You know, the real problem with security is that our government is building a system they could not circumvent. The analogy that comes to mind is, if you build the most complicated system you can imagine, you are, by defination, not competent to debug it, beause you cannot add one more layer of complexity on top of it.
The US government, contrary to popular opinion, is actually attempting to build a system to remove terrorism. This system will catch all terrorists stupider than them. The problem is, of course, that they are dumber than a sack of onions.
Thus, they will only stop really stupid threats to the country, like ones that are too fucking stupid to try to fly at least once before trying to hijack a plane.
I love we've apparently completely forgotten all the terrorists besides McVeigh and Al Quida.
Hello? What about the Unibomber? Or Eric Rudolph? Or the DC snipers?
Yes, they didn't take down buildings, but they were terrorists, nevertheless.
And your statistics are completely made up. There are plenty of other groups that could be called 'terrorists' that has nothing to do with the Middle East...it's just, right now, they aren't attacking us.
And both pilots don't sit in the cockpit the entire trip. So the evil pilot can just wait till the other pilot leaves and lock him out. (In fact, they're probably locked out automatically.) And then, fly the plane into the handy list of targets nearby, or just fly it into the ground.
Hell, a pilot can probably crash a plane in about 5 seconds during landing or takeoff, faster than anyone else could react. Yeah, they're on automatic pilot, but I assume those are pretty easy to turn off in case of emergencies.
Sorry, but I always swear when people endanger my life because they're stupid.
Here's the facts: We know, last time, terrorists didn't use any non-Middle-Easterners. So, logically, we could look just them, or them more than others. Logically, we can finger suspicious people, and search them more, and even keep the really suspicious ones off the plane.
That would work perfectly...in a vaccuum.
Of course, it assumes terrorists are idiots who don't know what we're doing because they can't read newspapers.
In reality, terrorists will get on airplanes repeatedly, to figure out who's on the no-fly list. They'll see how often they get searched. This isn't quantum physics, people.
And, in the end, they'll tell the people on the no-fly list to say home, they'll hire some dirty-poor farmer from Peru to carry on weapons with the promise of riches to his family, and they'll all get in line, panicking the security people, who will body-cavity search them, find nothing, and let them on their way, while the farmer walked through with the razor blades in the CD player of his laptop.
Congratulations, morons. A random search might have caught the Peruvian. But all your expensive security people were searching the people who knew they'd be searched.
When was the last time someone named Cindy-Lou was involved in suicide attacks?
You're right, silly me, terrorists never have names like Eric or Tim or Ted. (I'm not quite certain why suicide attacks are worse than non-suicide attacks. On the whole, I'd rather the terrorists die, personally, instead of wandering off to go again, like Rudolph did repeatedly.)
No Non-Muslim would have any interest in aligning with Al Quadia. You are the fucking moron.
I said 'non-Middle Easterner' and you said 'non-Muslim'. You see the problem there? We have plenty of Muslims that are not from anywhere but right here. And many of them are angry, especially after stupid comments by Bush. I point to John Allen Muhammad
And I love the assumption that Al Quadia is the only terrorist organization in the world. Al Quadia, the real organization, is basically dead. There are a lot of splinter groups running around, but the large funding from the top has almost completely vanished. Al Quadia is not the threat anymore.
I always think that everyone is intelligent, and then I run across stupid people like you.
Tell me, sir...if we always search the most suspicious people, which is your mind are Middle Easterners, do this mean we are, in fact, searching other people less? Of course it does.
So, to sneak something onto a plane, wouldn't all you had to do was grab, oh, a dozen Middle Eastern men, and have one nice, cleancut white woman just carry the weapons? I mean, she's not going to get searched under your plan, because you're a FUCKING MORON who thinks searching some groups of people less than others is a good thing. Because terrorists are complete idiots who stand around going 'Gee, I wonder who should carry the weapons? Adil? Habib? Cindy-Lou?'.
Assuming that a terrorist organization can't recruit non-Middle Earnerners is just so incredibly stupid I can't believe you're not a troll. And you only need one person to carry the weapons and hide them in the bathroom.
And if the system did work, if they do get barred from actual flying, at any point in time, no matter that name they use...hey, look, the terrorists just learned who they shouldn't bring along they next time they feel like hijacking a plane.
See, I'm having real problems figuring out how a No Fly list would keep terrorists from hijacking planes even if it magically worked perfectly at barring whoever we wanted from flying. I mean, even if we magically had the DNA of everyone in existence, including terrorists, and checked it against everyone flying...it only takes X people who aren't on the list to hijack the plane. And they'll know exactly who they are, because we let them fly and stopped everyone else!
The only way a no-fly list works is if we magically know who every single terrorist is...and if we know that we should just arrest them!
It's like searches. If they keep searching a guy before letting him on the plane...well, you know who not to give the weapons to. In fact, let's get fifty of those guys on one flight, and have the fifty-first, the one not on the list, carrying all the razor blades inside his laptop's CD-ROM compartment. They'll spend all their time searching the other 50 guys, and the laptop guy can just hide the razor blades in the bathroom and let the other fifty guys pick them up one at a time.
Real is not selling files that are copyrighted by Apple. For that matter, neither are Apple, they're just selling files under a license.
If Apple owned the copyright on all the files that both Real and Apple were putting on the device, sure it'd be legal. But they don't.
You see why the DMCA is a completely broken law? No one has the slightly clue what 'circumvent' means. It not only prohibits people from using their computer in certain ways, it can actually prohibit the manufactures of the DRM from doing certain things, because of what other people have done.
Because there's no way to tell 'circumvents a copy control device' and 'circumvents an access control device' from 'accesses', once you start having multiple companies involved. That was a funny point about the DeCSS thing...who, exactly, gave the CSS people and the 'offical' DVD software people the right to decode CSS? They didn't own the copyright on those DVDs.
The whole law is just completely broken at accomplishing its intent, because there's no idea of a 'chain of permission', from the copyright owner, to the device producer. There is legally no difference between J. Random Hacker producing a device that decodes Apple's DRM, Apple producing the device, and a band producing a device that just decodes their songs. They're all criminals.
Can he alter 'his property'? Can he demand I give 'his property' back? Can he come in and simply use 'his property'? Can he sell 'his property' to someone else and demand I turn it over to them?
Of course he can't do any of those things.
Let's compare that to a car. Let's say someone else owns my car, and I'm just using it. Can they come up and alter it? Can they demand I give it back? Can they walk up and simply drive around town with it?
Of course they can do all these things. Ownership of property is the right to use the property, the right to demand the return of said property if someone else is in possession of it (And you can prove it's yours, of course), and the right to sell it to someone else, and some other rights related to those things.
A copyright owner has none of those rights over, say, a CD I've purchased. They can't demand I give it back, they can't use my copy, they can't sell it to someone else out from under me.
Now, they do own something, called a copyright, that allows them to control my other property, and, in fact, everyone else's property. This control is solely 'You cannot duplicate the information under our copyright onto your property except within certain bounds.' And this control applies whether or not I own a copy of their stuff, so pretending that it's somehow 'ownership' of a copy is a bit silly.
Now, EULAs like to pretend otherwise. But EULAs are invalid in the first place because they aren't legally contracts. You can neither impose a contract after a sale or impose a contract that doesn't give both sides something. (Hence contracts selling houses for '1 dollar and other valuable considerations'. You simple cannot write a contract that gives something away, although it's possible to just give most things away without a contract, some forms of property transfers require contracts, like land ownership and, to come full circle, copyrights.)
And that, of course, is completely ignoring the fact no one can prove any specific person ever agreed with any EULA for a program on their computer.
There are two things that exist, under the law:
1) A physical copy of a work recorded on a media. The law treats all copies completely identical, from the one sold in a store to the original one to a pirate version sold on the street.
2) A copyright. This legal fiction is 'property' that allows the owner to control duplications of a certain work, and recover damages made from unauthorized duplication.
Saying I didn't buy 'the game' is just gibberish, it's akin to pointing at my car and saying I didn't buy 'the car', I just bought a copy of it. Um...whatever. My game is one of many identical duplicates, and I do, indeed, own it. I own the box, I own the CD, and I own the bits on the CD. I own everything that came in that box, and I can use them in any manner that does not violate the law.
Now, what I do not own is the copyright to said game, someone else does. That makes it illegal to copy it without their explicit permission. (Not that copying software in a way required to use it is explicitly legal under copyright law, so installing it is fine.)
In emphasize how much I own the bits, I will point out I continue to own them even if said copy was illegally made. Whoever made the copy is liable for making the copy, and that's it.
And, BTW, I do own software. You walk into a store, pay money for something, and you own it, and you can do anything you want with it that does not violate the law.
With handguns, for example, I cannot carry them within a school zone. With animals, I cannot mistreat them. With rocks, I cannot hurl them at someone's head. With radio transceives, I cannot broadcast on police frequencies. With land, I cannot bar people from using any easements over it. With cars, I cannot operate them on public roads without a license tag on the car and myself being licensed. With cough syrup, I cannot use it in a manner inconsistent with its label.
And with copyrighted anything, I cannot copy the work.
That's it. I most certainly own copyrighted works, just like I own a rock or a radio or a dog or a gun or land or a car or some cough syrup. I am prohibitied by law from doing certain things with any of those things.
As for the reason I own the game...I own the game because I picked it up off the shelf, and paid money for it at the register, without entering into any sort of contract. Just like if I walk into any other store and walk out with any other item. That's how contract law works.
(And just in case you're actually pay attention, no, copying it onto my hard drive does not count as copying. That's explicitly allowed under copyright law.)
IIRC, Stallman wrote emacs under a BSD-type license, or even public domain, I forget which, and a company took it and started reselling it (And hiring all the programmers nearby, too.), and refusing to give changes back, which basically everyone assumed they would do. So he wrote GPL 1, and eventually hired a lawyer to write GPL 2.
But I don't know what Bill Joy has to do with this.
It didn't say that anywhere in the EULA, so no. And even if it did, the owner didn't agree to the EULA before giving it to me. And I left the EULA up on the screen when I walked away, and when I came back someone had apparently clicked 'Ok', so I didn't agree to any EULA. It's nice that someone keeps doing that for me, I'll figure out who's doing it some day. (What, those software companies won't believe me? No, sorry, they have to prove I signed the 'contract', I don't have to prove I didn't.)
OEM versions require a signed contract, anyway, to make you unable to resell them except with new hardware. Because, duh, if someone were to resell an OEM copy, it would be (hopefully) before they installed that copy somewhere, and thus before they agreed to any EULA! (No, printing 'OEM version, not for resale' on a box does not make it illegal to resell them.)
No, actually, they've all recently fixed that. It's perfectly legal to copy the game around inside a computer as much as required to run it. That includes installing onto the hard drive, loading into memory, swapping, etc. (Well, what's 'required' is debatable, and hasn't been tested in court. It probably will end up meaning 'reasonable'. Saying a minimal install is allowed under copyright law without an EULA, but not a full install, is a bit silly.)
Sadly, it doesn't include copying to the hard drive, but you are still allowed to make backup copies, so you can just call them that. There's no reason backup copies have to be on CD. (Yes, backup copies. One backup copy is misinterpetation of the law. You're allowed to make 'a backup copy' as many times as you want. It just says if a copy is a backup copy, it's okay.)
Yes, I know, you don't for a game either, the 'license' is an illegally-imposed powergrab by the publisher in complete ignorance of contract law, however, if they're going to be claiming I have a license, then they damn well need to make sure I can use the license I bought.
I mean, imagine if I bought a license to, say, print the UGA 'Dawg' logo on t-shirts. (I think the dog is named Uga.) And then I required a copy of said logo so I do that. Do you think I'd get a copy? Of course I would. And I'd be able to make backup copies and incidental copies, etc.
Likewise, imagine that I bought a site-license to run Office XP. Then imagine there's a fire in part of the building and it, including the four identical install CDs Microsoft gave me, burns to the ground. Later, I'm trying to rebuild the network, and realize I have no disks. Do you think I'd get more copies from Microsoft? Of course I would. And I'd be able to copy the install media to a network or more CDs or whatever was useful.
But we, the 'consumers', get these mysterious 'licenses' where the company is not required in any way to see that we have the ability to use the license we purchased, which rather gives lie to the whole 'licensing software' gag. That's really the whole point when talking about replacement media.
I agree, if we just purchase the game, just like we purchase a book, we don't deserve any replacement media, unless it came damaged. And I agree that's what actually happens. It's just that software companies like to claim otherwise, so people rightly go 'Where's my replacement media so I can continue using my still valid license?'.
And if you walk into those stores, and walk out with an item after paying them money, you do, indeed, own said item.(1)
Which is why you sign a contract in the store.
1) How this relates to insurance agencies is beyond me. If people want to run around asserting they just paid a godly amount of money for the card the isnsurance agency printed off and handed to them, instead of the policy they paid for, well, they're idiots.
Exactly. I just ripped a piece of software called 'Street Atlas USA 2004' that I legally own (It came with a GPS, and the owner purchased some nicer software from the same company, and gave it to me.) to my laptop's hard drive, using Alcohol 120%. Frankly, I don't want to have to remember to make sure I have the CD with me in case I happen to be in the middle of God-knows-where when I need it, and I wouldn't want to suck the laptop's batteries even if I did. Luckily, it didn't come with any sort of copy protection, and worked fine under Alcohol. (And it's pretty good for a piece of software given away for free.)
Anyone who thinks ripping and burning tools only are for illegal software and music copying are delusional.
Real's files are digital, copyrighted, and encoded with an copy control device. If Apple builds a device that circumvents their copy control, Apple is in violation of the DMCA.
Yes, it's very very stupid. But it's how it works.
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The US government, contrary to popular opinion, is actually attempting to build a system to remove terrorism. This system will catch all terrorists stupider than them. The problem is, of course, that they are dumber than a sack of onions.
Thus, they will only stop really stupid threats to the country, like ones that are too fucking stupid to try to fly at least once before trying to hijack a plane.
I think that's the obvious solution to this problem. Limiting searches to airports is just too slow.
Hello? What about the Unibomber? Or Eric Rudolph? Or the DC snipers?
Yes, they didn't take down buildings, but they were terrorists, nevertheless.
And your statistics are completely made up. There are plenty of other groups that could be called 'terrorists' that has nothing to do with the Middle East...it's just, right now, they aren't attacking us.
It was the other stuff in the cockpit that burned, like seats and plastic and people.
And both pilots don't sit in the cockpit the entire trip. So the evil pilot can just wait till the other pilot leaves and lock him out. (In fact, they're probably locked out automatically.) And then, fly the plane into the handy list of targets nearby, or just fly it into the ground.
Hell, a pilot can probably crash a plane in about 5 seconds during landing or takeoff, faster than anyone else could react. Yeah, they're on automatic pilot, but I assume those are pretty easy to turn off in case of emergencies.
And it's not like you need a lot of them. You just need one person to carry the weapons.
Here's the facts: We know, last time, terrorists didn't use any non-Middle-Easterners. So, logically, we could look just them, or them more than others. Logically, we can finger suspicious people, and search them more, and even keep the really suspicious ones off the plane.
That would work perfectly...in a vaccuum.
Of course, it assumes terrorists are idiots who don't know what we're doing because they can't read newspapers.
In reality, terrorists will get on airplanes repeatedly, to figure out who's on the no-fly list. They'll see how often they get searched. This isn't quantum physics, people.
And, in the end, they'll tell the people on the no-fly list to say home, they'll hire some dirty-poor farmer from Peru to carry on weapons with the promise of riches to his family, and they'll all get in line, panicking the security people, who will body-cavity search them, find nothing, and let them on their way, while the farmer walked through with the razor blades in the CD player of his laptop.
Congratulations, morons. A random search might have caught the Peruvian. But all your expensive security people were searching the people who knew they'd be searched.
You're right, silly me, terrorists never have names like Eric or Tim or Ted. (I'm not quite certain why suicide attacks are worse than non-suicide attacks. On the whole, I'd rather the terrorists die, personally, instead of wandering off to go again, like Rudolph did repeatedly.)
No Non-Muslim would have any interest in aligning with Al Quadia. You are the fucking moron.
I said 'non-Middle Easterner' and you said 'non-Muslim'. You see the problem there? We have plenty of Muslims that are not from anywhere but right here. And many of them are angry, especially after stupid comments by Bush. I point to John Allen Muhammad
And I love the assumption that Al Quadia is the only terrorist organization in the world. Al Quadia, the real organization, is basically dead. There are a lot of splinter groups running around, but the large funding from the top has almost completely vanished. Al Quadia is not the threat anymore.
Tell me, sir...if we always search the most suspicious people, which is your mind are Middle Easterners, do this mean we are, in fact, searching other people less? Of course it does.
So, to sneak something onto a plane, wouldn't all you had to do was grab, oh, a dozen Middle Eastern men, and have one nice, cleancut white woman just carry the weapons? I mean, she's not going to get searched under your plan, because you're a FUCKING MORON who thinks searching some groups of people less than others is a good thing. Because terrorists are complete idiots who stand around going 'Gee, I wonder who should carry the weapons? Adil? Habib? Cindy-Lou?'.
Assuming that a terrorist organization can't recruit non-Middle Earnerners is just so incredibly stupid I can't believe you're not a troll. And you only need one person to carry the weapons and hide them in the bathroom.
Yup. They were obviously worried he'd get drunk and fly the plane into a river.
See, I'm having real problems figuring out how a No Fly list would keep terrorists from hijacking planes even if it magically worked perfectly at barring whoever we wanted from flying. I mean, even if we magically had the DNA of everyone in existence, including terrorists, and checked it against everyone flying...it only takes X people who aren't on the list to hijack the plane. And they'll know exactly who they are, because we let them fly and stopped everyone else!
The only way a no-fly list works is if we magically know who every single terrorist is...and if we know that we should just arrest them!
It's like searches. If they keep searching a guy before letting him on the plane...well, you know who not to give the weapons to. In fact, let's get fifty of those guys on one flight, and have the fifty-first, the one not on the list, carrying all the razor blades inside his laptop's CD-ROM compartment. They'll spend all their time searching the other 50 guys, and the laptop guy can just hide the razor blades in the bathroom and let the other fifty guys pick them up one at a time.
If Apple owned the copyright on all the files that both Real and Apple were putting on the device, sure it'd be legal. But they don't.
You see why the DMCA is a completely broken law? No one has the slightly clue what 'circumvent' means. It not only prohibits people from using their computer in certain ways, it can actually prohibit the manufactures of the DRM from doing certain things, because of what other people have done.
Because there's no way to tell 'circumvents a copy control device' and 'circumvents an access control device' from 'accesses', once you start having multiple companies involved. That was a funny point about the DeCSS thing...who, exactly, gave the CSS people and the 'offical' DVD software people the right to decode CSS? They didn't own the copyright on those DVDs.
The whole law is just completely broken at accomplishing its intent, because there's no idea of a 'chain of permission', from the copyright owner, to the device producer. There is legally no difference between J. Random Hacker producing a device that decodes Apple's DRM, Apple producing the device, and a band producing a device that just decodes their songs. They're all criminals.
Can he alter 'his property'? Can he demand I give 'his property' back? Can he come in and simply use 'his property'? Can he sell 'his property' to someone else and demand I turn it over to them?
Of course he can't do any of those things.
Let's compare that to a car. Let's say someone else owns my car, and I'm just using it. Can they come up and alter it? Can they demand I give it back? Can they walk up and simply drive around town with it?
Of course they can do all these things. Ownership of property is the right to use the property, the right to demand the return of said property if someone else is in possession of it (And you can prove it's yours, of course), and the right to sell it to someone else, and some other rights related to those things.
A copyright owner has none of those rights over, say, a CD I've purchased. They can't demand I give it back, they can't use my copy, they can't sell it to someone else out from under me.
Now, they do own something, called a copyright, that allows them to control my other property, and, in fact, everyone else's property. This control is solely 'You cannot duplicate the information under our copyright onto your property except within certain bounds.' And this control applies whether or not I own a copy of their stuff, so pretending that it's somehow 'ownership' of a copy is a bit silly.
Now, EULAs like to pretend otherwise. But EULAs are invalid in the first place because they aren't legally contracts. You can neither impose a contract after a sale or impose a contract that doesn't give both sides something. (Hence contracts selling houses for '1 dollar and other valuable considerations'. You simple cannot write a contract that gives something away, although it's possible to just give most things away without a contract, some forms of property transfers require contracts, like land ownership and, to come full circle, copyrights.)
And that, of course, is completely ignoring the fact no one can prove any specific person ever agreed with any EULA for a program on their computer.
You're just stringing together words, aren't you?
There are two things that exist, under the law:
1) A physical copy of a work recorded on a media. The law treats all copies completely identical, from the one sold in a store to the original one to a pirate version sold on the street.
2) A copyright. This legal fiction is 'property' that allows the owner to control duplications of a certain work, and recover damages made from unauthorized duplication.
Saying I didn't buy 'the game' is just gibberish, it's akin to pointing at my car and saying I didn't buy 'the car', I just bought a copy of it. Um...whatever. My game is one of many identical duplicates, and I do, indeed, own it. I own the box, I own the CD, and I own the bits on the CD. I own everything that came in that box, and I can use them in any manner that does not violate the law.
Now, what I do not own is the copyright to said game, someone else does. That makes it illegal to copy it without their explicit permission. (Not that copying software in a way required to use it is explicitly legal under copyright law, so installing it is fine.)
In emphasize how much I own the bits, I will point out I continue to own them even if said copy was illegally made. Whoever made the copy is liable for making the copy, and that's it.
With handguns, for example, I cannot carry them within a school zone. With animals, I cannot mistreat them. With rocks, I cannot hurl them at someone's head. With radio transceives, I cannot broadcast on police frequencies. With land, I cannot bar people from using any easements over it. With cars, I cannot operate them on public roads without a license tag on the car and myself being licensed. With cough syrup, I cannot use it in a manner inconsistent with its label.
And with copyrighted anything, I cannot copy the work.
That's it. I most certainly own copyrighted works, just like I own a rock or a radio or a dog or a gun or land or a car or some cough syrup. I am prohibitied by law from doing certain things with any of those things.
As for the reason I own the game...I own the game because I picked it up off the shelf, and paid money for it at the register, without entering into any sort of contract. Just like if I walk into any other store and walk out with any other item. That's how contract law works.
(And just in case you're actually pay attention, no, copying it onto my hard drive does not count as copying. That's explicitly allowed under copyright law.)
But I don't know what Bill Joy has to do with this.
OEM versions require a signed contract, anyway, to make you unable to resell them except with new hardware. Because, duh, if someone were to resell an OEM copy, it would be (hopefully) before they installed that copy somewhere, and thus before they agreed to any EULA! (No, printing 'OEM version, not for resale' on a box does not make it illegal to resell them.)
Sadly, it doesn't include copying to the hard drive, but you are still allowed to make backup copies, so you can just call them that. There's no reason backup copies have to be on CD. (Yes, backup copies. One backup copy is misinterpetation of the law. You're allowed to make 'a backup copy' as many times as you want. It just says if a copy is a backup copy, it's okay.)
Yes, I know, you don't for a game either, the 'license' is an illegally-imposed powergrab by the publisher in complete ignorance of contract law, however, if they're going to be claiming I have a license, then they damn well need to make sure I can use the license I bought.
I mean, imagine if I bought a license to, say, print the UGA 'Dawg' logo on t-shirts. (I think the dog is named Uga.) And then I required a copy of said logo so I do that. Do you think I'd get a copy? Of course I would. And I'd be able to make backup copies and incidental copies, etc.
Likewise, imagine that I bought a site-license to run Office XP. Then imagine there's a fire in part of the building and it, including the four identical install CDs Microsoft gave me, burns to the ground. Later, I'm trying to rebuild the network, and realize I have no disks. Do you think I'd get more copies from Microsoft? Of course I would. And I'd be able to copy the install media to a network or more CDs or whatever was useful.
But we, the 'consumers', get these mysterious 'licenses' where the company is not required in any way to see that we have the ability to use the license we purchased, which rather gives lie to the whole 'licensing software' gag. That's really the whole point when talking about replacement media.
I agree, if we just purchase the game, just like we purchase a book, we don't deserve any replacement media, unless it came damaged. And I agree that's what actually happens. It's just that software companies like to claim otherwise, so people rightly go 'Where's my replacement media so I can continue using my still valid license?'.
Which is why you sign a contract in the store.
1) How this relates to insurance agencies is beyond me. If people want to run around asserting they just paid a godly amount of money for the card the isnsurance agency printed off and handed to them, instead of the policy they paid for, well, they're idiots.
And to keep it strong in your mind that you should violate the law as often as possible and the masters can't do anything about it?
Anyone who thinks ripping and burning tools only are for illegal software and music copying are delusional.
Yes, it's very very stupid. But it's how it works.
Apple would, hilariously enough, be in violation of the DMCA if they did that.
Burning at the stake's too good for them.