You're perfectly free to sell your software derived from software licensed under the GPL. You simply have to abide by the terms of the GPL in the process by making your source available and also licensed under the GPL.
Nobody is going to buy your product, though, if all the product contains is this application. You would generally want to bundle some other stuff with it (like a support contract) and make that your selling point.
Like it or not, most states/countries require that you be financially capable of fixing the damages you cause when you drive. Be prepared to secure that money somehow, or stop driving.
The article mentioned in passing that the firing might have also been retalitory for a previous law suit one of the employees filed against their company. There was also a bit in there about the employee being cited for being combative.
Filtering out all of the bias there and here, I'm more inclined to believe the company had legitimate reasons to put one or both of these folks on probation and to dismiss them, but I don't have all of the facts either, so I wouldn't draw any conclusions.
I don't understand how this changes anything. I am talking about TOTAL costs here, including up-front R&D and operating costs over X years. Am I not making this clear or something?
Add all of your estimated costs up. Include up-front research costs. Include maintenance over time, including any inflation you anticipate occurring. Include margins of error or ANY and EVERY cost associated with the program. INCLUDE **ALL** COSTS.
Repeat this for every potential project (new reusable, reusable + disposable or entirely disposable programs). If any of these plans have a high probability of producing something that will be cheaper than current methods, investigate and pursue them.
Why are we making it sound like the disposable option is always going to be cheaper here. Have you run the numbers? Can we please concede the possibility that NASA has more information than you do and that perhaps they have and fully intend to run the numbers before deciding on a shuttle replacement?
IIRC not many payloads were comercial after the first few years
Because private industry found ways to do it cheaper, just like they will with a reusable solution some years down the road. The shuttle isn't even used for the bulk of NASA's launches anymore (if it ever was).
You also make it sound like NASA is obligated to send the shuttle up, just to save face, and that grade school experiments are all they can find to do. This is just silly. If the astronauts can take a few minutes to do some "extra" science and make some kids happy, why not do that? Would you rather them just say no and read a book during their downtime instead? Why does this matter?
What would you rather see? No more NASA? Do you realize there wouldn't be a space industry without NASA sinking the R&D funds to accomplish government goals first? Yes, leading edge technology is expensive, and if NASA (or anyone, really) believes that a reusable launch system can be cheaper in the long run, then I say let's investigate that. I don't really understand why so many people are opposed to this.
Regarding your first point, you make this statement as though it's the most obvious thing in the world that the disposable option will be cheaper. I don't understand how you keep coming back to this argument with no knowledge of the real numbers. Yes, it will be more expensive to build a reusable vehicle. The idea is that the cost of reuse will be lower than the cost of building a new disposable vehicle. If this is true, then over sufficient time, it will pay for itself. If you still don't understand this, please take a basic economics class and ask you teacher to explain it to you.
2-spur research? HELL YA!!
I'm guessing this is supposed to be sarcastic. If you really believe private industry has not benefited from scientific advances made by way of NASA programs, you are exceptionally uninformed.
I'm also guessing that when you say "RTFA" you are under the impression that I have not done so. The "Quality, speed, cost" bit has no bearing on this thread. The point the article was trying to make is that NASA hasn't traditionally done a good job of budgeting, promising quality quickly with a low cost. That doesn't mean a reusable launch vehicle will always be more expensive (again, in the long run) than a series of disposable ones. It just means NASA's going to have to do a better job of accounting this time around.
It's not about the cost of replacing your car. It's about the cost of replacing the other guy's car, and paying for his (and his passengers' and your passengers') medical bills in the event you cause a wreck. Those costs don't change just because you drive a cheap car. Drive an expensive car, and sure, your insurance will go up, but don't think that that's all there is.
If you have issues with insurance rates, consider a change of lifestyle, or contact your local government to see if there's some abuse going on here.
I don't know. The most recent one was the GALEX mission launched on a Pegasus XL on April 28th. The next disposable launch (the first of the new Mars rovers) atop a Delta II is scheduled for June 5th. They're not infrequent, and NASA certainly isn't ignoring the value of non-reusable launch systems.
I can't tell if you're calling me names because you lack a real argument or because you misunderstood mine. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt (which is more respect than you're showing me).
You could easily put RFID into a wristwatch
RFID != "bug", though I suppose there are some definitions of "bug" that can be satisfied with an RFID device. I was assuming "bug" meant an evesdropping device. Perhaps that assumption was incorrect, or perhaps you really believe that you can utilize a wristwatch-based evesdropping device in such a way that it would be practical for surveillance. For all of this complexity, a traditional directional microphone is probably going to give you better information.
In any event, this scenario is still completely absurd. If you honestly believe it's likely, I might suggest you refrain from wearing a wristwatch.
you're just some noisome bacteria in the gene pool, in need of some chlorine
See above. Please refrain from personal attacks and name-calling.
If all of the costs of a reusable program over your operating period can be less than the costs of a disposable program over the same years (ALL COSTS), then it's "cheaper" to go with a reusable program.
Part of NASA's place is also to spur research. It is anticipated that the private sector will be able to build off of some of some of that research.
It makes sense (and NASA would seem to agree with me here) that if you can put enough research into a reusable program, you can get the costs of your launches down far lower than a disposable program. After X years, it will pay for itself. Just because X is greater than 1 or 10 doesn't mean it's foolish to pursue it.
seems that your zip code also affects your "mileage" risk factor
And rightly so, if you think about it. Someone living downtown in a major city is going to be in more accidents than someone living on a farm in the middle of nowhere, even if they both travel the same distance each year.
Umm, yah.. because breaking into the homes of every American and installing a "next-generation" black box (since the current-generation technologies discussed in the article can't allow them to do this) is your definition of it being "easy to gather the data"?
Again, there are far cheaper and less overt ways of accomplishing this tracking goal here: they can just tail you.
These devices cannot act in a surveillance capacity today without several orders of magnitude improvements in storage and transmission.
It's a matter of balancing the costs. If it's cheaper to build one vehicle and reuse it 100 times versus building 100 new vehicles, then a reusable vehicle is a better choice (all other factors being equal). As it stands today, the shuttle doesn't (as I recall) meet that requirement, which is why it only flies 4-5 times a year: for those missions where the shuttle has unique properties that make it the better choice.
It's not necessary to have a reusable vehicle, but if it ends up being cheaper, market forces demand that it be developed.
I did hear rumors about insurance companies wanting to charge drivers by the mile!
The gall!
If, say, the average person was involved in one accident every, say, 100,000 miles, who is going to be more expensive to insure, the guy that drives 100,000 miles in a year, or the guy that drives 10,000 miles in a year? One will be in an accident once a year while the other will be in an accident once in ten.
Now are you going to suggest that both should have the same insurance premiums?
It's better to actually see the trafic coming at you, rather than be suddenly overtaken by a vehical you didn't know was there, which can startle you and cause an accident.
Your other arguments have some validity (though I don't necessarily agree that it's as concrete as either of you imply). This one doesn't. If other vehicles on the road are routinely startling you, perhaps you should stop riding on the road. Or at the very least, install some mirrors and get a hearing aid.
There's a reason bicyclists using the road are asked to follow the same rules that drivers of cars are asked to follow. Riding against traffic on a street is just asking for a head-on collision. Would this be acceptable for a motorcyclist? On a small residential road, a bicyclist could easily be going as fast as a motorcyclist, or vice-versa.
Both of these are distinguished from a pedestrian who can be reasonably considered to be a stationary object from a motorist's perspective. Their movements are usually predictable and the driver can slow and avoid them without too much trouble. Bicyclists are neither stationary nor slow-moving. In a tiny fraction of a second, a pothole could send one directly into your path (which, for oncoming travel, can be less than a meter of movement caused by a very small heading change).
It's just stupid. Sure, you can "see" the guy about to collide with you, but at the same time, you are significantly increasing the likelyhood that he will collide with you. If you don't want to follow the rules of the road, please don't ride on them.
In addition, if you're on the road, in some jurisdictions, you're assumed to be following the rules of the road. This includes things like right-of-way (e.g., with moving actions like lane changes or equal lane merges, the faster vehicle has the right of way). If you're entering an intersection on the right, and a vehicle hits you as he's about to leave the intersection, which one left the stop sign first? Do you think a bicyclist should have special consideration here? If I start moving through an intersection after coming to a stop, and a bicyclist enters it without stopping (because clearly he's exempt from the rules of the road), and I hit him squarely but unavoidably, do you think I'm going to be at fault there? Hell no, I'll be asking for his insurance so he can fix the damage his skull caused to my hood.
I would really like to see somekind of black box kit we could develop ourselves and install ourselves.
Me too. I've actually wanted to do this as a project for some time now. I'd have a few requirements:
Should capture GPS data over the course of at least a month
Should permit wireless (and automatic) transfer of data to permanent storage (my home LAN) whenever I get home.
Should be connected to one or two cheap webcams (a la police car cameras) with as much storage capacity as I can manage.
All vehicle sensors would be fed into the device as well and recorded along with everything else, obviously
I think the camera option would be neat also because if I witnessed an accident that was caught on camera, I should be able to reach over, hit a button, and grab the last 30 seconds or whatever for whoever might need to see it.
I think this would be pretty useful to me.
I would be a little curious about the admissibility of that data as evidence, though. Since it would be a home-grown solution, there's no validation that the data is reliable or unaltered. I wonder if there's some form of certification I could put it through to allow the government or the court to acknowledge it as a reliable recording instrument...
A lot of this can be done with a simple, low-power Linux installation, though I haven't been too impressed with much of the OBD software I've seen. It would be nifty if there was a package out there that would offer an SNMP interface to OBD data.
Maybe 10 billion of our clothes already contain RFID tags?
Wow, MAYBE! I'm pretty sure those metal detector wands are RFID detectors also. The guy sitting at the desk behind the metal detector is really taking an X-ray of our wallets and putting our name and RFID tag numbers into a big database.
A few billion of our wrist watches already contain bugs?
Why do conspiracy theorists always make this jump from the plausible to the absurd, and make it sound like it's an insightful question? I don't care what went into the Patriot Act or how much technology has advanced lately. "Bugs" planted into every wrist-watch would be:
illegal
prohibitively expensive for the watch manufacturers (think power requirements)
Paranoia can be a good healthy thing sometimes, but please don't let yourself be pulled into a delusional fantasy here. If you really believe that laws would ever support some of these suggestions, I would suggest you campaign your lawmakers to get laws added or changed to ensure your rights and your privacy. The government is not immune to the law, and while some members of the government break the law, proper oversight and selection of those in power usually rectify the problem. Walking around wearing tinfoil over your clothes and wrist-watches isn't going to fix anything, though it might help to remove the "conspiracy theory" gene from the gene pool.
If the government wanted to perform surveillance on you, they don't need your black box to do it. They would send a car to follow you, or for the truly paranoid, they'd probably plant a tiny GPS tracking device on your car to transmit your position.
Your little "black box" has little value here when the same information you're scared of can be obtained through more traditional means.
How does this allow them to do that? If you feel that law enforcement has secretly upgraded your black box to record position details over the course of a month, and sneak into your garage every month to download it, you really need to see a psychiatrist. You are not that important. Even if a search warrant were granted that allowed an officer to collect information, he'd be obligated to ignore data outside of the scope of his search.
If you feel you cannot trust your local law enforcement, get them replaced. If you can't trust your judicial system, get them replaced. If you can't trust your government at all, and your efforts to get it replaced have failed, I suggest you move.
And your assertion that the government is a bigger threat than speeders doesn't hold much water with someone who has lost two family members to one.
The information you suggest is all visible without needing to enter or search the car. To collect data off of a recorder, you need to physically search the car for the device, seize the device and study it in a lab. In the US, these activities require due process and a search warrant.
Some unscroupulous rental car companies have added clauses that allow them to charge substancial ammounts more if the car is taken out of state
Why does this make them unscrupulous? They don't want the car being taken out of state. You sign a contract saying you won't, and that if you do, you agree to pay. You take the car out of state anyway. Why is the rental car company the bad guy here?
I've had no problems taking rental cars out of state (on trips, even), if I let them know up front.
You may have an action against the guy who sold it to you but the owner gets his CD or car back. If the police don't accept your story that you honestly believed that you were buying the car from its true owner then you may have a problem with receiving stolen goods.
That's the key difference between material laws like this and copyright law: you have a defense! You can legitimately say, "Hey I had no idea this was stolen," and you can in turn take action against the person that sold it to you.
With copyright law, you have no such out! If you are guilty of direct infringement, you have no defense! You automatically get nailed with statutory damages for each download you performed (apparently). This is why it's so much scarier (and less sensical).
And the web is full of mp3 warez sites. So yes the same applies there.
It doesn't have to be "mp3 warez sites". Any work reproduced/redistributed without the owner's consent qualifies.
This includes most of the helpful Slashdot mirrors people set up of articles linked from the site. Every time you visit one of those, you are now guilty of copyright infringement and may be required to pay up to $750 in statutory damages.
Hell, all I really need to do at this point is make up a really interesting story, post it on a low-bandwidth web server, give the URL to Slashdot, subpoena the logs of everyone that set up a mirror and get rich!
This scenario is exactly why I believe this interpretation of the law is extremely suspect! It is impossible for you to know the status of the data behind an anonymous URL (or, paralleling this thread better, an unknown song by an unknown artist). Sometimes it's apparent after you've downloaded it, but by then it's too late! An act of reproduction, thus copyright infringement, has already occurred at this point.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm in no way trying to establish this as a defense for most of the people downloading MP3's online. In most cases, they know what they're downloading is copyrighted and probably being shared illegally, but not in all cases! And if you apply the law in this way towards MP3 downloads, there's absolutely no distinction between this and, as you note, any HTTP or other Internet download whatsoever.
Again, it seems like the only thing that can save Internet users from this enormous liability would be DRM: a browser loads an (encrypted) page with a DRM signature, determines if it's allowed to display the content, and then displays it. Of course, there's nothing stopping someone from extracting the content at a later date and wrapping it in a "free for all" DRM certificate (and actually, as near as I can tell, that would still put the end user at risk of copyright infringement even if an explicit copyright notice is forged).
I have serious issues with laws that are interpreted so broadly and so dangerously and rely solely on the good nature of the executive and judicial branch not to nail me with those penalties for an act for which I had absolutely no foreknowledge.
I think you're (perhaps unintentionally) twisting what I'm saying.
I was never suggesting that a copy wasn't made. When you begin the transaction, there is a single copy (on the sharing end). When the transaction is concluded, there are two (on the sharing end, and on the downloading end).
The key question here is who's responsible for the duplication? Is it the person doing the sharing, since he maintains ownership and control of the original, and instructed (perhaps implicitly) the software to transmit his copy on request, or is it the downloader, who requested the copy?
Slashdot Mirror
You're perfectly free to sell your software derived from software licensed under the GPL. You simply have to abide by the terms of the GPL in the process by making your source available and also licensed under the GPL.
Nobody is going to buy your product, though, if all the product contains is this application. You would generally want to bundle some other stuff with it (like a support contract) and make that your selling point.
Insufficient information. That's the point. All you have to go on is the information in this article.
I didn't say it was a cheap option.
Like it or not, most states/countries require that you be financially capable of fixing the damages you cause when you drive. Be prepared to secure that money somehow, or stop driving.
The article mentioned in passing that the firing might have also been retalitory for a previous law suit one of the employees filed against their company. There was also a bit in there about the employee being cited for being combative.
Filtering out all of the bias there and here, I'm more inclined to believe the company had legitimate reasons to put one or both of these folks on probation and to dismiss them, but I don't have all of the facts either, so I wouldn't draw any conclusions.
I don't understand how this changes anything. I am talking about TOTAL costs here, including up-front R&D and operating costs over X years. Am I not making this clear or something?
Add all of your estimated costs up. Include up-front research costs. Include maintenance over time, including any inflation you anticipate occurring. Include margins of error or ANY and EVERY cost associated with the program. INCLUDE **ALL** COSTS.
Repeat this for every potential project (new reusable, reusable + disposable or entirely disposable programs). If any of these plans have a high probability of producing something that will be cheaper than current methods, investigate and pursue them.
Why are we making it sound like the disposable option is always going to be cheaper here. Have you run the numbers? Can we please concede the possibility that NASA has more information than you do and that perhaps they have and fully intend to run the numbers before deciding on a shuttle replacement?
IIRC not many payloads were comercial after the first few years
Because private industry found ways to do it cheaper, just like they will with a reusable solution some years down the road. The shuttle isn't even used for the bulk of NASA's launches anymore (if it ever was).
You also make it sound like NASA is obligated to send the shuttle up, just to save face, and that grade school experiments are all they can find to do. This is just silly. If the astronauts can take a few minutes to do some "extra" science and make some kids happy, why not do that? Would you rather them just say no and read a book during their downtime instead? Why does this matter?
What would you rather see? No more NASA? Do you realize there wouldn't be a space industry without NASA sinking the R&D funds to accomplish government goals first? Yes, leading edge technology is expensive, and if NASA (or anyone, really) believes that a reusable launch system can be cheaper in the long run, then I say let's investigate that. I don't really understand why so many people are opposed to this.
Regarding your first point, you make this statement as though it's the most obvious thing in the world that the disposable option will be cheaper. I don't understand how you keep coming back to this argument with no knowledge of the real numbers. Yes, it will be more expensive to build a reusable vehicle. The idea is that the cost of reuse will be lower than the cost of building a new disposable vehicle. If this is true, then over sufficient time, it will pay for itself. If you still don't understand this, please take a basic economics class and ask you teacher to explain it to you.
2-spur research? HELL YA!!
I'm guessing this is supposed to be sarcastic. If you really believe private industry has not benefited from scientific advances made by way of NASA programs, you are exceptionally uninformed.
I'm also guessing that when you say "RTFA" you are under the impression that I have not done so. The "Quality, speed, cost" bit has no bearing on this thread. The point the article was trying to make is that NASA hasn't traditionally done a good job of budgeting, promising quality quickly with a low cost. That doesn't mean a reusable launch vehicle will always be more expensive (again, in the long run) than a series of disposable ones. It just means NASA's going to have to do a better job of accounting this time around.
It's not about the cost of replacing your car. It's about the cost of replacing the other guy's car, and paying for his (and his passengers' and your passengers') medical bills in the event you cause a wreck. Those costs don't change just because you drive a cheap car. Drive an expensive car, and sure, your insurance will go up, but don't think that that's all there is.
If you have issues with insurance rates, consider a change of lifestyle, or contact your local government to see if there's some abuse going on here.
The other option is self-insurance.
I blame our litigation-happy society, personally.
I don't know. The most recent one was the GALEX mission launched on a Pegasus XL on April 28th. The next disposable launch (the first of the new Mars rovers) atop a Delta II is scheduled for June 5th. They're not infrequent, and NASA certainly isn't ignoring the value of non-reusable launch systems.
I can't tell if you're a troll or a moron.
I can't tell if you're calling me names because you lack a real argument or because you misunderstood mine. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt (which is more respect than you're showing me).
You could easily put RFID into a wristwatch
RFID != "bug", though I suppose there are some definitions of "bug" that can be satisfied with an RFID device. I was assuming "bug" meant an evesdropping device. Perhaps that assumption was incorrect, or perhaps you really believe that you can utilize a wristwatch-based evesdropping device in such a way that it would be practical for surveillance. For all of this complexity, a traditional directional microphone is probably going to give you better information.
In any event, this scenario is still completely absurd. If you honestly believe it's likely, I might suggest you refrain from wearing a wristwatch.
you're just some noisome bacteria in the gene pool, in need of some chlorine
See above. Please refrain from personal attacks and name-calling.
You're picking nits.
If all of the costs of a reusable program over your operating period can be less than the costs of a disposable program over the same years (ALL COSTS), then it's "cheaper" to go with a reusable program.
Part of NASA's place is also to spur research. It is anticipated that the private sector will be able to build off of some of some of that research.
It makes sense (and NASA would seem to agree with me here) that if you can put enough research into a reusable program, you can get the costs of your launches down far lower than a disposable program. After X years, it will pay for itself. Just because X is greater than 1 or 10 doesn't mean it's foolish to pursue it.
seems that your zip code also affects your "mileage" risk factor
And rightly so, if you think about it. Someone living downtown in a major city is going to be in more accidents than someone living on a farm in the middle of nowhere, even if they both travel the same distance each year.
<You are not that important.
False. Once it's easy to gather the data
Umm, yah.. because breaking into the homes of every American and installing a "next-generation" black box (since the current-generation technologies discussed in the article can't allow them to do this) is your definition of it being "easy to gather the data"?
Again, there are far cheaper and less overt ways of accomplishing this tracking goal here: they can just tail you.
These devices cannot act in a surveillance capacity today without several orders of magnitude improvements in storage and transmission.
It's a matter of balancing the costs. If it's cheaper to build one vehicle and reuse it 100 times versus building 100 new vehicles, then a reusable vehicle is a better choice (all other factors being equal). As it stands today, the shuttle doesn't (as I recall) meet that requirement, which is why it only flies 4-5 times a year: for those missions where the shuttle has unique properties that make it the better choice.
It's not necessary to have a reusable vehicle, but if it ends up being cheaper, market forces demand that it be developed.
I did hear rumors about insurance companies wanting to charge drivers by the mile!
The gall!
If, say, the average person was involved in one accident every, say, 100,000 miles, who is going to be more expensive to insure, the guy that drives 100,000 miles in a year, or the guy that drives 10,000 miles in a year? One will be in an accident once a year while the other will be in an accident once in ten.
Now are you going to suggest that both should have the same insurance premiums?
It's better to actually see the trafic coming at you, rather than be suddenly overtaken by a vehical you didn't know was there, which can startle you and cause an accident.
Your other arguments have some validity (though I don't necessarily agree that it's as concrete as either of you imply). This one doesn't. If other vehicles on the road are routinely startling you, perhaps you should stop riding on the road. Or at the very least, install some mirrors and get a hearing aid.
There's a reason bicyclists using the road are asked to follow the same rules that drivers of cars are asked to follow. Riding against traffic on a street is just asking for a head-on collision. Would this be acceptable for a motorcyclist? On a small residential road, a bicyclist could easily be going as fast as a motorcyclist, or vice-versa.
Both of these are distinguished from a pedestrian who can be reasonably considered to be a stationary object from a motorist's perspective. Their movements are usually predictable and the driver can slow and avoid them without too much trouble. Bicyclists are neither stationary nor slow-moving. In a tiny fraction of a second, a pothole could send one directly into your path (which, for oncoming travel, can be less than a meter of movement caused by a very small heading change).
It's just stupid. Sure, you can "see" the guy about to collide with you, but at the same time, you are significantly increasing the likelyhood that he will collide with you. If you don't want to follow the rules of the road, please don't ride on them.
In addition, if you're on the road, in some jurisdictions, you're assumed to be following the rules of the road. This includes things like right-of-way (e.g., with moving actions like lane changes or equal lane merges, the faster vehicle has the right of way). If you're entering an intersection on the right, and a vehicle hits you as he's about to leave the intersection, which one left the stop sign first? Do you think a bicyclist should have special consideration here? If I start moving through an intersection after coming to a stop, and a bicyclist enters it without stopping (because clearly he's exempt from the rules of the road), and I hit him squarely but unavoidably, do you think I'm going to be at fault there? Hell no, I'll be asking for his insurance so he can fix the damage his skull caused to my hood.
I would really like to see somekind of black box kit we could develop ourselves and install ourselves.
Me too. I've actually wanted to do this as a project for some time now. I'd have a few requirements:
I think the camera option would be neat also because if I witnessed an accident that was caught on camera, I should be able to reach over, hit a button, and grab the last 30 seconds or whatever for whoever might need to see it.
I think this would be pretty useful to me.
I would be a little curious about the admissibility of that data as evidence, though. Since it would be a home-grown solution, there's no validation that the data is reliable or unaltered. I wonder if there's some form of certification I could put it through to allow the government or the court to acknowledge it as a reliable recording instrument...
A lot of this can be done with a simple, low-power Linux installation, though I haven't been too impressed with much of the OBD software I've seen. It would be nifty if there was a package out there that would offer an SNMP interface to OBD data.
Wow, MAYBE! I'm pretty sure those metal detector wands are RFID detectors also. The guy sitting at the desk behind the metal detector is really taking an X-ray of our wallets and putting our name and RFID tag numbers into a big database.
A few billion of our wrist watches already contain bugs?
Why do conspiracy theorists always make this jump from the plausible to the absurd, and make it sound like it's an insightful question? I don't care what went into the Patriot Act or how much technology has advanced lately. "Bugs" planted into every wrist-watch would be:
- illegal
- prohibitively expensive for the watch manufacturers (think power requirements)
- technologically impractical (signal congestion, identification)
Paranoia can be a good healthy thing sometimes, but please don't let yourself be pulled into a delusional fantasy here. If you really believe that laws would ever support some of these suggestions, I would suggest you campaign your lawmakers to get laws added or changed to ensure your rights and your privacy. The government is not immune to the law, and while some members of the government break the law, proper oversight and selection of those in power usually rectify the problem. Walking around wearing tinfoil over your clothes and wrist-watches isn't going to fix anything, though it might help to remove the "conspiracy theory" gene from the gene pool.If the government wanted to perform surveillance on you, they don't need your black box to do it. They would send a car to follow you, or for the truly paranoid, they'd probably plant a tiny GPS tracking device on your car to transmit your position.
Your little "black box" has little value here when the same information you're scared of can be obtained through more traditional means.
How does this allow them to do that? If you feel that law enforcement has secretly upgraded your black box to record position details over the course of a month, and sneak into your garage every month to download it, you really need to see a psychiatrist. You are not that important. Even if a search warrant were granted that allowed an officer to collect information, he'd be obligated to ignore data outside of the scope of his search.
If you feel you cannot trust your local law enforcement, get them replaced. If you can't trust your judicial system, get them replaced. If you can't trust your government at all, and your efforts to get it replaced have failed, I suggest you move.
And your assertion that the government is a bigger threat than speeders doesn't hold much water with someone who has lost two family members to one.
The information you suggest is all visible without needing to enter or search the car. To collect data off of a recorder, you need to physically search the car for the device, seize the device and study it in a lab. In the US, these activities require due process and a search warrant.
Some unscroupulous rental car companies have added clauses that allow them to charge substancial ammounts more if the car is taken out of state
Why does this make them unscrupulous? They don't want the car being taken out of state. You sign a contract saying you won't, and that if you do, you agree to pay. You take the car out of state anyway. Why is the rental car company the bad guy here?
I've had no problems taking rental cars out of state (on trips, even), if I let them know up front.
subpoena the logs of everyone that set up a mirror
Sorry, this should read something like, "subpoena the access logs from everyone that set up a mirror".
You may have an action against the guy who sold it to you but the owner gets his CD or car back. If the police don't accept your story that you honestly believed that you were buying the car from its true owner then you may have a problem with receiving stolen goods.
That's the key difference between material laws like this and copyright law: you have a defense! You can legitimately say, "Hey I had no idea this was stolen," and you can in turn take action against the person that sold it to you.
With copyright law, you have no such out! If you are guilty of direct infringement, you have no defense! You automatically get nailed with statutory damages for each download you performed (apparently). This is why it's so much scarier (and less sensical).
And the web is full of mp3 warez sites. So yes the same applies there.
It doesn't have to be "mp3 warez sites". Any work reproduced/redistributed without the owner's consent qualifies.
This includes most of the helpful Slashdot mirrors people set up of articles linked from the site. Every time you visit one of those, you are now guilty of copyright infringement and may be required to pay up to $750 in statutory damages.
Hell, all I really need to do at this point is make up a really interesting story, post it on a low-bandwidth web server, give the URL to Slashdot, subpoena the logs of everyone that set up a mirror and get rich!
This scenario is exactly why I believe this interpretation of the law is extremely suspect! It is impossible for you to know the status of the data behind an anonymous URL (or, paralleling this thread better, an unknown song by an unknown artist). Sometimes it's apparent after you've downloaded it, but by then it's too late! An act of reproduction, thus copyright infringement, has already occurred at this point.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm in no way trying to establish this as a defense for most of the people downloading MP3's online. In most cases, they know what they're downloading is copyrighted and probably being shared illegally, but not in all cases! And if you apply the law in this way towards MP3 downloads, there's absolutely no distinction between this and, as you note, any HTTP or other Internet download whatsoever.
Again, it seems like the only thing that can save Internet users from this enormous liability would be DRM: a browser loads an (encrypted) page with a DRM signature, determines if it's allowed to display the content, and then displays it. Of course, there's nothing stopping someone from extracting the content at a later date and wrapping it in a "free for all" DRM certificate (and actually, as near as I can tell, that would still put the end user at risk of copyright infringement even if an explicit copyright notice is forged).
I have serious issues with laws that are interpreted so broadly and so dangerously and rely solely on the good nature of the executive and judicial branch not to nail me with those penalties for an act for which I had absolutely no foreknowledge.
I think you're (perhaps unintentionally) twisting what I'm saying.
I was never suggesting that a copy wasn't made. When you begin the transaction, there is a single copy (on the sharing end). When the transaction is concluded, there are two (on the sharing end, and on the downloading end).
The key question here is who's responsible for the duplication? Is it the person doing the sharing, since he maintains ownership and control of the original, and instructed (perhaps implicitly) the software to transmit his copy on request, or is it the downloader, who requested the copy?