And that's a type of ad hominid -- abuse. It looks like this; "Dave failed basic math five times. Let's read what Dave has to say about math!"
Slander needn't be malicious or frivolous.
I didn't say that it did. You quoted the relevant section, so this will be the third time it's having to be mentioned for your benefit: only if you can provide it was malicious. This is a higher standard, and it's what's required to win punitive damages. Merely saying something that later turns out to be untrue doesn't earn you anything but legal costs, the only damages you can recover when you prevail in a lawsuit as a defendant.
You presume that's not the case today.
First, learn the difference between presume and assume. Second, I am neither assuming nor presuming; This is in fact exactly how it works the majority of the time. In the cases where it doesn't, the defendant can have the warrant invalidated, and the prosecution may fuck their case up to the point where it cannot be tried again if a mistake is made here. Double jeopardy applies to criminal as well as civil cases... If the case is dismissed with prejudice (as it likely would if the only evidence collaborating the plaintiff's statements was what was found during the warrant!), it cannot be retried.
Any defense lawyer, civil or criminal, worth their salt would pursue this vigorously; At the very least, it's going to make the evidence they gathered inadmissible in a retrial, and absent that, I suspect the plaintiffs will be hard-pressed to come up with a way to ever recover damages on the basis of theft alone, and will have lost any opportunity to pre-empt the defendant's publication of the source code if he so chooses. He would, of course, then be liable for violations of copyright, trade secrets, tort law (non-disclosure), etc., but if this guy is willing to suck a million dollar judgement down and live broke the rest of his life, he can screw them over real nice and good and if their property is worth as much as they allege... they may as well bend over and kiss their ass goodbye.
Properly executed search warrants are crucial for both the prosecution AND defense.
The same can be said of antivirus. The problem here isn't the filtering, the problem is the people running the filters are, frankly, assholes. Spamhaus insists it doesn't make mistakes, but it makes them all the time. It's the same with the RBL and similar technology. Whenever you automate something like this, you're going to get false positives -- that's the nature of the game. Denying this happens makes you part of the problem.
The Tor Browser bundle with HTTPS Everywhere works perfectly fine with Google.
Not during prime time. I have to hop to a new exit point sometimes 5 or 6 times to find one that Google hasn't decided to lock out. Entering a CAPTCHA with every query is annoying, but whatever... but just plain failing... it does that often. Especially during prime time hours (6pm-2am US Eastern)
No, if Google actually wanted that, they'd make their search engine work with Tor instead of saying "I'm sorry, but we're recieving a high volume of suspicious requests from your computer..." with a picture of a robot giving you the middle finger next to it. What Google wants is for you to use their service, and if that means pandering to the "NSA is evil" crowd, they'll make trivial gestures about privacy to attract them.
But Google is in bed with the NSA, CIA, DHS, etc., as is all other large corporations because if you don't play ball with them, you don't get to play. At all. No PR is going to convince me otherwise, and you would be wise to do the same.
If I were the judge, I'd have likely made the same order, and informed the plaintiff that if nothing is found, then 10% of annual revenue will be paid to the defendant for reparations for civil rights violations from the unfounded accusations.
Unfortunately for you, that would be overturned on appeal. You can't censure a plaintiff for making statements that it believes are correct but later turn out to be wrong. You can only countersue for legal costs and damages, and at that, if and only if you can provide it was malicious and/or frivolous -- a very difficult thing to prove.
Because of this, it is the judge's responsibility to only grant warrants when there is sufficient evidence to justify it. You don't lower the standard simply because the other guy has money he could stand to be parted with if he's wrong.
The issue here is that someone is harassing an ex-employee by making accusations. If they are founded, then the judge did the right thing.
Incorrect. The granting or not granting of a search and seizure or arrest should be based strictly, solely, only, on probable cause. That is the standard. It is not suspicion, it is not motive-based. Only the likelihood of an actual criminal act, based entirely on the evidence presented, should be used to make that determination. It has been said the road to hell is paved with good intentions... which is precisely why you shouldn't consider intent when a person's civil liberties or freedom is at stake: Only and totally their provable actions.
One of the problems is that our system doesn't punish false accusations, only false statements.
Accusation: a charge or claim that someone has done something illegal or wrong. Statement: a definite or clear expression of something in speech or writing.
All accusations are statements, but not all statements are accusations. Ergo, your statement is a non sequitur.
If the employer accuses someone of something so bad, they should be liable for damages if the accusations are found to be unfounded.
This is a separate issue, best decided upon in open trial, not in a judge's chambers, as this warrant has been done. There's a reason it is done this way, and it has nothing to do with convoluted logic like yours -- it is because in the several hundred years of common law and over two hundred years of case law in the United States, the way we do it has proven to be the one most likely to result in justice.
Your solution would have us forever bandaiding and ductaping over the broken parts and a neverending series of recriminations. The legal process would simply not have an end point anymore.
As a previous post said, "It's more like if you claimed to be a professional killer and later claimed you kill deer." I know reading TFA is terribly out of fashion, but I recommend it. His advocacy included repeatedly pushing employers to open-source their product. That's what showed intent, not his website.
Advocating doing something isn't evidence for having actually done something. That's the point that neither you, nor apparently this judge, understands. It's like saying "Good for those 9/11 terrorists blowing up the building!"... Not exactly winning you any friends saying that, but it doesn't make you a terrorist and it isn't a crime. It's just incredibly poor taste to say, and that is all.
So let me get this straight... before an investigation, the investigators must already have their proof?
They must have some evidence of a crime, yes. When a cop pulls you over, he can't just search your car because of the "I LOVE WEED" bumper sticker. But if he smells it on you, or sees wrapping papers on the floor, smells marijuana, etc., then that gives him what's called probable cause to conduct the search.
What exactly do you think the point of the investigation is?
Hopefully the truth. In practice though, it's more often a witch hunt. Either way, a search warrant is issued to find additional evidence of a crime (or crimes). For example, "I hate the president," isn't enough to get a search warrant issued, but "I plan on shooting the president at 3:00pm after his speech with my dad's hunting rifle" is. But the defendant in this case didn't say "I have the source code and intend to release it". It's arguable whether there was any evidence that he had it. The intent to release is based solely on previous statements made in support of open source.
What this case lacks is credibility. The judge has made assumptions about motive which are not supported by the available facts. He has linked two separate statements together to form a third statement which supports his position. In layman's terms, he jumped to a conclusion. And this is specifically why search warrants require a judge's authorization -- to prevent exactly this from happening and thus violating a person's rights. Suspicion isn't enough for a search warrant; It's rarely enough to take any action, especially when this is a civil matter and there is no imminent threat to life or property.
The judge agreed that there was a significant risk of irreversible harm if the defendant kept his computer during the investigation, so it's been seized. Big deal. It can be checked in a few days, and should be returned, if not, then it's time for a countersuit.
You clearly haven't worked with law enforcement much. Even back in the 90s, when 'cyber crime' was in its infancy, Steve Jackson Games had all its computers seized and nearly went bankrupt over allegations that their game was a 'manual for computer crime'. The computers weren't returned until over two years later, at which time the computers were worthless and out of date and the data they contained had been painstakingly recreated with varying degrees of success by the employees. Once a computer is seized, it doesn't get turned over "in a few days"... For one, the forensic labs have a backlog of months to years, and for two, as it is now material evidence, it can't be released until and unless all legal action involving it is concluded which included appeals from both sides.
So yeah, it is a big deal. It means his computer, his primary method of income has now been locked up, along with all kinds of collateral damage -- his entire digital life, including copies of resumes, bank records, pictures, etc., are all now inaccessible to him. He won't even get a copy of the hard drive back because until it has been processed, the police won't take the chance of giving him back data he could theoretically use
No, but the defendant's repeated advocacy of open source implies intent to publish source code.
In the same way my advocacy of and interest in international culture implies intent to engage in "unamerican" activities? In the same way that candidates for state senate saying "if itâ(TM)s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing down" implies the candidate is a rapist? We've been down that road before. It doesn't lead anywhere you want to be.
The lawsuit is alleging that the defendant stole source code from his prior employer for the purpose of open-sourcing it as his own product.
And was there evidence to back up this claim, such as server logs, statements by the defendant, etc.? Because from what I've read the answer is no, there wasn't. The only evidence cited in the ex parte order was the defendant's advocacy of open source and his prior access to the ex-employer's code.
Since the defendant clearly has intent to open-source his product...
Which is his right, if he designed it on his own, as many other people have done after working on a closed source product...
and if it were indeed stolen source it would immediately cause irreparable harm
... And yet no proof the code was stolen was provided.
an immediately-executed warrant is reasonable.
No, it isn't. They need to prove he's in possession of stolen property first. His statements about what he would or wouldn't do with it have absolutely no weight whatsoever in issuing the search warrant. That the judge is making these statements implies that the evidence he had done so was very, very weak, to the point they had to rely on circumstantial evidence that is only dubiously related to the matter at hand to secure the warrant.
This sounds more like a case of a manager acting without evidence that any wrongdoing had occurred and decided to use law enforcement resources to harass the former employee. This is, for lack of a better term... a domestic dispute. It's a he said, she said situation. Except that in this case, it's a company, not an ex.
they have essentially announced that they have the necessary computer skills and intent to simultaneously release the code publicly and conceal their role in that act.
I wasn't aware that capability implied intent. I suppose everyone who owns a gun now should just surrender their 4th amendment rights, since they have the ability to kill people. Someone find out where this judge is; let's put his name here and on as many web pages as possible so anytime anyone googles his name, they can point to this as a reason to have their case retried by a different judge who doesn't hate America.
Yeah, really, what's with people these days? Can't even murder civilians for political purposes without getting labeled a terrorist.
Once again, my sarcasm has become so advanced that it stupifies people. First, you could never get a car through the door. I know Texas lawmakers are pretty fat, but even at that, a car is still wider by a small margin. Second, and I only half-joke on this... politicans aren't civilians. While I don't advocate violence, killing politicians or agents of the government doesn't meet the actual definition of terrorism (not the current political definition which is basically "anything we disagree with"): They are, in fact, legitimate military targets. If China decided to invade us and bombed Washington DC, that wouldn't be a war crime. Leaders are legitimate targets. As well... I don't think very many Americans would be terribly upset it a bunch of idiot lawmakers died. Not that I'm advocating it, but about the only thing less loved by the working class than politicians are rapists, murderers, and people who drive slow in the fast lane. Just food for thought.
Because any plan whose first step is "buy a $70,000 luxury car" is sure to turn out that way.
Ordinarily, yes, but when step two is: "Destroy car in epic fashion" I think people may be willing to make an exception.
What you should apologize for is lying in an attempt to avoid downmods that you know you deserve.
Says the guy posting as anonymous coward. I earned my +2 and I'm willing to risk it to make jokes and frivolity, while you're too cowardly to risk making controversial statements that might cost you yours. Your statement says more about you than it does about me; You ought to be apologizing... for a lack of spine.
You have to trust someone, somewhere along the line.
The open source movement (Down people! It's just an umbrella term, not an excuse to rage about the nuaned differences in licensing) recognized early on that the only way to create reasonably secure code is to publish it and let anyone look at it. Politics demands that for every group of people out there wanting power for a specific purpose, there's another group willing to sabotage them. As long as the code is a black box, the war between those groups will be won and fought or lost without anyone being the wiser -- unless the code is published.
Then, regardless of individual motive, you're on one of either two sides: Publish or don't. If you publish, there's a big risk of being identified if you try anything and in covert operations anonymity is better than bulletproof armor. Nobody's going to risk having their real identity linked to a subversion attempt. So that leaves not publishing -- keeping potential exploits to yourself. This is what the NSA and other intelligence communities are doing.
When you play that game, however, you're stuck in an arms race where every participant is fighting a war on two fronts -- they can exploit the holes in the enemy's systems, but because the enemy uses a lot of the same technology, they can turn around and do the same to you... which means every weapon is 'single use' against hard targets. But I guess that's how the NSA likes it; As long as you have tons of money to waste, those with the most gold have the most power. It's direct proportionality.
Actively maintained open source though allows people to build reasonably secure systems without a big investment -- anyone can incrementally improve it. So if you aren't the NSA (ie, second place and below)... it makes sense to contribute to projects like Linux and build your security around them. The NSA has been 'caught' (as much as anyone can be caught in cyberwarfare -- attributation is a bitch, anyone who has researched it knows this) several times trying and failing to create exploits in Linux. This tells me that the cost of finding a linux exploit is now at least equal to that of its closed-source competitors, and may even be higher -- otherwise why risk exposure?
Any once you find a linux exploit, you're still on the clock -- this isn't like closed source. New people are constantly looking at code, even old code, and could discover your hard-won exploit and close it. Basically, if you're not a "top 10" government and you want security... use open source.
So how have 1,000 Model S cars been sold? That would be sheer persistence.
Can I buy one just to drive it through the doors of their capitol and park it on top of the assholes who passed all these laws while screaming "ASSHOLES ARE BIGGER IN TEXAS TOO!" I know I'd probably be riddled full of bullets and called a terrorist, but for those 30 glorious seconds, I think I would be a working class hero.:(
In other news; We should start putting warning labels on everything that comes from Texas, including the people: "Warning: This product is known to cause stupidity in every other state but Texas." (with a tip of the hat to another state, whose stupidity created similarily named labels). And now, moderators who live in those two states... fire up the 'overrated' and 'troll' buttons, and I apologize I kept you waiting so long.:P
... Which affect the 5 people who are actually using Windows 8. The entire interface is an unmitigated disaster. DOSSHELL looked prettier and was more functional than Windows 8. The OS has multiple personality disorder and the interface looks like it was gang-banged by Crayola. Nobody wants to touch it even with a 10 foot pole.:/
Did you notice how this wasn't on the front page of any tech section of any major news site on the internet (Slashdot doesn't count -- it doesn't have a tech section, it is a tech section)? It's because nobody uses it. I mean, look at the market share numbers for Windows 8 currently. Windows XP is stomping it. It only just this month beat out MacOS by a tiny margin. Its month over month growth is stagnant.
This is just another story to add to the growing funeral pyre we're building to honor monkey boy's first major OS released without any input or direction from former CEO Bill Gates. In a few years, I'll be opening specially marked boxes of cereal and finding copies of Windows 8 in it... just like they used to distribute AOL disks in the days of old. Actually... now that I think about it... that may have been where the Metro interface's inspiration came from. Sweet mother of god....
So they can intercept and fulfill requests for slashdotted articles.
I'm not so sure. The NSA may be watching us all masturbate via our webcams, but they're still a government agency, and as such there are certain standards they must abide by regarding government services provided...
"NSACloud(tm) is currently experiencing a high volume of freedom requests. Your freedom is very important to us. Please remain in the queue and your request will be granted in the order we think it should. Thank you for your patience, Citizen." (cheesy muzzac starts playing on the webpage)
Putting a guidance system on any kind of rocket is already a ten year federal charge. Same as possessing an unlicensed machine gun.
Yes, launching a rocket without any kind of guidance system is much safer for the general public. Government logic: Don't ask what it's being used for, just make it illegal.
No it enforces this rule pretty evenly across the board. I suspect in 5 years this won't be an issue becasue they will have proper regulation.
When the German soldiers loaded Jewish citizens into train cars and shipped them to concentration camps, they enforced the rules pretty evenly across the board then too. They were, in fact, marvels of government efficiency.
No, the FAA is being very deliberate about shutting down everyone who is deliberately breaking the law by commercially flying uavs. They should prosecute instead sending a C&D
Well, I'm deliberately telling the FAA's deliberate actions against the deliberate law breakers that they're deliberately being wrong. Deliberate.
2007. 2013 now and 1/3rd of somalians suffer from depression and the common cure is to chain them up.
A few things. First, no country on the planet has 1/3rd of its population suffering from depression. The highest year over year incidence rate has been reported at.8%, with a lifetime incidence of 8-10%, if you're unfortunate enough to be a woman in that country. And that country is not Somalia. Somalia rated 153 out of 192 this past year on per capita depression. You'll never guess who got number one. And Somalia also rated pretty low on incarceration rates. Guess who got number one again?
How should I put my reply to your "debunk" as succinctly as possible.... AMEEEEERICA FUCK YA! I bet they're so jealous of all that freedom we got, eh? -_- Both of you are wrong; Both for "defending" the 3rd world, and for "attacking" it. Somalia is doing just fine; Worry about your own damn country.
No, that's not what news organizations can expect. That's what people trying to report on actual events can expect.
The government selectively enforces rules like this. It has been for some time now. We have to keep you away from the raw and unadorned truth... it's dangerous to democracy you know. You will receive an edited and redacted version suitable for consumption within 3-5 business days. Thank you for your cooperation, Citizen.
Now, you may or may not believe the miracles in the Bible, but historically and archaeologically it's a VERY accurate book.
God creates light and separates light from darkness, on day one. But he doesn't create the sun and the stars (things that produce light) until the fourth day. He also created plants on the third day, perhaps unaware of them needing a source of light. Then there was that whole business about creating a woman from a rib, a Jewish zombie. The earth took six days to create, not 13.7 billion years. Pi equals 3.
Shall I go on, or does the stupid burn enough? No, the bible isn't historically accurate... it's a story about some dude who had been dead for five hundred years, and most of the material says it came from him. Now I don' t know about you, but think about the most famous thing to happen in the past fifty years. Now imagine what they're going to say about it 500 years from now. Do you think it'll still be perfectly accurate... if the only thing to go on is word of mouth?
You're an idiot. Sit down. Shut up. And the moderator who upmodded you should be found, dragged from his keyboard, and publicly beaten.
If the internet organized itself with a sort of government and had votes and such on laws and such governing it, this wouldn't be a problem. The problem is that the internet needs representation, but all it has is our shitty bricks and mortar governments, and organizations like ICANT (cough, giggle), running the show.
We used to deal with shit like this with things like the Usenet Death Penalty. We simply boot the companies off the internet. Suddenly, ethics and morality abounded. Nope... you can't blame the PR companies for this: You have to blame our fucktard governments (all of them, equally) for being utterly and completely incompetent.
We should hold an Internet Congress, elect some people, and start cleaning shit like this up, instead of waiting until the heat death of the universe for the governments of the world to advance in maturity past the age of five.
They also replaced the 34nm Vertex 2 drives with 25nm drives, lowering speed and space without changing the model number. They are scum.
Worse than scum. I hope they die in a fire. My OCZ drive has started locking up and showing bad sectors and they won't RMA it. They just say "Oh, unplug it, wait an hour, then wipe it."... Yeah. The bad sectors disappear... until the first time the OS tries to write to those sectors. Their warranties can't even be used as toilet paper.
They didn't "bet on higher performance", they bet on shit construction, no quality control... hell, you can't even update the firmware using the tools they provide on the website unless you plug a second drive in and install an OS on it. Now yes, many of us geeky types can install a mini-XP or Windows 7 on a flash drive and be on our merry, but really... how can you expect Joe Power Gamer to do something like that? Simple: You can't.
It's not just the poor quality and construction of the drives that fucked them, but a complete and utter disregard for any level of customer service. No, I recant on my last statement... death by fire is too good for them. Let us create a new 'ocz' internet meme to immortalize this level of fail. >.
Okay, can someone who isn't wrapped up in market-speak tell us what the practical benefit is here? The fact is that graphic cards are still designed around the concept of a frame; the rendering pipeline is based on that. 'vsync' doesn't have any meaning anymore; LCD monitors just ignore it and bitblt the next frame directly to the display without any delay. So this "G-sync" sounds to me like just a way to throttle the pipeline of the graphics card so it delivers a consistent FPS... which is something we can do since DirectX9.
So what, then, is the tangible benefit realized? Because I smell marketing, not technology, in this PR.
You are overgeneralizing. Marketing emails from legitimate companies are often stopped by opting-out.
"Legitimate" companies like Google, who then sell your information to third parties? Because that's what this guy is talking about, and that's what they're doing. I don't know how much more "legitimate" of an example I can make.
The legitimate companies have more to lose by not following the rules.
Once you've opted out, they have no further reason to follow your imaginary rules. It's just data now; Data should be monetized. If you aren't interested in our products, then we will have to make money some other way... by selling your information to our competitors, maybe... hey, at least it's turning a frown upside-down, right?
Opt-outs are a scam. They have been since the late 90s. Opting out just tells spammers that they hit a real e-mail address, and thus its value goes up. It also tells them one other important piece of information: You're willing to click on links that send you to random websites.
Anyone who tries to 'opt out' is an idiot, and anyone who suggests them as a solution to spam and advertising should be dragged into the street and stoned to death. There is only one solution: Get rid of all of it. The end. Stop your monetization of the web 2.0 synergizing cluster fuck of the internet... it survived just fine before you vultures descended on it. It will survive your demise as well.
Slashdot Mirror
You sound very sure of yourself.
And that's a type of ad hominid -- abuse. It looks like this; "Dave failed basic math five times. Let's read what Dave has to say about math!"
Slander needn't be malicious or frivolous.
I didn't say that it did. You quoted the relevant section, so this will be the third time it's having to be mentioned for your benefit: only if you can provide it was malicious. This is a higher standard, and it's what's required to win punitive damages. Merely saying something that later turns out to be untrue doesn't earn you anything but legal costs, the only damages you can recover when you prevail in a lawsuit as a defendant.
You presume that's not the case today.
First, learn the difference between presume and assume. Second, I am neither assuming nor presuming; This is in fact exactly how it works the majority of the time. In the cases where it doesn't, the defendant can have the warrant invalidated, and the prosecution may fuck their case up to the point where it cannot be tried again if a mistake is made here. Double jeopardy applies to criminal as well as civil cases... If the case is dismissed with prejudice (as it likely would if the only evidence collaborating the plaintiff's statements was what was found during the warrant!), it cannot be retried.
Any defense lawyer, civil or criminal, worth their salt would pursue this vigorously; At the very least, it's going to make the evidence they gathered inadmissible in a retrial, and absent that, I suspect the plaintiffs will be hard-pressed to come up with a way to ever recover damages on the basis of theft alone, and will have lost any opportunity to pre-empt the defendant's publication of the source code if he so chooses. He would, of course, then be liable for violations of copyright, trade secrets, tort law (non-disclosure), etc., but if this guy is willing to suck a million dollar judgement down and live broke the rest of his life, he can screw them over real nice and good and if their property is worth as much as they allege... they may as well bend over and kiss their ass goodbye.
Properly executed search warrants are crucial for both the prosecution AND defense.
Spam filtering not a solution.
The same can be said of antivirus. The problem here isn't the filtering, the problem is the people running the filters are, frankly, assholes. Spamhaus insists it doesn't make mistakes, but it makes them all the time. It's the same with the RBL and similar technology. Whenever you automate something like this, you're going to get false positives -- that's the nature of the game. Denying this happens makes you part of the problem.
The Tor Browser bundle with HTTPS Everywhere works perfectly fine with Google.
Not during prime time. I have to hop to a new exit point sometimes 5 or 6 times to find one that Google hasn't decided to lock out. Entering a CAPTCHA with every query is annoying, but whatever... but just plain failing... it does that often. Especially during prime time hours (6pm-2am US Eastern)
No, if Google actually wanted that, they'd make their search engine work with Tor instead of saying "I'm sorry, but we're recieving a high volume of suspicious requests from your computer..." with a picture of a robot giving you the middle finger next to it. What Google wants is for you to use their service, and if that means pandering to the "NSA is evil" crowd, they'll make trivial gestures about privacy to attract them.
But Google is in bed with the NSA, CIA, DHS, etc., as is all other large corporations because if you don't play ball with them, you don't get to play. At all. No PR is going to convince me otherwise, and you would be wise to do the same.
If I were the judge, I'd have likely made the same order, and informed the plaintiff that if nothing is found, then 10% of annual revenue will be paid to the defendant for reparations for civil rights violations from the unfounded accusations.
Unfortunately for you, that would be overturned on appeal. You can't censure a plaintiff for making statements that it believes are correct but later turn out to be wrong. You can only countersue for legal costs and damages, and at that, if and only if you can provide it was malicious and/or frivolous -- a very difficult thing to prove.
Because of this, it is the judge's responsibility to only grant warrants when there is sufficient evidence to justify it. You don't lower the standard simply because the other guy has money he could stand to be parted with if he's wrong.
The issue here is that someone is harassing an ex-employee by making accusations. If they are founded, then the judge did the right thing.
Incorrect. The granting or not granting of a search and seizure or arrest should be based strictly, solely, only, on probable cause. That is the standard. It is not suspicion, it is not motive-based. Only the likelihood of an actual criminal act, based entirely on the evidence presented, should be used to make that determination. It has been said the road to hell is paved with good intentions... which is precisely why you shouldn't consider intent when a person's civil liberties or freedom is at stake: Only and totally their provable actions.
One of the problems is that our system doesn't punish false accusations, only false statements.
Accusation: a charge or claim that someone has done something illegal or wrong.
Statement: a definite or clear expression of something in speech or writing.
All accusations are statements, but not all statements are accusations. Ergo, your statement is a non sequitur.
If the employer accuses someone of something so bad, they should be liable for damages if the accusations are found to be unfounded.
This is a separate issue, best decided upon in open trial, not in a judge's chambers, as this warrant has been done. There's a reason it is done this way, and it has nothing to do with convoluted logic like yours -- it is because in the several hundred years of common law and over two hundred years of case law in the United States, the way we do it has proven to be the one most likely to result in justice.
Your solution would have us forever bandaiding and ductaping over the broken parts and a neverending series of recriminations. The legal process would simply not have an end point anymore.
As a previous post said, "It's more like if you claimed to be a professional killer and later claimed you kill deer." I know reading TFA is terribly out of fashion, but I recommend it. His advocacy included repeatedly pushing employers to open-source their product. That's what showed intent, not his website.
Advocating doing something isn't evidence for having actually done something. That's the point that neither you, nor apparently this judge, understands. It's like saying "Good for those 9/11 terrorists blowing up the building!" ... Not exactly winning you any friends saying that, but it doesn't make you a terrorist and it isn't a crime. It's just incredibly poor taste to say, and that is all.
So let me get this straight... before an investigation, the investigators must already have their proof?
They must have some evidence of a crime, yes. When a cop pulls you over, he can't just search your car because of the "I LOVE WEED" bumper sticker. But if he smells it on you, or sees wrapping papers on the floor, smells marijuana, etc., then that gives him what's called probable cause to conduct the search.
What exactly do you think the point of the investigation is?
Hopefully the truth. In practice though, it's more often a witch hunt. Either way, a search warrant is issued to find additional evidence of a crime (or crimes). For example, "I hate the president," isn't enough to get a search warrant issued, but "I plan on shooting the president at 3:00pm after his speech with my dad's hunting rifle" is. But the defendant in this case didn't say "I have the source code and intend to release it". It's arguable whether there was any evidence that he had it. The intent to release is based solely on previous statements made in support of open source.
What this case lacks is credibility. The judge has made assumptions about motive which are not supported by the available facts. He has linked two separate statements together to form a third statement which supports his position. In layman's terms, he jumped to a conclusion. And this is specifically why search warrants require a judge's authorization -- to prevent exactly this from happening and thus violating a person's rights. Suspicion isn't enough for a search warrant; It's rarely enough to take any action, especially when this is a civil matter and there is no imminent threat to life or property.
The judge agreed that there was a significant risk of irreversible harm if the defendant kept his computer during the investigation, so it's been seized. Big deal. It can be checked in a few days, and should be returned, if not, then it's time for a countersuit.
You clearly haven't worked with law enforcement much. Even back in the 90s, when 'cyber crime' was in its infancy, Steve Jackson Games had all its computers seized and nearly went bankrupt over allegations that their game was a 'manual for computer crime'. The computers weren't returned until over two years later, at which time the computers were worthless and out of date and the data they contained had been painstakingly recreated with varying degrees of success by the employees. Once a computer is seized, it doesn't get turned over "in a few days"... For one, the forensic labs have a backlog of months to years, and for two, as it is now material evidence, it can't be released until and unless all legal action involving it is concluded which included appeals from both sides.
So yeah, it is a big deal. It means his computer, his primary method of income has now been locked up, along with all kinds of collateral damage -- his entire digital life, including copies of resumes, bank records, pictures, etc., are all now inaccessible to him. He won't even get a copy of the hard drive back because until it has been processed, the police won't take the chance of giving him back data he could theoretically use
No, but the defendant's repeated advocacy of open source implies intent to publish source code.
In the same way my advocacy of and interest in international culture implies intent to engage in "unamerican" activities? In the same way that candidates for state senate saying "if itâ(TM)s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing down" implies the candidate is a rapist? We've been down that road before. It doesn't lead anywhere you want to be.
The lawsuit is alleging that the defendant stole source code from his prior employer for the purpose of open-sourcing it as his own product.
And was there evidence to back up this claim, such as server logs, statements by the defendant, etc.? Because from what I've read the answer is no, there wasn't. The only evidence cited in the ex parte order was the defendant's advocacy of open source and his prior access to the ex-employer's code.
Since the defendant clearly has intent to open-source his product...
Which is his right, if he designed it on his own, as many other people have done after working on a closed source product...
and if it were indeed stolen source it would immediately cause irreparable harm
... And yet no proof the code was stolen was provided.
an immediately-executed warrant is reasonable.
No, it isn't. They need to prove he's in possession of stolen property first. His statements about what he would or wouldn't do with it have absolutely no weight whatsoever in issuing the search warrant. That the judge is making these statements implies that the evidence he had done so was very, very weak, to the point they had to rely on circumstantial evidence that is only dubiously related to the matter at hand to secure the warrant.
This sounds more like a case of a manager acting without evidence that any wrongdoing had occurred and decided to use law enforcement resources to harass the former employee. This is, for lack of a better term... a domestic dispute. It's a he said, she said situation. Except that in this case, it's a company, not an ex.
they have essentially announced that they have the necessary computer skills and intent to simultaneously release the code publicly and conceal their role in that act.
I wasn't aware that capability implied intent. I suppose everyone who owns a gun now should just surrender their 4th amendment rights, since they have the ability to kill people. Someone find out where this judge is; let's put his name here and on as many web pages as possible so anytime anyone googles his name, they can point to this as a reason to have their case retried by a different judge who doesn't hate America.
Yeah, really, what's with people these days? Can't even murder civilians for political purposes without getting labeled a terrorist.
Once again, my sarcasm has become so advanced that it stupifies people. First, you could never get a car through the door. I know Texas lawmakers are pretty fat, but even at that, a car is still wider by a small margin. Second, and I only half-joke on this... politicans aren't civilians. While I don't advocate violence, killing politicians or agents of the government doesn't meet the actual definition of terrorism (not the current political definition which is basically "anything we disagree with"): They are, in fact, legitimate military targets. If China decided to invade us and bombed Washington DC, that wouldn't be a war crime. Leaders are legitimate targets. As well... I don't think very many Americans would be terribly upset it a bunch of idiot lawmakers died. Not that I'm advocating it, but about the only thing less loved by the working class than politicians are rapists, murderers, and people who drive slow in the fast lane. Just food for thought.
Because any plan whose first step is "buy a $70,000 luxury car" is sure to turn out that way.
Ordinarily, yes, but when step two is: "Destroy car in epic fashion" I think people may be willing to make an exception.
What you should apologize for is lying in an attempt to avoid downmods that you know you deserve.
Says the guy posting as anonymous coward. I earned my +2 and I'm willing to risk it to make jokes and frivolity, while you're too cowardly to risk making controversial statements that might cost you yours. Your statement says more about you than it does about me; You ought to be apologizing... for a lack of spine.
You have to trust someone, somewhere along the line.
The open source movement (Down people! It's just an umbrella term, not an excuse to rage about the nuaned differences in licensing) recognized early on that the only way to create reasonably secure code is to publish it and let anyone look at it. Politics demands that for every group of people out there wanting power for a specific purpose, there's another group willing to sabotage them. As long as the code is a black box, the war between those groups will be won and fought or lost without anyone being the wiser -- unless the code is published.
Then, regardless of individual motive, you're on one of either two sides: Publish or don't. If you publish, there's a big risk of being identified if you try anything and in covert operations anonymity is better than bulletproof armor. Nobody's going to risk having their real identity linked to a subversion attempt. So that leaves not publishing -- keeping potential exploits to yourself. This is what the NSA and other intelligence communities are doing.
When you play that game, however, you're stuck in an arms race where every participant is fighting a war on two fronts -- they can exploit the holes in the enemy's systems, but because the enemy uses a lot of the same technology, they can turn around and do the same to you... which means every weapon is 'single use' against hard targets. But I guess that's how the NSA likes it; As long as you have tons of money to waste, those with the most gold have the most power. It's direct proportionality.
Actively maintained open source though allows people to build reasonably secure systems without a big investment -- anyone can incrementally improve it. So if you aren't the NSA (ie, second place and below)... it makes sense to contribute to projects like Linux and build your security around them. The NSA has been 'caught' (as much as anyone can be caught in cyberwarfare -- attributation is a bitch, anyone who has researched it knows this) several times trying and failing to create exploits in Linux. This tells me that the cost of finding a linux exploit is now at least equal to that of its closed-source competitors, and may even be higher -- otherwise why risk exposure?
Any once you find a linux exploit, you're still on the clock -- this isn't like closed source. New people are constantly looking at code, even old code, and could discover your hard-won exploit and close it. Basically, if you're not a "top 10" government and you want security... use open source.
So how have 1,000 Model S cars been sold? That would be sheer persistence.
Can I buy one just to drive it through the doors of their capitol and park it on top of the assholes who passed all these laws while screaming "ASSHOLES ARE BIGGER IN TEXAS TOO!" I know I'd probably be riddled full of bullets and called a terrorist, but for those 30 glorious seconds, I think I would be a working class hero. :(
In other news; We should start putting warning labels on everything that comes from Texas, including the people: "Warning: This product is known to cause stupidity in every other state but Texas." (with a tip of the hat to another state, whose stupidity created similarily named labels). And now, moderators who live in those two states... fire up the 'overrated' and 'troll' buttons, and I apologize I kept you waiting so long. :P
The Windows 8.1 rollout has hit more hurdles...
... Which affect the 5 people who are actually using Windows 8. The entire interface is an unmitigated disaster. DOSSHELL looked prettier and was more functional than Windows 8. The OS has multiple personality disorder and the interface looks like it was gang-banged by Crayola. Nobody wants to touch it even with a 10 foot pole. :/
Did you notice how this wasn't on the front page of any tech section of any major news site on the internet (Slashdot doesn't count -- it doesn't have a tech section, it is a tech section)? It's because nobody uses it. I mean, look at the market share numbers for Windows 8 currently. Windows XP is stomping it. It only just this month beat out MacOS by a tiny margin. Its month over month growth is stagnant.
This is just another story to add to the growing funeral pyre we're building to honor monkey boy's first major OS released without any input or direction from former CEO Bill Gates. In a few years, I'll be opening specially marked boxes of cereal and finding copies of Windows 8 in it... just like they used to distribute AOL disks in the days of old. Actually... now that I think about it... that may have been where the Metro interface's inspiration came from. Sweet mother of god....
So they can intercept and fulfill requests for slashdotted articles.
I'm not so sure. The NSA may be watching us all masturbate via our webcams, but they're still a government agency, and as such there are certain standards they must abide by regarding government services provided...
"NSACloud(tm) is currently experiencing a high volume of freedom requests. Your freedom is very important to us. Please remain in the queue and your request will be granted in the order we think it should. Thank you for your patience, Citizen." (cheesy muzzac starts playing on the webpage)
Putting a guidance system on any kind of rocket is already a ten year federal charge. Same as possessing an unlicensed machine gun.
Yes, launching a rocket without any kind of guidance system is much safer for the general public. Government logic: Don't ask what it's being used for, just make it illegal.
No it enforces this rule pretty evenly across the board. I suspect in 5 years this won't be an issue becasue they will have proper regulation.
When the German soldiers loaded Jewish citizens into train cars and shipped them to concentration camps, they enforced the rules pretty evenly across the board then too. They were, in fact, marvels of government efficiency.
That did not make them right.
No, the FAA is being very deliberate about shutting down everyone who is deliberately breaking the law by commercially flying uavs. They should prosecute instead sending a C&D
Well, I'm deliberately telling the FAA's deliberate actions against the deliberate law breakers that they're deliberately being wrong. Deliberate.
2007. 2013 now and 1/3rd of somalians suffer from depression and the common cure is to chain them up.
A few things. First, no country on the planet has 1/3rd of its population suffering from depression. The highest year over year incidence rate has been reported at .8%, with a lifetime incidence of 8-10%, if you're unfortunate enough to be a woman in that country. And that country is not Somalia. Somalia rated 153 out of 192 this past year on per capita depression. You'll never guess who got number one. And Somalia also rated pretty low on incarceration rates. Guess who got number one again?
How should I put my reply to your "debunk" as succinctly as possible.... AMEEEEERICA FUCK YA! I bet they're so jealous of all that freedom we got, eh? -_- Both of you are wrong; Both for "defending" the 3rd world, and for "attacking" it. Somalia is doing just fine; Worry about your own damn country.
No, that's not what news organizations can expect. That's what people trying to report on actual events can expect.
The government selectively enforces rules like this. It has been for some time now. We have to keep you away from the raw and unadorned truth... it's dangerous to democracy you know. You will receive an edited and redacted version suitable for consumption within 3-5 business days. Thank you for your cooperation, Citizen.
You are also an idiot. As I subscribe to the idea of intellectual osmosis, I must now move quickly away from you...
(while running away) P.S. Rationalization! GOOGLE THAT SHIT!
Now, you may or may not believe the miracles in the Bible, but historically and archaeologically it's a VERY accurate book.
God creates light and separates light from darkness, on day one. But he doesn't create the sun and the stars (things that produce light) until the fourth day. He also created plants on the third day, perhaps unaware of them needing a source of light. Then there was that whole business about creating a woman from a rib, a Jewish zombie. The earth took six days to create, not 13.7 billion years. Pi equals 3.
Shall I go on, or does the stupid burn enough? No, the bible isn't historically accurate... it's a story about some dude who had been dead for five hundred years, and most of the material says it came from him. Now I don' t know about you, but think about the most famous thing to happen in the past fifty years. Now imagine what they're going to say about it 500 years from now. Do you think it'll still be perfectly accurate... if the only thing to go on is word of mouth?
You're an idiot. Sit down. Shut up. And the moderator who upmodded you should be found, dragged from his keyboard, and publicly beaten.
If the internet organized itself with a sort of government and had votes and such on laws and such governing it, this wouldn't be a problem. The problem is that the internet needs representation, but all it has is our shitty bricks and mortar governments, and organizations like ICANT (cough, giggle), running the show.
We used to deal with shit like this with things like the Usenet Death Penalty. We simply boot the companies off the internet. Suddenly, ethics and morality abounded. Nope... you can't blame the PR companies for this: You have to blame our fucktard governments (all of them, equally) for being utterly and completely incompetent.
We should hold an Internet Congress, elect some people, and start cleaning shit like this up, instead of waiting until the heat death of the universe for the governments of the world to advance in maturity past the age of five.
They also replaced the 34nm Vertex 2 drives with 25nm drives, lowering speed and space without changing the model number. They are scum.
Worse than scum. I hope they die in a fire. My OCZ drive has started locking up and showing bad sectors and they won't RMA it. They just say "Oh, unplug it, wait an hour, then wipe it." ... Yeah. The bad sectors disappear... until the first time the OS tries to write to those sectors. Their warranties can't even be used as toilet paper.
They didn't "bet on higher performance", they bet on shit construction, no quality control... hell, you can't even update the firmware using the tools they provide on the website unless you plug a second drive in and install an OS on it. Now yes, many of us geeky types can install a mini-XP or Windows 7 on a flash drive and be on our merry, but really... how can you expect Joe Power Gamer to do something like that? Simple: You can't.
It's not just the poor quality and construction of the drives that fucked them, but a complete and utter disregard for any level of customer service. No, I recant on my last statement... death by fire is too good for them. Let us create a new 'ocz' internet meme to immortalize this level of fail. >.
Okay, can someone who isn't wrapped up in market-speak tell us what the practical benefit is here? The fact is that graphic cards are still designed around the concept of a frame; the rendering pipeline is based on that. 'vsync' doesn't have any meaning anymore; LCD monitors just ignore it and bitblt the next frame directly to the display without any delay. So this "G-sync" sounds to me like just a way to throttle the pipeline of the graphics card so it delivers a consistent FPS... which is something we can do since DirectX9.
So what, then, is the tangible benefit realized? Because I smell marketing, not technology, in this PR.
You are overgeneralizing. Marketing emails from legitimate companies are often stopped by opting-out.
"Legitimate" companies like Google, who then sell your information to third parties? Because that's what this guy is talking about, and that's what they're doing. I don't know how much more "legitimate" of an example I can make.
The legitimate companies have more to lose by not following the rules.
Once you've opted out, they have no further reason to follow your imaginary rules. It's just data now; Data should be monetized. If you aren't interested in our products, then we will have to make money some other way... by selling your information to our competitors, maybe... hey, at least it's turning a frown upside-down, right?
Opt-outs are a scam. They have been since the late 90s. Opting out just tells spammers that they hit a real e-mail address, and thus its value goes up. It also tells them one other important piece of information: You're willing to click on links that send you to random websites.
Anyone who tries to 'opt out' is an idiot, and anyone who suggests them as a solution to spam and advertising should be dragged into the street and stoned to death. There is only one solution: Get rid of all of it. The end. Stop your monetization of the web 2.0 synergizing cluster fuck of the internet... it survived just fine before you vultures descended on it. It will survive your demise as well.