Your alternative is to buy a far cheaper system made with high quality brand-name components at the local screwdriver shop, for a lot less than the Dell system would have cost.
Which local screwdriver shop has an OEM license for WinXP, and thus has a profit incentive to convince you that their product includes the "latest and greatest" from Redmond.
Unfortunately, there is no substitute for an educated consumer. How many of those do you see on AOL and/or MSN?
It was a true incident, but it wasn't a submarine... IIRC, it was a cruiser involved in a black research project. The incident occurred in August of 1997, so I doubt there's much information readily accessible on the 'net these days. Because the project was black, very little information other than the fact of the failure ever got out to the public. The fact of the failure was not deniable as the ship had to be towed back to port.
They were keeping, again, IIRC, a maintenance database in an Access database running under NT. The database was manipulated by a proprietary VB app. Some transaction in the database led to a divide by zero error in the compiled VB app that used the database, which crashed vredir.dll, taking out the NT box. For some reason for which I have never heard a satisfactory explanation, a failure in this particular database was considered critical enough that it disabled the power systems on the ship, thus necessitating the tow job.
I was amazed by the story myself when it hit the 'net, and researched it thoroughly at the time, because I was adminning an NT network. Microsoft received so much bad publicity from it that they fixed the problem in vredir.dll and posted it to their website as a Critical update to NT (separate from any Service Pack, to be applied immediately, IIRC) almost immediately.
One website that carried a LOT of coverage, at the time, was Jerry Pournelle's website, but I doubt he has any of that material online anymore.
Just because there's not a relevant URL doesn't make it an urban legend.
The thing is you can moan all you want but the difference between the licensing costs for AIX or Solaris is much higher than the licensing costs for Windows 2000.This difference is far higher than the difference between Win 2k and Linux. That is why proprietary UNIX is losing market share (picked up by Linux and Windows 2k).
There no licensing costs for Solaris. It's available as a free binary-licensed download from Sun's website. You only have to pay for a media kit, if you want official branded CDs, which costs $75US. What you can't get for free is a source license for Solaris or a license that allows you to redistribute the system freely.
This is not a bad deal, and frankly, commercial Unices are a lot more stable than either Linux or FreeBSD.
When I first started using Linux in '97, I spent 36 hours downloading and installing Mandrake 1.0. The STRONG similarity between KDE and Win95 made the transition from Win95 to Linux go MUCH smoother than it would have gone otherwise.
A couple of years later, I bought a RedHat 5.2 boxed set (which set up GNOME/E as the default desktop. Having, by this time, divorced myself somewhat from the need for Windows familiarity, I was much happier, even though GNOME 1.1 was NOT a performance star. I although though that a number of the GNOME icons had a decidedly "unprofessional" look to them. In truth, GNOME, compared to CDE, looked like a toy.
At present, I am running Debian woody at home. My desktop of choice is Windowmaker. I have GNOME 1.4 installed because I like a lot of the GNOME apps, but run GNOME as a primary desktop? Not on your life. I've had my flirtation with blackbox, but it is a wee bit too minimalist and Windowmaker is SO damned stable (probably competitive with CDE for stability).
At work, my workstation is an Ultra 10 with Solaris 8 and CDE. I admin Suns, some old DEC Alphas running Tru64, and a beowulf cluster running RedHat 6.2. Following the "small world" metaphor, the primary desktop on the cluster is KDE (workstation hosts only... no X on the compute nodes).
A desktop is a desktop. You use what does the job and, beyond that requirement, what you like. CDE, for all it's flaws, is rock-solid stable. For that matter, twm is too, but you won't see me using it. GNOME has some good things to bring to the Solaris table (specifically, the CORBA core and Bonobo). I was disappointed to read the article. I can only hope that the "feature-incomplete" means GNOME isn't ready yet. I firmly believe GNOME 2 on an Ultra II would rock.
I DL those 700 meg isos everytime Sun releases a new point release. But then, system upgrades are part of my job description. Total, including the AnswerBook (trust me, you WANT the AnswerBook), it's about a gigabyte. Takes me about an hour to DL the three compressed (.Z) isos.
Re:Sun, why not KDE, for the last time?
on
No GNOME For Solaris 9
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Let it be known that Solaris is not designed around ease-of-use; it is still a fairly hardcore UNIX.
Allow me to second that... Solaris (at it's core) is EXTREMELY hardcore Unix. So much so that it can take a fairly experience admin from another "flavor" about 6 weeks to learn their way around the filesystem. Sun very much believes the old Perl maxim "there's more than one way to do it" and appends "Our way is better." This is a typical old-style Unix thought pattern.
Well, in the computer lab I work in we have exactly 4 servers running Solaris and about 20 Workstations... similarly, we have 3 or four servers running Tru64, but we have 3 dozen Alpha workstations for student use.
In a technical computing environment, *n*x is a very viable desktop system.
I seem to have seen something about a remote program in development for the VR3, but I can't find it now.
Re:And here comes Carnivore...
on
More WTC News
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· Score: 1
Nope, anarchy means the guy with the biggest gun makes the rules...
Face it... some amount of government is a necessity, or we would all be living according to the law of the jungle, which is something I choose not to do.
That being said, let me add that, while I consider government a necessary evil (unlike terrorism, which I consider an UNnecessary evil), I prefer to minimize the total amount of evil (necessary or otherwise) that exists in my life.
Regards,
Re:And here comes Carnivore...
on
More WTC News
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· Score: 2, Interesting
... and the Japanese General Staff at Okinawa... Iwo Jima... etc.
Re:And here comes Carnivore...
on
More WTC News
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· Score: 1
errrrrm... yes
"Those who would surrender liberty for a little temporary safety deserve neither." Benjamin Franklin
I've never interviewed a sysadmin, but when I WAS interviewed, it was a two-pass evaluation. The first pass was three generic geeks from User Support (I actually was interviewing for a User Support position)... they asked me questions like "Tell me about the last crisis you encountered in your work and how you handled it"... "Where do you turn for information when you don't know the answer to a problem?", and "Would you feel comfortable if you were dropped into a multi-platform Unix environment and told to make it run smoothly?" (my answer was "not intially") they followed that one with "How long would it take you to get comfortable?"
Based on the results of that interview, they recommended me for a different position, I was interviewed by the person who would be supervising me...
His questions included "How familiar are you with MPICH?", "what GNU software have you built from source?" (follow-up) "were your kernel builds successful?", and things of that nature... . The interview centered more on familiarity with, and understanding of, the concepts behind the system than the details of administration. (It's nice to be interviewed by someone who understands the questions they're asking and can actually evalute the quality of the answers they get).
Eleven days after the second interview I started.
Re:Linux fetish and mediated slashdot
on
Joy of Linux
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· Score: 1
Slashdot hereby further encourages the Linux fetish without any depth or discussion...
Odd that you, a self-proclaimed "outsider" (I bet most people on this site are like me-... on IE or AOL.") would take it upon yourself to criticize any aspect of interpersonal interaction within a "culture" you are "observing". Not only odd, but downright unscientific conduct for a self-styled "... amateur sociologist... ". May I have the e-mail address of the professor who teaches your class... I'd like to send him a link to your post so he can properly grade the quality of your research.
If you have been observing/. with an open and objective mind for any length of time, I am all but positive that you have reached a conclusion that there is no such thing as a "typical geek". I say I am all but positive because from my observation and participation in the community (and my admittedly prejudiced point of view) it is the only scientifically valid conclusion you can reach. The only three characteristics I can think of that all geeks seem to have in common are 1) overwhelming curiosity about *SOMETHING* (not necessarily limited to computers), 2) great flaming passion about their opinions on matters of which they may or may not have a significant degree of knowledge, and 3) they tend to be somewhat more literate and well-read than the average populace. In this lack of uniform, easily classified characteristics and tastes they are not significantly different from high school football players, cheerleaders, MDs, college professors, professional athletes, housewives and other "cultures" within our society.
Geeks like sci-fi, poetry, adventure stories, horror fiction, non-fiction and autobiography. They like every single type of music that exists from country & western to grunge rock, techno-dance and heavy metal (Yep, all of them... I've even met a few geeks who still think disco rulez. It's been my observation that quite a few geeks like classical music in the workplace, but maybe that's just a compromise solution). They dress in everything from t-shirts and jeans that need to be burned instead of laundered to three-piece suits costing more than a month's salary for some people. Linux "gurus" I'm personally acquainted with range in age from 14 to 56... I am 51. In terms of geekdom, I'd say I fall in the late teens-early adult age range because I didn't get HEAVILY involved with computers until the early 80's.
I use linux, administer linux, Solaris and Tru64 for a living, and could give a rat's posterior whether it's cool or not.
In fact, the statute does include the word "effective" means of protection. In Dmitiry's case, this opens the door to the "reasonably effective" argument.
As a non-practicing lawyer, I can agree with Lessig's remark. I don't think I disagree with the extension of copyright to 75 years after the death of the creator (the so-called "mickey mouse law" after that fact that Walt Disney. Inc. was the prime beneficiary of it). The Mickey Mouse franchise is still being actively developed and I, personally believe that extension was justified in that one case.
OTOH, is there anyone who believes that the copyright on CP/M or PC-DOS 2.0, or Snow White and Cinderella for that matter, should extend until 75 years after the authors die??? AFAIK, nothing's been done with any of those properties in the last 20 years...
Nope... you've got it wrong... there are no keystrokes involved in running the distributed.net client... but if it cost the State of Georgia $.59/second/host because the distributed.net client was installed on their computers, installing the client on all the computers the FBI/CIA/DIA/NSA have would bankrupt the Federal Government in, oh, about a week and a half...
1) Mr. Lessig is a lawyer, so I assume he has read up on this stuff, but his claims that the US were alone in having DCMA laws suprised me. I was under the impression that europe was in fact drafting even more sweeping ones?
Actually, Prof. Lessig is a prominent legal scholar, but his view is somewhat tainted by partisanship since he's a member of the board of EFF. That being given, his statements about the U.S. being alone are essentially correct... but be forewarned, I read a piece today that said Canada was considering a DMCA-ish law...
2) What outrage? This trial will never make to the front page, much less the evening news. The concepts are too abstract for your average joe to grasp in the 10 seconds attention span he/the newscasters will alot to the news item.
Don't be so sure... an acquittal might not make the news, but you can rest assured the chance to use the three words "Russian," "hacker" and "convicted" in the same breath has the media salivating... "and today a double bad guy got what he deserved... " and all that... the media depends on Joe SixPack's knee-jerk reaction for ratings... anything that feeds the public anti-outsider feeding frenzy is good press...
Did that line sound a wee bit cynical about our "Guardians of Truth"?... good!
3) The only hope is (erm, I THINK this is the process, but std discl) is that he is convicted, and the appeal makes it all the way up to the supreme court which can then strike the law down as unconstitional. However, you'll recall that Dubya is appointing a couple of supreme judges this term, and we can expect that Big Business will bend the ear of the administration, so I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for the supremes to be agree with techolibertarians like us.
Don't bet your house on this one... when the Federal Drug Crime Sentencing Guidelines hit the Supremes, and were upheld, the sole dissenting voice in an 8-1 decision was Mr. Justice Scalia, who never saw a dope sentence he didn't like (unless it was an acquittal)... Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins,
Publishers might eventually get the hint that they have to make their products maximally useful rather than trying to lock them up tightly.
Well, my only problem with e-books is that I have to buy them in one format for my PDA and then buy them again in another incompatible format for my PC... if that, in and of itself, doesn't militate against the argument that the DMCA's prohibition against me "cracking" something I've paid for so I can lawfully use it where I want, what does?
What he did that got him in hot water was try to sell and distribute a circumvention device in the US.
And who do we know bought the "circumvention device" in the United States?
And who do we know swore out the complaint the got Dmitriy arrested in the first place?
One and the same party... Adobe!
I seem to remember something from my studies in law school about entrapment... something about inducing someone to break the law and then prosecuting them for succumbing to the inducement.
What Dmitriy did was legal where he did it, as far as any evidence exposed to date shows. In fact, some of the reports I've read elsewhere (I admit I have not thoroughly researched the statements independently) lead me to believe that use of a "technical means of protection" that prevents a purchaser from making a backup copy is illegal in most of Europe.
In order for a law imposing a prior restraint on freedom of speech to be Constitutional, the government (not the MPAA/RIAA/BSA lobbyists') must have a compelling interest that will be furthered by the prior restraint. In addition, the law will fail the consituionality test unless there is NO less restrictive measure that will protect the government's (not the MPAA/RIAA/BSA lobbyists') compelling interest.
Now, I will admit that the government of the United States has a significant interest in promoting innovation in the scientific, commercial and literary (including software) fields. For your consideration I would submit the argument that the government's interest in these fields is adequately protected by current patent, trademark and copyright law. I would further submit that the DMCA is an unwarranted intrusion by the government into what would otherwise be private disputes.
That being said, I, personally, have no problem with paying for content that I find appealing. Those who doubt that should see me when I make a raid on Borders, B&N, Book Stop, etc. (or should that read "search (the store) and destroy (my bank balance) mission?") I am no anti-capitalist. What I AM opposed to is the criminalization of 1) independent research, and 2) attempts to intimidate those who conduct such independent research into silence.
Is Dmitriy the ideal poster-child for an anti-DMCA campaign? Probably not. Is he the first one who has presented a nearly lay-down case for the unconstituionality of DMCA? Given Prof. Felten's folding in the face of threats by the powers of darkness, yes. Is this unfortunate for Dmitriy? Most definitely, but there are other issues here that might get the case thrown out quickly... I have tried to stay on top of this case, but I do not know whether Dmitriy has had a bail hearing yet... thus the 8th amendment comes into play. Is there any evidence, other than the copy Adobe bought, that Elcomsoft sold his program in the United States? If not, there is a substantial question of entrapment and undue influence by a private party in a criminal matter. If the copy Adobe bought is the only hard evidence the U.S. Attorney has to date, anything they might try to discover by international subpoenas of Elcomsoft's records (not a trivia legal hurdle) such as other sales to customers in the United States might fall under the doctrine of "fruit of the poisoned tree." If I were the U.S. Attorney in charge of this case, I'd be thinking about the O.J. trial about now...
IAAL, although not in practice anymore. I got tired of hassling people to pay my fees after I had worked for them. However, I have an abiding interest in the legal aspects of the geek world, and these are the BIG holes I see in the case against Dmitriy. I can't even begin to count the small holes.
I regret the inconvenience that the bad attitude and greed of some American corporations has inflicted on Dmitriy. How do you apologize to the eggs that got broken to make your omelet. It would be better if we had a Rosa Parks to sit in jail while this issue was fought. Picking your fight wisely is a good thought, but so is playing the hand you're dealt. I want to see Dmitriy back in Russia as quickly as possible, but I am prepared to go to the limit of the law to see that he goes home without a U.S. criminal conviction.
Actually, no... it might well fly with a proper set of jury instructions... and, in addition to punishing the guilty virus writer, It would give the fast-click artist one hell of a scare... while at the same time, pointing out SERIOUS flaws in DMCA.
Fact of the matter is, I LIKE that line of reasoning.
Slashdot Mirror
Your alternative is to buy a far cheaper system made with high quality brand-name components at the local screwdriver shop, for a lot less than the Dell system would have cost.
Which local screwdriver shop has an OEM license for WinXP, and thus has a profit incentive to convince you that their product includes the "latest and greatest" from Redmond.
Unfortunately, there is no substitute for an educated consumer. How many of those do you see on AOL and/or MSN?
But what about the kid who really is 13, but says he's 22? No verification means kids will be able to get into anything they are willing to lie for.
It was a true incident, but it wasn't a submarine ... IIRC, it was a cruiser involved in a black research project. The incident occurred in August of 1997, so I doubt there's much information readily accessible on the 'net these days. Because the project was black, very little information other than the fact of the failure ever got out to the public. The fact of the failure was not deniable as the ship had to be towed back to port.
They were keeping, again, IIRC, a maintenance database in an Access database running under NT. The database was manipulated by a proprietary VB app. Some transaction in the database led to a divide by zero error in the compiled VB app that used the database, which crashed vredir.dll, taking out the NT box. For some reason for which I have never heard a satisfactory explanation, a failure in this particular database was considered critical enough that it disabled the power systems on the ship, thus necessitating the tow job.
I was amazed by the story myself when it hit the 'net, and researched it thoroughly at the time, because I was adminning an NT network. Microsoft received so much bad publicity from it that they fixed the problem in vredir.dll and posted it to their website as a Critical update to NT (separate from any Service Pack, to be applied immediately, IIRC) almost immediately.
One website that carried a LOT of coverage, at the time, was Jerry Pournelle's website, but I doubt he has any of that material online anymore.
Just because there's not a relevant URL doesn't make it an urban legend.
The thing is you can moan all you want but the difference between the licensing costs for AIX or Solaris is much higher than the licensing costs for Windows 2000.This difference is far higher than the difference between Win 2k and Linux. That is why proprietary UNIX is losing market share (picked up by Linux and Windows 2k).
There no licensing costs for Solaris. It's available as a free binary-licensed download from Sun's website. You only have to pay for a media kit, if you want official branded CDs, which costs $75US. What you can't get for free is a source license for Solaris or a license that allows you to redistribute the system freely.
This is not a bad deal, and frankly, commercial Unices are a lot more stable than either Linux or FreeBSD.
Well, I already have a few sites I subscribe to, and if the rates are reasonable, it would probably be worth it just to get rid of the trolls.
"Open the pod door, Hal" ...
Here's your properly reasoned post:
... no X on the compute nodes).
When I first started using Linux in '97, I spent 36 hours downloading and installing Mandrake 1.0. The STRONG similarity between KDE and Win95 made the transition from Win95 to Linux go MUCH smoother than it would have gone otherwise.
A couple of years later, I bought a RedHat 5.2 boxed set (which set up GNOME/E as the default desktop. Having, by this time, divorced myself somewhat from the need for Windows familiarity, I was much happier, even though GNOME 1.1 was NOT a performance star. I although though that a number of the GNOME icons had a decidedly "unprofessional" look to them. In truth, GNOME, compared to CDE, looked like a toy.
At present, I am running Debian woody at home. My desktop of choice is Windowmaker. I have GNOME 1.4 installed because I like a lot of the GNOME apps, but run GNOME as a primary desktop? Not on your life. I've had my flirtation with blackbox, but it is a wee bit too minimalist and Windowmaker is SO damned stable (probably competitive with CDE for stability).
At work, my workstation is an Ultra 10 with Solaris 8 and CDE. I admin Suns, some old DEC Alphas running Tru64, and a beowulf cluster running RedHat 6.2. Following the "small world" metaphor, the primary desktop on the cluster is KDE (workstation hosts only
A desktop is a desktop. You use what does the job and, beyond that requirement, what you like. CDE, for all it's flaws, is rock-solid stable. For that matter, twm is too, but you won't see me using it. GNOME has some good things to bring to the Solaris table (specifically, the CORBA core and Bonobo). I was disappointed to read the article. I can only hope that the "feature-incomplete" means GNOME isn't ready yet. I firmly believe GNOME 2 on an Ultra II would rock.
I DL those 700 meg isos everytime Sun releases a new point release. But then, system upgrades are part of my job description. Total, including the AnswerBook (trust me, you WANT the AnswerBook), it's about a gigabyte. Takes me about an hour to DL the three compressed (.Z) isos.
Let it be known that Solaris is not designed around ease-of-use; it is still a fairly hardcore UNIX.
... Solaris (at it's core) is EXTREMELY hardcore Unix. So much so that it can take a fairly experience admin from another "flavor" about 6 weeks to learn their way around the filesystem. Sun very much believes the old Perl maxim "there's more than one way to do it" and appends "Our way is better." This is a typical old-style Unix thought pattern.
Allow me to second that
I seriously doubt you are going to see anything in the WIntel world to compare with a high-end E10K or E15K ...
Well, in the computer lab I work in we have exactly 4 servers running Solaris and about 20 Workstations ... similarly, we have 3 or four servers running Tru64, but we have 3 dozen Alpha workstations for student use.
In a technical computing environment, *n*x is a very viable desktop system.
I seem to have seen something about a remote program in development for the VR3, but I can't find it now.
Nope, anarchy means the guy with the biggest gun makes the rules ...
... some amount of government is a necessity, or we would all be living according to the law of the jungle, which is something I choose not to do.
Face it
That being said, let me add that, while I consider government a necessary evil (unlike terrorism, which I consider an UNnecessary evil), I prefer to minimize the total amount of evil (necessary or otherwise) that exists in my life.
Regards,
... and the Japanese General Staff at Okinawa ... Iwo Jima ... etc.
errrrrm ... yes
"Those who would surrender liberty for a little temporary safety deserve neither." Benjamin Franklin
I've never interviewed a sysadmin, but when I WAS interviewed, it was a two-pass evaluation. The first pass was three generic geeks from User Support (I actually was interviewing for a User Support position)... they asked me questions like "Tell me about the last crisis you encountered in your work and how you handled it" ... "Where do you turn for information when you don't know the answer to a problem?", and "Would you feel comfortable if you were dropped into a multi-platform Unix environment and told to make it run smoothly?" (my answer was "not intially") they followed that one with "How long would it take you to get comfortable?"
...
... . The interview centered more on familiarity with, and understanding of, the concepts behind the system than the details of administration. (It's nice to be interviewed by someone who understands the questions they're asking and can actually evalute the quality of the answers they get).
Based on the results of that interview, they recommended me for a different position, I was interviewed by the person who would be supervising me
His questions included "How familiar are you with MPICH?", "what GNU software have you built from source?" (follow-up) "were your kernel builds successful?", and things of that nature
Eleven days after the second interview I started.
Slashdot hereby further encourages the Linux fetish without any depth or discussion ...
... on IE or AOL.") would take it upon yourself to criticize any aspect of interpersonal interaction within a "culture" you are "observing". Not only odd, but downright unscientific conduct for a self-styled " ... amateur sociologist ... ". May I have the e-mail address of the professor who teaches your class ... I'd like to send him a link to your post so he can properly grade the quality of your research.
/. with an open and objective mind for any length of time, I am all but positive that you have reached a conclusion that there is no such thing as a "typical geek". I say I am all but positive because from my observation and participation in the community (and my admittedly prejudiced point of view) it is the only scientifically valid conclusion you can reach. The only three characteristics I can think of that all geeks seem to have in common are 1) overwhelming curiosity about *SOMETHING* (not necessarily limited to computers), 2) great flaming passion about their opinions on matters of which they may or may not have a significant degree of knowledge, and 3) they tend to be somewhat more literate and well-read than the average populace. In this lack of uniform, easily classified characteristics and tastes they are not significantly different from high school football players, cheerleaders, MDs, college professors, professional athletes, housewives and other "cultures" within our society.
... I've even met a few geeks who still think disco rulez. It's been my observation that quite a few geeks like classical music in the workplace, but maybe that's just a compromise solution). They dress in everything from t-shirts and jeans that need to be burned instead of laundered to three-piece suits costing more than a month's salary for some people. Linux "gurus" I'm personally acquainted with range in age from 14 to 56 ... I am 51. In terms of geekdom, I'd say I fall in the late teens-early adult age range because I didn't get HEAVILY involved with computers until the early 80's.
Odd that you, a self-proclaimed "outsider" (I bet most people on this site are like me-
If you have been observing
Geeks like sci-fi, poetry, adventure stories, horror fiction, non-fiction and autobiography. They like every single type of music that exists from country & western to grunge rock, techno-dance and heavy metal (Yep, all of them
I use linux, administer linux, Solaris and Tru64 for a living, and could give a rat's posterior whether it's cool or not.
Now, go the fuck away before I REALLY get pissed.
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins,
In fact, the statute does include the word "effective" means of protection. In Dmitiry's case, this opens the door to the "reasonably effective" argument.
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins,
As a non-practicing lawyer, I can agree with Lessig's remark. I don't think I disagree with the extension of copyright to 75 years after the death of the creator (the so-called "mickey mouse law" after that fact that Walt Disney. Inc. was the prime beneficiary of it). The Mickey Mouse franchise is still being actively developed and I, personally believe that extension was justified in that one case .
...
...
... use it or lose it ...
OTOH, is there anyone who believes that the copyright on CP/M or PC-DOS 2.0, or Snow White and Cinderella for that matter, should extend until 75 years after the authors die??? AFAIK, nothing's been done with any of those properties in the last 20 years
Actively developed is the key
Intellectual Property
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins,
Nope ... you've got it wrong ... there are no keystrokes involved in running the distributed.net client ... but if it cost the State of Georgia $.59/second/host because the distributed.net client was installed on their computers, installing the client on all the computers the FBI/CIA/DIA/NSA have would bankrupt the Federal Government in, oh, about a week and a half ...
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins,
1) Mr. Lessig is a lawyer, so I assume he has read up on this stuff, but his claims that the US were alone in having DCMA laws suprised me. I was under the impression that europe was in fact drafting even more sweeping ones?
... but be forewarned, I read a piece today that said Canada was considering a DMCA-ish law ...
... an acquittal might not make the news, but you can rest assured the chance to use the three words "Russian," "hacker" and "convicted" in the same breath has the media salivating ... "and today a double bad guy got what he deserved ... " and all that ... the media depends on Joe SixPack's knee-jerk reaction for ratings ... anything that feeds the public anti-outsider feeding frenzy is good press ...
... good!
... when the Federal Drug Crime Sentencing Guidelines hit the Supremes, and were upheld, the sole dissenting voice in an 8-1 decision was Mr. Justice Scalia, who never saw a dope sentence he didn't like (unless it was an acquittal) ...
Actually, Prof. Lessig is a prominent legal scholar, but his view is somewhat tainted by partisanship since he's a member of the board of EFF. That being given, his statements about the U.S. being alone are essentially correct
2) What outrage? This trial will never make to the front page, much less the evening news. The concepts are too abstract for your average joe to grasp in the 10 seconds attention span he/the newscasters will alot to the news item.
Don't be so sure
Did that line sound a wee bit cynical about our "Guardians of Truth"?
3) The only hope is (erm, I THINK this is the process, but std discl) is that he is convicted, and the appeal makes it all the way up to the supreme court which can then strike the law down as unconstitional. However, you'll recall that Dubya is appointing a couple of supreme judges this term, and we can expect that Big Business will bend the ear of the administration, so I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for the supremes to be agree with techolibertarians like us.
Don't bet your house on this one
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins,
Publishers might eventually get the hint that they have to make their products maximally useful rather than trying to lock them up tightly.
... if that, in and of itself, doesn't militate against the argument that the DMCA's prohibition against me "cracking" something I've paid for so I can lawfully use it where I want, what does?
... once ...
Well, my only problem with e-books is that I have to buy them in one format for my PDA and then buy them again in another incompatible format for my PC
I don't mind paying for content
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins,
What he did that got him in hot water was try to sell and distribute a circumvention device in the US.
... Adobe!
... something about inducing someone to break the law and then prosecuting them for succumbing to the inducement.
... I have tried to stay on top of this case, but I do not know whether Dmitriy has had a bail hearing yet ... thus the 8th amendment comes into play. Is there any evidence, other than the copy Adobe bought, that Elcomsoft sold his program in the United States? If not, there is a substantial question of entrapment and undue influence by a private party in a criminal matter. If the copy Adobe bought is the only hard evidence the U.S. Attorney has to date, anything they might try to discover by international subpoenas of Elcomsoft's records (not a trivia legal hurdle) such as other sales to customers in the United States might fall under the doctrine of "fruit of the poisoned tree." If I were the U.S. Attorney in charge of this case, I'd be thinking about the O.J. trial about now ...
...
And who do we know bought the "circumvention device" in the United States?
And who do we know swore out the complaint the got Dmitriy arrested in the first place?
One and the same party
I seem to remember something from my studies in law school about entrapment
What Dmitriy did was legal where he did it, as far as any evidence exposed to date shows. In fact, some of the reports I've read elsewhere (I admit I have not thoroughly researched the statements independently) lead me to believe that use of a "technical means of protection" that prevents a purchaser from making a backup copy is illegal in most of Europe.
In order for a law imposing a prior restraint on freedom of speech to be Constitutional, the government (not the MPAA/RIAA/BSA lobbyists') must have a compelling interest that will be furthered by the prior restraint. In addition, the law will fail the consituionality test unless there is NO less restrictive measure that will protect the government's (not the MPAA/RIAA/BSA lobbyists') compelling interest.
Now, I will admit that the government of the United States has a significant interest in promoting innovation in the scientific, commercial and literary (including software) fields. For your consideration I would submit the argument that the government's interest in these fields is adequately protected by current patent, trademark and copyright law. I would further submit that the DMCA is an unwarranted intrusion by the government into what would otherwise be private disputes.
That being said, I, personally, have no problem with paying for content that I find appealing. Those who doubt that should see me when I make a raid on Borders, B&N, Book Stop, etc. (or should that read "search (the store) and destroy (my bank balance) mission?") I am no anti-capitalist. What I AM opposed to is the criminalization of 1) independent research, and 2) attempts to intimidate those who conduct such independent research into silence.
Is Dmitriy the ideal poster-child for an anti-DMCA campaign? Probably not. Is he the first one who has presented a nearly lay-down case for the unconstituionality of DMCA? Given Prof. Felten's folding in the face of threats by the powers of darkness, yes. Is this unfortunate for Dmitriy? Most definitely, but there are other issues here that might get the case thrown out quickly
IAAL, although not in practice anymore. I got tired of hassling people to pay my fees after I had worked for them. However, I have an abiding interest in the legal aspects of the geek world, and these are the BIG holes I see in the case against Dmitriy. I can't even begin to count the small holes.
I regret the inconvenience that the bad attitude and greed of some American corporations has inflicted on Dmitriy. How do you apologize to the eggs that got broken to make your omelet. It would be better if we had a Rosa Parks to sit in jail while this issue was fought. Picking your fight wisely is a good thought, but so is playing the hand you're dealt. I want to see Dmitriy back in Russia as quickly as possible, but I am prepared to go to the limit of the law to see that he goes home without a U.S. criminal conviction.
I've rambled on too long
Free Dmitriy!
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins,
Pardon my rude language, but BITE YOUR FUCKING TONGUE ... how do you know spammers don't read /.
...
All we NEED is to create a tech-savvy spammer
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins,
Actually, no ... it might well fly with a proper set of jury instructions ... and, in addition to punishing the guilty virus writer, It would give the fast-click artist one hell of a scare ... while at the same time, pointing out SERIOUS flaws in DMCA.
Fact of the matter is, I LIKE that line of reasoning.
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins,