Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Google, Surveillance, Stardust
Brin defends Google's recent actions in China. An anonymous reader writes "Fortune Magazine recently had a chance to talk to Google co-founder Sergi Brin and asked him about the company's decision to accept censorship in China. As you might guess, Brin defended the move. From the article: 'The end result was that we weren't available to about 50 percent of the users. [...] We ultimately made a difficult decision, but we felt that by participating there, and making our services more available, even if not to the 100 percent that we ideally would like, that it will be better for Chinese Web users, because ultimately they would get more information, though not quite all of it.' Human Rights Watch boss Ken Roth, though, wasn't impressed and had a few scathing remarks about the decision."
DoJ criticizes Microsoft's delay in meeting antitrust regulations. Rob writes to tell us that the US Department of Justice is complaining that Microsoft is dragging their feet on certain antitrust technical documentation submission guidelines. From the article: "Microsoft acknowledged the current problems and the steps it is taking to correct them in a recent status report but "has not detailed the seriousness of the current situation," according to the DoJ."
Bush allies defend NSA domestic surveillance. Jason Jardine writes to tell us News.com is reporting that Bush's allies are coming out of the woodwork to support the recently criticized NSA domestic surveillance program. From the article: "In a continuation of a full-court press that began a day earlier, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Tuesday told students at Georgetown University that a wartime president has the lawful authority to eavesdrop on Americans' telephone calls and e-mail messages without court approval." Forgive me if I don't agree.
Wisconsin rolls back open-source voting. Irvu writes "One day after the good news that Wisconsin was requiring open-source electronic-voting software was reported on Slashdot, it was gutted. According to BloackboxVoting.org the open-source public review provisions of the bill were removed and replaced with a version requiring the state to escrow the code and, unless a recount occurs, provide only internal examination. The final form of the bill reads: 'Sec 5.905 "...Unless authorized under this section, the board shall withhold access to those software components from any person who requests access under s.19.35...' Meaning that public review is not required and should be, by default, refused. The Legislation History [PDF]reflects the change and points to the final crippled bill. [PDF]"
A look back at Pixar history. An anonymous reader writes "With all of the recent press coverage of Pixar getting bought out by Disney it seems only fitting to take a look back at Pixar history. LowEndMac.com has an interested retrospective writeup exploring the beginnings of Pixar back in the 1970's by Dick Shoup through to the current day."
Stardust samples exceed expectations. carpdeus writes "MSNBC is reporting that the recent opening of the Stardust sample in a clean room appears to be a great success. From the article: 'It exceeds all expectations,' said Donald Brownlee, Stardust's lead scientist from the University of Washington. 'It's a huge success,' he said in a university statement released Wednesday. 'We can see lots of impacts. There are big ones, there are small ones. The big ones you can see from 10 feet away,' Brownlee observed."
'...We ultimately made a difficult decision, but we felt that by
participating there, and making our services more available, even if not
to the 100 percent that we ideally would like, that it will be better for
Chinese Web users, because ultimately they would get more information,
though not quite all of it.'
Meaning: "Thereby ensuring that we could sell ads that reach most,
even if not to the 100% that we ideally would like, of the enormous
Chinese market."
Don't kid yourself. This has nothing to do with being evil or not and
everything to do with making money. Great big piles of money.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
NASA/JPL explain how dust was captured in Aerogel
alas, poor pixar! i knew him, horatio.
So... how long before the forces of ennui at Disney get to Steve and John, driving them out like Roy? How long before Pixar films are littered with the dumb, ultra-hip Disney characters populate the films?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
For the United States to enter a war, Congress must exercise their constitutional authority to declare war. They have chosen not to do so.
1. What you know you know.
2. What you know you don't know.
3. What you don't know you know.
4. What you don't know you don't know.
As long as Google tells people items where removed from their search because of their government, then Google is still providing information in the form of #2 instead of #4 like other search engines might, or the absense of any search engine would be.
Morphing Software
For one, on the bottom of the Chinese results they do show that the results were filtered according to local law. So, the Chiniese citizens are in fact informed that their results are being filtered indirectly by their Governement.
For two, Google, after all, is a business. They are not a NGO, charity, or some other organization that's in existance to make this planet a better World (TM). They are here to make their shareholders (and themselves) a return on their investment.
Three, Corporate citizenship, HA hahhahahahhahahhahahahhahahhahahahhahahhahahahhaha hhahahahha!
Four, there is no Easter Bunny or Santa Clause!
Five, you get my point.
It will be interesting to see how things are viewed when more of the 'truth' is settled on in 20 years for this administration. Will they be seen as the just and right protectors of Democracy, or will he be seen as the worst president of all time?
IMHO, they are with this CIA blowup working on either
1)Nailing their own coffin shut on this
2) Permanently dismantling the basics of american freedoms
"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security"
Ben Franklin
Tibbon
tibbon.com
I want some big, important pundit on the right to give an example of something the president does not, by their lights, have the authority to do. If he becomes a dictator in wartime (which it's mighty sketchy to say we're in), why not come out and say this? Can he rape and murder? No, seriously, if he can break one law, why not others?
Shit, I thought I understood our system of government--the legislature expresses the will of the people in laws; the executive branch then implements and executes said laws. For instance, if Congress makes kidnapping a federal offense, the FBI (under the Department of Justice) investigates kidnappings. But according to some of our less stable pundits and her commenters, "The legislature cannot limit the authority of the president, just like the president cannot limit the authority of the legislature." So, does he have divine, kingly powers now? Did we suddenly get that?
Oh, who am I kidding? Clearly the president's imperial authority stops at the beginning of the next Democrat administration.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I trust that the "It's not illegal because we don't think it is" defense will convince no one. This administration is resembling the Nixon administration more and more, and I can only hope that it ends the same way.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
...to 'leet and spamspeak. Search for Tibet, and it comes back with an article on T1b3t. Tiananmen could come back "Ti4n4m3n." Hire a spammer to keep changing things around -- after all, cool words like Viaggra and C1aL15 don't make themselves -- and they should stay one step of the Chinese authorities while obeying the letter of the law.
Note: IANACL (I am not a Chinese Lawyer)
While I don't particularly care for what China is doing, I can't particularly blame google.
First off, his statement is correct - that is a large market. I can't blame them for wanting to get into it. The Chinese govt is the one imposing the standards - hate them.
Secondly, this is still a march towards not having the censorship. If you demand an all or nothing approach then, at least with this Chinese Govt you will get the "nothing" end of the bargain. It's like demanding "Give me a million dollars or give me death" - while the million dollars would be nice, death sucks and will be the option you are stuck with if you stay headstrong about those being the only two options. Better to choose the path that will get you to the million dollars as quickly as possible and still be likely.
Right now, Chinese Govt is in a hard place (though very good for the rest of the world and the Chinese people). If they do not progress they will die, in order to progress they need to open the information avenues. By opening those avenues they are going to die. All this will do is give another way for dissidents to gather information and learn and show normal average people what they are missing.
It would be nice to wave a magic wand and have them be a free country, but that isn't going to happen. It's going to take a long series of concessions with a final bloody conflict, though with enough of their country inching towards it it will be less bloody - in the long run stuff like this will save lives even if it isn't what you want ideologically.
As to if the founder of google are being greedy bastards who trample on the Chinese rights or see the second part of what I say will depend on your view of the company. They aren't going to say either way. Given Google's past I generally suspect that the second benefit I said plays in their decision - though I do not know how much.
------- Sorry about the spelling, I suffer from two problems. Dyslexia makes it difficult to spell well, lazy makes it
"We ultimately made a difficult decision,"
We have to pick our fights carefully in life as well as in our professional life. Some battles can be won, some can not be won. This one could not be won. For now anyway.
Good choice imho.
This has been another valuable and informative opinion from:
Catahoula!
is "Standing up" to the US gov't to "defy" them with this request for search information. When they are going right along with the chinese gov't with censoring their citizens. Please, they are looking to make money, nothing else. i like the company, but "Doing no evil" is nothing more than propaganda to keep people happy with the company and avoid MS anti-trust problems.
Sergi Brin, co-founder of search engine supercompany, Google, was defending Google's caving in to the Tyrants of Beijing.
"We feel that we are in fact doing a public service." Brin said, as he was buttfucked by several high ranking Communist officials. "Now that Google is co-operating with Beijing, they're letting me use lube."
Responding to criticism from human rights groups and anyone with a sense of decency, Brin replied "Look, you have dry anal sex with all those guys and come back and tell me we made the wrong decision."
... "yeah, it was difficult to throw away morals, and make lots of money for shareholders, and hell, I make $1 a year, all of my money comes from stock, but hey, someone has to offer search services in China" ...
Come on. Do no evil? Right. They are compromising on morals to appease either stockholders or to up their bottom line.
Microsoft is doing it. Yahoo is doing it. Correct. But neither of them claim to "Do no evil". By doing that Google is claiming to adhere to a higher power. But then they lower themselves to the same level. China doesn't need Google. Google decided they needed China.
Then again, civil liberties progressives were ok with crackdowns by Clinton and Janet Reno, so hypocrisy goes both ways.
sulli
RTFJ.
Reading this Slashback, it struck me just how bad and dissapointing news stories are lately. It's always the state/federal government/big corporation doing something to screw people over. What a depressing state of afairs.
He's in-your-face!
Will they be seen as the just and right protectors of Democracy, or will he be seen as the worst president of all time?
I'm gonna go out on a limb and predict it will be somewhere in between. And that different people will have different opinions.
The current Slashdot footer quote seems very appropriate:
You may be sure that when a man begins to call himself a "realist," he is preparing to do something he is secretly ashamed of doing. -- Sydney Harris
I am in India, and I can't seem to be able to go to your second link. Google automatically coerces my www.google.cn link to www.google.com. Even when I type it manually.
I'm much more funny, interesting and insightful than the moderators think
did anyone else catch the incompetant interview with att gen gonsales on npr yesterday ? the AG said FISA authorizes wiretaps in time of war, and the idiot interviewer did not come back with FISA allows warratnless wiretaps in the 1st 14 days after a war is declared...
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Tuesday told students at Georgetown University that a wartime president has the lawful authority to eavesdrop on Americans' telephone calls and e-mail messages without court approval.
When asked when the war would started, Gonzales replied "September 11th, 2001". When asked when it would end, he said "Never".
Gonzales, however, is wrong. The war on terror is over! We're now in the "struggle against Islamic extremism".
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Georgetown University that a wartime president has the lawful authority to eavesdrop on Americans' telephone calls and e-mail messages without court approval."
Somebody needs to tell this jackass that WE'RE NOT F%#KING AT WAR!!! Unless I missed it when Congress issued a declaration of war, but somehow I doubt I slept through that.
Just because a few morons in DC make up a fancy sounding name like the "War on Terror" or "War on Drugs" does not mean that we are magically at war.
What a freaking asshat.
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
Having been at Disney during the CAPS days, I can tell you that the article gets a lot of details wrong (e.g. animators didn't paint cels and they weren't painted automatically) but at a higher level it's still an interesting story.
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
And yet they agree to China's much more intrusive demands.
No, I don't think they are "doing evil" with any of it. But heros they are not either.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Pixar earned my contempt with killing off the Blue Moon Rendering Toolkit. How threatened can they be by free (as in beer) software that didn't even do the same stuff as Renderman? They earned my contempt further with this merger with Disney. Think about this - not long after Nemo came out, the two were at massive loggerheads over contractual and creative disputes. But give Steve Jobs a few million and he's suddenly all sweetness and light?
It seems to me that if the original disputes were real, then they'd still be real today, and Pixar's management sold out. If the disputes were attempts to manipulate, then Disney was suckered into the deal and animation fans were being used as so much bait. One way or another, ethics was busy in the next solar system.
Microsoft trying to sucker the DoJ into letting them violate the antitrust agreements is no great surprise, that they're doing it at the same time as trying to pull a similar stunt in Europe is perhaps more of one. It's hard to tell what the DoJ can or will do, given the current administration. On the other hand, the move may make the EU more cynical and more inclined to reject Microsoft's appeal. Depending on relative speed of action, if the EU does reject Microsoft's offering of "limited" code at a price and under a highly restrictive licence, the DoJ is likely to be a little tougher. Not too much - this IS election year - but enough that it won't create bad publicity from them going soft.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Until Hillary's elected, of course Then they will suddenly get religious about observing the constitutional niceties.
Infuriate left and right
Man, that's the best summary of this whole story I've seen yet. Thank you, thank you.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
At least the NSA is choosing people with some intelligence on them and not eavesdropping on every damn call.
I take it you work at the NSA and can actually back this up? Or are we to take the president's word for it?
And I beg to differ that the NSA wiretap is "no different". You know when you're patted down at the airport. You don't know when the NSA wiretaps you. The airport searches are conducted in compliance with the law. The warrantless wiretaps are conducted in violation of the law. It doesn't get much clearer than that.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
While I don't particularly relish the prospect of eavesdropping without warrants, the fact is that warrants take a gigundous mountain of paperwork to get, and that sometimes they really won't be obtainable fast enough to make a difference. It would be nice to see some sort of intermediate position: a sort of 'temporary warrant' with a fraction of the paperwork, while they wait around for the regular warrant. Maybe you could require them to destroy the recordings if the regular warrant isn't granted, as well... hmm.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
Tiananmen = "Lock say" (this is actually the westernized way of saying the date, which I found through my un-censored USA Google search).
Other censored phrases can be replaced with more obscure stuff. lakfjdslkdj for democracy, etc. Of course the censors will just clamp down on that. It will be an arms race, just like spam, and just as spam always gets through, so will censored material. Come on, you know you want to enlarge y0\/r d3mocrasee p3nis.
So yeah, the Google execs look like they caved in, but they probably realize this will work as well as... DRM. To the young Chinese hackers: Gentlemen, start your compilers.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I saw this on Boing Boing earlier today.
Future lawers protest AG's speech
The link is to someone's blog, but the pictures are priceless.
Don't you have someone you'd die for?
And just because you don't know it, doesn't make it so. Congress has approved the state of war we are currently in. If you would spend a little time looking, you'd know it.
Seems to have been down for a while now... I thought my router was acting up but now....
Obviously you are too young to remember Clinton and his abuse of presidential powers. If you think Bush is bad, then you'll have a heart attack if you look at the things Clinton endorsed through his record amount of Executive orders, domestic spying, and illegal wars abroad (remember Kosovo? Congress and the UN -both- never approved it).
Trawl the web. Find a page that has information that would be of value to enemies of the USA but is not generally known. Now try to find it in a Google search. Chances are, it's not there - even if pages that link to it are. Either Google's spider is broken (possible), or the information has been filtered out (more likely).
Google China uses the same principles as Google USA - it's just that the Chinese government's definition of dangerous knowledge is wider - much wider.
The harsh truth is - you do business on the government's terms, or not at all.
I find what Google is doing despicable. Google should be heavily fined for helping China to promote the oppression and censorship of it's people. Unfortunately, industrialized nations are so wet in their pants for China that they're willing to do anything to earn that country's business.
What I find even more absurd is that there are people actually defending this. I'd like to know if people would be so tolerant if another company, Microsoft for example, had done the same. I also wonder if people would be so tolerant if the US, especially under the current administration, were doing this. People sure are freaking out about wire tapping when its something that wont affect 99% of the public and can be argued is truly for national security. In China a forum like slashdot would never be allowed to even exist and its creators would likely be jailed.
I really don't understand this overwhelming desire to appease China. Just like the idiots at the UN deciding one day that a soverign nation like Taiwan will no longer be recognized because China said so.
The Chinese government must be riding high on all this attention, as well as the tiny percentage of the population getting rich while the vast majority remain oppressed and in utter poverty. Google, countless other corporations and governments around the world are pathetic for allowing this sort of thing to persist. Unfortunately, it's nothing new...
These are getting more frequent.
Are the number of slashback reader slipping,
or does slashdot feel they're not getting enough exposure?
----
Look at the N. Koreans and Cuba and other examples.
With sufficient govt heavyhandedness, and censureship,
the population can always be held in check. google,
like other companies, are in it for the money.
Should they be blamed ?
W..........
It seems to make sense now.
The gov't should shut MS down for ten days. Then allow them to reopen. Christ, what's it take to get their effing attention?
Please, GOD!, let the world work that way!!! Please!!!!
His defense boils down to: "I met the guy at Brainstorm, I think his name's Xiao." And he said it's okay.
Gosh, I would have thought a head of a major corporation could put together a decent argument. I'm usually one to say it's just business, but not when it comes to suppressing free speech. Dupont or Starbucks gets a pass, but unfortunately for Google, I don't think they do.
Well, can't we pass a law requiring them to be humanitarian, then?
... and then they built the supercollider.
When asked when the war would started, Gonzales replied "September 11th, 2001". When asked when it would end, he said "Never".
But Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia...
The absence of the "I feel lucky" button is terrifying in its implications.
Likewise, just be cause you are ignorant of the US Constitution doesn't make it mean whatever you want it to mean.
I've spent a lot of time looking, and Congress has definitely issued no Declaration of War. They've passed some namby-pamby resolution that mentions the War Powers Act, but NOWHERE does it declare war. They did that knowing full well that they could have included wording in the resolution to declare war, but they chose not to.
For all those of you that think we really are at war (legally), why do you think Congress was unwilling to issue a simple declaration of war? It's not like doing so is particularly difficult; it's just a few words on paper with a few signatures. They could have dusted off any one of the last few they issued (back in 1941) and used it as boilerplate. If they can't find a copy in the Capitol, I suspect that they could get one from the National Archives.
The fact of the matter is that Congress wanted to have a war, but didn't want to accept any responsibility for it. "Go bomb Iraq, but don't blame us for it." So they issued an unconstitutional "authorization of force" instead, to push the responsibility onto the administration.
If the lack of a declaration of war was just some simple oversight ("Oh really? I thought we did that already!"), then as soon as the matter was brought up publicly they could have corrected it by issuing such a declaration. But they have continued to choose not to do that.
The US Congress is a bunch of "girly men" (and women). A good case can be made that the congresspeople that voted for that "authorization of force" should be charged with treason, as should the President for fighting an undeclared war.
And for those that think, "oh, well, a declaration of war is just a formality, we don't really need it", I would point out that apparently the Constitution and Bill of Rights are just formailities, and we don't really need them. That's certainly the stated position (in not so many words) of the current administration.
The point of even having a Constitution, laws, etc., is that we are supposed to abide by them. If we can ignore them whenever they happen to be inconvenient to our immediate needs (even the ill-defined "National Security"), then they ware worthless. The Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war, not the power to authorize force, and that is an important part of the balance of power of the US government.
If there is a declared war, certain restrictions on the powers of the government are lifted, but if there isn't a declared war, they aren't. That is but one reason why it's very significant that Congress has not seen fit to declare war.
I find most of you on Slashdot, say one of two things about Google and China:
1) Google is fine, it is not thier fault, blame the Chinese govt.
2) A corporation exists within the law, to maximize profit, and since google is following the law of the land, they are fine.
I think I have a problem with the large number of these posts due to the following:
1) Enabling th Chinese government to execute these laws, and by Google following them, does not make them right. In fact it sets a bad precedent, which I consider Cisco a far more insidious company than google which started most of these problems.
(i.e. If Cisco can sell high tech equipment to Chinese to hunt down people, why can't we?)
But, the problem remains. Defining corporate responsibility simply by a small set of laws, doesn't work. It doesn't work for coal miners, Nuclear Power Plants and it will not work for the Chinese people.
Google is enabling the Chinese government to torture, imprison and possibly kill polical leaders that who do not like the human rights track record of the Chinese government.
By ignoring these facts somehow doesn't fit quite well with the excuse that Google is a corporation and just exists out there innocently to make money.
It doesn't fit well with my conscious, anyway.
2) I think it is laughable, that Google excuses itself by saying "Oh we just obey the local return results of the country we are in.".
I also do not believe that informing people that the government is watching makes it fine and good.
The government could care less if you can see what they are doing, they only care whether or not they control WHAT you are seeing.
If you cannot see anything else, how does that make you any more powerful?
It does not.
In general, it looks like as long as the company makes money it is "OK" to do these things.
No law in China exists that says this is wrong, so that makes it OK right?
We have some serious issues on this web site if the majority of the posts I am reading are taking the naive position that because Google is obeying the local laws of the Chinese govt, and that because a corporation exists to make money for shareholders it is not responsible for anything else for the society in which it serves.
Serious kinds of bad mojo has historically come of this kind of line of thinking, and when you start involving governments with big tanks and nuclear weapons, nothing good can come of it.
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
Naturally, subsequent administations never cut back on these practices. Once an agency has an authority and a budget, it's very hard to remove either...
--
Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
The US government isn't giving Google a "do this or we'll block your service entirely" ultimatum. They weren't even making the request for security reasons, just to bolster their argument in a review of a *pornography* law. Google can and should stand up for user's privacy; and they are.
The chinese government is unambiguously giving Google an ultimatum. Sure, Google can refuse, but all that means is they are self-censoring their ENTIRE service instead of partially. It's not even a privacy issue at all - if the government was asking Google to release the names of people searching sensitive topics then Google would be doing a bad thing by acquiescing, but they aren't being asked that *at all*. At least, not this time.
Effectively banning even the majority of searches which aren't politically sensitive for the sake of a stubborn viewpoint over a few is what you're advocating, and I see that as the greater evil.
Looks to me like Google has taken the best route available to them in each case. Neither is perfect, but why are you expecting that?
... which means that it's a war against an emotion, not a tactic. Or is it a war against a noun? Better chance of success if it were against an action-based one like "terrorism" than an abstract one like "terror".
Actually, doesn't he call it "War On Terra" these days?
Google says : "Don't be Evil, let us be!"
Could you be a dear and tell me how many combat deaths US forces suffered in Kosovo, as well as the total monetary cost to our armed forces? Could you point out there Clinton (a) endorsed domestic wiretapping in contravention of FISA, and (b) claimed that he was above the law, and did not need to follow it anyway? And finally, could you explain why "Clinton did it" would be a valid defense, even if it were true?
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Your second link
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/usc-cgi/get_external.c gi?type=pubL&target=107-40
And from the War Powers Resolution:
From your third link
From the War Powers Resolution:
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
who gutted the Wisconsin voting bill? Because it's time to start shooting these bastards, then perhaps they'll start paying some attention to us.
I'm somewhat sympathetic with Brin's position.
No one forced him into China... except his desire to MAKE MONEY. Censorship is in direct conflict with "do no evil". Therefore he is sacrificing beliefs for the Almighty Buck. I have no sympathies and Google has lost several pegs in my book.
It doesn't surprise me... people on Slashdot don't know half as much as they think they do.
That'll be the Fatherland, thank you.
Once there is a female President, then we can all suckle from the teat of Democracy in the Motherland.
And please don't take this as a partisan statement, but I'd rather not suckle from Condi Rice's teat. Or Hillary Clinton's for that matter.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Dude, stop Bogharting that joint!
While I bow down before your low UID (It must suck to have just missed getting 1234), I realize that I've already replied to your Senate Joint Resolution #23 post.
1 &cid=14564531
/. reader would think you're suggesting that somehow, because Congress "invokes the War Powers Resolution", they gave the President war time powers.
My Reply: http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=17516
I only post again, because it seems that a casual
They didn't.
I'm not doing this because I hold political views one way or the other, but merely to quash bad information. Iraq v2 is not a war, in the exact same way Vietnam was not a war, even though history books refer to "the Vietname War"
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Forgive me if I don't agree
You can disagree all you want. If the laws says he can, your thoughts on the matter - interesting as they may be - are irrelevant. Additionally, I think I will assume that the Attorney General of the United States is a bit more qualified than ScuttleMonkey when it comes to interpreting law.
...have the lawful authority to crush kittens' heads with a hammer?
Repton.
They say that only an experienced wizard can do the tengu shuffle.
According to this article Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Cisco will have to account for their actionsin China.
I hope they get a good thrashing as well.
Living in Japan, when I try to reach google.com 9 times out of 10 it redirects me to google.co.jp or some such. So I tried to see the photos of Tianenmen Square as seen behind the firewall but it was not possible to view any page in google.cn.
This is a bitch. Can anyone post a screenshot?
Thanks,
Matt
I just wish they would give up this whole electronic Voting. Most if not all precincts in Wisconsin have ballots that have a an arrow with the middle section missing (in some fine ascii art >-- ---> ) and you just fill in the missing piece of the arrow for who you want to vote for. You don't even need instructions to guess what to do. Why should we waste money buying electonic systems when we have easy to count ballots both electronically, (think scantron) by hand, and impossible to tamper with.
"wartime president has the lawful authority to eavesdrop".... were not at war with a country.... oh wait we are fighting out selves now thats what it is
(yes i know i suck at spelling fell free to correct my grammar and/or spellin i dont care, im still not going to change
http://images.google.cn/images?q=tank+man&hl=zh-CN
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
Corporations don't exist to be humanitarian organizations. Their job is to make as much money as possible, while remaining within the law.
That's almost right, but technically, corporations exist to make as much money as possible. And that's all. While it is often more profitable to do business within the law than to break the law, that is not always true. You don't have to look very hard to find evidence of corporate law-bending/breaking; usually you can just look at Slashdot's front page.
Enjoy. Tiananmen Square in English, on the American site: http://images.google.com/images?q=tiananmen+square
Tiananmen Square in Chinese, on the Chinese site:
http://images.google.cn/images?q=%E5%A4%A9%E5%AE%8 9%E9%97%A8%E5%B9%BF%E5%9C%BA&btnG=%E6%90%9C%E7%B4% A2
At many universities in China, they only have access to domestic internet ( *.cn ) and to access ANYTHING foreign you need to find an unreliable proxy. I wonder how hard it might be to do some really long distance Wi-Fi from an uncensored internet source outside the country into the country (HK; Taiwan, which also has a few small islands right off the Chinese coast; Vietnam, S. Korea).
Not counting various missile strikes, CIA operations, commando raids, etc., which might be considered legitimate without a declaration of war (but certainly would be casus belli for the country being invaded).
Congress voting an "authorization to use force" is a sham and an insult to the Constitution.
Soylent Green is peoplicious!
This is a very good example.
While I can understand why Google wants to reach as many chinese as possible, it is a dangerous move since google, precieved as a source for valuable information, and as a research tool, is suddenly a distorted source that paints a picture which is very much not real and true. Although not exactly the same, it is not too far from changing the facts in a history book. The main reason for this comparison is the 'deliberate' nature by which the facts are changed. I think this is a very bad precedent. Very bad. And google's excuse of trying to "supply information (even if not all) to all chinese people" is flawed and not honest.
What google SHOULD have done is - put a notice "Chinese government does not allow us to present results for this search term" RATHER than show partial results.
"From the moment I could talk, I was ordered to listen" - Cat Stevens
Vietnam was nothing but a political war run by politicians. Nixon allowing the incursion into Cambodia - the politicians had made this out-of-bounds - probably made sense militarily at the time but it was just another transgression by Nixon.
The vietcong were not an enemy which everyone agree was - whereas terrorists are an enemy which everyone agrees. This issue is DEAD politically.
"For one, on the bottom of the Chinese results they do show that the results were filtered according to local law. So, the Chiniese citizens are in fact informed that their results are being filtered indirectly by their Governement."
http://www.google.com/search?q=tiananmen%20square
http://www.google.cn/search?q=tiananmen%20square
Unless I'm blind.
...to me at least
this
vs.
this
I don't read Chinese, but tab back and forth between the two and see if you can tell me what the difference is.
In fact the only social responsibility of a corporation is to deliver a consistent profit to its shareholders. This is a radically different statement, as a corporation can easily do things that will provide a profit in the short term, but kill the business in the medium to long term. Is this good for the shareholders? No, of course not.
Good business leaders understand this and that is why you see movements like the recent one to end quarterly earnings guidance. Good businesses make decisions that allow it provide consistent profits to its shareholders over a long time span.
Making a profit over the long term brings in all sorts of interesting questions like employee health, employee quality, employee loyalty, training costs, brand reputation, etc.
IMO Google is making a major brand sacrifice in the U.S. to do business in China. Is this a good idea? I have my doubts.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Who here asked for leaders? I want representatives, not leaders. I'm interested in a government that goes where the people want it to go, not one that drags the people behind it. If you have a government full of leaders, things like this are what you end up getting time and time again.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
So maybe misspellings won't be censored as effectively, and the Chinese can finally get all that pr0n.
e )
http://images.google.cn/images?q=tienanmen+square
(for comparison: http://images.google.com/images?q=tienanmen+squar
It may be run by Democrats (I don't know), and they may not be granting exactly what was requested, but it certainly doesn't matter if they sit on the requests. In fact, that would probably make the CIA happy. You see, they don't have to approve the request before the signal is captured or used. The CIA doens't even have to file the request before they get it. They have to file withing 48 hours of capturing it, and approval can take as long as the court likes. If the court eventually rejects the request they have to delete the information, (wink wink). That's really not a very high burden, IMHO. Laziness shouldn't be an excuse for breaking the Constitution.
Awww, and you misspelled something too...
"Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality." -- Dalai Lama
Hi, I noticed you have some experience with the nDVR software required for this unit. I recently got one of these servers off ebay and noticed that its pretty much useless without the NDVR or receiver hardware/software. Do you know any way that I can get video from this unit without buying expensive software etc. Is there a demo that works and would allow me to play with the capabilities of the SmartSight S1708 video server ? Please e-mail me any info suggestions you have about this system essence27@comcast.net Thnks a mil -Kris