The fact is that China is not willing to even pretend to play by the rules of common netiquette. >
This and a comment by an Anonymous Coward further up thread pretty well sum up why Google is doing this. The AC said that Google needs to take drastic measures to assure thier users that Google takes keeping thier users' data safe seriously. Additionally, Google is saying to China, "If you are not willing to at least pretend to play by the rules of common netiquette, we won't/can't do business with you."
Sure you can logically draw comparisons between the DMCA and chinese censorship laws, it's not particularly hard or imaginative. The problem is when you compare the two on equal grounds.
There is a key difference between the DMCA and the Chinese censorship laws (not that I support the DMCA). The DMCA says, "You may not post/link to that because you do not have the permission of the Copyright holder." The Chinese censorship laws say, "You cannot post/link to that because it is critical of/puts in a bad light the Chinese government."
For those people who like to link Gitmo to Chinese human rights abuses, again there are some key differences. The U.S. government put people into Gitmo because they believed that those people were plotting to take violent action against the U.S. (whether they had sufficient basis for this belief or not, is another question). The Chinese put people in prisons that are significantly harsher than Gitmo because they believe those people said things like, "This factory (owned by a government official) is poisoning the water that people in China use as drinking water."
There was a study a few years ago that showed that the woman's caloric intake shortly before conception (the several weeks/months leading up to conception) had a strong effect on the sex of the child. I can't remember now which sex a high caloric intake favored.
We all "know we are going to die". Nobody lives. Everyone dies. You should live accordingly.
It is true that we are all going to die and should live accordingly, but an awful lot of people don't really believe it. That is part of what is wrong with this world, people think they are immortal...or even that it is possible to be immortal.
I don't know, are they familiar with the newer actors who played the role? If not, perhaps they never heard of the show. The person I was replying to was familiar with the show in later incarnations (also made in the UK).
No I didn't read the article, MSNBC rarely loads properly here at work.
I believe that saying it gains energy via photosynthesis is incorrect. Photosynthesis causes a chemical reaction that converts Carbon Dioxide and Water (CO2 and H2O) into Sugar and Oxygen (C6H12O6 and O2). The sugar is then metabolized (correct term?) into energy.
Converting CO2 and H2O to sugar and oxygen requires energy, that energy comes from the sun. So saying that it obtains energy via (which means "by way of") photosynthesis is correct.
Yeah, but how would this help? Instead of eating you would have to go out into the sun (you know, that big, bright, yellowish thing on the eastern horizon when you go to bed).
For us in the other side of the Atlantic, the only Doctors are Christopher Eccleson and David Tennant
How does someone living in Europe not know Tom Baker as Dr. Who? I mean good grief, the show was made in the UK./s
Ok, so I assume you are someone in the U.S. who only came out from under a rock in the last 5 years. I don't know anyone who watches the
Christopher Eccleson/David Tennant "Dr. Who" episodes who isn't a big Tom Baker fan (besides myself, and even I am well aware of who he is).
I think that what you wrote is part of Google's thinking. Another part of it was that Google has a concept of how they run their business. That concept has been successful.
Censoring their search results was a compromise of their concept, but didn't break it. Google perceived the hacking of their servers by the Chinese government as breaking their business concept. If the Chinese government could not be trusted to keep the "deal" that Google had made with them, then Google can no longer count on the Chinese government honoring any commitment that would allow Google to make money.
In light of this, I, also, expect that Google expected people to work around the known censoring they were doing to make such censorship moot.
I think that we must still be suspicious of Google, just as we must be suspicious of any large organization, but in this case, this appears to be an act in good faith.
You are partially right, bureaucrats have been the pillar of government for centuries, almost always to the detriment of freedom. There is at least one country in the world run the way you would like things: China. If that is the sort of government you want, fine. I don't.
BTW, my understanding of human nature leads me to believe that if what you are proposing was implemented, China is the best you could hope for.
Please do some extensive reading of history. The Society of Cincinatti was an attempt to create a fuedal ruling class in the U.S.: membership is by inheritance or because of noteworthy accomplishment (like the noble classes of the Middle Ages). The Society of Cincinatti has done many good things in the history of the U.S., however, if it had any real power, it would have become evil.
One other thing, you keep making comments about not being able to wait "until the legislature convenes" to take action. Are you trying to tell me that there is anything that can't wait a month (the longest recess the U.S. Congress takes is from early August to early September-usually a couple days more than a month)? My experience is that any "law" put into place in less than 6 months is a bad law.
The thing is, if it wasn't for the subsidies, the grain crops grown would vary a great deal depending on what grain the farmers thought would generate the most profit for them that year. This would mean that developing a GM version of a particular grain would be less profitable. That would mean that less money would be spent developing GM grain. Additionally, there would be less pressure on the government to approve a particular GM grain (fewer groups with an incentive to get involved in the process).
Without the government subsidies, the ability of Monsanto to coverup this data would be diminished.
There is one final point I want to make. These studies show an area of concern that needs further investigation. They don't show that these strains of GM corn are harmful to humans, they merely show that there is reason to believe that they might and further study is needed.
well, what happens when the legislative body lacks the understanding and resolve of the matter like in your example ? like, in the comcast case ? the issue is technological and complex, and its implications arent readily graspable by legislators. but, its implications are serious. what happens then ?
Then you need to vote for people who do understand the matter. If there aren't any running, run yourself.
unaccountable bureaucrat ? excuse me, but bureaucrats are accountable, whereas private entities are not..
You are obviously unfamiliar with the Civil Service Act. And by the way, I was not arguing that there shouldn't be a law against what Comcast did. I was arguing that bureaucrats should not be allowed to make "law". You are arguing bureaucrat vs private entities. I am arguing administrative vs legislative. There is a reason that the Constitution separates the legislative and administrative functions of the government. It was a good idea then and it is a good idea now.
I agree. I have felt for quite some time that while Google is not "evil", they are a corporation and are not to be trusted. However, this action sheds a new light on Google. Google was willing to compromise with China and censor their results. However, Google considers that people's email accounts are not to be accessed by those not authorized to do so. It is clear to me from Google's reaction to the hacking of dissenters' email accounts that Google believes this was the act of the Chinese government and is willing to act as if that is proven.
if a company starts branding their employees with rfid chips for the sake of 'security', and there is no law out about it, do we allow them to continue, because, there is no law about it, and say, the congress is not going to convene for another 2 months ? do we prevent a government agency from coming in and stopping the process, because, well, there is not a law for it ?
If no existing law applies, the answer is "Hell, Yes". The President has the authority to call an emergency session of Congress if some situation like that existed. (Personally, I suspect that there are existing laws that would apply in that situation.)
The alternative is a country where you don't know what is legal from one day to the next. Sorry, you are not going to convince me that it is a good idea to give some unaccountable bureaucrat (or group of bureaucrats) the authority to decide on his(their) own what should be illegal.
Rather than post completely uninformed comments on the subject, leave that to people in the field.
You know I always count on people in the field making informed comments. I turn to slashdot for uninformed comments. Now you have gone and tried to discourage all the nutjobs who will think that this is evidence that supports their favorite wingnut theory about how the universe works.
And this court ruling is saying that if the public thinks Comcast was in the wrong (which I do), they need to get the legislature to pass a law. The FCC is not allowed to decide that something should be illegal and start handing out punishment for doing it. It is the job of Congress to decide what should be illegal.
If they want to have the immunity and benefits of "common carrier" then yes, the FCC does explicitly have the authority.
Well, guess what, a judge just ruled that the FCC failed to offer any legal basis for its fine of Comcast, so apparently your conclusion is wrong. The FCC does not explicitly have the authority.
As I said in response to that, in the U.S. if there isn't a law authorizing them to take an action, it is illegal for them to take that action. If there is no law authorizing the FCC to act on a particular matter of public interest, it has no authority to so act.
I am not sure where you get the idea that the government "has to act in favor of public interest", even when there is no law on a particular issue. Once again I ask, who decides what is "in favor of public interest"? What happens when those people are in the pockets of a particular industry?
TNot everything has to be explicitly written in law.
There are two points I want to make. First if not everything has to be explicitly written in law, then how does a business know if what it is doing is legal? Corollary, who gets to decide what is illegal? What if they are your political enemy?
Second, just because a company is an ISP doesn't mean that the FCC is responsible to enforce the relevant laws.
Galileo ran into problems with the Church because he didn't concentrate on the core message. Instead, he was more interested in belittling those who disagreed with him than with showing that his science was right.
As another poster mentions, the FCC failed to cite such a law. Now there are two possibilities. One, there is no law that the FCC believes applies to this case. Or, two, the FCC is not empowered to enforce any laws that Comcast was violating and knows it.
Those are all good points. I am not sure that the laws you mentioned are written in such a way as to be applied to the Comcast case. The FCC apparently didn't think so because they did not appeal to those laws. Of course, that could possibly be because the FCC is not authorized to enforce the laws against the crimes that you listed.
if there is no precedent regarding a policy, it is not only legal tradition but global practice to rule in favor of public interest.
this is what precisely those fscking judges should have done. they have not. their approach little different than parroting corporate interests' statements.
In the U.S., if there is no law authorizing the Administration (the FCC is part of the Administration) to take an action, it is illegal for the Administration to take said action.
Slashdot Mirror
I was pretty shocked at Google's fierce ultimatum (suddenly removing censorship, effectively punishing the government for the hackers' actions)
That's because Google is firmly convinced that those hackers work for the government of China.
The fact is that China is not willing to even pretend to play by the rules of common netiquette. >
This and a comment by an Anonymous Coward further up thread pretty well sum up why Google is doing this. The AC said that Google needs to take drastic measures to assure thier users that Google takes keeping thier users' data safe seriously. Additionally, Google is saying to China, "If you are not willing to at least pretend to play by the rules of common netiquette, we won't/can't do business with you."
Sure you can logically draw comparisons between the DMCA and chinese censorship laws, it's not particularly hard or imaginative. The problem is when you compare the two on equal grounds.
There is a key difference between the DMCA and the Chinese censorship laws (not that I support the DMCA). The DMCA says, "You may not post/link to that because you do not have the permission of the Copyright holder." The Chinese censorship laws say, "You cannot post/link to that because it is critical of/puts in a bad light the Chinese government."
For those people who like to link Gitmo to Chinese human rights abuses, again there are some key differences. The U.S. government put people into Gitmo because they believed that those people were plotting to take violent action against the U.S. (whether they had sufficient basis for this belief or not, is another question). The Chinese put people in prisons that are significantly harsher than Gitmo because they believe those people said things like, "This factory (owned by a government official) is poisoning the water that people in China use as drinking water."
There was a study a few years ago that showed that the woman's caloric intake shortly before conception (the several weeks/months leading up to conception) had a strong effect on the sex of the child. I can't remember now which sex a high caloric intake favored.
We all "know we are going to die". Nobody lives. Everyone dies. You should live accordingly.
It is true that we are all going to die and should live accordingly, but an awful lot of people don't really believe it. That is part of what is wrong with this world, people think they are immortal...or even that it is possible to be immortal.
I don't know, are they familiar with the newer actors who played the role? If not, perhaps they never heard of the show. The person I was replying to was familiar with the show in later incarnations (also made in the UK).
No I didn't read the article, MSNBC rarely loads properly here at work. I believe that saying it gains energy via photosynthesis is incorrect. Photosynthesis causes a chemical reaction that converts Carbon Dioxide and Water (CO2 and H2O) into Sugar and Oxygen (C6H12O6 and O2). The sugar is then metabolized (correct term?) into energy.
Converting CO2 and H2O to sugar and oxygen requires energy, that energy comes from the sun. So saying that it obtains energy via (which means "by way of") photosynthesis is correct.
Yeah, but how would this help? Instead of eating you would have to go out into the sun (you know, that big, bright, yellowish thing on the eastern horizon when you go to bed).
Tom Baker? Who's that?
For us in the other side of the Atlantic, the only Doctors are Christopher Eccleson and David Tennant
How does someone living in Europe not know Tom Baker as Dr. Who? I mean good grief, the show was made in the UK. /s
Ok, so I assume you are someone in the U.S. who only came out from under a rock in the last 5 years. I don't know anyone who watches the Christopher Eccleson/David Tennant "Dr. Who" episodes who isn't a big Tom Baker fan (besides myself, and even I am well aware of who he is).
I think that what you wrote is part of Google's thinking. Another part of it was that Google has a concept of how they run their business. That concept has been successful.
Censoring their search results was a compromise of their concept, but didn't break it. Google perceived the hacking of their servers by the Chinese government as breaking their business concept. If the Chinese government could not be trusted to keep the "deal" that Google had made with them, then Google can no longer count on the Chinese government honoring any commitment that would allow Google to make money.
In light of this, I, also, expect that Google expected people to work around the known censoring they were doing to make such censorship moot.
I think that we must still be suspicious of Google, just as we must be suspicious of any large organization, but in this case, this appears to be an act in good faith.
Weaponizing space is a seriously bad idea. The US, Russia, Japan and China are not going to like this.
China is already doing it. They demonstrated the ability to knock out a satellite similar to the GPS satellites a few years ago.
You are partially right, bureaucrats have been the pillar of government for centuries, almost always to the detriment of freedom. There is at least one country in the world run the way you would like things: China. If that is the sort of government you want, fine. I don't.
BTW, my understanding of human nature leads me to believe that if what you are proposing was implemented, China is the best you could hope for.
Please do some extensive reading of history. The Society of Cincinatti was an attempt to create a fuedal ruling class in the U.S.: membership is by inheritance or because of noteworthy accomplishment (like the noble classes of the Middle Ages). The Society of Cincinatti has done many good things in the history of the U.S., however, if it had any real power, it would have become evil.
One other thing, you keep making comments about not being able to wait "until the legislature convenes" to take action. Are you trying to tell me that there is anything that can't wait a month (the longest recess the U.S. Congress takes is from early August to early September-usually a couple days more than a month)? My experience is that any "law" put into place in less than 6 months is a bad law.
The thing is, if it wasn't for the subsidies, the grain crops grown would vary a great deal depending on what grain the farmers thought would generate the most profit for them that year. This would mean that developing a GM version of a particular grain would be less profitable. That would mean that less money would be spent developing GM grain. Additionally, there would be less pressure on the government to approve a particular GM grain (fewer groups with an incentive to get involved in the process).
Without the government subsidies, the ability of Monsanto to coverup this data would be diminished.
There is one final point I want to make. These studies show an area of concern that needs further investigation. They don't show that these strains of GM corn are harmful to humans, they merely show that there is reason to believe that they might and further study is needed.
well, what happens when the legislative body lacks the understanding and resolve of the matter like in your example ? like, in the comcast case ? the issue is technological and complex, and its implications arent readily graspable by legislators. but, its implications are serious. what happens then ?
Then you need to vote for people who do understand the matter. If there aren't any running, run yourself.
unaccountable bureaucrat ? excuse me, but bureaucrats are accountable, whereas private entities are not. .
You are obviously unfamiliar with the Civil Service Act. And by the way, I was not arguing that there shouldn't be a law against what Comcast did. I was arguing that bureaucrats should not be allowed to make "law". You are arguing bureaucrat vs private entities. I am arguing administrative vs legislative. There is a reason that the Constitution separates the legislative and administrative functions of the government. It was a good idea then and it is a good idea now.
I agree. I have felt for quite some time that while Google is not "evil", they are a corporation and are not to be trusted. However, this action sheds a new light on Google. Google was willing to compromise with China and censor their results. However, Google considers that people's email accounts are not to be accessed by those not authorized to do so. It is clear to me from Google's reaction to the hacking of dissenters' email accounts that Google believes this was the act of the Chinese government and is willing to act as if that is proven.
if a company starts branding their employees with rfid chips for the sake of 'security', and there is no law out about it, do we allow them to continue, because, there is no law about it, and say, the congress is not going to convene for another 2 months ? do we prevent a government agency from coming in and stopping the process, because, well, there is not a law for it ?
If no existing law applies, the answer is "Hell, Yes". The President has the authority to call an emergency session of Congress if some situation like that existed. (Personally, I suspect that there are existing laws that would apply in that situation.)
The alternative is a country where you don't know what is legal from one day to the next. Sorry, you are not going to convince me that it is a good idea to give some unaccountable bureaucrat (or group of bureaucrats) the authority to decide on his(their) own what should be illegal.
Rather than post completely uninformed comments on the subject, leave that to people in the field.
You know I always count on people in the field making informed comments. I turn to slashdot for uninformed comments. Now you have gone and tried to discourage all the nutjobs who will think that this is evidence that supports their favorite wingnut theory about how the universe works.
And this court ruling is saying that if the public thinks Comcast was in the wrong (which I do), they need to get the legislature to pass a law. The FCC is not allowed to decide that something should be illegal and start handing out punishment for doing it. It is the job of Congress to decide what should be illegal.
If they want to have the immunity and benefits of "common carrier" then yes, the FCC does explicitly have the authority.
Well, guess what, a judge just ruled that the FCC failed to offer any legal basis for its fine of Comcast, so apparently your conclusion is wrong. The FCC does not explicitly have the authority.
As I said in response to that, in the U.S. if there isn't a law authorizing them to take an action, it is illegal for them to take that action. If there is no law authorizing the FCC to act on a particular matter of public interest, it has no authority to so act.
I am not sure where you get the idea that the government "has to act in favor of public interest", even when there is no law on a particular issue. Once again I ask, who decides what is "in favor of public interest"? What happens when those people are in the pockets of a particular industry?
TNot everything has to be explicitly written in law.
There are two points I want to make. First if not everything has to be explicitly written in law, then how does a business know if what it is doing is legal? Corollary, who gets to decide what is illegal? What if they are your political enemy?
Second, just because a company is an ISP doesn't mean that the FCC is responsible to enforce the relevant laws.
Galileo ran into problems with the Church because he didn't concentrate on the core message. Instead, he was more interested in belittling those who disagreed with him than with showing that his science was right.
As another poster mentions, the FCC failed to cite such a law. Now there are two possibilities. One, there is no law that the FCC believes applies to this case. Or, two, the FCC is not empowered to enforce any laws that Comcast was violating and knows it.
Those are all good points. I am not sure that the laws you mentioned are written in such a way as to be applied to the Comcast case. The FCC apparently didn't think so because they did not appeal to those laws. Of course, that could possibly be because the FCC is not authorized to enforce the laws against the crimes that you listed.
if there is no precedent regarding a policy, it is not only legal tradition but global practice to rule in favor of public interest.
this is what precisely those fscking judges should have done. they have not. their approach little different than parroting corporate interests' statements.
In the U.S., if there is no law authorizing the Administration (the FCC is part of the Administration) to take an action, it is illegal for the Administration to take said action.