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SCO Chairman Fights to Ban Open Wireless Networks
cachedout writes "SCO's Ralph Yarro had the floor yesterday at the Utah Technology Commission meeting in front of Utah lawmakers. Yarro proposed that free wireless sites and subscribers should be held responsible should any porn be delivered to minors because hotspots are apparently where kids go to watch porn all day long. Yarro told lawmakers that open wireless access points should be made a crime because we have an Internet out of control."
Is *anybody* taking SCO seriously nowadays anymore ? /. readers, I mean the "average Joe that heard of SCO once, in passing".
And I don't mean
By reading this signature you agree to not disagree with the post you just read.
Thank you very much. He entered a search term that he couldn't recall Wednesday, although he said it "wasn't a real expressive sexual kind of word." And then, he said, he got caught up in a pornado -- sexually explicit pop-up windows took over his computer.
"I had this instant flash of pornographic trash on my computer that just started popping up," Brown said. "I could not turn it off. As fast as I would turn something off, something would pop on."
He had to turn off his computer to stop it, he said.
It could happen to anyone, said Sen. Scott Jenkins, R-Plain City.
"I've never opened a site in my life, but what pops up is unbelievable," he said. Jesus, install a popup blocker (or FireFox) you luddite bastard.
How we know is more important than what we know.
I mean really, an Internet out of control? all day long? Do these people see hyperbole as the best way to get people to listen because I know that anyone claiming kids are watching porn all day long is either an idiot or prone to exaggeration so why should I listen to them?
There are two kinds of fool One says 'This is old therefore good' Another says 'This is new therefore better'- Dean Ing
You just have to control the tubes.
"We shall grapple with the ineffable, and see if we may not eff it after all." - Douglas Adams
I don't think so.
Just about everyone here knows how those pop-ups happen. You're either at the site or you've been infected by some crap (most likely from going to one of those sites).
Why would anyone take this nutbag seriously? The mere fact that he works for SCO shows he's got his head firmly stuck up his ass. Oh...wait...he was talking to politicians, wasn't he? One nutbag talking to a bunch of nutbags...they gather in flocks.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
I did a quick Google search and found that Ralph Yarrow is the CEO of ThinkAtomic, which is described as a "high-tech venture accelerator"; he is also involved in the CP80 Foundation, which is lobbying against Internet pornography. Coincidentally, this CP80 organization is proposing a "technological solution" as well as a "legislative solution". I suspect that the legislative solution they want is to mandate the use of ThinkAtomic's technological solution. It appears that he failed to become richer by using the judicial system, so he's moving to the more easily manipulated legislative system.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is usually crucified.
Act to oppose it.
/.'ers are doing it.
If their "brain is frying trying to understand the technology involved" (damn!) then the best thing to do is explain it to them, along with the consequences of a bad decision. One could, for example write to a legislator explaining the concept of a popup blocker and the extremely low likelihood of "just entering a search term" causing a "tornado of popups" unless the search term was "I want a tornado of popups to take down my machine".
One could also explain, if one lived in Utah, that one would think very very poorly of any elected official who let SCO of all people railroad them into trying to railroad some unworkable and useless ban on a perfectly legitimate activity (open hotspots) based upon no evidence other than frying brains and luddite morons.
One could also, perhaps best, explain the extremely negative economic impact such legislation would have in the short term (forcing otherwise acceptable mom n' pops to spend money preventing legal activities) and in the long-term by hurting Utah's efforts to modernize its infrastructure, attract new businesses and convince prospective high-tech employers and employees that it isn't a backwards theocratic nuthouse but a modern forward-looking state that values, among other things, freedom of speech and technology at least half as much as it values free guns. (This will work for out-of-staters by the way if phrases along the lines of "I won't bring my money and jobs there...")
The (incredibly poor) Committee page is here. The Committee's members are:
Sen. Scott K. Jenkins, Co Chair
Rep. Michael E. Noel, Co Chair
Rep. Roger E. Barrus
Rep. Ralph Becker
Rep. Jim Bird
Rep. Melvin R. Brown
Sen. Mike Dmitrich
Rep. Janice M. Fisher
Rep. Lynn N. Hemingway
Rep. Steven R. Mascaro
Rep. Kay L. McIff
Sen. Darin G. Peterson
Rep. Aaron Tilton
Sen. Carlene M. Walker
Rep. Richard W. Wheeler
Richard C. North, Policy Analyst
Christopher R. Parker, Associate General Counsel
Tracey Fredman, Legislative Secretary
They can be located here.
Start your e-mailing and phone dialing (faxes are fun too!)
C'mon, all the cool
A lot of people don't understand that you cant blame the provider for what is done with the bandwidth. And, more importantly you can't restrain my right to free speech. If I want to put up a free access point to promote a cause then I must be allowed to do that as a matter of free speech. Only under extreme circumstances should that speech be curtailed (yelling fire in a theater, or where there is limited resources that MUST be regulated.) It's the responsibility of the individual to not commit a crime.
For instance, you don't arrest the CEO of Chevrolet when a drunk driver smacks into you with his Camaro. You don't arrest factory workers from Stanley tools if someone hits you with a hammer. Why would you place the blame for kiddie porn in the hands of the bandwidth provider.
The only reason SCO comes out against free, open hotspots is because they see the potential for financial benefit from forcing difficult technology on people.
Then why click on the link to Nastyladies.com instead of sherwinwilliams.com ? Or perhaps "I Feel Lucky" doesn't mean what he thought it did ;)
;)
:( :)
Now wtf did that have to do with wireless again? or was it about Wii? or was it about cellphones? Bah i lost track
bummer, no mod points today
I suspect i get more than my share by NOT using them all
The net considers censorship as a defect.
The net was designed to route around defects.
We're all born with nothing.
If you die in debt, you're ahead.
Kids are able to just look at anything they turn their eyes towards, whether or not it's appropriate! They just look, look, look. All day long, even if their parents aren't present!
Studies show that most porn enjoyed by children is primarily through their eyes. Clearly, light is out of control. There ought to be a law.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
do NOT search for "Tranny"
also bad:
"Tranny fluid"
"tranny problems"
or
"Chicks with dicks."
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
God forbid that the children find internet porn which shows someone with a body part that they don't have! It will destroy them for LIFE!
I think SCO and the "think of the children" crowd have the same basic fear: people givin' it away for free, without signing a contract.
We are all just people.
Utah Mormons form a tight cliche
You got the wording wrong, yet quite right.
Yes, there is a big cliché about Utah Mormons. And it would seem you've fallen into it.
Perhaps you did serve in Salt Lake, and perhaps you met some people that follow that trend. I can't deny it - I've met a few myself. But the willingness with which you blindly lump hundreds of thousands of people into such a small group is shocking to say the least.
I'm from Florida myself. Born and bred a southerner with no family ties to Utah and into a quasi-converted family. The first time I came to Utah was for the Missionary Training Center experience in Provo. I don't think that really counts, though, as once you're in you barely go outside for anything. I came back to Provo to attend BYU after two years slogging through the shanty towns around Buenos Aires, and in my last 4 years here in Utah I've found people of very diverse opinions, backgrounds, and ideas.
Then they would be forced to live with people who do not agree with them, and be able to expand there knowledge of the outside world.
Generally speaking, most times I've heard people say this, what they really mean is "I wish these people would think like I do." Well, I'm sorry you didn't find what you think you would here, but this is not so. It would seem you experienced time as a "minority" yourself, living with people who did not agree with you, and it didn't do you much good.
I'll agree that rural parts of Utah are fairly close minded. Yet as one who grew up in and around small towns in Florida and Alabama, I can honestly say that the people I've dealt with in small town Utah have been much more traveled and cultured. (I can't remember how many people asked me what language they speak in Argentina or, better yet, where in Africa Argentina was before I left from Florida. I've never heard those questions in Utah.) You can go to the middle of nowhere in Utah - Vernal, for example - walk into a ward meeting, and likely find people who have lived in and speak the language of dozens of foreign countries thanks to mission experience and are generally better educated than most rural populations. Not to say Utah is without its rednecks - it has its fair share - but you're painting the population with an awfully broad brush.
Utah has a lot of political problems. A lot of this has to do with the fact that there is little competition in Utah - the Democrats have situated themselves too far to the left to be seriously considered by many Utahns, and the simple fact is that a lot of Republican incumbents in office now needed to be ousted long, long ago. Similar patterns can be seen in other areas with little competition - Ted Stevens of Alaska would be a classic example. In cases like this, where little competition exists, you get bad laws from time to time, and more often than you would see otherwise.
I'd recommend giving Utah another chance. Move to an urban area for a few months and you'll see something different. I'm not going to lie - it's different than the rest of the U.S. But as a southerner, I felt different about the northeast as well during trips there.