As others have been saying, the GPL is a distribution license, not a usage license. Usage licenses are shaky anyway, whereas distribution licenses are pretty solid.
If you distribute no GPL code - i.e. your code does nothing but call a dynamically linked library, and you therefore don't distribute that library - then you are not bound by GPL. Period.
However, you had better be absolutely certain that your target will have the necessary libraries, or your app could be a brick.
If you then decide to distribute the GPL'd library with your app to provide compatibility, then because your app uses the GPL'd code and you distributed that GPL'd code, your application is subject to the terms of the GPL (that's what gives you the right to distribute the library in the first place).
In most practical cases, unless you are writing code for a specific release of a specific distribution and can be absolutely certain that a given library will be available, even dynamically linking libraries won't save you from having to GPL your code.
It's all moot though, as it relates to Palm, because they did make the PDFViewer app's code available here, as per GPL requirements, and if Stallman and the "Free" Software Foundation weren't so anal about forcing everyone into their view of the world they may have realized that Palm distributed tons of code for the Pre, and if the PDFViewer code was missing it was probably just in an obscure place or it was an oversight.
If the FSF seriously pushes this they are going to get their asses handed to them in court, and possibly face countersuit for filing such a frivolous lawsuit. Frankly, they deserve it.
What this proves is that the link libraries were intended to be the GPL versions all along, and the executed code on the smartphone was therefore created to be a derived work of these particular GPL libraries. And since those libraries are being distributed with the hardware...
That's very true, that could be why they chose to make the full source code for the PDFViewer app here:
Where's that violation? Perhaps it is because PDFViewer uses LGPL instead of GPL - the thing is LGPL has a clause that essentially turns it into GPL when such a case arises (using GPL code in an LGPL app). Some confusion, I think, but it looks to me like the muPDF guys and FSF have seriously jumped the gun. FSF seems to be getting trigger happy, probably Stalman is still bitter about Linux being out for decades while he still doesn't have a reliable Hurd (but that's just conjecture).
Did they bother to call Palm and say "Hey, you guys used our code and didn't distribute the source for yours" and give Palm an opportunity to say "Uhhh... dumbasses, yeah we did"?
one of the world's largest advertising companies, masquerading as a technology company
You realize that one does not exclude the other, right? In fact, they build on each other. The reason Google is such a successful advertising company is BECAUSE it is such a great technology company. Furthermore, as the advertising aspect of their company brings in money, they can funnel that back into the technology they make, which can then increase their advertising revenues.
Google makes the best internet search product on the planet. Period. Nobody, even a software giant like Microsoft or an search giant like Yahoo can even touch them. They accomplished this feat when they were still operating out of their BASEMENT!! To say they are not a technology company is to be a blind fool. Do you even remember what the internet was like before Google? I do, it sucked. I used use a service called Search Hound, which would search about 40 different search engines for your search query - this was essential because you could never find anything without hitting up 2, 3, even 5 or 6 search engines just to get what you were looking for. What did Google do? They invented a better search algorithm and page ranking system, and instead of selling top search slots (like every other search engine before it), the sold unobtrusive add space around real, legitimate search results. A thousand times better, and free to the user to boot.
Fast forward to today, and what is google doing? They are developing new technologies and giving them away for free so they can gain more mind-share for the sole purpose of making sure people use their search engine. This increases their value to advertisers, and Google makes more money. Seriously, Android? Chrome? Chrome is frickin awesome, as soon as I tried it I ditched FF for good, and I'm seriously looking into getting an Android phone. Why are there so many phones running on Android already? Because Google gives it away. You can go download it right now if you want to. And, because it's Google and they are one of the top technology companies in the world, it also happens to be as good or better than any phone/small device OS out there.
Since Google's business model is to give customers exactly what they want for free in order to draw more customers for advertisers, and because most people I know HATE getting a dumbass search page instead of just saying the link is not found, no I don't expect Google will ever start throwing up link farms or ads in response to NX queries.
How stupid do you think Google is to break the trust that has made them BILLIONS over a few extra searches? They have shown themselves to be much, much smarter than that, and I trust them far more than I trust my own ISP, since my ISP already inserts a dumbass search in place of the "page not found".
Google did put such a thing in Chrome, but it simply says the page was not found and auto-fills a search box for you. It can also be turned off. I don't find it usefull, but I dont' find it intrusive either, unlike my ISP's auto-search. Google knows what their users want, and they know that their customers are the Advertisers, not the searchers - their goal is to lure as many searchers as possible to their advertisers. The best way to do that, as Google has shown time and time again, is to give your users something they will like and use, and generally find to be far and away the best version of whatever it may be on the market, and to give it away for free.
Do you realise how difficult that would be? Color me stupid, but how many countries have a single ISP with that kind of control over what goes in and out of the country?
I honestly don't think most countries could pull it off. Look at China - they DO have 100% governmental control over their ISPs and they can't manage it, the have to threaten companies like Google to make this stuff happen.
And do you realise the hardware it would take to start sniffing the packets of the largest search provider in the world? Furthermore, Google has server farms in every country in the world - no doubt when they implimented DNS they put replication points at each of these sites, or at the very least manually routed them through.
And even if they did none of that, unless you have the wherewithall to kick Google out of the country (which would make your actions very public), Google is not the company with whome to fuck over something as trivial as DNS, particularly when they can count on the public crying foul when it goes public. "We tried to block your access to information, but Google stopped us." doesn't really go over to well in a free society.
Can't get your way? Lie. That's what sociopaths are supposed to do, isn't it? How in the hell could copyright have anything whatever to do with national security?
How stupid do they think we are?
It's not that they think we are stupid, it's that the Slashdot crowd is dumb as shit and doesn't even know it.
The statute they cited offers two reasons to rebuff an FOIA request:
The first is national defense, obviously that does not apply.
The second is foreign policy concerns, however since this is an... international... treaty... oh shit, fuck me! An international treaty would be a foreign policy concern!
Good god you people are stupid.
What I find interesting is how Obama promised the most transparent government to date, and yet for all the things that really matter (and I don't mean copyright, that's really pretty low on the list, but it is indicative of the problem) things seem to be as opaque as ever, maybe even more than ever. Health Care? All backroom dealings, even Congressmen hardly got a chance to read it, fat chance for the American people. "Give 'em some pie charts, that'll make 'em happy! See! Pie charts! We're transparent!"
Obama may be 100 times better at public speaking than Bush (that's being kind to Bush), but he isn't exactly running rings around Bush when it comes to running the country. All we've had so far are lies and broken promises. Sure gives you a lot of hope, doesn't it?
But I suppose you have to slam the black man, in case he slams your women, huh?
Typical, someone raises a question about what the government is doing, but because the president is black then anybody who questions him must be racist right? "You're a racist" is such an effective way to censor people these days.
I hope you recognize the irony of just how incredibly racist it is to call "racism" when nothing racist was even hinted at.
It's interesting that of all the dangers in the world, the one that turns Americans into quivering masses of fear is something that is so statistically insignificant as to be nearly nonexistent.
It's not just Americans, it's part of human nature. Just look at sharks - how many people are terrified of them? How many people actually died last year in a shark attack, can anybody guess? It was four. Four whole deaths, worldwide. There were only 59 attacks worldwide. Do you know how many people have been killed by the infamous Great White since they started counting in 1872? Sixty-eight.
Contrast that with 42636 fatal car crashes in the US alone, and almost 2 million deaths world-wide. We aren't terrified of riding in vehicles, yet few things strike fear into the heart of a bather like a shark.
It's the same thing with the terrorist attacks - we go way overboard with something that was certainly terrible, but we have sane ways to prevent in the future. All we've done so far is given up our rights and conveniences over an irrational fear of another attack.
That's because we are a civilized nation - we don't believe we are the only people in the world who deserve these rights, we believe everyboy does. That's why we tend to get sucked into fights to preserve democracy and such, though our track record lately is only so-so.
So yeah it sucks that he gets to enjoy our freedoms, but it's the right thing to do.
So are you suggesting that we pick up guns and force our values on the rest of our countries? Maybe start a little dictatorship of enlightened slashdotians while we're at it?
It's an implied right under the US Constitution, but not enumerated. Essentially the Second Amendment gives the people the right to form a militia in order to protect the country as a free state. Obviously the only thing that would be worth rebelling against is your freedom being taken away, so this applies. It's not a license to wild rebellion though, that just lands you in jail.
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
For all the folks out there wanting to argue that they were talking about the National Guard, stuff it. There was no such thing as a national guard when the Constitution was written, so they could not have been referring to such an entity. Though the National Guard WAS formed from a standing militia, it is not a standing militia today, it is a part-time army. A militia is nothing more than a loosly formed group of people standing together to defend against an invading force. A militia does not go invade other countries (like the National Guard does) or have military higherarchy. This was directly after the 13 colonies rebelled against their government (England), so I think they knew exactly what they were asking for when they said the right of the people, not the army or the militia, to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
It's dead simple, plain english, yet somehow people manage to misconstrue its meaning.
From what I've seen, all the laws concerning firearms have been to restrict their usage, while the Founders specifically stated that it was important for the security of the nation that the people should have a right to own and become proficient them.
If you read a little history about the 13 colonies, the Declaration of Independance, and the Revolutionary War you might have a much better frame of reference for what the Founders intended, and how important it was that everyone be free to own and use a gun. That it is second on the list after only freedom of speech should be a not-so-subtle clue.
Stealth technology, like that used in the B-2 bomber, F-117 nighthawk, and similar aircraft, was never about bending light around the plane. Because RADAR is an active detection technology - that is, it projects radio waves of a particular frequency and waits for a reflection - it was always about reducing the angles at which the radar would reflect.
Plain old metal, no matter how you coat it, is like a pristine mirror for radio waves (the black color was simply because they only ever intended the planes to fly at night, so the original camoflage pattern was useless). A rounded surface, like that on most planes, will reflect RADAR signals coming from nearly any direction and at least part of the signal will be sent back to the RADAR. That's how RADAR is designed to work. To get around this, you need to minimize round surfaces so that very little, if any signal at all is returned to the RADAR. On-coming RADAR gets bounced up and down, and only a small portion of the radar signal from below gets sent back. They end up looking like large birds - a far cry from massive bombers.
Light is harder, because we distinguish between multiple frequencies of light, so many materials difuse light, and we don't rely on a source projected directly from our own bodies to see. So for this we need to get light to bend around an object to cloak it.
Most juries are pretty smart - I was on one, and the few dumbasses among the jury candidates were all weeded out. They are made up of the average joe citizen and despite what you may think, you yourself ARE the average joe citizen. You are not a legal expert, but you are a reasonably intelligent person perfectly able to recognize most bullshit when you hear it.
Also, the requirements for conviction are note "I think you dunnit", they are things like A.)Intended to possess child porn, B.)actively sought out child porn, C.)actually did keep child porn in his position for a reasonable period of time. There may be more for child porn, but those are similar to the types of requirements for the felony theft case I sat on.
Furthermore, the judge makes it very clear that you must believe each one of those criteria beyond a reasonable doubt. That's not "I'm pretty sure it's true", that's "There is no reasonable alternative". It also applies to each one individually, 2 out of 3 doesn't cut it. It does not mean it is impossible for it to have happened differently, it just means there is no other reasonable alternative. If there IS an alternative, and it is reasonable, there is no option but to aquit. You may be certain he did it, but his guilt has not been proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
Last but certainly not least, jurors are definitely aware that, with the stroke of a pen they are sending a man to jail for years. You are influencing the future of a man's life with this action, and it is not taken lightly. Even a case where a guy might get off in 6 months with good behavior, it's still heavy.
Certainly innocent people go to jail, even with all of this. Evidence can be looked at more than one way, and sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. If the truth of what happened doesn't seem possible, the defendant is in jeopardy. But the odds are stacked against this, and are system is designed to prefer letting an innocent go free than sending a guilty man to jail.
That's why I think this guy is full of shit. If what he says is the full truth, a third grader could keep him out of prison. A lawyer, even a public defender, doesn't tell you to take a plea unless he thinks you are screwed, and he certainly wouldn't think that if all this guy did were accidentally download a kiddy porn pic. Hell if what he said were true he could go to court, plead not guilty, and just sit there the entire trial, with no representation and never saying a word and the jury would almost certainly find him not guilty.
In fact, if that deleted download were all they had against him, the Grand Jury would not have thought there was enough evidence to go to trial, and would have told the prosecuters to go pound sand.
That he is pleading guilty instead of defending himself, especially when there hasn't been a plea bargain, tells me that he is guilty as sin and just trying to mitigate the damage by playing the victim.
More than likely they caught him on bait links, or someone turned him in - both of which undermine his defense that it was just an accident.
He could have someone who hates him, and he could also just be a dumbass who spends all day searching for porn and clicking on every link he finds, but the child porn on his hard drive was the -last- piece of evidence, not the first.
Also, this case had to go through a grand jury first - if this was all the evidence the FBI had then it would not have made it through. Even if it did manage to get past the grand jury phase, if what White says is true this would be an easy win, you'd hardly have to do anything - simply show that this is the only child porn on your hard drive, and the plethora of normal porn (this guy was apparently an avid porn surfer, and not shy about it) on the hard drive, combined with the fact that the child porn was, in fact inaccessible (making it very likely he didn't want it on his computer at all), and the FBI will have a really hard time proving he intended to possess child pornography.
The fact that he is pleading guilty leads me to believe there is a hell of a lot more evidence against this guy, and he's just saying "oh they found some old picture I deleted a long time ago and are railroading me for it". Seriously, how did the FBI know to come to his house in the first place if all he did was accidently download - and delete - some child porn.
Innocent until guilty and all that, but it sounds to me like he is trying to mitigate the damage of his actions (by pleading guilty and looking for sympathy) while trying to make himself look like the victim. His story does not ring true to me.
The point of prison is not to punish criminals or to reform them, it's to separate them from society so they don't harm anybody else.
It just happens to also be a form of punishment, so we don't generally see the need to add a whole lot of punishment on top of it. We also certainly hope they will truly reform they will reform themselves, so we don't have to throw them in prison again. They are both tertiary to the main point, which is getting them out of society so they cannot hurt it any more.
The reason we let them out after 5 years, or 10 years, or 20 years, is because people can and do change their ways, and if they are not going to harm society any more there is no reason to keep them in prison.
You can think of it as a "worth it" scale to determine how long to put someone in prison. For someone who steals $600 dollars worth of equipment, two years in prison generally isn't worth it and they won't do it again. If they stole $10 million worth of stuff, and managed to hide $5 million, well then two years in prison certainly is worth it so sentance needs to be a lot longer to keep the guy from doing it again. If he spends 2/3 of his life in prison, he might decide it wasn't worth the $10 million and won't do it again when he gets out.
Prison is a deterrant, but not a very good one in a lot of cases - most people who commit crimes think about the benefits of the crime if they get away with it, not the consequences when they get caught (if they thought they'd get caught, they wouldn't try it in almost every case). That's also not its purpose. It is meant to separate out people who harm society so they cannot harm society any more. We let them out when we can be reasonably confident that they won't do it again - but we cannot know for sure. Even murderers, if we are confident they will not murder again, we release. We also build in a timer, so we determine what is fair - it's obviously not fair to send a kid who stole a laptop to jail for 50 years, one or two is plenty to disrupt derail thieving activities.
The escalation theory - that prison just makes people commit worse crimes, makes them "better criminals" - is irrelevant whether it is true or not. We have no right to assume anyone will commit a crime after prison, and we must not treat them that way (beyond the usual "done it once, might do it again") unless we are considering releasing them early. Since the purpose of prison is not primarily punishment but separation, the idea that prison just makes people better criminals is an argument for longer, perhaps even permanent, prison sentences, not shorter sentences. If a criminal cannot be considered safe at any point, he should never be released.
And it might be noted that there are large numbers of nonviolent criminals in 'em...
Who cares about that? So you think the guys at Enron who stole millions of dollars from their share-holders shouldn't go to jail for what they did?
Or Bernie Madoff, who stole BILLIONS of dollars - wiping out whole families, I suppose he should just get a slap on the wrist eh? Lost all his assets, but those weren't really his anyway, right? And now he can just start another ponzie scheme and hook new people for millions of dollars, destroy hundreds of families, and live like a king for a few years until the government takes it away again. There is quite a hassle every time he loses all his money, but for the most part it isn't a bad life for an asshole to live, and he'll destroy hundreds of lives in the process.
The point of prison has never been to punish the prisoner - those who think it is are fools. There is certainly a punishment element, but there are a hell of a lot cheaper and more effective ways to punish crimes if that's what we were after. Caning, whipping, cutting off hands for stealing, branding, forced servitude etc. are all far more effective than imprisonment. The punishments we use are primarily monetary - fines, losing assets, but we also do things like revoke the right to vote or own certain items (like guns). Those are all punishments.
The only real purpose of prison is to remove the people who harm society from the society they harm. That's it. It's a separation mechanism so nobody else gets hurt. You put rapists in prison so they can't rape anybody else. You put murderers in prison so they can't murder anybody else (punishment would be execution - that's why they call it capitol punishment). You put fraudsters and con-men in prison so the can't defraud or con anybody else. Since separation is itself a punishment, people often confuse the purpose of the separation to be punishment when it is not. We simply don't have to add a punishment to the separation, since it is built in.
The less harmful the crime, the sooner you let them out, because even though prison is not primarily used as punishment, people can and do correct their actions after spending some time in prison. So we let them out on the hope that they've changed their mind about their criminal activity. Some do, some don't.
If you cheated on your taxes for the last 15 years, you probably won't do it any more after spending a year in jail, and you aren't incredibly harmful in the first place, so if you do it again we just throw you in jail for a longer sentance, no big deal. Murderers, on the other hand, need a long time in prison and careful consideration that they have reformed themselves during their prison sentance before being released, because if they have not reformed themselves then they will likely kill again - though there is a large benefit to the fact that they were unable to kill during their time in prison.
So repeat after me: Prison is for separation, and separation is to keep criminals from doing more bad things to people, or harming society in general. Separation just happens to also be a form of punishment, which means we kill two birds with one stone. Keeping criminals away from non-criminals is the primary purpose, however, and that should not be forgotten.
That's one thing people are really stupid about - if a cop (or FBI agent, same thing) comes knocking at your door wanting to "look around" and you know you didn't do anything wrong, don't let them in.
At the very least if they find anything remotely suspicious they can drag you into the investigation on the spot (you're already in it a little bit), and they may also find something that looks like evidence for their case tying you to whatever, in which case you get arrested.
The cops don't have a right to look at your stuff unless they have evidence that you've done something wrong. Why would you let them try to find something you may not even think was wrong in the first place.
No jury will convict. "Deep int he hard drive" - it is to laugh.
That's not true at all, while juries usually get it right I think, there are a number of cases where the prosecutor was good at portraying the defendant as the criminal - they "just knew" he was the one who did it. In that case they will sometimes disregard the "reasonable doubt" metric (especially likely if it is for something like child port). "I accidentally downloaded it" is a horrible defense, and will leave the jury thinking "yeah right" and convict the hell out of the guy.
I disagree with a poster above who said if you really did accidentally download child porn you wouldn't hide it, you'd report it - most people think "Oh shit, they are going to think I like kiddy porn!" and bury the hell out of stuff like that. They are more afraid of someone pinning something on them unjustly.
However, I think it is great advice to call the FBI when you see something like that, get it on record that you accidentally downloaded kiddy porn and you want to know what the FBI is doing to catch the bastards who make and distribute it.
The other piece of this though, is that he was using Limewire and almost certainly sharing copyrighted material illegally. Going to the FBI with evidence of kiddy porn (and a download from limewire would be an excellent place to start tracking that shit) could result in multiple copyright infringement violations - another reason to bury the download instead of reporting it.
The true moral of the story, is quit breaking the fucking law, and if you see someone else breaking the law (like distributing child porn) fucking tell someone. Do those two things and you'll be fine unless someone decides to railroad you. Then you could be screwed, but your record will be your best defense.
Slashdot Mirror
As others have been saying, the GPL is a distribution license, not a usage license. Usage licenses are shaky anyway, whereas distribution licenses are pretty solid.
If you distribute no GPL code - i.e. your code does nothing but call a dynamically linked library, and you therefore don't distribute that library - then you are not bound by GPL. Period.
However, you had better be absolutely certain that your target will have the necessary libraries, or your app could be a brick.
If you then decide to distribute the GPL'd library with your app to provide compatibility, then because your app uses the GPL'd code and you distributed that GPL'd code, your application is subject to the terms of the GPL (that's what gives you the right to distribute the library in the first place).
In most practical cases, unless you are writing code for a specific release of a specific distribution and can be absolutely certain that a given library will be available, even dynamically linking libraries won't save you from having to GPL your code.
It's all moot though, as it relates to Palm, because they did make the PDFViewer app's code available here, as per GPL requirements, and if Stallman and the "Free" Software Foundation weren't so anal about forcing everyone into their view of the world they may have realized that Palm distributed tons of code for the Pre, and if the PDFViewer code was missing it was probably just in an obscure place or it was an oversight.
If the FSF seriously pushes this they are going to get their asses handed to them in court, and possibly face countersuit for filing such a frivolous lawsuit. Frankly, they deserve it.
That could be why Palm made all of the source for the viewer app available here for anybody to download.
You can even jump back to the index and get all the rest of the Palm Pre's source code.
What this proves is that the link libraries were intended to be the GPL versions all along, and the executed code on the smartphone was therefore created to be a derived work of these particular GPL libraries. And since those libraries are being distributed with the hardware...
That's very true, that could be why they chose to make the full source code for the PDFViewer app here:
http://palm.cdnetworks.net/opensource/1.3.1/documentserver.tar.gz
Where's that violation? Perhaps it is because PDFViewer uses LGPL instead of GPL - the thing is LGPL has a clause that essentially turns it into GPL when such a case arises (using GPL code in an LGPL app). Some confusion, I think, but it looks to me like the muPDF guys and FSF have seriously jumped the gun. FSF seems to be getting trigger happy, probably Stalman is still bitter about Linux being out for decades while he still doesn't have a reliable Hurd (but that's just conjecture).
Did they bother to call Palm and say "Hey, you guys used our code and didn't distribute the source for yours" and give Palm an opportunity to say "Uhhh... dumbasses, yeah we did"?
one of the world's largest advertising companies, masquerading as a technology company
You realize that one does not exclude the other, right? In fact, they build on each other. The reason Google is such a successful advertising company is BECAUSE it is such a great technology company. Furthermore, as the advertising aspect of their company brings in money, they can funnel that back into the technology they make, which can then increase their advertising revenues.
Google makes the best internet search product on the planet. Period. Nobody, even a software giant like Microsoft or an search giant like Yahoo can even touch them. They accomplished this feat when they were still operating out of their BASEMENT!! To say they are not a technology company is to be a blind fool. Do you even remember what the internet was like before Google? I do, it sucked. I used use a service called Search Hound, which would search about 40 different search engines for your search query - this was essential because you could never find anything without hitting up 2, 3, even 5 or 6 search engines just to get what you were looking for. What did Google do? They invented a better search algorithm and page ranking system, and instead of selling top search slots (like every other search engine before it), the sold unobtrusive add space around real, legitimate search results. A thousand times better, and free to the user to boot.
Fast forward to today, and what is google doing? They are developing new technologies and giving them away for free so they can gain more mind-share for the sole purpose of making sure people use their search engine. This increases their value to advertisers, and Google makes more money. Seriously, Android? Chrome? Chrome is frickin awesome, as soon as I tried it I ditched FF for good, and I'm seriously looking into getting an Android phone. Why are there so many phones running on Android already? Because Google gives it away. You can go download it right now if you want to. And, because it's Google and they are one of the top technology companies in the world, it also happens to be as good or better than any phone/small device OS out there.
Since Google's business model is to give customers exactly what they want for free in order to draw more customers for advertisers, and because most people I know HATE getting a dumbass search page instead of just saying the link is not found, no I don't expect Google will ever start throwing up link farms or ads in response to NX queries.
How stupid do you think Google is to break the trust that has made them BILLIONS over a few extra searches? They have shown themselves to be much, much smarter than that, and I trust them far more than I trust my own ISP, since my ISP already inserts a dumbass search in place of the "page not found".
Google did put such a thing in Chrome, but it simply says the page was not found and auto-fills a search box for you. It can also be turned off. I don't find it usefull, but I dont' find it intrusive either, unlike my ISP's auto-search. Google knows what their users want, and they know that their customers are the Advertisers, not the searchers - their goal is to lure as many searchers as possible to their advertisers. The best way to do that, as Google has shown time and time again, is to give your users something they will like and use, and generally find to be far and away the best version of whatever it may be on the market, and to give it away for free.
Do you realise how difficult that would be? Color me stupid, but how many countries have a single ISP with that kind of control over what goes in and out of the country?
I honestly don't think most countries could pull it off. Look at China - they DO have 100% governmental control over their ISPs and they can't manage it, the have to threaten companies like Google to make this stuff happen.
And do you realise the hardware it would take to start sniffing the packets of the largest search provider in the world? Furthermore, Google has server farms in every country in the world - no doubt when they implimented DNS they put replication points at each of these sites, or at the very least manually routed them through.
And even if they did none of that, unless you have the wherewithall to kick Google out of the country (which would make your actions very public), Google is not the company with whome to fuck over something as trivial as DNS, particularly when they can count on the public crying foul when it goes public. "We tried to block your access to information, but Google stopped us." doesn't really go over to well in a free society.
Can't get your way? Lie. That's what sociopaths are supposed to do, isn't it? How in the hell could copyright have anything whatever to do with national security?
How stupid do they think we are?
It's not that they think we are stupid, it's that the Slashdot crowd is dumb as shit and doesn't even know it.
The statute they cited offers two reasons to rebuff an FOIA request:
The first is national defense, obviously that does not apply.
The second is foreign policy concerns, however since this is an... international... treaty... oh shit, fuck me! An international treaty would be a foreign policy concern!
Good god you people are stupid.
What I find interesting is how Obama promised the most transparent government to date, and yet for all the things that really matter (and I don't mean copyright, that's really pretty low on the list, but it is indicative of the problem) things seem to be as opaque as ever, maybe even more than ever. Health Care? All backroom dealings, even Congressmen hardly got a chance to read it, fat chance for the American people. "Give 'em some pie charts, that'll make 'em happy! See! Pie charts! We're transparent!"
Obama may be 100 times better at public speaking than Bush (that's being kind to Bush), but he isn't exactly running rings around Bush when it comes to running the country. All we've had so far are lies and broken promises. Sure gives you a lot of hope, doesn't it?
But I suppose you have to slam the black man, in case he slams your women, huh?
Typical, someone raises a question about what the government is doing, but because the president is black then anybody who questions him must be racist right? "You're a racist" is such an effective way to censor people these days.
I hope you recognize the irony of just how incredibly racist it is to call "racism" when nothing racist was even hinted at.
Asshole.
It's interesting that of all the dangers in the world, the one that turns Americans into quivering masses of fear is something that is so statistically insignificant as to be nearly nonexistent.
It's not just Americans, it's part of human nature. Just look at sharks - how many people are terrified of them? How many people actually died last year in a shark attack, can anybody guess? It was four. Four whole deaths, worldwide. There were only 59 attacks worldwide. Do you know how many people have been killed by the infamous Great White since they started counting in 1872? Sixty-eight.
Contrast that with 42636 fatal car crashes in the US alone, and almost 2 million deaths world-wide. We aren't terrified of riding in vehicles, yet few things strike fear into the heart of a bather like a shark.
It's the same thing with the terrorist attacks - we go way overboard with something that was certainly terrible, but we have sane ways to prevent in the future. All we've done so far is given up our rights and conveniences over an irrational fear of another attack.
That's because we are a civilized nation - we don't believe we are the only people in the world who deserve these rights, we believe everyboy does. That's why we tend to get sucked into fights to preserve democracy and such, though our track record lately is only so-so.
So yeah it sucks that he gets to enjoy our freedoms, but it's the right thing to do.
Then Australian-regioned copies of AVP, sold only in the US, start showing up in Australia.
Weird.
So are you suggesting that we pick up guns and force our values on the rest of our countries? Maybe start a little dictatorship of enlightened slashdotians while we're at it?
Yes.
I kid! I kid!
It's an implied right under the US Constitution, but not enumerated. Essentially the Second Amendment gives the people the right to form a militia in order to protect the country as a free state. Obviously the only thing that would be worth rebelling against is your freedom being taken away, so this applies. It's not a license to wild rebellion though, that just lands you in jail.
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
For all the folks out there wanting to argue that they were talking about the National Guard, stuff it. There was no such thing as a national guard when the Constitution was written, so they could not have been referring to such an entity. Though the National Guard WAS formed from a standing militia, it is not a standing militia today, it is a part-time army. A militia is nothing more than a loosly formed group of people standing together to defend against an invading force. A militia does not go invade other countries (like the National Guard does) or have military higherarchy. This was directly after the 13 colonies rebelled against their government (England), so I think they knew exactly what they were asking for when they said the right of the people, not the army or the militia, to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
It's dead simple, plain english, yet somehow people manage to misconstrue its meaning.
No shit sherlock, thanks for your insight. I don't think anybody realised that until you so graciously pointed it out for us.
What would we do if we didn't have you around to point out the obvious?
They have those in vortexes now?!!
True, but there's always a wee bit of gunpowder residue, plus that sweet, sweet gunpowder smell.
Which laws are these?
From what I've seen, all the laws concerning firearms have been to restrict their usage, while the Founders specifically stated that it was important for the security of the nation that the people should have a right to own and become proficient them.
If you read a little history about the 13 colonies, the Declaration of Independance, and the Revolutionary War you might have a much better frame of reference for what the Founders intended, and how important it was that everyone be free to own and use a gun. That it is second on the list after only freedom of speech should be a not-so-subtle clue.
How the hell did this get modded "Offtopic"?
This post is directly ON topic, it's in response to a post that is ON topic.
What the fuck slashdot mods?
Stealth technology, like that used in the B-2 bomber, F-117 nighthawk, and similar aircraft, was never about bending light around the plane. Because RADAR is an active detection technology - that is, it projects radio waves of a particular frequency and waits for a reflection - it was always about reducing the angles at which the radar would reflect.
Plain old metal, no matter how you coat it, is like a pristine mirror for radio waves (the black color was simply because they only ever intended the planes to fly at night, so the original camoflage pattern was useless). A rounded surface, like that on most planes, will reflect RADAR signals coming from nearly any direction and at least part of the signal will be sent back to the RADAR. That's how RADAR is designed to work. To get around this, you need to minimize round surfaces so that very little, if any signal at all is returned to the RADAR. On-coming RADAR gets bounced up and down, and only a small portion of the radar signal from below gets sent back. They end up looking like large birds - a far cry from massive bombers.
Light is harder, because we distinguish between multiple frequencies of light, so many materials difuse light, and we don't rely on a source projected directly from our own bodies to see. So for this we need to get light to bend around an object to cloak it.
Are you being stupid intentionally, or were you just born that way?
Holy crap did I make some typos and grammar errors there! Oh well, you get the point.
Most juries are pretty smart - I was on one, and the few dumbasses among the jury candidates were all weeded out. They are made up of the average joe citizen and despite what you may think, you yourself ARE the average joe citizen. You are not a legal expert, but you are a reasonably intelligent person perfectly able to recognize most bullshit when you hear it.
Also, the requirements for conviction are note "I think you dunnit", they are things like A.)Intended to possess child porn, B.)actively sought out child porn, C.)actually did keep child porn in his position for a reasonable period of time. There may be more for child porn, but those are similar to the types of requirements for the felony theft case I sat on.
Furthermore, the judge makes it very clear that you must believe each one of those criteria beyond a reasonable doubt. That's not "I'm pretty sure it's true", that's "There is no reasonable alternative". It also applies to each one individually, 2 out of 3 doesn't cut it. It does not mean it is impossible for it to have happened differently, it just means there is no other reasonable alternative. If there IS an alternative, and it is reasonable, there is no option but to aquit. You may be certain he did it, but his guilt has not been proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
Last but certainly not least, jurors are definitely aware that, with the stroke of a pen they are sending a man to jail for years. You are influencing the future of a man's life with this action, and it is not taken lightly. Even a case where a guy might get off in 6 months with good behavior, it's still heavy.
Certainly innocent people go to jail, even with all of this. Evidence can be looked at more than one way, and sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. If the truth of what happened doesn't seem possible, the defendant is in jeopardy. But the odds are stacked against this, and are system is designed to prefer letting an innocent go free than sending a guilty man to jail.
That's why I think this guy is full of shit. If what he says is the full truth, a third grader could keep him out of prison. A lawyer, even a public defender, doesn't tell you to take a plea unless he thinks you are screwed, and he certainly wouldn't think that if all this guy did were accidentally download a kiddy porn pic. Hell if what he said were true he could go to court, plead not guilty, and just sit there the entire trial, with no representation and never saying a word and the jury would almost certainly find him not guilty.
In fact, if that deleted download were all they had against him, the Grand Jury would not have thought there was enough evidence to go to trial, and would have told the prosecuters to go pound sand.
That he is pleading guilty instead of defending himself, especially when there hasn't been a plea bargain, tells me that he is guilty as sin and just trying to mitigate the damage by playing the victim.
More than likely they caught him on bait links, or someone turned him in - both of which undermine his defense that it was just an accident.
He could have someone who hates him, and he could also just be a dumbass who spends all day searching for porn and clicking on every link he finds, but the child porn on his hard drive was the -last- piece of evidence, not the first.
Also, this case had to go through a grand jury first - if this was all the evidence the FBI had then it would not have made it through. Even if it did manage to get past the grand jury phase, if what White says is true this would be an easy win, you'd hardly have to do anything - simply show that this is the only child porn on your hard drive, and the plethora of normal porn (this guy was apparently an avid porn surfer, and not shy about it) on the hard drive, combined with the fact that the child porn was, in fact inaccessible (making it very likely he didn't want it on his computer at all), and the FBI will have a really hard time proving he intended to possess child pornography.
The fact that he is pleading guilty leads me to believe there is a hell of a lot more evidence against this guy, and he's just saying "oh they found some old picture I deleted a long time ago and are railroading me for it". Seriously, how did the FBI know to come to his house in the first place if all he did was accidently download - and delete - some child porn.
Innocent until guilty and all that, but it sounds to me like he is trying to mitigate the damage of his actions (by pleading guilty and looking for sympathy) while trying to make himself look like the victim. His story does not ring true to me.
The point of prison is not to punish criminals or to reform them, it's to separate them from society so they don't harm anybody else.
It just happens to also be a form of punishment, so we don't generally see the need to add a whole lot of punishment on top of it. We also certainly hope they will truly reform they will reform themselves, so we don't have to throw them in prison again. They are both tertiary to the main point, which is getting them out of society so they cannot hurt it any more.
The reason we let them out after 5 years, or 10 years, or 20 years, is because people can and do change their ways, and if they are not going to harm society any more there is no reason to keep them in prison.
You can think of it as a "worth it" scale to determine how long to put someone in prison. For someone who steals $600 dollars worth of equipment, two years in prison generally isn't worth it and they won't do it again. If they stole $10 million worth of stuff, and managed to hide $5 million, well then two years in prison certainly is worth it so sentance needs to be a lot longer to keep the guy from doing it again. If he spends 2/3 of his life in prison, he might decide it wasn't worth the $10 million and won't do it again when he gets out.
Prison is a deterrant, but not a very good one in a lot of cases - most people who commit crimes think about the benefits of the crime if they get away with it, not the consequences when they get caught (if they thought they'd get caught, they wouldn't try it in almost every case). That's also not its purpose. It is meant to separate out people who harm society so they cannot harm society any more. We let them out when we can be reasonably confident that they won't do it again - but we cannot know for sure. Even murderers, if we are confident they will not murder again, we release. We also build in a timer, so we determine what is fair - it's obviously not fair to send a kid who stole a laptop to jail for 50 years, one or two is plenty to disrupt derail thieving activities.
The escalation theory - that prison just makes people commit worse crimes, makes them "better criminals" - is irrelevant whether it is true or not. We have no right to assume anyone will commit a crime after prison, and we must not treat them that way (beyond the usual "done it once, might do it again") unless we are considering releasing them early. Since the purpose of prison is not primarily punishment but separation, the idea that prison just makes people better criminals is an argument for longer, perhaps even permanent, prison sentences, not shorter sentences. If a criminal cannot be considered safe at any point, he should never be released.
And it might be noted that there are large numbers of nonviolent criminals in 'em...
Who cares about that? So you think the guys at Enron who stole millions of dollars from their share-holders shouldn't go to jail for what they did?
Or Bernie Madoff, who stole BILLIONS of dollars - wiping out whole families, I suppose he should just get a slap on the wrist eh? Lost all his assets, but those weren't really his anyway, right? And now he can just start another ponzie scheme and hook new people for millions of dollars, destroy hundreds of families, and live like a king for a few years until the government takes it away again. There is quite a hassle every time he loses all his money, but for the most part it isn't a bad life for an asshole to live, and he'll destroy hundreds of lives in the process.
The point of prison has never been to punish the prisoner - those who think it is are fools. There is certainly a punishment element, but there are a hell of a lot cheaper and more effective ways to punish crimes if that's what we were after. Caning, whipping, cutting off hands for stealing, branding, forced servitude etc. are all far more effective than imprisonment. The punishments we use are primarily monetary - fines, losing assets, but we also do things like revoke the right to vote or own certain items (like guns). Those are all punishments.
The only real purpose of prison is to remove the people who harm society from the society they harm. That's it. It's a separation mechanism so nobody else gets hurt. You put rapists in prison so they can't rape anybody else. You put murderers in prison so they can't murder anybody else (punishment would be execution - that's why they call it capitol punishment). You put fraudsters and con-men in prison so the can't defraud or con anybody else. Since separation is itself a punishment, people often confuse the purpose of the separation to be punishment when it is not. We simply don't have to add a punishment to the separation, since it is built in.
The less harmful the crime, the sooner you let them out, because even though prison is not primarily used as punishment, people can and do correct their actions after spending some time in prison. So we let them out on the hope that they've changed their mind about their criminal activity. Some do, some don't.
If you cheated on your taxes for the last 15 years, you probably won't do it any more after spending a year in jail, and you aren't incredibly harmful in the first place, so if you do it again we just throw you in jail for a longer sentance, no big deal. Murderers, on the other hand, need a long time in prison and careful consideration that they have reformed themselves during their prison sentance before being released, because if they have not reformed themselves then they will likely kill again - though there is a large benefit to the fact that they were unable to kill during their time in prison.
So repeat after me: Prison is for separation, and separation is to keep criminals from doing more bad things to people, or harming society in general. Separation just happens to also be a form of punishment, which means we kill two birds with one stone. Keeping criminals away from non-criminals is the primary purpose, however, and that should not be forgotten.
That's one thing people are really stupid about - if a cop (or FBI agent, same thing) comes knocking at your door wanting to "look around" and you know you didn't do anything wrong, don't let them in.
At the very least if they find anything remotely suspicious they can drag you into the investigation on the spot (you're already in it a little bit), and they may also find something that looks like evidence for their case tying you to whatever, in which case you get arrested.
The cops don't have a right to look at your stuff unless they have evidence that you've done something wrong. Why would you let them try to find something you may not even think was wrong in the first place.
No jury will convict. "Deep int he hard drive" - it is to laugh.
That's not true at all, while juries usually get it right I think, there are a number of cases where the prosecutor was good at portraying the defendant as the criminal - they "just knew" he was the one who did it. In that case they will sometimes disregard the "reasonable doubt" metric (especially likely if it is for something like child port). "I accidentally downloaded it" is a horrible defense, and will leave the jury thinking "yeah right" and convict the hell out of the guy.
I disagree with a poster above who said if you really did accidentally download child porn you wouldn't hide it, you'd report it - most people think "Oh shit, they are going to think I like kiddy porn!" and bury the hell out of stuff like that. They are more afraid of someone pinning something on them unjustly.
However, I think it is great advice to call the FBI when you see something like that, get it on record that you accidentally downloaded kiddy porn and you want to know what the FBI is doing to catch the bastards who make and distribute it.
The other piece of this though, is that he was using Limewire and almost certainly sharing copyrighted material illegally. Going to the FBI with evidence of kiddy porn (and a download from limewire would be an excellent place to start tracking that shit) could result in multiple copyright infringement violations - another reason to bury the download instead of reporting it.
The true moral of the story, is quit breaking the fucking law, and if you see someone else breaking the law (like distributing child porn) fucking tell someone. Do those two things and you'll be fine unless someone decides to railroad you. Then you could be screwed, but your record will be your best defense.