"Maybe it should. After all, the broken justice system is the reason that we have more people in prison per capita than any other civilized nation on Earth. A complete collapse might just force some much-needed reform in a lot of areas."
I'm not so sure it's "the justice system" that is broken. More like Congress, on both State and Federal levels. After all, they're the ones who pass the laws.
Having said that: I do agree that the Supreme Court lately has seemed... well... if not broken, it sure is bent.
The inverse-square law only holds for something that radiates in a radial pattern. (That sounds redundant but it's not.) You get around that by focusing it with a large reflector or series of reflectors. How would they disguise it? Hell if I know, but maybe you could if you were clever.
Also, x-rays are of a longer wavelength than visible light, so generally speaking they should attenuate less than visible light in the air. I don't think the gases of air generally absorb much at x-ray wavelengths, either, but I'm not sure. I would have to look it up.
So... if you focused your beam, yeah I think you could do a lot of damage.
"Yeah exactly. How could they not see this coming?? Another scenario of people creating a product that they don't use."
Despite some of the other replies, I definitely agree with "How could they not see it coming?"
I don't think it's a matter of a product they don't use. I think it's a lot more about just being completely disconnected from their actual customers. They really don't have a f*cking clue what people want, despite years of people screaming at them that they DON'T want DRM or "phoning home". When I say years, I mean like 15 years.
I think the only reasonable conclusion is that they literally don't listen to their customers. And that's Not A Good Thing.
"Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity."
That's true, but in this case it seems unlikely to be stupidity.
If they maintain a separate repository for their commercial offering, then how did the commercial files get into the code base? It hardly seems like something that would happen accidentally. I don't claim it's impossible, but it seems very darned unlikely and far too "coincidental". Like, "lightning struck my homework" kind of coincidental.
"...or does that not apply to internet service providers?"
It used to be that the FCC strictly forbid the content CARRIERS (telephone, cable, satellite) from being content PROVIDERS, too. But not very long ago they seem to have dropped that regulation.
And look at the results. We are already seeing some pretty terrible negative effects. Carriers should never be allowed to be in the business of providing content. It's just plain a bad idea, and the consequences are pretty easy to predict. Hell, we don't even have to predict. It's already hindsight.
"What I am expecting however, is more of the same shit I hear from people who mouth off or walk around practically broadcasting their drug habits that I'm hardly surprised they attract trouble."
I understand. But I think you will find that it's not what you were expecting.
"Only possible because they had further to go in the first place."
Yep. And here's another good one:
'... the most critical issue facing American broadband has nothing to do with the quality of our networks; it is our relatively low rates of subscribership.'
Absolute BS. Sure, it may be the low rates of subscribership, but the first part is wrong. The low rates of subscribership are due to low quality of service combined with outrageous prices.
The fact is: other "developed countries" have better service for less money. If there is any one halfway good excuse the US has for that, it might be the cost of infrastructure in areas of low population. But some other countries (like Canada) have that problem too.
I would like to add: not standing up for your rights is what is socially irresponsible. Letting government walk all over you is socially irresponsible. Letting government walk all over OTHERS is even more socially irresponsible, and every time you don't stand up for YOUR rights, you weaken THEIRS. We've been seeing it all around us these last 13 years or so.
"Sorry, but I'm not going to watch that and I'm not going to avoid talking to the police. I find that socially irresponsible."
You can't find it "socially irresponsible" if you don't even know what the hell the subject matter is. No, the title does not adequately describe it.
You are making assumptions based on what you THINK it says, and your assumptions are wrong. Further, you refuse to even look at or hear what it's about... why? Are you afraid of something?
What you are saying is "I've already made up my mind, and I refuse to even listen to any other arguments even though I don't know what the hell they are even about."
Do you honestly think others should give that viewpoint any respect? I'm just curious.
Repeat: THE LAW says nothing about being a "commercial" service, or doing it for profit. Coffeeshops across the nation also rely on this law. And I don't mean just the big chains.
This law protects YOU. For a change. It is one of the few -- just 2 off the top of my head -- provisions of the DMCA that are actually on the side of good.
And it's not like it hasn't been tried in the courts already. It has.
"I think if your look at your existing TOS this would be spelled out as not allowed, so legal or not, they could drop you if it became obvious."
Probably true, but it would likely never "become obvious" unless there were a lawsuit or something.
"But still you would think they have to affect your bandwidth. And a gamer or downloader of large files might notice.
Personally I would seldom be inconvenienced by this unless it started to seriously eat into my speed."
Where I live, just about everybody has their own routers. The only traffic I have noticed is the occasional passerby, and one neighbor's laptop occasionally connects, presumably because my signal is stronger than the next one over.
Only once have I caught anybody abusing the service; a girl from across the street was using my open internet to download music. I saw she was doing that from my logs. (I checked the logs because somebody was using a bit of bandwidth.)
I put an.mp3 file on the guest network where she could find it, with a fake title. It was a recording of my voice, calling her by name, and telling her to not download anymore via my account. I think it freaked her out. Never had another problem.
I didn't miss anything. My comment was intended in the context of the comment to which I was replying. It was about being stopped on the street, in MY state.
Granted, that's slightly off topic, but that's where the discussion led.
""Spirit of the law" is more of a liberal thing. Our current court leans a bit to the conservative side, and they tend to be more concerned with "letter of the law". Of course, both sides would probably dispute such simplistic characterizations, but that's pretty much how it works out in practice."
But "the letter of the law" has no real legal foundation. The law is all about the "spirit".
---
"The first and governing maxim in the interpretation of a statute is to discover the meaning of those who made it." -- James Wilson
"You ARE required to identify yourself, dont'cha know, in the Land of the Formerly Free."
Not necessarily. It depends on the circumstances.
In my state, the police cannot stop you (either in an automobile or on foot) for just any reason and ask who you are, what your business there is, etc. They have to have "reasonable suspicion" before they can do even that.
I should amend that: they can ask, but you are not obligated to answer.
And you are not required to produce ID (verbal or otherwise) unless they have enough probable cause to detain you. Which, in this case, does include legitimate traffic stops, since they have to have probable cause to do that anyway. No random checkpoints here. And in fact I won't willingly live in a state that does have them.
"... the person in question had NOT been arrested, had been freely answering other questions, but refused to answer one that concerned shotgun shells found at the murder scene."
Correct. It was what he did say, combined with what he did not say, that led to his conviction.
That is why, even if you are "innocent" you should NEVER speak to the police about anything that involves you at all.
HIGHLY recommended for everybody to watch, which explains why very clearly and in a no-nonsense way, are THIS VIDEO (part 1) and THIS VIDEO (part 2). About 49 minutes total. Very worth it.
These are not some kind of government-conspiracy nuts but a defense attorney and a police detective.
I should also add that the DMCA has a specific safe-harbor provision that protects providers of an internet service from liability for what users do with it. There is nothing in the law saying the service has to be commercial or for-profit. So your ass is covered.
Yes, "no" works for me, but for completely different reasons.
I already do this, using my own cable adapter and my own router. And it is free for my neighbors and passersby to use. No charges from Comcast or anybody else. I do it as a free public service.
And you have NO LEGAL LIABILITY for strangers using your Wi-Fi to perform illegal acts without your permission. Any more than an "internet cafe" does. People use it as they please, and they are responsible for their own actions. There have been many, many court cases over this by now.
Think about it. If somebody came into your yard without explicit permission, grabbed your lawn de-thatching tool, and hit somebody over the head with it, would you be "liable" for murder? Hell, no. Nor are you liable, generally speaking, if you (legally) loan someone your gun and they shoot somebody with it. Unless of course you knew their intent ahead of time and loaned it to them specifically for doing that. But we're talking here about somebody doing something without your foreknowledge.
So why should a router be any different? (Hint: it isn't.)
By the way: the EFF recommends doing this as a courtesy to your neighbors and the public, and assures you that there is no liability.
Again generally speaking, about the only time you are liable for someone's unauthorized use of your tools is when it is an automobile, and even that law is on pretty shaky legal ground.
Slashdot Mirror
"Maybe it should. After all, the broken justice system is the reason that we have more people in prison per capita than any other civilized nation on Earth. A complete collapse might just force some much-needed reform in a lot of areas."
I'm not so sure it's "the justice system" that is broken. More like Congress, on both State and Federal levels. After all, they're the ones who pass the laws.
Having said that: I do agree that the Supreme Court lately has seemed... well... if not broken, it sure is bent.
The inverse-square law only holds for something that radiates in a radial pattern. (That sounds redundant but it's not.) You get around that by focusing it with a large reflector or series of reflectors. How would they disguise it? Hell if I know, but maybe you could if you were clever.
Also, x-rays are of a longer wavelength than visible light, so generally speaking they should attenuate less than visible light in the air. I don't think the gases of air generally absorb much at x-ray wavelengths, either, but I'm not sure. I would have to look it up.
So... if you focused your beam, yeah I think you could do a lot of damage.
Actually, the Brooklyn Bridge really was sold. Twice. By the same guy.
The same guy also sold the Eiffel Tower. He sold that one twice, too.
He sold them for scrap metal. Really. And he got away with it all 4 times. It wasn't until years later the FBI caught up with him.
I read about it in one of those Reader's Digest Condensed Books. The book was written by the FBI agent who caught him. It's all on record.
"... overnmentgay eedsnay..."
I think you may be onto something there.
"Yeah exactly. How could they not see this coming?? Another scenario of people creating a product that they don't use."
Despite some of the other replies, I definitely agree with "How could they not see it coming?"
I don't think it's a matter of a product they don't use. I think it's a lot more about just being completely disconnected from their actual customers. They really don't have a f*cking clue what people want, despite years of people screaming at them that they DON'T want DRM or "phoning home". When I say years, I mean like 15 years.
I think the only reasonable conclusion is that they literally don't listen to their customers. And that's Not A Good Thing.
"Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity."
That's true, but in this case it seems unlikely to be stupidity.
If they maintain a separate repository for their commercial offering, then how did the commercial files get into the code base? It hardly seems like something that would happen accidentally. I don't claim it's impossible, but it seems very darned unlikely and far too "coincidental". Like, "lightning struck my homework" kind of coincidental.
"...or does that not apply to internet service providers?"
It used to be that the FCC strictly forbid the content CARRIERS (telephone, cable, satellite) from being content PROVIDERS, too. But not very long ago they seem to have dropped that regulation.
And look at the results. We are already seeing some pretty terrible negative effects. Carriers should never be allowed to be in the business of providing content. It's just plain a bad idea, and the consequences are pretty easy to predict. Hell, we don't even have to predict. It's already hindsight.
"What I am expecting however, is more of the same shit I hear from people who mouth off or walk around practically broadcasting their drug habits that I'm hardly surprised they attract trouble."
I understand. But I think you will find that it's not what you were expecting.
"Only possible because they had further to go in the first place."
Yep. And here's another good one:
'... the most critical issue facing American broadband has nothing to do with the quality of our networks; it is our relatively low rates of subscribership.'
Absolute BS. Sure, it may be the low rates of subscribership, but the first part is wrong. The low rates of subscribership are due to low quality of service combined with outrageous prices.
The fact is: other "developed countries" have better service for less money. If there is any one halfway good excuse the US has for that, it might be the cost of infrastructure in areas of low population. But some other countries (like Canada) have that problem too.
Sigh. No. Not in this state. It has been tried, and it did not work.
I would like to add: not standing up for your rights is what is socially irresponsible. Letting government walk all over you is socially irresponsible. Letting government walk all over OTHERS is even more socially irresponsible, and every time you don't stand up for YOUR rights, you weaken THEIRS. We've been seeing it all around us these last 13 years or so.
"Sorry, but I'm not going to watch that and I'm not going to avoid talking to the police. I find that socially irresponsible."
You can't find it "socially irresponsible" if you don't even know what the hell the subject matter is. No, the title does not adequately describe it.
You are making assumptions based on what you THINK it says, and your assumptions are wrong. Further, you refuse to even look at or hear what it's about... why? Are you afraid of something?
What you are saying is "I've already made up my mind, and I refuse to even listen to any other arguments even though I don't know what the hell they are even about."
Do you honestly think others should give that viewpoint any respect? I'm just curious.
Whoosh...
You are even contradicting yourself when you say "interpretation", then give as an example something that simply isn't open to interpretation.
Repeat: THE LAW says nothing about being a "commercial" service, or doing it for profit. Coffeeshops across the nation also rely on this law. And I don't mean just the big chains.
This law protects YOU. For a change. It is one of the few -- just 2 off the top of my head -- provisions of the DMCA that are actually on the side of good.
And it's not like it hasn't been tried in the courts already. It has.
"I think if your look at your existing TOS this would be spelled out as not allowed, so legal or not, they could drop you if it became obvious."
Probably true, but it would likely never "become obvious" unless there were a lawsuit or something.
"But still you would think they have to affect your bandwidth. And a gamer or downloader of large files might notice. Personally I would seldom be inconvenienced by this unless it started to seriously eat into my speed."
Where I live, just about everybody has their own routers. The only traffic I have noticed is the occasional passerby, and one neighbor's laptop occasionally connects, presumably because my signal is stronger than the next one over.
.mp3 file on the guest network where she could find it, with a fake title. It was a recording of my voice, calling her by name, and telling her to not download anymore via my account. I think it freaked her out. Never had another problem.
Only once have I caught anybody abusing the service; a girl from across the street was using my open internet to download music. I saw she was doing that from my logs. (I checked the logs because somebody was using a bit of bandwidth.)
I put an
"Has this been tested in court?"
Only about a thousand times.
Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration. But not much. Big companies like Google (YouTube) rely on that provision all the time.
Also, the question is not whether they can try to pull something anyway; it's whether they can get away with it.
This.
Thank you for saving me the effort to write that all out.
I didn't miss anything. My comment was intended in the context of the comment to which I was replying. It was about being stopped on the street, in MY state.
Granted, that's slightly off topic, but that's where the discussion led.
""Spirit of the law" is more of a liberal thing. Our current court leans a bit to the conservative side, and they tend to be more concerned with "letter of the law". Of course, both sides would probably dispute such simplistic characterizations, but that's pretty much how it works out in practice."
But "the letter of the law" has no real legal foundation. The law is all about the "spirit".
---
"The first and governing maxim in the interpretation of a statute is to discover the meaning of those who made it." -- James Wilson
---
"Brilliant. If they can prove that you do in fact remember, then they caught you lying, which is a crime, and you are now fucked on two counts."
Correct. See those videos I linked to below. They cover that point in detail.
"You ARE required to identify yourself, dont'cha know, in the Land of the Formerly Free."
Not necessarily. It depends on the circumstances.
In my state, the police cannot stop you (either in an automobile or on foot) for just any reason and ask who you are, what your business there is, etc. They have to have "reasonable suspicion" before they can do even that.
I should amend that: they can ask, but you are not obligated to answer.
And you are not required to produce ID (verbal or otherwise) unless they have enough probable cause to detain you. Which, in this case, does include legitimate traffic stops, since they have to have probable cause to do that anyway. No random checkpoints here. And in fact I won't willingly live in a state that does have them.
"... the person in question had NOT been arrested, had been freely answering other questions, but refused to answer one that concerned shotgun shells found at the murder scene."
Correct. It was what he did say, combined with what he did not say, that led to his conviction.
That is why, even if you are "innocent" you should NEVER speak to the police about anything that involves you at all.
HIGHLY recommended for everybody to watch, which explains why very clearly and in a no-nonsense way, are THIS VIDEO (part 1) and THIS VIDEO (part 2). About 49 minutes total. Very worth it.
These are not some kind of government-conspiracy nuts but a defense attorney and a police detective.
I should also add that the DMCA has a specific safe-harbor provision that protects providers of an internet service from liability for what users do with it. There is nothing in the law saying the service has to be commercial or for-profit. So your ass is covered.
"Does no work for you?"
Yes, "no" works for me, but for completely different reasons.
I already do this, using my own cable adapter and my own router. And it is free for my neighbors and passersby to use. No charges from Comcast or anybody else. I do it as a free public service.
And you have NO LEGAL LIABILITY for strangers using your Wi-Fi to perform illegal acts without your permission. Any more than an "internet cafe" does. People use it as they please, and they are responsible for their own actions. There have been many, many court cases over this by now.
Think about it. If somebody came into your yard without explicit permission, grabbed your lawn de-thatching tool, and hit somebody over the head with it, would you be "liable" for murder? Hell, no. Nor are you liable, generally speaking, if you (legally) loan someone your gun and they shoot somebody with it. Unless of course you knew their intent ahead of time and loaned it to them specifically for doing that. But we're talking here about somebody doing something without your foreknowledge.
So why should a router be any different? (Hint: it isn't.)
By the way: the EFF recommends doing this as a courtesy to your neighbors and the public, and assures you that there is no liability.
Again generally speaking, about the only time you are liable for someone's unauthorized use of your tools is when it is an automobile, and even that law is on pretty shaky legal ground.