It's easy to prove it if you live in a state that allows a single party to tape a phone call with or without the consent of the other party.
I don't see that this has anything to do with it. Start the recorded conversation off with "I am recording this conversation. Is that okay with you? Hello? Hello? I'm recording this, and need to verify you give permission. Hello? Is anybody there? Is this a recording?". I would think that would get past the consent requirement, since you are very obviously trying to obtain consent.
With SW Bell in TX, it costs $2 a month for this service, unless you have it as a piece of a package service.
Furthermore, it only works when the number is reported. If the number is not shown on caller ID, it is not provided to the phone service to be blocked. This is generally only a problem with long-distance calls.
And while there has been no movement by/.ers to establish porn for kids, slashdot has opposed censoring programs like cybersitter and netnanny.
It hasn't been opposed because it filters out porn for those who don't want it. Is has been opposed because it filters out many, many, many legitimate sites that should not be blocked, and because it is all but impossible to get the vendors of those programs to correct their filter lists.
The primary objections have not been to the concept of the programs, but to the unreliablility and uncorrectibility of those programs.
Other objections have been to forced filtering in public places even when adults are using it, though I think that has been a much lesser objection that the unreliability.
How is this any more or less constitutional than restriction "under age" people from R and X rated movies? How is this any more or less constitutional than restricting "under age" people from certain type of magazines?
since when does the government ever steal from you
If I don't hand the money over "voluntarily" they will come and take it away from me at gunpoint, throw me in jail, and maybe even take more away. That sounds like stealing to me.
f an ISP blocks legitimate email, first-time senders will forget it or not try again. Neither you nor they will never know what happened to; you'll probably blame it on the net-gods. But if the ISP doesn't block spammers they get complaints out the wazoo. Which will they choose?
They way my mail server (and probably most ISP's) is configured is to reject the mail, not just drop it. This way, the sender receives a message indicating "550 Mail from x.x.x.x REFUSED as you are on the Realtime BlackHole List. See http://maps.vix.com/rbl/" They know they need to take some action.
From direct experience, I know that Southwestern Bell Internet Service's 24/7 tech support means that you have to wait on hold a minimum of 24 minutes each call, and you have to make at least 7 calls before reaching someone who knows how to help you do anything other than power the modem off and on and reboot your machine.
Secondly, the documents seem to be written intentionally so that most people are unable to read them without a couple of years of law school training. They're loaded with legal language and as much fluff text and obscuration as possible, burying the terms of the agreement and making it a burden to read. The textual equivalent of having to travel several hundred miles through difficult terrain in order to retrieve the easy to read version.
Not only that, but half of the text in them is printed in ALL CAPS. PRINTING SOMETHING IN ALL CAPS IS VERY DIFFICULT TO READ WHEN IT IS MORE THAN JUST A FEW WORDS. For that very reason, every publishing style guide strongly and repeatedly warns you never to use all caps. Not only are the lawyers making the license difficult to understand, they are intentionally making it very difficult to even read the text.
I have never actually "signed" a contract with any ISP I have ever used. Everything was done over the phone or via email. All contractual information was on web pages. These pages I usually printed out at the first opportunity, because they changed quite often, usually with minor modifications but sometimes with pretty serious ones.
I have never yet had cause to try to enforce the original terms that were in effect at the time I agreed to the contract. I wonder, if I ever do have cause to do so, how hard it would be to enforce the document I printed out when I signed up instead of the current version on the ever-changing web page.
To take that a little further, then... What if that group of thugs was harassing your business because of a certain class of customers, possibly race, possibly gender, whatever. Then, if you deny that same class service because you are afraid of having your business harmed, you are discriminating because of his/her class, whether you intend it that way or not.
The proper solution is to have the thugs dealt with.
I can do one better than this. An ISP I used to use got kicked off its provider because of DoS attacks perpetrated against some users of the ISP. Users who instigated the attacks, and those who violated the ISPs Acceptable Use Agreement, were usually given a second chance, but eventually had their accounts revoked. (I used to work there, so I know the accounts were revoked, and we attempted to verify names so they couldn't slip back in.)
I guess they just suffered one attack too many, because one day their network provider told them to get the machines off the system. The ISP ended up selling the customer accounts to another ISP and closing up shop.
TS: Umm... no... That's OK... We have a Unix guy here.. hold on... [ten minutes pass]... Uhh.. the Unix guy is is... uhh.. Busy.. I think the problem is at our end... I'll get back to you...
You're lucky. Whenever I have problems that I am sure are on SBIS's network, not my LAN, I have to unplug my LAN and directly plug in my windows box. If they even get the hint of LAN or UNIX, they won't have anything further to do with me, because the trouble is obiously on my unsupported end.
I imagine Bell's own ISP would probably go through the same channels (though they would probably get higher priority over a small ISP).
I don't know if they'd get higher priority, but before anything happens, you have to get Bell's ISP to admit the problem is not with your computer, and that is a very difficult concept to convince them about.
I've wondered about this myself. Radio and TV news people are always announcing that some official somewhere is going to announce some decision that was made. How do they know that, and why don't they just get it over with?
Since the news people have already made the announcement, why bother covering the actual event itself. It seems a little anti-climatic to me.
In the case of tobacco, it's an example of people suing others for doing harm to themselves. The tobacco company should certainly be liable for misleading their audiences
The people who should be suing, and winning, are the non-smokers who have had to suffer 40 years of choking down tobacco smoke. I carry an inhaler around for a very mild case of asthma; the only time I ever have to use it is when I pass through an unavoidable cloud of smoke, usually going through the entrance door where I work and in the parking garage. Why should the people who inflict this on themselves and others get paid for it, and those of us suffering due to them get nothing?
And yes, junk mail in real life is annoying, because 1) I have to sort through all of it to make sure I want it, and 2) it's a waste of natural resources.
Junk snail mail does provide a useful service, though. The post office does not require your mailperson to check your mailbox for outgoing mail. If there is no mail to be delivered to your box, the mailperson will often skip it without looking for outgoing mail. The junk snail mail get the mailperson to check my mailbox for outgoing mail every day, so the occasional time I have outgoing mail it gets picked up the same day I place it in the box.
Junk email does not provide that same benefit, because my mail server pushes the mail out for delivery without waiting for incoming mail. Therefore, junk email is unnecessary. And, for all the other reasons already posted, it is a huge waste of my time and resources.
Edward Burr
Re:Dihydrogen Monoxide - DHMO
on
Hoax-a-go-go!
·
· Score: 1
What are you talking about? This is not a hoax. Every word of it is true; it is al verifiable fact. If only the vast majority of people didn't sleep through their chemistry classes, they would understand exactly what this is saying, and so wouldn't be worried about it.
Great. Now we're going to get a bunch of people following the "Create your own hoax" link and causing even worse mailbox flooding than we already have. Doesn't this writer have any sense at all???
Anyone have any ideas how to prevent this from happening again in the future?
Yeah. Understand what you are doing when you issue something under GPL. The only reason this will come back to bite them is because they assigned the rights to the general public and then told Mattel they had not assigned the rights to anyone.
According to the article, the agreement they came to with Mattel states that they have not assigned their rights to anyone. Wasn't that done when they released it under GPL? If so, the the agreement maay end up being worthless, and Mattel will go back after them again.
Slashdot Mirror
Any chance you might post the script?
Edward Burr
I don't see that this has anything to do with it. Start the recorded conversation off with "I am recording this conversation. Is that okay with you? Hello? Hello? I'm recording this, and need to verify you give permission. Hello? Is anybody there? Is this a recording?". I would think that would get past the consent requirement, since you are very obviously trying to obtain consent.
Edward Burr
Furthermore, it only works when the number is reported. If the number is not shown on caller ID, it is not provided to the phone service to be blocked. This is generally only a problem with long-distance calls.
Edward Burr
It hasn't been opposed because it filters out porn for those who don't want it. Is has been opposed because it filters out many, many, many legitimate sites that should not be blocked, and because it is all but impossible to get the vendors of those programs to correct their filter lists.
The primary objections have not been to the concept of the programs, but to the unreliablility and uncorrectibility of those programs.
Other objections have been to forced filtering in public places even when adults are using it, though I think that has been a much lesser objection that the unreliability.
Edward Burr
How is this any more or less constitutional than restriction "under age" people from R and X rated movies? How is this any more or less constitutional than restricting "under age" people from certain type of magazines?
Edward Burr
If I don't hand the money over "voluntarily" they will come and take it away from me at gunpoint, throw me in jail, and maybe even take more away. That sounds like stealing to me.
Edward Burr
They way my mail server (and probably most ISP's) is configured is to reject the mail, not just drop it. This way, the sender receives a message indicating "550 Mail from x.x.x.x REFUSED as you are on the Realtime BlackHole List. See http://maps.vix.com/rbl/" They know they need to take some action.
Edward Burr
Considering that the government steals a third of what you earn, only two of every three hours you work can go toward survival.
Edward Burr
From direct experience, I know that Southwestern Bell Internet Service's 24/7 tech support means that you have to wait on hold a minimum of 24 minutes each call, and you have to make at least 7 calls before reaching someone who knows how to help you do anything other than power the modem off and on and reboot your machine.
Edward Burr
ICQ is NOT a basic human right.
Edward Burr
Not only that, but half of the text in them is printed in ALL CAPS. PRINTING SOMETHING IN ALL CAPS IS VERY DIFFICULT TO READ WHEN IT IS MORE THAN JUST A FEW WORDS. For that very reason, every publishing style guide strongly and repeatedly warns you never to use all caps. Not only are the lawyers making the license difficult to understand, they are intentionally making it very difficult to even read the text.
Edward Burr
I have never yet had cause to try to enforce the original terms that were in effect at the time I agreed to the contract. I wonder, if I ever do have cause to do so, how hard it would be to enforce the document I printed out when I signed up instead of the current version on the ever-changing web page.
Edward Burr
The proper solution is to have the thugs dealt with.
Edward Burr
Good luck with that one. Even now, it is very difficult to get law enforcement to pursue this kind of crime unless it is a very high-profile incident.
Edward Burr
I guess they just suffered one attack too many, because one day their network provider told them to get the machines off the system. The ISP ended up selling the customer accounts to another ISP and closing up shop.
Edward Burr
You're lucky. Whenever I have problems that I am sure are on SBIS's network, not my LAN, I have to unplug my LAN and directly plug in my windows box. If they even get the hint of LAN or UNIX, they won't have anything further to do with me, because the trouble is obiously on my unsupported end.
Edward Burr
I don't know if they'd get higher priority, but before anything happens, you have to get Bell's ISP to admit the problem is not with your computer, and that is a very difficult concept to convince them about.
Edward Burr
Since the news people have already made the announcement, why bother covering the actual event itself. It seems a little anti-climatic to me.
Edward Burr
The people who should be suing, and winning, are the non-smokers who have had to suffer 40 years of choking down tobacco smoke. I carry an inhaler around for a very mild case of asthma; the only time I ever have to use it is when I pass through an unavoidable cloud of smoke, usually going through the entrance door where I work and in the parking garage. Why should the people who inflict this on themselves and others get paid for it, and those of us suffering due to them get nothing?
Edward Burr
Junk snail mail does provide a useful service, though. The post office does not require your mailperson to check your mailbox for outgoing mail. If there is no mail to be delivered to your box, the mailperson will often skip it without looking for outgoing mail. The junk snail mail get the mailperson to check my mailbox for outgoing mail every day, so the occasional time I have outgoing mail it gets picked up the same day I place it in the box.
Junk email does not provide that same benefit, because my mail server pushes the mail out for delivery without waiting for incoming mail. Therefore, junk email is unnecessary. And, for all the other reasons already posted, it is a huge waste of my time and resources.
Edward Burr
What are you talking about? This is not a hoax. Every word of it is true; it is al verifiable fact. If only the vast majority of people didn't sleep through their chemistry classes, they would understand exactly what this is saying, and so wouldn't be worried about it.
Edward Burr
Great. Now we're going to get a bunch of people following the "Create your own hoax" link and causing even worse mailbox flooding than we already have. Doesn't this writer have any sense at all???
Edward Burr
<sarcasm>Sorry, you can't do that. DeCSS is illegal. You can't even look at the code, because it's banned from all web sites.</sarcasm>
Edward Burr
Yeah. Understand what you are doing when you issue something under GPL. The only reason this will come back to bite them is because they assigned the rights to the general public and then told Mattel they had not assigned the rights to anyone.
Edward Burr
According to the article, the agreement they came to with Mattel states that they have not assigned their rights to anyone. Wasn't that done when they released it under GPL? If so, the the agreement maay end up being worthless, and Mattel will go back after them again.
Edward Burr