I'm a bit confused as to why this is still an issue. Did they or didn't they cheat in 2000/2004!?!? I hate to say it, but the damage is done. Sure, a few people belong in prison, but I have little doubt that they belong in prison for plenty of other reasons as well (and they've dodged those bullets easily enough).
Fact is, we already know that they COULD have cheated. Voter registration, dead people voting, and Diebold machines hacked with VB code; these are obvious and proven methods for cheating. We've proven the methods...now instead of wasting time speculating if they were used, let's spend time taking those tools away from the people who might use them in the next election!
The only benefit to showing the methods were probably used (since it's almost impossible to prove) is to put people behind bars. We all know that nobody would go to jail for this, so let's spend the energy on finding the holes and plugging them up.
Oh yeah, and let's fix half of the fundamental problems with voting and switch over to Instant Runoff Voting
Not sure if you're calling bullshit on me or HP, but as I said, I found information on forum postings and support forums to suggest they were for XP Home only. I'm not sure I believe that, largely because I didn't believe that distinction was possible in the driver model (albeit entirely possible to code the drivers not to work on different editions). There were, in most of the printed material, many references to upgrading the operating system through HP, which is a good motive for building edition-specific drivers. If the machine won't work with a regularly purchased version of windows, it forces customers to go to HP to make that purchase. Geez, sounds like apple
I would maintain that having only a restore cd as a source and no website-available drivers means there's effectively no driver support. Just for completeness, my second attempt with the OS was to install Pro on top of Home, which didn't work...not that the upgrade path ever works worth a damn.
A little over a year ago I bought an HP laptop (I've forgotten the model) as a gift for my mother. First thing I did after getting it out of the box was wipe it clean of the pre-installed xp home edition and tons of advertising. With a new OS installed, I discovered that the processor, optical drive, and something else (I forget the 3rd item) were scaled down to barely functional speeds. After investigation, I discovered that those bits would not operate without specialized drivers that were not available for download. Further investigation suggests that the drivers may have existed for xp home only, even excluding pro.
Needless to say, the laptop was returned and I called alienware the next day.
I'm not being original in saying this, but if the American people actually knew what most politicals spent their time on (pages and interns excluded), there would be a lot more people sending letters and demands for something more worthwhile to be done in Washington. Unfortunately the average american (or any other nationality) is just as uninformed (and just as disinterested) as the politicians behind the creation of these laws.
What I think will be interesting is when this law butts heads with the 1st amendment. Remember, this law technically requires that a lock be put onto essentially every digital broadcast, commercial or free. Even though that broadcast may go out open initially, it doesn't mean somebody won't decide to turn the key to quiet somebody tomorrow. This law will effectively enable major 1st amendment violations. In a sense, it already does, as free speech means that a message goes out un-altered...which this law appears to prohibit.
Unfortunately, if he wrote the code FOR the police department ON their resources DURING time they let him take off of his duties...he doesn't own the code. That's going to suck because his department will now be able to sell/license that code to other places and make a small fortune (which he'll never see).
However, there's a fun twist. Since he's clocked several hours on a project that he won't be allowed to own, the police department technically has to pay him for hours worked (including overtime pay, which is usually really good for cops). He might even be able to fight that he should be paid at a rate more appropriate to a programmer. If he really wants to dig deep, he can sue them, not only for back pay, but additionally for withholding pay for so long (it doesn't matter that they didn't know they were supposed to pay him). In theory, the resulting law suit could give him the leverage he needs to regain control of the source code or prevent them from being able to license it out (which means they wouldn't be able to make money off of his work)
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I'm a bit confused as to why this is still an issue. Did they or didn't they cheat in 2000/2004!?!? I hate to say it, but the damage is done. Sure, a few people belong in prison, but I have little doubt that they belong in prison for plenty of other reasons as well (and they've dodged those bullets easily enough).
Fact is, we already know that they COULD have cheated. Voter registration, dead people voting, and Diebold machines hacked with VB code; these are obvious and proven methods for cheating. We've proven the methods...now instead of wasting time speculating if they were used, let's spend time taking those tools away from the people who might use them in the next election!
The only benefit to showing the methods were probably used (since it's almost impossible to prove) is to put people behind bars. We all know that nobody would go to jail for this, so let's spend the energy on finding the holes and plugging them up.
Oh yeah, and let's fix half of the fundamental problems with voting and switch over to Instant Runoff Voting
Not sure if you're calling bullshit on me or HP, but as I said, I found information on forum postings and support forums to suggest they were for XP Home only. I'm not sure I believe that, largely because I didn't believe that distinction was possible in the driver model (albeit entirely possible to code the drivers not to work on different editions). There were, in most of the printed material, many references to upgrading the operating system through HP, which is a good motive for building edition-specific drivers. If the machine won't work with a regularly purchased version of windows, it forces customers to go to HP to make that purchase. Geez, sounds like apple
I would maintain that having only a restore cd as a source and no website-available drivers means there's effectively no driver support. Just for completeness, my second attempt with the OS was to install Pro on top of Home, which didn't work...not that the upgrade path ever works worth a damn.
A little over a year ago I bought an HP laptop (I've forgotten the model) as a gift for my mother. First thing I did after getting it out of the box was wipe it clean of the pre-installed xp home edition and tons of advertising. With a new OS installed, I discovered that the processor, optical drive, and something else (I forget the 3rd item) were scaled down to barely functional speeds. After investigation, I discovered that those bits would not operate without specialized drivers that were not available for download. Further investigation suggests that the drivers may have existed for xp home only, even excluding pro.
Needless to say, the laptop was returned and I called alienware the next day.
I'm not being original in saying this, but if the American people actually knew what most politicals spent their time on (pages and interns excluded), there would be a lot more people sending letters and demands for something more worthwhile to be done in Washington. Unfortunately the average american (or any other nationality) is just as uninformed (and just as disinterested) as the politicians behind the creation of these laws.
What I think will be interesting is when this law butts heads with the 1st amendment. Remember, this law technically requires that a lock be put onto essentially every digital broadcast, commercial or free. Even though that broadcast may go out open initially, it doesn't mean somebody won't decide to turn the key to quiet somebody tomorrow. This law will effectively enable major 1st amendment violations. In a sense, it already does, as free speech means that a message goes out un-altered...which this law appears to prohibit.
Unfortunately, if he wrote the code FOR the police department ON their resources DURING time they let him take off of his duties...he doesn't own the code. That's going to suck because his department will now be able to sell/license that code to other places and make a small fortune (which he'll never see). However, there's a fun twist. Since he's clocked several hours on a project that he won't be allowed to own, the police department technically has to pay him for hours worked (including overtime pay, which is usually really good for cops). He might even be able to fight that he should be paid at a rate more appropriate to a programmer. If he really wants to dig deep, he can sue them, not only for back pay, but additionally for withholding pay for so long (it doesn't matter that they didn't know they were supposed to pay him). In theory, the resulting law suit could give him the leverage he needs to regain control of the source code or prevent them from being able to license it out (which means they wouldn't be able to make money off of his work)