Slashdot Mirror
Posting Publicly Available URL Claimed a "Hack"
Urban Strata writes "Popular mobile phone community HowardForums.com is being hit with take-down notices from MobiTV. At issue is the fact that a HowardForums community member uncovered a publicly accessible URL for MobiTV's television stream. This URL is not encrypted or authenticated in any way, and yet MobiTV sent site owner Howard Chui a cease-and-desist letter for hosting a forum with the public URL, claiming that doing so is equivalent to hacking their service."
What would Slashdot be without silly car analogies?
If you did all that, your insurance might refuse to pay out on your claim, but in all likelihood the police would still investigate and, if they caught the thief, prosecute the crime. They might call you an idiot, and may even laugh after you leave the station, but they'll still treat it as a real crime, because it is one.
How is it wrong to just visit a completely public URL? If they're losing money it's their fault; you can't just say that verizon losing money is wrong. How is that wrong? We're gaining value. Nothing has been destroyed here. This situation is purely verizon's affiliate being lazy and insecure, and you're just stupid for thinking it's wrong to take advantage of that.
So if a mentally challenged person leaves their front door open by your logic it is okay to walk into their living room & watch tv for the afternoon after all, nothing was destroyed!
I fear people who use this train of thought because they are either sociopaths or are so immature they have no ethics whatsoever. I sincerely hope you learn better than this.
A website isn't a private home. Your analogy is a complete failure.
Rather your argument is a complete failure.
definition for an analogy:an inference that if things agree in some respects they probably agree in others.
A website doesn't have to be a "private home" as you say to make the analogy work. To learn more about proper & effective logical arguments I suggest you read Plato, The Republic. It's a great book with effective & unrelated analogies and logical progression.
The internet home analogy is broke. Just like darn near all analogies around here...anyway.
That is not the analogy. The inference is between the home & website, both which are the property of the respective owners hence, the analogy is not broke.
You really don't get the point of a public URL. It's like a phone number. There's no law against calling a phone number, even if the answering machine is playing copyright songs.
Again you are missing the point, the point isn't the use of said URL but rather the ABUSE of it. It IS against the law to abuse phone numbers, it is against the law to abuse someone's private property, it is against the law to abuse someone's webserver, even if it is publicly available. At least in the US it is... I don't know where you're at so the laws may be different there...