Damn. Why do people like you even read/.? Why not find another media outlet? Preferably one that doesn't use too many big words and has no real style to speak of. Then you won't have to whine because you don't understand something, and those of us who don't have a problem reading/. posts, such as the one that started this tangent, won't have to put up with the verbal abuse of ignorant whiners.
Sure, if the US government wants to prosecute someone operating outside of its legal jurisdiction, they have Mr. Cruisemissile on retainer. I still don't see how operating an online casino in another country violates US law. It seems that if anyone is violating US law, its the gamblers themselves. But since they don't seem to be responsible for their actions, I guess it must be the casinos' fault.
It is only when the control is too tight that programmers and users suffer.
Actually, programmers and users could suffer if they have no recourse if the maintainer happens to go off his/her/its rocker. With Linux and other open source projects, you could split and start your own project. You have the code. It doesn't matter if Linus goes insane one day and decides that we should implement a talking paperclip as an integral part of the kernel. Everyone can just turn to the next sane person who can take the reigns and pick up right where Linus lost his head. Everyone will follow this project and it will supplant the old.
Is that possible with Java? I've seen many people say that there isn't enough info to create a complete implementation of Java. Even if they did, could they do anything with it without being sued? I'm truly curious about all this. Anyone got the answers?
Ok, I wasn't really thinking about that when I replied. I was just thinking about who would be at fault, not how or whether we could do anything about it.
Since our laws don't apply to Antigua (or wherever the casino is located), was any law broken, and if so, who broke it, and how?
That being the case, it sounds like the online casino should be prosecuted. I would think that they would have gotten his credit card billing address. If it was a CA address, they shouldn't have let him gamble. If it wasn't a CA address, I don't think they could have known for sure where he was from. I still believe that the man should be held responsible for a large portion of the charges. He knew he was charging the money. He should be held responsible for it.
The credit card company settled out of court with her. Don't know the terms, but I doubt she'll be able to get any credit for a good long while. Since that case didn't set any precedent, I don't know how this case will turn out. I'm not aware of any other cases like this.
And since ignorance of the law is no excuse, this guy should be held responsible for committing an illegal act in the first place. He may not be the only one at fault, BUT HE IS DEFINITELY AT FAULT. Let's not lose sight of that. I hope the court doesn't lose sight of it either.
Perhaps the CC company shouldn't have let the charges go through. Perhaps the Online Casino shouldn't have let someone with a CC billing address in a state where online gambling is illegal play in the first place. But mostly, the guy who did the gambling shouldn't have been doing it in the first place. It's illegal for him to do so right? Therefore he shouldn't have been gambling online to begin with right? Then this whole chain of events never would have happened right? So the whole mess started with him and I believe he should bear the majority of the blame and financial burden.
Make him pay 70% and the CC company and online casino should have to deal with the rest. Additionally, I would hope that his credit will be worthless for a long time. He is obviously not capable of using it responsibly. Perhaps this will also encourage the CC company to take steps to stop things like this from happening whenever possible, although I don't think it's entirely fair to hold them responsible for keeping people from doing something which is illegal and that they should not be doing in the first place.
It's probably a bit easier to harness public outrage over working conditions than over the broken patent system. Working conditions evoke images of human suffering. Patent problems don't tend to generate much emotion. Trying to start a boycott of any significant size based on those problems would probably be difficult.
That was kind of my point. Nobody seems to care about this sort of thing, so their actions are more likely to produce increased profits rather than a loss. That's why they do it. They know they can get away with it.
Unfortunately, publicly traded corporations are legally bound to make the most profit that they can through legal methods for their shareholders. If they aren't breaking the law, and if their action is more likely to produce increased profits rather than a loss for whatever reason, they would be hard-pressed to justify to their shareholders why they didn't do it.
The bad part is that it's just as likely B&N will simply make their ordering system a "two-click" setup than fight with Amazon over a patent issue.
What's more likely is that Amazon and B&N will settle out of court and B&N (and any other big corp) will pay Amazon some money (also known as contributing to the Amazon Frivolous Predatory Lawsuit Fund, probably costing them much less than it would cost them to fight the patent in court) and get a license to use the 1-click method for all time. Then B&N (and/or any other big corp) gets to use the 1-click method and Amazon gets to beat the competition to death with a stupid patent without facing anyone with deep enough pockets to successfully challenge it. Ain't the system great?
Actually, the post you replied to before was somewhat amusing. Deserving of the score of 2 that it currently has, probably not more. Your post, on the other hand, was inane. Not because it ragged on Linux. I've seen plenty of posts moderated up even though they rag on Linux. Sometimes they're even funny. Usually in a sort of self-deprecating way. Your post wasn't funny. Doesn't look like you even tried to be funny. You just said something stupid and predicted that you would be moderated down. Didn't take a genius to figure that one out. Owell. I'm done wasting time on this one.
20 years is already too long for ANY patent. I think 10 years is probably right for most. Software patents should get more like 2 or 3 years. Having differing lengths of time for different types of patents would be good.
Well, she was willing to be specific. Why can't you be specific about why you believe his statements are not racist, sexist, homophobic, etc?
Ah, well. At least you're willing to back up what you say, which means we could actually have a reasonable debate on this subject.
Seems like she already started it and you had no real response. I'd really love to see what you have to say that could possibly make those statements seem like something other than a bigot's display of his true colors (npi).
Re:Drivers Licenses are GROSSLY Immoral
on
License to Surf
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· Score: 1
Meaning that those rights are owned by all (well, the way they applied it, not slaves... but the meaning is still there).
I think this illustrates the point perfectly. The rights are whatever the powerful decide they are. They are not inalienable. They can be changed or taken away if the power that grants them wishes to do so. In the case of the U.S., something as simple as a court ruling can change your rights. In more dramatic cases, it might take an amendment to do it. Either way, your "inalienable rights" are subject to change.
This doesn't mean that I don't think we should have certain rights. The U.S. belongs to its citizens. They are the ones who fight and die to protect a place where they have the rights they've come to value greatly. They should (and do to some extent) have a say in what rights they should have. It seems to be the unfortunate case that some citizens are more equal than others and can exert a much greater influence on the rights of others than they should be able to. That is something that we will hopefully find a way to deal with.
The reason they can get away with this sort of thing is that, while people generally know what they're doing in the real world, they don't have a clue what's going on when they're using a computer. If the government can make all of this stuff transparent to the user, they will go about their surfing, blissfully ignorant of the fact that every click is being recorded and analyzed in order to continually update their profile.
If you go into a real world store, they might ask you for ID. You can decide whether or not to give it to them. You can make sure they don't copy it. You can choose to pay with cash rather than use your credit card.
With the sort of system suggested here, those decisions won't be yours to make. Your computer already identifies you. You can't pay with cash. You can't know what the other party is doing with your personal information. Why should we let this happen?
Exactly, and anyone who uses it for this purpose should be prosecuted.
Ever wonder what all those cutsy little programs people sent through email are all about?
Nope. I'm not quite stupid enough to run something like that on my machine. That's begging for trouble. It's sad that most people don't have the foggiest notion of what reasonable measures they should take to prevent themselves from becoming a victim and possibly a spreader of viruses. I chalk that up to ignorance about the tools they are attempting to use. I would be equally (well, probably a bit more) critical of someone trying to use large powertools without knowing how to operate them safely. If you don't know what you're doing, you're asking for trouble. I pity the ignorant people that are running out to get cablemodems as fast as they can. They won't take any precautions and they'll end up being victims of every sort of attack you can think of.
helping someone find pirated, copyrighted works is against the law. Even if at the same time you're helping someone find legitimate mp3's.
Well, hell! You could take every search engine on the web to court then! They all aid in find ANYTHING you're looking for. If you're looking for copyrighted MP3s, they'll help you find them. If you're looking for bootleg electronic copies of books, they'll help you find them. If you're looking for copyrighted movies, they'll help you find them. Of course, they also help you find anything else you're looking for too. So, are they committing a crime?
The same argument could be applied to MP3 search engines. Just because they only search for mp3s doesn't make them illegal since mp3s are not illegal.
However, because there are no legitimate uses for such a search engine, or at least, the legitimate uses are by-and-large non-used (yes, i am aware that there are non-copyrighted mp3s out there) the search engine remains culpable in copyright infringement.
I hate it when people say, "there are no legitimate uses" and then say, "well, except for this, but we're not going to consider that one." If there is a legitimate use for something, then you can't say there aren't any legitimate uses for it. If legal MP3s are rare compared to illegal ones, then I think an MP3 search engine sounds like a rather good tool for finding them. Prosecute the people who host the illegal mp3s, and even the people who download them if you like. But there's got to be a line somewhere. The search engines don't make illegal MP3s available, they just happen to make them easier to find, while at the same time making legal ones easier to find.
The benefits for a network administrator having such a close look at a users system are almost immeasurable; however, in stealth mode, the user has no knowledge he or she may be watched, which opens the door for crackers into an organization's system.
Which may be exactly what the company or organization wants. From past discussions here, it seems that most people beleive that the company you work for has a right to know what is being done with the company's machines. A stealthy tool such as BO may fit the bill for such a company. Since monitoring your employees is not illegal, I think it should be considered to be a legitimate tool.
Actually, the N64 is fine tech-wise (or was when it came out). It just has mostly crap for games. That's its number one problem. The only game I'm looking forward to on N64 at the moment is Perfect Dark.
At that point, you need to study what went wrong and how to prevent it -- and that takes time and $.
Money that should have been spent securing the site anyway since it obviously wasn't very secure. Just because he pointed out that the holes existed doesn't mean he should have to pay to have them fixed. Make him pay for restoring the site from backup, but not for fixing what should have been fixed in the first place.
What if the hacker put up something really inciteful, like slurs against other countries?
Fine. If someone does that, they should be held accountable. What does that have to do with this case? Should the lawyers prosecute him for something he could have done, but didn't? As for making the country lose face, how is it his fault that they had crappy security? I'd say if anyone caused anyone to lose face, it's the admins responsible for the website. They were the ones that didn't have a secure box. Maybe they think they shouldn't have to worry about security because they can just prosecute anyone that makes them look bad. God help us if the military starts thinking this way.
"What do you mean the missile missed? The target moved?! Dammit! Get the legal department on the phone! Those bastards are trying to make us look bad!"
As someone else pointed out, he didn't make the holes in their security. He just exploited them, thus letting them know that they existed. Someone would have had to fix them eventually anyway because they were security holes. They're trying to charge him for the costs of something they should have fixed themselves already. Slap him with the bill for restoring the website from backup, but not for fixing the problems that already existed.
but larger shops that would use OS/2 (or WinNT) probably do their own custom disk images anyway, so the market for preinstalled OS/2 was probably small enough that even IBM could afford to neglect it for a cheaper Windows licence
Whether they could afford it or not is irrelevant. The point is that they should never have had to do it in the first place. It just proves that Microsoft has some serious monopoly power when they can make even IBM bow to their demands and forsake its own OS in favor of Windows. That's what is meant by squelching consumer choice and competition. Consumers didn't get a choice. I'm not just talking about larger shops. I'm talking about anyone who wanted to use OS/2 instead of Windows. Their choice was taken away because they were going to have to pay for Windows even if they didn't want it.
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Damn. Why do people like you even read /.? Why not find another media outlet? Preferably one that doesn't use too many big words and has no real style to speak of. Then you won't have to whine because you don't understand something, and those of us who don't have a problem reading /. posts, such as the one that started this tangent, won't have to put up with the verbal abuse of ignorant whiners.
Sure, if the US government wants to prosecute someone operating outside of its legal jurisdiction, they have Mr. Cruisemissile on retainer. I still don't see how operating an online casino in another country violates US law. It seems that if anyone is violating US law, its the gamblers themselves. But since they don't seem to be responsible for their actions, I guess it must be the casinos' fault.
It is only when the control is too tight that programmers and users suffer.
Actually, programmers and users could suffer if they have no recourse if the maintainer happens to go off his/her/its rocker. With Linux and other open source projects, you could split and start your own project. You have the code. It doesn't matter if Linus goes insane one day and decides that we should implement a talking paperclip as an integral part of the kernel. Everyone can just turn to the next sane person who can take the reigns and pick up right where Linus lost his head. Everyone will follow this project and it will supplant the old.
Is that possible with Java? I've seen many people say that there isn't enough info to create a complete implementation of Java. Even if they did, could they do anything with it without being sued? I'm truly curious about all this. Anyone got the answers?
Ok, I wasn't really thinking about that when I replied. I was just thinking about who would be at fault, not how or whether we could do anything about it.
Since our laws don't apply to Antigua (or wherever the casino is located), was any law broken, and if so, who broke it, and how?
That being the case, it sounds like the online casino should be prosecuted. I would think that they would have gotten his credit card billing address. If it was a CA address, they shouldn't have let him gamble. If it wasn't a CA address, I don't think they could have known for sure where he was from. I still believe that the man should be held responsible for a large portion of the charges. He knew he was charging the money. He should be held responsible for it.
The credit card company settled out of court with her. Don't know the terms, but I doubt she'll be able to get any credit for a good long while. Since that case didn't set any precedent, I don't know how this case will turn out. I'm not aware of any other cases like this.
And since ignorance of the law is no excuse, this guy should be held responsible for committing an illegal act in the first place. He may not be the only one at fault, BUT HE IS DEFINITELY AT FAULT. Let's not lose sight of that. I hope the court doesn't lose sight of it either.
Perhaps the CC company shouldn't have let the charges go through. Perhaps the Online Casino shouldn't have let someone with a CC billing address in a state where online gambling is illegal play in the first place. But mostly, the guy who did the gambling shouldn't have been doing it in the first place. It's illegal for him to do so right? Therefore he shouldn't have been gambling online to begin with right? Then this whole chain of events never would have happened right? So the whole mess started with him and I believe he should bear the majority of the blame and financial burden.
Make him pay 70% and the CC company and online casino should have to deal with the rest. Additionally, I would hope that his credit will be worthless for a long time. He is obviously not capable of using it responsibly. Perhaps this will also encourage the CC company to take steps to stop things like this from happening whenever possible, although I don't think it's entirely fair to hold them responsible for keeping people from doing something which is illegal and that they should not be doing in the first place.
It's probably a bit easier to harness public outrage over working conditions than over the broken patent system. Working conditions evoke images of human suffering. Patent problems don't tend to generate much emotion. Trying to start a boycott of any significant size based on those problems would probably be difficult.
That was kind of my point. Nobody seems to care about this sort of thing, so their actions are more likely to produce increased profits rather than a loss. That's why they do it. They know they can get away with it.
Unfortunately, publicly traded corporations are legally bound to make the most profit that they can through legal methods for their shareholders. If they aren't breaking the law, and if their action is more likely to produce increased profits rather than a loss for whatever reason, they would be hard-pressed to justify to their shareholders why they didn't do it.
The bad part is that it's just as likely B&N will simply make their ordering system a "two-click" setup than fight with Amazon over a patent issue.
What's more likely is that Amazon and B&N will settle out of court and B&N (and any other big corp) will pay Amazon some money (also known as contributing to the Amazon Frivolous Predatory Lawsuit Fund, probably costing them much less than it would cost them to fight the patent in court) and get a license to use the 1-click method for all time. Then B&N (and/or any other big corp) gets to use the 1-click method and Amazon gets to beat the competition to death with a stupid patent without facing anyone with deep enough pockets to successfully challenge it. Ain't the system great?
Actually, the post you replied to before was somewhat amusing. Deserving of the score of 2 that it currently has, probably not more. Your post, on the other hand, was inane. Not because it ragged on Linux. I've seen plenty of posts moderated up even though they rag on Linux. Sometimes they're even funny. Usually in a sort of self-deprecating way. Your post wasn't funny. Doesn't look like you even tried to be funny. You just said something stupid and predicted that you would be moderated down. Didn't take a genius to figure that one out. Owell. I'm done wasting time on this one.
20 years is already too long for ANY patent. I think 10 years is probably right for most. Software patents should get more like 2 or 3 years. Having differing lengths of time for different types of patents would be good.
And you will continue to be wrong.
Well, she was willing to be specific. Why can't you be specific about why you believe his statements are not racist, sexist, homophobic, etc?
Ah, well. At least you're willing to back up what you say, which means we could actually have a reasonable debate on this subject.
Seems like she already started it and you had no real response. I'd really love to see what you have to say that could possibly make those statements seem like something other than a bigot's display of his true colors (npi).
Meaning that those rights are owned by all (well, the way they applied it, not slaves... but the meaning is still there).
I think this illustrates the point perfectly. The rights are whatever the powerful decide they are. They are not inalienable. They can be changed or taken away if the power that grants them wishes to do so. In the case of the U.S., something as simple as a court ruling can change your rights. In more dramatic cases, it might take an amendment to do it. Either way, your "inalienable rights" are subject to change.
This doesn't mean that I don't think we should have certain rights. The U.S. belongs to its citizens. They are the ones who fight and die to protect a place where they have the rights they've come to value greatly. They should (and do to some extent) have a say in what rights they should have. It seems to be the unfortunate case that some citizens are more equal than others and can exert a much greater influence on the rights of others than they should be able to. That is something that we will hopefully find a way to deal with.
The reason they can get away with this sort of thing is that, while people generally know what they're doing in the real world, they don't have a clue what's going on when they're using a computer. If the government can make all of this stuff transparent to the user, they will go about their surfing, blissfully ignorant of the fact that every click is being recorded and analyzed in order to continually update their profile.
If you go into a real world store, they might ask you for ID. You can decide whether or not to give it to them. You can make sure they don't copy it. You can choose to pay with cash rather than use your credit card.
With the sort of system suggested here, those decisions won't be yours to make. Your computer already identifies you. You can't pay with cash. You can't know what the other party is doing with your personal information. Why should we let this happen?
monitoring employees of other companies is.
Exactly, and anyone who uses it for this purpose should be prosecuted.
Ever wonder what all those cutsy little programs people sent through email are all about?
Nope. I'm not quite stupid enough to run something like that on my machine. That's begging for trouble. It's sad that most people don't have the foggiest notion of what reasonable measures they should take to prevent themselves from becoming a victim and possibly a spreader of viruses. I chalk that up to ignorance about the tools they are attempting to use. I would be equally (well, probably a bit more) critical of someone trying to use large powertools without knowing how to operate them safely. If you don't know what you're doing, you're asking for trouble. I pity the ignorant people that are running out to get cablemodems as fast as they can. They won't take any precautions and they'll end up being victims of every sort of attack you can think of.
helping someone find pirated, copyrighted works is against the law. Even if at the same time you're helping someone find legitimate mp3's.
Well, hell! You could take every search engine on the web to court then! They all aid in find ANYTHING you're looking for. If you're looking for copyrighted MP3s, they'll help you find them. If you're looking for bootleg electronic copies of books, they'll help you find them. If you're looking for copyrighted movies, they'll help you find them. Of course, they also help you find anything else you're looking for too. So, are they committing a crime?
The same argument could be applied to MP3 search engines. Just because they only search for mp3s doesn't make them illegal since mp3s are not illegal.
However, because there are no legitimate uses for such a search engine, or at least, the legitimate uses are by-and-large non-used (yes, i am aware that there are non-copyrighted mp3s out there) the search engine remains culpable in copyright infringement.
I hate it when people say, "there are no legitimate uses" and then say, "well, except for this, but we're not going to consider that one." If there is a legitimate use for something, then you can't say there aren't any legitimate uses for it. If legal MP3s are rare compared to illegal ones, then I think an MP3 search engine sounds like a rather good tool for finding them. Prosecute the people who host the illegal mp3s, and even the people who download them if you like. But there's got to be a line somewhere. The search engines don't make illegal MP3s available, they just happen to make them easier to find, while at the same time making legal ones easier to find.
The benefits for a network administrator having such a close look at a users system are almost immeasurable; however, in stealth mode, the user has no knowledge he or she may be watched, which opens the door for crackers into an organization's system.
Which may be exactly what the company or organization wants. From past discussions here, it seems that most people beleive that the company you work for has a right to know what is being done with the company's machines. A stealthy tool such as BO may fit the bill for such a company. Since monitoring your employees is not illegal, I think it should be considered to be a legitimate tool.
Maybe Energizer and Duracell offered them an incentive :)
Actually, the N64 is fine tech-wise (or was when it came out). It just has mostly crap for games. That's its number one problem. The only game I'm looking forward to on N64 at the moment is Perfect Dark.
At that point, you need to study what went wrong and how to prevent it -- and that takes time and $.
Money that should have been spent securing the site anyway since it obviously wasn't very secure. Just because he pointed out that the holes existed doesn't mean he should have to pay to have them fixed. Make him pay for restoring the site from backup, but not for fixing what should have been fixed in the first place.
What if the hacker put up something really inciteful, like slurs against other countries?
Fine. If someone does that, they should be held accountable. What does that have to do with this case? Should the lawyers prosecute him for something he could have done, but didn't? As for making the country lose face, how is it his fault that they had crappy security? I'd say if anyone caused anyone to lose face, it's the admins responsible for the website. They were the ones that didn't have a secure box. Maybe they think they shouldn't have to worry about security because they can just prosecute anyone that makes them look bad. God help us if the military starts thinking this way.
"What do you mean the missile missed? The target moved?! Dammit! Get the legal department on the phone! Those bastards are trying to make us look bad!"
As someone else pointed out, he didn't make the holes in their security. He just exploited them, thus letting them know that they existed. Someone would have had to fix them eventually anyway because they were security holes. They're trying to charge him for the costs of something they should have fixed themselves already. Slap him with the bill for restoring the website from backup, but not for fixing the problems that already existed.
but larger shops that would use OS/2 (or WinNT) probably do their own custom disk images anyway, so the market for preinstalled OS/2 was probably small enough that even IBM could afford to neglect it for a cheaper Windows licence
Whether they could afford it or not is irrelevant. The point is that they should never have had to do it in the first place. It just proves that Microsoft has some serious monopoly power when they can make even IBM bow to their demands and forsake its own OS in favor of Windows. That's what is meant by squelching consumer choice and competition. Consumers didn't get a choice. I'm not just talking about larger shops. I'm talking about anyone who wanted to use OS/2 instead of Windows. Their choice was taken away because they were going to have to pay for Windows even if they didn't want it.