Campaigning to change the law would, potentially, prevent future abuse by Amazon. It would not, however, redress the damage caused by Amazon with regard to 1984. Changes to law should not be retroactive (that would be akin to changing the rules of the game after the game ended in order to change the outcome of the game - who would bother to play, given such circumstances?).
The only way to achieve redress for damages already done is to sue. The suit need not go to trial (suits are frequently resolved by the involved parties long before they go to trial).
Lawsuits are not inherently evil. If the courts are fair, impartial, and sensible, lawsuits serve as one of the means of ensuring fairness in the system. When courts are unfair, or biased, or when they permit frivolous lawsuits to proceed, the concept of lawsuits is subverted and used as a means of making the system less fair, ultimately damaging the system and harming all involved.
Unless someone designs an entire system, top to bottom, there will always be a slowest piece (aka a bottleneck).
All this means is that RAID controllers will be the bottleneck until someone designs a better RAID controller. Then the bottleneck will be some other part of the system. Hard to see what the fuss is about.
Actually, the problem is deeper than that. Phone companies in the US (and, I think, Canada) are legally required to serve as the billing agent for third-party service providers (long distance, sex-chat lines, etc). Given that situation, they do need to understand how big a balance they should let you run.
I wonder if we could not resolve the issue by allowing the end consumer to sign a waiver that would allow the phone company to bow out as the billing agent (note: that would mean that you, the end consumer, would not be able to buy third-party services that required the phone company to handle the billing). Yes, it would require work on the software on telephone switches and billing computers. But then the relationship between the phone company and you would be a direct relationship dealing with cellular service only. Should not need SSN for that.
Horse-feathers.
I recently converted an old box to Linux. I tried two distros, Suse and Ubuntu, using DVDs from Linux Pro Magazine. Didn't have to search for any drivers. Both installed as usable systems right off the mark. No problems in either case. Your comments were probably correct 5 years ago. Maybe even two years ago. Not today.
That creates the possibility of a new form of attack. Consider a website for a local business (pizza joint, etc). I have DHCP from the main ISP in the area. I attack the business's server using the attack from the article. The business flags my IP. I request a new IP from the ISP and do it all over again. Repeat ad nauseum. All those IPs that the business flagged because of me now get limited access at that server. But I'm not using those IPs. Other customers of the ISP (and the local business) are using them - with limited access.
True. But if one of your co-workers gets hit by a bus, you'll be glad that you can takeover his work without having to reverse-engineer this thoughts.
What goes around comes around.
I'm having a hard time understanding how they intend to automate these things. Okay, documents presumably you can scan for keywords. Of course, if the list of keywords ever gets out (government never leaks anything, right?), that becomes pointless.
But pictures? How do you automate scanning pictures for illegal material? File name is not useful (rename?). MD5 Hash? All we need to do is toggle one random bit of the file and the hash value is completely different (that is an attribute of a good hash). And where would they get the hash values in the first place?
This sounds like yet another request by the technically clueless. Wish I lived in the UK. There's probably a nice big pot of Sterling waiting to be doled out by those clueless folks.
We don't know the complete circumstances. First off, what are the legal requirements, in Oz, on the ISP (the uni, in this case)? What steps do they need to take in order to protect themselves?
Second, what were the terms of the dorm rental agreement and the internet acceptable use policy? Did they state that you would be evicted for downloading copyrighted material? If the rules were clear from the outset, and the student violated them, too bad that he got caught.
We have, at most, one side of the story (and probably not the complete side at that).
Insufficient data.
I worked for a major telecom equipment manufacturer in the early 90s. We loaded our switches with a monolithic load that had features disabled unless the customer actually bought them. This is exactly the same thing (one could quite happily argue that the monolithic load was an "operating system" as it was the only software running on the switch).
I wonder when the first law suit will occur and who the plaintiff will be.
This is why Thomas Jefferson thought corporations represented a danger to liberty. Corporations control the politicians, not us.
Also if this precedent is allowed to stand, what's next? "I heard from colleaques you voted Libertarian." "Um, yeah I didn't like either McCain or Obama." "
I suggest that that is not the correct answer, regardless of how you voted. The more appropriate answer would be "That's interesting. I did not tell anyone how I voted and we have a secret ballot in this country. Those 'colleagues' are either lying or they have violated electoral law. I expect you will take appropriate disciplinary measures on the those 'colleagues'."
Given that the US government now effectively owns GM (and therefore On-Star), does anyone really want to buy a car that already has GPS tracking built-in?
It would be interesting to see whether the encryption used on DVDs, or similarly poor encryption, passes muster in Nevada. Might make for an amusing precedent.
This is why I hate being Canadian. So they're going to fine me $5 / month for downloading music even though I never download music. And they'll do the same thing to my mother and my sister and a pile of my friends, none of whom download music.
No. I do not want to pay money for nothing.
I finished a contract position late last year with a largish financial company. I started the new year with a permanent position at a telecommunications company. Both seem to be phasing out desktops in favour of laptops. Are desktops relevant any more? At my current employer, I know no one with a desktop (not even the admin assistants).
Laptops consume less power while running and generally get turned off at the end of the day. If you want to save power, they would seem to be the way to go.
So, suppose Alice and Bob use asymmetric crypto to encrypt the email (and not just to share a symmetric session key but to actually encrypt the plain text). Yes, I know it's horribly inefficient, but cpu cycles are cheap and most email is only a few KB long, so it's not that horrific a thought. If No Such Agency hassles Alice over an encrypted email she sent to Bob, she says that she used Bob's public key and cannot decrypt it - only Bob can do so. Assuming Bob lives somewhere that No Such Agency can hassle him, he hands them his "private key" that decrypts the email to rubbish and says "Sorry, Alice must have screwed up the encryption".
Worst case scenario, both Bob and Alice are screwed. Best case, No Such Agency is very unhappy.
Campaigning to change the law would, potentially, prevent future abuse by Amazon. It would not, however, redress the damage caused by Amazon with regard to 1984. Changes to law should not be retroactive (that would be akin to changing the rules of the game after the game ended in order to change the outcome of the game - who would bother to play, given such circumstances?). The only way to achieve redress for damages already done is to sue. The suit need not go to trial (suits are frequently resolved by the involved parties long before they go to trial). Lawsuits are not inherently evil. If the courts are fair, impartial, and sensible, lawsuits serve as one of the means of ensuring fairness in the system. When courts are unfair, or biased, or when they permit frivolous lawsuits to proceed, the concept of lawsuits is subverted and used as a means of making the system less fair, ultimately damaging the system and harming all involved.
Unless someone designs an entire system, top to bottom, there will always be a slowest piece (aka a bottleneck). All this means is that RAID controllers will be the bottleneck until someone designs a better RAID controller. Then the bottleneck will be some other part of the system. Hard to see what the fuss is about.
Actually, the problem is deeper than that. Phone companies in the US (and, I think, Canada) are legally required to serve as the billing agent for third-party service providers (long distance, sex-chat lines, etc). Given that situation, they do need to understand how big a balance they should let you run. I wonder if we could not resolve the issue by allowing the end consumer to sign a waiver that would allow the phone company to bow out as the billing agent (note: that would mean that you, the end consumer, would not be able to buy third-party services that required the phone company to handle the billing). Yes, it would require work on the software on telephone switches and billing computers. But then the relationship between the phone company and you would be a direct relationship dealing with cellular service only. Should not need SSN for that.
Horse-feathers. I recently converted an old box to Linux. I tried two distros, Suse and Ubuntu, using DVDs from Linux Pro Magazine. Didn't have to search for any drivers. Both installed as usable systems right off the mark. No problems in either case. Your comments were probably correct 5 years ago. Maybe even two years ago. Not today.
That creates the possibility of a new form of attack. Consider a website for a local business (pizza joint, etc). I have DHCP from the main ISP in the area. I attack the business's server using the attack from the article. The business flags my IP. I request a new IP from the ISP and do it all over again. Repeat ad nauseum. All those IPs that the business flagged because of me now get limited access at that server. But I'm not using those IPs. Other customers of the ISP (and the local business) are using them - with limited access.
True. But if one of your co-workers gets hit by a bus, you'll be glad that you can takeover his work without having to reverse-engineer this thoughts. What goes around comes around.
I know what you mean. Even Latin is Greek to me.
I'm having a hard time understanding how they intend to automate these things. Okay, documents presumably you can scan for keywords. Of course, if the list of keywords ever gets out (government never leaks anything, right?), that becomes pointless. But pictures? How do you automate scanning pictures for illegal material? File name is not useful (rename?). MD5 Hash? All we need to do is toggle one random bit of the file and the hash value is completely different (that is an attribute of a good hash). And where would they get the hash values in the first place? This sounds like yet another request by the technically clueless. Wish I lived in the UK. There's probably a nice big pot of Sterling waiting to be doled out by those clueless folks.
We don't know the complete circumstances. First off, what are the legal requirements, in Oz, on the ISP (the uni, in this case)? What steps do they need to take in order to protect themselves? Second, what were the terms of the dorm rental agreement and the internet acceptable use policy? Did they state that you would be evicted for downloading copyrighted material? If the rules were clear from the outset, and the student violated them, too bad that he got caught. We have, at most, one side of the story (and probably not the complete side at that). Insufficient data.
I worked for a major telecom equipment manufacturer in the early 90s. We loaded our switches with a monolithic load that had features disabled unless the customer actually bought them. This is exactly the same thing (one could quite happily argue that the monolithic load was an "operating system" as it was the only software running on the switch). I wonder when the first law suit will occur and who the plaintiff will be.
This is why Thomas Jefferson thought corporations represented a danger to liberty. Corporations control the politicians, not us.
Also if this precedent is allowed to stand, what's next? "I heard from colleaques you voted Libertarian." "Um, yeah I didn't like either McCain or Obama." "
I suggest that that is not the correct answer, regardless of how you voted. The more appropriate answer would be "That's interesting. I did not tell anyone how I voted and we have a secret ballot in this country. Those 'colleagues' are either lying or they have violated electoral law. I expect you will take appropriate disciplinary measures on the those 'colleagues'."
Given that the US government now effectively owns GM (and therefore On-Star), does anyone really want to buy a car that already has GPS tracking built-in?
I sure have a lot of experience.
It would be interesting to see whether the encryption used on DVDs, or similarly poor encryption, passes muster in Nevada. Might make for an amusing precedent.
Might work. Until the guv'mint makes it illegal.
Thanks to the OP. Just (less than 5 minutes) before I read the article, I'd upgraded to the latest version of Firefox. NoScript is now installed.
This is why I hate being Canadian. So they're going to fine me $5 / month for downloading music even though I never download music. And they'll do the same thing to my mother and my sister and a pile of my friends, none of whom download music. No. I do not want to pay money for nothing.
I finished a contract position late last year with a largish financial company. I started the new year with a permanent position at a telecommunications company. Both seem to be phasing out desktops in favour of laptops. Are desktops relevant any more? At my current employer, I know no one with a desktop (not even the admin assistants). Laptops consume less power while running and generally get turned off at the end of the day. If you want to save power, they would seem to be the way to go.
So, suppose Alice and Bob use asymmetric crypto to encrypt the email (and not just to share a symmetric session key but to actually encrypt the plain text). Yes, I know it's horribly inefficient, but cpu cycles are cheap and most email is only a few KB long, so it's not that horrific a thought. If No Such Agency hassles Alice over an encrypted email she sent to Bob, she says that she used Bob's public key and cannot decrypt it - only Bob can do so. Assuming Bob lives somewhere that No Such Agency can hassle him, he hands them his "private key" that decrypts the email to rubbish and says "Sorry, Alice must have screwed up the encryption". Worst case scenario, both Bob and Alice are screwed. Best case, No Such Agency is very unhappy.