I felt sortof dirty for agreeing so wholeheartedly with a decision supported by Harper. Guess it goes to prove that the Conservatives are actually capable of making decisions in the best interest of Canadians in their efforts to make us America light.
The theory is that the production of child pornography fundamentally requires a child to have been abused. Thus by possessing such an image you are complicit in that abuse and create incentives to do so. I'm not convinced that it would be a sound theory in reality even if it weren't for the fact that the same laws criminalize non-abuse involved images produced by artists without the use of a model and fictional stories that include child sexuality. Overall the entire mass of 'child porn' laws are predicated on the theory that seeing sexual images of children will cause individuals who otherwise would not to commit sexual abuse, something that is fairly contrary to most studies.
As for anything else illegal that does no harm just by itself, I think that snuff films are also illegal in the US. Otherwise the US is fairly tolerable (in theory) about not criminalizing depictions of criminal acts. Other jurisdictions vary greatly but are much more frequent to criminalize things that are considered harmless by the US.
That depends entirely on the whether the law is fundamentally flawed or not.
When anti-miscegenation laws were on the books there were no set of circumstances that would lead non-racists to convict because the law was morally bankrupt. The same applies to most sodomy laws which remain on the books in many states and countries. You can even see this in a recent marijuana possession case where they were unable to find 12 members of the jury pool who were willing to apply the proscribed penalties for the 1/16th of an ounce the man was in possession of. http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/article_d6b1aaca-edfc-527f-ad11-f1691fdc6e3b.html
When the law has fallen out of touch with society or the penalties are grossly inappropriate to the crime it is not improper to conclude that you would find it impossible to convict.
Obviously in more complicated cases deciding in advance that you would or would not convict is improper and harmful to society. Though many states also refuse to seat jurors who are morally opposed to capital punishment in murder trials that could carry that penalty even when they will consider the evidence and render a fair judgement.
Jury nullification is nearly impossible these days due to the way jury selection is performed. Anyone who truthfully answers that they are unwilling to apply the proscribed penalities in a particular case will not be seated for the trial which removes the vast majority of potential 'nullifiers'.
Your argument is analogous to telling women that 'if you didn't want to get raped, you shouldn't have dressed so sexy'.
Just like women have the right to dress sexy and not raped, men have the right to spend time around women alone and have consensual sex without being falsely accused of rape. We shouldn't have to regress to Talibanic inter-sex relations where men and women are not allowed to associate with non-family members of the opposite gender to avoid being accused of sexual impropriety, though typically it is the woman who is punished (regardless of fault or validity) for this sort of behaviour.
I follow divorce and divorce related legal decisions fairly closely as a function of my job and have never come across any legal charges filed, let alone sustained against this sort of person. Typically the best outcome that comes from this is that the the family court judge decides that it is indicative of poor judgment and decision making that comprimises their ability to provide responsible childcare and assigns custody to the other parent. Unfortunately even when the accusation is proven to be false it is difficult to prove that it is malicious and judges don't want to end up in the paper years later for having forced the children to go with a molestor and will instead order shared custody as an ass-covering technique.
Credibility isn't a commodity that one can compare in simple numerical values. By your logic a woman accuses two men of raping her but they both deny it, thus she is a liar and they committed no crime.
In this particular case the credibility of the two women is particularly suspect because neither of them came forward with any allegations of wrongdoing at the time and continued to socialise with him. It was only after the two women(who are reportedly friends prior to this incident) got together and discovered that he had been sleeping with both of them and agreed to go to the police together. While he may have raped them or comitted a sexual crime the fact they didn't feel what had occured merited police attention individually makes it seem like it could be a case of collaboration to revise history because they are angry at him.
The cables are themselves governmental dealings and if US diplomats are telling their superiors that foreign heads of state are having an affair or are taking psychiatric drugs it is a relevant political fact. If there were diplomatic cables discussing Tiger Woods' sexual misadventures then it would be worthwhile for Wikileaks to divulge as it informs on what our government is thinking and engaged in.
He stayed in the country for the police to interview but they refused. Then after a cursory meeting they told him he could leave the country which he did. The next day a prosecutor in a different part of the country reinstated and increased the charges. While in the UK he offered to meet with the police through teleconferencing, meeting at their embassy, or by telephone but was refused and they insisted on his returning to the country (at his own expense) to be questioned. Additionally while refusing to inform Assange's lawyer of what charges were being investigated (in violation of international law) they were selectively leaking information to the press (which is highly ironic, but also wrong).
While he may have commited a crime of a sexual nature, the prosecutor has been acting in bad faith from the beginning and unwilling to make reasonable accomodations.
While it isn't surprising, it is important to keep noting the ongoing invasion of privacy that occurs online. Analytics is pretty upfront about the fact that it is going to be collecting data while Facebook Connect is not and adding it to a site is likely to be a choice made by less savvy marketing types rather than the technically inclined who would automatically assume anything that can track will be tracking.
It is also worthwhile from the fact that it covers how it tracks non-facebook users and how if they ever did get facebook (or log onto it) that it is capable of associating the entire history with all the other data now available.
That isn't going to help you. If you had read TFA you would know that this is about the Facebook Connect 'Like' buttons that have been showing up on many of the popular websites and how it tracks you behaviour even if you aren't signed up with Facebook. Essentially Facebook has become another cross-site marketing tracker which given their abysmal outlook on privacy shouldn't be a surprise but is still worth noting because of their prevalence.
Actually he did better than that being an (apparently) unemployed lawyer. He put in a claim that he was included in this lawsuit for the purposes of harassment (a solid claim given the email trail) and as such if it were dismissed he would be entitled to sanctions against the litigant. He also claims that he is in the process of establishing a legal practice so while he is not entitled to lawyers fees (because he is representing himself pro se) his firm would be denied his services (as the only lawyer) and harmed so he should be entitled to reasonable travel expenses and an attourney's rate of billing for the time involved if forced to travel to represent himself. Given that his firm is in the process of being established he can set whatever he wants (as long as it passes the sniff test) for his hourly rate since there are no clients to complain that it would be to high yet and then 'adjust' it down afterwards.
Are you serious? You can sue anyone for anything no matter how rediculous it is in the US. If your claim isn't seriously flawed (by flawed I mean using the wrong legal term not completely nonsensical) then the defendant must file a response or you win by default. Once the response is filed the majority of rediculous lawsuits are summarily dismissed.
Not really. In this case the litigant doesn't actually have to respond to those motions because they are directed to the court rather than opposing council. One might be able to make an argument that it is 'multiplying the proceedings in any case unreasonably' (28 USC 1927) by forcing the judge to consider those arguments but given that it is both standard procedure for lawyers to file those motions even when they aren't expected to succeed and takes at most 30 seconds of time to consider, it would be an extremely difficult claim to have hold up.
What they really object to is the (often) successful motion that the court has no 'personal jurisdiction' over the defendant and instead of being able to file as a single case against 5000 Does paying a single filing fee, proceeding in a friendly court, and arguing against unrepresented individuals they will be forced to file their lawsuit in the appropriate venue, paying for each individual, and having to contend with opposing council. That is what makes their scam less profitable but they can't actually come out and claim that because it would expose the fact that they are abusing the system and the goal is not 'reasonable accomadation' but achieving a settlement with the minimum cost possible regardless of the defendants actual guilt.
Absolutely correct. This is standard operating procedure for lawyers to file for dismisal and a protective order even when they don't expect it to succeed, simply because it preserves routes for appeal and there is the possibility the opposing lawyer will screw up and it will get through. That said, one of the three claims his forms make which is that the district overseeing the legal action does not have personal jurisdiction is valid for most potential purchasers and should have the suit dismissed and forced to be refilled in the appropriate venue (which typically isn't as friendly to this sort of business as the venues chosen by the litigants).
Go to your local airport and start taking pictures of planes and see how long it takes for your camera to be confiscated and you are arrested or threatened with arrest. Or any number of local completely legal things to photograph like government buildings, rail yards, police officers arresting someone, or a metro station.
You will rapidly discover that the US has defacto criminalized public photography under the guise of 'protecting us from the terrorists'.
Not really if it is anything like my university was they don't offer tuition refunds after the course drop date (which was 28 days after the course began).
If they were looking at lost funds for future semesters they could usually replace most of those with temporarily lowered requirements or incentives for transfers. Most universities have vastly more applicants than they do spots for students.
I don't think that it is cool at all but rather a capitulation to fear of lawsuits. If I were one of the legitimate students I would be enraged that the cheaters were being given a second chance after getting caught. The message the university is sending is that if you cheat, get caught, and say 'aww shucks, I promise not to do it again' that you can get away with it. This isn't going to be the first time these students cheated and if it is the last it is only because they are scared of getting caught not because they recognize the value of hard work or that it is wrong. I suspect that the majority of these students will cheat again if given the oppurtunity, obviously not using the publishers key but by some other technique.
Academic censure or expulsion are the only acceptable outcomes for clear cut cases of cheating. Unfortunately I suspect that the truth is that their certainty of who the cheaters are is rather less than the claimed 95% and their ability to prove it is almost non-existent so this approach is being taken to avoid the inevitable lawsuits that would occur with an expulsion. Hopefully they take the data from the new exam and cross-reference it with the old results to improve their identification of cheaters in the future at least.
If they arbitrarily lowered HRC's pagerank than it would definitely be an abuse of their monopoly. On the other hand if they altered their algorithm in a way that negatively effected HRC's pagerank, but also collaterally altered other sites rankings it would probably be ok. As long as they can make a straight-faced argument that their change somehow improved the accuracy of the system then they would win any lawsuit that could be brought agaisnt them.
Presumably Amazon. If it is just as easy for me to pirate the book in the first place than to strip the (unethical) DRM from it, I'm likely to just pirate it in the first place. If I do that then Amazon loses out on what I might have shelled out for that.
I don't think that premeditation evens gets close to 'thoughtcrime'. If you think about doing something and never actually do it then it is entirely irrelevant, if you think about something and take tangible acts to further that (illegal) plan then you can get into the realm covered by 'conspiracy to X', and if you think about something and take acts to prepare for a criminal act that you complete then you are looking at premeditation.
The reason that I feel that premeditation is a valid is that it reflects on your intent to cause the harm and the opportunity to recognize that what you are planning to do is illegal. This is why we have different statutes for 1st degree murder and manslaughter because while the victim may be just as dead either way it is considered more 'evil' to plot someones death than if it occurs in an accident that wasn't intended to cause their death.
In most countries where there is gun control (most Western style countries other than the US) it is viewed as a modifier of intent which is why it is treated more harshly by law. The attitude is that there is little to no justification or use for a gun other than to intimidate with or actual cause harm and thus having a gun implies premeditation - even if you grabbed the gun from your drawer the instant before firing.
I think you answered your own question there. Also add the fact that Firesheep is intended partially as a publicity stunt so it has higher visibility than the standard 'hackers' who are trying to keep under the radar. The author has given interviews on it to several sites and articles detailing its use and the general inseurity of session based cookies have been a coordinated part of this publicity push and a natural consequence of it being popular enough that articles on it garner pageviews.
I'm not an expert on wireless encryption but doesn't WPA encrypt using a specified key for all users of the same wireless network rather than providing specific individual keys on a per user basis?
Wouldn't that mean that anybody able to access the access point could still harvest the un-encrypted cookies using Firesheep given the primary demonstration of the problem is with public wireless networks at coffee shops and airports?
The main idea is that DotA is hamstringed by being built over the (now outdated) Warcraft III engine. Because the engine is developed by a seperate entity and no longer recieves updates it is often difficult to develop new concepts properly and it has begun to look old visually.
By rebuilding it on a new engine it gives control to allow them to maintain a higher level of visuals and they can modify and expand on the engine to allow possibilities that are blocked by engine limitations.
Frankly though I don't know why anyone would bother remaking DotA other than as a vanity project. Heroes of Newearth has already done a faithful rebuilt version of the game with new graphics and League of Legends has taken the genre and made it much more fun and accessible.
Slashdot Mirror
I felt sortof dirty for agreeing so wholeheartedly with a decision supported by Harper. Guess it goes to prove that the Conservatives are actually capable of making decisions in the best interest of Canadians in their efforts to make us America light.
The theory is that the production of child pornography fundamentally requires a child to have been abused. Thus by possessing such an image you are complicit in that abuse and create incentives to do so. I'm not convinced that it would be a sound theory in reality even if it weren't for the fact that the same laws criminalize non-abuse involved images produced by artists without the use of a model and fictional stories that include child sexuality. Overall the entire mass of 'child porn' laws are predicated on the theory that seeing sexual images of children will cause individuals who otherwise would not to commit sexual abuse, something that is fairly contrary to most studies.
As for anything else illegal that does no harm just by itself, I think that snuff films are also illegal in the US. Otherwise the US is fairly tolerable (in theory) about not criminalizing depictions of criminal acts. Other jurisdictions vary greatly but are much more frequent to criminalize things that are considered harmless by the US.
That depends entirely on the whether the law is fundamentally flawed or not.
When anti-miscegenation laws were on the books there were no set of circumstances that would lead non-racists to convict because the law was morally bankrupt. The same applies to most sodomy laws which remain on the books in many states and countries. You can even see this in a recent marijuana possession case where they were unable to find 12 members of the jury pool who were willing to apply the proscribed penalties for the 1/16th of an ounce the man was in possession of. http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/article_d6b1aaca-edfc-527f-ad11-f1691fdc6e3b.html
When the law has fallen out of touch with society or the penalties are grossly inappropriate to the crime it is not improper to conclude that you would find it impossible to convict.
Obviously in more complicated cases deciding in advance that you would or would not convict is improper and harmful to society. Though many states also refuse to seat jurors who are morally opposed to capital punishment in murder trials that could carry that penalty even when they will consider the evidence and render a fair judgement.
Jury nullification is nearly impossible these days due to the way jury selection is performed. Anyone who truthfully answers that they are unwilling to apply the proscribed penalities in a particular case will not be seated for the trial which removes the vast majority of potential 'nullifiers'.
Your argument is analogous to telling women that 'if you didn't want to get raped, you shouldn't have dressed so sexy'.
Just like women have the right to dress sexy and not raped, men have the right to spend time around women alone and have consensual sex without being falsely accused of rape. We shouldn't have to regress to Talibanic inter-sex relations where men and women are not allowed to associate with non-family members of the opposite gender to avoid being accused of sexual impropriety, though typically it is the woman who is punished (regardless of fault or validity) for this sort of behaviour.
I follow divorce and divorce related legal decisions fairly closely as a function of my job and have never come across any legal charges filed, let alone sustained against this sort of person. Typically the best outcome that comes from this is that the the family court judge decides that it is indicative of poor judgment and decision making that comprimises their ability to provide responsible childcare and assigns custody to the other parent. Unfortunately even when the accusation is proven to be false it is difficult to prove that it is malicious and judges don't want to end up in the paper years later for having forced the children to go with a molestor and will instead order shared custody as an ass-covering technique.
Credibility isn't a commodity that one can compare in simple numerical values. By your logic a woman accuses two men of raping her but they both deny it, thus she is a liar and they committed no crime.
In this particular case the credibility of the two women is particularly suspect because neither of them came forward with any allegations of wrongdoing at the time and continued to socialise with him. It was only after the two women(who are reportedly friends prior to this incident) got together and discovered that he had been sleeping with both of them and agreed to go to the police together. While he may have raped them or comitted a sexual crime the fact they didn't feel what had occured merited police attention individually makes it seem like it could be a case of collaboration to revise history because they are angry at him.
The cables are themselves governmental dealings and if US diplomats are telling their superiors that foreign heads of state are having an affair or are taking psychiatric drugs it is a relevant political fact. If there were diplomatic cables discussing Tiger Woods' sexual misadventures then it would be worthwhile for Wikileaks to divulge as it informs on what our government is thinking and engaged in.
He stayed in the country for the police to interview but they refused. Then after a cursory meeting they told him he could leave the country which he did. The next day a prosecutor in a different part of the country reinstated and increased the charges. While in the UK he offered to meet with the police through teleconferencing, meeting at their embassy, or by telephone but was refused and they insisted on his returning to the country (at his own expense) to be questioned. Additionally while refusing to inform Assange's lawyer of what charges were being investigated (in violation of international law) they were selectively leaking information to the press (which is highly ironic, but also wrong).
While he may have commited a crime of a sexual nature, the prosecutor has been acting in bad faith from the beginning and unwilling to make reasonable accomodations.
While it isn't surprising, it is important to keep noting the ongoing invasion of privacy that occurs online. Analytics is pretty upfront about the fact that it is going to be collecting data while Facebook Connect is not and adding it to a site is likely to be a choice made by less savvy marketing types rather than the technically inclined who would automatically assume anything that can track will be tracking.
It is also worthwhile from the fact that it covers how it tracks non-facebook users and how if they ever did get facebook (or log onto it) that it is capable of associating the entire history with all the other data now available.
That isn't going to help you. If you had read TFA you would know that this is about the Facebook Connect 'Like' buttons that have been showing up on many of the popular websites and how it tracks you behaviour even if you aren't signed up with Facebook. Essentially Facebook has become another cross-site marketing tracker which given their abysmal outlook on privacy shouldn't be a surprise but is still worth noting because of their prevalence.
Actually he did better than that being an (apparently) unemployed lawyer. He put in a claim that he was included in this lawsuit for the purposes of harassment (a solid claim given the email trail) and as such if it were dismissed he would be entitled to sanctions against the litigant. He also claims that he is in the process of establishing a legal practice so while he is not entitled to lawyers fees (because he is representing himself pro se) his firm would be denied his services (as the only lawyer) and harmed so he should be entitled to reasonable travel expenses and an attourney's rate of billing for the time involved if forced to travel to represent himself. Given that his firm is in the process of being established he can set whatever he wants (as long as it passes the sniff test) for his hourly rate since there are no clients to complain that it would be to high yet and then 'adjust' it down afterwards.
Are you serious? You can sue anyone for anything no matter how rediculous it is in the US. If your claim isn't seriously flawed (by flawed I mean using the wrong legal term not completely nonsensical) then the defendant must file a response or you win by default. Once the response is filed the majority of rediculous lawsuits are summarily dismissed.
Not really. In this case the litigant doesn't actually have to respond to those motions because they are directed to the court rather than opposing council. One might be able to make an argument that it is 'multiplying the proceedings in any case unreasonably' (28 USC 1927) by forcing the judge to consider those arguments but given that it is both standard procedure for lawyers to file those motions even when they aren't expected to succeed and takes at most 30 seconds of time to consider, it would be an extremely difficult claim to have hold up.
What they really object to is the (often) successful motion that the court has no 'personal jurisdiction' over the defendant and instead of being able to file as a single case against 5000 Does paying a single filing fee, proceeding in a friendly court, and arguing against unrepresented individuals they will be forced to file their lawsuit in the appropriate venue, paying for each individual, and having to contend with opposing council. That is what makes their scam less profitable but they can't actually come out and claim that because it would expose the fact that they are abusing the system and the goal is not 'reasonable accomadation' but achieving a settlement with the minimum cost possible regardless of the defendants actual guilt.
Absolutely correct. This is standard operating procedure for lawyers to file for dismisal and a protective order even when they don't expect it to succeed, simply because it preserves routes for appeal and there is the possibility the opposing lawyer will screw up and it will get through. That said, one of the three claims his forms make which is that the district overseeing the legal action does not have personal jurisdiction is valid for most potential purchasers and should have the suit dismissed and forced to be refilled in the appropriate venue (which typically isn't as friendly to this sort of business as the venues chosen by the litigants).
Go to your local airport and start taking pictures of planes and see how long it takes for your camera to be confiscated and you are arrested or threatened with arrest. Or any number of local completely legal things to photograph like government buildings, rail yards, police officers arresting someone, or a metro station.
You will rapidly discover that the US has defacto criminalized public photography under the guise of 'protecting us from the terrorists'.
Not really if it is anything like my university was they don't offer tuition refunds after the course drop date (which was 28 days after the course began).
If they were looking at lost funds for future semesters they could usually replace most of those with temporarily lowered requirements or incentives for transfers. Most universities have vastly more applicants than they do spots for students.
I don't think that it is cool at all but rather a capitulation to fear of lawsuits. If I were one of the legitimate students I would be enraged that the cheaters were being given a second chance after getting caught. The message the university is sending is that if you cheat, get caught, and say 'aww shucks, I promise not to do it again' that you can get away with it. This isn't going to be the first time these students cheated and if it is the last it is only because they are scared of getting caught not because they recognize the value of hard work or that it is wrong. I suspect that the majority of these students will cheat again if given the oppurtunity, obviously not using the publishers key but by some other technique.
Academic censure or expulsion are the only acceptable outcomes for clear cut cases of cheating. Unfortunately I suspect that the truth is that their certainty of who the cheaters are is rather less than the claimed 95% and their ability to prove it is almost non-existent so this approach is being taken to avoid the inevitable lawsuits that would occur with an expulsion. Hopefully they take the data from the new exam and cross-reference it with the old results to improve their identification of cheaters in the future at least.
If they arbitrarily lowered HRC's pagerank than it would definitely be an abuse of their monopoly. On the other hand if they altered their algorithm in a way that negatively effected HRC's pagerank, but also collaterally altered other sites rankings it would probably be ok. As long as they can make a straight-faced argument that their change somehow improved the accuracy of the system then they would win any lawsuit that could be brought agaisnt them.
Presumably Amazon. If it is just as easy for me to pirate the book in the first place than to strip the (unethical) DRM from it, I'm likely to just pirate it in the first place. If I do that then Amazon loses out on what I might have shelled out for that.
I don't think that premeditation evens gets close to 'thoughtcrime'. If you think about doing something and never actually do it then it is entirely irrelevant, if you think about something and take tangible acts to further that (illegal) plan then you can get into the realm covered by 'conspiracy to X', and if you think about something and take acts to prepare for a criminal act that you complete then you are looking at premeditation.
The reason that I feel that premeditation is a valid is that it reflects on your intent to cause the harm and the opportunity to recognize that what you are planning to do is illegal. This is why we have different statutes for 1st degree murder and manslaughter because while the victim may be just as dead either way it is considered more 'evil' to plot someones death than if it occurs in an accident that wasn't intended to cause their death.
In most countries where there is gun control (most Western style countries other than the US) it is viewed as a modifier of intent which is why it is treated more harshly by law. The attitude is that there is little to no justification or use for a gun other than to intimidate with or actual cause harm and thus having a gun implies premeditation - even if you grabbed the gun from your drawer the instant before firing.
I think you answered your own question there. Also add the fact that Firesheep is intended partially as a publicity stunt so it has higher visibility than the standard 'hackers' who are trying to keep under the radar. The author has given interviews on it to several sites and articles detailing its use and the general inseurity of session based cookies have been a coordinated part of this publicity push and a natural consequence of it being popular enough that articles on it garner pageviews.
I'm not an expert on wireless encryption but doesn't WPA encrypt using a specified key for all users of the same wireless network rather than providing specific individual keys on a per user basis?
Wouldn't that mean that anybody able to access the access point could still harvest the un-encrypted cookies using Firesheep given the primary demonstration of the problem is with public wireless networks at coffee shops and airports?
The main idea is that DotA is hamstringed by being built over the (now outdated) Warcraft III engine. Because the engine is developed by a seperate entity and no longer recieves updates it is often difficult to develop new concepts properly and it has begun to look old visually.
By rebuilding it on a new engine it gives control to allow them to maintain a higher level of visuals and they can modify and expand on the engine to allow possibilities that are blocked by engine limitations.
Frankly though I don't know why anyone would bother remaking DotA other than as a vanity project. Heroes of Newearth has already done a faithful rebuilt version of the game with new graphics and League of Legends has taken the genre and made it much more fun and accessible.