The article contains some flawed logic. The Open Source argument is not that all Open Source code is necessarily more secure than any particular proprietary software; it is instead that as a general rule of thumb open source software will be more secure than proprietary software. His flawed logic is that he argues about the most general claim on the Open Source side--the benefit of peer review--and uses specific cases to argue against a general principle.
If you grant that, out of the gate, there is nothing about Open Source software that makes it more secure than proprietary software, you cannot avoid the conclusion that Open Source is still more secure simple due to the fact that security patches come in overwhelmingly faster with Open Source products. But you would not even want to grant that premise, because, in well-oiled Open Source projects (not crap like sendmail), the peer review process *does* work, and it works well.
Napster is a completely different story in my eyes. Yes, there are some people legitamately using napster. But I'd wager that 95% of people using their service are using it to pirate music. If that's the case, then Napster should be completely revamped to try to stop people from pirating music using their servers as intermediaries. They should do something Beam-It-esque, like keep a central database of which users have access to which songs, and then filter search results based on that criteria. That'd at least make it appear that they were TRYING to combat piracy. Instead they just shrug their shoulders.
Guess what. Landlords can lose their properties if it's found that people are trafficing in drugs with their knowledge. You can go to jail if i kill someone in your house and you don't report it. You can also go to jail if you let someone use heroin in your house. In none of those cases did you do anything wrong, you just looked the other way. Just like napster is doing. No, no, no, no. The landlord example is very poor because it is using a bad law as an example of what is right. It is not right for a landlord to be charged for illegal activity occurring in apartments they lease. Similarly, the murder example is bad because the crime is knowing of a very specific murder and failing to report that very specific murder. Napster does not know of any specific piracy going on.
Why can't America hold people responsible for their own actions rather than try to pin the blame on someone easier to sue?
The problem is not Napster or the univerisities that Metallica is suing; the problem is retards who pirate music. While all the points in your post are valid, they do not support Metallica's actions... they simply support the premise that one should not pirate music.
Metallica is way out in left field on this action. They might as well also sue the W3C, Microsoft, the inventors of ftp, etc. because those can be used in exactly the same manner.
The real problem is an industry that wants to be immune to the way the Internet has changed the business landscape. Every other business in every other industry has had to fundamentally alter the way they do business in order to account for the Internet. The entertainment industry, however, is using the law to attempt to avoid that change in business.
I sure bet travel agents wish they could use the courts the way the entertainment industry has!
Technology is the great equalizer. It brings to the individual powers once reserved for governments or corporations. No better example of such a technology exists than the Internet. The individual songwriter now has the ability to globally distribute a song. I can now broadcast my thoughts on the future to thousands of readers.
Eventually, technology will also be the great equalizer in terms of the ability to destroy. Right now, destruction on a global scale is largely in the hands of only the USA and Russia (the other nuclear powers can do a lot of damage, but not like the USA and Russia). As technology advances, however, an inevitable outcome is that the individual will be granted the power to destroy humanity. At that point, it only takes one bad or insance person to end it all.
Of course, technology can help mitigate this. We can colonize other planets. But the tragedy of losing the entire earth is hardly mitigated by the fact that a few thousand humans are still living on Mars or somewhere else.
People seem to think that the natural conclusion is that technology is bad or should be feared. Nonsense. Even if extinction is an inevitable result of our march forward, that does not mean that the journey towards extinction is not worth it. If you could live forever in some cave or live a normal life span where you could see the wonders of the world, which would you choose?
Existence for the sake of existence is meaningless.
Jon describes the point of view of those who do not know private property as a fundamental tool of capitalism. Such people very correctly see a clear problem with treating intellectual property like traditional private property, but generally not understanding it at a level where they can communicate with the other half. What is missing is an honest discussion of the other point of view.
To understand the other point of view--the one that says intellectual property and private property are closely related (if not identical) concepts--one has to understand what private property is in the first place.
Economic systems derive from the fact that resources are limited. An economic system is a system that provides for the division of limited resources in the face of unlimited demand. Communism believes that resources should be centrally distributed based on need. Capitalism believes that treating resources as private property provides for the most efficient division of resources.
Because capitalism is not concerned with who actually needs a resource, it can appear cold-hearted. Because it is efficient,however, all members of a capitalist society eventually end up richer. Furthermore, communist societies have a real problems with several issues:
Who determines need?
By what means is that "who" granted authority?
How do you motivate people to manufacturer resources?
So, given that capitalism has proven to be so much more better for society than communism and private property is capitalisms primary tool, a look at the issue without reflection might lead one to think that IP should be treated as private property. This is the problem with the lawmakers.
The problem with IP is that it is not a limited resource. The fundamental issues that form the basis for private property do not apply to ideas, music, code, stories, or movies. If everyone in the world wanted a copy of this post, there is nothing that limits the replication of this post to meet their needs. I am not diminished. Hopefully, everyone is enriched:).
Private property is thus a horrible analogy for intellectual property. To determine a new paradigm for intellectual property, we need to think about exactly what we want from intellectual property. I believe it is this: We want the free flow of ideas only encumbered in such a way as to maximumally encourage the creation of new ideas.
So what would such a concept of intellectual property look like?
Re:It's more efficient simply to kill the weakling
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Master Of Your Domain
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· Score: 1
Again, you clearly do not get the concept of namespaces. There are plenty of people in this world with the name McDonald who are not hunted down and killed by the McDonald's restaurant. This is because the restaurant operates in a different namespace than people's last names.
To put it simply, there exists no universal namespace in human conversation. All names are qualified to some degree. We need a domain naming system to address this fact. A hierarchical namespace may or may not be the answer. But a global namespace is most definitely not the answer.
The problem is a conflict in namespaces. Trademarks are not inherently global. The TLD.com is. The problem people are up in arms with is that the current ICANN approach is to place trademarks in a global namespace. If this were applied outside of the.com namespace, it would mean that anyone whose last name is "McDonald" or "Reese" would have to change their name.
By changing the TLD namespace into multiple namespaces, we can have mcdonald.sport or reese.home domains that clearly are not attempts to infringe on established business names but also enable others rightful access to those names.
I completely disagree on the project management aspect though. One of Linux main strength, at least as far as the kernel is concerned, is that it's todo list is not issued my a marketing department but more by developpers and users (as in sysadmin users). And that's the way it should be., that's how it will remain more robust, more efficient and more secure that its bloated competition from Redmond
This quote shows a serious lack of understanding about software development. A little education on the subject.
First of all, project management is not a function of marketing. It is a function of any project. That means whether it is baking cookies, build software, or constructing bridges. Project management means managing the schedule by which you get your intended goals accomplished. It has nothing to do with the source from which you derive those goals, except insofar as you need a process to help determine how to derive those goals. In other words, getting those goals from a team of coders is just as valid to project management as is getting them from a marketing department. All project management does is to say, however you derive those goals, make sure you understand how you derive and prioritize those goals.
Secondly, I have to highlight this comment: One of Linux main strength, at least as far as the kernel is concerned, is that it's todo list is not issued my a marketing department but more by developpers and users (as in sysadmin users). OMG!!! The entire point of computers and software is to get stuff done, not to engage in computing. The todo lists for a computer should be dictated almost entirely by the people who will be using it to get stuff done. That means not the developers and sysadmin users.
Jon notes that one of the hard things is explaining why encryption does not prevent copying. I have found the easiest way is to use an analogy.
Most people are aware that they can password protect their MS Money/Quicken files so no one else can read them. They are also aware they can copy those files and move them to other machines. I explain that the situation is the same (if a litte bit more complex) with DVDs. Namely, the fact that the stuff on the DVDs is encrypted does not prevent the stuff from being copied. It is like copying a Money file. The encryption simply prevents people without approved players from viewing. In other words, I can view a bootlegged DVD on my Sony DVD player, but I cannot play a DVD I legitimately bought on my Linux box. The reason: the Sony player has the password, without DeCSS, my Linux box does not.
You could, of course, avoid technology all together. The fact that I do not speak Norwegian does not prevent me from copying books written in Norwegian. It just prevents me from knowing what they actually say.
It is a terrible fallacy to apply the capitalism/communism concepts of property to the realm of intellectual property. The entire point behind the capitalist concept of property is that that physical resources are finite. As a result, capitalism believe that the private property provides the most efficient means of distributing limited resources. Communism, on the other hand, believes that the community is capable of efficiently distributing resources on a purely logical level. The capitalist view has proven wildly successful.
The underlying basis of capitalist private property, however, does not apply to intellectual property. Intellectual property is not a finite resource. As such, there is no need to create an efficient way to divide it up. Everyone in principal can have access to it. There is nothing utopian about that. Your application of private property concepts and contrasting capitalism with communism are out of place.
I am not here arguing against the concept of intellectual property. In fact, I believe very storngly in a concept of intellectual property that balances two key issues:
The right of the author to be credited with and benefit from their creation.
The right of society to have access to an unlimited resource.
Kevin did some very wrong things and he got what he deserved. He has proven throughout his life that he cannot use a computer without misusing it. The parole is appropriate as it integrates him with society before giving him access to the tool he cannot use properly. While playing the "what is a computer" game may be interesting for purposes of insurance and such, in this case, I think the traditional concept of computer extended to handheld wireless devices is sufficient. It is not that hard to figure out what the parole board is trying to prevent him from doing. Bottom line: he can clearly drive his car and cook in the microwave.
You have completely misunderstood the concept. I did not suggest the public owns the content. In fact, my post is very clear that I am not suggesting the public owns the content. I am suggesting that the public should have special rights with respect to content over broadcast media that they do not have over other media.
There are basically two points you are trying to make for different issues:
By sending content over public airwaves, an author should not have to give up their rights to their intellectual property.
How do you handle yahoos with a policy of free public broadcasting for politics?
To the first issue, I am not suggesting people give up their rights. If I rebroadcast channel 2 on channel 5, it is very unlikely I am going to gain anything unless I actually have something to offer the public by doing so. It would be hard to imagine such a broadcast that would not alter the transmission, and thus in accordance with my post, be a violation of channel 2's IP. If I fail to alter channel 2's content, then they are not harmed at all and, in fact, it is hard to see what I get out of even doing the broadcast. Furthermore, Channel 2 is actually helped out by this.
Now, of course, what constitutes altering? Surrounding the picture in my custom advertising? I think not. Furthermore, it would be absurd to think someone would choose to watch channel 5 in a corner of a screen otherwise filled with advertising over watching channel 2 without the ads. What about if it were on the Internet? Well, this brings the original broadcast to a wider audience and can only be seen to help channel 2.
On the political issue, I don't have the answer right now. I am saying that if the people actually discussed this openly, we could create a solution that is certainly better than giving George Bush the presidency because he has the cash.
Actually, licenses are auctioned off and up for renewal on a constant basis. If I remember correctly from my radio days, it is every 8 years for radio based on your region. All broadcast media in the same region go up for renewal with the FCC in the same year. The interval may be different for TV.
As a condition of an FCC license, you have to serve the public interest. That is why you see nudie pics on cable and not on TV. That is why TV and radio are required to broadcast public service announcements. And if a station does not serve the public interest, it can have its license revoked.
When I first saw this, my initial thought was "thieving bastards". But when I looked closer, rebroadcasting PUBLIC airwaves should be a right, not something that sends you to jail. Canada has this one right.
People have to keep in mind that broadcast television is not the same as going to a movie in a movie theatre or watching something on cable. The airwaves have a finite bandwidth, and they are thus allocated to television stations to serve the public. Unfortunately, broadcast media in the US have convinced nearly everyone that they own the airwaves. They do not. The airwaves are owned by the public and we grant the TV stations the privilege to use that bandwidth. They seriously abuse this privilege.
Consider, for example, politics. It is absurd that TV stations charge money to candidates to run campaign ads. IMHO, they have absolutely no right to do so. While they need to have a solution that prevents any dork from getting in front of the camera, they need to realize the people own the airwaves and we need to use those airwaves for events such as elections.
In the case under consideration here, I believe that broadcasting an unaltered, real time transmission enables the public (in this case, ICrave), to benefit from its airwaves without damaging the people who have been granted the privilege of its use. To hide behind copyright law here is to use the absurd power of the entertainment industry to squash anything which might challenge its non-broadcast plans.
JonKatz's Paranoia Knows No Bounds
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AOL Nation
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· Score: 1
This article is nothing more than unsubstantiated paranoid rantings. Jon says: If Microsoft turns out to be guilty of anti-trust violations for seeking to dominate the Web browser market and discouraging innovation and competition, then the Time-Warner-AOL merger seems dramatically more serious in its potential consequences, not only for consumers but for a competitive new media environment. In fact, the accusations against Microsoft seem trivial when weighed against the impact of the mega-merger announced yesterday.
How can you compare the actual, malicious anti-competitive practices of Microsoft as a monopoly to those of a large media company with no monopoly in place that has not engaged in any visible anti-competitive acts?
AOL Time Warner does not compare to Microsoft. Microsoft owns the consumer desktop operating system market. It uses that monopoly to extort its customers and gain influence in other markets. AOL Time Warner, on the other hand, owns a full media chain from content creation, to publication, to distribution. It does not own any single portion of that chain.
Think of it in terms of legos. Imagine there are enough legos of different shapes in the world to build 5 fire stations. AOL Time Warner has simply positioned themselves as owners of all the different shapes required to build one fire station. They do not prevent anyone else from building fire stations. Others may encounter greaters costs at building a fire station, since they do not control in themselves all of the requisite shapes, but they can still do it.
Microsoft, on the other hand, controls all of the wheel pieces. This means no one can build the fire truck for the station without going through Microsoft. If Microsoft does not want to let you build a fire station, then you cannot build one.
Which one looks more troublesome to you? Unless AOL Time Warner comes to control all of a specific segment of the media chain, which they do not, I see absolutely no problem with the merger. In fact, I think it is a good thing because it will speed the rollout of broadband (phone companies will FINALLY have to get their shit together if they want to compete). It will also speed innovation on the confluence of new media and old. Those are good things.
I wonder how this post got marked up as "interesting". It is so filled with flawed logic as to be, at best, humour. First of all, on the face of it, all of the millionaire Microsofties from their "company scrip" immediately renders this poster a complete fool. How many mine workers were ever millionaires? How many Microsoft employees risk black lung? What exactly is supposed to be the salient point of comparison here? Can someone give the moderator in question a shot of brain power?
The story here is nothing new. A new technology comes along and some wonder how it can be abused. Cryptography, DVD, and genetic engineering have all had concerns about their misuse associated with them. The fact is that any tool can be abused for evil. The blunt tool that Grog made to kill dinner can also be used to kill Og. The encryption technology I use to keep my personal information private can be used by a terrorist to communicate plans for an attack to accomplices across the globe.
Americans have already seen the technology in question put to excellent use. How else would we know how far our favourite football team has to go for a first down? Of course, this same technology can completely alter the "reality" of a picture. This is especially questionable for news events. From the description in this article, it seems like CBS is seriously walking the line for a couple of reasons:
They are establishing that their news organization will use this technology in its footage. Even if it has not altered the meaning of the action in this case, it now means we have to question anything done by CBS news. I think as a rule, news organizations should agree not to use this technology in their broadcasts.
While this is not the same as digitally inserting a joint into Al Gore's mouth, it is still a news event, one that is recording our history. I think as such even in this instance the use of the technology was questionable.
And who decreed that these words had the meanings you assign to them? You?
Language is a shared construct. The terms have meaning insofar as those involved assign meaning to them. If you are communicating to others, you should be careful to use a language that will be meaningful to those you are speaking to. If you are being communicated to, you interpret with respect to what you believe the other person to mean by their language.
You know damn well what the press means when they say hacker. They choose that term because the term means to them and to most people a computer criminal. It is absolutely absurd of you or anyone of the vast minority of people who really care about a supposed difference between crackers and hackers to get your panties in a wad and look down smugly on the rest of the world because their definition of hacker is not yours.
By the way, speaking of using terms in a way completely foreign to their "real" definition, do you know what a geek is?
Most people can get credit cards with 9.9% interest or less.
Smart people pay no interest. They pay their credit card bills every month.
The safest means of commerce is to give your credit card info out over the internet.
The safest means of commerce? Yes. You carry $100 on the street and get mugged, you lose $100 (as well as possibly your health or your life). If someone uses your credit card, however, you are liable for *at most* $50 in charges so long as you let the credit card company know.
Furthermore, transmitting your CC# via SSL is more secure than giving it to a waiter or saying it over the phone.
You are burdened with a misconception about libertarianism. Libertarians do not believe that government is "bad", nor do they believe that government "has no right to collect taxes". The people who hold these beliefs are anarchists. Libertarians believe that government has a very specific role and that it should not exceed that role. Sales taxes, aka use taxes, are generally considered by libertarians to be a good kind of tax for funding the legitimate role government should play. Wealth penalties, aka income taxes, are generally considered a poor kind of tax.
A good libertarian thus should be in favour of tax reform that moves the focus of taxation from income taxes to federal sales taxes, including internet taxes.
One political net issue that has concerned me is the irrational opposition to net taxes that has gripped the public. I fear somehow this will ultimately result in the worst possible solution: the status quo of state-based taxation depending on where you live.
People rightly feel overly taxed. Their knee-jerk reaction to net taxes has been to "just say no!" States and local governments, however, fear this popular anti-net tax bias as it could seriously erode the funds on which state and local governments run as internet commerce becomes more central to the way in which we do business.
As a result, a blanket "no new net taxes statement" ala the thing some of the candidates are signing, could prove dangerous absent of some alternative ways to help fund state and local governments. Instead of making such irrational blanket statements, people should be pushing for greater tax reform that assures that all levels of government are adequately funded without over taxing the people. Such a tax reform might involve no internet taxes, or it might (IMHO better) involve internet taxes combined with a reducation or end to income taxes. Whatever it is, I just wish to caution anyone against mindlessly chanting "No net taxes".
He could have simply told them without the associated break-in. How would you feel if you woke up to find someone in your living room "just to show that it was vulnerable"?
While I think the punishment was excessive in this example, your friend was wrong and the people in question were right to react negatively.
While this is not a great analogy, it actually harms you:)
First of all, if the dog does do damage to your yard, you can sue for the damage to your yard. Your ability to collect damages, however, is mitigated by the broken fence. But only because it is damned obvious that you have a broken fence, and not because there is a way in.
If, for example, your neighbours child starts throwing rocks over a solid fence and breaks a window, the neighbours are fully responsible for those damages. Even though you failed to fully isolate your house from such damage.
Now, computer security is much harder than building a fence. Recognizing holes is very hard. And just because someone has a computer on the internet does not mean that they have the time or the skill to make their fences into fortresses.
Anyone who understands security at all knows that the only way to completely secure your computer is to turn it off and lock in a safe. The minute you turn it on and take it out of the safe (not necessarily in that order), you are opening it up to security risks. Putting it on a closed network opens it up to more risks. And putting it on the Internet opens it up to even more risks.
If we expect every computer on the internet to have top notch security, then we are seriously limiting who can have computers on the internet. We therefore need to vigorously punish those who would exploit the complicated nature of computer security.
I think this is another terrible argument. First of all, there is no need for a 15 year old to get computer knowledge by damaging other people's intellectual property. This is akin to saying drive-by-shootings need to be tolerated otherwise where would people pick up the skills needed to join the army?
In short, we would not be deprived of much technical talent at all. It really shows that you place no value on my time, my money, or my property to ask me to "suck it up" and deal with losing time and money because some 15 year old is bored--or worse, because they want to hurt me somehow by making me look like a fool or intentionally costing me that time, money, or property.
Slashdot Mirror
If you grant that, out of the gate, there is nothing about Open Source software that makes it more secure than proprietary software, you cannot avoid the conclusion that Open Source is still more secure simple due to the fact that security patches come in overwhelmingly faster with Open Source products. But you would not even want to grant that premise, because, in well-oiled Open Source projects (not crap like sendmail), the peer review process *does* work, and it works well.
Guess what. Landlords can lose their properties if it's found that people are trafficing in drugs with their knowledge. You can go to jail if i kill someone in your house and you don't report it. You can also go to jail if you let someone use heroin in your house. In none of those cases did you do anything wrong, you just looked the other way. Just like napster is doing. No, no, no, no. The landlord example is very poor because it is using a bad law as an example of what is right. It is not right for a landlord to be charged for illegal activity occurring in apartments they lease. Similarly, the murder example is bad because the crime is knowing of a very specific murder and failing to report that very specific murder. Napster does not know of any specific piracy going on.
Why can't America hold people responsible for their own actions rather than try to pin the blame on someone easier to sue?
Metallica is way out in left field on this action. They might as well also sue the W3C, Microsoft, the inventors of ftp, etc. because those can be used in exactly the same manner.
The real problem is an industry that wants to be immune to the way the Internet has changed the business landscape. Every other business in every other industry has had to fundamentally alter the way they do business in order to account for the Internet. The entertainment industry, however, is using the law to attempt to avoid that change in business.
I sure bet travel agents wish they could use the courts the way the entertainment industry has!
Eventually, technology will also be the great equalizer in terms of the ability to destroy. Right now, destruction on a global scale is largely in the hands of only the USA and Russia (the other nuclear powers can do a lot of damage, but not like the USA and Russia). As technology advances, however, an inevitable outcome is that the individual will be granted the power to destroy humanity. At that point, it only takes one bad or insance person to end it all.
Of course, technology can help mitigate this. We can colonize other planets. But the tragedy of losing the entire earth is hardly mitigated by the fact that a few thousand humans are still living on Mars or somewhere else.
People seem to think that the natural conclusion is that technology is bad or should be feared. Nonsense. Even if extinction is an inevitable result of our march forward, that does not mean that the journey towards extinction is not worth it. If you could live forever in some cave or live a normal life span where you could see the wonders of the world, which would you choose?
Existence for the sake of existence is meaningless.
To understand the other point of view--the one that says intellectual property and private property are closely related (if not identical) concepts--one has to understand what private property is in the first place.
Economic systems derive from the fact that resources are limited. An economic system is a system that provides for the division of limited resources in the face of unlimited demand. Communism believes that resources should be centrally distributed based on need. Capitalism believes that treating resources as private property provides for the most efficient division of resources.
Because capitalism is not concerned with who actually needs a resource, it can appear cold-hearted. Because it is efficient,however, all members of a capitalist society eventually end up richer. Furthermore, communist societies have a real problems with several issues:
So, given that capitalism has proven to be so much more better for society than communism and private property is capitalisms primary tool, a look at the issue without reflection might lead one to think that IP should be treated as private property. This is the problem with the lawmakers.
The problem with IP is that it is not a limited resource. The fundamental issues that form the basis for private property do not apply to ideas, music, code, stories, or movies. If everyone in the world wanted a copy of this post, there is nothing that limits the replication of this post to meet their needs. I am not diminished. Hopefully, everyone is enriched :).
Private property is thus a horrible analogy for intellectual property. To determine a new paradigm for intellectual property, we need to think about exactly what we want from intellectual property. I believe it is this: We want the free flow of ideas only encumbered in such a way as to maximumally encourage the creation of new ideas.
So what would such a concept of intellectual property look like?
To put it simply, there exists no universal namespace in human conversation. All names are qualified to some degree. We need a domain naming system to address this fact. A hierarchical namespace may or may not be the answer. But a global namespace is most definitely not the answer.
By changing the TLD namespace into multiple namespaces, we can have mcdonald.sport or reese.home domains that clearly are not attempts to infringe on established business names but also enable others rightful access to those names.
This quote shows a serious lack of understanding about software development. A little education on the subject.
First of all, project management is not a function of marketing. It is a function of any project. That means whether it is baking cookies, build software, or constructing bridges. Project management means managing the schedule by which you get your intended goals accomplished. It has nothing to do with the source from which you derive those goals, except insofar as you need a process to help determine how to derive those goals. In other words, getting those goals from a team of coders is just as valid to project management as is getting them from a marketing department. All project management does is to say, however you derive those goals, make sure you understand how you derive and prioritize those goals.
Secondly, I have to highlight this comment:
One of Linux main strength, at least as far as the kernel is concerned, is that it's todo list is not issued my a marketing department but more by developpers and users (as in sysadmin users).
OMG!!! The entire point of computers and software is to get stuff done, not to engage in computing. The todo lists for a computer should be dictated almost entirely by the people who will be using it to get stuff done. That means not the developers and sysadmin users.
Most people are aware that they can password protect their MS Money/Quicken files so no one else can read them. They are also aware they can copy those files and move them to other machines. I explain that the situation is the same (if a litte bit more complex) with DVDs. Namely, the fact that the stuff on the DVDs is encrypted does not prevent the stuff from being copied. It is like copying a Money file. The encryption simply prevents people without approved players from viewing. In other words, I can view a bootlegged DVD on my Sony DVD player, but I cannot play a DVD I legitimately bought on my Linux box. The reason: the Sony player has the password, without DeCSS, my Linux box does not.
You could, of course, avoid technology all together. The fact that I do not speak Norwegian does not prevent me from copying books written in Norwegian. It just prevents me from knowing what they actually say.
The underlying basis of capitalist private property, however, does not apply to intellectual property. Intellectual property is not a finite resource. As such, there is no need to create an efficient way to divide it up. Everyone in principal can have access to it. There is nothing utopian about that. Your application of private property concepts and contrasting capitalism with communism are out of place.
I am not here arguing against the concept of intellectual property. In fact, I believe very storngly in a concept of intellectual property that balances two key issues:
Kevin did some very wrong things and he got what he deserved. He has proven throughout his life that he cannot use a computer without misusing it. The parole is appropriate as it integrates him with society before giving him access to the tool he cannot use properly. While playing the "what is a computer" game may be interesting for purposes of insurance and such, in this case, I think the traditional concept of computer extended to handheld wireless devices is sufficient. It is not that hard to figure out what the parole board is trying to prevent him from doing. Bottom line: he can clearly drive his car and cook in the microwave.
You have completely misunderstood the concept. I did not suggest the public owns the content. In fact, my post is very clear that I am not suggesting the public owns the content. I am suggesting that the public should have special rights with respect to content over broadcast media that they do not have over other media.
- By sending content over public airwaves, an author should not have to give up their rights to their intellectual property.
- How do you handle yahoos with a policy of free public broadcasting for politics?
To the first issue, I am not suggesting people give up their rights. If I rebroadcast channel 2 on channel 5, it is very unlikely I am going to gain anything unless I actually have something to offer the public by doing so. It would be hard to imagine such a broadcast that would not alter the transmission, and thus in accordance with my post, be a violation of channel 2's IP. If I fail to alter channel 2's content, then they are not harmed at all and, in fact, it is hard to see what I get out of even doing the broadcast. Furthermore, Channel 2 is actually helped out by this.Now, of course, what constitutes altering? Surrounding the picture in my custom advertising? I think not. Furthermore, it would be absurd to think someone would choose to watch channel 5 in a corner of a screen otherwise filled with advertising over watching channel 2 without the ads. What about if it were on the Internet? Well, this brings the original broadcast to a wider audience and can only be seen to help channel 2.
On the political issue, I don't have the answer right now. I am saying that if the people actually discussed this openly, we could create a solution that is certainly better than giving George Bush the presidency because he has the cash.
As a condition of an FCC license, you have to serve the public interest. That is why you see nudie pics on cable and not on TV. That is why TV and radio are required to broadcast public service announcements. And if a station does not serve the public interest, it can have its license revoked.
People have to keep in mind that broadcast television is not the same as going to a movie in a movie theatre or watching something on cable. The airwaves have a finite bandwidth, and they are thus allocated to television stations to serve the public. Unfortunately, broadcast media in the US have convinced nearly everyone that they own the airwaves. They do not. The airwaves are owned by the public and we grant the TV stations the privilege to use that bandwidth. They seriously abuse this privilege.
Consider, for example, politics. It is absurd that TV stations charge money to candidates to run campaign ads. IMHO, they have absolutely no right to do so. While they need to have a solution that prevents any dork from getting in front of the camera, they need to realize the people own the airwaves and we need to use those airwaves for events such as elections.
In the case under consideration here, I believe that broadcasting an unaltered, real time transmission enables the public (in this case, ICrave), to benefit from its airwaves without damaging the people who have been granted the privilege of its use. To hide behind copyright law here is to use the absurd power of the entertainment industry to squash anything which might challenge its non-broadcast plans.
If Microsoft turns out to be guilty of anti-trust violations for seeking to dominate the Web browser market and discouraging innovation and competition, then the Time-Warner-AOL merger seems dramatically more serious in its potential consequences, not only for consumers but for a competitive new media environment. In fact, the accusations against Microsoft seem trivial when weighed against the impact of the mega-merger announced yesterday.
How can you compare the actual, malicious anti-competitive practices of Microsoft as a monopoly to those of a large media company with no monopoly in place that has not engaged in any visible anti-competitive acts?
AOL Time Warner does not compare to Microsoft. Microsoft owns the consumer desktop operating system market. It uses that monopoly to extort its customers and gain influence in other markets. AOL Time Warner, on the other hand, owns a full media chain from content creation, to publication, to distribution. It does not own any single portion of that chain.
Think of it in terms of legos. Imagine there are enough legos of different shapes in the world to build 5 fire stations. AOL Time Warner has simply positioned themselves as owners of all the different shapes required to build one fire station. They do not prevent anyone else from building fire stations. Others may encounter greaters costs at building a fire station, since they do not control in themselves all of the requisite shapes, but they can still do it.
Microsoft, on the other hand, controls all of the wheel pieces. This means no one can build the fire truck for the station without going through Microsoft. If Microsoft does not want to let you build a fire station, then you cannot build one.
Which one looks more troublesome to you? Unless AOL Time Warner comes to control all of a specific segment of the media chain, which they do not, I see absolutely no problem with the merger. In fact, I think it is a good thing because it will speed the rollout of broadband (phone companies will FINALLY have to get their shit together if they want to compete). It will also speed innovation on the confluence of new media and old. Those are good things.
I wonder how this post got marked up as "interesting". It is so filled with flawed logic as to be, at best, humour. First of all, on the face of it, all of the millionaire Microsofties from their "company scrip" immediately renders this poster a complete fool. How many mine workers were ever millionaires? How many Microsoft employees risk black lung? What exactly is supposed to be the salient point of comparison here? Can someone give the moderator in question a shot of brain power?
Americans have already seen the technology in question put to excellent use. How else would we know how far our favourite football team has to go for a first down? Of course, this same technology can completely alter the "reality" of a picture. This is especially questionable for news events. From the description in this article, it seems like CBS is seriously walking the line for a couple of reasons:
Language is a shared construct. The terms have meaning insofar as those involved assign meaning to them. If you are communicating to others, you should be careful to use a language that will be meaningful to those you are speaking to. If you are being communicated to, you interpret with respect to what you believe the other person to mean by their language.
You know damn well what the press means when they say hacker. They choose that term because the term means to them and to most people a computer criminal. It is absolutely absurd of you or anyone of the vast minority of people who really care about a supposed difference between crackers and hackers to get your panties in a wad and look down smugly on the rest of the world because their definition of hacker is not yours.
By the way, speaking of using terms in a way completely foreign to their "real" definition, do you know what a geek is?
- Most people can get credit cards with 9.9% interest or less.
- Smart people pay no interest. They pay their credit card bills every month.
- The safest means of commerce is to give your credit card info out over the internet.
The safest means of commerce? Yes. You carry $100 on the street and get mugged, you lose $100 (as well as possibly your health or your life). If someone uses your credit card, however, you are liable for *at most* $50 in charges so long as you let the credit card company know.Furthermore, transmitting your CC# via SSL is more secure than giving it to a waiter or saying it over the phone.
A good libertarian thus should be in favour of tax reform that moves the focus of taxation from income taxes to federal sales taxes, including internet taxes.
People rightly feel overly taxed. Their knee-jerk reaction to net taxes has been to "just say no!" States and local governments, however, fear this popular anti-net tax bias as it could seriously erode the funds on which state and local governments run as internet commerce becomes more central to the way in which we do business.
As a result, a blanket "no new net taxes statement" ala the thing some of the candidates are signing, could prove dangerous absent of some alternative ways to help fund state and local governments. Instead of making such irrational blanket statements, people should be pushing for greater tax reform that assures that all levels of government are adequately funded without over taxing the people. Such a tax reform might involve no internet taxes, or it might (IMHO better) involve internet taxes combined with a reducation or end to income taxes. Whatever it is, I just wish to caution anyone against mindlessly chanting "No net taxes".
He could have simply told them without the associated break-in. How would you feel if you woke up to find someone in your living room "just to show that it was vulnerable"?
While I think the punishment was excessive in this example, your friend was wrong and the people in question were right to react negatively.
First of all, if the dog does do damage to your yard, you can sue for the damage to your yard. Your ability to collect damages, however, is mitigated by the broken fence. But only because it is damned obvious that you have a broken fence, and not because there is a way in.
If, for example, your neighbours child starts throwing rocks over a solid fence and breaks a window, the neighbours are fully responsible for those damages. Even though you failed to fully isolate your house from such damage.
Now, computer security is much harder than building a fence. Recognizing holes is very hard. And just because someone has a computer on the internet does not mean that they have the time or the skill to make their fences into fortresses.
Anyone who understands security at all knows that the only way to completely secure your computer is to turn it off and lock in a safe. The minute you turn it on and take it out of the safe (not necessarily in that order), you are opening it up to security risks. Putting it on a closed network opens it up to more risks. And putting it on the Internet opens it up to even more risks.
If we expect every computer on the internet to have top notch security, then we are seriously limiting who can have computers on the internet. We therefore need to vigorously punish those who would exploit the complicated nature of computer security.
In short, we would not be deprived of much technical talent at all. It really shows that you place no value on my time, my money, or my property to ask me to "suck it up" and deal with losing time and money because some 15 year old is bored--or worse, because they want to hurt me somehow by making me look like a fool or intentionally costing me that time, money, or property.