish, that's it - you cannot retract what you put in public for others to read.
Furthermore while you should be allowed to no longer present what you like, for research needs I absolutly think that anyone who is capabile of doing so shoudl be able to store and re-present data you have publically published.
To go back to your example, lets say years later that woman (or that man) runs for president. Would you (as a citizen) want that hidden or want a clean vetting of a persons past details?
Now lets take this another way. Say you can make whatever you publish disappear. So then is it OK for news sites or blogs to change what they had published in the past, while disallowing anyone to make note of there being a change and what the old content was?
If you plan to do embarrassing things, don't do them in public. people need to be RESPONSIBLE for past actions. I said some dumb things on Usenet when I was younger in college (incidentally usenet archives are why we'll never see a technically oriented gen-Xer in a high-ranking public position) but I just have to deal with whatever happens as a result of past actions.
Personally I think the site in question falls into the category of historical recording, and I think is important. If it can't store anything we are all screwed from the standpoint of having any accurate history of out time.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
For example, say there is a college kid who really likes beer and porn. He likes it so much, he sets up a website that becomes popular, it lists different beers, and reviews porn. One drunken night, this college kid uses his cell phone to take a couple low resolution pictures of himself having sex, and he puts it up.
A few years pass, somehow he graduates and starts looking for work. Someone tells him that his website comes up when googled, and that might not be the best thing when it comes for finding work.
So the guy pulls the plug. beerandporn dot com dies. Or did it? It seems others liked his hobby as well, and downloaded all the content, and started hosting it. Problem is, google now links to these new sites, with his face and work for the world to see.
Should this guy have a right to erase his past creations?
No, he shouldn't. If we're ever going to get over judging each other for such stupid bullshit when most of us have done something comperable or worse, the first thing we need is to have them all out in the open.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth