Slashdot Mirror
"Three Strikes" To Go Ahead In Britain
David Gerard writes "Lord Peter Mandelson has carefully ignored the Gowers Report and the Carter Report, instead taking the advice of his good friend David Geffen and announcing that 'three strikes and you're out' will become law in Britain. The Open Rights Group has, of course, hit the roof. Oh, and never mind MI5 and the police pointing out that widespread encryption will become normal, hampering their efforts to keep up with little things like impending terrorist atrocities. Still, worth it to stop a few Lily Allen tracks being shared, right?"
Can we also have a 3 strikes law on Slashdot for dupes??
I've contacted my MP. The open rights group has a brief PDF to send to them so they are clued up. Ask them to back EDM 1997.
More info here: http://www.openrightsgroup.org/campaigns/ask-your-mp-to-help-protect-our-freedoms-on-the-net
Not sure if this place has changed over the years, but I'm all for encryption becoming the norm.
For legitimate law enforcement needs, search warrants and traffic analysis are not impeded.
In fact, draconian enforcement of copyright would be the best thing ever - it would illustrate the absurdity of the status quo.
..don't panic
The US 3-strikes rule is based on a concept from baseball, and as a result probably makes little sense in the UK. I'm surprised they didn't go with something more appropriate, like a "bowled, leg-before-wicket, or hit-wicket" and you're out rule.
Agreed - ban encryption.
-anything- is worth it to stop folk listening to Lily Allen
I propose the three strikes law three strikes law. A politician gets a strike for mentioning the three strikes law in a non-derisive manner, and gets banned from government after three strikes.
My webcomic
I can't wait for some motivated group to deliver a clear message to politicians through a concerted effort to get politicians and their employees cut off from the internet simply by accusing them, three times, of copyright violations. Perhaps, once politicians and their staff are cut off from the online world, they'll begin to realize just how moronic this law is. When a simple accusation carries the weight of punishment, the possibilities of abuse are egregious.
Ah, the days of "innocent until proven guilty" seem like a distant memory now...
The "minister" resposible for this was forced out of office twice for misconduct, he has no place even being in public office.
Not a good idea, it'd take 5 days to make a decision and probably end in a draw.
Well, considering "Mandy" has already been forced to resign from Labour twice already for scandals (involving borrowing money from someone he was supposed to be investigating to buy a lovely house in central london among other activities), one wonders if he's caught with his hand in the cookie jar yet again, will this third strike resignation force his exclusion from Politics?
Allegedly, he'd shown no interest in this whatsoever before going for a meal at a lovely retreat owned by a movie producer, and a few days holiday.. On his return, this was basically mandated with no consultation.
Yay for unelected politicians who keep coming back despite being forced to resign in shame.
Amazing it gleefully says "file sharing" and not "music sharing". So let him grab one graphic he swipes because his office can't be bothered to cleanroom it, grab one little shareware snip that he can ignore even the postcard-terms on, and then let the last one be one of the Britain's Got Talent winning songs. Poof!
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
BTW, there's an editor on wikipedia who keeps on moving the detail about Lily Allen's stance on copyright infringement into a subsection labelled "Social Activism' on her page. Hardly social activism I would think to speak out about something that is in her own financial interest.
There is no legal penalty for failing to refer to him by his "proper" title. Don't defer respect to this appalling man because Mister Mandelson is utterly undeserving of it.
The UK parliament is in enough trouble through them dishonestly claiming too much expenses -- time for a real reform. Men of honour don't seem to exist in politics (in large enough numbers), so we need real transparency and accountability.
Guy Fawkes night is soon -- maybe a real reenactment is about due!
And that old favourite, "ban quashed due to bad light".
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
(I'm being silly. Of course I'll be contacting my MP about this.)
-- Sorry, I can't think of anything funny to say here.
Yeah, there should be something to make sure that people do not consider this rule to be in the same ballpark as the rule prevalent in the criminal laws of the states in the U.S. Yes, that pun was intended.
But more seriously, being punished with the loss of the use of the internet for continuing to do something that they have twice told you to stop doing is hardly the draconian rule that in America has lead to people serving 25 years for stealing three golf clubs because they had previously committed 2 felonies. See Ewing v. California, 123 S.Ct. 1179 (2003).
as long as I can still find nude pics of Lily Allen on google images.
In other news, serial resigner, unelected jobsworth, and general insult to the democratic process "Lord" Peter Mandelson, having been appointed to high government office on a technicality by serial bad decision maker, unelected jobsworth, and general insult to the democractic process Gordon Brown, will shortly be resigning, again, having demonstrated a stunning lack of competence in public office, again.
Sorry, we've got an update: the Labour Party are going to get hammered so badly in the general election next year that they might actually come third, the current administration is already in lame duck mode, and Mandelson's views are all but irrelevant.
Frankly, I'm more worried about what David Cameron and his crew are going to do when they get in. If memory serves, they have publicly backed screwing the people in favour of Big Media pretty much any time the question has come up, also directly contravening overwhelming public sentiment expressed to Gowers et al.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
They start off good, railing against the absurd 3 strikes law, but then continue on to rail against encryption as hampering the ability of law enforcement to fight terrorism? It seems you missed the grape Kool-Aid, but ended up drinking the blue raspberry just the same...
To the haters: You can't win. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
I know that TOR can already have P2P data streamed across it at the expense of the network, but honestly, I wonder how long it is before someone comes up with a purpose built anonymizing P2P system.
I really think the government is chasing it's tail on this one. "The Internet interprets censorship as damage, and routes around it."
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
The airstripone tag seems more appropriate every day.
There is a war going on for your mind.
Does this mean I can declare any content I want my copyright and accuse anyone I want of stealng it until they get cut off without anyone looking over my shoulder?
...And I say we need to be encrypting our traffic anyway. The average computer contains more than enough processing power, and the average 'pipe' width can easily handle the extra resources needed for widespread use of encryption in day-to-day use.
In addition, the recent trend in government is towards snooping and perv-ish behavior: China with its "great" firewall, USA with its unwarranted spying and packet sniffing, and now the UK with its new "three-strikes" policies. I pay my ISP a significant sum of money to deliver me 1s and 0s as fast as they can, and there are very, very few exceptions in which they have a need to know what those 1s and 0s add up to.
I call upon the open source community to lead the way -- while I would love to see the big leagues (Microsoft, Apple, etc) apply their tonnage behind such a problem, pigs are more likely to fly first. How hard would it be for a browser to automatically attempt to negotiate a secure connection for every visited web page and only use normal, unencrypted access when a secure connection fails or cannot be completed in a secure amount of time? People running web servers would not have to make major modifications, only implement a new protocol.
"Still, worth it to stop a few Lily Allen tracks being shared, right?" Truly, the cost is too dear, even for that.
Do you see what I did there?
Thanks for allowing this to happen. I expect it will be only a few months before someone stands up in Canadian parliament to make a speech that includes the phrase "3 strikes laws have already been enacted in other nations, such as Britain...". There comes a point where you should realize that angry letters aren't going to get it done, you're going to have to accept your responsibility to take more aggressive action when your government does not stand up for its people.
If one person in a family is accused of pirating, the whole household gets cut off?
If one person in a company is accused of pirating while at work, the whole company gets cut off?
If one person in a ministry is accused of pirating while at work, the whole ministry gets cut off?
Who is _allowed_ to accuse?
I was thinking something along the line of red card analgoies, but you normally don't get three "strikes" before the red card.
Oh ho ho. Contrary to popular belief most of us don't really care about cricket, football (soccer) is the national sport.
Not a good idea, it'd take 5 days to make a decision and probably end in a draw.
Sounds good to me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL9-esIM2CY
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
I'd been trying to make this joke all week, but despite reading the wiki page on Cricket, I couldn't write the joke to make it sound like I knew what I was talking about. Three strikes and I suppose now *I'm* out.
I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
I got two strikers on the same red card once.
rewriting history since 2109
Because long prison terms create nicely-behaved perfect citizens after time served? Got any research material to that effect lying around?
"The number you have dialed is imaginary. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and try again."
"Three strikes" laws -- particularly the California version that allows petty crimes to trigger the third strike -- are problematic. There are varying levels of severity for felonies, some that deserve life sentences, some that deserve probation, and everything in between.
One guy commits two two heinous felonies, somehow lawyers his way out of long prison terms, and another guy, a) steals a purse, b) hits a parked car and runs away, and c) steals bubble gum from the store goes to prison for life. I'm not sure how any sane, thinking person on this planet can't see the glaring flaw with this system.
There is something called T20 now, which ends in a few hours, and never ever results in a draw, unless it rains, and even then a draw is not certain :)
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
If encryption becomes popular then I can see the point the police are making but why would people using P2P start using encryption to start the cycle?
If everyone on P2P started encrypting the transportation it would make no difference because the arrests and letters to pay or else have not been caused by MITM sniffing.
If P2Pers start encrypting all files you have to have some method of getting the password out to everyone and that would require some club or private site and once you have that it is easier to get a legal right to inspect and copy all infomation on that site. Such a site would have email address and other information about the users, so if anything this is something that P2Pers would avoid.
The only place P2P where encryption would work is with blocking the IP address of the people sharing but that would require some central site that routes the traffic so it is not really P2P anymore.
I don't really understand in depth how P2P works so what am I missing here?
Nice! As a striker myself, I can appreciate your brutal form of defense, but still don't like it ;-)
Less that, and more "just put away repeat offenders" so they can't commit anymore crimes. Here (Vancouver, Canada), it's reported that 10% of criminals commit 90% of the offenses (we're talking property crime and such). So it's less rehabilitation, and more lock them up so they can't commit crimes aspect. (Especially since bleeding-heart judges often just let them off with a slap on the wrist, so they'll commit their next robbery or mugging fresh from court - revolving door justice).
Of course, this should be more than 3 offenses...
Not a good idea, it'd take 5 days to make a decision and probably end in a draw.
Not if they use the Duckworth-Lewis scoring method.
Terrorist attacks typically affect normal people. Copyright violations typically affect rich people. Guess which one they're more concerned with? Besides, increased terrorism means the plebs are more willing to give away whatever liberties they may have left in exchange for reassurances of safety.
These bastards, and that slimy scumbag Mandelson have spend the past 13 years utterly ruining everything, every institution, way of life, habitat, hobby, social fabric and this?
Basically, people are slowly concluding a few things, some are less than good, but for every action, there is a reaction, clearly 13 years too late. Vote anyone but these bastards, and tell them why at every moment they bang on your door or come to your doorstep. Vote BNP, UKIP, Con, Lib - ANYONE but these slimy dark forces shits.
Their brand of nanny state 1984 insanity, and mass persecution of population, drivers, and all the rest, and their enforced political correctness and multiculturalism, and devolution, and EU fanatisism, and the rest is DEAD. OVER. FINISHED.
Its the worst government the UK has had in any modern times, and people cannot wait to be rid of them.
We`re all equal
don't care if long prison terms create nicely-behaved perfect citizens. Long prison terms keep poorly-behaved flawed citizens from F*ing with the nicely behaved perfect citizens. Where the hell did people get the notion that prison is meant to reform criminals? It's meant to keep them away from society for a set period of time. After that, they're given another chance to be a normal citizen. If they screw up again, they go back again, this time for longer. Human lifespan is finite. If they choose to spend most of theirs in a prison because they don't like the laws society has made, then so be it.
Obviously a Government with a suicide wish.
N.B. this user is far too lazy to write a witty and intelligent sig.
Rear shafted by the UK Labour Government again...Bring on the General election...time to show these twats that we have had enough.
I did contact my MP, but seeing as he is standing down at the next General election due to the expenses scandal I ain't holding my breath...
The title ' "Three Strikes" To Go Ahead In Britain ' is, err, a little misleading (what, on /. ? never).
My understanding is that the policy is being proposed form inclusion in a new bill. AFAIK this then has to be bounced between The House of Commons and the Lords and finally signed by HRM before it is law. And this assumes it is not removed and/or amended in this process.
so p2p is now like the post office ???
This is a direct corollary to politicians being in bed with media and both parties fisting away like rabid hamsters.
No need for TOR, encryption, or any other technological fix, *if* we approach this problem politically. It can be cured by term limits [in *any* democratically elected government], enforcement of existing laws, restrictions on lobbying, and public support of governmental transparency.
Of course the chances for this rank right up there with the second coming of a certain Nazarene, so I'm getting out my tin foil hat and battening down the hatches.
Some days it's just not worth
chewing through my restraints.
Pot? Kettle is on the phone...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
having been warned twice already that failure to abide by the law will result in a lengthy prison sentence, stealing bubble gum as the third offense would reveal a complete lack of any wisdom. This person has no risk assessment skills whatsoever, and is obviously a threat to his fellow citizens simply by the damage that he could do out of sheer stupidity. Lock him up for his own as well as everyone else's good.
Oh, and never mind MI5 and the police pointing out that widespread encryption will become normal, hampering their efforts to keep up with little things like impending terrorist atrocities.
If that's the only objection from accredited members of the oligarchy, it's easy to fix. Just require all encryption to use published certs from approved corporations. Then you can apply the three strikes law to anyone who is using encryption for evil purposes, like doing anything other than shopping at approved online merchants. Frankly, if you're not using the Internet to give your money back to the accredited members of the regime, you're probably a terrorist anyway. I don't see why we would want to cripple our ability to channel additional money to the senior establishments in the oligarchy in order to let terrorists use the Internet.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
This would of course be the same David Geffen who spent a quarter of a century trying to keep the unwashed masses from using the publicly-owned beach in front of his house in Malibu.
These people in government have advisors, technical experts and all sorts of qualified people to tell them how worthless this will be.
It boggles the imagination to not even contemplate the number of false positives this will generate, besides encryption, it has been pointed out
many times that all this may do is drive more people to hack their neighbors' wireless networks, using Kismet or other trivial password sniffers.
If up to 10% of all PCs worldwide can be hacked into botnets, it doesn't take a genius to see doing similar things from other people's machines
and let them take the fall for it....
The only explanation I can come up with is that either:
widely-acknowledged cinematic references in truly depressing thoughts, to first be tested on the public for 'authenticity' on how to
best persecute innocent people with maximum effect?
sense, but also cunningly facilitates implementing surveillance and further counter-measures against 'criminalization'. (see above)
Regardless of the answer to these silly questions, one can only wonder what the endgame will be. Enforcement or not, the major content holders
cannot keep going the way they have been, and with ever-dwindling revenue, (especially in the music divisions) will eventually have their assets
ultimately disposed of at the auction block for pennies on the dollar to people like Google, who will love nothing better than to practically give
it away for free, in trying to lure customers to purchase other things, rather than to keep suing them for not buying physical goods in formats
that were once popular during the previous century, and still demanding to charge the same price for it without the old expenses.
And what will this grand adventure have accomplished? There is a name for that special moment in the hunt, when the game is barely walking,
bleeding profusely, surrounded by a pack of growling dogs, but still trying to gore one of them on their way out....In French "La Curée"
That's pretty much what it feels like.... Really!
Scorched Earth Policy..... This too will come to pass.
Where the hell did people get the notion that prison is meant to reform criminals?
You mean the Department of Corrections, incarcerating someone at a correctional facility?
Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
An effective decentralized anonymity service will use encryption to mask contents and traffic destinations of communications across a network. Think TOR or Freenet.
Anonymity systems become much more difficult for eavesdroppers to deal with as (a) more people use them, and (b) the contents of the networks diversify. That is why this ruling is great news for anonymity services and privacy in general. It will push more file sharers onto existing anonymity networks, and lead to the development of better systems.
We need a new Reform Bill. Actually, we need a new Glorious Revolution.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Believe it or not, we know what baseball is in the UK and how it works. It was derived from Rounders which is very popular with school children.
I've got the spirit, lose the feeling.
Exactly my point. Instead of calling a spade a spade, ie a prison a prison, they now call it a "correctional facility". A correctional facility that features a death row, incidentally. But you didn't actually answer my question. Who decided, and when, that prisons weren't for incarceration, but instead were meant to reform criminals?
Lock him up for his own as well as everyone else's good.
Yeah, three strikes laws are really working out for everyone's good in California.
If you're in the UK and you want to show politicians you're against this, feel free to sign a petition saying so. Thank you.
You are the weakest link. Goodbye.
If they choose to spend most of theirs in a prison because they don't like the laws society has made, then so be it.
I would agree if committing a crime was a rational choice. But a lot of crimes are committed in the heat of the moment, or are influenced by a psychiatric disorder.
I hate the 5th Doctor episode where he spends a big chunk of time doing nothing but playing cricket. Rather than waste time with that nonsense, they should have simply consolidated the 2-part story downto 1 part.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Those regions have had their own internal conflicts for far longer than the British Empire has existed.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
yeah, California experiencing budget problems are proof that three strikes laws won't work.
Agreed - ban encryption.
Anyone using encryption must have something to hide.
Reply to That ||
True.
But any felony that deserves probation should be downgraded to a misdemeanor.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
DMCA makes it a criminal offence to break encryption protecting a copyrighted work.
I don't remember seeing "a protection by the copyright owner of that work" being in there...
When those 10% are in for a long time, who takes up the slack?
It doesn't seem as though the crime rate drops, does it.
Maybe they're repeat offending the bubble gum wrapper thieves.
The day the 3-strike-and-you-are-out law came to my country I fired up OneSwarm in defiance. I haven't been using gnutella or BitTorrent much in the last year or so because of fear, yes, but also because it was getting increasingly inefficient: my ADSL modem would slow down and then disconnect after less than an hour. I'd tried OneSwarm before, to find it very slow and with a rather poor interface. So on that day I fired it up and I was astounded to be able to download 6Gb in one night ! Needless to say, I consider that this law made great improvements to P2P technology !!!
I loved this section, as found on the BBC:
The pay-off for tough penalties against persistent file-sharers would be a more relaxed copyright regime, Mr Mandelson said. The details of it would need to be hammered out at European level but it would take account of the use of copyright material "at home and between friends", he said. It would mean that, for example, someone who has bought a CD would be able to copy it to their iPod or share it with family members without acting unlawfully.
So now we just need to find three instances that an MP shared any copyright material with a friend or colleague. Presumably accidentaly leaking millions of instances of personal details held in government databases doesnt count?
The massive increase in prison spending which makes a negligible difference in crime rates compared to other states is pretty good evidence that three-strikes laws don't work, yes.
Lacking wisdom and risk assessments are hardly grounds for locking somebody up for life. Something about the penalty fitting the crime comes to mind. If you want to go around locking up people that lack judgment, we'd have more people in prison than not.
And I fail to see how stealing golf clubs constitutes a threat against fellow citizens on the magnitude of "we must lock this guy up to protect everyone around him".
That would be a good first step. Unfortunately for my ex-girlfriend's ex-boyfriend, he's a felon for punching me in the head for sleeping with his ex-girlfriend. He got 8 years of probation he assaulted me, and evidently I'm special since I work (worked, at the time) for the feds. Note to jealous boyfriends--don't punch federal agents in the head.
I think it was around the time we decided that we were slightly better than the other animals and thought we might give this whole 'civilisation' thing a crack.
Is 1563649 a prime number?
Just a reminder.
>One guy commits two two heinous felonies, somehow lawyers his way out of long prison terms, and another guy, a) steals a purse, b) hits a parked car
>and runs away, and c) steals bubble gum from the store goes to prison for life. I'm not sure how any sane, thinking person on this planet can't see
>the glaring flaw with this system.
If California prisons were just overflowing with bubblegum theives, maybe more people would see the flaw. Since it hasn't really manifested as a problem in practice, just a hypothetical one, people who choose their fights choose other ones.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-NAZcgHNoA
Some light relief. :)
The first guy (the two time felon) is hopefully going to keep his nose clean.
If this stupid darn government in this country spent a lot more time thinking about the indiginous population of the country and less about the goings on elsewhere we would be in far better shape than we are now , Copyright AND Patents both need putting firmly in the trashcan then maybe we can all get on with life .
The big problem we have is the the biggest ISP in the country is far too closley linked to Yahoo and M$ Corp for their own good so when someone says in the US says jump idiotic jerks here ask how high instead of turning round and tekking them get stuffed son shine .
If they're not reformed, and are likely to reoffend, then why are they let out at all? If you're not aiming for rehabilitation in your prisons then prison sentence shorter than life don't make any sense - as soon as they're up you are releasing someone exactly as likely to commit a crime as they were when they went in.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Unlike baseball, rounders is not designed around advert breaks.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
This thread alone has identified two such cases in California alone. Two people going away for life for stealing golf clubs and bubble gum (forget what the second case was) concerns me. NO people going away for life (the potential alone) concerns me.
But in the second case, it is stupid and arbitrary to count the "third strike" even if it's only a misdemeanor. If the law says "3 felonies and your out", I think I could support that, but it doesn't. It says if you get three strikes (and we'll change the rules whenever we want about what counts as a strike, but as of right now strikes one and two have to be felonies, but strike three can be a minor-in-possession), you are out. Put it this way. A guy gets a felony, a misdemeanor, then a felony, and he only has two "strikes", but if he gets a felony, felony, misdemeanor, he goes away for 25-to-life. Or, a guy gets, felony, misdeanor, misdemeanor, misdemeanor, misdemeanor, misdeanor, misdemeanor, misdemeanor, misdemeanor, and then felony #2 and he's better off than the guy who commits a third strike misdemeanor. That makes exactly 0% sense.
The house of Lords will not approve this bill because it goes directly against information brought to light in the digital Britain report, is against the advice of British intelligence agencies and also the Police.
Trying to set unpopular policy and laws into motion like this, so close to an election is political suicide.
This will be the final straw to break the "Camel's back" So to speak as far as re-election is concerned.
I live in England and this bill simply means another stealth tax, which no one can afford to pay because the recession is already stretching everyone.
I don't share any copyrighted content over the internet. Everyone is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
They can take the unelected Mr Mandelson with them into the political wilderness.
Frankly, even "mister" is too much of an honorific for that sleazy, undemocratic worthless piece of Tory-in-all-but-name shit that represents everything that was wrong with the Blair era (well, apart from that prick Blair himself).
The fact that he's still around is proof that shit floats; the fact that the phony, egotistical, smarmy prick Blair is up for the European Council presidency? The same guy who spent years kissing Bush's backside even long after anyone with an ounce of realpolitikal competence could see that his toadyish whoring of Britain's influence bought nothing in return? Proof that diarrhea floats.
Sorry, heading offtopic. But seriously, Labour and their deluded, smug chums can fuck off and die. I like the way that the unions are so wedded to Labour that over 12 years after they were elected to power, they're only *just* beginning to consider not bankrolling a party that's as bad as Thatcher's Tories in some respects, and worse in others. Fuckwitted, blinkered tossers with self-interested leadership.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Do they call it 'three strikes' in Britain? They don't play baseball, and cricket has different rules in this respect.
don't care if long prison terms create nicely-behaved perfect citizens. Long prison terms keep poorly-behaved flawed citizens from F*ing with the nicely behaved perfect citizens. Where the hell did people get the notion that prison is meant to reform criminals?
Deterrence, rehabilitation, and incapacitance are three dominant theories of criminal punishment in the legal system and have been for a very long time. You seem to have a strong opinion on which of the three matters, but you're somewhat outside of the mainstream on that.
It's meant to keep them away from society for a set period of time. After that, they're given another chance to be a normal citizen. If they screw up again, they go back again, this time for longer. Human lifespan is finite. If they choose to spend most of theirs in a prison because they don't like the laws society has made, then so be it.
What's the point of that? First, if you can prevent them from becoming a repeat offender, then you save taxpayer money babysitting them AND you save the victims of future crimes from having to experience those crimes AND you get a productive citizen.
Rehabilitation is simply the best possible solution to criminal behavior, and the only reason we don't pursue it as our #1 goal is that it's really freaking hard and previous reform efforts seems to fail. We only put up with incapacitance due to the fact that some people *don't* learn and need to be separated, not because incapacitance is a superior outcome to having a functional person again. A system that just breaks people without regard for their potential to learn from their mistakes is just pointless and sadistic.
I mean, look how many people's lives are ruined just because they got caught smoking a lot of pot. I'm anti-legalization, but if we fined those people instead of throwing them in the slammer, they'd be more likely to be productive citizens in 20 years than under the current system. Long-term incapacitance is pointless there like it is for many other non-violent offenses.
The US is unique among democracies in the length and frequency of its prison sentences. The US has 22% of the entire world's prison population (and only 4% of the total world population) and more than quadruple the average percentage of our population in prison. We spend $37 billion/year on prisons, which is about the GDP of Guatemala (only #77 on the list of countries by GDP!), and is about twice what we spend on NASA. Do you really think that just locking up people and neglecting what they're going to be like when they come out is good fiscal policy? Seems to me like we're wasting a lot of taxpayer dollars that could be saved if we helped the prisoners that can be helped.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
encryption being declared illegal in GB, or worse, having to register your encryption key with the government or risk being classified as a terrorist. MI5/6 and the other law enforcement agencies are doing the 'not our idea' dance right now, but they know in the long run the Nanny-State that is the GB will not allow somthing like a persons privacy to stand in the way of spreading fear and mis-information under the guise of protecting the nation.
If they criminalize encryption, only criminals will have it...
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Good.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I'd been trying to make this joke all week, but despite reading the wiki page on Cricket, I couldn't write the joke to make it sound like I knew what I was talking about. Three strikes and I suppose now *I'm* out.
Don't feel so bad about it. The OP got it wrong too. If you get bowled leg-before-wicket (LBW), then you're already out.
The only group that will be allowed to 'accuse' will be the media, and why would they incriminate their own paid for law makers?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
There's a 2 (or maybe 3) strikes rule for a head-high full toss.
Also there's a limit on the number of bouncers bowled in an over for an ODI.
Indeed, some of the best Test matches I have seen have been 5 day draws. Dont bother trying to explain to USians though, it is tooo subtle for them.
Not that I'm a BitTorrent guru in any way, but it strikes me that as I live in the UK, I need to proxy all my trackers communications through I2P. As far as I understand, that won't hurt my download speeds, but will present a non-traceable IP address to anyone who looks at my communications with the tracker. And if I turn on transport encryption as well, the contents of my P2P communications are at least obscured, even though my use of BitTorrent isn't.
Perhaps a BitTorrent guru can put me straight on this, but if I'm right, then a one-click install of I2P, and a couple of easy config changes in Azereus, seemed to do the trick for me.
"And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"
Indeed. The BE was only able to exist as a result of the conflicts. Divide and conquer anyway?
Where the hell did people get the notion that prison is meant to reform criminals? It's meant to keep them away from society for a set period of time.
Four philosophies to imprisonment:
-Revenge ("He deserves to get pounded in ass in prison")
-Rehabilitation ("He needs some discipline to straighten up his life")
-Prevention ("He needs to be kept behind bars where he can't do more harm" )
-Deterrent ("He needs to be made an example of, so others will learn")
If you really don't believe in rehabilitation, then really you shouldn't want to release prisoners ever. If you're going to release criminals, you have to prepare them for return to normal society. Revenge to me is just stupid but the other three all have merit (though arguable in priority). Who would you rather have getting out of prison and moving next to you:
1. A 20yr old drug offender who spent 2 years in prison, living in fear, who learned from guards/inmates that threats and force is the solution to minor problems. Someone who had no positive outlets in their life. No work experience, no High School diploma. His resume consists of his time in prison.
2. A 20yr old mugger, who spent 3 years in prison, finished their GED and took vocational classes. A local church allowed him to get work experience by volunteering his time building houses for the homeless during supervised day passes.
I believe the best way to reform criminals is to give them opportunities for a stable life with employment opportunities coming out of prison. Our prisons are more effective at making nonviolent convicts violent then making convicts hirable. The sad thing is people glorify the violent conditions of our prisons: "He won't last a day in prison before being made someone's bitch"... and the guards condone it.
'6 and out' is a common rule in backyard cricket
Don't feel bad, if you come from a non-commonwealth country. I once tried to explain test cricket to a German friend, while we watched it on TV, and after more than an hour he was still non the wiser. He did like the bit where the fast bowler hit a batsman on the head though.
Military grade encryption here we come. Users can use encryption too, and really if the government tries to seize equipment and then break the encryption, the government then can be charged for violating something like the DMCA, can't it? Its interesting how vested interests are winning over common sense, common law and the best interests of the public. Geffen of course has billions to gain from this. But there would be no bribe, no 'gift in kind', noooo, nothing like that. They talk about corruption in 3rd world countries with finger wagging disdain. Now Robert Mugabe can say, with the biggest grin, "My Lord Peter Mandelson, what a fine example you set!".
Why do the citizens of the UK put up with this shit from their government? How are they going to know what you're downloading without invading your privacy? Oh wait, that's right, the right to privacy doesn't exist in the UK.
It is time for every single person who values privacy to start encrypting everything thing they send or share.
The closest we have to that concept is perhaps the Hat-trick http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hat-trick#Cricket
I am an ACCA student. Got a query on Accountancy/Finance? Maybe I can help!
Wow, I sure hope you lose your temper and punch someone in the face someday :-S
Not going to say much more, since people below seem to have pointed out a lot of good sentiments...
"The number you have dialed is imaginary. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and try again."
The Rules of Cricket: You have two sides, one out in the field and one in. Each man that's in goes out, and when he's out he comes in and the next man goes in until he is out. When they are all out, the side that's been out comes in and the side that's been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out. Sometimes you get men still in and not out. When a man goes out to go in, the men who are out try to get him out, and when he is out, he goes in and the next man in goes out and goes in. There are two men called umpires who are all out all the time, and they decide when the men who are in are out. When both sides have been in and all the men have been out, and both sides have been out twice after all the men have been in, including those who are not out, that is the end of the game.
Time for more people to use Freenet! I just downloaded the film Up from it today and it would be difficult to find out that I did. Safe p2p.
You sir are a troll.
Osi Osi Osi Osi Osi
This is why I love the english language. In a word, ambiguity!
Fantastic stuff!
I use to have to pay $30 for a CD that would have ONE song on it I liked, which I would have herd on the radio for the first time. I didn't have the ability to just pick and chose which songs I wanted. Using CDs I could only have ONE in my diskman at a time meaning I had to constantly swap them in and out.
When I hear a song I like I now have the ability to go and listen to other songs by an artist to see if I like what else they have. That allows me to make an informed decision about whether I should buy them or not. I get ALL the information rather then just what the radio thinks I should have. With an MP3 player I can put only songs I like on and just have a random shuffle.
If the music industry hadn't of been so anti-change, they might have been the ones to come up with an idea like the iTunes store. If they had I bet things would have turned out very different. Because they were making so much profit... Sorry, they were making so much "living" off CDs they didn't want to change.
I'm a developer, I love what I do. Sure I get paid, but it's pennies compared to what the software I write A) Saves my company and B) earns them in the end. Kind of funny since my software is for research and is given away instead of sold. You should love what you do and do it because you love it, not because you make tons of money for it.
Why should an "artist" make more money then a doctor or a teacher. I think they've been making a "living" for a very long time. They're just bitter because now they can't waste hundreds of thousands on diamond encrusted watches anymore.
That's how New Labour like to do things. If the accused in these cases actually got a fair trial in a properly constituted court, it might be possible to see some faint gleam of sense in this idea. But no.
I hate the 5th Doctor episode where he spends a big chunk of time doing nothing but playing cricket. Rather than waste time with that nonsense, they should have simply consolidated the 2-part story downto 1 part.
Now now, don't disparage the first man who's lived long enough to actually understand the game.
No good deed goes unpunished. - Avon, Blake's 7
Yes I suppose anyone who doesn't go along with your opinion is a troll right? I seem to recall Hitler having the same mentality. Anyone who doesn't support piracy is ranted down, and labeled as a troll. Does anyone really care about the people being ripped off? Would you have the same opinion if it was you who's work was being stolen?
I have never paid $30 for a CD. Perhaps you should have gone to a cheaper store? And while iTunes is not financially successful, it demonstrates that your argument of wanting only certain songs is nor an excuse for stealing. You can do it legally. But most choose not to. And it seems the argument is that people now still steal because it took too long for an industry to provide content online. Yet now that they do, most people still steal. Does that really sound logical? I steal because of how things once were and that it took too long for someone to change something 10 years ago. So you think that everyone should have a cap on how much money they can make? That someone should say that at a certain point no one is allowed to make any more money? What if someone decided that you make too much money now. Someone who made less money than you decided that it's unfair that you make more than them. Would you agree? Most artist don't make more than doctors. Most people make more than teachers. Does that mean we should all be able to steal from anyone who makes more money than teachers? If you make more money than a teacher, is it OK for me to steal from you? And yes, I am not in favor of piracy, so here come all the negative scores because I don't share the same opinion and I dare support the artists who are being ripped off, the majority of which are poor. And let's not forget about the millions of people who all work to make the music possible, most of which make minimum wage and just want to put food on their table. But are now being put out of work.
I have never paid $30 for a CD. Perhaps you should have gone to a cheaper store?
You’re assuming 1) there was a cheaper store in my area and 2) whatever you pay in your area is the norm.
And while iTunes is not financially successful, it demonstrates that your argument of wanting only certain songs is nor an excuse for stealing.
I’m pretty sure I said if I like something I buy it. When did paying for something become stealing? They use this concept in grocery stores; I had a mini-pizza the other day and bought a whole box of them.
And it seems the argument is that people now still steal because it took too long for an industry to provide content online.
I’m conceding this point to you. All we have here is speculation that IF Napster hadn’t made file sharing popular and IF the XYZ industry had of been the one to kick the snowball instead of the one trying to stop the avalanche things might have been different.
Yet now that they do, most people still steal. Does that really sound logical?
Yes it does, people have gotten use to doing something easy, doing things the “hard” way is illogical. Alienating them by imposing DRMs, ridiculous EULAs and making laws that will most likely only affect “innocent” people only makes things worse. Sorry the box is open you can’t put the bad things back in
So you think that everyone should have a cap on how much money they can make?
The cap is what the market is willing to pay.
That someone should say that at a certain point no one is allowed to make any more money?
The music industry makes an initial investment to record something, and then makes money indefinitely off distribution of the product. They recover the cost and then make profit hand over foot only having to pay for the media the product is distributed on. If only there was a magical way to distribute a product over a large “digital” network using other peoples machines as a place to store it.
What if someone decided that you make too much money now.
I picked a good profession, went to university and worked hard for the money I make. No one else has to decide for me that I make too much money, because I do. I’d do my job for free if I didn’t need to eat and live somewhere. Seems to me actors and musicians living in Hollywood live in Multi-million dollar homes and spend close to if not more what I make in a year on a dress/suit and jewellery for a night at an award ceremony.
Someone who made less money than you decided that it's unfair that you make more than them. Would you agree?
I worked my way through university at a fast-food restraint, I’m telling you, they have a right to complain about how much I make. Their jobs have to be 100 times more stressful then mine, they work harder hours and don’t get nearly the respect they deserve. Hopefully they will make as much as me eventually. Can I ever hope to make as much as Jessica Simpson, Our Lady Peace, Three doors down, etc!! No. What did they do to get where they are? Sure they must have worked hard, but harder then me It’s kind of an apples and oranges comparison.
Most artist don't make more than doctors.
Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha oh, you’re serious.
Does that mean we should all be able to steal from anyone who makes more money than teachers?
If by steal you mean make a copy of something they have without degrading it in anyway and leave them with the original so they can continue to use it sure.
If you make more money than a teacher, is it OK for me to steal from you?
It’s not stealing if I give it to you.
OK, so a "minor in posession OF ALCOHOL" is the kind of thing that should be a misdemeanor. If it's a felony, that's a problem, but that has nothing to do with three strikes laws. According to Wikipedia, the penalty for "Minor in Possession" in California "carries a punishment of $250 and a mandatory revocation of driving privileges for one year" if there's no aggravating factors (drunk driving, drunk and disorderly, etc.) Minor in Possession is not a felony on its own.
In most states, all three strikes have to be felonies. (In fact, some states only count violent felonies.) I'm not sure where your anecdote about someone whose third strike was for Minor in Possession comes from, but it sounds to me like there were aggravating factors. (Also, if they had two felonies before the age of 21, they probably shouldn't have been on the street for w while anyway.)
I guess you haven't been following the entire thread, because the Supreme Court case cited somewhere above clearly shows that the third strike (in California law) does not have to be a felony, and indeed can be as petty as Minor in Possession or shoplifting golf-clubs. That's the ENTIRE point I'm trying to make, that the arbitrary application of the third strike (but not the first or second) is really, well, arbitrary. Why should a guy with a felony, misdemeanor, felony be free, but a guy with a felony, felony, misdemeanor has to have mandatory minimum sentencing under three strikes?
You’re assuming 1) there was a cheaper store in my area and 2) whatever you pay in your area is the norm.
Well then the problem is the area you live in. That is an absurdly high price which in no way is indicative of the market. I don't recall seeing any prices over $12 except in high profile shopping malls which jack up the prices of everything. But having traveled around a lot, I am can say that that's not the usual cost.
I’m pretty sure I said if I like something I buy it. When did paying for something become stealing? They use this concept in grocery stores; I had a mini-pizza the other day and bought a whole box of them.
Yes I understand. But I meant to yous "You" in a proverbial sense, and not you personally. In fact I have never met anyone on the internet that actually steals music from torrents. everyone just does it to later buy the same material. And the other 99.999% are just other people. But your position is anything but the norm. But in your example, the store had the choice of offering a small sample, just like is the case with music. And you aren't able to take an unlimited number of samples, thus removing the need to buy the product.
I’m conceding this point to you. All we have here is speculation that IF Napster hadn’t made file sharing popular and IF the XYZ industry had of been the one to kick the snowball instead of the one trying to stop the avalanche things might have been different.
But this is simply how business works. Any large business is not going to be able to be the first to jump on a new technology. The machine in any area of large business is simply too big to make sudden changes. And had they been there first it would not change the fact that someone can still get their products for free and not pay. The issue isn't about who came out first, it's that no one can compete with free. Not even itunes who make their profit on ipod sales.
Yes it does, people have gotten use to doing something easy, doing things the “hard” way is illogical. Alienating them by imposing DRMs, ridiculous EULAs and making laws that will most likely only affect “innocent” people only makes things worse. Sorry the box is open you can’t put the bad things back in
Most people that steal from torrents now were not old enough to have been downloading when the Napster issue happened. Many don't even know what the issue was. They only know that they can download a simply program and have any song they want and never have to pay for it. Again, no one can compete with free. Nothing can be easier than free. And DRM was not implemented from the start. It was added after it was realized how rampant theft was. But it was still a failure, because no one can compete with free. So they can not use copy protection and people will steal. Or they can use copy protection and peal will steal AND complain about copy protection. Either way, they have no means to protect their business.
The cap is what the market is willing to pay.
Now that's a contradiction to your previous statement. They should be able to make what the market will bear, but when they do you have a problem with it. Isn't that a bit unfair?
The music industry makes an initial investment to record something, and then makes money indefinitely off distribution of the product. They recover the cost and then make profit hand over foot only having to pay for the media the product is distributed on. If only there was a magical way to distribute a product over a large “digital” network using other peoples machines as a place to store it.
This is a misconception. Because what you may not be aware of is that for every successful album that sells well, there are 20 that lose money. Music is an art and there is no way to predict what will and won't be a commerc
Have you ever seen a vid called V for Vendetta - I mean ...Cameras everywhere - people being disgraced (and more) for pointing out inconvenient truths... Ah hem - i think it may be time to snap out of it before it's too late.
Hope everything else is well.
Best Wishes!
Your Doctor example can't apply here because the Doctor is charging you for his time, so if you left without paying then you would be stealing his time. Sure musicians put time into recording, but once recorded they collect indefinitely. Live shows are where it's at, when a person goes to a show they're paying to see the artist preform, they're paying for the artist time. People who break into shows are stealing.
Now that's a contradiction to your previous statement.
No it's not. If the market determined something should be free then that is the price the market has determined.
/. are very anti windows, MS doesn't make a half bad product, it's certainly better then I could do on my own. Ubuntu, which I personally like, is picking up steam, but I doubt it will ever be on all the computers in my office.
I work in much the same way as many of these "artist". I develop for a company, not individual clients. The company then uses my product to gain income. Not directly form my product, but from the supplemental activity like data collection, analysis and research. Think of it like giving away CD's to build a base of fans, but raking in the money for a concert and other merchandise. You ever gone to a concert and seen what they charge for a bottle of water, snacks, T-shirts and other nick-knacks.
If the market determined my skills aren't worth anything, then I'd be out of a job or I would create demand or I would develop new skills. When artists stop making music because there is no benefit to them and there is a shortage of entertainment, people will start to pay for it
I have friends in smaller bands. I went to university with one of the guys in the band Squid he quit university because he made more money in the band then he figured he'd ever make as a Computer Scientist. Good thing too, he's a much better drummer then a programmer *I kid*. Sure he's not living in a million dollar house, but he is doing very well for himself. The band makes almost nothing off of CD sales, but they can make a few thousand each off of a show. Squid toured with Drum for a while and made a killing off of it.
As for your "Can't compete with free" statement. I do agree with you that it's difficult to compete with free, but it's not impossible. Look at Windows vs. Linux., MS Office vs. Open office. Despite the fact that many people on
Yes the "three strikes" law will penalize people who are sharing music and movies, innocent or not, but what's really happening is the government is taking away a tool people are using to change an over priced over saturated market. I'm sure you can agree with me on the fact that entertainment, while not directly necessary to life, is essential, we need it like a drug. without file sharing the options are pay what company's set the price at or go without. File sharing provides a third options where a person can say "I want your product, but I'm not paying xxx dollars for it". There was a time a long time ago where music and other forms of entertainment were free. The issue these days is the entertainment industry is coming out of a "golden age" where they produced something people needed AND they decided how much to charge for it, because if they all charged the same price people only had the option to buy or not buy. Because people need entertainment that's not much of an option. Then along comes file sharing and the "golden age" ends. It's an adjustment for the industry that they are doing everything in their power to stop, while still making a fortune I might add, but you can't stop an avalanche. All their doing is digging a deeper
If people in the UK do not want to be conscripted as soldiers of the
occupation government, they need to keep their wireless networks open.
UK goveerment pay 'experts' a lot of money to advise them and then ignore what they are told. That is why we are 42nd in the world for broadband and why BT stopped fiber optic roll outs.
As far a file sharing MP3's, the music laws are draconian and should be put in line with other copyrights. Protected for 70 years after the death seems exessive to me! Expecailly when a tune is often inspired by another piece of music. I say when you go, your music should be up for anyone to copy or use.
Does the phrase "Paid his debt to society" ring any bells? You can think of it as a 'time out' for adults - put in a place they really don't want (or should not want, at any rate) to be, for a time period proportional to the crime they committed.
A smart person will learn from that and not do anything to get sent back. That's the theory anyway.
Based on "An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth" (which was actually an argument against ESCALATION in retaliation for wrongs done to you - do the same back to them, no more, no less, and call it even. Otherwise you end up with blood feuds like the Hatfields and McCoys).
The idea of using textual changes as watermarks presupposes that
companies force book purchasers to identify themselves, so the company
knows what books any person has bought. This is what Amazon does now,
and it is dangerous in itself.
See DefectiveByDesign.org for other reasons why the Amazon Swindle
("Kindle") is bad for your freedom.
- RMS
If people in the UK do not want to be conscripted as soldiers of the occupation government, they need to keep their wireless networks open.
The idea of using textual changes as watermarks presupposes that companies force book purchasers to identify themselves, so the company knows what books any person has bought. This is what Amazon does now, and it is dangerous in itself.
See DefectiveByDesign.org for other reasons why the Amazon Swindle ("Kindle") is bad for your freedom.
rms