It's called an "out of court settlement." The corporation goes, "We noticed you're using a bunch of our software without a license. Pay the license to us plus a penalty of $____ and we won't prosecute you." Sometimes they take them to court and pay the settlement then, sometimes they take them to court, don't settle, and win there.
Generally, the company agrees with the settlement, not wanting the bad PR or the legal headache. I imagine it's a pretty fairly common practice.
When I said this kind of thing doesn't happen in the US, I was talking about the original poster's comment that the police tend to turn into tools used AGAINST the people by a desperate government, which does not happen here.
Yep. A felony. For at least 10 counts of copyright infringement. I'd say that's pretty fair, myself. If you think that's fascist, try writing a letter to your congressmen. I myself will probably write them one and applaud them for their efforts.
I believe the major loss here is not necessarily the theatre showings, but in the VHS/DVD rentals and sales, much like MP3's have been feared to reduce CD sales (which I believe, based on what a lot of my friends say about their own MP3 collections, though I don't share their habits).
But legally, that's not your decision to make. A software vendor sells his software without offering a demo because that's how he wants to sell his wares. You don't have the legal right to change his practices.
And believe it or not, most major software packages DO have demos available. They may not be downloadable, and some even cost a bit of money, but they do exist.
The law specifies a MAXIMUM punishment an offender should receive. That does NOT mean he will receive the full fine/prison sentence. He'll probably be fined a modest amount and placed on probation.
I just wish the feds would start after the lame-o IRC packet kiddies next. They probably cost ISP's and network providers more money with their smurf attacks and whatever other DoS/flood of the week than the copyright holders of those movies and songs lost as a result of FTP sites like this...
There's a difference between sharing the same copy of Win95 between two PC's you own at home and serving up several gigabytes of movies and CD's for the *public* to download. To apply the same penalties to both offenses seems a bit silly, yes?
So what do YOU think the conversation was like in that NASA conference room:
A: "Since we're some kind of evil government agency, it's high time we started acting like one. We have all of this spare nuclear fuel around, let's see if we can trick congress out of some more money so we can build even MORE expensive space probes that can use some of this nuclear fuel. Oh, and don't bother trying to make it 'safe' or anything. We'll just tell everyone that we've got it safely in hand and there's no chance of any problems. Hah!"
B: "OK, which energy source is going to work for us in this case? Solar? Let's see.. Hmm.. at this distance from the sun, we'll need X amount of power for the instruments.. which means we'd need solar panels that big.. hmm.. that's going to be expensive and heavy. Is there another power source that we can use that'll be lighter and more efficient for us? Ahh, that will work nicely."
C: "OK, we have plans for the new probes all using solar panels, but you know, damn, we just have all of this extra money lying around. Let's outfit all of these babies with some NUCLEAR power! Yah, man!"
Concede the possibility that the men in white coats with PhD's in things like astrophysics and nuclear energy MIGHT just know what they're doing, whereas you do not.
Re:Emotionalism and Information flow versus Scienc
on
Cassini visits Earth
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· Score: 2
Agreed!
Why in the world did you post this as an AC? Post it as a user and be known. Let the credit flow to you. Let your comment's score be greater than zero.
Reason #18 to post as an AC: Pulling "facts" out of your ass is encouraged.
The CERAMIC plutonium was divided up into small pieces encased in, I believe, uranium and graphite (or something), among other things. The idea is that, even if the probe were to have exploded or impacted the earth, the chunks of plutonium would not have burned up and neither would they have been in any way exposed in the end.
The chances of the Plutonium "catching fire and dispersing in the atmosphere" are nearly non-existant. Please do a little bit of research before you make assumptions like this and make AC's look worse than they already do.
72lbs of Plutonium isn't a lot.
You may think all scientists are arrogant, uncritical and blissfully ignorant when it comes to the things they do, but you should be willing to concede the possibility that the people with the PhD degrees in things like astrophysics and nuclear engineering might just know what they're doing. Mistakes happen, sure, but these guys are not stupid.
Re:Do you really believe a "safety report" from NA
on
Cassini visits Earth
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· Score: 2
Really, we should be a little more critically-thinking than this.
Wow, you're ABSOLUTELY RIGHT. Why in the world did I ever put my trust in space flight with the DOZENS of experienced men holding PhD's in things like astrophysics and engineering when I can run around screaming with my arms up in the air with the rest of you uneducated Slashdot kiddies?
NASA isn't some sort of covert government agency bent on getting things into space no matter what the cost. The guys at NASA aren't stupid. Give the people with degrees the benefit of the doubt and leave your conspiracy theories at home.
why would NASA go to the trouble to manufacture the safety mechanisms? I mean, if there is a ZERO percent chance of re-entry, then why bother with the extensive protection of the plutonium for the condition of re-entry?
The only time there was even a minutely significant chance of the probe re-entering the atmosphere was shortly after launch. The safeties were likely designed for that eventuality, not for the fly-by.
this is a "SAFE" operation to launch plutonium, then I am assuming that the craft is -not- going to be exploding!
There's no such thing as a 100% "SAFE" launch. There's always the possibility that the launch vehicle will explode on the pad, or shortly after lift-off, or perhaps later, when the probe is reaching earth orbit. Do you honestly think that such an explosion will cause a horrible radioactive dust cloud to settle down over half of the United States, killing thousands and giving cancer to countless millions? Not going to happen.
encouraging people to make light of the work of scientists by not questioning their methods is only helping the blissful ignorance campaign of the Con.
Who is encouraging this? This goes against the very foundations of science. By all means, question. But don't question US, question THEM. Read the press releases THEY'VE written, because those are the answers you're looking for, and you won't always find them here (though quite a lot of Slashdot regulars are qualified to respond).
Some people are indifferent to Cassini due to ignorance, I'll admit, but lots of us are indifferent to Cassini because we KNOW BETTER. You'll discover most all truely qualified astrophysicists and scientists were all TOTALLY comfortable with having Cassini make its pass. While they had to admit there was a slim chance of a collision (as they had to, since there's always a slim chance), that chance was somewhere in the neighborhood of 1 in several million, and getting more remote the closer Cassini came to earth.
If all of the people qualified to make decisions about something seem content that things are OK, perhaps you should give them the benefit of the doubt. NASA engineers are not stupid people. Ask your questions, sure, but don't turn a blind eye to the answers because of your own fears and doubts.
All "radar" type devices are detectable, by definition. They emit a signal of some form (perhaps audio-frequency in the case of things like sonic ranging devices versus radio-frequency devices like conventional RADAR) and analyze the reflections. It's not possible to make something like this that is undetectable as you say.
Perhaps you didn't mean to use the word "radar"? Maybe this project is just a super-sensitive microphone/amplifier? A passive device like this is likely undetectable as you suggest, but it would hardly be anything like RADAR.
Police forces have always been the first line of offense against citizens whenever the ruling government feels threatened
Uhh, I don't know what country YOU live in, but here in the United States, this kind of thing doesn't happen.
Besides, just because a person has a badge and a gun it doesn't mean they are free from criminal intent
I'm not saying cops are angels, I'm just trying to say that there are aren't enough reasons (personal/illegal/whatever) for a cop to WANT to abuse one of these devices.
First of all, they're not hardly perfected yet. The best you can do with them is catch some movement, locate people behind a nearby wall or in a nearby room, perhaps even count the number of people there. Do you really feel that cops are going to get anything out of this of a non-tactical nature? Do you really think cops are going to want to go driving late at night counting the number of people that are in the nearest room to the street?
Secondly, these are not standard field issue, and probably won't be for a while. There will likely be "special" cops that are assigned to one of these units (much like K-9 units) or there will probably be a small number of these available from the department to cops that have a justifiable need for one.
I really just can't imagine a cop wanting to use one of these devices for personal purposes. It seems like a whole lot of trouble and RISK (which was what I was trying to get at before) for VERY little gain.
There's a difference -- these devices are hardly field equipment yet. Do you really think a cop is going to go into the barracks, somehow give a plausible reason for checking out the radar device, and then go cruising down residential streets and alleys counting the number of people inside the houses and writing down where each person is?
I mean come on, the privacy concerns here are minimal. It's not like you can get a full color video image of the contents of a room, or even really determine a person's identity.
The cop you mentioned above needs to be prosecuted and put in prison. Period. That is out of the scope of this discussion, IMO. I'm not saying cops breaking the law are unheard of, I'm just saying that there's no real REASON a cop would want to try and "abuse" these devices, simply because there's very little you can gain of a non-tactical nature, and the scarcity of these devices will make the cops that need to use them subject to justification and scrutiny/attention from their superiors. Cops aren't allowed to just check out any old piece of odd equipment on a whim.
"Yeah, Jim, I was wanting to take the bomb disposal trailer out to the lake tonight. Do you mind?"
"Yah, no problem, just sign for it here and make sure it's clean when you bring it back."
When these devices become commonplace and perfected, firemen will end up with a near 100% success rate in locating people with these devices. There will no longer be a pressing NEED to do a thorough manual inspection of the debris because the device has found everyone they're going to find.
If you wrap your home up in aluminum foil (or whatever you use), how are they supposed to know that your house is shielded in this manner? They will trust their instruments, which worked on the previous house and worked on the next house and will be less likely to do a thorough manual search of the debris. Sure they'll probably do a cursory check, Just In Case, but as they begin to trust their equipment more and more, there will be much less emphasis on checking by hand.
Also what if you came home one day and a burglar was holding your wife and child hostage. You barely had time to get out a call for help before you were discovered and taken as well. Don't you think those radar devices might be useful for the police in a situation like that, for the purpose of locating, counting hostages, and getting you guys out safely?
There are a significantly large number of reasons why you would WANT the police to be able to use these devices on your home. In all honesty, there's not much they can really SEE with these things aside from movement, location, perhaps the number of bodies inside, etc. IMO, the gains FAR offset the privacy issues you guys seem so concerned about.
I'm sorry, but in any state of the union, laws WERE broken. There's probably a lot more to the story than you were told, or perhaps crucial information was lost somewhere between the actual source and the person that told you.
Dude, I'm sorry, but if someone rammed a plunger up my ass, hospitalizing me, you'd better be damn well sure I will not only sue the police department responsible, but I would be pressing charges against the individuals there.
I'm not saying abuses never happen -- I'm just saying that people are always ACCOUNTABLE for those abuses, which means they aren't LIKELY to happen.
Along the same train of thought, how in the world are they really going to abuse a radar device such as this? So they can tell if someone is inside your home; perhaps they can count the number of people there. Assuming they do that without a search warrant and without probable cause to suspect your life is in danger, this still isn't a big deal.
Why do people like you immediately resort to name-calling and personal attacks when you see something you don't understand/fully agree with? I guess maybe that's why you posted as an AC; you're too embarrassed with yourself to fess up to it.
In my very abstract example, I never said the curtains were open two inches, or open at all.
If something is in plain view of the public, it need not be construed as a privacy violation to use what you see. It becomes illegal when someone must enter your home or otherwise make an active/covert effort to 'see' something they wouldn't ordinarily be permitted to see.
The article may not have explicitely mentioned it, but it's been discussed in a bunch of the comments. The technology being discussed is basically the same thing that's being trialed in a variety of fire departments and emergency response units.
The best that these things can do is detect movement such as what occurs when you breathe or your heart beats. These things are going to be pretty expensive at first, and I doubt police are going to be assigned individual radar devices for a long while, which means there'll probably be a high demand within a police department for these things. That doesn't leave a whole lot of time for indiscriminant "spying" (if you can call it that -- you really can't get a whole lot of sensitive information from these things) on the part of stupid cops.
You're right; the world is a fucked up place. We even have people that are so paranoid and deluded that they honestly believe that cops are going to, on a daily basis, use radar to look into people's homes, and despite the fact that the technology can't do it yet, actually see what it is they're doing.
Right -- That's what I'm saying. Cops aren't stupid. Any "invasion of privacy" caused by these devices is just as illegal as conventional invasions of privacy. Cops aren't going to do it without a damn good reason.
If they did outlaw it, it would probably be from a safety standpoint, since by wrapping your home in something that blocks these devices, and your home or whatever building is destroyed in a natural disaster, firemen will lose this precious tool when trying to find survivors.
"...The tornado demolished 5 residential blocks today. Survivors were fished out of the debris with only minor injuries, with the exception of one man who had shielded his home from the radar devices firemen use to detect and locate survivors..."
Slashdot Mirror
It's called an "out of court settlement." The corporation goes, "We noticed you're using a bunch of our software without a license. Pay the license to us plus a penalty of $____ and we won't prosecute you." Sometimes they take them to court and pay the settlement then, sometimes they take them to court, don't settle, and win there.
Generally, the company agrees with the settlement, not wanting the bad PR or the legal headache. I imagine it's a pretty fairly common practice.
When I said this kind of thing doesn't happen in the US, I was talking about the original poster's comment that the police tend to turn into tools used AGAINST the people by a desperate government, which does not happen here.
Yep. A felony. For at least 10 counts of copyright infringement. I'd say that's pretty fair, myself. If you think that's fascist, try writing a letter to your congressmen. I myself will probably write them one and applaud them for their efforts.
Downloaded movies are an awkward piracy issue.
I believe the major loss here is not necessarily the theatre showings, but in the VHS/DVD rentals and sales, much like MP3's have been feared to reduce CD sales (which I believe, based on what a lot of my friends say about their own MP3 collections, though I don't share their habits).
But legally, that's not your decision to make. A software vendor sells his software without offering a demo because that's how he wants to sell his wares. You don't have the legal right to change his practices.
And believe it or not, most major software packages DO have demos available. They may not be downloadable, and some even cost a bit of money, but they do exist.
The law specifies a MAXIMUM punishment an offender should receive. That does NOT mean he will receive the full fine/prison sentence. He'll probably be fined a modest amount and placed on probation.
I just wish the feds would start after the lame-o IRC packet kiddies next. They probably cost ISP's and network providers more money with their smurf attacks and whatever other DoS/flood of the week than the copyright holders of those movies and songs lost as a result of FTP sites like this...
There's a difference between sharing the same copy of Win95 between two PC's you own at home and serving up several gigabytes of movies and CD's for the *public* to download. To apply the same penalties to both offenses seems a bit silly, yes?
So what do YOU think the conversation was like in that NASA conference room:
A:
"Since we're some kind of evil government agency, it's high time we started acting like one. We have all of this spare nuclear fuel around, let's see if we can trick congress out of some more money so we can build even MORE expensive space probes that can use some of this nuclear fuel. Oh, and don't bother trying to make it 'safe' or anything. We'll just tell everyone that we've got it safely in hand and there's no chance of any problems. Hah!"
B:
"OK, which energy source is going to work for us in this case? Solar? Let's see.. Hmm.. at this distance from the sun, we'll need X amount of power for the instruments.. which means we'd need solar panels that big.. hmm.. that's going to be expensive and heavy. Is there another power source that we can use that'll be lighter and more efficient for us? Ahh, that will work nicely."
C:
"OK, we have plans for the new probes all using solar panels, but you know, damn, we just have all of this extra money lying around. Let's outfit all of these babies with some NUCLEAR power! Yah, man!"
Concede the possibility that the men in white coats with PhD's in things like astrophysics and nuclear energy MIGHT just know what they're doing, whereas you do not.
Agreed!
Why in the world did you post this as an AC? Post it as a user and be known. Let the credit flow to you. Let your comment's score be greater than zero.
Reason #18 to post as an AC: Pulling "facts" out of your ass is encouraged.
The CERAMIC plutonium was divided up into small pieces encased in, I believe, uranium and graphite (or something), among other things. The idea is that, even if the probe were to have exploded or impacted the earth, the chunks of plutonium would not have burned up and neither would they have been in any way exposed in the end.
The chances of the Plutonium "catching fire and dispersing in the atmosphere" are nearly non-existant. Please do a little bit of research before you make assumptions like this and make AC's look worse than they already do.
72lbs of Plutonium isn't a lot.
You may think all scientists are arrogant, uncritical and blissfully ignorant when it comes to the things they do, but you should be willing to concede the possibility that the people with the PhD degrees in things like astrophysics and nuclear engineering might just know what they're doing. Mistakes happen, sure, but these guys are not stupid.
Needs to be moderated up, IMO.
Really, we should be a little more critically-thinking than this.
Wow, you're ABSOLUTELY RIGHT. Why in the world did I ever put my trust in space flight with the DOZENS of experienced men holding PhD's in things like astrophysics and engineering when I can run around screaming with my arms up in the air with the rest of you uneducated Slashdot kiddies?
NASA isn't some sort of covert government agency bent on getting things into space no matter what the cost. The guys at NASA aren't stupid. Give the people with degrees the benefit of the doubt and leave your conspiracy theories at home.
why would NASA go to the trouble to manufacture the safety mechanisms? I mean, if there is a ZERO percent chance of re-entry, then why bother with the extensive protection of the plutonium for the condition of re-entry?
The only time there was even a minutely significant chance of the probe re-entering the atmosphere was shortly after launch. The safeties were likely designed for that eventuality, not for the fly-by.
this is a "SAFE" operation to launch plutonium, then I am assuming that the craft is -not- going to be exploding!
There's no such thing as a 100% "SAFE" launch. There's always the possibility that the launch vehicle will explode on the pad, or shortly after lift-off, or perhaps later, when the probe is reaching earth orbit. Do you honestly think that such an explosion will cause a horrible radioactive dust cloud to settle down over half of the United States, killing thousands and giving cancer to countless millions? Not going to happen.
encouraging people to make light of the work of scientists by not questioning their methods is only helping the blissful ignorance campaign of the Con.
Who is encouraging this? This goes against the very foundations of science. By all means, question. But don't question US, question THEM. Read the press releases THEY'VE written, because those are the answers you're looking for, and you won't always find them here (though quite a lot of Slashdot regulars are qualified to respond).
Some people are indifferent to Cassini due to ignorance, I'll admit, but lots of us are indifferent to Cassini because we KNOW BETTER. You'll discover most all truely qualified astrophysicists and scientists were all TOTALLY comfortable with having Cassini make its pass. While they had to admit there was a slim chance of a collision (as they had to, since there's always a slim chance), that chance was somewhere in the neighborhood of 1 in several million, and getting more remote the closer Cassini came to earth.
If all of the people qualified to make decisions about something seem content that things are OK, perhaps you should give them the benefit of the doubt. NASA engineers are not stupid people. Ask your questions, sure, but don't turn a blind eye to the answers because of your own fears and doubts.
All "radar" type devices are detectable, by definition. They emit a signal of some form (perhaps audio-frequency in the case of things like sonic ranging devices versus radio-frequency devices like conventional RADAR) and analyze the reflections. It's not possible to make something like this that is undetectable as you say.
Perhaps you didn't mean to use the word "radar"? Maybe this project is just a super-sensitive microphone/amplifier? A passive device like this is likely undetectable as you suggest, but it would hardly be anything like RADAR.
Police forces have always been the first line of offense against citizens whenever the ruling government feels threatened
Uhh, I don't know what country YOU live in, but here in the United States, this kind of thing doesn't happen.
Besides, just because a person has a badge and a gun it doesn't mean they are free from criminal intent
I'm not saying cops are angels, I'm just trying to say that there are aren't enough reasons (personal/illegal/whatever) for a cop to WANT to abuse one of these devices.
First of all, they're not hardly perfected yet. The best you can do with them is catch some movement, locate people behind a nearby wall or in a nearby room, perhaps even count the number of people there. Do you really feel that cops are going to get anything out of this of a non-tactical nature? Do you really think cops are going to want to go driving late at night counting the number of people that are in the nearest room to the street?
Secondly, these are not standard field issue, and probably won't be for a while. There will likely be "special" cops that are assigned to one of these units (much like K-9 units) or there will probably be a small number of these available from the department to cops that have a justifiable need for one.
I really just can't imagine a cop wanting to use one of these devices for personal purposes. It seems like a whole lot of trouble and RISK (which was what I was trying to get at before) for VERY little gain.
There's a difference -- these devices are hardly field equipment yet. Do you really think a cop is going to go into the barracks, somehow give a plausible reason for checking out the radar device, and then go cruising down residential streets and alleys counting the number of people inside the houses and writing down where each person is?
I mean come on, the privacy concerns here are minimal. It's not like you can get a full color video image of the contents of a room, or even really determine a person's identity.
The cop you mentioned above needs to be prosecuted and put in prison. Period. That is out of the scope of this discussion, IMO. I'm not saying cops breaking the law are unheard of, I'm just saying that there's no real REASON a cop would want to try and "abuse" these devices, simply because there's very little you can gain of a non-tactical nature, and the scarcity of these devices will make the cops that need to use them subject to justification and scrutiny/attention from their superiors. Cops aren't allowed to just check out any old piece of odd equipment on a whim.
"Yeah, Jim, I was wanting to take the bomb disposal trailer out to the lake tonight. Do you mind?"
"Yah, no problem, just sign for it here and make sure it's clean when you bring it back."
I don't think so.
When these devices become commonplace and perfected, firemen will end up with a near 100% success rate in locating people with these devices. There will no longer be a pressing NEED to do a thorough manual inspection of the debris because the device has found everyone they're going to find.
If you wrap your home up in aluminum foil (or whatever you use), how are they supposed to know that your house is shielded in this manner? They will trust their instruments, which worked on the previous house and worked on the next house and will be less likely to do a thorough manual search of the debris. Sure they'll probably do a cursory check, Just In Case, but as they begin to trust their equipment more and more, there will be much less emphasis on checking by hand.
Also what if you came home one day and a burglar was holding your wife and child hostage. You barely had time to get out a call for help before you were discovered and taken as well. Don't you think those radar devices might be useful for the police in a situation like that, for the purpose of locating, counting hostages, and getting you guys out safely?
There are a significantly large number of reasons why you would WANT the police to be able to use these devices on your home. In all honesty, there's not much they can really SEE with these things aside from movement, location, perhaps the number of bodies inside, etc. IMO, the gains FAR offset the privacy issues you guys seem so concerned about.
I'm sorry, but in any state of the union, laws WERE broken. There's probably a lot more to the story than you were told, or perhaps crucial information was lost somewhere between the actual source and the person that told you.
Dude, I'm sorry, but if someone rammed a plunger up my ass, hospitalizing me, you'd better be damn well sure I will not only sue the police department responsible, but I would be pressing charges against the individuals there.
I'm not saying abuses never happen -- I'm just saying that people are always ACCOUNTABLE for those abuses, which means they aren't LIKELY to happen.
Along the same train of thought, how in the world are they really going to abuse a radar device such as this? So they can tell if someone is inside your home; perhaps they can count the number of people there. Assuming they do that without a search warrant and without probable cause to suspect your life is in danger, this still isn't a big deal.
Dude, chill out.
Why do people like you immediately resort to name-calling and personal attacks when you see something you don't understand/fully agree with? I guess maybe that's why you posted as an AC; you're too embarrassed with yourself to fess up to it.
In my very abstract example, I never said the curtains were open two inches, or open at all.
If something is in plain view of the public, it need not be construed as a privacy violation to use what you see. It becomes illegal when someone must enter your home or otherwise make an active/covert effort to 'see' something they wouldn't ordinarily be permitted to see.
That's the point I was trying to make.
The article may not have explicitely mentioned it, but it's been discussed in a bunch of the comments. The technology being discussed is basically the same thing that's being trialed in a variety of fire departments and emergency response units.
The best that these things can do is detect movement such as what occurs when you breathe or your heart beats. These things are going to be pretty expensive at first, and I doubt police are going to be assigned individual radar devices for a long while, which means there'll probably be a high demand within a police department for these things. That doesn't leave a whole lot of time for indiscriminant "spying" (if you can call it that -- you really can't get a whole lot of sensitive information from these things) on the part of stupid cops.
You're right; the world is a fucked up place. We even have people that are so paranoid and deluded that they honestly believe that cops are going to, on a daily basis, use radar to look into people's homes, and despite the fact that the technology can't do it yet, actually see what it is they're doing.
Right -- That's what I'm saying. Cops aren't stupid. Any "invasion of privacy" caused by these devices is just as illegal as conventional invasions of privacy. Cops aren't going to do it without a damn good reason.
If they did outlaw it, it would probably be from a safety standpoint, since by wrapping your home in something that blocks these devices, and your home or whatever building is destroyed in a natural disaster, firemen will lose this precious tool when trying to find survivors.
"...The tornado demolished 5 residential blocks today. Survivors were fished out of the debris with only minor injuries, with the exception of one man who had shielded his home from the radar devices firemen use to detect and locate survivors..."