Be sure to make a copy of the tape if you do this.
Also, be aware that some companies have a policy of not allowing tape recordings made without prior permission from management.
Once, after I left a prior job, I found out from an employee there that management left a tape recorder inside the napkin holder in the vendateria to eavesdrop on conversations when there was some talk of a union organizing effort. An employee found it and returned it to HR.
I would just have taken it and figured that it was mine to keep since it shouldn't have been there in the first place.
I would have liked to see the face of the HR fellow when it was given to him and heard his explanation.
If the school administrators have a backbone and are willing to stand up to the RIAA, there may be some weak spots in this law. (I haven't read the whole law, just the excerpt here.)
Define "reasonably" in the sentence "[R]easonably attempt to prevent the infringement of copyrighted works over the institution's computer and network resources" and it seems to be rather vague. It seems that there are no standards are set forth as to what is reasonble.
The other weak point is here: "if such institution receives fifty (50) or more legally valid notices of infringement as prescribed by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 within the preceding year"
What constitutes "legally valid" notices of copyright infringement? Some courts are now alleging that the RIAA can't file suit against students unless they first have proof (not just allegations) that the individual(s) did indeed infringe on copyright(s). That would mean that they don't have a "legally valid" complaint, would it not?
I'm not a lawyer, but it seems that if the law is rather vague about this, it will be tested very soon in the courts.
I am careful to not divulge my email address, or at least not my regular ISP inbox address, unless it is to a friend. I have rules they must follow, which includes NOT including me in any group emails, jokes, etc., unless they put my address in the bcc field. The other option I give them is to send the messages separately and only to me.
I am not part of Facebook or any of he social networking sites. If I were, I would not use any personally identifiable information there. I've read of too many things being used to target users for advertising or other purposes, informaiton being shared without permission that wasn't supposed to be shared with others, and other issues on these sites.
I use Gmail, Hotmail, and Yahoo mail, but it's for my less secure accounts.
I have very little spam in my ISP email account (about 6 per year) and want to keep it that way.
When I sign up for lists and sites I often use the 10 minute email type of web site and remember my username and password since I can't retrieve it at the email I used since it is only a temporary email address.
I use a different bank card for online transactions that has a limit to how much money can be accessed at a time. I also subscribe to Life Lock, just in case I have any problems with ID theft. It happened to me once, but I didn't lose any money. The credit card company involved lost a small amount but wised up quickly and put a hold on the account until they verified that it wasn't me trying to use the account. My account address was even changed to one in another state, so I would not have received a bill and might not have known about the problem if I hadn't been expecting a bill, and I could have lost my rights to challenge the charges made to my account.
Am I paranoid? Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean everyone's not out to get me.:-)
It's inevitable that you won't have a little of your personal stuff out there, but you can minimize that and keep most of it to yourself. You can take some precautions, too.
Don
I didn't read all posts here, but I wanted to add that you used to be able to auction items on eBay and allow a "PayPal cash" only payment, one that did not use a credit card for payment through PayPal. Not long ago, eBay disallowed that and said that if you offer PayPal, you can no longer have that restriction.
This meant that if you received a payment through PayPal and a credit card was used in the transaction, you ether had to have their Premier account or upgrade to that type of account. (When you receive notice of your first payment with a credit card through PayPal and you have a personal account, you have to upgrade before you can receive the payment.)
This doesn't sound so bad, even when you consider that they will take out of the transaction 1.9% to 2.9% + $0.30 USD, but here's the catch.
If you have a personal account, you don't pay anything on money received or sent.
Once you "upgrade" (that's what they call it, an upgrade) to a Premier account, you pay a fee on ALL transactions where you receive money, not just on thise where the person sending you a payment used a credit card.
The work-around here is to have two bank accounts and two PayPal accounts, of course.
My work-around has been to allow payments by USPS money order or contact me for other payment options (which would include PayPal cash payments--I just can't say in the auction description that I accept PayPal if I ONLY accept PayPal cash).
Once they begin the PayPal only for eBay payments, I will no longer sell on eBay. I have been doing well on Craigslist selling items I no longer need.
Since there is no fee penalties using a PayPal account to pay for things (from the buyer's point of view), I do use PayPal as a fairly secure payment method, using a second bank account that I transfer money to when I am going to make a payment through PayPal. (I keep the balance low and transfer money on an as-needed basis just in case PayPal has a security breach.)
I see one of two things happening here. The US government might step in like Austrailia did and force eBay to allow other payment methods. Or, some other auction entity will start up an eBay-like company and be more fair about the whole thing. (There are quite a number of eBay issues that bother people, mostly sellers, but that is another issue.)
Your forum is a dictatorship - not a democracy. It may be a benevolent dictatorship, but it is what it is. You have the right to ban a member of your forum.
Letting the person continue to stir up trouble will just upset others as well as yourself. Get rid of the person from your forum by banning him, or put him on moderated status if you have that option. Realize that he or she might come back under a new username, so you might consider moderating all new members for their first few posts, or even just their first post, which will often tell you if they are a spammer or a troublemaker.
From the customer's standpoint, the software shouldn't have the flaw in the first place, so is it unreasonable for the customer to expect anything less than a quick but thorough fix? I think they deserve at least that.
From the Dilbert's (software engineer) standpoint, the company will promise the fix in an upgrade or patch later and sell the incomplete or buggy version right now.
Why not teach them the difference between a scholarly source and one that may or may not have any merit? In college we were expected to know the difference, and if we quoted an unreliable source, points were taken off the essay or paper. If we quoted from a source that sometimes was unreliable, sometimes reliable, like Reader's Digest, the student might have to defend the source based on the author's credentials. I did this in one paper I wrote and got credit for using that source. Another student quoted from Reader's Digest and got points taken off. I made the argument for the source before I turned in the paper (before it was graded). The other student did not.
Wikipedia might give students a lead on information so they can look for a quotable and reliable source, so what's the problem here? Otherwise, you would have to block most of the Internet.
Slashdot Mirror
Be sure to make a copy of the tape if you do this. Also, be aware that some companies have a policy of not allowing tape recordings made without prior permission from management. Once, after I left a prior job, I found out from an employee there that management left a tape recorder inside the napkin holder in the vendateria to eavesdrop on conversations when there was some talk of a union organizing effort. An employee found it and returned it to HR. I would just have taken it and figured that it was mine to keep since it shouldn't have been there in the first place. I would have liked to see the face of the HR fellow when it was given to him and heard his explanation.
If the school administrators have a backbone and are willing to stand up to the RIAA, there may be some weak spots in this law. (I haven't read the whole law, just the excerpt here.) Define "reasonably" in the sentence "[R]easonably attempt to prevent the infringement of copyrighted works over the institution's computer and network resources" and it seems to be rather vague. It seems that there are no standards are set forth as to what is reasonble. The other weak point is here: "if such institution receives fifty (50) or more legally valid notices of infringement as prescribed by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 within the preceding year" What constitutes "legally valid" notices of copyright infringement? Some courts are now alleging that the RIAA can't file suit against students unless they first have proof (not just allegations) that the individual(s) did indeed infringe on copyright(s). That would mean that they don't have a "legally valid" complaint, would it not? I'm not a lawyer, but it seems that if the law is rather vague about this, it will be tested very soon in the courts.
I am careful to not divulge my email address, or at least not my regular ISP inbox address, unless it is to a friend. I have rules they must follow, which includes NOT including me in any group emails, jokes, etc., unless they put my address in the bcc field. The other option I give them is to send the messages separately and only to me. I am not part of Facebook or any of he social networking sites. If I were, I would not use any personally identifiable information there. I've read of too many things being used to target users for advertising or other purposes, informaiton being shared without permission that wasn't supposed to be shared with others, and other issues on these sites. I use Gmail, Hotmail, and Yahoo mail, but it's for my less secure accounts. I have very little spam in my ISP email account (about 6 per year) and want to keep it that way. When I sign up for lists and sites I often use the 10 minute email type of web site and remember my username and password since I can't retrieve it at the email I used since it is only a temporary email address. I use a different bank card for online transactions that has a limit to how much money can be accessed at a time. I also subscribe to Life Lock, just in case I have any problems with ID theft. It happened to me once, but I didn't lose any money. The credit card company involved lost a small amount but wised up quickly and put a hold on the account until they verified that it wasn't me trying to use the account. My account address was even changed to one in another state, so I would not have received a bill and might not have known about the problem if I hadn't been expecting a bill, and I could have lost my rights to challenge the charges made to my account. Am I paranoid? Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean everyone's not out to get me. :-)
It's inevitable that you won't have a little of your personal stuff out there, but you can minimize that and keep most of it to yourself. You can take some precautions, too.
Don
I didn't read all posts here, but I wanted to add that you used to be able to auction items on eBay and allow a "PayPal cash" only payment, one that did not use a credit card for payment through PayPal. Not long ago, eBay disallowed that and said that if you offer PayPal, you can no longer have that restriction. This meant that if you received a payment through PayPal and a credit card was used in the transaction, you ether had to have their Premier account or upgrade to that type of account. (When you receive notice of your first payment with a credit card through PayPal and you have a personal account, you have to upgrade before you can receive the payment.) This doesn't sound so bad, even when you consider that they will take out of the transaction 1.9% to 2.9% + $0.30 USD, but here's the catch. If you have a personal account, you don't pay anything on money received or sent. Once you "upgrade" (that's what they call it, an upgrade) to a Premier account, you pay a fee on ALL transactions where you receive money, not just on thise where the person sending you a payment used a credit card. The work-around here is to have two bank accounts and two PayPal accounts, of course. My work-around has been to allow payments by USPS money order or contact me for other payment options (which would include PayPal cash payments--I just can't say in the auction description that I accept PayPal if I ONLY accept PayPal cash). Once they begin the PayPal only for eBay payments, I will no longer sell on eBay. I have been doing well on Craigslist selling items I no longer need. Since there is no fee penalties using a PayPal account to pay for things (from the buyer's point of view), I do use PayPal as a fairly secure payment method, using a second bank account that I transfer money to when I am going to make a payment through PayPal. (I keep the balance low and transfer money on an as-needed basis just in case PayPal has a security breach.) I see one of two things happening here. The US government might step in like Austrailia did and force eBay to allow other payment methods. Or, some other auction entity will start up an eBay-like company and be more fair about the whole thing. (There are quite a number of eBay issues that bother people, mostly sellers, but that is another issue.)
Your forum is a dictatorship - not a democracy. It may be a benevolent dictatorship, but it is what it is. You have the right to ban a member of your forum. Letting the person continue to stir up trouble will just upset others as well as yourself. Get rid of the person from your forum by banning him, or put him on moderated status if you have that option. Realize that he or she might come back under a new username, so you might consider moderating all new members for their first few posts, or even just their first post, which will often tell you if they are a spammer or a troublemaker.
From the customer's standpoint, the software shouldn't have the flaw in the first place, so is it unreasonable for the customer to expect anything less than a quick but thorough fix? I think they deserve at least that.
From the Dilbert's (software engineer) standpoint, the company will promise the fix in an upgrade or patch later and sell the incomplete or buggy version right now.
Sounds like Microsoft to me.
Why not teach them the difference between a scholarly source and one that may or may not have any merit? In college we were expected to know the difference, and if we quoted an unreliable source, points were taken off the essay or paper. If we quoted from a source that sometimes was unreliable, sometimes reliable, like Reader's Digest, the student might have to defend the source based on the author's credentials. I did this in one paper I wrote and got credit for using that source. Another student quoted from Reader's Digest and got points taken off. I made the argument for the source before I turned in the paper (before it was graded). The other student did not.
Wikipedia might give students a lead on information so they can look for a quotable and reliable source, so what's the problem here? Otherwise, you would have to block most of the Internet.