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US Fed Gov. Says All Music Downloads Are Theft
BenEnglishAtHome writes "Nearly all US government employees and contractors are subject to
mandatory annual information security briefings. This year the official briefing flatly states that
all downloaded music is stolen. The occasionally breathless tone of the briefing and the various minor errors contained therein are funny but the real eye-opener is a 'secure the building' exercise where employees stumble across security problems and resolve them. According to the material, the correct response to an employee who is downloading music is to shout 'That's stealing!' No mention is made of more-free licenses, public domain works, or any other legitimate download. If this were a single agency or department that had made a mistake in their training material it might not be so shocking. But this is a government-wide training package that's being absorbed by hundreds of thousands of federal employees, both civilian and military. If you see a co-worker downloading music, they're stealing. Period. Who woulda thunk it? Somebody should mirror this. Who wants to bet that copies will become hard to find if clued-in technogeeks take notice and start making noise?" Warning: this site gives a whole new meaning to "Flash heavy."
Warning: this site gives a whole new meaning to "Flash heavy."
They have a non-flash site if you need to complete this training and receive your certificate and you can't have flash. Not sure how they are running the audio but that's available as well.
I gotta admit it's not as entertaining as the zoom down into the city flash animation when instead of that you get:
Screen 1 of 48. Screen title, Intro. A block in any city, U S A. The camera zooms into a bank A T M. The A T M screen reads, no funds available. The camera zooms into another A T M, and again, no funds are available. Cut to an office in a building. Camera zooms into computer screen on desk. C N N website is on screen, displaying news headlines that support audio. Camera zooms to P D A on desk. P D A displays news headlines that support audio. Camera zooms to fax machine. Document on machine displays news headlines that support audio.
Also, you might encounter some problems with words and acronyms that are pronounced like IA (Information Assurance)
Screen 4 of 48. Screen title, What is I Ay? Image of worker at desk with computer. The computer monitor displays a warning ...
My work here is dung.
When is the last time they were right about anything? .. .. ..
Can't think of one? Yea Me either.
Nuff said
It just shows how closed minded government employees can be.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
If you're downloading music at work, it probably is stealing...
...of company time. And given that my taxes are paying these people's salaries (that is, you and I are "the company"), I'd really rather them not. Granted, I do wish that they would convey correct information, and I don't expect government workers to go zombie-like through the day without taking a break now and then, but still, I am glad that rampant goofing off in this particular manner is discouraged.
I'll make a song where Microsoft Sam reads out the article with a click track made in Audacity in the background.
According to the material, the correct response to an employee who is downloading music is to shout 'That's stealing!'
WTF is this, Dora the Explorer? Swiper, no swipey! Nice job, lame ass contract media company who probably got paid $10 million to create the worst instructional videos ever.
Is there an easy way to quit using the government?
Anything you say will be held against you.
The government's bandwidth, paid for by we the people. Quit wastin gour tax dollars you thief.
Would be all music, or all music except that music which is public domain, freely donated, given away as samples, distributed under a creative commons or similar licence, or prepaid for by some other means?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Well, in at least the whole music/copyright discussion. Here's how. The position is obviously childishly absurd, even to the most brain-dead government worker. It negates itself quite effectively.
Unfortunately, it also negates the rest of itself as well, and I'd like to believe that there is something useful about it.
Oh, and don't be in a hurry to connect to a .mil site... (just sayin'...)
Who, after all, knows more about theft than the Feds? They've taken billions of dollars of tax money and given it to all sorts of our corporate overlords.
Where I an employee under this program and a fellow employee found me downloading music I myself had created from my own server the correct response would be for them to yell "That's Stealing!" and publicly embarrass me?
Would it then be correct for me to say "lawsuit"?
Anyone with a moderate level of intellect or cultural lituracy will disregard this as being the product of a dolt in HR. I cannot imagine that any of the trainees would change his/her view of the legality of downloading media based on this training.
0 = 1 + e^(Alt something)
Slashdot editors, please put this story in "Your Rights Online", or maybe "Politics". Anything other than "Technology". I can find no interesting technology of note in this story.
I remember when I recorded my band in the living room and copied the cd to my computer. When iTunes told me I didn't have the required rights to make a cd copy I quit using iTunes.
I've been using iTunes for at least six years and I've never had it tell me I didn't have permissions to burn music no matter WHERE it came from.
So what if the name of the song is "THAT'S STEALING!". Sales will skyrocket for that band.
This is what mindless bureaucracies produce and why I no longer work for the DOD.
If it makes you feel any better, many (most, I hope) government employees don't this stuff too seriously.
Number of people who use Magnatune < people who download the latest Britney Spears wreck from LimeWire.
Yes, this is wrong. But government employees are adults and I don't think they're being indoctrinated by this. And it makes no difference, because people who download crappy pop or rap music from P2P networks are the last ones who would ever even think of looking into freely-licensed music (and I'd agree with them since most of it is crappy, in my opinion).
Also, of course it ignores things like iTunes and Amazon MP3 sales, for example.
But let's cut down on the outrage here, please. This is not the way to communicate the problems with illegal vs legal content sharing, it's just more hand waving at dumb policies that make no difference either way. Ultimately the only thing the government and companies are trying to do is inoculate themselves from liability. The policy could have been worded better to reflect that instead of piling on legitimate file sharing, but again, Magnatune users are the least of their problems, and we all know that very well.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/2425
(read the pda screen in the video)
Downloaded music should count as free promo. Record labels themselves follow downloads to gauge popularity. Someone should clue the gov't in on this.
And the RIAA bought congress critters for cheap!
Otherwise you'd see the gov't suing RIAA and friends for the payola-by-proxy currently going on.
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
"Occasionally breathless tone" is an understatement. Take a look at some of the other training material. The whole site has a Reefer Madness tone, as if it was produced by the same person who directed anti-commie films in the 1950s. I wonder if government training material in general has been given the "War On [fill in the blank]" treatment.
If the summary is accurate, whoever wrote this needs an encounter with a clue-by-four. Let's not even bother with stuff like Creative Commons licenses or public domain recordings - just take the briefing at face value for a minute. All music is copyrighted; downloading copyrighted material is stealing; therefore, downloading music is stealing.
Do they also not realize that in every Berne signatory country, all "creative" written text (i.e. anything other than raw facts), drawings, and photographs are also automatically copyrighted? So, using that logic, downloading any text or images is stealing. Congratulations, you've just made the entire Internet illegal!
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
It's basic sensationalistic everything is the worst possible case stupidity combined with Dora the explorer guidelines, RIAA false information, and a quantity of Shatneresce voice acting.
For the most part, it's the standard dry government garbage that is used to give insomniacs some sleep time while racking up at-work hours.
I had to take the test, and I laughed as I got that question wrong, but no one cares. They hire a contractor to create a test, it's only reviewed by pointed haired managers, accuracy is optional. Just because it's there doesn't mean it's official belief, just that the agency creating the test put opinions down.
An I.T. motto in the hands of an idiot is a dangerous thing...
I've worked in the defense industry, with a security clearance, for going on twenty years now, and you have to understand, this kind of stupidity is not at all unusual. On the military side, the security officers are usually MPs (or SPs, for the Air Force) who've been dragooned into doing information security. They aren't stupid (well, most of them aren't), but they also aren't trained for that kind of work--they're supposed to be cops. But "one size fits nobody," so they get assigned by their branch to information protection slots, receive a couple of weeks of Power Point slide training, and then they're placed over engineers and techs whose knowledge of the IT systems runs rings around them. As a result, their response to anything new is hard-wired: "no."
It's even worse on the civilian/contractor side. Security jobs don't pay well, and because you get what you pay for, the dregs of the organization tend to filter down to those positions. What's worse, once there, your average security guy/gal has power over smarter/more competent people for the first time in their careers, and a small but very present minority of them proceed to abuse that power and act arbitrarily, usually out of ignorance, but occasionally out of pure spite. This kind of mindless "training" presentation is what most of them do all day. As you can see, the results are less than impressive.
Whoever they hired to do the voice over for this obviously was having trouble keeping a straight face. The tone is incredibly facetious. Like "I'm saying it, but I really really really think this is utter bullshit."
In short they're predisposing future Jurors for any RIAA / MPAA trials.
I am totally going to go check them out by downloading their songs. If the government thinks they are that good to tell people to shout the band name I will give them a listen!
According to them Jamendo is illegal too?
A coworker went off on me, for no particular reason, about not downloading any music because he would (somehow) get in trouble for it, in case the BSA raided our offices for (again) no particular reason.
I downloaded a pile of public domain/CC music just on principle. Then I decompiled one of his "utilities" in order to remove a gratuitous pause he had added, just for job security. I felt bad about the latter thing, afterwards, but not the former.
Some people are natural parasites, and can't grasp that other people are not just like them.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
Copyright as envisioned by the authors of the US Constitution was written to law as the Copyright Act of 1790.
Under that act protection was 14 years with a 14 year extension available if the copyright holder was still alive and it was renewed.
So... that's what they meant by "for limited times". They wrote it down for us. Under that law all works prior to 1980 would be in the public domain as would many prior to 1994. Every time copyright has been extended those works that would be public domain have been stolen from each of us. THAT'S stealing.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I would rather that the "employees" stay up on the net. If somebody has their nose just to their labourous work and never gets the opportunity to learn what is going on, then we will not have educated workforce. Sadly, I am guessing that you really do not want that. But downloading MUSIC per se is NOT always stealing, nor is it always goofing off.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I wonder if their elevators download music. I look forward to hearing "That's stealing!" echoing through the elevator shafts whenever someone gets on board.
Loudly accusing someone of theft in the workplace when in fact no theft has occurred just might be enough to sue somebody into the next century!
My first thought was, "...you shout, 'Look out! There are Llamas!' "
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
If they are downloading music while at work, they probably really are "stealing". They *might* be "stealing" if they are downloading copyrighted works without paying for them... but they are *absolutely* stealing from the tax payers if we are being taxed to pay for them to be at "work" and while "on the clock" they are doing personal crap. And they are also probably breaking a dozen or so work policies in the process.
Yeah right... they are "on break" (using company/taxpayer computers and company/taxpayer bandwidth to obtain the stuff).
Don't get me wrong- I the whole idea that it is automatically "stealing" to "download music" is just stupid oversimplification. But I would think the bigger issue would be that while being paid to work, they should be working.
Fuck iTunes for being a bloated turd.
I didn't read any actual policy but one can easily see this as a rather innocent departmental policy whereby you aren't supposed to be listening to music from the Internet using government computers. That's not much different than many corporate policies regarding use of the company's assets. One wonders, though, if someone read "inappropriate" and interpreted that to mean "illegal". It wouldn't be the first time some bureaucrat interpreted something in such a way as to make themselves seem more powerful than they really are. Either way, violating the policy could still mean you're out of a job so why push it? Last time I read the news, unemployment was bad. Probably why said bureaucrat feels they can add things like this to the acceptable use policy.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
the music, or bandwidth?
If it's bandwidth, then they ahve a point.(not that they actually loose anything unless it's peaked.)
I couldn't sit for more then 30 seconds to that blatantly stupid and scaremongering video.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Wait, so if I make music and put it up for on the net, it would be illegal for people to download it???
You see a music video on youtube uploaded by the owners company
and use Youtube downloader or Keepvid.com to download the file.
Then you extract the Audio to MP3 or another Audio format
Would that be Stealing?
Information is like water, it flows and seeps everywhere, and everything on the internet is information(ie, 1's and 0's).
Information screams to be free and finds ways to get everywhere, You can't stop it
Copyright itself is theft from the public domain. So we steal back because we don't have the big monies to lobby for the right thing -- ABOLISH COPYRIGHT.
Circumcision is child abuse.
Honestly this looks like a pretty typical HR "ethical training" type of course.
We've been subjected to similar training where I work, it's pretty much all BS and nobody pays attention to it.
Just watch the dumb videos, take the quiz so you get training credit and that chick with the hot ass in HR will stop bugging you to take the sexual harassment training.
I actually laughed out loud (really loud) as I watched the first couple of minutes of the flash video. The fear mongering and exageration are off the charts(!!)... so far off, you too will laugh out loud at how ridiculous the proposed scenario is. There'd have to be failures at countless levels for such an event to ever pan out. The rest of the video is a bit more down to earth - minus the 'downloading music is stealing' over at Miguel's office. What a crock.
Sadly the masses are mostly made up of lemmings... I sadly watch as 'you' all walk off the cliff of liberty.
The briefing a friend of mine receives every year to maintain his (US) security clearance goes out of its way to classify copyright violations as security risks. It is mostly about software piracy issues but music and movies are touched on too. Its bad enough that copyright violations are part of the security briefing (no other kinds of crimes that are not actual risks to security are in there) but the truly ridiculous part of it is that, in the presentation, it is given equal weight to actual security problems like accidental disclosure, contact with foreign agents, etc. If you were to simply take the briefing at face value making a copy of an mp3 to bring to the secure area is just as bad as fucking Mata Hari.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
I like how they say downloading is totally illegal and not to do it, BUT....
they then give a nice big list of places/ways to download music!
I'll have to try some of those sites. Finally the government has done something for ME!!!!
Around the 4th of July here we get firework safety commercials that go something like... "Now kids, don't take a Piccolo Pete, remove the red stand off the bottom, and smash the bottom 1/2" with a hammer. Because if you do, when it gets halfway through whistling it will make a big explosion! And, well, that's dangerous! "
I mean it's not like the label the steps 1) 2) 3) for at least.
It was they same thing when they were cracking down on Meth here. They had these commercials for "things to be on the lookout for" that people might be buying.
"If you see anybody buying over the counter cold medicine like Psudophed, some coffee filters, rubbing alcohol, table salt, tape, a strainer and a gas can, well, you call the police right away!"
Great, now EVERYBODY in my town knows how to make meth! Way to go government!!
i work for a defense contractor on a contract with DISA and i recently had to take that exact "training" course.
i was indeed offended at that section, but let's face it: the war is over, and we lost. download + music = crime. fair use? alternative licensing? an obsolete anachronism and an irrelevant niche, unfortunately.
we had our chance at some very interesting, fundamental change when napster and that scene were first exploding, but we blew it.
i could live a little longer in this prison
When I got to http://www.bong-ra.com/ I can download music for free from the artist. How would this be stealing? Unless they mean they might not get as many donation from music lobby groups unless they make the employees think downloading any music is stealing.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
I will risk the dreaded -1 Offtopic rating because, frankly, the parallel had to be made.
When I was in the USAF, everyone in our squadron had to complete annual COMPUSEC training in order to retain their network account. Along with all of the other popular security myths, the training included a section where it instructed users to never, EVER install software from a file or disc that hadn't been approved by the network administrator. Now, this would make sense from a security point of view. We don't need bored airmen installing the Trojan Edition of Bejewelled on government computers. What killed me was that the ENTIRE justification for this rule was not to avoid a possible security issue, but rather that doing so might infringe on the software's copyright if a license to use it had not been properly purchased.
In other words, the U.S. military was more concerned about accidental piracy than actual computer security.
It should go without saying that there was never any mention of open source software, but I can sorta forgive them for that since this was a bit before open source became a common idea in I.T.
And we've known this for a while.
It's just the confusion over who they're stealing from...
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
What I'm most concerned is that this could have a cumulative effect on the culture of governmental employees to equate online radio and other forms of internet commerce for music in a bad light. I think this is bad for the industry and that the government is doing a disservice to internet commercialization of music.
Volunteer Mozilla developer, RPI Student.
Seems self evident to me.
we had our chance at some very interesting, fundamental change when napster and that scene were first exploding, but we blew it.
We would have had a chance at some interesting, fundamental changes if Napster hadn't come along. Unfortunately Napster so poisoned the well by turning flagrant copyright violation into a business model that the door was nailed shut before it could be opened.
I guess they've never heard of Magnatune or Jamendo or any of the other sites that allow legal downloading of music under creative comments or free arts license? Music like any digital media can be copied illegally, but just because you run Windows on your system doesn't mean it's Illegal simply because so many people pirate it. As with music, just because you're downloading an MP3 doesn't mean it's Illegal. Gosh, whoever wrote that presentation needs to really stick their head out from time to time and see the world's not out to get them... nor is it ran by the RIAA or MPAA, though anymore it seems they do have lots of control.
Its only stealing if you don't return it afterwords.
I'm the IS security guy where I work. We just implemented a policy banning banning non-work related multimedia on company equipment.
It's too hard to figure out what's legally obtained music and what's been pirated, and it's a common vector for malware. So no music on company gear. We allow MP3 players, but you can't connect them to company equipment - we use end-point security to control and audit I/O on workstations and notebooks.
Problem solved. The users were actually pretty understanding, but it really helps having the exec fully backing us and the policies being broadcast the the deputy CEO.
It gripped her hand gently. 'Regret is for humans,' it said.
The flame of the article is based on the phrasing of the general question. If you click the "Learn More" link, it is clear that the warning is about downloading via P2P file sharing networks. The use of P2P networks is a violation of the DOD Information Systems network use. That's the thrust of the training.
It may not be clear from the phrasing in the question, but in the context (i.e., when administered to people who are constantly exposed to DOD Information Systems training and reminders), it will likely be understood by the reader. Chances are, there is likely a prohibition against personal software (including *legal* music downloads) too.
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
Then I would say something like, "I'm working on a PowerPoint presentation, and I am including a snippet of a public domain recording. It's not stealing." And I would most definitely not ask them if they wanted to go have lunch sometime, like I do with competent coworkers.
If they continued to be stupid, I would report them to their manager for disrupting my work.
Contrary to popular belief, not all government workers are idiots, and most have enough of a brain to know when someone is actually working and when someone is just scoring the latest torrent download of a popular album, when it's appropriate to escalate inappropriate workplace behavior (and how, for that matter), and when someone is actually being productive.
Not sure anyone else has viewed the training, but the summary is a bit alarmist.
The training simply says that if your co-worker stumbles across a site and says "look at this music download site, it's all free" you're supposed to repond (not shout) "that's illegal". Maybe the correct response should be "does that site have a public domain or creative commons license?" Gimme a break. Bottom line is they don't want people using official government resources for personal gain. It then goes on to say that "P2P networks are frequently used to share copyrighted material without paying". While I'm sure there are legitimate P2P uses, you'd be hard pressed to tell me this statement is incorrect. No where in the training does it say that "all downloads are illegal".
Well... there certainly is legally downloadable music (that is a true fact), but if anyone is downloading ANY music using ANY US government computers or networks or on the clock, they certainly are stealing -- from all citizens and tax payers. Government computers should only ever be used for legitimate government work, no exceptions, and this sort of thing should never be done during work hours, regardless of whose hardware is used. So if someone is downloading music at say, their Department of Defense desk or maybe onto a personal iphone while working as a National Park ranger, they should be warned and reprimanded for wasting time and potentially compromising the network, then fired if they persist. Very simple, no need to make judgment calls concerning which music is okay. Playing music, maybe in the right situation, but wasting time downloading should not be tolerated regardless of the content or the associated license.
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
...news at 11.
I don't take them seriously. They have long lost any respect. What are they going to do? Throw us all in jail. All? Throw 10 in jail, and there are 1000, writing the next, even better anonymized and secure client. They will never get there.
Also, they have lost anyway. Even if we could not download anything, the music industry would still be dead and gone in less than a decade. According to us, according to them, according to everybody.
The new industry that rose from it, is the musician industry. Part of the artist industry. An industry that lives without them. and they know it. That's the point.
Oh, and... come up to me, and tell me in my face that that is stealing. ;)
And I'm gonna kick you in your ass so deep, that a part of my ass will be in your ass!
Seriously, what are they thinking? That we wince in fear, and cave in? MUHAHA. Yeah right.
A billion people is going to cave in against some of the smallest industries on the planet.
Good luck with that! :D
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Just pointing out that the text (and voice-over) states that downloading files without payment is stealing, not just any download. It's mainly trying to make the point that P2P can be a security risk. I understand it's more fun to criticize everything the government does, but if you ran a company with nearly 3 million employees wouldn't you want to provide some guidance as to when their activities put them in legal jeopardy or compromise the network? No? Okay, how about if your company controls nuclear weapons?
Those pesky teenage hackers, always shutting down the worlds infrastructure. I think that was quite a bit more disturbing than anything else in this video. Why can't security training be down to earth for a change? Sure, someone might get into some accounts and cause the bank to freeze them until the situation is figured out, but no bank is stupid enough to freeze all activity because of one hacked account. News break: someone forged a tweat about free donuts! Rough-ro!! All the cops have DoS'ed the local starbucks, there's no parking!!
The supervisor won't want to hear that the downloads were legal - which given the geek's shaky grasp of the law is never a good bet.
It wastes his time having to sort that out - and, of course, he will have to sort that out.
The supervisor will need to know whether unauthorized software was installed.
He'll have to decide whether to initiate disciplinary proceedings for the personal use of government property and services. If the geek has been sufficiently foolish and greedy he may be looking at a criminal charge.
Whatever the outcome - it is not going to enhance his prospects for continued employment or promotion.
The moral to this story being that are things better done on your own time and on your own dime.
Am I the only person who thinks that when they say your stealing they mean time/work from the government as opposed to the actual music rights. Government computers and internet is for government work and if you do something other than that like download music your in effect stealing from the government.
Taken completely out of context and brought to a heightened level of irrational literal interpretation, the summary is accurate. However...........
"According to the material, the correct response to an employee who is downloading music is to shout 'That's stealing!' The actual question in the slideshow/training abomination is along the lines of your fellow co-worker calls you over and says "look bra, I found a site with free music, lol im leet". There are 4 answers to choose from:
1. I'd rather download the music from home - -email me the link. (I would choose this, and tell my coworker that he could get in trouble doing this at work, anywhere from wasting company time, committing criminal acts at work (if it is actually some sort of pirate site, and lets be honest freely available music is mostly (but not entirely) not worth my time) or at worst inviting security problems into the workplace computer.
2. "Is it safe to download?" Umm, if you have to ask then you don't know already (or have a hunch at least) and are trusting some random Jim Bom on this.
3. "Since we're on our lunch hour, I see no harm. HEre's my thumb drie!" Obviously the wrong answer with the thumb drive part added in for extra obviousness
4. "That's stealing." Ok, so they simplified the answer from "that is probably stealing, who owns the distribution rights to these songs you are getting from this website? If the owners of the publishing rights do not consent to giving away these materials freely then a crime is being committed, otherwise it is ok to access this site but not from work, because of the above reasons".
I took this.....I dont know what you'd call it, class, course, button masher until I get to the print certificate screen, because it was required of me where I work. Most of the info for securing information systems in this presentation is solid and correct for the USER side of things, i.e. things the everday user of a computer on a network can and should do to minimize (not eliminate as that is not possible) security breaches at their particular Department of Defense associated workplace. Now excuse me, I need to go participate in the lynching of my co-worker that downloaded the newest whatever is popular pop song at work.
when i was in the marine corp i had to call nmci to assist in resolving a problem as we were sufficiently locked out as to be unable to do it ourselves. Basically the large profiles of several users had become so large that they filled the hard drive. All we wanted him to do was delete umpteen profiles of people who hadn't been there in god knows how long.
His comment was that he was deleting it but that he was supposed to report all illegal downloading. We told how the music got there, but the automatic assumption is all music is illegally downloaded. mother. fucking. brilliant.
That site: http://iase.disa.mil/eta/iaav7-3/iaa/index.html (the first link in TFS)
Have you "launched" a new "course"? The eevil hacker destroyed everthing. Cash, oil, food, it's the global meltdown! Aaah!
LOL. It really reminds me of this game we used to play as children, where the challenge was, to end the story in the destruction of the world, trough a chain of cause and effect, in as few steps as possible. And from a totally harmless starting point.
First a tiny drop of rain fell onto the street.
But a insect got stuck in it.
Causing a bird to land and pick it up.
So the car of the president drove into it, causing a crash and his death.
Just while on the phone with the Chinese government.
So the CIA assassinates the Chinese premier, because they think he is the responsible one.
Which causes China to launch all its nukes, which causes the USA to launch all its nukes, which causes special experimental biochemical weapons to be released,
which causes all remaining humans to turn into alienlike raptor-zombies.
So a tenthousand years later, some real aliens land, get their ship taken over by the raptor-zombie-humans, which then fly out to enslave and nuke the entire universe!
Yes, it always ends with nukes, and most of the time with monsters too.
Or the short video version: http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/end
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
We had to listen to bullshit propaganda about not downloading music too. The funny thing is, I know some kids who were playing Nintendo games on the school's computers DURING CLASS! I'll be the school could have gotten in trouble for allowing this to happen. I also find it hard to believe that the instructor didn't know the kids were playing Mario Kart.
I went to the part of the program in question. It's not as bad as the poster makes it out to be. They specifically mention "free" music, which most likely *is* violating copyright, barring obvious exceptions. Yes it's a generalization, but it's one that makes perfect sense in the context of the video.
It's also very good that they're educating their workers this way. I'm tired of hearing about classified data being leaked by incompetent users.
Is singing (music) to my wife over voice mail (download + file) now illegal?
Hearing something and saving it to your brain could be considered a download.
Further, do they yell "THATS SPEEDING!" if they catch somebody on the way to work driving faster than them? How about yelling "Thats stupid!", because that seems most fitting here.
It could be worse. They could be accusing anyone singing in the workplace of stealing music as well.
You could be wished into the cornfield for that!
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
If I were to stream and copy the American National Anthem as performed by the US Marines from the most recent Presidential Inauguration, who am I stealing from?
Who owns the copyright and who will make the claim that I have "stolen" (infringed on their copyright?)
What is the criteria of disallowing fair-use for such an official and publicly performed work?
Zero Tolerance = Zero Sensibility = Zero Critical Thinking
The Roman Rule: The one who says it cannot be done shall not interrupt the one who is doing it.
Thank goodness downloading music is no longer Communism.
I'm not sure what operating system/distro you're using, so I'll include instructions for several.
Debian/Ubuntu:
apt-get sarcasm
Gentoo:
emerge sarcasm
Slackware:
tar -xvzf sarcasm.tar.gz
Windows:
Go to The Pirate Bay, search for 'sarcasm detector', and install it with the aid of the included keygen.
Be sure to run these with superuser/root/admin privileges. Good luck!
I know that I bought a new Vaio in late 01/early 02 that came preinstalled with itunes.
Sony was shipping their own music player for Windows ... I seem to recall it was called MusicMatch Jukebox ... so is it possible you're misremembering and you weren't using iTunes at all?
Is there anything out there that's better than jamendo for free, legal downloads of music, i.e., music made by people who are intentionally making it free-as-in-something? What I don't like about jamendo: (1) It's European, and a lot of the music is French. Most French pop music is really bad. I'm really more of a jazz fan anyway, but despite the French people's fondly held belief that they're the saviors of jazz, there just aren't that many good jazz musicians in France. (2) Their tagging system is lame. Most of the tags are wildly inappropriate, e.g., "jazz" for music that's actually heavy metal, "progressive rock" for a faux-classical synthesized trumpet concerto a la Haydn. (3) Although their heart seems to be in the right place as far as free information, and apparently they run linux on their servers, their interface for uploading apparently doesn't work on any OS other than Windows. (Forum discussions: 1, 2, 3. I tried the web interface with multiple browsers. I tried both Linux and MacOS. I tried their standalone uploader program for linux, which is a summer of code project that hasn't been maintained properly. I emailed their tech support, and they weren't able to help me.)
Find free books.
I hope you are happy.
Now, I'm going to go off and download some free music at a "band site" that gives away their stuff and lives off donations and show revenue. Come arrest me, idiots.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Last i heard WE the people do, paid for by our taxes. Now they want to tell 'government employees' ( ie, tax paying citizens ) what they can and cant do with it? ( forgetting the fact the are totally out in left field about being illegal just for a moment.... )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Does that make it a SharePoint, then?
</tongue-in-cheek>
(NB: I have to use SharePoint extensively at my job; it makes my head hurt.)
Cheers,
President Obama's Weekly Address comes in a theft-able MP3 format, for all of your larcenous needs! Stealing from the government is a crime. Anonymous Coward is not responsible for any legal action taken against you for.
How's the change working out for you?
And yet, while proclaiming that all downloaded music being stolen, the photo on the sample California Driver's License used during the "Identity Theft" example in Alex's Office is a blurred version of Tom DeLay's mug shot.
Since these are the same folks that distribute training packages that included contract torture and assassination techniques, the government should immediately reverse it's stance and allow all forms of entertainment to be downloaded, in hopes that employees and contractors will be so busy enjoying that won't upload any more drones or missiles over Muslim-inhabited countries (or any country for that matter). This crackdown is sure to backfire, as the more angry DOD workers are, the more likely they are to press the big red button and blow us ALL into the bardo. Peace.
I think therefore I can't be ~TTNH
.....it's fun to say FISMA
.... of the United States Supreme Court decision which specifically held that copyright infringement is not stealing. Dowling V. United States, 473 U.S. 207 (1985)
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
So the government is stupid. This isn't news. Move along... Easy target.
Well I'd rather it be illegal under Obama than under Bush! Nyah!
Are they saying that I stole the music i paid for? cool.
Calling someone a criminal when they are not is what is illegal. Downloaders should use the existing laws and watch the instructional videos change.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
So, if I understand correctly, when a gov't employee sees a co-worker downloading music, they are supposed to yell "that's stealing". While in some cases, we might enjoy doing that, I suspect that in many cases, we'd be highly embarrassed to do so. How do we avoid embarrassment while still following the rules? We avoid looking directly at our co-workers' monitors, thereby reducing the overall level of oversight, making it easier for rules to be violated. Good job, training department.
linquendum tondere
...as evidenced by the video
So, will the Feds charge Bush for theft & prosecute him?
After all Al Capone wasn't convicted of the many murders he committed.
He was convicted of a stupid tax evasion charge.
And as per existing laws, if you rob $10 from a bank you get 20 years, but if you fraud $50 million you get a probation.
So, Bush can be charged and convicted of copyright violation!
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
If you look at the avg DOD computer users, they are either old and have no clue about computers, middle aged and can tell the difference or young and impressionable. Usually the people who come up or reviews this stuff are the old and have no clue, they middle aged or educated will argue, but lose because they are out ranked, and this will be a new training requirement for all of the new young 18-19 pvts in the military that barely scored high enough on the asvb to get into the army.
I read through the comments, but can't claim I read every one. But of those I read, I didn't see anyone who pointed out that the guy in the training is showing you a WEB SITE...
BUT all the answers are about the risks of P2P applications ?!?!?
If you are going to a WEB SITE to download music, isn't the P2P application your browser!?!?!
More people need to know that the copyright lobby and their craven politicians have stolen more from each of us than the Pirate Bay ever could. Every day thousands of works that are rightfully part of our culture and in the public domain are stolen. That's 300 million people each deprived of thousands of works. A day. Hundreds of billions of thefts each day. We need to take those works back.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I work for DoD. I remember thinking about posting about this the first time I saw it, years ago. The truth is, nobody cares. Everyone where I work has headphones on and is listening to MP3s, either on their portable music players (not all are iPod . . . ) or on their computers. About the last damn thing we need our government security tax dollars being wasted on is a quixotic quest to rid all government assets of "stolen" music.
It does sicken me a bit to see such propaganda bandied about as official government policy, but I figure if you aren't smart enough to know the difference between downloading data you have rights to (by fair use or otherwise) and an honest to goodness security breach, you shouldn't hold a clearance.
Nathan's blog
I think it is funny how they show a guy who has found "a site" where he can download music from, then they go on to say that you aren't allowed to use P2P programs. So, I guess that downloading music through a P2P program is illegal, but getting music from a website or from a source like newsgroups is ok. So, not all downloading music is stealing. Just downloading from a P2P application.
Mumble mumble mum....
I'm confused but it seems like the entire purpose of this video is to prevent a global run on banks by hackers because HACKERS are the enemy. This is pretty unnerving considering we just had a global financial crash and dissolution of bank confidence that was not due to hackers. Why no government video about unscrupulous investment bankers? this is reminiscent of old propaganda and is quite disturbing
Oh that was a hoot. Especially when you pause the animations and read the fake text under the headlines.
But what was funnier..(to me, anyway), was the 'security issues' quiz:
I picked 'logged in computer', authentication card in reader, post-it note with password..
('Torchwood: Children of Earth''s MP office coulda used that kind of security check) and a post-it with a phone number.
I was wrong, because I had left out 'coffee without a lid', which is, apparently, a security breach.
Remember folks, don't leave the lid off your coffee. IT'S STEAMING!
Infinity is overrated, Infinity+1, now that's cool!
You woudn't steal a car.
You woudn't steal a baby.
You woudn't shoot a police man,
and then steal his helmet.
You wouldn't go to the toilet in his helmet,
and send it back to his geiving widdow,
only to steal it again.
Piracy is stealing. If you download music, you have to face the consequences.
(Image of a federal agent shooting a 12yo girl in the head)
/ The IT Crowd
There are other sites where they don't know that the copyright lobby steals thousands of works from us each, each day. This is an effective counterargument and it needs more exposure. They have stolen from you and if that offends you then the best you can do to get back what you've lost is to share the fact that they've stolen from you everywhere that you can.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Hope you folks are actually looking into the training rather than just reading the readers digest version on Slashdot. The training relates the use of P2P apps on government computers as illegal in its network use policy.
The average Joe using these apps is more likely to do more harm to the network and subsequently the security by actively downloading any material, be it illegal or legit.
There is always a risk of malicious activity directed towards or inside a US Government network, this training simply covers the bases and makes sure everyone knows you will held accountable for the actions you take.
Come steal our music, its FREE and we don't care!
http://www.gamatam.com/music.jsp
ciao
Seriously, get over it already :)
...on DoD networks.
Seriously, that is what it says.
This is not the same as what's written in the summary.
timothy, shame on you. This is what makes me cringe every time I turn to /. This and no proper Unicode support, fucked up AJAX/JavaScript and poor CSS. Why am I doing here again?
A proud member of the Onion-in-Hand alliance
I kept telling you it is STEALING. Ha, ha - you motherfuckers!!!!
I download music from the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force bands, available freely on their websites where they invite you to download. If all music downloading is stealing, does this constitute entrapment?
What competent person would want to work for the government if they can work someplace nice?
They get an excellent health care plan and a pension for retirement. The private sector cannot^will not compete with this.
As a sometime US Federal government worker in the past, I can categorically refute this. If you started working for the government prior to 1972, then you have a pension plan, otherwise you have the Thrift Savings Plan which is the stripped down Federal version of a 401k. Excellent health care plan? Well, I suppose in comparison to sweat shops it's excellent. I've never considered Blue Cross/Blue Shield to be the epitome of health care plans.
And much as it pains me to say so, all those Congress critters have the same "excellent" plan as well and not the grand plans the Fox "News" dittoheads seem to think they get.
As for the parent poster, many competent and exceptional people do indeed work for the government. It's just that none of them work in positions that have any official contact with taxpayers.
I like the Kindergarten Style, or KS, of the Information Assurance Awareness course, or IAA course, that the Department of Defense, or DOD, has made.
I doesn't expect you to have many Working Cognitive Functions, or WCFs, or make use of Common Sense, or CS. Additionally, it probably cost A Lot of Money, or ALM, to make, and you can rest assured that you as a US Citizen, or USC, helped pay for it.
My UID is prime. Hah!
I have a big fat pile of amazon reciepts and mp3's with embedded serial numbers that disagree with their opinion.
Don't kid yourself. It's the size of the regexp AND how you use it that counts.
You mean that same USPS that is going to have a $7 BILLION deficit this year?
Don't you find the following facts to be a little odd when taken in combination:
I find it odd, indeed...
I think that last bunch in the WH was the most devious bunch the nation has ever had inflicted upon them. I mean, c'mon - under what business model to you fix income forevermore if you are not trying to go belly-up?
Interesting piece of paper at http://www.prc.gov/(S(ajpn4e45pbxy3u55drmkep45))/Docs/64/64174/Answers%20CIR.1.USPS.X.pdf.
Somehow, the USPS can go in debt even as they reduce services in chunks...I'd really like to see their "contractor expenses", and the year to year change in them.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
These are the people who decide our country's policies, these are the people we trust to make those decisions for us?
OMG are we in trouble. I would line up every person that had a hand in this and SHOOT THEM!
We are not in the roman times when whatever the dictator said went, and could change his mind at a whim!
This is America for god's sake! We have rights and for someone to plainly generalize something of this
importance and overall sheer size is almost criminal!
I hope that we can get someone to step in for us, as we are weak willed and very sheep like when it comes to
the government deciding for us....maybe if we had a cool president like Arnold...he would put on his shades and tell them all
"ASTA LA VISTA Babies!"
Arnold for President, Arnold for President!
ps- I bet you HE downloads music!
I don't know about you guys, but I just LOVE the way my tax dollars are being put to good use here. The next time they ask for more money because they 'absolutely can't keep going on our current budget' I'm going to remember this, laugh, vote no, and if it passes anyway I'm leaving America.
Oooh, who is "they" in this case? I love a good conspiracy theory!
I've taken the training, multiple times, and each time you find some sort of misinformation. This is just one example. Personally i think it's because the training has to be dumbed down to the lowest denominator. It's easier to say that javascript is what makes viruses show up on your computer or that all music downloading is illegal, than to explain how certain javascript can exploit vulnerabilities on certain browsers and operating systems or that there are legal forms of downloadable music. Mostly because you've lost half the audience by the time you say 'vulnerability', the word is too big for them and their eyes glaze over.
We have to take the training, so i just go with the flow and answer the questions the way they want them to be answered, and I feel sorry for the people that don't understand the garbage they're ingesting.