Slashdot Mirror
House IP Leader Endorses P2P Blocking
Technical Writing Geek points out an Ars Technica report on comments from Representative Howard Coble (R-NC), who sits on the House Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property. In a recent editorial, Coble attempts to discourage P2P file sharing among young people, and praises Ohio University for its ban on P2P applications last year. Coble also suggests that identity theft is a great danger from file sharing. Public Knowledge is running a similar analysis, which argues against the main points from the editorial.
It's just a FUD tactic, much like "You have no guarantee that open source software is 'safe'" and "Nobody ever got fired for buying $RESPECTED_MANUFACTURER"
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree
Guns dont kill people, people kill people.
We should outlaw cars too, look at all the people they kill.
I know this has nothing to do about murder, but they are blaming the technology for the crimes. If you get rid of P2P, something new will replace it.
Thats assuming you can get rid of P2P. P2P will not go away any time soon.
Im a gamer, not a grammer major. This post is full of spelling and grammer mistakes.
Well, at least he didn't say that P2P would put pornography in the hands of the children... oh wait
Well, at least the kiddie-porn people would be stopped if there was no file sharing... right?
Well, at least Ms Spears would be able to pay her medical bills if there were no file sharing... there, we can all rest happy now.
WTF? This is just an attempt to make it seem ok to filter some things. Slowly but surely they will work on filtering everything for us so we won't have to worry about criminals - except those who work as legislators.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
Isn't there a way to demand that politicians explain the idiotic things they claim? If there is not, there should be, and then if they are proven wrong, they should be fined and beaten! Publicly!
How amazed would you be to suddenly find that you just forgot what I wrote and you needed to reread my post.... again.
"Hey, X can be used in illegal ways, therefore we should make it illegal!"
Let's see, that can apply to everything from raw sugar to automobiles. Quick, file legislation to make them all illegal!
Compromised Windows systems are being used to flood the internet with spam in violation of various state and federal laws. Outlaw Windows!
Why cant these congresscritters get it through their thick skulls that there are plenty of legitimate uses for P2P, even in a university environment. A university in Holland is using bittorrent to manage 6500 workstations and it's saving them time and money. The university I work at uses SystemImager on its high performance research cluster to manage the software on all the compute nodes. SystemImager supports the use of bittorrent as a transport mechanism. If these aren't legal, legitimate, and highly useful implementations of bittorrent then I don't know what is. These are just two working examples of P2P being used in university environments in responsible ways, but I'm sure those stuffed shirts in Washington could care less.
By linking the two big bogeymen of the internet, they're trying to justify more regulation. It's the same crap they pull with buying SUV's == supporting terrorists, etc.
If we're going to ban software used in identity theft I guess we can kiss the browser and e-mail client goodbye.
Don't forget to call them out on their FUD in public to prevent others voting for them.
To what? Another similar one? Face it, any mainstream candidate that has any chance of being elected falls in the same trap. Republicans, and Democrats both and also some independents. And until we can either get a large Pirate party here in the US or get some tech-savvy senators/representatives who can cut through the FUD that the RIAA has created we won't have a large enough majority to matter. It also doesn't help that I have never, never seen anyone (who was very popular) say much about P2P or other technology except "The US should have more tech jobs!!" which doesn't tell you anything about how they stand, and no writing letters/e-mails doesn't help.
There is no "disagree" moderation, and troll, flamebait and overrated are not valid substitutes
While this is true, the risks are equal to people using Internet Explorer to look at porn.
So should we ban porn? Should we ban IE because it's easily exploited?
And while limewire and kazaa (and the many other programs) have a a good chance of infecting you, what of bit torrent, it's quite a bit safer. Why should it be banned when it's has so many good uses.
(Yes I realize you don't agree with the argument.)
The voting box is broken when the media doesnt spread the news
The media doesn't spread the news because they are owned by the same corporations that "contribute" heavily to both "mainstream candidates" (IE, both the Republican and Democrat wings of the Republicrat Party) in every major race.
When Nader was running as a "third party" (Green) candidate, he wasn't on the ballot in enough states to gain the Presidency even if he won every state he ran in, and the media slobbered all over him. The Libertarians were on the ballot in 49 states, yet the media said nary a word about him.
Your corporate overlords, most of whom are foreign (Sony, BP, Shell, etc) aren't about to let go of their power. We, the People, lost and lost big a long time ago.
That said, I still vote, but split my vote between "third party" candidates. Because voting for a candidate that will vote against your interests is worse than wasting a vote, it's just plain stupid. People don't stay away from the polls because they're apathetic, they stay away because they know they have no real voice. Both candidates against legalizing something you love? Why vote?
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
You're fighting the wrong battle, kid. The fight is between those in power, the corporations and their lobbyists, and we, the people.
And you're helping them fight us.
BTW, I'm a geezer.
It's said that if you're a conservative when you're young you have no heart. If you're a liberal when you're old you have no brains. I'd say if you consider yourself boxed into outdated ideas like "liberal" and "conservative" you have neither brains nor heart.
When I was in my tewnties, marijuana was going to be legal as soon as my generation got in power. Well, so much for THAT generational battle!
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Do remember that those "old" who are now collecting Social Security and Medicare were "robbed" to pay for SS and M for those before them. I'd be thrilled to eliminate SS and M - except that I've been paying into it for many years money I could have otherwise been investing and that I'm damned sure I won't get back if SS and M go away. Give me back all that money, with appropriate interest paid on it (that is, if it was invested in 1993, it should get the kind of return that well invested money in 1993 got) and I'll gladly help you dispose of the institutions. Otherwise, fuck off.
This old man has gone senile. As a voter in his district I will vote against him and I'm a conservative.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
Because in the latter example, you're stealing material property. That crime is called theft. In the former example, you're copying data illegally -- that crime is called copyright infringement, and the difference is that nobody was deprived of a physical copy of the merchandise. Thievery means taking something physical or otherwise tangible (money counts) and depriving someone else of it.
As for admitting that you engage in willful copyright infringement... well, that just wasn't too smart, now was it? But people like you do give a bad name to those who use BitTorrent for legitimate purposes.
>> ...and praises Ohio University for its ban on P2P applications last year.
Its one thing for some old politician to not properly understand the technology that he is trying to ban, but one would think a university would be better educated than to assume ALL p2p traffic must be copyright infringment.
People don't stay away from the polls because they're apathetic, they stay away because they know they have no real voice. Both candidates against legalizing something you love? Why vote?
No! That simply can't be it. It's apathy! Bad voter! BAD! There is absolutely no way it's due to having appalling choices or ones that are so similar to each other that they're effectively interchangeable. It also has nothing to do with an endless cycle of "whomever gets voted in winds up screwing the people" or political corruption that's so pervasive that utterly nobody is surprised when it becomes public for any given politician.
Nope. It's your fault as a voter for not caring.
-
Inventor of the term 'pardon my French'.
Yeah, they were robbed too, but we're really going to suffer the effects of it because of the expansion of entitlements, the expansion of beneficiaries and the expansion of the federal budget. The Baby Boomers are going to bankrupt these pyramid schemes, but that's just part of the fleecing we're experiencing. I forgot to mention the fact that the federal government has a vested interest in maintaing and increasing these broken systems since they bring in a tremendous amount of revenue. Retirees are paid off and then the rest of the money we're contributing is spent as part of general funds. Few wish to confront these issues. To his credit, G.W.B. attempted to get some reform through but his effort was doomed from the start because of timid Congressmen and corrupt lobbies like the AARP. Realize that entitlement reform will be one of the great contentious domestic battles of the next decades.
Part of the hardcore faithful who believed in Apple long before it was cool again to do so
Until we get a REAL third party(which I wouldn't hold my breath) all we are going to get is back stabbers and sellouts.ATM it just feels kinda pointless,like those countries were you have to vote for "El Presidente" who runs unopposed.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
We are talking about America here. Voting boxes are mostly empty.
I'm from Australia where they are always full and voting makes a difference.
Email is a waste of time, agreed. It's not even considered by politicians, but letters, you know, on paper, in envelopes, signed and posted with stamps? That's a different story. For whatever reason, they are taken seriously. I think the 'metric' is:
1 Letter = 2k implied similar viewpoints
Why? Don't ask me. I think it has something to do with time, effort, and the general lethargy of the gripers, as a rule... hence a 'rule', of sorts.