Remember when the RIAA got the amendment passed the first time, turning all recordings into works for hire? At the time, they said several times that they were just trying to clarify current law. And, of course, we all thought, "who are you trying to fool?". And Sheryl Crow thought that, and a ton of other artists thought that, and Congress thought that, and repealed the stupid thing (if you've forgotten any of this, it's nicely summarized in part 1, interest of amicus curiae).
But now we see that the RIAA was serious-- they are going to press for this being interpreted as the way the law works currently. However, it seems that their own greedy contracts may have come back to bite them in the ass. As it says in the brief, "in order to qualify as a work for hire... a work created by an independent contractor must... have been created at the commissioning party's 'instance and expense'" (loosely quoted, read it yourself if you want more context). And this is where it gets interesting-- the label doesn't pay for the album to get made. They advance money to the artist, who has to pay it all back. So it's made at the artist's expense. And if the artist's footing the bill, it's not a work for hire under current law, or any common sense definition.
So why is the RIAA trying this again? They probably thought they could slip it through in the morass of legal proceedings, no one would notice, then they could point at it in future cases. Unless they have some ruling or law up their sleeve that the Coalition didn't know about, I'm guessing the judge will ask them to amend the submissions. But IANAL; maybe their brief is a lot less convincing than it looks to me.
Re:Let me be the first to say "Duuuuuhhhh"
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Are Videogames Art?
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· Score: 2
Agreed (and I wanted to be the first to say duh, dammit!). Simply because computer games are subject to strong commercial pressure and have a young audience relative to other art forms doesn't mean they aren't art.
Certainly, Q3 is more focused on providing entertainment than investigating the human condition. But the existence of action films or comedic plays (which I'd argue are art as well-- ask any John Woo aficionado, or Shakespeare fan) doesn't preclude the entire medium from more "purely artistic" expression, whatever that is. And as gaming systems are becoming more advanced, and the audience is maturing (both as a result of age as well as a broadening library of past works), we're seeing more innovative and daring works all the time. For example, ICO would qualify as innovative new art for anyone who wasn't already dead-set against the medium. I hope to see more entries in the category of "new and different"-- but I will also continue to enjoy refinements of old, entertaining standbys such as one of the latest fabulous gothic actioners, Devil May Cry.
P.S. I don't mean this to come off as an add for the PS2; it's just been a dry spell for PC's and other consoles recently. Here's to hoping for a great holiday gaming season.
The entire purpose of my post was that stealing != copying music. They are different words, with different meanings. It's generally accepted that stealing is bad, with some people doing a bit of fudging to make Robin Hood look all cool. Unauthorized copying, as already demonstrated, is not stealing. It may still be wrong, but it's a different issue. I think the issue needs examination and discussion. And I don't think that rational debate can take place when a large number of people who should be involved in the debate insist on calling it stealing.
Of course, when you insist on conjuring up a straw man to argue against (yet somehow do it in response to my posts, which aren't at all what you're discussing), and insulting me, that rational debate's not going to take place either.
I have created many things. Not all musicians cut tracks for the purpose of selling an album. Many musicians do give away things for free. Not every download off of a P2P network is getting something for free that was intended to be sold. The line between stealing and copying is not fine at all-- it's a big thick obvious line involving the owner not having it any more. Was there a single sentence in your post that was actually true? I couldn't find it. I looked at your post history and you don't appear to be a troll, but this post has me puzzled.
Hmm, your post is listed as in response to mine, but it's quite obvious you're not responding to my post, in which I clarified that copying was infringement, and not stealing.
I agree with all of that. Which is why the submitter would have had a lot more luck reading the stuff I linked to and interpreting the results with a much higher knowledge of his own situation, than asking us, who (so far as I've seen from the comments) don't know any more than a quick google search for "domain name arbitration" and the contents of their question.
How the fuck does this qualify as insightful? Let's look at it again, in instant replay:
"If you let the domain expire, and someone else registered it, I say you're going to have a hard time *taking it back* from its now-rightful owner."
No, he's not going to have a hard time taking it back, because according to ICANN's UDRP, these other people are acting in bad faith-- they are not the "rightful owner" that you mistakenly assumed. The rules are easy to search, and are here: http://www.icann.org/udrp/udrp-rules-24oct99.htm. But I'll quote it for you, since I'm sure no one will actually go read it.
Describe, in accordance with the Policy, the grounds on which the complaint is made including, in particular,
(1) the manner in which the domain name(s) is/are identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which the Complainant has rights; and
(2) why the Respondent (domain-name holder) should be considered as having no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the domain name(s) that is/are the subject of the complaint; and
(3) why the domain name(s) should be considered as having been registered and being used in bad faith
So, seems pretty clear-cut here. Gee, you think the porn site's name isn't confusingly similar? You think they have legitimate interests in the name? You think they somehow weren't registering in bad faith?
As long as I'm apparently the only person who bothered to do some research on this first, including the original submitter, why don't I point out the procedures spelled out in detail here. Note that the single largest roadblock for a small non-profit is going to be the $1500 fee. Is the domain name worth $1500 to you? If so, read up, and you'll probably get it after a few forms and a money transfer. If not, use one of the gajillion other names available to you that's easier to remember than kzhszdfwelsdafjsdfzlldfm.org or whatever.
"If you do not like how the Record company handles things, boycotting them is fine but STEALING their copyrights through P2P networks is not justified."
Perhaps capitalizing does something to the definition of a word that I'm not aware of, but I'll assume for the purposes of this discussion that such a mutation is not built into the English language. Now, no one has ever stolen a copyright over a P2P network. It's impossible. Why? Two reasons:
1. when I download something via a P2P network, the person whose machine I copied it from still has it. That pretty much makes it impossible to steal anything.
2. I download mp3's, not copyrights. What P2P network are you on?
What-- you think I'm being flippant, or dodging the issue? I'm not, but the RIAA is (as are you). This is not an issue of stealing. No one's stealing anything over P2P networks. You still have it when I download it. Why do they talk about stealing instead of copyright infringement? Because stealing makes it sound like you're taking money away from some poor artist; copyright infringement makes it sound like you're cutting into the recording industry's profits. If they got too in-depth and started talking about real issues, everyone would realize in a second what disgusting slime these people are. As long as they can bog people down in the typical platitudes of "two wrongs don't make a right" and "stealing is wrong", they never have to worry about real scrutiny. Don't be fooled.
All cynicism aside (okay, about half of it), I think this is one of the funniest MS articles ever. This reads like it's straight out of the Onion. First, here's a bit where IIS is compared to Christianity:
"Just like the ideologies and religions of the world or the political parties of a given country, the technical innovations promoted by competing software companies will always be at odds because they embody the ideas of individuals.".
Even better, however, is the part where he tells you that if you stop using MS software, the terrorists have won:
"Following Gartner's recommendation to seek alternatives to IIS only accomplishes what the industrial terrorists want.".
Finally, though, I especially like the part where he threatens that MS might (Bill forbid) stop making software. Wow, I just don't know what we'd do without a new version of Word! Here's the threat-- if we don't classify this as industrial terrorism, MS might not charge you that yearly subscription fee:
"But as long as the spirit of innovation is preserved and the implementation of destructive viruses is recognized as the industrial terrorism that it is, then revolutionary ideas like.NET will continue to be provided to the consumer, one innovative step at a time.".
One innovative step at a time, indeed-- one more step, and he'll be writing for the Brunching Shuttlecocks.
No, there really isn't much that makes sense about this. You think virus writers should face prison time? Guess what, they already do, at least in the U.S. (and if they use them to infect a machine-- if they simply write one and don't release it into the wild, they certainly should NOT be prosecuted). We already have plenty of laws to land computer criminals in jail, and many have already been convicted and are currently serving time.
The/. story isn't about some bill that would make virus writing a crime. At the risk of being on topic, I'll point out that the story is actually about MS taking advantage of the terrorism scare to make releasing a virus disproportionately penalized. There is additional leeway provided to law enforcement when dealing with things classified as terrorism, and the minimum penalties on conviction go way up. Some stupid script kiddie who accidentally writes and runs something on his own box, which then gets into the wild, could face life in prison if this trend continues.
Finally, I'd like to point out this statement by Thomas:
"As long as the spirit of innovation is preserved and destructive viruses are recognized as industrial terrorism, Microsoft will continue to provide revolutionary ideas.". That's the best case I've seen against this idea so far! I think he's saying that if destructive viruses aren't recognized as industrial terrorism, MS will stop making products. If anything can rouse the geeks to action, this has to be it.
Whee, didn't check to see if there were any replies to my posts.
The problem with stating that a well-regulated monopoly is fine is that you're depending on the definition of well-regulated-- if the monopoly sucks, well then it must not be regulated properly, right? The biggest examples are cable and local phone rates. I don't sign up for cable because it's ridiculously overpriced. However, I can't do without phone service. Now, you said: "Sounds like you should change your intrastate long distance provider. You can, you know, because they aren't a monopoly anymore.". And you caught me-- I was using an old example. I went back and looked, and my rates are much lower than they were back when PacBell was a monopoly. They certainly weren't well-regulated; is that because California is more incompetent than most states, or simply because it's very difficult to properly regulate large private companies?
Even SPEC is too easy to manipulate, and too far from what most users do. The only real way to benchmark a processor is by testing it with what you do the most.
For tech-savvy users that might actually notice the speed difference, this means we have to browse the benchmarks at Anandtech, etc., and it's usually pretty easy to find a benchmark for an app identical or similar to what you spend most of your time doing (i.e. Tribes 2).
Of course, it's likely that none of us would notice the speed difference between a P4 2.0GHz or AMD 1800+ in whatever app we're using; and it's certain that a non-power user wouldn't. Which is fine, because the non-geek isn't going to read all the benchmarks.
So what's a computer buyer to do? Simple-- buy from whoever's cheaper. Save yourself $200, and try not to worry too much about remembering if your box is 2% faster or 2% slower than the other one as you surf the web.
Actually, he's already high-profile enough that he doesn't need the advertising. He can already pretty much name his fee.
Sure, maybe he can charge a couple more bucks-- but that'll hardly balance out with what he would've made charging a different client during the hours he spends on this case. And sure, maybe he enjoys being in the papers; and maybe his clients expect that from him.
But basically, he's already got plenty of money, and his practice is plenty successful. If he were just in it for the money, he wouldn't take this case. You'll find that a lot of defense attorneys (and prosecutors) really care about what happens to their client. Sure, Keker's probably not some anti-DMCA zealot, but he wouldn't have taken this case if he didn't think Sklyarov's prosecution was unjust.
Yes, cynicism is good, and with lawyers, it's doubly important.:) But contrary to popular belief, most of them are not soulless, money grubbing ambulance chasers.
I don't mean to sound like a conspiracy theorist here, but what's the real point of this ad? It doesn't sound like anyone actually thinks it'll deter anyone. And on TV? Much more effective on-line. And there really aren't enough script kiddiez and whatnot to have a TV campaign make any sense.
The people who will actually be influenced by this are the ones who aren't very computer-literate. While the script kiddiez will scoff (or not even notice), there are far more computer illiterates (or semi-literates), and they'll be more easily swayed. Is this just another attempt at demonizing non-corporate computer types?
I agree that it's about people who are larger than life, but I strongly disagree with your exclusion of Kirk (and for that matter, Picard). Kirk was the quintessential frontier hero, the swaggering, brawling Tom Sawyer. Spock is obviously essential, but the series clearly expressed he wasn't the "born leader" type as Kirk was.
ST:TNG was great because it completely transformed that world view. Instead of the frontiersman, we have the intellectual, the dramatist. He's no superhero, he's more human than human-- it's no coincidence that they cast someone who'd done a remarkable amount of Shakespeare.
Admittedly, compared to these superhuman captains and superpowerful sidekicks, the latest ST characters have been quite dull. The problem isn't a lack of superpowers, though-- you can have a strong hero without any explicitly non-human abilities.
Yes, you may be the only one. All the in-production lights suck. The Glow Guard is the "best light yet", meaning it sucks slightly less than the worm light. This guy's hack definitely looks better from the pictures on his site.
I have taken it upon myself to create an account, as has been suggested. As for my troll, I am surprised by the number of people duped by it; this is easier than I thought. Especially since I inserted numerous clues that it was all bogus ("O(n) NP-complete" indeed) for the more clueful people to see, as is proper troll protocol (at least, it seems it should be proper protocol to me). Now, alas, I just need to wait for inspiration to hit for my next attack.
Inspiration didn't take very long to strike, I see.
This is truly awful-- I suspect the author got hit hard by Namba and put up whatever he had lying around. Let's look at this.
"A poll in the United States has found widespread support for a ban on "uncrackable" encryption products." The only supporting statement it has, however, is this: "The Princeton survey found that more than half of the American public would support anti-encryption laws to aid law enforcement surveillance powers.". They don't bother to give us any details about the question. What sort of anti-encryption laws? Which branch of law enforcement? What were the allowed answers to the question?
This lack of detail is especially worrisome given the drastically misleading figure from the featured question: "72 percent of Americans believe that anti-encryption laws would be 'somewhat' or 'very' helpful in preventing a repeat of last week's terrorist attacks.". Wow, 72 percent of americans are anti-encryption! We're a week from the tragedy, with no details being released to us on how it was orchestrated. So, how do we know they would have been very helpful? For that matter, how do we know they would have not been helpful at all? "Somewhat" helpful is practically the default answer-- if you're pulling the answer out of your ass, pick the middle one.
Let's look at some of the other striking logic: "Only 9 percent of those questioned believed that tighter encryption restrictions would not prevent similar terrorist attacks in the future.". Of course, they don't bother to mention how many believed that tighter restrictions would prevent attacks. Here, the default answer is obviously "might". Do I know tighter restrictions wouldn't prevent a single attack? Of course not; I also don't know that they would.
Finally, of course, the most important number is the date this survey was taken: Sep. 13-14. To be fair to the author, she did mention that. Taking surveys during that time is a disgustingly opportunistic response to the attacks. You certainly could have garnered favorable responses to attacking just about any country in the middle east, killing civilians, locking up immigrants, etc. etc.. I simply can't believe that in the wake of the tragedy, these people wasted their time and everyone else's on pushing this stupid agenda.
The idea is that if the authorities can't tap your phone, read your e-mail, track your comings and goings, etc. at will, it'll be a lot harder for them to become so authoritarian.
You've obviously seen the government abuse its power. The power to read all your e-mail is just one more power we don't want to give it. It's a great way for them to track down the "undesirables", and, as you mentioned, lock them up for "national security".
I don't believe that you can have freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, etc. etc. if the government is free to tap all of your communications. They can just lock you up before you ever become high-profile enough for your speech to be noticed.
"Members of congress here is a way to realize Civil Liberties AND the protection of world citizens."
Suggestions on what to do are useless if they're not willing to listen. The Senate passed a bill immediately after the tragedy in 30 minutes: do you think it even matters at all what was in the bill? Do you think anyone other than the authors read it?
No, what needs to be urged at this time is some caution, a bit of restraint. We shouldn't strike at those abroad who have done nothing to us, just as we shouldn't curb those liberties which played no part in the terrorist attack.
Suggestions from most of us would be as ill-informed and useless as those from our representatives right now. Have they waited for any investigation? Have they been briefed on the root causes? No, they have not. There is no sign cryptography played any part in this, yet they already want to restrict crypto.
In the short term, propose short-term measures. And in the long term, pass laws. Don't pass kneejerk laws. At best, they're irrelevant; at worst, they exacerbate the problem.
A lazy man's paradise, right? You can just sit back, not worry about your Constitutional rights, because they'll all be protected for you.
That's dead wrong, and life does not just go on as usual for many people in the U.S.. You obviously need to brush up on your history, as an immediate example comes to mind: the Espionage Act of 1917. Passed in support of WW1, it horribly abridged freedom of speech. People were thrown in jail with extremely long sentences for such things as writing communist literature, and one man was beaten to death after being arrested under it. Here's the best web page I could find on it in short notice, but I recommend heading down to the library and finding a good history book.
Now you've got to go and turn this into another stupid election flamewar. I was simply pointing out that the Supreme Court has NOT recently come down in favor of federalism. That decision, among others recently, actually show them to have centralist leanings-- quite contrary to what the original poster claimed.
Of course, the original poster also claimed that the current administration believes in federalism, which is obviously incorrect. In fact, they believe so strongly in the ineffectiveness of local governments that they often turn enforcement of rules they don't like over to local authorities, because they know it won't happen-- for example, oil drilling and logging in Alaska.
Of course, all this and how it pertains to the MS/Intel cases is now much less significant than how it'll play out with the terrorist attacks. I doubt you'll see even the smallest suggestion of federalism, as it'd be political suicide-- "new security measures at airports? Sure thing, you just figure 'em out yourself NY, knock yourself out.".
Re:there's an argument to be made....
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More On Tragedy
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· Score: 2
"you would hate america, too, if you lived there and saw what the palestinians suffered."
Hmm, I know several people who have lived there, and seen that, and don't hate America. So either you know the original poster fairly well and are specifically referring to him, or you're full of shit.
And, of course, Blood Brothers is not "unbiased". I'm all for alternative viewpoints, but to just pick one and decide it's 100% truth is foolish.
All that being said, you have a valid point buried beneath all the rhetoric. We haven't made a whole lot of friends by choosing to help Israel. But there are two sides to that conflict-- Palestin, like Israel, has a large amount of responsibility for sabotaging the peace process during Clinton's term. Arafat got greedy, a few Palestinians couldn't hold back from being violent, and now they've got Bush in office. Did they think they would get a better shake from the U.S. post-Clinton? Palestinian short-sightedness and fanaticism is as much to blame as the right-wing warmongers government.
The middle east is extremely complex. Saying one side is responsible is like picking the Protestants or Catholics as responsible for violence in Ireland. And there's really no way to get involved in the entire mess without getting a good number of people angry with you, and botching a few operations along the way. Perhaps we should've just stayed out all along, but there's hindsight for you.
Slashdot Mirror
Remember when the RIAA got the amendment passed the first time, turning all recordings into works for hire? At the time, they said several times that they were just trying to clarify current law. And, of course, we all thought, "who are you trying to fool?". And Sheryl Crow thought that, and a ton of other artists thought that, and Congress thought that, and repealed the stupid thing (if you've forgotten any of this, it's nicely summarized in part 1, interest of amicus curiae).
But now we see that the RIAA was serious-- they are going to press for this being interpreted as the way the law works currently. However, it seems that their own greedy contracts may have come back to bite them in the ass. As it says in the brief, "in order to qualify as a work for hire... a work created by an independent contractor must... have been created at the commissioning party's 'instance and expense'" (loosely quoted, read it yourself if you want more context). And this is where it gets interesting-- the label doesn't pay for the album to get made. They advance money to the artist, who has to pay it all back. So it's made at the artist's expense. And if the artist's footing the bill, it's not a work for hire under current law, or any common sense definition.
So why is the RIAA trying this again? They probably thought they could slip it through in the morass of legal proceedings, no one would notice, then they could point at it in future cases. Unless they have some ruling or law up their sleeve that the Coalition didn't know about, I'm guessing the judge will ask them to amend the submissions. But IANAL; maybe their brief is a lot less convincing than it looks to me.
Agreed (and I wanted to be the first to say duh, dammit!). Simply because computer games are subject to strong commercial pressure and have a young audience relative to other art forms doesn't mean they aren't art.
Certainly, Q3 is more focused on providing entertainment than investigating the human condition. But the existence of action films or comedic plays (which I'd argue are art as well-- ask any John Woo aficionado, or Shakespeare fan) doesn't preclude the entire medium from more "purely artistic" expression, whatever that is. And as gaming systems are becoming more advanced, and the audience is maturing (both as a result of age as well as a broadening library of past works), we're seeing more innovative and daring works all the time. For example, ICO would qualify as innovative new art for anyone who wasn't already dead-set against the medium. I hope to see more entries in the category of "new and different"-- but I will also continue to enjoy refinements of old, entertaining standbys such as one of the latest fabulous gothic actioners, Devil May Cry.
P.S. I don't mean this to come off as an add for the PS2; it's just been a dry spell for PC's and other consoles recently. Here's to hoping for a great holiday gaming season.
The entire purpose of my post was that stealing != copying music. They are different words, with different meanings. It's generally accepted that stealing is bad, with some people doing a bit of fudging to make Robin Hood look all cool. Unauthorized copying, as already demonstrated, is not stealing. It may still be wrong, but it's a different issue. I think the issue needs examination and discussion. And I don't think that rational debate can take place when a large number of people who should be involved in the debate insist on calling it stealing.
Of course, when you insist on conjuring up a straw man to argue against (yet somehow do it in response to my posts, which aren't at all what you're discussing), and insulting me, that rational debate's not going to take place either.
I have created many things. Not all musicians cut tracks for the purpose of selling an album. Many musicians do give away things for free. Not every download off of a P2P network is getting something for free that was intended to be sold. The line between stealing and copying is not fine at all-- it's a big thick obvious line involving the owner not having it any more. Was there a single sentence in your post that was actually true? I couldn't find it. I looked at your post history and you don't appear to be a troll, but this post has me puzzled.
Hmm, your post is listed as in response to mine, but it's quite obvious you're not responding to my post, in which I clarified that copying was infringement, and not stealing.
I agree with all of that. Which is why the submitter would have had a lot more luck reading the stuff I linked to and interpreting the results with a much higher knowledge of his own situation, than asking us, who (so far as I've seen from the comments) don't know any more than a quick google search for "domain name arbitration" and the contents of their question.
How the fuck does this qualify as insightful? Let's look at it again, in instant replay:
"If you let the domain expire, and someone else registered it, I say you're going to have a hard time *taking it back* from its now-rightful owner."
No, he's not going to have a hard time taking it back, because according to ICANN's UDRP, these other people are acting in bad faith-- they are not the "rightful owner" that you mistakenly assumed. The rules are easy to search, and are here: http://www.icann.org/udrp/udrp-rules-24oct99.htm. But I'll quote it for you, since I'm sure no one will actually go read it.
Describe, in accordance with the Policy, the grounds on which the complaint is made including, in particular,
(1) the manner in which the domain name(s) is/are identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which the Complainant has rights; and
(2) why the Respondent (domain-name holder) should be considered as having no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the domain name(s) that is/are the subject of the complaint; and
(3) why the domain name(s) should be considered as having been registered and being used in bad faith
So, seems pretty clear-cut here. Gee, you think the porn site's name isn't confusingly similar? You think they have legitimate interests in the name? You think they somehow weren't registering in bad faith?
As long as I'm apparently the only person who bothered to do some research on this first, including the original submitter, why don't I point out the procedures spelled out in detail here. Note that the single largest roadblock for a small non-profit is going to be the $1500 fee. Is the domain name worth $1500 to you? If so, read up, and you'll probably get it after a few forms and a money transfer. If not, use one of the gajillion other names available to you that's easier to remember than kzhszdfwelsdafjsdfzlldfm.org or whatever.
"If you do not like how the Record company handles things, boycotting them is fine but STEALING their copyrights through P2P networks is not justified."
Perhaps capitalizing does something to the definition of a word that I'm not aware of, but I'll assume for the purposes of this discussion that such a mutation is not built into the English language. Now, no one has ever stolen a copyright over a P2P network. It's impossible. Why? Two reasons:
1. when I download something via a P2P network, the person whose machine I copied it from still has it. That pretty much makes it impossible to steal anything.
2. I download mp3's, not copyrights. What P2P network are you on?
What-- you think I'm being flippant, or dodging the issue? I'm not, but the RIAA is (as are you). This is not an issue of stealing. No one's stealing anything over P2P networks. You still have it when I download it. Why do they talk about stealing instead of copyright infringement? Because stealing makes it sound like you're taking money away from some poor artist; copyright infringement makes it sound like you're cutting into the recording industry's profits. If they got too in-depth and started talking about real issues, everyone would realize in a second what disgusting slime these people are. As long as they can bog people down in the typical platitudes of "two wrongs don't make a right" and "stealing is wrong", they never have to worry about real scrutiny. Don't be fooled.
All cynicism aside (okay, about half of it), I think this is one of the funniest MS articles ever. This reads like it's straight out of the Onion. First, here's a bit where IIS is compared to Christianity:
.NET will continue to be provided to the consumer, one innovative step at a time.".
"Just like the ideologies and religions of the world or the political parties of a given country, the technical innovations promoted by competing software companies will always be at odds because they embody the ideas of individuals.".
Even better, however, is the part where he tells you that if you stop using MS software, the terrorists have won:
"Following Gartner's recommendation to seek alternatives to IIS only accomplishes what the industrial terrorists want.".
Finally, though, I especially like the part where he threatens that MS might (Bill forbid) stop making software. Wow, I just don't know what we'd do without a new version of Word! Here's the threat-- if we don't classify this as industrial terrorism, MS might not charge you that yearly subscription fee:
"But as long as the spirit of innovation is preserved and the implementation of destructive viruses is recognized as the industrial terrorism that it is, then revolutionary ideas like
One innovative step at a time, indeed-- one more step, and he'll be writing for the Brunching Shuttlecocks.
No, there really isn't much that makes sense about this. You think virus writers should face prison time? Guess what, they already do, at least in the U.S. (and if they use them to infect a machine-- if they simply write one and don't release it into the wild, they certainly should NOT be prosecuted). We already have plenty of laws to land computer criminals in jail, and many have already been convicted and are currently serving time.
/. story isn't about some bill that would make virus writing a crime. At the risk of being on topic, I'll point out that the story is actually about MS taking advantage of the terrorism scare to make releasing a virus disproportionately penalized. There is additional leeway provided to law enforcement when dealing with things classified as terrorism, and the minimum penalties on conviction go way up. Some stupid script kiddie who accidentally writes and runs something on his own box, which then gets into the wild, could face life in prison if this trend continues.
The
Finally, I'd like to point out this statement by Thomas:
"As long as the spirit of innovation is preserved and destructive viruses are recognized as industrial terrorism, Microsoft will continue to provide revolutionary ideas.". That's the best case I've seen against this idea so far! I think he's saying that if destructive viruses aren't recognized as industrial terrorism, MS will stop making products. If anything can rouse the geeks to action, this has to be it.
Whee, didn't check to see if there were any replies to my posts.
The problem with stating that a well-regulated monopoly is fine is that you're depending on the definition of well-regulated-- if the monopoly sucks, well then it must not be regulated properly, right? The biggest examples are cable and local phone rates. I don't sign up for cable because it's ridiculously overpriced. However, I can't do without phone service. Now, you said: "Sounds like you should change your intrastate long distance provider. You can, you know, because they aren't a monopoly anymore.". And you caught me-- I was using an old example. I went back and looked, and my rates are much lower than they were back when PacBell was a monopoly. They certainly weren't well-regulated; is that because California is more incompetent than most states, or simply because it's very difficult to properly regulate large private companies?
The mistaken belief that "Monopolies are BAD"
Mistaken? You can tell me I'm mistaken when:
1) PacBell no longer says it'll take 3 months to set up my DSL
2) PacBell's DSL in the area doesn't go down for hours every week
3) My local phone bills don't still cost more for a phone call several blocks down than a call to Texas
4) Cable to my apartment is less than $40 a month, base package
5) PacBell's tech support does something other than open tickets, and then close them without notifying the complainant or fixing the problem
6) The traffic on the cable modem network doesn't consist largely of port scans from Code Red
7) I can actually access the web pages I want to access from my Linux box
Well, looks like you've got your work cut out for you. Don't worry-- if it looks too easy to accomplish, I can find more items to add to my list.
Even SPEC is too easy to manipulate, and too far from what most users do. The only real way to benchmark a processor is by testing it with what you do the most.
For tech-savvy users that might actually notice the speed difference, this means we have to browse the benchmarks at Anandtech, etc., and it's usually pretty easy to find a benchmark for an app identical or similar to what you spend most of your time doing (i.e. Tribes 2).
Of course, it's likely that none of us would notice the speed difference between a P4 2.0GHz or AMD 1800+ in whatever app we're using; and it's certain that a non-power user wouldn't. Which is fine, because the non-geek isn't going to read all the benchmarks.
So what's a computer buyer to do? Simple-- buy from whoever's cheaper. Save yourself $200, and try not to worry too much about remembering if your box is 2% faster or 2% slower than the other one as you surf the web.
Actually, he's already high-profile enough that he doesn't need the advertising. He can already pretty much name his fee.
:) But contrary to popular belief, most of them are not soulless, money grubbing ambulance chasers.
Sure, maybe he can charge a couple more bucks-- but that'll hardly balance out with what he would've made charging a different client during the hours he spends on this case. And sure, maybe he enjoys being in the papers; and maybe his clients expect that from him.
But basically, he's already got plenty of money, and his practice is plenty successful. If he were just in it for the money, he wouldn't take this case. You'll find that a lot of defense attorneys (and prosecutors) really care about what happens to their client. Sure, Keker's probably not some anti-DMCA zealot, but he wouldn't have taken this case if he didn't think Sklyarov's prosecution was unjust.
Yes, cynicism is good, and with lawyers, it's doubly important.
I don't mean to sound like a conspiracy theorist here, but what's the real point of this ad? It doesn't sound like anyone actually thinks it'll deter anyone. And on TV? Much more effective on-line. And there really aren't enough script kiddiez and whatnot to have a TV campaign make any sense.
The people who will actually be influenced by this are the ones who aren't very computer-literate. While the script kiddiez will scoff (or not even notice), there are far more computer illiterates (or semi-literates), and they'll be more easily swayed. Is this just another attempt at demonizing non-corporate computer types?
I agree that it's about people who are larger than life, but I strongly disagree with your exclusion of Kirk (and for that matter, Picard). Kirk was the quintessential frontier hero, the swaggering, brawling Tom Sawyer. Spock is obviously essential, but the series clearly expressed he wasn't the "born leader" type as Kirk was.
ST:TNG was great because it completely transformed that world view. Instead of the frontiersman, we have the intellectual, the dramatist. He's no superhero, he's more human than human-- it's no coincidence that they cast someone who'd done a remarkable amount of Shakespeare.
Admittedly, compared to these superhuman captains and superpowerful sidekicks, the latest ST characters have been quite dull. The problem isn't a lack of superpowers, though-- you can have a strong hero without any explicitly non-human abilities.
Yes, you may be the only one. All the in-production lights suck. The Glow Guard is the "best light yet", meaning it sucks slightly less than the worm light. This guy's hack definitely looks better from the pictures on his site.
I have taken it upon myself to create an account, as has been suggested. As for my troll, I am surprised by the number of people duped by it; this is easier than I thought. Especially since I inserted numerous clues that it was all bogus ("O(n) NP-complete" indeed) for the more clueful people to see, as is proper troll protocol (at least, it seems it should be proper protocol to me). Now, alas, I just need to wait for inspiration to hit for my next attack.
Inspiration didn't take very long to strike, I see.
This is truly awful-- I suspect the author got hit hard by Namba and put up whatever he had lying around. Let's look at this.
"A poll in the United States has found widespread support for a ban on "uncrackable" encryption products." The only supporting statement it has, however, is this: "The Princeton survey found that more than half of the American public would support anti-encryption laws to aid law enforcement surveillance powers.". They don't bother to give us any details about the question. What sort of anti-encryption laws? Which branch of law enforcement? What were the allowed answers to the question?
This lack of detail is especially worrisome given the drastically misleading figure from the featured question: "72 percent of Americans believe that anti-encryption laws would be 'somewhat' or 'very' helpful in preventing a repeat of last week's terrorist attacks.". Wow, 72 percent of americans are anti-encryption! We're a week from the tragedy, with no details being released to us on how it was orchestrated. So, how do we know they would have been very helpful? For that matter, how do we know they would have not been helpful at all? "Somewhat" helpful is practically the default answer-- if you're pulling the answer out of your ass, pick the middle one.
Let's look at some of the other striking logic: "Only 9 percent of those questioned believed that tighter encryption restrictions would not prevent similar terrorist attacks in the future.". Of course, they don't bother to mention how many believed that tighter restrictions would prevent attacks. Here, the default answer is obviously "might". Do I know tighter restrictions wouldn't prevent a single attack? Of course not; I also don't know that they would.
Finally, of course, the most important number is the date this survey was taken: Sep. 13-14. To be fair to the author, she did mention that. Taking surveys during that time is a disgustingly opportunistic response to the attacks. You certainly could have garnered favorable responses to attacking just about any country in the middle east, killing civilians, locking up immigrants, etc. etc.. I simply can't believe that in the wake of the tragedy, these people wasted their time and everyone else's on pushing this stupid agenda.
The idea is that if the authorities can't tap your phone, read your e-mail, track your comings and goings, etc. at will, it'll be a lot harder for them to become so authoritarian.
You've obviously seen the government abuse its power. The power to read all your e-mail is just one more power we don't want to give it. It's a great way for them to track down the "undesirables", and, as you mentioned, lock them up for "national security".
I don't believe that you can have freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, etc. etc. if the government is free to tap all of your communications. They can just lock you up before you ever become high-profile enough for your speech to be noticed.
"Members of congress here is a way to realize Civil Liberties AND the protection of world citizens."
Suggestions on what to do are useless if they're not willing to listen. The Senate passed a bill immediately after the tragedy in 30 minutes: do you think it even matters at all what was in the bill? Do you think anyone other than the authors read it?
No, what needs to be urged at this time is some caution, a bit of restraint. We shouldn't strike at those abroad who have done nothing to us, just as we shouldn't curb those liberties which played no part in the terrorist attack.
Suggestions from most of us would be as ill-informed and useless as those from our representatives right now. Have they waited for any investigation? Have they been briefed on the root causes? No, they have not. There is no sign cryptography played any part in this, yet they already want to restrict crypto.
In the short term, propose short-term measures. And in the long term, pass laws. Don't pass kneejerk laws. At best, they're irrelevant; at worst, they exacerbate the problem.
A lazy man's paradise, right? You can just sit back, not worry about your Constitutional rights, because they'll all be protected for you.
That's dead wrong, and life does not just go on as usual for many people in the U.S.. You obviously need to brush up on your history, as an immediate example comes to mind: the Espionage Act of 1917. Passed in support of WW1, it horribly abridged freedom of speech. People were thrown in jail with extremely long sentences for such things as writing communist literature, and one man was beaten to death after being arrested under it. Here's the best web page I could find on it in short notice, but I recommend heading down to the library and finding a good history book.
Now you've got to go and turn this into another stupid election flamewar. I was simply pointing out that the Supreme Court has NOT recently come down in favor of federalism. That decision, among others recently, actually show them to have centralist leanings-- quite contrary to what the original poster claimed.
Of course, the original poster also claimed that the current administration believes in federalism, which is obviously incorrect. In fact, they believe so strongly in the ineffectiveness of local governments that they often turn enforcement of rules they don't like over to local authorities, because they know it won't happen-- for example, oil drilling and logging in Alaska.
Of course, all this and how it pertains to the MS/Intel cases is now much less significant than how it'll play out with the terrorist attacks. I doubt you'll see even the smallest suggestion of federalism, as it'd be political suicide-- "new security measures at airports? Sure thing, you just figure 'em out yourself NY, knock yourself out.".
"you would hate america, too, if you lived there and saw what the palestinians suffered."
Hmm, I know several people who have lived there, and seen that, and don't hate America. So either you know the original poster fairly well and are specifically referring to him, or you're full of shit.
And, of course, Blood Brothers is not "unbiased". I'm all for alternative viewpoints, but to just pick one and decide it's 100% truth is foolish.
All that being said, you have a valid point buried beneath all the rhetoric. We haven't made a whole lot of friends by choosing to help Israel. But there are two sides to that conflict-- Palestin, like Israel, has a large amount of responsibility for sabotaging the peace process during Clinton's term. Arafat got greedy, a few Palestinians couldn't hold back from being violent, and now they've got Bush in office. Did they think they would get a better shake from the U.S. post-Clinton? Palestinian short-sightedness and fanaticism is as much to blame as the right-wing warmongers government.
The middle east is extremely complex. Saying one side is responsible is like picking the Protestants or Catholics as responsible for violence in Ireland. And there's really no way to get involved in the entire mess without getting a good number of people angry with you, and botching a few operations along the way. Perhaps we should've just stayed out all along, but there's hindsight for you.
"The current supreme court has come down recently in favor of federalism."
Was that before or after they overrode Florida's decision on how to handle their elections?