There's a simple reason for why most Slashdotters are siding with TPB: we're in favour of people not getting prosecuted and/or punished for things that are NOT ACTUALLY ILLEGAL. Whether what TPB is doing is ethically right is another question entirely; if it's not, then that may be a reason to create a law to make it *legally* wrong (that is, illegal) as well, but until that happens... tough cookies. (And one might add that there are no ex post facto laws in Sweden - for a good reason! -, so even if such a law is passed in the future, TPB's operators still can't be punished for what they are currently doing.)
And then there's the fact that the USA apparently played *some* role (I doubt they gave an outright order that Sweden just carried out, but what do YOU think is going in international politics? It's all bribe and blackmail, all the time). And the fact that the justice minister apparently *ordered* the raids, in violation of Swedish law. And the fact that *all* servers the ISP was hosting were taken, no matter which site they belonged to. And the fact that TPB's lawyer had a DNA sample etc. taken (come on, their lawyer! How can that be anything but harassment?). And so on...
That being said, the idea that new music, movies etc. are generally crap because of copyright infringement is so stupid I don't even know where to begin to tear it apart. Last time I checked, Bitchney Spears, Metallica etc. were still making a sizeable amount of money, and indie artists with actual talent seem to be doing quite well, too. Have you ever heard of even a SINGLE artist who's actually stopped making music (for example), citing copyright infringement as the reason (or at the very least, a major contributing factor)? No, you haven't, because noone ever did. Some people bitch and moan about how they won't be able to afford that new ivory backscratcher now because of OMGpiracy!!11 (I vaguely recall Prince (or whatever his nom du jour is) saying something to that effect), but that's it. Nobody's actually stopped producing anything, and more likely than not, noone ever will.
Certainly, the real artists won't, at least - those who're actually in it because they love what they do, not because they want to get millionaires by churning out the same crap over and over again.
No, the GP is right. Sure, there are people on Flickr who post OMGfunny!!111 pictures and the like, but generally speaking, they seem to be in the minority (or at least it FEELS like they're in the minority).
Also, Photobucket is really just that - a big bucket into which you dump stuff. Flickr, on the other hand, is all about sharing, exploring and interacting (I know that sounds cheesy, but it's true). I can see why Photobucket has a higher market share if all you want to do is dump your photos on a free hosting service so you can use them on bulletin boards, but that's not a "market" that Flickr is aiming at, anyway.
Not everything that is unacceptable is automatically rape, though. I don't think anyone's said that what happened here is fine (if someone has, they must've gotten modded down, since I didn't see it), but lots of people have said that you shouldn't go around calling everything that happens to you that you don't like "rape"; that is, quite honestly, a slap in the face of every victim of *actual* rape.
If you are an adult with previously healthy life, give yourself 3 years. If the crime "still affects your life on daily basis", your suffering is no longer caused by the criminal. Rather, it's your own self-destructive behavior and thought patterns as well as possibly people close to your or society at large that prop up your "victim" or "damaged" image.
...which, of course, may well be caused by the crime you suffered. I can tell you from experience that depressions etc. don't magically fix themselves if you just wait for 3 years - if they're not treated, they *will* go on forever, and that's not the victim's fault. Of course the victim is the only one who can actually do something and change things, but the attacker is still responsible. Compare the eggshell skull rule, for example.
As for this virtual rape. How do you even do that?
Yeah, I've been wondering about that, too. I don't like SL (although I have briefly tried it), but I used to be quite the MUCKer back in the day; roleplayed rape (where all participants actually consent) is not entirely uncommon, but obviously, that's not rape, just like tying up your partner in the bedroom with their consent isn't rape.
For actual rape, I think one of the defining characteristics is that the victim is overpowered and unable to escape, but as soon as something is "virtual", that simply isn't the case anymore. I don't recall the details of SL, but certainly if someone's bugging you (in whatever way), you can go to a different area? And even if that person finds you (by chance or by virtue of somehow being able to tell where you are), aren't there private areas? And even if there aren't, can't you still just log off?
Of course it can be annoying when you constantly have to deal with idiots like that, but I'd describe that as stalking rather than rape, and you'd think it should be possible to get the offender warned or banned in that case, too. Again, I'm not sure about SL, but on MUCKs, if the wizzes receive too many (justified) complaints about a person, they will take action, up to and including @toading the offender.
What cars do YOU buy that have engine speed limiters? I know of overrev limiters, so you don't blow the engine..but, I don't think I've owned a car that had a speed governor on it.
All larger Mercedes models are limited to 250 kph, for example (the ones that aren't are also the ones that wouldn't reach that speed, anyway). I imagine the same's true for luxury sedans from other companies as well.
Um, no, the police can NOT arrest anyone they want - and that's just why, as you correctly point out, he should be able to sue them for wrongful imprisonment now.
Wow. Some poor schmuck gets arrested, has his rights trampled all over and gets sent off to brainwashing camp because he dared to make a video game map, and you want to blame it on the ACLU?
Main criticism is "improve UI customisation"? The MAIN CRITICISM? I'll tell you what the fucking MAIN CRITICISM is: the MAIN CRITICISM that microsoft consistently and *deliberately* ignores just about EVERY standard. THAT is the fucking MAIN CRITICISM.
Sorry, but really - this kind of drivel should have no place on Slashdot.
So if wanted to offer, say, Wicca classes (not that I'm Wicca myself, but just suppose so for the sake of the argument), all I'd have to do would be to provide teachers, and they'd be welcomed with open arms, just like any christian teacher would?
If that's really the case, that's pretty cool - at least in theory. In practice, the problem's still that only the larger and/or organised religions will be able to provide teachers, so it still is discriminatory; specifically, it's a system that favours those that are already large and already have a well-established following and allows them to gain even more of an edge over the rest.
Of course, that's a problem that's inherent to the current situation where you basically have the equivalent of a religious monopoly (the same way that microsoft has a monopoly for desktop OSes - not a "no competitor exists" monopoly, but a "no competitor is really relevant" one), but I think the state shouldn't support it.
Or should it? On the other hand, one could argue that religious indoctrination is going to take place, anyway, and it's better to let it happen in a controlled environment instead of in a Sunday school where there is no way to know what's actually being taught.
But then, won't that just lend an aura of official justification to the religious indoctrination of children? Difficult questions indeed.
After all, nobody argues the fact that Robin Hood was a thief, and yet most tend to think he was a good guy.
The difference, of course, is that Robin Hood really WAS a thief. Nobody's complaining about copyright infringement being called copyright infringement, after all...
You're right insofar as that it may not be possible (or at least easy) to turn the tides, but you shouldn't let that stop you. Have you ever gone to vote? If so, why? Your one single vote among (assuming you're from the USA) a hundred million or more isn't going to change anything at all; yet you still go, and for a good reason.
Grabbing the term and turning it into a label of pride is one way to do that, of course, but it all depends on what you want to achieve. Some people aren't interested in labelling copyright infringement as something a priori positive, for example; they just want to be able to discuss it in a neutral manner.
(Oh, and there's still real piracy going on in the world, too - it's not limited to crappy movies starring Johnny Depp. However, it's not generally happening in the "western" world, which I assume is why you're not really aware of it.)
That's rubbish. I could just as well ask "How do you propose to control 500 million people [in the EU], 300 million people [in the USA], 180 million people [in Brazil], 80 million people [in Germany], 60 million people [in the UK], 33 million people [in Canada], 16 million people [in the Netherlands], 7.5 million people [in Switzerland], 4 million people [in New Zealand], or even 310,000 people [in Iceland]"?
Seriously, it's not clear to me why it would be impossible to have a functioning democracy where everyone is fairly represented or ensure liberty *and* safety for 1,100,000,000 people when it's not considered impossible to do the same for 300,000,000 people - the factor's actually quite small when you think about it.
I don't know anything about India really, so I can't say much about their human rights record, how free Indians are and so on, but I don't think you should go around making excuses that one can't possibly have freedom or a democracy just because there's more than a billion people. That's FUD.
It's not the fact that Digg did it, it's why and how they did it. For example:
1) Instead of complying with the law and then making a big announcement about how they had to do it even though they didn't want to, they apparently did it silently.
2) Instead of just deleting the posts that were being complained about - heck, instead of just deleting the posts that actually contained the key - they apparently deleted everything relating to the whole thing, including discussions about free speech, censorship and so on that most certainly were not in violation of any law.
3) Instead of just deleting the posts that were being complained about, they also deleted the accounts of the users who made those posts.
4) And while this may just be a rumour, some people have also said that instead of waiting for a proper legal notice, they just deleted those posts when they were asked to by a group who financially supports them in some way (advertising, sponsoring or whatever).
All this shows that the Digg founders had no integrity, no spine, no values. They're reversing their position now, but only because it's becoming abundantly clear that they'd have more to lose if they continued this way.
(To elaborate on that... contrary to what that blog post by the Digg founder says, there really is no risk that Digg will die; rather, they will wait until they actually get a legal notice the proper way, and they will only do what they're legally required to do, which will allow them to say "we tried what we could, but the law is the law". This ultimately will let them keep their community, and in fact may strengthen their reputation, as it creates a new "us vs. them"; instead of "us-the-community vs. Digg", it's now "us-the-community-and-Digg vs. the *AA/DVDCCA/etc". If they continued as they did, on the other hand, they would risk alienating their community; not something that would likely kill them, either, but it'd mean less income and less significance, at least.)
So that's the gist of it. Nobody's upset that they comply with the law (that's what they have to do, after all); what people are upset about is the lack of integrity that shows here.
And from what I hear, there's been grumbling on Digg about censorship and sucking-up to big business for quite a while already, but without there ever having been any real proof, so this may well just have been the final straw.
Wikipedia has a clear purpose/goal, though - namely, to create an encyclopaedia. It's not a democracy, an experiment in free speech, an effort to resist censorship, the EFF, Wikileaks, or anything like that.
There certainly are a bunch of problems with the way the community is being run (and I say that as someone who is an admin on en.wp and has been for a couple of years already), but the fact remains that Wikipedia's goal is to write an encyclopaedia - and NOTHING else.
Right. You *personally* don't know anyone who's built (or otherwise has got) a video server, therefor *noone* at all in the entire world does, right? And you conveniently ignored the part about backing up movies, too - just wait until you have a few kids, and you'll see why this is not actually of theoretical importance only.
But of course, you're only talking about the "primary application"; nevermind that something can be used an *is* used for purposes that are perfectly fine from an ethical (even if not automatically from a legal) point of view, we'll still ban it because someone MIGHT use it for something more sinister.
Make a new account? One of my old ones was slapped down with what appeared to be a permanent -1 modifier to all of my comments after I complained about the site's administration (Taco in particular) once too often; I left Slashdot for a few years, but ultimately came back because the comments, generally speaking, tend to be quite interesting. In retrospect, both leaving at that point and coming back now where exactly the right decisions, and I got my new account back to Excellent karma within about 5 days, too. The only downside is that I lost my low(er) UID, but ultimately, that's just a meaningless number, anyway.
My opinion about Slashdot-the-site and Slashdot-the-site's-management still hasn't changed all that much (although the amount of dupes seems to have gone down considerably, at least), but Slashdot-the-community is still nice, and in some ways even seems to have changed for the better - I suppose that all the trolls etc. moved on to Digg (so this comment is actually on-topic now, too!:)).
However, I'm very unlikely to upgrade to any new version; why change something that works perfectly?
Because holes continue to be found in every version and because old versions do not receive fixes anymore. There's only been two remote holes, of course, but there's an emphasis on both "remote" *and* "holes" here - and also an emphasis on "root", which unfortunately isn't even included in the slogan.
In other words, if you don't upgrade unless/until a new remote root exploit is found, you still have to worry about local users rooting your box (and don't forget that there typically are users like "www" etc. even when no actual person besides you has an account on the box; not a big problem for a firewall, most likely, but servers in general aren't automatically safe), and you still have to worry about remote priviledge escalation, remote denials of service and the like, too.
That's not to say that OpenBSD is not a very secure system, but the slogan is somewhat misleading (it's marketing, after all!), and not keeping a system up to date with security patches is never a good idea.
This seems to be not so much about spam sites linking to them as much as it is about them linking to spam sites, though, so that blackmail scenario likely wouldn't work.
Slashdot Mirror
There's a simple reason for why most Slashdotters are siding with TPB: we're in favour of people not getting prosecuted and/or punished for things that are NOT ACTUALLY ILLEGAL. Whether what TPB is doing is ethically right is another question entirely; if it's not, then that may be a reason to create a law to make it *legally* wrong (that is, illegal) as well, but until that happens... tough cookies. (And one might add that there are no ex post facto laws in Sweden - for a good reason! -, so even if such a law is passed in the future, TPB's operators still can't be punished for what they are currently doing.)
And then there's the fact that the USA apparently played *some* role (I doubt they gave an outright order that Sweden just carried out, but what do YOU think is going in international politics? It's all bribe and blackmail, all the time). And the fact that the justice minister apparently *ordered* the raids, in violation of Swedish law. And the fact that *all* servers the ISP was hosting were taken, no matter which site they belonged to. And the fact that TPB's lawyer had a DNA sample etc. taken (come on, their lawyer! How can that be anything but harassment?). And so on...
That being said, the idea that new music, movies etc. are generally crap because of copyright infringement is so stupid I don't even know where to begin to tear it apart. Last time I checked, Bitchney Spears, Metallica etc. were still making a sizeable amount of money, and indie artists with actual talent seem to be doing quite well, too. Have you ever heard of even a SINGLE artist who's actually stopped making music (for example), citing copyright infringement as the reason (or at the very least, a major contributing factor)? No, you haven't, because noone ever did. Some people bitch and moan about how they won't be able to afford that new ivory backscratcher now because of OMGpiracy!!11 (I vaguely recall Prince (or whatever his nom du jour is) saying something to that effect), but that's it. Nobody's actually stopped producing anything, and more likely than not, noone ever will.
Certainly, the real artists won't, at least - those who're actually in it because they love what they do, not because they want to get millionaires by churning out the same crap over and over again.
No, the GP is right. Sure, there are people on Flickr who post OMGfunny!!111 pictures and the like, but generally speaking, they seem to be in the minority (or at least it FEELS like they're in the minority).
Also, Photobucket is really just that - a big bucket into which you dump stuff. Flickr, on the other hand, is all about sharing, exploring and interacting (I know that sounds cheesy, but it's true). I can see why Photobucket has a higher market share if all you want to do is dump your photos on a free hosting service so you can use them on bulletin boards, but that's not a "market" that Flickr is aiming at, anyway.
Not everything that is unacceptable is automatically rape, though. I don't think anyone's said that what happened here is fine (if someone has, they must've gotten modded down, since I didn't see it), but lots of people have said that you shouldn't go around calling everything that happens to you that you don't like "rape"; that is, quite honestly, a slap in the face of every victim of *actual* rape.
*snerk* The proper punishment would probably be to get sent to Tapestries instead. :)
...which, of course, may well be caused by the crime you suffered. I can tell you from experience that depressions etc. don't magically fix themselves if you just wait for 3 years - if they're not treated, they *will* go on forever, and that's not the victim's fault. Of course the victim is the only one who can actually do something and change things, but the attacker is still responsible. Compare the eggshell skull rule, for example.
Yeah, I've been wondering about that, too. I don't like SL (although I have briefly tried it), but I used to be quite the MUCKer back in the day; roleplayed rape (where all participants actually consent) is not entirely uncommon, but obviously, that's not rape, just like tying up your partner in the bedroom with their consent isn't rape.
For actual rape, I think one of the defining characteristics is that the victim is overpowered and unable to escape, but as soon as something is "virtual", that simply isn't the case anymore. I don't recall the details of SL, but certainly if someone's bugging you (in whatever way), you can go to a different area? And even if that person finds you (by chance or by virtue of somehow being able to tell where you are), aren't there private areas? And even if there aren't, can't you still just log off?
Of course it can be annoying when you constantly have to deal with idiots like that, but I'd describe that as stalking rather than rape, and you'd think it should be possible to get the offender warned or banned in that case, too. Again, I'm not sure about SL, but on MUCKs, if the wizzes receive too many (justified) complaints about a person, they will take action, up to and including @toading the offender.
All larger Mercedes models are limited to 250 kph, for example (the ones that aren't are also the ones that wouldn't reach that speed, anyway). I imagine the same's true for luxury sedans from other companies as well.
Um, no, the police can NOT arrest anyone they want - and that's just why, as you correctly point out, he should be able to sue them for wrongful imprisonment now.
Wow. Some poor schmuck gets arrested, has his rights trampled all over and gets sent off to brainwashing camp because he dared to make a video game map, and you want to blame it on the ACLU?
Get a fucking grip.
Main criticism is "improve UI customisation"? The MAIN CRITICISM? I'll tell you what the fucking MAIN CRITICISM is: the MAIN CRITICISM that microsoft consistently and *deliberately* ignores just about EVERY standard. THAT is the fucking MAIN CRITICISM.
Sorry, but really - this kind of drivel should have no place on Slashdot.
I think there's some implied quotes around "insightful" - it's probably intended as sarcasm. Well, one hopes...
So if wanted to offer, say, Wicca classes (not that I'm Wicca myself, but just suppose so for the sake of the argument), all I'd have to do would be to provide teachers, and they'd be welcomed with open arms, just like any christian teacher would?
If that's really the case, that's pretty cool - at least in theory. In practice, the problem's still that only the larger and/or organised religions will be able to provide teachers, so it still is discriminatory; specifically, it's a system that favours those that are already large and already have a well-established following and allows them to gain even more of an edge over the rest.
Of course, that's a problem that's inherent to the current situation where you basically have the equivalent of a religious monopoly (the same way that microsoft has a monopoly for desktop OSes - not a "no competitor exists" monopoly, but a "no competitor is really relevant" one), but I think the state shouldn't support it.
Or should it? On the other hand, one could argue that religious indoctrination is going to take place, anyway, and it's better to let it happen in a controlled environment instead of in a Sunday school where there is no way to know what's actually being taught.
But then, won't that just lend an aura of official justification to the religious indoctrination of children? Difficult questions indeed.
"source code level" refers to the syscall interface between the kernel and userland.
The difference, of course, is that Robin Hood really WAS a thief. Nobody's complaining about copyright infringement being called copyright infringement, after all...
You're right insofar as that it may not be possible (or at least easy) to turn the tides, but you shouldn't let that stop you. Have you ever gone to vote? If so, why? Your one single vote among (assuming you're from the USA) a hundred million or more isn't going to change anything at all; yet you still go, and for a good reason.
Grabbing the term and turning it into a label of pride is one way to do that, of course, but it all depends on what you want to achieve. Some people aren't interested in labelling copyright infringement as something a priori positive, for example; they just want to be able to discuss it in a neutral manner.
(Oh, and there's still real piracy going on in the world, too - it's not limited to crappy movies starring Johnny Depp. However, it's not generally happening in the "western" world, which I assume is why you're not really aware of it.)
That's rubbish. I could just as well ask "How do you propose to control 500 million people [in the EU], 300 million people [in the USA], 180 million people [in Brazil], 80 million people [in Germany], 60 million people [in the UK], 33 million people [in Canada], 16 million people [in the Netherlands], 7.5 million people [in Switzerland], 4 million people [in New Zealand], or even 310,000 people [in Iceland]"?
Seriously, it's not clear to me why it would be impossible to have a functioning democracy where everyone is fairly represented or ensure liberty *and* safety for 1,100,000,000 people when it's not considered impossible to do the same for 300,000,000 people - the factor's actually quite small when you think about it.
I don't know anything about India really, so I can't say much about their human rights record, how free Indians are and so on, but I don't think you should go around making excuses that one can't possibly have freedom or a democracy just because there's more than a billion people. That's FUD.
Not *all* humans are heterosexual men, thankyouverymuch...
I can't tell "t" and "c" apart this way, but "g" does look different, and so does "z" (although that's probably because I say "zed" instead of "zee").
Similarly, in SeaMonkey, you can set general.useragent.misc, for example.
It's not the fact that Digg did it, it's why and how they did it. For example:
1) Instead of complying with the law and then making a big announcement about how they had to do it even though they didn't want to, they apparently did it silently.
2) Instead of just deleting the posts that were being complained about - heck, instead of just deleting the posts that actually contained the key - they apparently deleted everything relating to the whole thing, including discussions about free speech, censorship and so on that most certainly were not in violation of any law.
3) Instead of just deleting the posts that were being complained about, they also deleted the accounts of the users who made those posts.
4) And while this may just be a rumour, some people have also said that instead of waiting for a proper legal notice, they just deleted those posts when they were asked to by a group who financially supports them in some way (advertising, sponsoring or whatever).
All this shows that the Digg founders had no integrity, no spine, no values. They're reversing their position now, but only because it's becoming abundantly clear that they'd have more to lose if they continued this way.
(To elaborate on that... contrary to what that blog post by the Digg founder says, there really is no risk that Digg will die; rather, they will wait until they actually get a legal notice the proper way, and they will only do what they're legally required to do, which will allow them to say "we tried what we could, but the law is the law". This ultimately will let them keep their community, and in fact may strengthen their reputation, as it creates a new "us vs. them"; instead of "us-the-community vs. Digg", it's now "us-the-community-and-Digg vs. the *AA/DVDCCA/etc". If they continued as they did, on the other hand, they would risk alienating their community; not something that would likely kill them, either, but it'd mean less income and less significance, at least.)
So that's the gist of it. Nobody's upset that they comply with the law (that's what they have to do, after all); what people are upset about is the lack of integrity that shows here.
And from what I hear, there's been grumbling on Digg about censorship and sucking-up to big business for quite a while already, but without there ever having been any real proof, so this may well just have been the final straw.
Wikipedia has a clear purpose/goal, though - namely, to create an encyclopaedia. It's not a democracy, an experiment in free speech, an effort to resist censorship, the EFF, Wikileaks, or anything like that.
There certainly are a bunch of problems with the way the community is being run (and I say that as someone who is an admin on en.wp and has been for a couple of years already), but the fact remains that Wikipedia's goal is to write an encyclopaedia - and NOTHING else.
Right. You *personally* don't know anyone who's built (or otherwise has got) a video server, therefor *noone* at all in the entire world does, right? And you conveniently ignored the part about backing up movies, too - just wait until you have a few kids, and you'll see why this is not actually of theoretical importance only.
But of course, you're only talking about the "primary application"; nevermind that something can be used an *is* used for purposes that are perfectly fine from an ethical (even if not automatically from a legal) point of view, we'll still ban it because someone MIGHT use it for something more sinister.
The GP was right: idjit.
Make a new account? One of my old ones was slapped down with what appeared to be a permanent -1 modifier to all of my comments after I complained about the site's administration (Taco in particular) once too often; I left Slashdot for a few years, but ultimately came back because the comments, generally speaking, tend to be quite interesting. In retrospect, both leaving at that point and coming back now where exactly the right decisions, and I got my new account back to Excellent karma within about 5 days, too. The only downside is that I lost my low(er) UID, but ultimately, that's just a meaningless number, anyway.
:)).
My opinion about Slashdot-the-site and Slashdot-the-site's-management still hasn't changed all that much (although the amount of dupes seems to have gone down considerably, at least), but Slashdot-the-community is still nice, and in some ways even seems to have changed for the better - I suppose that all the trolls etc. moved on to Digg (so this comment is actually on-topic now, too!
Because holes continue to be found in every version and because old versions do not receive fixes anymore. There's only been two remote holes, of course, but there's an emphasis on both "remote" *and* "holes" here - and also an emphasis on "root", which unfortunately isn't even included in the slogan.
In other words, if you don't upgrade unless/until a new remote root exploit is found, you still have to worry about local users rooting your box (and don't forget that there typically are users like "www" etc. even when no actual person besides you has an account on the box; not a big problem for a firewall, most likely, but servers in general aren't automatically safe), and you still have to worry about remote priviledge escalation, remote denials of service and the like, too.
That's not to say that OpenBSD is not a very secure system, but the slogan is somewhat misleading (it's marketing, after all!), and not keeping a system up to date with security patches is never a good idea.
This seems to be not so much about spam sites linking to them as much as it is about them linking to spam sites, though, so that blackmail scenario likely wouldn't work.
In a word: yes.