And yes, I have read Sun Zu too and the example you provided is a very good one of the fascist nature of the traditional military. Isn't it a bit paradoxal that to protect democratic institutions you need a fascist one?
One word: speed. In combat, you don't have time for a discussion, a debate or hesitation. There are two types of people on the battlefield, the quick and the dead.
Democratic methods move slowly, so they don't tend to fare well in combat situations. -- Python
What I'm trying to say is, that 'The People' have very little to say what the soldiers of their armies do.
Except that in the US, where I am from (on that point you are correct), the military is made up of volunteer citizens (no conscription) that take an oath to uphold and defend the constitution not blindly follow orders from any president. We also have laws that restrict what the military can do and a strong ethic that runs to the core of our fighting forces that restrains what those units do.
I'm not sure what you are suggesting or complaining about. We have a well disciplined, lawful and powerful military that obeys the orders given it by our democratically elected civilian government. -- Python
've actually had a few MRE's.. Theyre not bad, not big, and dont really weigh much.
True (although, try humping enough for a week or more... they take up more space than you think), but you still have to stop and eat those MREs, and sometimes you just can't stop to eat - so you go without. Eating is a very low priority in combat (even though you have to do it), so its get cut out of the plan sometimes - even though, as I said, you need to eat. Time is finite.
So something like this patch would do away with that problem, at least temporarily so that missions could still be met without undoly reducing combat effectiveness in those units. -- Python
Heh... no, just stay awake. Sometimes you have to go for days without sleep to make mission, and this process can repeat itself over weeks - so you get extremely strung out and tired alot in most combat units. I can remember many times having been awake so long, that on night missions my mind didn't understand that my eyes were open, and just decided to start dreaming. Thats always fun... an eyes open fully tactile dream. Obviously, you want to prevent this - hence the need for LOTS of caffeine.
I've literally eaten the coffee grounds from my MREs on the spot to keep me awake. After awhile, I started carrying all sorts of legal stimulants to keep me awake as do alot of folks. Since its obviously needed without the rigors of the modern battlefield, someone finally clued into the fact that the military should issue it. The one thing the military is not known for is letting people get enough sleep. There is never enough time to sleep, so something like this is worth the trade off to many higher ups (and its NEEDED anyway). Mission first, sleep never.;-) -- Python
LOL. I remember when those first came out and we made "field expedient entertainment devices" with them... or FEED for short. Same recipe, small bombs, heater, tape and water.
Ah... nothing produces things like this faster that a bunch of bored 11B's sitting at a range playing the hurry up and wait game. -- Python
Human body can go on without food not without liquid for long periods of time...
True, the difference is that in combat the levels of physical and psychological stress are several orders of magnitude greater than anything you will encounter in your civilian life.
So, whereas it is certainly possible to survive for very long periods of time without anything but water (you can go maybe 3 days, tops, under heavy stress without water before you get into very serious trouble and will probably die from dehydration, heat stroke and so on), however the combat effectiveness of a unit diminishes as that unit is forced to go without water and food (in that order). In war, combat effectiveness, not bare minimums, is one of the keys to victory. So, unless you absolutely have no choice, feeding the troops is mandatory to suceeding, no matter how much people can "go without".
There is an old and wise saying in the military, "An army travels on its stomach". When you are buring sometimes upwards of 7000 calories a day (in winter climates, the daily ration is 7000 calories a day for deployments) you can being very cranky and tired if you don't feed those muscles. After a few days of going without, your strength is diminished and your body suffers. And when the body suffers, the mind suffers - and thats a fast path to getting killed.
So look at it this way, when you have 90 pounds of gear in your ruck, another 20 pounds in combat load, an M-60 (another 25 pounds) slung around your neck, your PASGT pulling on your body and neck, coupled with a heavy mission to knock out - food is not a luxury, its FUEL. Without fuel, you're not going anywhere.
As part of Ranger school there is alot of starving involved so that you learn first hand what your body can do in extreme circumstances and you learn you can go without food (amongst other things). However, you do not want to operate in combat like that if you do not have to, and thats what these patches are all about. Some missions move too fast to eat, and that does diminish the combat effectiveness of those units. On the other hand, with something like this nutrional patch (if it works), those units will be that much more likely to succeed in their missions - and thats what its all about.
These patches will do a great job for DRF's, SOG units, Light infantry and other high speed units that have to move fast and may not be able to feed their troops to make mission. Its too bad it will take 25 years before we see it deployed, but it still sounds like a fantastic tool for the War Fighter to have and yet another tool to enhance the combat effectiveness of US fighting forces. -- Python
You do not want soldiers that hesitate, that are limited by the socializing effects of society. Never forget that war is about one thing: killing. Its not natural for a civilized human being to kill another person, without an obvious threat to themselves. Soldiers have to be trained to do this. They have be de-socialized to kill without hesitation. If you hesitate in combat, you die. Period.
Soldiers are taught to kill a person solely because they have been labeled the enemy, because the other side will do the very same thing (at a bare minimum). So again, your concern about soldiers being less than human is ill placed. War is about winning, not making you personally comfortable with what soldiers do for a living. What part of "Soldiers kill people for a living" are you having trouble groking?
Do you want warriors that hesitate to kill and end up being killed themselves, because they need to be "more human"? Or do you want highly disciplined, highly effective killing machines that will execute on the mission we the people given them and then go no further?
If you want to be conquered, you go with a the former, if you want to win a war, you go with the later and you rely on that discipline to keep those troops in line. -- Python
Balderdash. People will be able to use Freenet just like peoples in oppressed countries all over the world are able to use less advanced technologies, like remailers and proxy servers for surfing anonymously NOW. I suggest you do some reading up on how hard it is to detect some of these technologies, let alone block them. The whole point of things like Freenet and remailers it to deal with countries like China and others that control their citizens access to the net.
And the fact that its hard as it is for peoples in those countries to speak freely now is all the more reason for things like Freenet - and all the more reason why we have to make it better and more foolproof so that no can censor content thru it. -- Python
Is the world crying out for a means to anonymously share information via the internet? No, not really.
Its nice to live in a free country where you can so easily say such a thing isn't it? The fact is that most of the peoples of this world live under the constant threat of governments that don't allow them to speak their minds, so its kind of hard for them demand such a thing. When you have freedom, you don't spend much time asking for it do you? There is a huge number of people that not only want the ability to this, but survival demands that they have it - but without it, they can't ASK FOR IT! Wonderful problem eh?
I can't even begin to count the number of times that I've gotten e-mail from persons in Singapore, China and other places thanking me for running an anonymous remailer and making it possible for them to do something, speak freely, that would otherwise get them killed. A right that you take for granted, which is actually quite rare.
Its all fine and dandy, in a free country, to say that people do not need anonymity to speak freely. "Put your name on it!" they cry, "only criminals need anonymity!", "what are you hiding?" and so on. Ignorance is bliss I suppose. When you have freedom, its hard to understand what its like to live in a country without it.
Never forget this: Most of the world does not have the freedoms that you enjoy. Is the world crying out for a means to speak freely and without the fear of reprisals? Yes they are... just not in public. -- Python
While I agree with the point that supporting free speech means supporting ideas and thoughts that you may not agree with, not every form of expression falls into free speech. Throwing a punch at someone, even if it's a cracker-ass Grand Wizard of the KKK, is not "expression". It's assault, and your butt will rightly be hauled into jail. Ass-fucking a 10 year old boy is not "expression". It's ass-fucking a 10 year old boy -- a minor, and protected (rightly) by law.
The fallacy here is that speech does not equal action and vice versa. You are confusion the action with the speech, and thats apples and oranges. So your whole point is fallacious and your argument falls apart there. It IS OK to talk about punching someone in the face, its not OK to do it most cases. Its OK to talk about, even describe kiddie porn, its not OK to have sex with children.
Kiddie Porn is illegal not because of the speech, but because of the ACTIONS. Its deemed to be so abhorent that videos and pictures of it are illegal as well to, ostensibly, reduce the amount of real pedophila occuring. Its the ACTION thats at stake here, not the speech. Its OK to talk about it, even describe it but to do it, is not legal.
So you're commiting a real logic fallacy equating the two, and your not looking at whether the cure is worse than the disease. -- Python
Sorry, you're dead wrong. The supreme court seems to understand the importance of anomymity. Its not about any of the straw man arguments you built, its about UNPOPULAR ideas. Like politics, religion and yes, even sex. Its about protecting people from the tyranny of the majority.
The very founding fathers of this country were prolific anonymous writers or wrote their political comments under pen names so as to protect their very lives. And there are still countries where speaking out in any form that upsets the local government can get you killed.
The bears repeating: Anonymity is the ONLY shield against the tyranny of the majority. Without it, you kill freedom of speech. Some things are simply TOO dangerous to put your name on. -- Python
Of course, I man have forgetten to mention that this statement: "click of a button have it go with the speed of light to 6 billion people around the world, instantaneously." is pretty absurd all by itself. 6 billion people are not wired, in fact only a few hundred million people in the ENTIRE WORLD are reportely on the net in one form or another - and most of them on are on slow modems. So its safe to say hist entire statment is nothing but alarmist hog wash.
Valenti's entire bag of assumptions are probably equally bogus given how aggregious this one was, and some of the others he touts as "facts". Why anyone listens to him is beyond me. He was dead wrong about VCRs and could have cost the Motion Picture industry BILLIONS if he got his way, thankfully he didn't and we are ALL richer because of it.
In any other industry we would have been fired for such a lack of vision. The sad part is that really important people hang on his every word, and if he says its so, then it must be. This is VCR's all over again. Too bad he's having so much trouble understand it. Honestly, I think he still believes VCR's are a bad idea, and only cause "piracy" (as he claimed only a few years ago). My guess is that he pretends to believe otherwise so as not to look like such a fool in light of the overwhelming fact that he was dead wrong. Wrong to the tune of several billion dollars, while still not understand why he was wrong. I suspect it baffles him personally why VCR's make the industry so much money, when everything he understands about the world tells him they should do otherwise. In short, its probably a fair statement to say that he really does not understand the changes that have taken place in the world of information over the last couple of decades.
The real question is why is the Motion Picture industry listening to him again when he's clearly been wrong about this same sort of thing before? Is this all part of some plan to stall the industry which the MPAA works up some sort of plan to create YET ANOTHER artificial shortage?
I say that is exactly what this is all about. Make your mouth piece someone that doesn't get it, will say what you want him to say, and buy yourself some time so you can engineer the public into paying for a product that they used to be able to get for free (no pay per view!). The sad thing is the American people will go along with it and the world will probably follow along in lock step.
The MPAA and RIAA are all trying to create the same thing: a world where every song, movie, TV show and other form of entertainment is a Pay Per View event. A headlong rush to take the world back to the days where there were no TVs and you had to go to a movie theater to watch a movie. The master plan I suspect is to turn every TV, radio, CD player, computer and so on into the virtual equivalent of a Movie Theater. Pay for your ticket or else! -- Python
Yes, I know that argument. But if you think about it a minute, you will see that the digital world is as far away from the analog world as the lightning is from the lightning bug. For example, in analog you have to go down to a Blockbuster store, then you have to copy it, then it has to be sent physically. Somebody's got to take a truck or a car or DHL and get it to another country. There is a brutish kind of awkward distribution system. Not so on the Internet, where some obscure person sitting in a basement can throw up on the Internet a brand new motion picture, and with the click of a button have it go with the speed of light to 6 billion people around the world, instantaneously. It's totally different, totally different.
No its not. You still have to get in a car and drive to blockbuster, or where ever and get the DVD or VHS tape in both cases (analog and digital). In both cases you can copy either the VHS or DVD into a digital form or "analog" form (I think he means physical versus non-physical copying), and in both cases (the analog copy of the movie and the digital copy of the movie) you can with the "click of a button have it go with the speed of light to 6 billion people around the world, instantaneously."
And in both cases, DVD and VHS, you can also pirate them the "old fashioned" way, which doesn't seem to have such a high marginal cost of production either (since its done).
Additionally, since VCDs and VHS tapes are not protected by CSS, there is a totally unprotected and CHEAP channel (cheaper than DVD) for pirating works into a non-physical form WITHOUT every having to mess with decrypting ANYHING. In short, CSS does not protect the MOVIE, it only protects playback of DVDs. You can still get the entire movie from a totally unprotected source with the full blessing of the MPAA! VHS tapes and VCDs are completely legal and totally unprotected!
Piracy can still carry on, unfettered, no matter what happens with CSS. Tthe MPAA is talking out of both sides of their mouth. Its OK to not protect VCDs or VHS tapes and make fair use of them and yet its REQUIRED that DVDs be protected, that you not be able to make copies of them and that its not OK for you to make fair use of them. Which is it? They both can't be right, and therefore its logially inconsitent.
His logic is so fallacious and vapid, but what do you expect from someone that clearly doesn't understand that movies can be copied right now without ever touching a DVD and be put on the net right now. The world passed Valenti by a long time ago. He was dead wrong about VCRs (and has since admitted it) and he is dead wrong now. This is the exact same argument he made about VCRs. Ah yes... its all so clear to me now: "those that can't remember the past are condemmed to repeat it."
How quickly we forget.
If someone has found some comments of his from the VCR debates of the 80's, I'd love to see them. -- Python
Region codes exist on DVDs in order to prevent retail marketers from circumventing their own internal distribution model. That is, the distributors that the studios deal with to distribute materials around the world pretty much demanded that some sort of region code be added so that the distributors can maintain their effective market position, rather than be bypassed by the store fronts who could otherwise buy the materials from a distributor in another country and save money.
In other words: To screw the consumer. That reason cares no weight, and it shouldn't. I'm very sympathetic to other businesses need to turn a profit (as a fellow business owner), but not when it comes exclusively at the cost to me and is not market driven. Region Codes create an artifical shortage of product, and do not benefit the comsumer. Why would a consumer want to spend more? (Its a rhetorical question - the answer is they wouldn't).
The prosecutor was made aware of the violation of copyright law. But the MPAA doesn't control the Noregian government or their prosecutors; they can only lodge a complaint.
Thats only partially true. The MPAA is a very powerful political powerhouse. They may not directly control the Norweigian government, but they also do not directly control the US Government, and yet their wishes become law somehow thru the US Congress. The reason behind this is very simple, they're a very powerful political lobby. Look at what Jack Valenti used to do!
Its the epitome of niave to believe he couldn't get the Norweigian government to do his bidding. Especially in a case that is hard to explain to the unwashed masses, and is very unlikely to be challeged or questioned by the Norwegians. Don't forget, US courts have bene persuaded by the MPAA to restrict freedom of speech for the MPAA. This is nothing for someone like Valenti to do.
Need I remind anyone that he used to work for Kennedy and Jonhson? I'm sure he has plenty of political favors owed him, and can walk the halls of congress with impunity. Can you imagine what sort of money the MPAA can bring to bear to support a US political? Imagine having the MPAA help run a campaign against you... the threat of that alone must be enought to cause most polticians to buckle on the spot.
And you don't think he can pull some strings and ask the Norweigian government to have one insignificant kid arrested for supposedly breaking a copyright law? If you believe that, you don't understand the world of politics. The MPAA has plenty of control over the Norwegians just like its got the entire US Government in its right pocket. -- Python
Its a lot closer to risk free than a closed sourced OS with millions of bugs in it (28K in Win2K... and those are just the ones they *know* about).
Not to mention how expensive NT is and that us US citizens get to pay for such an inferior product, when better, cheaper, more relaiable options exist. Its inexcusible that the Navy single sourced with NT. Totally inexecusible. -- Python
Wrong. Just because its a law does not make it constitutional. The final test is in the courts (the highest court that is), so its a bit too early to say its constitutional. This point is pretty important to how people view this case - so lets not miss its significance: just because its a law does not mean its constitutional, plenty of laws that have been on the books for decades have been overturned as unconstitutional - and this one has been NEVER been tested.
So, since this is both a highly controversial law and its brand spanking new, its very likely we can get it overturned. This law is VERY open to interreptation, since the higher courts have not reviewed it yet - and the supreme court certainly has certainly not had its finaly say on this.
The down side is that the issues are really hard to explain to lay persons (which include the judges), I have less faith in the highest court this time than I did with the CDA. The CDA was an easy call: it was unconstitutionally vague. This is far more insidious, its a subtle attack on the first amendment cloaked as an IP law (written to "protect property", which makes it even harder to get a a judge to see the REAL issue at stake here - this judge in the MPAA case thinks this a property case!). So its more likey to confuse the judges and get through thru in favor of the MPAA and those in favor of this law.
Be not confused by the rhetoric of those preaching the virtues of this law, this is a First Amendment Case. This law strikes at the very core of your right to freely express yourself, which is why it must be ruled unconstitutional, or we are all doomed.
Your very rights are on the line here. This is not some Open Source case, or something about DVD players - this is about your right to speak your mind, figure things out and build. Without those things, there can be no innovation, no free discourse and no freedom.
Don't sit by and let this happen. Join the EFF and help win this fight! The price of Freedom is Eternal vigiliance. -- Python
Yes I did and I did not say that the issue was decided. That does not change the fact that expression is protected under the First Amendment, so the originial supposition: "DeCSS is not, however much we might like it to be, free speech. Sure, the comments inside the code might be, but the algorithm itself is not" is not the case.
The real point is that the court is literally splitting hairs over this one. Even this judge admits that source might be free speech! So even he thinks the argument has merit. If someone would post the source code, comment the hell out of it, write a huge paper out of it and so on, what materially changes between that and the source code? It certainly doesn't say anymore if you are a competent programmer the source code says everything you need to understand it.
So why the pretense that it has to be something the judge can understand? It is a form of communication and expression. I know plenty of programmers that can't really talk to each other EXCEPT thru their code. The don't even speak each others languages well enough to communicate, but thru the code they are writing together they can say whatever they need to say to each other.
Just because a lay person (in this case the judge. Make no mistake, this judge knows nothing about programming) can not understand the source code, and needs it literally spelled out for them, does not diminish the original expression or that it needs to be protected.
Bernstein is the case that matters here. No its not decided yet, but that doesn't change the fact that this judge doesn't seem to understand the subtle distinction that source code is expression. Did anyone mention to him that source code is NOT machine instructions? What the CPU needs is totally different from what the human being READING it needs. By itself, the source code does nothing. The source code is not the final product that does the execution (it might only be a tiny part of a larger program and simply doesn't work at all without other classes, libraries and so on).
So, hHeres the important part: Source code is not the tool itself, its just some text (source code) to be read by and manipulated by humans. Its a way of expressing, to another human being, what this program does without having to comment the hell out of it (even the person that wrote it herself). High level programming languages are written for people to read, not machines (thats why we have compilers, to translate it into something the machine reads.)
So, since high level programming languages are for the benefit of people, not machines (again so the humans can read it). And reiterating the point that the operative word here is READ, as in text. And since you the author, can only best express your idea by publishing source code to for someone else to READ to fully communicate that idea. Means that it is, indeed, speech, and therefore, being speech, it is fully protected under the first amendment.
So Bernstein is absolutely right when it stipulates that "software in source code form is constitutionally protected expression". This judge in the MPAA case eis rring on the otherside of the equation, and he is simply wrong. -- Python
Unfortunately, the judge is correct. DeCSS is not, however much we might like it to be, free speech. Sure, the comments inside the code might be, but the algorithm itself is not.
Not true. Algorithms have been held up, in US federal court, as speech. Look at some of the cryptography cases and you'll see what I mean. Equally, the entire professional of mathematics would be enjoined from free speech protections if algorithms were not treated as speech. I think you misunderstand what speech is. Speech is not just words or text. Its not even just audio, video or anything else you can fit into a nice tidy list. Speech refers to expression in all its forms. Its a vague concept, on purpose!. This prevents tyrannants of all types from trying to squeeze speech into a nice tidy little bundle they can lock away.
So freedom of speech is not something relegated to text, but to all forms of communication. Be it a painting, a scuplture, dance, spoken words, written words, e-mail, scientific documents, mathematical formulas and even source code, which is a form of expression.
So, this judge is wrong, and hopefully he will either see the error of his ways, or a higher court will overturn his ruling. The bottom line is that this judge is but the first round, and there are plenty of appeals from here to courts which have seen thru this sort of hogwash before and made the right ruling.
Common sense will tell you that code is speech. How else would you express the idea?
You're right about one thing: The DMCA is corrupt. Its the biggest attack on the first amendment ever, and this case proves it. Its far more insidious than the CDA ever was (that was so patently unconstitutional that everyone knew it was going to get overturned), the DMCA on the other hand requires a thorough understanding of the issues (which most judges sorely lack) and hence makes it easy for someone to argue one thing, while getting someones freedom of speech rights enjoined. Its all nice and tidy. On the surface the case looks simple. Its too complex to explain to laypeople, and it lends itself to an emotional argument in favor of restricting speech rights. So the DMCA makes it really easy to control expression, without alerting the masses to the fact that they just got sold down the river.
The DMCA is corrupt alright, and we should work to get it ruled unconstitutional by any means necessary. -- Python
And the fact that something is speech doesn't necessarily give you the right to speak it.
Actually it does. The right to freedom of speech is not granted by the government, its inalienable - and can only be enjoined in very specific cases. The few cases when you can not speak are well defined in the law, and the EFF is trying to point of this is not one of those cases!. Additionally, you have a legal right to reverse engineer. Even the DMCA guarantees this! So again, in this case, the authors of this reverse engineered bit of code have a right to publish it. The MPAA does not have a right to stop it. Rights are whats at stake here. Not DVD players, profit, pirates or anything else. So, to reuse an oft paraphrased comment "Its about the rights stupid!" (No offense intended, I'm not calling you stupid, its just a figure of speech)
Nevertheless, this bears repeating: Freedom of Speech is a Right. Denying Fair Use of the content of a DVD to the person(s) that rightfully and legally purchased it is not a right - its a bait and switch. Does that make it clear whats at stake here? The MPAA may have an argument that they should be able to protect their DVDs from the people that legally own them (and have a fair use right to view them!), but that desire does not and should not come at the expense of our inalienable rights. It seems clear to me that the MPAA (and others) would like nothing more than to do away with Fair Use, one little tiny bit at a time. And that is exactly what they are doing with this case.
So the EFF has a very valid and vital point in trying to educate the judges on whats really at stake here - our rights. A little security at the cost of liberty? A responding NO is the only response to such rhetoric. Piracy, Trade Secrets all the other argument touted by the MPAA and its ilk are all red herrings to get people to forget about whats really at stake here. These people are selling us down the river so they can make more money.
The MPAA, the Movie Studios, the RIAA and all the other media whores that are trying to legislate away your rights are doing a fine job of changing the subject and getting people to buy into their red herring and straw man arguments. Make no mistake, this is all about Freedom of Speech and your rights therein. The DMCA is the greatest attack again the First Amendment since the CDA. I would argue its even worse than the CDA because its so insidious most citizens don't even raise an eyebrow at what its done to Fair Use. If Fair USe dies, so goes your rights to freedom of speech. You'l never be able to make Fair Use of anothers words, thoughts, comments, art and so on again. Now is it clear why this is a First Amendment issue? -- Python
Actually, various states have there own sunshine and FOIA laws. So its possible that you could get these documents from the states in question via a state FOIA law. I would be very suprised if California did not have its own FOIA covering state documents. -- Python
Has anyone bothered to remind these lawmakers that the students have certain constitutional RIGHTS as adult citizens of these US of A?
I remember when my state tried to pass rules similiar to this, and had to be reminded that they were trying to pass unconstitutional restrictions on the rights of the citizenry. Sometimes lawmakers and faculty forget that most of the students at Universities are not minors. And as such, they have certain inalienable rights.
It never ceases to amaze me that alot of lawmakers seem to forget this fact and stumble head long into a totalitarian attempt to take those rights away. -- Python
No, its silly for the following reason: When a company says they are going to do this, its really is an indicator that the CIO (or higher) simply has no faith in his or her IT staff (if you KNEW the system was going to be fine, why shut it down? Wouldn't you want to trumpet to the world how on top of your game you were? And heres the final proof?). Any investor in a company that downs a mission critical systems (or their e-com site) for the roll-over, should pay VERY close attention to that fact because it signals the low faith the board and executives have in the IT staff - and perhaps the board has good reason to not trust their staff (or maybe not).
That reason alone is why its so stupid to do such things. Any smart competitor of such a company, will tear them to shreads over this doubly bad business analysis. It begs for such abuse! -- Python
How is this going to stop you from getting a mail virus? When your users come in, power on their not virus protected machines and download that e-mail message that says "Check out this funny movie!" and then infect their system and everyone in their contact list on Monday - what are you going to do then? Guess what, you're going to be in the same boat you would have been in no matter what you did. You demonstrate a serious lack of understanding about the risk itself.
This is not a one time problem for you, its an ongoing problem. Security is not a product, nor are its problems caused by products (and as such, you can't thrwart a risk with a product or actions against a product alone, as you have done) - its a process and every security problem can be traced back to a bad process (in design, deployment, sustainment or improvement - not mention the lack of TESTING in most organizations). You're living in a dream land if you think you've bought yourself anything but a false sense of security with your actions. -- Python
Slashdot Mirror
Already did. Spent a whole decade in the Infantry.
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Python
One word: speed. In combat, you don't have time for a discussion, a debate or hesitation. There are two types of people on the battlefield, the quick and the dead.
Democratic methods move slowly, so they don't tend to fare well in combat situations.
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Python
Except that in the US, where I am from (on that point you are correct), the military is made up of volunteer citizens (no conscription) that take an oath to uphold and defend the constitution not blindly follow orders from any president. We also have laws that restrict what the military can do and a strong ethic that runs to the core of our fighting forces that restrains what those units do.
I'm not sure what you are suggesting or complaining about. We have a well disciplined, lawful and powerful military that obeys the orders given it by our democratically elected civilian government.
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Every time I vote. The US military is controlled by the civilian government, lock, stock and barrel.
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True (although, try humping enough for a week or more... they take up more space than you think), but you still have to stop and eat those MREs, and sometimes you just can't stop to eat - so you go without. Eating is a very low priority in combat (even though you have to do it), so its get cut out of the plan sometimes - even though, as I said, you need to eat. Time is finite.
So something like this patch would do away with that problem, at least temporarily so that missions could still be met without undoly reducing combat effectiveness in those units.
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I've literally eaten the coffee grounds from my MREs on the spot to keep me awake. After awhile, I started carrying all sorts of legal stimulants to keep me awake as do alot of folks. Since its obviously needed without the rigors of the modern battlefield, someone finally clued into the fact that the military should issue it. The one thing the military is not known for is letting people get enough sleep. There is never enough time to sleep, so something like this is worth the trade off to many higher ups (and its NEEDED anyway). Mission first, sleep never. ;-)
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Ah... nothing produces things like this faster that a bunch of bored 11B's sitting at a range playing the hurry up and wait game.
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True, the difference is that in combat the levels of physical and psychological stress are several orders of magnitude greater than anything you will encounter in your civilian life.
So, whereas it is certainly possible to survive for very long periods of time without anything but water (you can go maybe 3 days, tops, under heavy stress without water before you get into very serious trouble and will probably die from dehydration, heat stroke and so on), however the combat effectiveness of a unit diminishes as that unit is forced to go without water and food (in that order). In war, combat effectiveness, not bare minimums, is one of the keys to victory. So, unless you absolutely have no choice, feeding the troops is mandatory to suceeding, no matter how much people can "go without".
There is an old and wise saying in the military, "An army travels on its stomach". When you are buring sometimes upwards of 7000 calories a day (in winter climates, the daily ration is 7000 calories a day for deployments) you can being very cranky and tired if you don't feed those muscles. After a few days of going without, your strength is diminished and your body suffers. And when the body suffers, the mind suffers - and thats a fast path to getting killed.
So look at it this way, when you have 90 pounds of gear in your ruck, another 20 pounds in combat load, an M-60 (another 25 pounds) slung around your neck, your PASGT pulling on your body and neck, coupled with a heavy mission to knock out - food is not a luxury, its FUEL. Without fuel, you're not going anywhere.
As part of Ranger school there is alot of starving involved so that you learn first hand what your body can do in extreme circumstances and you learn you can go without food (amongst other things). However, you do not want to operate in combat like that if you do not have to, and thats what these patches are all about. Some missions move too fast to eat, and that does diminish the combat effectiveness of those units. On the other hand, with something like this nutrional patch (if it works), those units will be that much more likely to succeed in their missions - and thats what its all about.
These patches will do a great job for DRF's, SOG units, Light infantry and other high speed units that have to move fast and may not be able to feed their troops to make mission. Its too bad it will take 25 years before we see it deployed, but it still sounds like a fantastic tool for the War Fighter to have and yet another tool to enhance the combat effectiveness of US fighting forces.
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Soldiers are taught to kill a person solely because they have been labeled the enemy, because the other side will do the very same thing (at a bare minimum). So again, your concern about soldiers being less than human is ill placed. War is about winning, not making you personally comfortable with what soldiers do for a living. What part of "Soldiers kill people for a living" are you having trouble groking?
Do you want warriors that hesitate to kill and end up being killed themselves, because they need to be "more human"? Or do you want highly disciplined, highly effective killing machines that will execute on the mission we the people given them and then go no further?
If you want to be conquered, you go with a the former, if you want to win a war, you go with the later and you rely on that discipline to keep those troops in line.
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And the fact that its hard as it is for peoples in those countries to speak freely now is all the more reason for things like Freenet - and all the more reason why we have to make it better and more foolproof so that no can censor content thru it.
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Its nice to live in a free country where you can so easily say such a thing isn't it? The fact is that most of the peoples of this world live under the constant threat of governments that don't allow them to speak their minds, so its kind of hard for them demand such a thing. When you have freedom, you don't spend much time asking for it do you? There is a huge number of people that not only want the ability to this, but survival demands that they have it - but without it, they can't ASK FOR IT! Wonderful problem eh?
I can't even begin to count the number of times that I've gotten e-mail from persons in Singapore, China and other places thanking me for running an anonymous remailer and making it possible for them to do something, speak freely, that would otherwise get them killed. A right that you take for granted, which is actually quite rare.
Its all fine and dandy, in a free country, to say that people do not need anonymity to speak freely. "Put your name on it!" they cry, "only criminals need anonymity!", "what are you hiding?" and so on. Ignorance is bliss I suppose. When you have freedom, its hard to understand what its like to live in a country without it.
Never forget this: Most of the world does not have the freedoms that you enjoy. Is the world crying out for a means to speak freely and without the fear of reprisals? Yes they are... just not in public.
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The fallacy here is that speech does not equal action and vice versa. You are confusion the action with the speech, and thats apples and oranges. So your whole point is fallacious and your argument falls apart there. It IS OK to talk about punching someone in the face, its not OK to do it most cases. Its OK to talk about, even describe kiddie porn, its not OK to have sex with children.
Kiddie Porn is illegal not because of the speech, but because of the ACTIONS. Its deemed to be so abhorent that videos and pictures of it are illegal as well to, ostensibly, reduce the amount of real pedophila occuring. Its the ACTION thats at stake here, not the speech. Its OK to talk about it, even describe it but to do it, is not legal.
So you're commiting a real logic fallacy equating the two, and your not looking at whether the cure is worse than the disease.
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The very founding fathers of this country were prolific anonymous writers or wrote their political comments under pen names so as to protect their very lives. And there are still countries where speaking out in any form that upsets the local government can get you killed.
The bears repeating: Anonymity is the ONLY shield against the tyranny of the majority. Without it, you kill freedom of speech. Some things are simply TOO dangerous to put your name on.
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Valenti's entire bag of assumptions are probably equally bogus given how aggregious this one was, and some of the others he touts as "facts". Why anyone listens to him is beyond me. He was dead wrong about VCRs and could have cost the Motion Picture industry BILLIONS if he got his way, thankfully he didn't and we are ALL richer because of it.
In any other industry we would have been fired for such a lack of vision. The sad part is that really important people hang on his every word, and if he says its so, then it must be. This is VCR's all over again. Too bad he's having so much trouble understand it. Honestly, I think he still believes VCR's are a bad idea, and only cause "piracy" (as he claimed only a few years ago). My guess is that he pretends to believe otherwise so as not to look like such a fool in light of the overwhelming fact that he was dead wrong. Wrong to the tune of several billion dollars, while still not understand why he was wrong. I suspect it baffles him personally why VCR's make the industry so much money, when everything he understands about the world tells him they should do otherwise. In short, its probably a fair statement to say that he really does not understand the changes that have taken place in the world of information over the last couple of decades.
The real question is why is the Motion Picture industry listening to him again when he's clearly been wrong about this same sort of thing before? Is this all part of some plan to stall the industry which the MPAA works up some sort of plan to create YET ANOTHER artificial shortage?
I say that is exactly what this is all about. Make your mouth piece someone that doesn't get it, will say what you want him to say, and buy yourself some time so you can engineer the public into paying for a product that they used to be able to get for free (no pay per view!). The sad thing is the American people will go along with it and the world will probably follow along in lock step.
The MPAA and RIAA are all trying to create the same thing: a world where every song, movie, TV show and other form of entertainment is a Pay Per View event. A headlong rush to take the world back to the days where there were no TVs and you had to go to a movie theater to watch a movie. The master plan I suspect is to turn every TV, radio, CD player, computer and so on into the virtual equivalent of a Movie Theater. Pay for your ticket or else!
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Yes, I know that argument. But if you think about it a minute, you will see that the digital world is as far away from the analog world as the lightning is from the lightning bug. For example, in analog you have to go down to a Blockbuster store, then you have to copy it, then it has to be sent physically. Somebody's got to take a truck or a car or DHL and get it to another country. There is a brutish kind of awkward distribution system. Not so on the Internet, where some obscure person sitting in a basement can throw up on the Internet a brand new motion picture, and with the click of a button have it go with the speed of light to 6 billion people around the world, instantaneously. It's totally different, totally different.
No its not. You still have to get in a car and drive to blockbuster, or where ever and get the DVD or VHS tape in both cases (analog and digital). In both cases you can copy either the VHS or DVD into a digital form or "analog" form (I think he means physical versus non-physical copying), and in both cases (the analog copy of the movie and the digital copy of the movie) you can with the "click of a button have it go with the speed of light to 6 billion people around the world, instantaneously."
And in both cases, DVD and VHS, you can also pirate them the "old fashioned" way, which doesn't seem to have such a high marginal cost of production either (since its done).
Additionally, since VCDs and VHS tapes are not protected by CSS, there is a totally unprotected and CHEAP channel (cheaper than DVD) for pirating works into a non-physical form WITHOUT every having to mess with decrypting ANYHING. In short, CSS does not protect the MOVIE, it only protects playback of DVDs. You can still get the entire movie from a totally unprotected source with the full blessing of the MPAA! VHS tapes and VCDs are completely legal and totally unprotected!
Piracy can still carry on, unfettered, no matter what happens with CSS. Tthe MPAA is talking out of both sides of their mouth. Its OK to not protect VCDs or VHS tapes and make fair use of them and yet its REQUIRED that DVDs be protected, that you not be able to make copies of them and that its not OK for you to make fair use of them. Which is it? They both can't be right, and therefore its logially inconsitent.
His logic is so fallacious and vapid, but what do you expect from someone that clearly doesn't understand that movies can be copied right now without ever touching a DVD and be put on the net right now. The world passed Valenti by a long time ago. He was dead wrong about VCRs (and has since admitted it) and he is dead wrong now. This is the exact same argument he made about VCRs. Ah yes... its all so clear to me now: "those that can't remember the past are condemmed to repeat it."
How quickly we forget.
If someone has found some comments of his from the VCR debates of the 80's, I'd love to see them.
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In other words: To screw the consumer. That reason cares no weight, and it shouldn't. I'm very sympathetic to other businesses need to turn a profit (as a fellow business owner), but not when it comes exclusively at the cost to me and is not market driven. Region Codes create an artifical shortage of product, and do not benefit the comsumer. Why would a consumer want to spend more? (Its a rhetorical question - the answer is they wouldn't).
The prosecutor was made aware of the violation of copyright law. But the MPAA doesn't control the Noregian government or their prosecutors; they can only lodge a complaint.
Thats only partially true. The MPAA is a very powerful political powerhouse. They may not directly control the Norweigian government, but they also do not directly control the US Government, and yet their wishes become law somehow thru the US Congress. The reason behind this is very simple, they're a very powerful political lobby. Look at what Jack Valenti used to do!
Its the epitome of niave to believe he couldn't get the Norweigian government to do his bidding. Especially in a case that is hard to explain to the unwashed masses, and is very unlikely to be challeged or questioned by the Norwegians. Don't forget, US courts have bene persuaded by the MPAA to restrict freedom of speech for the MPAA. This is nothing for someone like Valenti to do.
Need I remind anyone that he used to work for Kennedy and Jonhson? I'm sure he has plenty of political favors owed him, and can walk the halls of congress with impunity. Can you imagine what sort of money the MPAA can bring to bear to support a US political? Imagine having the MPAA help run a campaign against you... the threat of that alone must be enought to cause most polticians to buckle on the spot.
And you don't think he can pull some strings and ask the Norweigian government to have one insignificant kid arrested for supposedly breaking a copyright law? If you believe that, you don't understand the world of politics. The MPAA has plenty of control over the Norwegians just like its got the entire US Government in its right pocket.
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Not to mention how expensive NT is and that us US citizens get to pay for such an inferior product, when better, cheaper, more relaiable options exist. Its inexcusible that the Navy single sourced with NT. Totally inexecusible.
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So, since this is both a highly controversial law and its brand spanking new, its very likely we can get it overturned. This law is VERY open to interreptation, since the higher courts have not reviewed it yet - and the supreme court certainly has certainly not had its finaly say on this.
The down side is that the issues are really hard to explain to lay persons (which include the judges), I have less faith in the highest court this time than I did with the CDA. The CDA was an easy call: it was unconstitutionally vague. This is far more insidious, its a subtle attack on the first amendment cloaked as an IP law (written to "protect property", which makes it even harder to get a a judge to see the REAL issue at stake here - this judge in the MPAA case thinks this a property case!). So its more likey to confuse the judges and get through thru in favor of the MPAA and those in favor of this law.
Be not confused by the rhetoric of those preaching the virtues of this law, this is a First Amendment Case. This law strikes at the very core of your right to freely express yourself, which is why it must be ruled unconstitutional, or we are all doomed.
Your very rights are on the line here. This is not some Open Source case, or something about DVD players - this is about your right to speak your mind, figure things out and build. Without those things, there can be no innovation, no free discourse and no freedom.
Don't sit by and let this happen. Join the EFF and help win this fight! The price of Freedom is Eternal vigiliance.
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The real point is that the court is literally splitting hairs over this one. Even this judge admits that source might be free speech! So even he thinks the argument has merit. If someone would post the source code, comment the hell out of it, write a huge paper out of it and so on, what materially changes between that and the source code? It certainly doesn't say anymore if you are a competent programmer the source code says everything you need to understand it.
So why the pretense that it has to be something the judge can understand? It is a form of communication and expression. I know plenty of programmers that can't really talk to each other EXCEPT thru their code. The don't even speak each others languages well enough to communicate, but thru the code they are writing together they can say whatever they need to say to each other.
Just because a lay person (in this case the judge. Make no mistake, this judge knows nothing about programming) can not understand the source code, and needs it literally spelled out for them, does not diminish the original expression or that it needs to be protected.
Bernstein is the case that matters here. No its not decided yet, but that doesn't change the fact that this judge doesn't seem to understand the subtle distinction that source code is expression. Did anyone mention to him that source code is NOT machine instructions? What the CPU needs is totally different from what the human being READING it needs. By itself, the source code does nothing. The source code is not the final product that does the execution (it might only be a tiny part of a larger program and simply doesn't work at all without other classes, libraries and so on).
So, hHeres the important part: Source code is not the tool itself, its just some text (source code) to be read by and manipulated by humans. Its a way of expressing, to another human being, what this program does without having to comment the hell out of it (even the person that wrote it herself). High level programming languages are written for people to read, not machines (thats why we have compilers, to translate it into something the machine reads.)
So, since high level programming languages are for the benefit of people, not machines (again so the humans can read it). And reiterating the point that the operative word here is READ, as in text. And since you the author, can only best express your idea by publishing source code to for someone else to READ to fully communicate that idea. Means that it is, indeed, speech, and therefore, being speech, it is fully protected under the first amendment.
So Bernstein is absolutely right when it stipulates that "software in source code form is constitutionally protected expression". This judge in the MPAA case eis rring on the otherside of the equation, and he is simply wrong.
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Not true. Algorithms have been held up, in US federal court, as speech. Look at some of the cryptography cases and you'll see what I mean. Equally, the entire professional of mathematics would be enjoined from free speech protections if algorithms were not treated as speech. I think you misunderstand what speech is. Speech is not just words or text. Its not even just audio, video or anything else you can fit into a nice tidy list. Speech refers to expression in all its forms. Its a vague concept, on purpose!. This prevents tyrannants of all types from trying to squeeze speech into a nice tidy little bundle they can lock away.
So freedom of speech is not something relegated to text, but to all forms of communication. Be it a painting, a scuplture, dance, spoken words, written words, e-mail, scientific documents, mathematical formulas and even source code, which is a form of expression.
So, this judge is wrong, and hopefully he will either see the error of his ways, or a higher court will overturn his ruling. The bottom line is that this judge is but the first round, and there are plenty of appeals from here to courts which have seen thru this sort of hogwash before and made the right ruling.
Common sense will tell you that code is speech. How else would you express the idea?
You're right about one thing: The DMCA is corrupt. Its the biggest attack on the first amendment ever, and this case proves it. Its far more insidious than the CDA ever was (that was so patently unconstitutional that everyone knew it was going to get overturned), the DMCA on the other hand requires a thorough understanding of the issues (which most judges sorely lack) and hence makes it easy for someone to argue one thing, while getting someones freedom of speech rights enjoined. Its all nice and tidy. On the surface the case looks simple. Its too complex to explain to laypeople, and it lends itself to an emotional argument in favor of restricting speech rights. So the DMCA makes it really easy to control expression, without alerting the masses to the fact that they just got sold down the river.
The DMCA is corrupt alright, and we should work to get it ruled unconstitutional by any means necessary.
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Actually it does. The right to freedom of speech is not granted by the government, its inalienable - and can only be enjoined in very specific cases. The few cases when you can not speak are well defined in the law, and the EFF is trying to point of this is not one of those cases!. Additionally, you have a legal right to reverse engineer. Even the DMCA guarantees this! So again, in this case, the authors of this reverse engineered bit of code have a right to publish it. The MPAA does not have a right to stop it. Rights are whats at stake here. Not DVD players, profit, pirates or anything else. So, to reuse an oft paraphrased comment "Its about the rights stupid!" (No offense intended, I'm not calling you stupid, its just a figure of speech)
Nevertheless, this bears repeating: Freedom of Speech is a Right. Denying Fair Use of the content of a DVD to the person(s) that rightfully and legally purchased it is not a right - its a bait and switch. Does that make it clear whats at stake here? The MPAA may have an argument that they should be able to protect their DVDs from the people that legally own them (and have a fair use right to view them!), but that desire does not and should not come at the expense of our inalienable rights. It seems clear to me that the MPAA (and others) would like nothing more than to do away with Fair Use, one little tiny bit at a time. And that is exactly what they are doing with this case.
So the EFF has a very valid and vital point in trying to educate the judges on whats really at stake here - our rights. A little security at the cost of liberty? A responding NO is the only response to such rhetoric. Piracy, Trade Secrets all the other argument touted by the MPAA and its ilk are all red herrings to get people to forget about whats really at stake here. These people are selling us down the river so they can make more money.
The MPAA, the Movie Studios, the RIAA and all the other media whores that are trying to legislate away your rights are doing a fine job of changing the subject and getting people to buy into their red herring and straw man arguments. Make no mistake, this is all about Freedom of Speech and your rights therein. The DMCA is the greatest attack again the First Amendment since the CDA. I would argue its even worse than the CDA because its so insidious most citizens don't even raise an eyebrow at what its done to Fair Use. If Fair USe dies, so goes your rights to freedom of speech. You'l never be able to make Fair Use of anothers words, thoughts, comments, art and so on again. Now is it clear why this is a First Amendment issue?
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Actually, various states have there own sunshine and FOIA laws. So its possible that you could get these documents from the states in question via a state FOIA law. I would be very suprised if California did not have its own FOIA covering state documents.
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I remember when my state tried to pass rules similiar to this, and had to be reminded that they were trying to pass unconstitutional restrictions on the rights of the citizenry. Sometimes lawmakers and faculty forget that most of the students at Universities are not minors. And as such, they have certain inalienable rights.
It never ceases to amaze me that alot of lawmakers seem to forget this fact and stumble head long into a totalitarian attempt to take those rights away.
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That reason alone is why its so stupid to do such things. Any smart competitor of such a company, will tear them to shreads over this doubly bad business analysis. It begs for such abuse!
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This is not a one time problem for you, its an ongoing problem. Security is not a product, nor are its problems caused by products (and as such, you can't thrwart a risk with a product or actions against a product alone, as you have done) - its a process and every security problem can be traced back to a bad process (in design, deployment, sustainment or improvement - not mention the lack of TESTING in most organizations). You're living in a dream land if you think you've bought yourself anything but a false sense of security with your actions.
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