"And vote in who? That's the problem, there is no candidate or major party right now that could come close to winning a stamp of approval from folks who care about civil liberties."
Really? Are you going to be like most of the media outlets that have ignored Ron Paul?
In 30 years of politics, he has never broken a campaign promise; he has invariably voted exactly the way he said he would. He has consistently voted against unconstitutional laws, even when his stance was unpopular.
He predicted exactly the current economic situation well before it happened, when all the others were exclaiming about how well the economy was doing, right up to the crash in 2008. (Herman Cain, for example, is on video proclaiming the wonderful state of the economy, one week before the crash.)
The difference between Paul, and the other current candidates who have been saying things people have been wanting to hear, is that Paul has been consistently saying the same things for many years. The others are just saying them because they know that's what people want to hear.
And he has been consistently leading in the polls, and also making good campaign money. He received twice as much campaign money from enlisted military personnel than all the other GOP candidates combined, and more than Obama as well. That should tell you something.
He has also been leading the straw polls.
So, to summarize: he has proven himself to be honest, he has been dedicated to changing government in a good way, even when that view was unpopular, and he is popular. What more do you want?
Also, this begs the question. See my earlier reply above.
It doesn't matter how much the states scream. They've been screaming about it since mail order was invented. The reason they are still screaming about it is that the LAW and the CONSTITUTION do not allow them to do this!
Nothing has changed. The constitution is still the constitution, states do not have the authority to tax transactions in another state, and the Federal government does not have the authority to do that, either. To do so would be an end-run around the Constitution.
Further, I am not even convinced yet that states are losing any more money over this than they did in the mail-order days.
So let 'em scream. They can either amend the Constitution, or forget it. And since they are not very likely to be amending the Constitution, they had damned well better just forget it.
They can complain until the cows come home, and it won't get them anywhere.
First off, this was first established in regard to mail-order firms, beginning nearly 200 years ago: when you buy from a company that resides in a different state, the transaction is considered to have occurred in the state where the company resides. That is the only workable solution to that can of worms, whether the medium be mail or internet.
So a company need not keep track of a myriad of different laws; it only needs to keep track of the laws in states where it has a physical presence. If it has a physical presence in many states, it has to know those state laws anyway, so that isn't a burden.
Second: no State has any legal or Constitutional authority to tax a transaction that takes place in another state, nor does the Federal government have authority to tax on behalf of a state.
When you put those facts together, what you get is: the current state of affairs. That's the way it works. Learn to live with it.
As for people who buy online: nearly every State now has "use tax" laws, which give them the ability to tax goods that were purchased in some other state (but not the transaction). That is how they try to compensate for lost sales via mail order and internet.
One of the States' big complaints is that these "use taxes" are by their very nature voluntary: it is up to those who purchase the goods to report on and pay the taxes. And admittedly, few do. BUT: as U.S. courts, up to the Supreme Court, have consistently ruled: the difficulty of enforcing the law is not and excuse for making other laws that violate rights or the constitution.
States have been screaming about this "out of state transaction" business for almost the entire 200 years that it has been common. But neither the law or the constitution has changed in that time. So either we will will continue to have Constitutional law, or we will have an internet tax. You can't have both at the same time.
I agree that their thinking is flawed; I have been saying that for years. But apparently that hasn't gotten them to change their flawed thinking.
It may be obvious to you and I, but apparently it is not obvious to everybody. It would be sad indeed if we were forced into a worldwide depression simply because some people are greedy and stupid.
There has to BE a new economy before anybody, creative or otherwise, can be an "engine" for it.
Unfortunately, as we have seen, our economy has been (so far) too full of old greedy curmudgeons who will exploit anybody, including the government and the innocent, to keep the old economy going for just a few more years so they can continue to line their pockets.
Further, my statements about TOS had absolutely nothing to do with the CFAA. That is a straw-man argument, and a pretty silly one at that.
You have confused prosecutorial abuses of the law with what the courts have already decided the law actually is. As *I* stated before you did, the pending legislation merely makes what the courts have already decided explicit, which should avoid further such prosecutorial abuses..
Obviously you aren't familiar with the many recent court cases that have consistently ruled that violations of TOS are not criminal.
I have confused nothing. YOU have confused the act of taking someone to court, with the violation of criminal statutes.
As I stated earlier, what the new statute does is make it explicit, rather than leave it up to the courts, that violation of TOS is not criminal, which will avoid many malicious prosecutions. But just as I stated previously: while people have been taken to court over the issue, US courts have consistently ruled that violation of TOS is not a criminal act. You only have to look the cases up if you don't believe me.
And as for the two aspects of the case, I did not confuse those, either. Read this thread back up to my original post, and remember what it was about. It is you who have changed the subject, not me.
No, YOU missed MY point. Just as I stated the first time, and I will repeat: in the U.S., a violation of TOS was already a civil matter, not a crime. And a pretty darned minor civil matter, at that. Generally the "penalties" are no more than the cost of the service over the disputed period.
What was unclear to you about that?
My second point was that if you copy only tabular data, not the verbatim description or pictures -- again, in the U.S. -- it isn't even a civil matter. It is perfectly legal. You can even re-publish the information for profit, with no legal repercussions.
And that is why I brought up the Canadian court's mis-definition of "scraping". Because scraping is NOT "a form of indexing", as the court asserted. It is merely the gathering of data. Indexing or whatever else you do with that data is a separate operation from the gathering. I should know; I've been writing scraping programs professionally for years.
For someone who purports to respect the "facts", this article is somewhat short on them.
To WHAT "several recent studies" showing a 95% consensus does he refer? I am only aware of one such "study", and that was the infamous non-peer-reviewed paper by Naomi Oreskes, which was thoroughly and soundly discredited almost immediately after it was published.
That is true; descriptive text probably cannot be characterized as "tabular data". But the rest can: address, basic home style and information about it (square feet, bathrooms, etc.), price, and so on.
But this also needs to be stated: contrary to the title of this thread, scraping per se was not found to be the illegal act here anyway: reproducing someone else's site was.
Actually, you probably don't have to follow the standard, or anything even close. At least in the US.
First off, in US law it has (finally) become pretty clear that not obeying TOS is not, in itself, a crime. Ever-higher courts have ruled on that issue and Congress has a pending bill spelling that out in plain English.
Second, again in the US, tabular data cannot be copyrighted. A recent case involving phone books pretty much nailed the lid on that one. Real estate listings are nothing if not "tabular data"... except for the pictures. Copying the layout of somebody's real estate page, or their pictures, would probably be a violation of copyright. But the data? Hell no.
The upshot is: as long as you only copy the data, not the layout or pictures, you are perfectly withing the law, in the United States.
I have to further question this Canadian decision because I did read the court decision, and they didn't even get the definition of "scraping" right. They concluded that it was a form of indexing, which is simply false. Scraping is simply the gathering of data, whether it is then used for indexing or any other purpose.
Century 21's (or anybody's) private contracts cannot obligate 3rd parties without their consent. If I wanted to sell a house that Century 21 has listed, for commission or not, there isn't a damned thing they can do about it... unless the contract is one of exclusivity, with the owner. In which case they could sue the OWNER, but not me. I still haven't done anything wrong or illegal.
Alton is good, but not perfect. That's actually nonsense. On the standard rough scale of solubility, capsaicin is considered "very" soluble in alcohol. Google it.
I agree. Shooting is an easy and effective way to destroy a hard drive. I'm not too sure about a.22... I suppose it depends on the drive. It would probably be enough for a newer laptop drive but the older desktop drives? Iffy.
It's not a very "scientific" article if they neglected to mention that capsaicin is not just soluble in fats but also in alcohol.
You need more than a couple of percent, though, so a beer isn't going to help you much. A glass of port or something stronger, like swishing a shot of whiskey or vodka around in your mouth, will whisk a lot of the capsaicin away.
The article is incorrect. It is possible to die from capsaicin poisoning, but it takes a very large amount. There have only been a few reported cases.
On the other hand, there have been LOTS of people who have been made very sick by ingesting too much of it. It may not be permanent, but at the time I have no doubt you might wish to permanently end it all.
Not at all. They would all be connected together, just as they are now. Why would you need a VPN?
Of course, you could have a problem if you are trying to access an internet side for a subsidiary that is in a country that has blocked/censored its internet. But in that case, WTF are you doing, engaging in business there anyway? Shame on you. I have no sympathy.
Slashdot Mirror
"And vote in who? That's the problem, there is no candidate or major party right now that could come close to winning a stamp of approval from folks who care about civil liberties."
Really? Are you going to be like most of the media outlets that have ignored Ron Paul?
In 30 years of politics, he has never broken a campaign promise; he has invariably voted exactly the way he said he would. He has consistently voted against unconstitutional laws, even when his stance was unpopular.
He predicted exactly the current economic situation well before it happened, when all the others were exclaiming about how well the economy was doing, right up to the crash in 2008. (Herman Cain, for example, is on video proclaiming the wonderful state of the economy, one week before the crash.)
The difference between Paul, and the other current candidates who have been saying things people have been wanting to hear, is that Paul has been consistently saying the same things for many years. The others are just saying them because they know that's what people want to hear.
And he has been consistently leading in the polls, and also making good campaign money. He received twice as much campaign money from enlisted military personnel than all the other GOP candidates combined, and more than Obama as well. That should tell you something.
He has also been leading the straw polls.
So, to summarize: he has proven himself to be honest, he has been dedicated to changing government in a good way, even when that view was unpopular, and he is popular. What more do you want?
I wanted to upgrade my own system to Milfware 3.0, but I was told that things are just a little too tight right now.
Also, this begs the question. See my earlier reply above.
It doesn't matter how much the states scream. They've been screaming about it since mail order was invented. The reason they are still screaming about it is that the LAW and the CONSTITUTION do not allow them to do this!
Nothing has changed. The constitution is still the constitution, states do not have the authority to tax transactions in another state, and the Federal government does not have the authority to do that, either. To do so would be an end-run around the Constitution.
Further, I am not even convinced yet that states are losing any more money over this than they did in the mail-order days.
So let 'em scream. They can either amend the Constitution, or forget it. And since they are not very likely to be amending the Constitution, they had damned well better just forget it.
I have a hard time believing that people on Slashdot are actually calling it "SuperSpeed" USB, instead of just 3.0.
Seems to me, most Slashdotters should be aware that today's "SuperSpeed" is tomorrow's snail crawl. Open mouth, remove foot, please.
They can complain until the cows come home, and it won't get them anywhere.
First off, this was first established in regard to mail-order firms, beginning nearly 200 years ago: when you buy from a company that resides in a different state, the transaction is considered to have occurred in the state where the company resides. That is the only workable solution to that can of worms, whether the medium be mail or internet.
So a company need not keep track of a myriad of different laws; it only needs to keep track of the laws in states where it has a physical presence. If it has a physical presence in many states, it has to know those state laws anyway, so that isn't a burden.
Second: no State has any legal or Constitutional authority to tax a transaction that takes place in another state, nor does the Federal government have authority to tax on behalf of a state.
When you put those facts together, what you get is: the current state of affairs. That's the way it works. Learn to live with it.
As for people who buy online: nearly every State now has "use tax" laws, which give them the ability to tax goods that were purchased in some other state (but not the transaction). That is how they try to compensate for lost sales via mail order and internet.
One of the States' big complaints is that these "use taxes" are by their very nature voluntary: it is up to those who purchase the goods to report on and pay the taxes. And admittedly, few do. BUT: as U.S. courts, up to the Supreme Court, have consistently ruled: the difficulty of enforcing the law is not and excuse for making other laws that violate rights or the constitution.
States have been screaming about this "out of state transaction" business for almost the entire 200 years that it has been common. But neither the law or the constitution has changed in that time. So either we will will continue to have Constitutional law, or we will have an internet tax. You can't have both at the same time.
Yes, I recall. But since the story reared its ugly head again, I felt an urge to denounce it... again.
This doesn't come even remotely close to the real situation postulated in the Million Monkeys concept.
It proves nothing, and isn't even very good as a publicity stunt.
I agree that their thinking is flawed; I have been saying that for years. But apparently that hasn't gotten them to change their flawed thinking.
It may be obvious to you and I, but apparently it is not obvious to everybody. It would be sad indeed if we were forced into a worldwide depression simply because some people are greedy and stupid.
There has to BE a new economy before anybody, creative or otherwise, can be an "engine" for it.
Unfortunately, as we have seen, our economy has been (so far) too full of old greedy curmudgeons who will exploit anybody, including the government and the innocent, to keep the old economy going for just a few more years so they can continue to line their pockets.
Further, my statements about TOS had absolutely nothing to do with the CFAA. That is a straw-man argument, and a pretty silly one at that.
You have confused prosecutorial abuses of the law with what the courts have already decided the law actually is. As *I* stated before you did, the pending legislation merely makes what the courts have already decided explicit, which should avoid further such prosecutorial abuses..
Obviously you aren't familiar with the many recent court cases that have consistently ruled that violations of TOS are not criminal.
I have confused nothing. YOU have confused the act of taking someone to court, with the violation of criminal statutes.
As I stated earlier, what the new statute does is make it explicit, rather than leave it up to the courts, that violation of TOS is not criminal, which will avoid many malicious prosecutions. But just as I stated previously: while people have been taken to court over the issue, US courts have consistently ruled that violation of TOS is not a criminal act. You only have to look the cases up if you don't believe me.
And as for the two aspects of the case, I did not confuse those, either. Read this thread back up to my original post, and remember what it was about. It is you who have changed the subject, not me.
No, YOU missed MY point. Just as I stated the first time, and I will repeat: in the U.S., a violation of TOS was already a civil matter, not a crime. And a pretty darned minor civil matter, at that. Generally the "penalties" are no more than the cost of the service over the disputed period.
What was unclear to you about that?
My second point was that if you copy only tabular data, not the verbatim description or pictures -- again, in the U.S. -- it isn't even a civil matter. It is perfectly legal. You can even re-publish the information for profit, with no legal repercussions.
And that is why I brought up the Canadian court's mis-definition of "scraping". Because scraping is NOT "a form of indexing", as the court asserted. It is merely the gathering of data. Indexing or whatever else you do with that data is a separate operation from the gathering. I should know; I've been writing scraping programs professionally for years.
For someone who purports to respect the "facts", this article is somewhat short on them.
To WHAT "several recent studies" showing a 95% consensus does he refer? I am only aware of one such "study", and that was the infamous non-peer-reviewed paper by Naomi Oreskes, which was thoroughly and soundly discredited almost immediately after it was published.
That is true; descriptive text probably cannot be characterized as "tabular data". But the rest can: address, basic home style and information about it (square feet, bathrooms, etc.), price, and so on.
"... within the law..." Sheesh. Typos.
But this also needs to be stated: contrary to the title of this thread, scraping per se was not found to be the illegal act here anyway: reproducing someone else's site was.
Actually, you probably don't have to follow the standard, or anything even close. At least in the US.
First off, in US law it has (finally) become pretty clear that not obeying TOS is not, in itself, a crime. Ever-higher courts have ruled on that issue and Congress has a pending bill spelling that out in plain English.
Second, again in the US, tabular data cannot be copyrighted. A recent case involving phone books pretty much nailed the lid on that one. Real estate listings are nothing if not "tabular data"... except for the pictures. Copying the layout of somebody's real estate page, or their pictures, would probably be a violation of copyright. But the data? Hell no.
The upshot is: as long as you only copy the data, not the layout or pictures, you are perfectly withing the law, in the United States.
I have to further question this Canadian decision because I did read the court decision, and they didn't even get the definition of "scraping" right. They concluded that it was a form of indexing, which is simply false. Scraping is simply the gathering of data, whether it is then used for indexing or any other purpose.
Century 21's (or anybody's) private contracts cannot obligate 3rd parties without their consent. If I wanted to sell a house that Century 21 has listed, for commission or not, there isn't a damned thing they can do about it... unless the contract is one of exclusivity, with the owner. In which case they could sue the OWNER, but not me. I still haven't done anything wrong or illegal.
And many thousands of other people have tested it and found that it works.
Like Alton Brown, Mythbusters is good, but not perfect.
Alton is good, but not perfect. That's actually nonsense. On the standard rough scale of solubility, capsaicin is considered "very" soluble in alcohol. Google it.
"You need more than a couple of percent, though, so a beer isn't going to help you much."
I agree. Shooting is an easy and effective way to destroy a hard drive. I'm not too sure about a .22... I suppose it depends on the drive. It would probably be enough for a newer laptop drive but the older desktop drives? Iffy.
It's not a very "scientific" article if they neglected to mention that capsaicin is not just soluble in fats but also in alcohol.
You need more than a couple of percent, though, so a beer isn't going to help you much. A glass of port or something stronger, like swishing a shot of whiskey or vodka around in your mouth, will whisk a lot of the capsaicin away.
The article is incorrect. It is possible to die from capsaicin poisoning, but it takes a very large amount. There have only been a few reported cases.
On the other hand, there have been LOTS of people who have been made very sick by ingesting too much of it. It may not be permanent, but at the time I have no doubt you might wish to permanently end it all.
I sure am glad they are going to demonstrate it in space!
Demonstrating it here on Earth would cause all kinds of problems.
Not at all. They would all be connected together, just as they are now. Why would you need a VPN?
Of course, you could have a problem if you are trying to access an internet side for a subsidiary that is in a country that has blocked/censored its internet. But in that case, WTF are you doing, engaging in business there anyway? Shame on you. I have no sympathy.