This was a laptop, right? Not a computer sitting in his office. There is no reason to suppose that any of the alleged porn-surfing was done on company time.
How is it misuse then? Looking at sexy pictures doesn't harm the computer or the company at all. Do they also fire people for using their company laptop, at home and on their own time, for browsing Slashdot or eBay?
This is a problem we had in the company I work at.
Looking into it, we actually learnt that Microsoft ISA does its logging in UTC and we concluded that although it was possible the staff involved were browsing porn, it was done on personal time. Although it was a company laptop, the porn was browsed on personal time and so we said "Hey - look, can you not do this on company equipment?"
What is hard is proving intent.
Although you can prove that a website was browsed at a particular time (using proxy logs), you cannot easily prove intent. What's the difference between a person browsing porn and someone going to a dodgy (cracks/warez/etc) site and accidentally getting porn in the process? You can generally get an idea based on the number of hits a site gets, along with how long they spend on the site (or how many links they follow), but once more - you can not easily prove intent.
This is why we just blacklist at the proxy level - if they can't get to the websites, we don't have to worry about proving intent or informing management
What are some of the differences that make the New Zealanders so reluctant to unify with Australia?/USian, not familiar with local customs or grievances
We're both pretty competitive in the sporting arena - we play rugby against eachother, along with South Africa on a yearly basis(see Tri-Nations Cup. My rustic memory of history tells me this eventuated from the end of WWI when our troops stopped in South Africa on their way home and started playing rugby there (but I could be wrong).
The same holds true for other sports - such as netball, cricket, etc
There's a few minor disputes over Australia claiming Pavlova (a dessert), Phar Lap (Race Horse) and Split Enz (Band) from us - it's not really a big thing at the end of the day, but I suppose it makes us feel better bringing up this petty stuff when we get caned in the rugby
Economically, Australia has a slightly better exchange rate than we do, with $1 (NZ) being equivalent to around 80c (Aus), give or take a fluctuation. Economics isn't my forte, so I'll stay out of this area, however every few years we get someone saying we should have a shared currency with Aussie. On that note, we didn't join the "War on Terror" (Australia did, however) - although we sent troops for peace keeping and to help rebuild the country
We do allow citizens visa-less entry into eachothers countries, we trade a fair bit with eachother and everything - so we are pretty friendly despite it all - So I guess if you wanted a small analogy, it's similar to the US/Canada thing?
although the indefinate jail term is pure nonesense he should still expect to go to jail for 6 months or so over it.
If this even makes the courts, I highly doubt he'll be held indefinitely.
Our courts are quite reasonable (some argue that they're too forgiving), and he'll probably walk out with a slap on the wrist (diversion maybe?).
As commented in the article:
"He has the keys to that jail cell in his own pocket, he can say 'OK I stop' and they'd let him go," says Bill Hodge of Auckland University Law School. -- tvnz.co.nz
Unfortunately we don't jail people for being idiots in this country.
If you read through his website, he has all sorts of shit there - yes he was sentenced to 6 weeks in Mt Eden Prison, however it's not maximum security - it's Low/Medium Security - hell you can walk there from town in 10minutes if you really wanted to.
All you have to do is get enough armed people to agree with you....fixed that for you.
Close.
Currently our police aren't armed, only our Armed Defenders Squad is - think of them like the SWAT teams in the US.
The government's recently finished a study on whether they'll let the police carry tasers, though from what I've heard on the news our PM is strongly opposed to this, so we'll have to see what happens there.
So if an entity (any virus writer, for example), incorporates, then it's legal for them to mess with your computer? All they need to do is claim that they have evidence that you are infringing some property rights of theirs?
Didn't Sony do this with their root-kit a while ago?
Trying to protect "their rights" by installing hidden root-kits on PC's in an attempt to curb "piracy".
It will frankly create a situation ripe for software-license blackmail and extortion.
Had that problem with AutoDesk a while back. One of our remote sites wanted to transfer an AutoCAD licence from one PC to another and decided the way to do this was without informing the IT Department.
Uninstalled it from PC #1, installed it on PC #2 and got stuck trying to "activate" it. The portable licence transfer utility got removed in the process, so we couldn't do the licence transfer ourselves. Email AutoDesk and not only would they not help us out, they demanded we give them proof of purchase for all our copies of AutoCAD otherwise they'd subject us to a software audit.
In the end we complied, gave them proof of purchase for all our AutoDesk software along with scans of the boxes (they list the serial number on the top) and we eventually got the required key out of them to activate the product on the new PC.
But this goes to show that the companies will do anything they can to extort the users of their software
Thunderbird defaults to asking when someone asks for a return receipt
Difference is that the recipient is notified about the return receipt and they can choose to take action from there.
Transparent images embedded in html emails (which never should have been started in the first place) are a different kettle of fish, in that most users won't realize that their email is being monitored
I suppose one way of gaining awareness would be setting up a system (think Sorbs/Spamhaus), which lists domains of people who embed sort of shit in their emails.
Companies frown upon negative publicity and if you can say "Hey, you're listed because jbloggs@example.com sent out an email with this shit in it", then I can't see the company continuing to do that for very long
I feel I must inform you that CDs and DVDs and Blu-Ray discs are all in digital formats.
Fair call.
My point remains though - why pay for something that'll eventually be obsolete, when you can get it on your PC for a cheaper price and have it (hopefully) last longer?
Excluding the illegal downloads arena (which I know is what they're suing over), I think half the problem is the *AA not keeping up with technology.
At home I have a sizeable DVD collection (around 230 at last count), but with the release of Blu-Ray I'm starting to realize that my collection will eventually be obsolete (such as when DVD first came out, and people with a reasonable VCR collection realized that their collection would eventually be worth squat).
I think this is one of the reasons people download (the other reasons being ridiculous prices, etc).
People realize that technology changes - CD collections have been superseeded by portable MP3 players (ipod and the likes), VCR's replaced with DVD's which will eventually lose out to blu-ray (once the prices down).
And people realize this - why should you pay for a CD/DVD, which will eventually become obsolete, when you can get what you want in a digital format (for a cheaper price)?
Does this mean the French government is encouraging people to search for child pornography? Because really, you have to go looking for that stuff specifically if you want to find it to report it.
That's actually a good point - the public are required to flag sites that are inappropriate, right? How many people that (view kiddy porn) do you think will actually flag the sites that they visit?
This is similar to the failed ideas about stopping spam - infact, I'm sure that the spam form could come out and be modded to suit this situation
i think this is what they mean by possessions owning the person rather than the other way around.
That's true, although I have a Media PC setup at home (standard MythTV - nothing flashy). It's great for the days when you come home from work and just want to spend an hour to unwind - especially on those days where anything that can go wrong does go wrong.
When I'm home alone, it's great to be turn up the stereo and have my music stream across the network so that I can hear it while I'm in the kitchen or wherever - and yes I could just plug in an ipod and get the same result, but this lets me have all my movies in one "central repository" type thing - kinda like Movies on Demand, except requiring you to rip them to ISO after you've purchased them
wouldn't the easiest approach be to have a networked PC under the screen, and use that to connect mouse and keyboard to
That's how we've done the setup where I live.
Bought a couple of secondhand PC's, which were shifted into media PC cases, add a PCI wireless card and S-Video capable graphics card and you're set.
The PC's sit quite nicely with the other equipment around the TV, and it's easy enough to control using the IR remotes (we use the Microsoft MCE ones).
Load MythTV on all these machines, convert all the DVD's to ISO's / CD's to MP3 / etc and throw them on your workhorse PC (Myth Server) and you're set
$1 for each GB over the cap.
Or worse. After exceeding your limit, you'll be stuck with 4KB/s for the rest of the month. Here in NZ, our DSL plans either:
1 - Go down to "dialup speeds" (though I think in the interests of fairness, most ISP's just throttle you down to 64kbps).
2 - You pay something like 2c per MB over (so about $20 for 1GB)
3 - Some ISPS give you the option to purchase another "block" of MB at the high speeds
So you are about right with your estimations - but I don't know of many people that actually max out a 50GB plan.
I used to have a 10GB plan and would never get above 7GB.
Slashdot Mirror
This was a laptop, right? Not a computer sitting in his office. There is no reason to suppose that any of the alleged porn-surfing was done on company time.
How is it misuse then? Looking at sexy pictures doesn't harm the computer or the company at all. Do they also fire people for using their company laptop, at home and on their own time, for browsing Slashdot or eBay?
This is a problem we had in the company I work at.
Looking into it, we actually learnt that Microsoft ISA does its logging in UTC and we concluded that although it was possible the staff involved were browsing porn, it was done on personal time. Although it was a company laptop, the porn was browsed on personal time and so we said "Hey - look, can you not do this on company equipment?"
What is hard is proving intent.
This is why we just blacklist at the proxy level - if they can't get to the websites, we don't have to worry about proving intent or informing managementAlthough you can prove that a website was browsed at a particular time (using proxy logs), you cannot easily prove intent. What's the difference between a person browsing porn and someone going to a dodgy (cracks/warez/etc) site and accidentally getting porn in the process? You can generally get an idea based on the number of hits a site gets, along with how long they spend on the site (or how many links they follow), but once more - you can not easily prove intent.
We're both pretty competitive in the sporting arena - we play rugby against eachother, along with South Africa on a yearly basis(see Tri-Nations Cup. My rustic memory of history tells me this eventuated from the end of WWI when our troops stopped in South Africa on their way home and started playing rugby there (but I could be wrong).
The same holds true for other sports - such as netball, cricket, etc
There's a few minor disputes over Australia claiming Pavlova (a dessert), Phar Lap (Race Horse) and Split Enz (Band) from us - it's not really a big thing at the end of the day, but I suppose it makes us feel better bringing up this petty stuff when we get caned in the rugby
Economically, Australia has a slightly better exchange rate than we do, with $1 (NZ) being equivalent to around 80c (Aus), give or take a fluctuation. Economics isn't my forte, so I'll stay out of this area, however every few years we get someone saying we should have a shared currency with Aussie. On that note, we didn't join the "War on Terror" (Australia did, however) - although we sent troops for peace keeping and to help rebuild the country
We do allow citizens visa-less entry into eachothers countries, we trade a fair bit with eachother and everything - so we are pretty friendly despite it all - So I guess if you wanted a small analogy, it's similar to the US/Canada thing?
although the indefinate jail term is pure nonesense he should still expect to go to jail for 6 months or so over it.
If this even makes the courts, I highly doubt he'll be held indefinitely.
Our courts are quite reasonable (some argue that they're too forgiving), and he'll probably walk out with a slap on the wrist (diversion maybe?).
As commented in the article:
"He has the keys to that jail cell in his own pocket, he can say 'OK I stop' and they'd let him go," says Bill Hodge of Auckland University Law School. -- tvnz.co.nzUnfortunately we don't jail people for being idiots in this country.
If you read through his website, he has all sorts of shit there - yes he was sentenced to 6 weeks in Mt Eden Prison, however it's not maximum security - it's Low/Medium Security - hell you can walk there from town in 10minutes if you really wanted to.
Close.
Currently our police aren't armed, only our Armed Defenders Squad is - think of them like the SWAT teams in the US.
The government's recently finished a study on whether they'll let the police carry tasers, though from what I've heard on the news our PM is strongly opposed to this, so we'll have to see what happens there.
So if an entity (any virus writer, for example), incorporates, then it's legal for them to mess with your computer? All they need to do is claim that they have evidence that you are infringing some property rights of theirs?
Didn't Sony do this with their root-kit a while ago? Trying to protect "their rights" by installing hidden root-kits on PC's in an attempt to curb "piracy".
And we all remember how that went down
Had that problem with AutoDesk a while back. One of our remote sites wanted to transfer an AutoCAD licence from one PC to another and decided the way to do this was without informing the IT Department.
Uninstalled it from PC #1, installed it on PC #2 and got stuck trying to "activate" it. The portable licence transfer utility got removed in the process, so we couldn't do the licence transfer ourselves. Email AutoDesk and not only would they not help us out, they demanded we give them proof of purchase for all our copies of AutoCAD otherwise they'd subject us to a software audit.
In the end we complied, gave them proof of purchase for all our AutoDesk software along with scans of the boxes (they list the serial number on the top) and we eventually got the required key out of them to activate the product on the new PC.
But this goes to show that the companies will do anything they can to extort the users of their software
Difference is that the recipient is notified about the return receipt and they can choose to take action from there.
Transparent images embedded in html emails (which never should have been started in the first place) are a different kettle of fish, in that most users won't realize that their email is being monitored
I suppose one way of gaining awareness would be setting up a system (think Sorbs/Spamhaus), which lists domains of people who embed sort of shit in their emails.
Companies frown upon negative publicity and if you can say "Hey, you're listed because jbloggs@example.com sent out an email with this shit in it", then I can't see the company continuing to do that for very long
I feel I must inform you that CDs and DVDs and Blu-Ray discs are all in digital formats.
Fair call.
My point remains though - why pay for something that'll eventually be obsolete, when you can get it on your PC for a cheaper price and have it (hopefully) last longer?
Excluding the illegal downloads arena (which I know is what they're suing over), I think half the problem is the *AA not keeping up with technology.
At home I have a sizeable DVD collection (around 230 at last count), but with the release of Blu-Ray I'm starting to realize that my collection will eventually be obsolete (such as when DVD first came out, and people with a reasonable VCR collection realized that their collection would eventually be worth squat).
I think this is one of the reasons people download (the other reasons being ridiculous prices, etc). People realize that technology changes - CD collections have been superseeded by portable MP3 players (ipod and the likes), VCR's replaced with DVD's which will eventually lose out to blu-ray (once the prices down).
And people realize this - why should you pay for a CD/DVD, which will eventually become obsolete, when you can get what you want in a digital format (for a cheaper price)?
That's actually a good point - the public are required to flag sites that are inappropriate, right? How many people that (view kiddy porn) do you think will actually flag the sites that they visit?
This is similar to the failed ideas about stopping spam - infact, I'm sure that the spam form could come out and be modded to suit this situation
That's true, although I have a Media PC setup at home (standard MythTV - nothing flashy). It's great for the days when you come home from work and just want to spend an hour to unwind - especially on those days where anything that can go wrong does go wrong.
When I'm home alone, it's great to be turn up the stereo and have my music stream across the network so that I can hear it while I'm in the kitchen or wherever - and yes I could just plug in an ipod and get the same result, but this lets me have all my movies in one "central repository" type thing - kinda like Movies on Demand, except requiring you to rip them to ISO after you've purchased them
That's how we've done the setup where I live. Bought a couple of secondhand PC's, which were shifted into media PC cases, add a PCI wireless card and S-Video capable graphics card and you're set.
The PC's sit quite nicely with the other equipment around the TV, and it's easy enough to control using the IR remotes (we use the Microsoft MCE ones).
Load MythTV on all these machines, convert all the DVD's to ISO's / CD's to MP3 / etc and throw them on your workhorse PC (Myth Server) and you're set
1 - Go down to "dialup speeds" (though I think in the interests of fairness, most ISP's just throttle you down to 64kbps).
2 - You pay something like 2c per MB over (so about $20 for 1GB)
3 - Some ISPS give you the option to purchase another "block" of MB at the high speeds
So you are about right with your estimations - but I don't know of many people that actually max out a 50GB plan. I used to have a 10GB plan and would never get above 7GB.