I'm not worried about Big Brother watching me all the time. I'm worried about an infrastructure where Big Brother doesn't have to watch me. Why? Because if, for whatever reason, Big Brother does become interested in me, all he has to do is run a quick query and he knows everything there is to know about me.
It takes a lot of time, money, and manpower to watch one person. The average joe certainly isn't worth it. Something like Echelon, however, is relatively inexpensive, particularly when you're talking a shared expense among nation sized budgets.
Being libertarian doesn't mean you must stockpile guns. It does mean, however, that you must respect someone else's right to do so. You can define libertarianism in many ways but all of them essentially boil down to "An' it harm none, do as thou wilt."
If you're advocating the use of force against me to remove my guns from my possesion, when I have not first offered violence against you, then you're violating the basic principle of libertarianism. Violence against another is only justified in self defense. You can call yourself what you wish, of course, but applying labels don't make it so.
I don't oppose gun control because of the 2nd amendment to the US Constitution. In fact, the existence of the amendments is not a reason for any of my beliefs. The Constitution does not grant me a single right. Rather, it's a legal protection of the rights that I intrinsically possess as a human being. I'll use the existence of the Second Amendment as a tool to help prevent the US Government from trampling on my rights. But even if the Constitution were amended to completely remove the 2nd, it would not remove my rights to live freely and in the manner which most pleases me.
Oh, BS. How much do a pair of Nikes cost you? Why do so many people pay so much for Nike when you can buy another shoe, just as good, for a third the price? Advertising.
If Nike quit paying Mike and Tiger thier millions, how many shoes do you think they'd be selling in a couple of years?
Yes. You decide and it kills Doubleclick and co's ID of you. That's WHY it's a pun (pun: "The use of a word having two more or lessincongrous meanings", Doubleday Dictionary).
It was a short story. I believe it first appeared in Amazing Stories or one of the other early sf rags. I have it in volume one of a collection of Asimov stories that was available from the Science Fiction Book Club. Their web site no longer lists it as available, however.
I don't think we're in danger of being wiped out tomorrow. I'm not sure how old you are, but my first computer was a Commodore VIC 20. The 20 stood for 20k of memory. This was about 15 years ago. Compare the games available on that system with any of the ones you mentioned. If computers have progressed that far in 15 years, what will the AI be like in another 15 years?
That being said, I have a hard time getting too worried about this. People have been crying about the end of (life|humanity|civilization) for centuries. We're still here.
Doesn't Linus Torvald own the trademark on the name "Linux"? I don't see this as a serious problem, but if it really got to BE one, seems like Linux could simply say "Do what you want with the code IAW the GPL. However, if you're not compatible with the LSB (or some other standard he prefers), you can't market is as Linux." How quickly would the distributors jump to ensure compatibility then?
The story was "The Last Question." For those not familiar with it, it begins with someone asking a computer the question "How can you reverse entropy?" The computer doesn't know. It then follows the evolution of mankind and the computer through the millenium with the question being asked in various forms. At last, all the stars have burned out and the only thing left is the computer still trying to solve the last, unanswered question. Then the computer says "Let there be light" and there was light.
A record company releases a recording under a license which says (in essence) "You may listen to this. You may make copies for your own personal use. You may not distribute copies of this to others." Someone buys it, ignores the license and distributes it as an MP3. Your response is "So what? The record company is no worse off. Time to come up with a new system."
John Carmack writes the Quake engine and releases it under a license which says (in essence) "You can use this any way you like for your personal use. If you release a product based upon this, you must release the source code as well." Someone takes the source, creates a modified version of the program and releases it, but doesn't want to release the source. Carmack is no worse off and there is no real way to stop the distribution of the program if the author wants to distribute it via "warez" web sites. Still, Carmack threatens to sue and everyone applauds.
What's the real difference in those two scenarios? Either you have the right to control how something you create is used and how it is distributed to others or you do not. If you do, MP3s are wrong. If you do not, the entire Open Source movement is a pipe dream.
You can laugh and jeer at the inept responses by the record companies. You can rail at proposed censorship. But you can not justify the act itself.
This story is from the AP. Yahoo! simply reprinted it. I just sent this email to feedback@ap.org:
A story entitled "Software Co. Sues Hackers" by TED BRIDIS, AP Technology Writer, appeared on Yahoo! News (http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20000315/tc/inter net_decency_hackers_1.html). The first line of the story reads:
"A company that makes popular software to block children from pornographic Internet sites filed an unusual lawsuit late Wednesday against two computer experts who developed a method for kids to deduce their parents' password and access those Web sites."
This line is grossly misleading . Cyber Patrol, the software in question, is a filter program which prevents access to web sites which it deems unsuitable. Microsystems Software refuses to release specific info about which sites are blocked, or the specific criteria which it uses to determine those sites. If Cyber Patrol were used solely in private homes by parents to limit browsing by their own children, this would not be a problem. There are legal movements underway, however, to require use of such software in public libraries and other places of public internet access. When these programs are used to restrict public browsing, the public has a right to know which sites are being censored and why. Cursory use of the software shows that it blocks numerous sites which are not pornographic, such as sites on breast cancer, gay rights and birth control. If Microsystems Software will not release this information, it leaves the public no choice but to seek it via reverse engineering of the software itself.
To present the software which decrypts the list of blocked sites as simply and solely a tool to allow children to circumvent the protections is simplistic, unfair and ignores the much deeper issues involved. Such oversimplifications are a violation of journalistic integrity for an organization which purports to report the news fairly and without bias.
In general, I agree. A unique trademark name should be protected. This does, however, raise a few questions. What if I register microsoftsucks.com? Should MS be able to sue me for violating their trademark?
The issue with webmusic.com gives me pause, however. I'm not sure if it's a precedent setting decision, since the defendent didn't even respond and denied any claim to the name. If he'd fought back, the decision might have gone the other way. Still, the domain name was registered in '95. The trademark was registered in '98. Does this mean that you not only have to register your domain name but trademark it as well to prevent some "trademark squatter" from taking away your domain?
Good shot. Too bad you aimed at the wrong target. It isn't "scientists" (ie the researchers) that need to get the point because it's not scientists who make those decisions. (In most cases, anyway. There are exceptions to most anything.) It's those running the companies or funding the research that make the decisions on how the knowledge will be controlled and disseminated.
Baron Harkonnen was decadent and twisted. He was also extremely shrewd and dangerous. In the movie, he was simply a perverted buffoon. That movie was an abomination and no amount of directing or editing could have saved it. Heartplugs! Sheesh.
My understanding was that they weren't selling the entire report, which would clearly be illegal. Instead, they were compiling specific data, such as a list of everyone who had a VISA Platinum card, everyone who had been turned down for a second mortgage in the last six months, etc. They were only selling a list of the names and addresses, which is why they claimed that they weren't selling credit reports and weren't violating the law. I believe they also were selling custom lists. For example, you could order a list of everyone who:
IANAL. However, credit reporting agencies have access to a great deal of personal info on you. If you're late on a payment, they get notified. If you apply for credit and are turned down, they are notified. If you get a judgement against you, they are notified. It's because they have so much access that they're more tightly regulated. Bob's Auto doesn't have access to any of this and I'm almost positive that Bob's Auto can not pass on the info on your credit report. All they can pass on is the info that you yourself reveal to them or that they get from other sources than your credit report. If I'm not mistaken, Bob's Auto can't even legally show YOU your OWN credit report, much less pass it to someone else.
OR... Windows2000 doesn't work with a bunch of games. They test this BEFORE releasing it, fix it, and don't need to put out a patch the day after release.
What they're trying to prevent is neither of the two you mentioned. They're not worried about the big players; they're worried about the little guy. It's mass noncommercial piracy; the same thing that's happening right now with Napster and MP3s. It's the ability of one person to buy a movie and pass it on to a few thousand or million others in an untraceable manner and with no loss in quality. There's no factory to track down and bust, there's no shipment of counterfeits to intercept. There's no flow of payment back to the pirate for the police to follow.
I think they have a legitimate area of concern. That doesn't excuse their clueless actions or assinine lawsuits, of course. But artists do deserve to be compensated for their efforts. The solution, I think, is going to involve more of a change in the business model than it is somehow magically putting the genie back into the bottle. But a change in the business model isn't something the big wigs who see their cash cow being slaughtered want to hear.
Essentially, the idea is that it should work like encryption over the net. The monitor and the playback device establish communications and talk over an encrypted channel. The monitor is not just a passive device. It actively communicates with the DVD player (or whatever.) Recording a stream of encrypted data and playing it back will not work because the monitor will not get the proper response.
I'll freely admit that I'm ignorant on many of these matters, particularly when it comes to the fine details. However, there are a lot of ftp servers on the web. Are you telling me that it's impossible to set up an ftp server that doesn't compromise your security? I'm currently awaiting the install of my DSL line. One of the things I want to do is set up a cheesy little family photo site. Everyone can scan in their old photos of grandma and grandpa and upload them for everyone else to share, etc. A lot of the people who will be using this are not highly computer literate. I don't want them to have to install a new program just to get to it. I can't do this safely?
Wow, two posts, both on topic. No "I'm first!" crap.
One of the problems seems to be trying to figure out what someone else is going to try to patent. I'd have never thought about trying to patent either of the two examples mentioned. They just seem to obvious. Even if you had the money to submit the patents, you can't patent everything.
Our patent laws are in desperate need of revision when it comes to software, etc.
This wouldn't solve the problem of tryint to patent everything and require some changes in the law, but one way to implement something like this would be a no-profit, no-cost registration. You would fill out a patent form and submit it to a pd database. No research would be done nor would you be able to charge others for the patent. The form would just sit there until someone else submitted a "normal" patent application. Part of that process would be researching the pd database for other registrations. If there's already a pd patent on it, your personal patent would get denied.
If you ask the people who call this the new millennium what a millennium is, they'll still tell you that it's a thousand years. The error isn't in word definition, it's a mathematical error.
Technically, a motor converts electrical energy into mechanical energy. But look it up in the dictionary and you'll also find that it's an internal combustion engine. Why? Common useage. The meaning of the word has evolved. Within the engineering fields, it's still technically incorrect to refer to an engine as a motor. In general conversation, however, it's linguistically correct.
The political twisting of words isn't so much a twisting of definitions as it is applying a word to a situation incorrectly in an attempt to persuade or imply that the situation has characteristics which it in fact doesn't. (Hopefully, your parser can handle that last sentence!) There's nothing wrong with using technically defined words correctly. There's also nothing wrong with pointing out that a word is used incorrectly in a technical context, or even in a specific cultural context.
Soneone who used hacker to mean a computer criminal while posting to/. can expect to get corrected. Despite it's popularity,/. is still mostly geek culture (or at least those who pretend or aspire to geek culture). But to berate the general press for using it incorrectly is arrogant.
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It takes a lot of time, money, and manpower to watch one person. The average joe certainly isn't worth it. Something like Echelon, however, is relatively inexpensive, particularly when you're talking a shared expense among nation sized budgets.
If you're advocating the use of force against me to remove my guns from my possesion, when I have not first offered violence against you, then you're violating the basic principle of libertarianism. Violence against another is only justified in self defense. You can call yourself what you wish, of course, but applying labels don't make it so.
I don't oppose gun control because of the 2nd amendment to the US Constitution. In fact, the existence of the amendments is not a reason for any of my beliefs. The Constitution does not grant me a single right. Rather, it's a legal protection of the rights that I intrinsically possess as a human being. I'll use the existence of the Second Amendment as a tool to help prevent the US Government from trampling on my rights. But even if the Constitution were amended to completely remove the 2nd, it would not remove my rights to live freely and in the manner which most pleases me.
Van Goth didn't cut off his ear. He just painted it black.
If Nike quit paying Mike and Tiger thier millions, how many shoes do you think they'd be selling in a couple of years?
Yes. You decide and it kills Doubleclick and co's ID of you. That's WHY it's a pun (pun: "The use of a word having two more or lessincongrous meanings", Doubleday Dictionary).
It was a short story. I believe it first appeared in Amazing Stories or one of the other early sf rags. I have it in volume one of a collection of Asimov stories that was available from the Science Fiction Book Club. Their web site no longer lists it as available, however.
That being said, I have a hard time getting too worried about this. People have been crying about the end of (life|humanity|civilization) for centuries. We're still here.
Doesn't Linus Torvald own the trademark on the name "Linux"? I don't see this as a serious problem, but if it really got to BE one, seems like Linux could simply say "Do what you want with the code IAW the GPL. However, if you're not compatible with the LSB (or some other standard he prefers), you can't market is as Linux." How quickly would the distributors jump to ensure compatibility then?
The story was "The Last Question." For those not familiar with it, it begins with someone asking a computer the question "How can you reverse entropy?" The computer doesn't know. It then follows the evolution of mankind and the computer through the millenium with the question being asked in various forms. At last, all the stars have burned out and the only thing left is the computer still trying to solve the last, unanswered question. Then the computer says "Let there be light" and there was light.
John Carmack writes the Quake engine and releases it under a license which says (in essence) "You can use this any way you like for your personal use. If you release a product based upon this, you must release the source code as well." Someone takes the source, creates a modified version of the program and releases it, but doesn't want to release the source. Carmack is no worse off and there is no real way to stop the distribution of the program if the author wants to distribute it via "warez" web sites. Still, Carmack threatens to sue and everyone applauds.
What's the real difference in those two scenarios? Either you have the right to control how something you create is used and how it is distributed to others or you do not. If you do, MP3s are wrong. If you do not, the entire Open Source movement is a pipe dream.
You can laugh and jeer at the inept responses by the record companies. You can rail at proposed censorship. But you can not justify the act itself.
A story entitled "Software Co. Sues Hackers" by TED BRIDIS, AP Technology Writer, appeared on Yahoo! News (http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20000315/tc/inter net_decency_hackers_1.html). The first line of the story reads:
"A company that makes popular software to block children from pornographic Internet sites filed an unusual lawsuit late Wednesday against two computer experts who developed a method for kids to deduce their parents' password and access those Web sites."
This line is grossly misleading . Cyber Patrol, the software in question, is a filter program which prevents access to web sites which it deems unsuitable. Microsystems Software refuses to release specific info about which sites are blocked, or the specific criteria which it uses to determine those sites. If Cyber Patrol were used solely in private homes by parents to limit browsing by their own children, this would not be a problem. There are legal movements underway, however, to require use of such software in public libraries and other places of public internet access. When these programs are used to restrict public browsing, the public has a right to know which sites are being censored and why. Cursory use of the software shows that it blocks numerous sites which are not pornographic, such as sites on breast cancer, gay rights and birth control. If Microsystems Software will not release this information, it leaves the public no choice but to seek it via reverse engineering of the software itself.
To present the software which decrypts the list of blocked sites as simply and solely a tool to allow children to circumvent the protections is simplistic, unfair and ignores the much deeper issues involved. Such oversimplifications are a violation of journalistic integrity for an organization which purports to report the news fairly and without bias.
Isn't this question just another form of Zenos paradox?
The issue with webmusic.com gives me pause, however. I'm not sure if it's a precedent setting decision, since the defendent didn't even respond and denied any claim to the name. If he'd fought back, the decision might have gone the other way. Still, the domain name was registered in '95. The trademark was registered in '98. Does this mean that you not only have to register your domain name but trademark it as well to prevent some "trademark squatter" from taking away your domain?
Good shot. Too bad you aimed at the wrong target. It isn't "scientists" (ie the researchers) that need to get the point because it's not scientists who make those decisions. (In most cases, anyway. There are exceptions to most anything.) It's those running the companies or funding the research that make the decisions on how the knowledge will be controlled and disseminated.
Baron Harkonnen was decadent and twisted. He was also extremely shrewd and dangerous. In the movie, he was simply a perverted buffoon. That movie was an abomination and no amount of directing or editing could have saved it. Heartplugs! Sheesh.
had a Platinum card AND
owned their own home AND
had taken out a car loan for over $50,000.
IANAL. However, credit reporting agencies have access to a great deal of personal info on you. If you're late on a payment, they get notified. If you apply for credit and are turned down, they are notified. If you get a judgement against you, they are notified. It's because they have so much access that they're more tightly regulated. Bob's Auto doesn't have access to any of this and I'm almost positive that Bob's Auto can not pass on the info on your credit report. All they can pass on is the info that you yourself reveal to them or that they get from other sources than your credit report. If I'm not mistaken, Bob's Auto can't even legally show YOU your OWN credit report, much less pass it to someone else.
OR... Windows2000 doesn't work with a bunch of games. They test this BEFORE releasing it, fix it, and don't need to put out a patch the day after release.
I think they have a legitimate area of concern. That doesn't excuse their clueless actions or assinine lawsuits, of course. But artists do deserve to be compensated for their efforts. The solution, I think, is going to involve more of a change in the business model than it is somehow magically putting the genie back into the bottle. But a change in the business model isn't something the big wigs who see their cash cow being slaughtered want to hear.
Essentially, the idea is that it should work like encryption over the net. The monitor and the playback device establish communications and talk over an encrypted channel. The monitor is not just a passive device. It actively communicates with the DVD player (or whatever.) Recording a stream of encrypted data and playing it back will not work because the monitor will not get the proper response.
I'll freely admit that I'm ignorant on many of these matters, particularly when it comes to the fine details. However, there are a lot of ftp servers on the web. Are you telling me that it's impossible to set up an ftp server that doesn't compromise your security? I'm currently awaiting the install of my DSL line. One of the things I want to do is set up a cheesy little family photo site. Everyone can scan in their old photos of grandma and grandpa and upload them for everyone else to share, etc. A lot of the people who will be using this are not highly computer literate. I don't want them to have to install a new program just to get to it. I can't do this safely?
The REAL question - who are they going to get to play American Maid?!?
One of the problems seems to be trying to figure out what someone else is going to try to patent. I'd have never thought about trying to patent either of the two examples mentioned. They just seem to obvious. Even if you had the money to submit the patents, you can't patent everything.
Our patent laws are in desperate need of revision when it comes to software, etc.
This wouldn't solve the problem of tryint to patent everything and require some changes in the law, but one way to implement something like this would be a no-profit, no-cost registration. You would fill out a patent form and submit it to a pd database. No research would be done nor would you be able to charge others for the patent. The form would just sit there until someone else submitted a "normal" patent application. Part of that process would be researching the pd database for other registrations. If there's already a pd patent on it, your personal patent would get denied.
Technically, a motor converts electrical energy into mechanical energy. But look it up in the dictionary and you'll also find that it's an internal combustion engine. Why? Common useage. The meaning of the word has evolved. Within the engineering fields, it's still technically incorrect to refer to an engine as a motor. In general conversation, however, it's linguistically correct.
The political twisting of words isn't so much a twisting of definitions as it is applying a word to a situation incorrectly in an attempt to persuade or imply that the situation has characteristics which it in fact doesn't. (Hopefully, your parser can handle that last sentence!) There's nothing wrong with using technically defined words correctly. There's also nothing wrong with pointing out that a word is used incorrectly in a technical context, or even in a specific cultural context.
Soneone who used hacker to mean a computer criminal while posting to /. can expect to get corrected. Despite it's popularity, /. is still mostly geek culture (or at least those who pretend or aspire to geek culture). But to berate the general press for using it incorrectly is arrogant.
Right statement, wrong emphasis. No _one_ decides what a word means.
Therefore everyone's opinion is just as good as everyone's fact. And according to me, it's a fact that "hacker" is not a computer criminal.
Words don't have absolute meanings. They do have current meanings. The definition of hacker you prefer is A meaning. It is not THE meaning.