Slashdot Mirror
EFF Has Outlived Its Usefulness?
An anonymous reader writes "An inflammatory article runs today on The Register, with the title EFF Volunteers to Lose Sony Rootkit Suit. The article argues that the EFF's track record in court is detrimental to everyone with an interest in digital and privacy rights." From the article: "This is a very good cause. Sony installed stealth spyware on many thousands of Windows computers (although calling it a rootkit is an exaggeration), and it's crucial that the company get its bottom spanked quite painfully as a deterrent to its sister cartels in the entertainment racket. This is, in fact, such an important matter that the worst possible development would be to find the EFF arguing the case. That's because EFF will do what it always does: lose, and set a legal precedent beneficial to the entertainment pigopolists. By the time these pale vegetarians get finished, spreading musical malware will be considered a spiritual work of mercy." What do you think? Isn't it better to fight the good fight?
After reading this 'article' (and I use the term loosely), one is left wondering if this "Bonhomie Snoutintroff" has an axe to grind against EFF specifically, or if EFF was simply unfortunate enough to present an accessable target for one of "Bonhomie's" mindless rants.
One thing is for sure...even if "Bonhomie" went by a less ludicrous pen name (honestly..."Bonhomie Snoutintroff"???), and refrained from such pejorative terms as 'pigopolists' and 'pale vegetarians', he still couldn't be taken seriously, due to his gross misrepresentation of the facts. Bonhomie cited six losses by the EFF...visit the EFF's legal victories page, and you'll see several wins that Bonhomie conveniently failed to mention.
This kind of vapid tripe is pathetic even for the Register's admittedly lax standards. In case there remains any doubt, I leave you with the short bio of "Bonhomie Snoutintroff", which was appended to the 'article' in question:
Why the hell isn't this in the 'humor' section....of either site?
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
It's not better to fight the good fight. Not when it does no good and actually does harm in the process.
The world according to SComps
As the article clearly states, the question is not whether to "fight the good fight", but rather, who should fight the good fight. The article isn't inflammatory. It asks the legitimate question of whether the EFF should handle the Sony DRM case.
I don't know why slashdot posts links to this reactionary tech-tabloid. All they do is troll for hits to their outlandish articles. They rarely have any content of worth, and when they do, it's overshadowed by their poor writing style and use of reactionary language.
It's better to win the good fight.
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
Fight dirty and fight to win. You use any and every method at your disposal to put the other guy down and make sure he doesn't get back up. There is no honour in fighting, there is no glory. There is no good fight.
Deleted
A friend, with my cajoling, [The 'Cream Gang'] recently wrote an article similar to this recently, regarding attending an abortive and mostly useless launch of the UK's EFF equivalent, the Open Rights Group.
Our findings, here:
Open Rights Group Launch
Open Rights Shites
This evening, Coxall, Levine and I attended an open meeting of the Open Rights Group, a new UK organisation set in the mould of the EFF. I wasn't expecting the earth to move for me: we've attended too many of these little geek/numeeja run yack-shacks to hope for anything particularly productive to emerge. This evening did its least to confound me.
It was held in a basement in Soho named Zero-One. I say basement, but, naturally, one is encouraged to term it a "creative space". Said "creative space" was filled with geeks and numeedjas, as well as a scattering of lawyer-types and Earnest Young Men. Overwhelmingly men, of course, the few women who were there either freaks, sociologists or serving the free cheese and wine. Hey - don't shoot the messenger. A few chairs encircled the basement, but the main floor was bare, to encourage crouching and cross-legged encampment. Oh dear. This was all going to be "inclusive and discursive", wasn't it?
Oh dear, indeed: the manageress of the "creative space" started proceedings. Her introduction was little more than an ad for her basement. She then brought on an ex hack, who spouted some trivial nonsense or other, and was excited by the prospect of setting up ever more "wikis" and "blogs". She, in turn, brought on a jargon-clappy professional "meeting facilitator/consultant". This was going to be "fun".
The evening was to commence with a little talk from some Oxford chap or other, followed by a free-fall clustered discussion, in which each cluster was to be provided with its own sticky wall-covering on which to paste their mindstormingly written postcards.
The Oxford nonentity informed us that the Internet was somewhat marvellous, and, gosh, lots of interesting things might become of it soon, what ho, and it's not just paedophilia and terrorists. The poor fellow seemed trapped in 1994.
The Management Consultant Facilitator then spouted some jargon, and asked the floor for ideas for the discussion clusters. The Earnest Young Men pontificated their banalities. The geeks obsessed about some yawnful minutia. And Coxall suggested we discuss how to win over the "unhosed stupid masses". Yes, that is the phrase he used and, yes, the reaction from this righton bunch of whitebread nonces was predictable. "Maybe if you stopped patronising them like that..." was the immediate response from one of the Earnest Young Men on the floor.
Thence began the multiple clustering. Levine, Coxall and I have attended so many of these nascent talking shops now that we decided to skip with the usual niceties and begin some good old Trotskyite agitation. We argued that trying to interest people in the potential problems of overreaching anti-privacy legislation, or draconian Intellectual Property laws and the restrictive technologies therefor, was a lost cause. The "unhosed masses" wouldn't care about these philosophical crampings until they felt the constrictive banding themselves, in their every day lives. We argued for the inculcation of popular anger: to that end, a little DRM here, a little copyright overextension there wasn't enough. We decided that, rather than allow creative society to die the death by a thousand cuts that is its inevitable fate in a world dominated by multi-billion dollar "content" oligarchies, we should use these monoliths' huge power and budgets to subvert themselves from within, to the point where their overreaching hubris could lead to genuine polltax-riot intensity anger, and Berlin-wall-sized dismantlement.
Rather than fiddle with legislation to make it slightly less bad, then, or to try to temper corporate excesses with the few thrown crumbs of compromise, a smartly utilitarian organisati
Is it better to stand and fight or curl up and die? I really hoped this article was a satire piece, but nope, I think the "author" is serious.
Coding with assembly is like playing with Legos. Coding an application in assembly is like building a car with Legos.
Be sure to read about the author at the end of the second page. Makes me want to go check my calendar. Awful cold outside for April.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I have been saying this for years, and each time I am flamed to a crisp for even daring to question the EEF. They are a very well-meaning group, and I commend their attempts to take on big corporations and touchy suits... but the fact remains that if precedents are being set here and against us due to young/inexperienced lawyers we are just shooting ourselves in the foot.
I think an organization LIKE the EEF is a good thing but needs to be structured in a different way, with more specialized and successful lawyers backing it.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
Maybe it's meant to be some kind of scatological British commentary. I don't know. Although you have to wonder what kind of A[tt]orneys hippies will make.
Lord knows that sort of thing never helped Abbey Hoffman.
The opposite of progress is congress
If not the EFF, who else is willing to take up the fight?
Voodoo Girl is the bomb!
the eff doesn't seem to have any sort of flexibility. rather than try to work something out, they try to fight the very idea of drm in a world of people that don't even know what it stands for.
you can't explain to average joes what drm means any better than you can explain why firefox is better than internet explorer. they don't want to hear about it until their cd won't play or their browser won't open.
they should back down and restructure. their articles come across as arrogant, as if anyone who disagrees with them is an idiot. not a very good way to win over the people who matter.
-- lol pwned
But then I noticed it was in The Register! Haw! You guys got me good!
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
...it's crucial that the company get its bottom spanked quite painfully...
This is ridiculous thinking.
Say Sony gets sued for $100 million and loses. Lawyers get $40 million. Some folks who bought their bad CDs get a coupon for $1.00 off a Brittany Spears CD or some bullshit like that.
Why is this "crucial"? What's the benefit to you? Does it make you feel better? Why should anyone care how you feel?
What cases have they won?
Everybody's a libertarian 'till their neighbour's becomes a crack house.
Lately I've commented myself about the EFF's failures in the recent past. I usually get flamed for it.
I think the article is way too harsh but more on the money than most believe. I've always felt they were a shill for mercantilist businesses.
I support the Institute for Justice. These guys are about freedom and focus on winning. I will never support the EFF who only want some freedom at the expense of supporting the political growth of power.
Well, first whatever the guy says at least its stated on the website as an opinion and not as a hard fact.I do not agree with everything he says nor am I in a position to comment because I for one do not have all the facts.
But coming to the matter at hand, yes its right that its better not fight if you lose everytime and make a mockery of the matter and everyone else supporting you.
Lord of the Binges.
I have it on good authority that EFF co-founder John Perry Barlow hunts elk with a obsidian spear, and eats the livers of his prey while still warm and dripping in blood.
Cory Doctorow is said to stalk, kill, and eat emus during his frequent, clandestine trips to Australia.
The only vegetables served in the cafeterias of the EFF Tower -- formerly the Transamerica Pyramid -- are potatoes and a bit of parsely, and only to accompany great the rare steaks favored by the employees.
"Pale vegetarians?" Fah!
I've worked with EFF's legal folks and they are very, very good.
And when we went to court, we won.
So, what, all the IANAL-posters on slashdot should now do this work?
Insert obligatory Lionel Hutz quotes .
I mean, this is clearly one of those places where those who don't like the EFF could step up and, you know, hire some lawyers (presumably ones they think are good) and fight the good fight.
But, of course, that takes more energy than posting nasty things on Slashdot . . . .
Player haters, one and all.
"Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under." - H.L. Mencken
Cultures not dominated by humorless prigs and literalists don't require flags to signal humor.
This particular form is called satire and is widely used to call attention to self-importance or arrogance.
illegitimii non ingravare
It's difficult to take seriously any article written under the byline "Bonhomie Snoutintroff".
The Register is a British publication, and it's very likely the author is British also - the author's bio doesn't state his nationality. I guess this Brit feels he (or she) is a really good judge of American lawyers and the American legal system, and this places him in a good position to comment meaningfully on the merits of the actions taken by the EFF. (How many American journalists have an intimate understanding of the British courts, sufficient to write about British legal practice?)
The author also seems to be privy to the inner workings of the EFF and feels qualified to judge the merits of each case cited in the article. Or possibly he has some sort of axe to grind. It's hard to know where to start correcting his comments, and frankly it isn't worth it taking the time.
The article is a piece of garbage and fully worthy of being published in the Register.
And it appears they are right....
Also note.. Sarcasm is NOT the same as irony, and irony is NOT like "goldy" or "silvery".
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
...but the fact remains that if precedents are being set here...
You mean Precidents like These? Or lobbying efforts like getting rid of the broadcast flag?
Should any organization be required to win 100% of its legal battles (on behalf of the public I might add) in order to gain support? I don't think setting an impossible standard is a helpful guide for deciding what organizations to support.
The EFF has been fairly effective in legal matters, and even more effective in educational areas like lobbying. AS that is the key to a better future (better to never have a bad law passed than to fight it latre through the courts) it is important to support the EFF as they are pretty much the ONLY group that understands the deep technological chasms laws can veer into. Are you honestly going to trust the ACLU to handle stuff like P2P?
For those who see the value in having an organization fighting for technical rights, you can donate to the EFF here. I donate every year and really all of us in the technical field should feel ashamed if we are not supporting the people that brought down things like the broadcast flag.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Being required to show ID does have one thing going for it - it does enable you to figure out who the terrorists were, although after the fact. Frankly, I think Gilmore is a nut and I look forward to his losing his case. Only Gilmore and the Slashdork "Anything the government does is EEEVVVIIILLL" people care about traveling without showing ID. I have no doubt if a poll were taken, the vast majority of the American public would not support Gilmore and his insane quest. I look forward to this being settled for once and for all - against him.
TFA was right about one thing - Gilmore is a complete jerk and his attitude will most certainly result in his losing this case.
Is it better just to fight the good fight? Not if you are a poor fighter. In the legal arena, these rulings stick and we get the precedents in favor of RIAA/MPAA/Sony/etc. If the EFF has such a poor track record, maybe they should stick to lobbying and let the ACLU or state governments (like Texas and others) do the suing. It doesn't do us a whole lot of good if our battles are lost because the representation is poor, but it can do us harm.
If he is suggesting that the EFF has lost too many cases to be useful, who is he suggesting stand up to take the reigns? I don't know many lawyers who are dedicated to fighting for digital rights for the little guy. Should I [if I were a victim of this DRM technology] go hire a local lawyer without the technical experience to sue Sony? The EFF might lose, they might even lose a LOT, but that may not be because they are bad lawyers, but that they are fighting for rights that no one knows they are losing and big business is fighting desperately to win. They are the best we have and until someone better comes along I'm glad they are fighting the good fight.
.... Tell Him So
;)
;) .
Of course, RTFA before you do. Not that he'll probably be able to tell
However, I'm unsure of how/why this is news for us exactly. Great discussion question, perhaps, but do we really want a guy by the name of Bonhomie Snoutintroff to be the one creating ripples in the tech community
I won't try to argue here, but I will suggest, in the interest of balance, that you check out EFF's list of legal victories.
Even if they lose that does not mean that Texas will lose their lawsuit. The EFF could set a bad precedent federally, but if a state has anti spyware laws I doubt it will matter. I'm sure most states will adopt anti spyware laws.
#577451 +(3935)- [X]
DmncAtrny I will write on a huge cement block "By accepting this brick through your window, you accept it as is and agree to my disclaimer of all warranties, express or implied, as well as disclaimers of all liability, direct, indirect, consequential or incidental, that may arise from the installation of this brick into your building"
DmncAtrny And then hurl it through the window of a Sony officer
DmncAtrny and run like hell
Nowadays, all their articles seem to be written by brainless trolls.
Please alter my pants as fashion dictates.
The "article" cited by the paranoiac submitter is an opinion piece, and it is rife with humor, starting with the author's name. The submitter (and a lot of readers here) are taking this opinion piece way too seriously.
HCG 50a = 2MASX J11170638+5455016
11h17m06.4s +54d55m02s
We suines are much less offensive than entertainment industry executives. We do not snort massive quantities of cocaine, we do not pay ourselves vast sums of money to hand out brown envelopes to opinion formers, and we do not pay talentless bands ridiculous amounts of money to shut up and keep miming to pap. If record industry execs were replaced with pigs, the world would be a better place
Pining for the fjords
Your Rights Online: EFF Has Outlived Its Usefulness?
That's complete BS. We need more organizations like the EFF and more funding to support them. The internet should be become the greatest interactive public library in history, not a logjammed pollbooth laden series of checkpoints and chokestops.
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
I really don't have the energy to pore through the results of an anagram finder, but Bonhomie Snoutintroff seems to me to be an obvious anagram with "eff" in it. --mark
While fighting the good fight is important, winning the good fight is more important in cases like this. Unlike the author, I don't consider the EFF to be unreliable, and the author doesn't present enough evidence to convince me. Even though this article may be the author's legitimate opinion, I still can't take him completely seriously as I'm still confused about what "pale vegetarians" have to do with this whole issue.
...maybe we should all actually do something to help. There are lots of ways to help. Groklaw is a pretty good model for how to get the word out in a clear way and really motivate people.
It wouldn't hurt to help the EFF out with a donation in this holiday giving season. If the EFF is losing cases that it ought to be winning, I don't imagine that it's for lack of a clue. It's probably just outgunned by the huge, deep-pocketted corporations and industry associations that it takes on. EFF and ACLU seem like the two best organized outfits that are standing up for our rights, so search your sofa for loose change and help 'em both out.
And although it sounds tired, it never hurts to let your elected representatives know what you think. If they hear from enough of us, they really will do something about it.
I despise people who despise people who at least try and are doing something to change their world. Win or lose, their doers and not just recovering cocaine addicts who call themselves Christian. ;-)
although calling it a rootkit is an exaggeration
Exaggeration? It modifies the behavior of the OS at the lowest level possible for anyone outside Microsoft, for the purpose of hiding files and processes performing whatever Sony wants. It allows activity below the level of any user environment, thus allowing for what amounts to the ultimate in "privelage escalation". What do you call a rootkit, if not that?
beneficial to the entertainment pigopolists
Puh-lease. I loathe the RIAA et al as much as the next geek, but save the name-calling for the discussion. FPs should at least pretend to have some objectivity. If I still believed in Slashdot Editors (you know, like Santa and the Tooth Fairy), I would say they should never have let this one through.
It's not an issue of "legal"; Sony has more money, and can out spend EFF. Same thing happend to Bleem!; they didn't violate any laws, they just couldn't outspend the giant.
I don't know about everyone else, but looking through the list of cases they show that the EFF has lost, I don't think any of them were winnable. They all seem to be cases where they have challenged a law or prior judicial ruling and went in knowing the chances of winning the case were slim. I'm just glad that there are people out there who will take on the big companies even if it is hopeless.
This article seems to miss the point that the EFF is not deciding these cases - judges are, based on laws enacted by congress. So what if they loose? I could argue that I was right in killing someone, but that doesn't mean I will win if it is against the law. My argument could be sound, as in I didn't like that person, but regardless of what I think or how well I argue, it is still illegal. I think the EFF deserves kudos for making the most of a legal system that is hostile to their point of view.
A failure of many people in the European left is that they try to use politically motivated judges and commissions when they lose in the court of public opinion. Americans don't think highly of the practice, because it is essentially anti-democratic. US judges don't think much of the practice because they know that their only inherent power comes from the respect of the people - a power they'd quickly lose if they became viewed as politicans in judicial robes. Of course, this has already happened in Europe and the UN, which is why they're dominated by toothless judges and commissions that everyone but their political allies ignore.
The EFF's weakness isn't that they lose. It's that they fight cases they shouldn't. You want to structure things so that even if you lose in the court because the law's wrong, the publicity is positive so that you can go to the people to make the law right. Never take a case that detracts from your credibility.
Case in point: Mr. "Bonhomie Snoutintroff" whines that the EFF won't be able to get a US judge to rule that anonymous travel on eminently hijackable aircraft is a fundamental right. Well, duh. In the face of worldwide terrorism, NO ONE could do that. It's settled law that aircraft travel is not treated the same as walking down the street (which is why the government can legally search you prior to boarding). The real question is why did the EFF take this up at all? Is there no better place to spend their energies?
Pick your fights, EFF. Pick your fights.
Even if you listen to what this guy has to say, you realize his argument is inherently denied. Aside from from Texas, who's laws allow for civil and criminal proceeding against this (and is thereby being prosecuted by the State of Texas) WHO exactly is supposed to prosecute Sony? If the EFF doesn't do it, no one will. Texas is an exception because of anti-spyware legislation that gives the State, and all it's resources, the ability to tackle Sony. I didn't notice Bonhomie offering to pony up the cash to take on what is probably going to be the corporate equivalent of the Dream Team in Sony's legal muscle...
Its better to fight and win, rather than fight, lose, and set bad precedent, which is precisely what the EFF has been doing.
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
Umm, please correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the case eventually get thrown out? Or, to put it more precisely, didn't the MPAA give up because they knew the cat was out of the bag? Isn't he know free, and writing lots of other interesting stuff?
Indeed, there is no good reason why anyone should not be permitted to travel incognito, and many good reasons why one should. This is a case that can, and should, be won. Surely, only an EFF principal could blow this one, yet blow it he did.
What? This is the absolute worst environment to be trying this kind of case. We have a "war on terror", and this guy thinks a case involving NOT identifying oneself while boarding a plane is a good idea that "should" be won? This guy is nuts...
I have no idea about the EFF's track record, but this guy seems to be wildly off....
Buses stop at a bus station
Trains stop at a train station
On my desk there's a workstation....
well meaning idealism doesn't work in the real world
pragmatism does, and you don't have to sacrifice any of your ideals to be pragmatic about how to work them. in other words, you don't sacrifice your principles by playing them correctly, it's an unfounded fear that by playing it any other way except straight you are somehow sacrificing your ideals. this is not a cynical observation, it's a tactical one
the ivory tower approach to life may well make you feel smug and superior in life, but it doesn't help with a messy struggle in the mud. you don't lose when you go the idealistic route, you just wind up not playing the game, and becoming irrelevant to the causes you care about
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The DeCSS case: Why did nobody anywhere think to point out that encrypting a file does not prevent it from ebing copied.
The Sonny Bone law challenge: This was just naive. Of course the court isn't going to make a decision that will make the entire media industry's assets worthless. Lessig should have included the argument that 99% of media profits would not be affected if copyright was rolled back to 14 years.
This American finds it ironic the correction you've provided is, in fact, incorrect: the word you were looking for was "satire."
First, EFF doesn't always lose. That's a gross mischaracterization of their efforts.
Second, sometimes losing is the only way to cast in stark relief deep efforts by companies to hide what they're doing. This will (eventually) produce a change only if citizens want their rights back and elect folks who campaign (however cynically) on that matter. It's not important to constituents on the whole yet. Hollywood's contributions are laughably small in the scale of things.
Third, the Newmark v. lawsuit that I was part of to preserve consumer rights in the ReplayTV lawsuit, established a precedent even though we didn't "win." The suit was eventually settled by ReplayTV's buyer (the company that bought the product line out of bankruptcy of the parent firm), but the judge in the case allowed us as consumers to join a lawsuit in which consumer rights were threatened. Thank you, EFF.
Freelance tech journalist for the Economist, MIT Technology Review, Macworld, and others
Sarcasm is NOT the same as irony
Actually, sarcasm IS irony. Specically, it is a type of verbal irony.
my pet machine
Mudsuck them before they mudsuck you. However, the issue is what to do after you mudsuck them.
Do you fucking try to "win hearts and minds"? Or do you fucking brutally subjugate them, wipe out their violent religious and cultural history, place women in positions of power, and move onto the next son of a bitch?
Cortez did it right. I say start fucking executing Sony executives and managers.
The short answer is: Yes...
The long answer is: Yes...
Let's not delve into impassioned arguments for or against this. Let us merely examine the EFF's track record in court... and realize they're a detriment to the defendant. I have experience with the EFF, on a personal level. I heard the inane and weak oral testimony of its unprepared lawyers and their asinine ramblings in their legal briefs... the kind of work you'd expect out of a second-year law student, not an organization chartered and established to fight for "electronic freedom."
The EFF is indeed a detriment to any case it takes; any plaintiff or defendant it sides with. Who cares if the author has a "personal bent" against the EFF? You can dismiss the author's agenda and analyze the facts for yourself. Do not block out the message simply because of your dislike for the presentation. Any way you cut it, the EFF's track record suggests incompetence and bumbling almost every step of the way. Had they been participating in moot court at a law school, they would have scored a "D" or an "F".
Let's cut all the rhetoric and call a spade a spade... the EFF is a farce. Stop supporting them.
Why can't the EFF lodge a suit on a given issue alongside suits by state Attorney Generals, the Fed, etc? They can all try their approaches, whether they differ or not, right?
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
If anyone is interested, this is a 30 page suit that is being brought on behalf citizens of California (class action suit) by the EFF. It seems like a well reasoned, and sound case. In fact, I'm willing to bet that the EFF is going to beat Sony on this, though I know only a bit about the California Penal Code and the Consumer Legal Remedies Act ( the statues under which this is being prosecuted).
s ony112105cmp.pdf
y 112105pet.pdf
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/cyberlaw/hullv
compare this with the filing by the State of Texas, six pages, and see if you think that the EFF didn't provide a ton of valuable knowledge to the California filing.
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/cyberlaw/txson
Last I heard, state AG's for Massachussetts, Texas, and California were all lining up their own suits as well.
Doesn't mean the EFF shouldn't also be in the crowd though. The more the better.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
Sarcasm, irony, satire, whatever excuse the fanboys dream up it doesn't matter, either way it's troll shit made by and for people with low intelligence who think they're funny.
The Register - shit for shitheads.
For the most part, the EFF argues policy when they go before the judge. It is very difficult to take the stance that EFF does and say, to this effect: "Even though Eric Corley/Grokster/etc violated the statute, it does not stand to reason that this party should be at fault because the very nature of the statute is wrong." Or something to that effect.
The EFF takes the most difficult side and tries to prevail. Even if they are not successful in the courts, they are certainly successful at raising awareness. Furthermore, there is no "public defender" for copyright cases. If you violate someone's copyright, you are paying for your own lawyer. The ACLU is not going to jump in, so your only chance at a defense is to spend out-of-pocket, or get an organization like the EFF to back you up. Even if you do pay money for a lawyer, much of his work has been done by the EFF, which results in lower fees for the client
I do not think the EFF has outlived its usefulness.
In Vino Veritas
This is not necessary a bad thing. Even if EFF loses, that's ok because then it can tell the Congress that the law sucks and it needs to be changed. One thing people tent to forget is that one of the primary function of the courts is to interpret the laws passed by the Congress. It is Congress' job to make laws.
As matter of fact, Sony should hope that it would loose. This is because then Sony could raise an army of lobbiests and tell their own employee (US side) to flood their local politicians with letters like how this would hurt Sony and ultimate cause job losses in America and all that good stuff. Given that most of politicians are sensitive about jobs in their own local area, I have no doubt Sony should able to get someone to either sponsor or try to attach what Sony wants on an un-related bill.
Losing a case is not a bad thing. It just means whoever the loser is can bitch to law makers to have the law changed. Unless the new law conflic with existing law, the courts won't have too much of a choice.
"The Register is a British publication, and it's very likely the author is British also" should probably read "The Register is an internet publication, and it's very likely the author has internet access also.
"I guess this Brit feels he (or she) is a really good judge of American lawyers and the American legal system..."
I just want to say good on you for not making baseless assumptions about the author.
I read the SCOTUS opinion. The EFF might have argued for the losing side, but SCOTUS did let the Betamax precident stand, and even declined to further limit it. Please take what I write with a bit of salt, for IANAL.
What SCOTUS said was that Betamax (AKA Sony) was not a carte blanche to facilitate copyright infringement, and that actions taken outside the realm of actual.technology are legitimate targets. In other words, technology per se is off the table provided that it satisfies Sony (the precident, not the company). However, if I sell photocopiers and say "Buy my photocopiers! They are great to copy books with," then I may have stepped over the line.
In many very important ways, the technology community won a number of important victories in the Grokster case, and the media companies were given an arguably fair system, and this is likely to help forestall the next wave of media-bought acts (for example, keeping the INDUCE act from being reintroduced).
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
God you people get easily inflamed.
.uk seems a bit rich. Don't most other countries just roll over? Do they even have EFF's over there?
Let's go through this...
It's clearly listed as an opinion piece, meant to be taken with agrain of salt (just read the alcohol and cocaine snippets in the author bio at the end.
However, the opinion seems to be based on facts. Whether cases were lost because of Juries, Judges, or EFF lawyers is I think, what the debate should be about.
Incompetence runs rampant. Just because a venerable institution like the EFF seems like it should be immune from utter incompetence doesn't make it so. Up until this last President, I thought there was a limit to the sheer incompetence of the US Governement. I was clearly mistaken.
Why should the riteous be above reproach or criticism.
HOWEVER!!!
This critique coming from
If Jesus had a better lawyer, he could have saved the world AND avoided that whole crucifixion thing.
Good point. Where are your facts? Nowhere? Ah well. Good night, and don't let the door hit you on the way out.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Congratulations. You've just given us a graphic demonstration of why Trotskites suck.
Promote more of the very thing you hate in order to make the people hurt enough to drive them into revolt? Look at what happened with your own example, prohibition.
The temperance movement got a ban on liquor - a recreational drug with significant downsides. Net effect was to make it more popular and fund the development of organized crime, the BATF, and self-defense bans in the US.
After a decade of horrendous body counts and far larger counts of people injured by adulterated product and gang violence, public pressure finally got the law repealed. But the dead were still dead, the crippled were still crippled, and organized crime is still with us - along with the out of control bureaucracies, which were converted to drug (starting with marijuana) and firearms law enforcement rather than disbanded.
The harm continues, and escalates, to this day, with urban drug gangs and violence, RICOing of drug users' assets, and such debacles as Waco and Ruby Ridge.
All this over the freedom to have a little drink when you party.
Yet you advocate repeating this DELIBERATELY as your solution to restrictions on information technology? A decade of war - or more, since that technology is the main tool of resistance?
Then there's the other thing such groups do: Disrupt any tyranny-resistance organization that isn't doing things THEIR way, in order to take it over if it can be, destroy it if not. Here we have the first meeting of such an organization, and (as is usual for first meetings) it has a lot of disorganization and a heavy sprinkling of well-meaning flakes among the activists. These things generally get sorted out quickly, if proceedings aren't disrupted. So what do you do? When they don't instantly do things your way, you disrupt them.
Congratulations. Maybe you killed it. Maybe you just made it less responsive to popular input. But you certainly aren't getting the problem solved.
Unless the problem is Trotskyites - and other, similar, communist/socialist factions.
That problem you're putting right in people's faces, so they can see what you are.
Back in the '60s we had a saying: "Trots are a case of the slow runs." Thanks for showing us it's true in the naughties as well.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
You don't fight the fights you can win; you fight the fights that need fighting.
Thank you EFF for standing up for my rights.
Reading code is like reading the dictionary - you have to read half of it before you can go back and understand it.
see subject
--Rob
Towards the Singularity.
I find it so annoying that people collapse, and give in, when some corporation / public insitution tell a person to stop doing something.
I've been dealing with a pharmaceutical company for over two years and am currently the target of a lawsuit for libel and interference with economic interest because of my website. However, without the website, many people would be unaware that this company had serious violations the Food & Drug Act. But it needs to be said, and I won't back down.
Take a stand and hold your position. Most of the time if you hold on long enough you will win.
An exploration of mixology, spirits and bartending.
The article is really unfair to EFF, but the kernel of truth is that the EFF has lost several really important cases that have led to tremendously bad precident. To be fair, they win more than they lose and they often go in with fewer resources than their corporately powered opponents. Reality is the deCSS case and Eldred vs. Ashcroft were very serious cases that established precidents that have been used to whittle away at the freedom available to all on the internet. The EFF was represented very well but took a risky strategy of setting up the trial court decision for appeal and reversal not at the appealate court level, but at the supreme court level. It's a lot like going to vegas and betting the house on a single blackjack hand. If your first card is a 10 or higher you feel like you have a shot. Unfortunately, they had a At the end of the day, I'm glad the EFF is there and they absolutely deserve your continued support. They also need reminded that the margin for error in their endevour is very slim. That is why I'm glad to see the Register provide that reminder - so next time they make it to the super bowl, they remember to play to win.
Preaching the virtue of Fair Game again, I see...
Why is calling Sony's software a rootkit considered an exaggeration?
Download free e-books, lectures, and tutorials at bookgoldmine.com
I'll get -1 Troll for this, but who cares.
What's next, Slashdot linking articles from The Onion and thinking they are real? Better yet, BBSpot contains real news!
Something slashdot readers don't like = flame bait.
Something slashdot readers like = forward thinking.
I think this article is great. So far, at least in the U.S., all of our rights keep getting eroded and nothing is being done to stop it. If the EFF isn't doing a good job why can't someone make that point without it being flamebait or a personal attack?
It's kind of like the political party that refuses to understand that it's leaders and messages aren't reaching the people and instead blame failure on everything else.
The points that are made are valid questions. It's OK to question governments, Microsoft, etc... but if you question Linux or a group friendly to slashdot readers it's a travesty!
Stop being so damn one sided and grow up.
In other words, solve the problem by throwing money at it. Just look at what all that extra $$$ has done for our public education system.
This is satire, right?
If you are talking about the United States, we hardly spend any money at all on education, comparatively-speaking.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
"Good point. Where are your facts? Nowhere? Ah well. Good night, and don't let the door hit you on the way out."
That's a fine pollyanna bromide, and while such empty platitudes might boost your ego they do little to support your position. As I reiterated in another post, I have personal experience with the EFF. What I opine regarding this matter is based on said experience. In addition, those without the benefit of said experience are welcome to peruse the public record with regard to such matters. Most court cases involving the EFF clearly demonstrate their lack of skillful legal argument and less than polished or informed oral arguments.
Your non-responsive invective is exactly what I'd expect from someone lacking direct experience in working with the EFF on these matters, yet still trying to deflect foundational criticism.
The EFF is like the boy who cried wolf. They cried wolf so loudly at every single infringement that now something serious like the Sony rootkit happens and now we question whether or not their even effective. They NEED to be for this.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
The article's point isn't that it's not right to "fight the good fight". The point is that if you're going to do that, you should fight *A* good fight.
I wrote to the EFF about a legal problem I was having in 1998. Still awaiting their response.
Even when they loose, they win. They bring the issue to light. If you don't like how they handle a case, then you take the case over or hire a lawyer to take the case over.
This applies to doctors, lawyers, fighters, etc. If you only take easy cases, you can always win. If Mike Tyson only fights drunks at the local bar, he will always win. If you only take hard cases, you may lose more than you win.
Fight Spammers!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/12/06/eff_needs_ to_die/
That's why I'm kind of confused by your statement that you're "opposed to them on most of their favorite issues..." Their favorite issues are defending the constitution and your civil rights. How can you be opposed to your civil rights?
From the article: "Finally, EFF co-founder and board member John Gilmore has independently taken up one of the more important civil-liberties causes of recent years, attempting to sue for the right to travel by air within the USA without having to show identification. This is a very important case, and it's up for appeal later this week, so let's dwell on it a bit.
Indeed, there is no good reason why anyone should not be permitted to travel incognito, and many good reasons why one should. This is a case that can, and should, be won. Surely, only an EFF principal could blow this one, yet blow it he did. The combination of Gilmore's preposterous and inflammatory libertarian rhetoric and his unreasonable demand that he not be subject to any security measures, like a bag search and a pat down, mean that his appeal, scheduled for 8 December, will almost certainly go down the tubes with his original attempt."
I'm grateful that the man is willing to volunteer his time to defend citizens' rights in the courts, but deliberately lumping elements that will surely be defeated into a winnable case makes you wonder who's side he's really on.
"Anyone that has ever gotten an idea based on any of my work and done something better with it-good for you."--J.Carmack
The real problem is that Andrew Orlowski had a crush on Cory Doctorow, but ever since his love went unrequited he has been out to get the EFF. Sadly he now is using this silly pseudonym.
...$sys$ in their sentence...
If you read the description of the author at the end of the article, it reads:
Bonhomie Snoutintroff is a plain-spoken strong leader in cyberspace. He did poorly in school but his family is rich and well connected, so he's served as CEO of numerous, well-known Internet ventures that for various reasons unrelated to his forward-looking guidance no longer exist. He developed a cocaine and alcohol problem, although he refuses to dwell on the past: his mission is to bring honor and dignity to the IT profession. His keen insight as a global techno-visionary is matched only by his Christian humility.
It seems like this is much ado about nothing.
sigs are a waste of space
I have experience with the EFF, and I say they're great. See how easy it is to make unsubstantiated claims? Perhaps you should describe your bad experience. If you're not a troll, prove it.
calling it a rootkit is an exaggeration
No, it's not.
Reality has a notoriously liberal bias -- Stephen Colbert
"I have experience with the EFF, and I say they're great. See how easy it is to make unsubstantiated claims? Perhaps you should describe your bad experience. If you're not a troll, prove it."
I'm already well-known in the online community, and my many legal battles are public record. Not only is it not my job to do your research for you, it is irrelevant and immaterial to my commentary. Just as I have had to research matters on my own, so should you. I have no duty to spoon-feed you my knowledge. This is my last response to you. Get off your armchair if you wish to progress beyond conjecture and meritless posturing, and begin addressing the issues at hand.
What's wrong with being pale or a vegetarian?????
***You learn something Every day. And then you die.***
"If Jesus had a better lawyer, he could have saved the world AND avoided that whole crucifixion thing."
That's an excellent case for making every declarative statement end with "YMMV."
YMMV.
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
Bonhomie Snoutintroff is a plain-spoken strong leader in cyberspace. He did poorly in school but his family is rich and well connected, so he's served as CEO of numerous, well-known Internet ventures that for various reasons unrelated to his forward-looking guidance no longer exist. He developed a cocaine and alcohol problem, although he refuses to dwell on the past: his mission is to bring honor and dignity to the IT profession. His keen insight as a global techno-visionary is matched only by his Christian humility.
Pretty funny and how much integrity do you think that he really has?
as it stands now, we're all much better off if they're arguing the other side of an issue
Nah... Barabas just had better PR at the time.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
"I have experience with the EFF, and I say they're great. See how easy it is to make unsubstantiated claims? Perhaps you should describe your bad experience. If you're not a troll, prove it."
1 94947
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=170322&cid=14
Now go away, troll... or learn to use the "search" feature, or read about how to use a search engine.
The ACLU supports civil rights. The way "the system" works is that it takes away the civil rights of the most despised (terrorists, etc.) and disenfranchised (poor, underclass) first and most people support these actions since these people are "evil".
The ACLU does support the mujahideen, granted. But it's not just "poor" people that it supports. It also has supported NAMBLA and serial predatory child rapists. How's that for civil rights? Not only does it support the right of people to raise money for suicide-bombing jihadists who would gladly kill me for being gay (I am gay), would gladly kidnap my child (adoptive parents have no rights in Islam, an e-mail debate from a rep of whyislam.org confirmed this), and would gladly kill me for being an infidel (I'm an atheist, not a "protected" "person of the book") -- but the ACLU also sticks up for the rights of people who would want to rape and kill my child and then lobby for that person's right to NOT be executed after they do so.
The old saying... "I may not agree with what you are saying but I will defend (to the death) your right to say it." (attributed to Voltaire)
And here's the sad part: I totally agree with this statement. It is granted by the First Amendment, and I think gay-bashing Neo-Nazis have every right in the world to say whatever they want, no matter how offensive and upsetting it is to me. What I don't understand is how you extend this to also include the protection mujahideen who would gladly detonate a dirty bomb in my bathroom and the NAMBLA creeps who are plotting to molest my child. This goes beyond protecting the right to speech. Instead, it is the most disgusting conclusion of the "Everyone Is Special" mindset that too many liberals live by. I like the way that SeanBaby put it: "Lots of people suffer from the delusion that every life is worth saving."
So while the way that the ACLU stands up for the rights of people who do things that do not infringe on others life, liberty or property (such as drug use, acts of homosexuality, death with dignity, etc.), these noble deeds are wholly eclipsed by the fact that the ACLU has unfailingly stuck up for the rights of serial predatory child rapists and violent totalitarian jihadi zealots. The ACLU has little to do with defending individual rights and everything to do with advancing a socialist agenda.
Now, if you're a socialist then you might like that, and I won't stop you from your own individual thoughts and feelings. But I wholly object to you painting the ACLU as some kind of organization which has my rights in mind. I don't think they do at all.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
First and foremost, courts exist to make sure that the Constitution is not corrupted by lawmakers who might have overstepped their bounds. This is the whole idea behind checks and balances.
After that, they have to determine the intent of a particular law. Only then can they uphold a law.
You are referring to the motives behind the fight, he is referring to the methods of fighting. I find myself almost agreeing with him, except for the fact that including honour in fighting provides a measure of assurance that the other guy won't use any and all means against you. If he does, he risks censure and attack from allies and foes alike, and isolating himself.
I mean, thats why certain of the nastier, more inescapable weapons are outlawed by the conventions of war.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
Since we're going hyperbolic...
When you find yourself fighting for your life the end absolutely does justify the means.
Deleted
You can never have too many defenders of freedom and I've never seen a useless defender of freedom.
Remember who controls the media and manufactures consent thereby. This is the same media that managed to make Kerry the decorated war vet look like a pansy compared to a guy who skipped out on his skipping out of Vietnam.
Another great cause is the NCSF (National Coaltion for Sexual Freedoms) http://www.ncsfreedom.org/ and they have worked hand-in-hand with the EFF on several areas, especially in those efforts involved in fighting a heavy-handed government attempt to limit the use of technology as an avenue for free speech and personal expression. From their website:
In 2003, nearly 600 contacts were made between NCSF and individuals, groups, attorneys, prosecutors, and businesses who requested assistance. Each incident sometimes required only one or two phone calls, but many evolved into much larger projects such as the series of attacks by religious political extremists against SM conferences in the midwest.
In 41% of the incidents, NCSF assisted individuals. The largest category of incidents involved parents who were engaged in child custody and divorce cases. Parents continue to experience difficulties gaining child custody due to their interest in SM, swing or poly activities. NCSF worked with a number of attorneys representing parents accused of being unfit because of their alternative lifestyle interests. In many cases, because of information we were able to provide, the courts decided that alternative sexual expression alone was not cause to impugn a parent's ability to be a good parent. Individuals also consulted with NCSF on a variety of other issues, including: the legality of obscene materials, guidelines for posting sexually frank information on websites, the law regarding private parties, and dealing with personal media exposure.
In 2002, NCSF also opposed zoning and other local regulatory measures against those who practice some form of alternative sexual expression. NCSF assisted the swing communities in Florida and Phoenix by holding open-forum discussions about how to affect zoning regulations and current litigation against lifestyle clubs. NCSF also worked with the Gay and Lesbian Activist Alliance (GLAA) to lobby against the Washington DC's Alcoholic Beverage Control regulation 905, which has been used to prohibit SM play in local establishments with liquor licenses even when liquor isn't being sold or consumed
I in no way believe the EFF to be futile or it's purpose outlived - unless I guess we've outlived Freedom! We need groups like the EFF to fight some issues, groups like the NCSF and the ACLU to fight others. Freedom is an individual responsibility, not a lobbying entity; these groups need to exist to help people, not themselves. (In the latter regard, I would put the ACLU further along the outlived timeline than the EFF)
The ACLU also have a tendency to screw things up, and have been accused of malice a lot longer than the EFF and with more evidence.
/ 301105aclushysters.htm
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/november2005
By that analogy, I guess Slashdot would be turning into the Beijing Evening News.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
When asked for proof that you have firsthand experience, you simply claim to have been involved in specific cases. That's not proof. They're just additional claims that you haven't backed up.
Is your name on any of the briefs? What specifically was your involvement in the two cases you describe? Are you Kevin Mitnick?
You demand credibility for "being well known" and for "having first-hand experience", but you don't give any personally identifiable information that would allow to figure out who you are, or find out about the "numerous legal battles" you've fought. Your email isn't shown, you don't link to a website, you don't explain your involvement in the cases enough for us to analyze your claims. Unless you give us that, your demands to have your opinion respected are shameless trolling.
You can have anonymity or credibility. Pick one.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
_The Register_ doesn't quite seem to understand that prank articles aren't good topics 365 days a year. Or maybe they should hire some writers from _The Onion_ who have more talent.
Buy Text Processing in Python
... I find this highly offensive :)
(Yes I am a pale vegetarian - no the two are not related)
James P. Barrett
Learn basic research (ie: how to use a search engine, how to request public documents from your government, how to look up unpublished 9th Circuit Court opinions) and you'll answer your own questions.
You can have laziness and ignorance, or motivation and enlightenment. Pick one.
IANAL. I have studied history, read lots of court opinions, etc. So here we go :-)
The Nazis extermination of the Jews was not part of their war effort, if anything it was a diversion of resources from the war effort, driven by their paranoid racist ideology rather than by military calculus. The concentration camps do not count as fighting dirty in World War II--they were quite simply genocidal crimes against humanity.
Perhaps you have never heard of the work camps and how those imprisoned there (Jews, political enemies, etc) would be literally worked to death providing nearly gratis labor for the Nazi war effort. Also the death camps did have a role in the war effort too, though perhaps a peripheral one. Among other things you had military experiments done on prisoners in those camps and the camps were also used to silence domestic criticism and prevent any political alternative from arising. Some political dissidents (among them the noted nationalist, F.B. Marby) were imprisoned in death camps for as long as 10 years for simply refusing to join the Nazi party. Indeed these were not merely psychotic crimes against humanity. They were an integral part of both the Nazi war effort and the mechanism of social control.
Saddam Hussein's gassing of the Kurds, likewise, was not part of a war effort. It doesn't really count as fighting dirty, as he wasn't at war with the Kurds, and their gassing wasn't linked directly to a war effort against Iran, Kuwait, or the U.S.
Sure it was. It was to crush an insurgency. And don't be too quick to discount the Iranian connection. There were and are groups of Kurds who rose up and are rising up today in part with Iranian support. Ansar Al Islam is probably the best known example (though the publicized ties with Al Qaeda are unlikely to be accurate, according to the International Crisis Group).
As for Saddam's policies, don't be too quick to call them "Racist." Or at least they were not racist in the traditional sense. One of Saddam's main mechanisms for social control was to make sure that no viable challenge could be made against him in a place where tribal loyalties still play a large role. He did this in part by making sure that, in addition to ruthless practices designed to crush insurgencies, the various groups would spend enough time fighting eachother that they could not rise up against him. Consequently what we have in Iraq now is a real mess of purportions that few people truly comprehend.
There's nothing especially dirty about it--not like using chemical weapons or torture or what-have-you.
Glad to see you share my opinion of the Bush Administration, at least regarding torture.
But I think that this whole discussion here is off base. It is not always about winning the fight. It is about getting what you want or need from it. I have seen many court decisions that I think are wrong, and others that I think are right. But for me, I don't care that Grokster lost. I care that the Betamax precident was not substantively eroded (as it would have been if, say, Ginsberg's concurring opinion had commanded the majority of the court). We are fighting for our rights, not to stick it to the MPAA/RIAA/etc. In essence we (as the technology industry) won in Grokster even though the side we were on lost in court.
If you want to beat some opponent as your primary goal then fight dirty. If you want to build a sound structure, then honor and the rest play a role.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
First, I am NOT a lawyer--yet. I'm a law student.
However, the Register raises a valid point: the EFF does not have a good track record.
Now, that *could* be because our rights in the US are being so violated that it is a long uphill battle and the EFF is fighting the good fight. But, it could also be that the EFF isn't doing the best job they could.
I don't know which is which--I have not followed all of the EFF cases closely. However, the few briefs I have read by the EFF do sometimes make me wonder.
For what it's worth, the Register article was inflamatory to be sure, but hidden in the vitrol is a valid question, well worth asking: is the EFF doing the best job they could be doing?
The world won't end in darkness, it'll end in family fun, with Coca-cola clouds behind a Big Mac sun.
This article is 100% dead on correct. The EFF is, and has been ineffective for the last 10 years. The proof is in the fact that SONY was able to do this at all. It's sad, and it makes me angry. I think the time has come for a more ACTIVE activist group... one that does useful things and GETS STUFF DONE! We are LOSING the battle for our rights, and it's because the EFF does a piss-poor job.
Bring back the CYPHERPUNKS!
I do agree with your sentiment about the EFF's legal victories and laud their efforts. However, the link on their website talking about "Victories" in MGM. vs. Grokster in the 9th Circuit is very misleading in that they ultimately lost the case in the worst possible way with the US Supreme Court's 9-0 reversal. This, unfortunatly, lends more support to Mr. Snoutintroff's arguments, at least with respect to this one case.
The fact that the EFF doesn't include this highly pertinent information makes me wonder about the end result of their other "victories" as well. It also makes me think about reconsidering renewal of my membership with them. Although Bonhomie Snoutintroff may be sour in his criticism and his sarcasm so palpable you can put it on a plate and carve it up for dinner, his complaints are still worth discussing, for whatever merit (or lack thereof) there may be.
uR iGn0ranc3, Their Power
Not just plane.
You cannot get on Boston-NY Amtrak without showing a picture id. You will be denied permission to board. A conductor checks ids, one by one, at the end of the platform.
Boston Greyhound ticket agents will request name, and sometimes id, but are still haphazard about it.
I too am amused to recall the old police state rhetoric.
For a while, the Boston subway (the "T") had continuous announcements like "Now more than ever, you are our eyes and ears. If you see something, say something". Felt like being an extra in a 1984 movie.
As for flying, the last time I saw so many people standing around with automatic weapons was as a child seeing Franco's Guardia.
Seeing foriegn students having to be careful to carry their passports, to avoid being denied entry to... bars, also still seems odd. Can't go to dinner with friends without your passport - it WILL be checked.
Case in point: Mr. "Bonhomie Snoutintroff" whines that the EFF won't be able to get a US judge to rule that anonymous travel on eminently hijackable aircraft is a fundamental right
I'm thinking that most people don't have a problem with "non-anonymous travel on an eminently hijackable aircraft," it's that once said aircraft lands safely, what happens to all of that information? It's the unending extension of stated objectives that start to worry people.
In other news, Netcraft recently confirmed that BSD is dying...
http://outcampaign.org/
Is the EFF bad?
Yes. It's bad, it's bad, you know it. And the whole world has to answer right now just to tell you once again who's bad.
Stop quoting the Register. For anything.
:)
The Register is the ethical and factual equivalent of the National Enquirer, except for IT.
Quoting them about the EFF is about as useful as quoting the National Enquirer's claim that the government is piping mind control rays through the speaker at your local grocery store.
Naturally, it's slashdot, so we all like pointless flamewars, but every now and then, I enjoy seeing something other than tripe.
"Sony installed stealth spyware on many thousands of Windows computers (although calling it a rootkit is an exaggeration), "
BZZZZZZ! WRONG -1 to author.
Sony's XCP hides files from the Operating System, it doesn't haveto be a stretch to call it a rootkit. What's HIS definition of a rootkit? Does it have to be a program designed by a non-multi-billion dollar corporation?
Fortunately the EFF in the USA, and www.glynhotz.com in Canada are there to point that out to the courts, and explain it to the judges who couldn't download an MP3 to save their life.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Asperger syndrome increases potential to form an interest in information technology but makes it more difficult to learn to discern sarcasm. Thus, you're likely to see more Asperger stereotype behavior on Slashdot because the topics simply are interesting to more people with Asperger's.
learn to use the "search" feature
Slashdot's search feature doesn't search the text of comments, only the subjects. It doesn't search for three-letter abbreviations commonly used in subjects (such as "EFF" or "DRM" or "TSA" or "FAA" or "FCC" to name a few that relate to The Article) or anything else shorter than four letters. It also has a very hard time finding relevant comments no matter what I try to enter.
or read about how to use a search engine.
You can't because Slashdot won't let conforming search engines see comments that aren't among those few included in the static page. In addition, what search engines can see may not be the whole site, as conforming search engines are only allowed to pull 864 pages per day (one per 100 seconds). Excerpt from robots.txt:
In order to avoid being labeled as a troll in the future, how would you suggest that I work around these limitations?
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is not directly involved in John Gillmore's air travel case - it isn't a party and it isn't providing the lawyers or funding. He is suing as a private individual. The EFF's only role is to have filed an amicus brief, as have the ACLU, the Center for Constitutional Rights and Privacy Activism, and the Electronic Privacy Activism Center.
In any case, the suit is solely about the right to fly anonymously and for all laws to be publicly available. He is not objecting to searches of air travelers. What may have misled people who don't read very carefully is that on his second attempt to fly without identifying himself, out of San Francisco International on United, they told him that they would let him fly without identifying himself but that he would have to submit to an extra-intrusive search. He declined on the grounds that this was in effect punishing him for exercising his right not to identify himself. He does not claim that it is unconstitutional to search airline passengers, only that what sort of search is conducted should not depend on whether the passenger identifies himself. For the facts see his description of his lawsuit. The various briefs and other legal documents are available here.
Couldn't it just as easily be the other way 'round?
That this is the same media that had to make it look like Bush was some kind of draft-dodger to counter the inherent pansy-ness of a decorated war vet?
Remember who told you about who controls the media and manufactures consent thereby.
Last time I checked, he gets paid by MIT, which has strong ties to the military-industrial complex. So either he's a part of the conspiracy (probably an uwitting stooge), or there is no conspiracy (which much more plausibly explains why he's allowed to rant about the things he rants about).
I mean, seriously. If Chomsky is right about the manufacturing of consent and all, why does the military-industrial complex let him have such a bully pulpit? Can you give any other explanation than "reverse-psychology Jedi mind shit, just like in Orwell, man!"?
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
Students are allowed to pray in school, and the ACLU has gone to court to defend this right. Next straw man please.
I am a pale vegetarian you insensitive clod!!! No, really. I am actually a pale vegetarian. Not that it stops me from kickin' ass and takin' names and stuff.
You're conflating defense of civil rights with political correctness, here. You are perfectly free to create a MOWO awards (aka CMA ;-) ) if you want - yes, you might get some people protesting that it's racist, but the government wouldn't do anything to stop you. There's a huge difference between societal pressure and government coercion - the ACLU is concerned with limiting the latter.
If you're trying to make a point, it helps if your point is relevant.
Disclaimer - I am a card-carrying member of the ACLU (and the NRA, for that matter)
me: "yes, i think marijuana should be legalized"
you: "so you support pedophilia then?"
same as
me: "it's important to be pragmatic about your ideals"
you: "so you support senseless violence then?"
don't be a hysterical twit. listen to what i am actually saying, don't pump all of your retarded fears into it
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Actually, prior to my post I spent about forty minutes snooping around Slashdot and Google, trying to figure out how easy it would be to do the "research" you claim any reasonable person should be willing to do to validate your claims.
I learned the following things:
You have an e-mail address, lew.payne@gmail.com. Anyone who has a GMail account must be who they claim to be.
"Lew Payne" may have been a friend of Kevin Mitnick's, but didn't get mentioned in Mitnick's Wikipedia entry.
"Lewis Payne" was an associate of John Wilkes Booth. You're probably not him.
A "Lew Payne" is the owner of the website goodbyeguns.org, whose goal is to make private ownership of firearms illegal. He also has a publishing company.
The search "lew payne" + eff returns zero hits.
The search "lew payne" site:eff.org returns zero hits.
Someone with the moniker "Lew Payne" posts to Slashdot.
Finally, when I came back to double-check my info, I found that Lew Payne Publishing hosts adult websites, and was involved somewhat in the sex.com domain name dispute.
Now I presume I'm supposed to make the assumption that you are that Lew Payne (not a coincidence, not an imitator). Then I guess I could spend weeks looking for every legal filing related to Lew Payne Publishing, Inc. Then I could spend my time poring over them, trying to tease out the connection between him and the EFF, and finally figure out what conclusions about the EFF I'm meant to draw from his experiences with them.
I'm not going to do that. If you have specific criticisms of the EFF, it's up to you to explain exactly what experiences led you to those criticisms, in sufficient detail that others can easily verify your claims. You've given me no reason to believe that all the effort you're asking of me is going to lead to anything more than, "Huh. He lost a case and blames the EFF."
If you think your experiences would sway peoples' opinions of the EFF, outline those experiences. But until you put in the effort to explain what makes them relevant, I'm going to assume they're not.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
So, who exactly are you? Lew Payne? Someone impersonating Lew Payne? Someone representing LPPI? Someone with a beef with Lew Payne?
All that you're proving is that you're quick with insults, but short on substance. I don't have time to retrace your internet history just to ascertain whether you're full of hot air, whether you are who you say you are or whether there is any merit to your unsupported statements. So far, your posts have given me no reason to expect enlightment from finding out answers to these questions.
Actually, from the amount of vitriol you're spewing around, I'd say you have a massive ego, little time for educating people and are mad that no one is taking you more seriously. All grounds for ignoring ever more of your statements.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Too busy staying alive... ~ R.A.
It's not EFF that's broken, it's rather the American judicial that's broken. Where's your rights and freedom, American boys and girls? Haven't you noticed how tight your hands are tied? Someone is bashing away your rights, and it is NOT the terrorists fault (they don't make the laws). How much can you take?
No need. You can get emu in the supermarket along with Kangaroo, Crocs, Buffallo, Camel etc. I'd be a lot more impressed with hunting Taipan, Hoop snakes & Dropbears in season.
peterrenshaw ~ Another Scrappy Startup
why does the military-industrial complex let him have such a bully pulpit?
Because they are not omnipotent?
Because not enough people listen to him to make a difference anyway?
Well, there you go, then.
Wake me up when you get to the part where we should take him seriously about the whole "manufacturing consent" thing.
Also, it occurs to me that his insight is incomplete. What about the entertainment-industrial complex? The academic-industrial complex? The information-industrial complex? The entertainment-academic complex?
Hell, what about the military-entertainment complex?
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
"I'm not going to do that. If you have specific criticisms of the EFF, it's up to you to explain exactly what experiences led you to those criticisms, in sufficient detail that others can easily verify your claims. You've given me no reason to believe that all the effort you're asking of me is going to lead to anything more than, 'Huh. He lost a case and blames the EFF.' "
Actually, it isn't up to me to explain exactly [this or that]. It is simply up to me to voice my opinion about the EFF, nothing more. Should you not desire to do the relevant research (and I notice you haven't done any Westlaw or Lexis research on EFF) and learn the facts, then so be it. I am not required to feed you information. It is up to you to feed yourself. How you do so (if at all) is also up to you.
I don't think my experiences will sway anyone's opinion about anything. They will, however, help the undecided form their opinion.
"All that you're proving is that you're quick with insults, but short on substance."
....."
Sometimes, tit for tat is appropriate (and entertaining). As to your comment about substance, the same can be said of my detractors as well as the opposing stance in general. However, my "substance" was filed in 9th Circuit Court and the Attorney General's Office, among other places. I need not accomodate you simply because you'll cry if I don't.
"I don't have time to retrace
Exactly. Few of you have time to do any research at all. But you're all very quick to yell, "feed me... feed me... spoon feed me your research because I'm too lazy... I don't have time..."
"So far, your posts have given me no reason to expect enlightment from finding out answers to these questions."
When did you first begin to assume I was interested in enlightening you? Surely someone as astute and erudite as yourself cannot be bothered with enlightenment.
"Actually, from the amount of vitriol you're spewing around, I'd say you have a massive ego, little time for educating people and are mad that no one is taking you more seriously. All grounds for ignoring ever more of your statements."
Well, hopefully your self-serving conclusion will support your departure. You wouldn't want to be considered a hypocrite, would you?
"You demand credibility for "being well known" and for "having first-hand experience", but you don't give any personally identifiable information that would allow to figure out who you are, or find out about the "numerous legal battles" you've fought."
You mean other than my real name?
I think the problem here is that, when communicating with you, I assumed I was addressing someone with at least an average adult intellect. My mistake for not resorting to pre-pubescent "hip" chatter devoid of substance so you could relate better.
I think not, given the post immedatly after this one on the main page: Marquette Dental Student Suspended For Blogging
Thanks for showing us it's true in the naughties as well.
You mean the aughts, stupid faggot.
SlashDot is not the only service with a "search" feature.
In this comment, you write "learn to use the 'search' feature". Because we're on Slashdot, "the 'search' feature" unqualified would most obviously refer to Slashdot's search, which is lacking as I described it.
The fact that Google cannot crawl certain portions of SlashDot does not mean you have to limit your search to SlashDot (or that I meant you limit your search to SlashDot).
You write here that you are "already well-known in the online community", but the English Wikipedia doesn't seem to have anything relevant about Lew Payne or Lewis Payne. Sure, Wikipedia is anything but authoritative, but nothing?
You ask us to duplicate your effort in researching, but which methods did you have in mind, and where can An Onerous Coward and myself find a crash course on using them so that we can come up with an intelligent response within 14 days, before Slashdot closes this discussion? In this comment, you appear to imply that you expect us to use Westlaw or Lexis-Nexis, but aren't those pay services?
The normal rule of discourse in the Western world is that if you want your opinion about the EFF to be taken more seriously than those of that Time Cube guy, it's your responsibility to defend your point of view by citing evidence, not just say "I'm right, and go find out yourself why I'm right, and if this doesn't convince you that I'm right, you must be a troll." In this comment, you write "I am not required to feed you information", but we are not required to take your opinion seriously unless and until you do so. Until we are given at least some way of verifying the merits of your opinion, your proof by assertion is just "rhetoric and bullshit", as you put it here, to anyone else. True, we talk on Slashdot to socialize, but we also talk on Slashdot to learn from experts in other fields, and if nobody is willing to teach, or if the teacher bases the lesson on using class materials that students cannot afford (such as a subscription to a case law search service), then nobody can learn.
Given that the article is about trials in courts of law and equity, here's another analogy: If you were arguing something in court, would you say "I'm right, and Your Honor should go search the internets to see why"? No, your complaint would cite statutes and case law.
tepples finishes his rant, feeling relieved to have that off his chest
Anyway, you refer to EFF involvement in the Kevin Mitnick case (Google: lew payne mitnick) and to an FBI wiretapping case (Google: lew payne wiretapping). If you could link to transcripts of briefs or arguments in those cases (or even the right search engine and the right query) and point out the specific places where EFF screwed up, that would help everybody learn.
That's not to say the EFF is any more effective than claimed in the Register's sneering article. Instead, we need to be very skeptical about the nature of "effectiveness" when fighting large, monied corporations. The playing field is quite far from level, and many fights are over before they're begun. That doesn't mean you stop fighting; it means that winning against oligarchs is rare and takes time and hard, thankless work. So it's additionally shitty when one's putative allies put the boot in.
"Pigopolists," to use the Reg's own term, have endless millions for exerting undue influence over the law. Even children can understand that in US legal affairs, money talks. Why can't the Reg?
You don't have the hipness down, but you've certainly shown the ability to not say anything substantiative. Personally, I think you're just pissed that people didn't immediately recognize you as a Super Internet Celebrity, bow down before your porntastic fame, and accept your (completely unsubstantiated) opinion of the EFF as the final word.
I find your behavior bizarre. If you are who you say you are, and are as intimately familiar with the EFF as you claim, you could easily spend ten minutes writing about the substance of your experiences, and it would be the single most informative post in this entire story. Instead, you go around making these nasty but vague accusations of incompetence and unprofessionalism by the EFF, claim firsthand knowledge that you won't detail, spend a good deal of time hurling juvenile insults at anyone who asks for specifics, and congratulate yourself on being so much more informed than the Slashdot masses.
If I were terribly interested in calibrating the competence and effectiveness of the EFF (nothing in the article or your commentary has caused me any concern), there are a wide variety of sources I could use to research. You haven't given anybody any reason to care about your experiences in particular, and you certainly haven't given me enough to make me want to buy a Lexis/Nexis subscription.
I remember a guy from Basic Training who reminds me of you. Kept claiming that he'd been a sergeant before, and was just re-enlisting. He never convinced me either.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
You claim it's not up to you to provide any information to substantiate your opinion, but it apparently irritates you that I don't take your opinion seriously.
Get over yourself.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
"You don't have the hipness down, but you've certainly shown the ability to not say anything substantiative."
r owse_thread/thread/35cc7cddab433421/547781a96d875f 9c?lnk=st&q=Hook+line+sinker+lewis&rnum=11&hl=en#5 47781a96d875f9ct ology/browse_thread/thread/24d189321502a4ee/0ae364 01a863961b?lnk=st&q=Hook+line+sinker+lewis&rnum=30 &hl=en#0ae36401a863961b
Were that actually true, you would have mistaken me for one of your own. Instead, you felt a compelling need to single me out from the typical slashdot crowd (which you describe perfectly in your reply).
"I find your behavior bizarre."
Likewise, juveniles find the behavior of seasoned adults odd, too.
"...and congratulate yourself on being so much more informed than the Slashdot masses."
That is always cause for celebration, though I can understand you being a bit jealous.
"...and it would be the single most informative post in this entire story."
I don't generally set my sights so low. Just about anything that's thought out qualifies as the most informative post on slashdot... and posts like that are truly rare. That's why I felt it was time to speak up and give you boys a treat.
"...and you certainly haven't given me enough to make me want to buy a Lexis/Nexis subscription."
What type of vehicle you choose to drive is immaterial to this discussion. If you want to impress someone, how about sticking to the topic at hand and saying something informative.
"I remember a guy from Basic Training who reminds me of you. Kept claiming that he'd been a sergeant before, and was just re-enlisting. He never convinced me either."
That sounds very relevant... thank you for sharing. I recall this beggar who kept insisting he was Jesus Christ. We scorned and ridiculed him, spat on him and turned him away. It turns out He was Jesus Christ, and we foolishly acted just like you. There's a lesson to be learned in that story, my son... and I hope some day you'll learn the true lesson (as opposed to what you so foolishly think the lesson was).
http://www.killfile.org/~daemons/kotm/hls.html
and the more informative
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.usenet.kooks/b
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.scien
Let that be your final lesson. And so it is ordered, and so it shall be.
"You claim it's not up to you to provide any information to substantiate your opinion, but it apparently irritates you that I don't take your opinion seriously. Get over yourself."
Face the facts -- You're the one posting into my thread. Obviously, it irritates you that I don't take your request for me to do your research for you seriously, otherwise you would have stopped responding long ago.
So... my final lesson is that you're a troll?
Wow. I really want my money back.
This is really how you spend your life? Trolling, living on the last fumes of fame coming off your friendship with Kevin Mitnick, telling people how important your opinion is but fuck 'em if they ask why?
You, a seasoned adult? I'm adding that to the list of claims you never substantiated.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
I'm not asking you to "do my research for me," nor do I care whether I ever find out what the EFF did to piss you off. What I do care about is that you're an arrogant twit who wants everyone to hate the EFF based on personal experience which he won't detail, and what I'm asking you to do is stop pretending that your "contribution" thus far is anything more substantial than, "LOL!!!1 EFF IS TEH SUXX0R!!!."
You could have given a brief summary of your interactions with the EFF. You know, the interactions that constitute the factual basis for all the opinion you've been spewing. Instead, you prefer to expend orders of magnitude more effort defending your refusal to relate your own personal experiences.
Let's momentarily set aside your asinine refusal to even say what cases you were involved in and the part you played in those cases (which would establish enough credibility for a serious discussion--not that you've ever shown an interest in one). No original sources I could get from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals could ever give me what I would need to know to discuss your personal experiences. Even if I learned everything that public documents could teach me about the case, it still wouldn't tell me what mistakes YOU thought the EFF made, it still wouldn't tell me what behaviors YOU found unprofessional. This entire thread has been about your opinions, and so long as you won't say why you hold them, the only thing here we can discuss is why you're behaving like such a buffoon.
The longer you keep stonewalling, the more worthless your opinion appears. The longer I keep feeding your trollish behavior, the dumber I look. I don't care, though. At this point, I just want to win. And by "win", I don't mean "getting the information out of you." I mean, "getting the last post." I have the time to waste on this thoroughly pointless exchange. Do you?
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Guys.... Total satire. The little bit on Bonhomie at the bottom shows it for that... even if the story didn't.
I'll believe in corporations having personhood when Texas executes one... - advocate_one
"This is really how you spend your life? Trolling, living on the last fumes of fame coming off your friendship with Kevin Mitnick, telling people how important your opinion is but fuck 'em if they ask why?"
This is how you spend yours... replying to trolls? LOL.
"You, a seasoned adult? I'm adding that to the list of claims you never substantiated."
While you're at it... remember that I also did not substantiate my identity.
"Wow. I really want my money back."
Sorry sucker... no refunds allowed.
---
This has been a public service message.
"You could have given a brief summary of your interactions with the EFF. You know, the interactions that constitute the factual basis for all the opinion you've been spewing. Instead, you prefer to expend orders of magnitude more effort defending your refusal to relate your own personal experiences."
2 00213#14200343
For someone who supposedly said, "nor do I care whether I ever find out what the EFF did to piss you off" you certainly seem to contradict yourself. In the above paragraph, you even go so far as to state what I could have done to quench your [supposedly] nonexistent thirst for said information. Now that you've triggered my dissonance detector, I realize you're just a frustrated chump who relieves himself by throwing online fits when he can't have his way. You're quite a character.
"No original sources I could get from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals could ever give me what I would need to know to discuss your personal experiences."
Incorrect... transcripts of all cases are available, for an administrative fee. Perhaps you confuse "public documents" with "online" documents.
"it still wouldn't tell me what mistakes YOU thought the EFF made, it still wouldn't tell me what behaviors YOU found unprofessional."
If you're so dense as to not equate my cause of action, as found by a reading of the complaint, to the grievances I have against the EFF then I believe any form of communication with you is futile and beyond your comprehension level.
"This entire thread has been about your opinions, and so long as you won't say why you hold them, the only thing here we can discuss is why you're behaving like such a buffoon."
I suggest you examine your own behavior. A quick reading of your own statements reveals that you too have opined in this thread, over and over again. To claim that I'm the only one who has opined is simply ludicrous and disingenuous.
"The longer you keep stonewalling, the more worthless your opinion appears. The longer I keep feeding your trollish behavior, the dumber I look. I don't care, though. At this point, I just want to win."
You know what's really funny? The fact that I've already provided the information (via links) in one of the other thread branches to my post. You've just been so obsessed with getting the information without having to do *any* research at all that you missed it. But that doesn't surprise me, coming from an armchair researcher like you.
"[by win,] I mean, 'getting the last post.' I have the time to waste on this thoroughly pointless exchange. Do you?"
We obviously share different ideas of what "win" means. You can have the last post... that's fine with me (consider it your "win"). I, on the other hand, shall have the HLS award (my "win").
Here... I'll throw you a bone... the information you seek can be found in this post:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=170322&pid=14
Merry Christmas. Jesus loves you. Joseph Smith loves you even more.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Since you've dragged this conversation down to the level of farce (and let's face it, it's all your fault, and probably your original intention), let's recap the conversation so far:
Stay tuned, folks. It's not going to get any prettier.
I never said you weren't entitled to offer an opinion. What I said was that, because you were claiming to have firsthand knowledge to support your opinions, it's up to you to provide details, if you want readers to give your opinion any more credibility than anyone else.
Nor did I contradict myself when I said I don't care to find out about those personal experiences. Towards the beginning of the thread, I was curious, and I did indeed detail what you could have done to satisfy that curiosity. Now I honestly don't care. See, there's this thing called "time", and "things" can be different at different "times". My curiosity is one of those "things" that can "change" over "time". As a seasoned adult who has very little "time" left before his creaky body creaks its last creak, I really shouldn't have to belabor the point for you.
I did find it absurd that you wanted me to pay good money for a bunch of photocopies from the Ninth Circuit, without giving me the slightest idea what I'm going to learn from them, or even giving the names of the relevant cases so that I wouldn't have to order every document from
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Thank you for your response. I, too, oppose "civil confinement", since it is seemingly undifferent from an extension of a jail sentence and thus an arbitrary improsonment. If it can happen for predatory child rapists, then why can't it happen for any other action by an "undesirable" (gay men for instance)?
If this is the only part that you opposed, I wish you would have come out and said it from the beginning and let me know that you weren't sticking up for the rights of predatory child rapists. Insinuations that I would be comfortable with communist-style roundups of any political threat is not helpful.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
"F n o r d
The short version is
Don't take this excerpt to mean that you (or others) shouldn't take the time to explore the issue/meme completely:
(from http://www.polyconomics.com/searchbase/11-18-98.ht ml)
Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.
It is settled; we agree. :)
I apologize for butting heads with you and saying things that might have been too harsh. I accept your apology as well. It's a shame that some anti-me moderator had to kill three of my karma points before we got to the agreement stage (pox on you, whoever you are), but I wouldn't let that deter me. My child is too important to me, and I felt like I was arguing on his behalf.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.