* Why do faculty members have access to Social Security numbers? * What are you doing with Social Security numbers to begin with? Sure, you need them for employees, but why for students? * Why do faculty members have access to other sensitive pieces of data? If they don't need it, they shouldn't have access (principal of least privilege)
Trying to keep my submission short, I didn't include my commentary on these items, but as an alum from 2003, I can explain a little bit of this...
At the time, the school was using SSNs. Although students had "Banner IDs" since about a year before, all the internal systems were still keyed on SSNs, the Banner ID was a simple lookup table. Right after I graduated in May of 2003, they did a full conversion and everyone had to get new IDs, which previously, had been encoded with SSNs. After the conversion, it was the other way around, where the Banner ID was the key for everything, and there was a lookup table to go the other way. That lookup table, by the way, was only available to a small number of offices that actually needed it, such as the Student Aid office. Even the Registrar couldn't look you up by social anymore.
None of this answers to me, however, why a faculty member of the Business School needed or was given access to the entire University. At work, I can pull up the performance reports and salary information for the team I supervise, and, with deapartment head approval, anyone in the department. I cannot, however, pull up anything related to what someone in Marketing does. I only took two classes in the Business school, and both were in 2000. As such, the Business School had no need or right to know anything about me in 2002 other than the fact that I was an active student.
It's a good thing I hadn't sent in my "Deans Fund for Excellence" donation yet. I know what I'll be returning in that postage paid envelope now.
Now the worst: "Policies also restrict the user from installing software that isn't deployed via SMS." If you intend to use this at all, you will have to heavily tailor the policies for different users. Developers will need one, or often multiple compilers installed, as well as tools for every piece of the development process like Java runtimes and Cygwin or Rendermonkey and model loaders depending on their job at the time. Content creators may need to add arbitrary plug-ins for software that the company may only own one or two copies of. Modelers may need Pro-E on one machine and Maya on another. Look at who your users are and consider what they need before forming a network policy.
Where I work, we've found it helpful to have multiple domains with different policies. All the developers have access to the MAINDEV domain, and they have administrative rights to those workstations. There's also a MAINTEST domain where devlopers have mid-level access, and then MAINPROD which is the corporate network - on this, developers are just like anyone else, limited rights. Each of the domains are on their own physical subnets with firewalls between them. For example, a developer can TS into his MAINDEV workstation from his MAINPROD workstation, but not transfer files. In fact, we keep all the development machines physically under lock and key as part of the server farm and require TS/Raritan for any type of console access. When push comes to shove, there's a web interface for rebuilding DEV and TEST workstations.
As for apps required on the main corporate domain, there's a small group of people who are full-time dedicated to scripting apps and their related plug ins. Access to the apps is controlled strictly by AD groups, which is good because it then forces the install script to run as opposed to the user configuring as they see fit. At the same time, it also gives us license compliance. Regular workstation scans are run at random intervals to compare the applications that each workstation reports as installed to the active directory groups that the user is a member of. Any difference is sent to an administrator who will remotely access the workstation and assess the situation. If it turns out there is unauthorized software, the user is booted immediately from the machine and their user ID is locked out until they call the help desk. At that point, there's a procedure to go through where someone has to come out and reimage your machine, no questions asked.
As to the idea of employees rebuilding their machines, any machine that attempts to connect to a network segment is checked to see if it is a member of the domain it is trying to get an IP address on. If the answer is NO, it is investigated. Hooking an unauthorized PC to any network segment is an immediate termination situation - I've seen it enforced many times, and on people who are "too important" to be bothered by such policy drivel.
Getting the OK for this policy was easy - the costs of unauthorized software, from license compliance costs, and the potential of employee/company downtime was presented to the Board of Directors and they directed the CEO to adopt the policy, in full. It also worked well that the policy was sold at about the time that SOX was coming in as the latest buzzword, so it really was an easy sell.
I knew it was only a matter of time until PayPal shot themselves in the foot with something like this. Better yet, it was a charity drive they fucked over. This company's business practices might finally receive serious media scrutiny over this.
No..I doubt it. PayPal's running their own "Donate to Katrina" effort on their homepage. Any bad PR would simply be countered roughly as follows: "As a company, we are doing what's right, which is why we provide a method for our users to contribute to the relief efforts. Those rumors of other people collecting money being locked out? Well, sad to say, the hucksters always come out after a disaster, and you can never be too cautious. We'd hate for someone to feel they're contributing to a good cause only to be taken advantage of. That's why we encourage people to only use our official contribution link."
Sad...but true. On the other hand, I can sort of, not totally, agree with that point. Personally, my contributions have been in the form of equipment loans, cash for gas/food, etc, for some of my friends who are helping the Red Cross with Amateur Radio support. I *know* that's going to a good cause.
I'm just shocked at what *isn't* on my cards. For example, every time I go to my bank's ATM, I have to indicate whether I want to do business in English or Spanish. Shouldn't that information be on the card? I mean, the card is *mine* - they know who I am. Surely that should indicate what language I speak...
Working for a bank, this one should be a home run, and a shameless plug...except that I'm not going to name my employer. There's several different reasons why that stuff isn't stored on a card itself. The two biggest are bandwidth and the availability of equipment to re-encode a card with your preferences.
However, that does not mean that the ATM network servers cannot store your preferences. The bank I work for has begun rolling out a "My Preferences" feature on the new Diebold ATM machines. It lets you set a language, receipt option (yes/no), fast cash amount, and some other options. When you stick your card in, not only does it authenticate your PIN, but it pulls your preference file from the server. You can make updates any time from the on screen selections. It's pretty neat, you can cut at least three screens out by setting up those default responses.
It has been interesting to see the marketing stats on how many times customers interface with the ATM before they decide to press the "Set up My Preferences" button. Right now the average is about 3 for those that are going to use the feature.
[i] This is one incident where being named Jones makes me happy.
I can never find myself on Google, even with my full name. Sometimes not even with the city I'm in.[/i]
Must be nice - I don't exactly have a common name, but anyone who searches for it will find that there is a college instructor in my age bracket from Europe who actively promotes "hacktivism" and defacing corporate websites. You can imagine the fun that I had when I went to an interview and they kept asking me questions about ethics and "bending the rules for a cause." After I looked completely dumbfounded, the interviewer explained that they had done a Google on me and found all sorts of stuff attached to my name. Funny the job was for an IT security position. They hired me anyway, after the interviewer pulled up the instructor's site and looked him up at his Univ and called him right from the interview room. Once my alter ego answered and announced himself with our mutual name the interviewer was like "Sorry, wrong number."
Cleared that bit of confusion right up, but made for a very anxious few minutes! Incidentally, I can't find anything about *myself* on Google, just this other guy. I'm just thankful that they even let me come in the door for a sit-down and didn't just "assume." Now that I'm in management myself, I've vowed to never assume - whenever I interview a candidate, I always let them come in and speak their piece, especially when something circumstancial points negative.
Many people don't realize how long it can take for a check to bounce. The standard method of clearing checks is still physically shipping little pieces of paper around the country. So for a California check to bounce in New York requires the physical check to travel across the country, sit on a manager's desk until he gets around to dealing with it, and physically travel back before you find out it's no good. This can take weeks. Overseas, longer.
Just wait til tomorrow (the 28th). It'll be interesting to see how quickly checks start bouncing. Check 21 takes effect in the US. Quick version, it gives banks and merchants the option to move images of your original check electronically and destroy the original. I work a bank and the retail folks have been cautioning customers for a while now that float time (time it takes a check to clear your bank after you write it) can be reduced to almost nothing, and thus people should be more careful about what they write checks for. For example, did you know that Target Inc has their own bank? A check you write at Target can be posted against your account before you walk out the door, and processed as a check (not just an electronic debit as some places do now).
It won't be a sudden transformation, but I'm guessing that within the next two years people will be asking "what the heck WAS float?" As another side effect, it will also cut down on check kiting schemes that rely on float.
While I agree that this is a good idea, it is not a complete solution. Imagine if you will, as you are approaching the Holidays getting ready to put the finishing touches on your killer term paper, and poof your laptop is gone.
Flash forward to your friendly neighborhood insurance agent office, filling out your claim for your uber cool $3k laptop, they may well cut you a check, but I doubt they will provide you with the 20 pages of history term paper that you have already pounded out.
Hint, when backing up your work, start thinking multiple physical locations....
Most colleges provide students with some amount of disk space on a network share. Where I was, it was as simple as connecting to a mapped network drive that only you had write access to. Even if it's only 100 MB or so, that should more than cover the current semester's work. A scheduled XCOPY that ran nightly took care of my problems quite nicely. As a side bonus, stuff on the shares is generally backed up by the university as well, so if you go the extreme and some asshat steals your computer AND deletes your stuff from the share, your work can still be recalled from backup. I think our policy was that the last 7 days was immediately recallable by visiting any computer lab, after that some tech had to go find the tape.
Agreed. A lot of it too depends on what the group of guys you live with are like. During the two years I lived in a dorm, the guys in my corridor were all really cool. Anytime someone saw something that didn't look legit, they'd step up. During the evenings it was common for people to have their doors propped open with laptops open on their desk, but only if some of the corridor-mates were hanging in the hall.
Really, the simplest thing is to exercise basic security precautions. If you don't go out of your way to flaunt all your expensive stuff, and you and your roommate keep your door locked at all times, you'll be problem free. As a side benefit of always locking your door, you'll never lock yourself out because you will always be in the habit of patting your pocket as you shut the door to make sure your keys are there. It's the guys who sometimes lock their door, sometimes don't that are always having to pay to be let back in by the RA.
Trust me, your average college thief is an opportunist, or a drunk. If it requires more than a little bit of effort, they'll move on. And in a typical dorm, there are plenty of easier targets out there. Kicking in a door in a dorm is bound to attract some attention.
You really need to worry about the security of your possessions when you move OFF campus to a house or something where there are parties going on. Mix in 100+ people who are imbibing, and there's always the potential for something bad to happen. Generally it's not theft, it's puke. Here again, locking your door at all times will keep 99.995% of the problems away.
Good luck to you - I'm sure once you've settled in and gotten a term or two under your belt, you'll be like I was saying "now what in the world was I so worried about?" You'll know you've made the transition when you start using the word "Home" to refer to whatever place you're not at without even thinking about it (ie, at your parent's you say 'Well, I need to load the car to head home', while at school you say 'I'm going home this weekend!')
Another related example, it appears you now have to get tickets to attend a speech by George W. It would be interesting to see if there is fine print on the tickets. But apparently if you, for example, wear a hidden T shirt that is critical of Bush and unveil it during the event your ticket is instantaneously revoked and you are arrested for trespassing even if you are in what would otherwise be a public space. There is a couple fighting a court battle for this for no crime other than quietly unveiling T shirts with the name Bush under a red circle with a diagonal line through it. A family went to a Bush event in Minnesota. Apparently it was reveiled during the strip search to get in one of the teens had a Kerry sticker on his billfold. The family was ordered to leave and was threatened with arrest.
So? I don't have a problem with that. Nor would I have a problem with someone being shown the door for pulling a similar stunt at the DNC. One of the benefits from the freedom of assembly is that it is against the law to disturb a lawful gathering. Pretty much every legal entity that passes laws has something on the books to cover this topic. For instance, my hometown's law states (in part): (a) No person, with purpose to prevent or disrupt a lawful meeting, procession or gathering, shall do either of the following:
(1) Do any act which obstructs or interferes with the due conduct of such meeting, procession or gathering;
(2) Make any utterance, gesture or display which outrages the sensibilities of the group.
A small, but important distinction that has long been upheld in this country is that while you do have a freedom of speech, you do not have the right to be heard. There is a time and place for everything, and it is commonly accepted through our laws that inside someone else's lawful gathering is not the right time nor place.
I remember when I was taking my intro to weather classes, we discussed such a device. The Russians used to try something similar in an attempt to break up thunderstorms. The idea was basically the same, just shoot something up into the cloud and disturb its ability to hail. Problems with this device fell into three major categories:
1) Didn't work at all. 2) When it did work, all it did was move the storm out of range of the device. Once out of range, the cloud would dump twice as much on the unprotected area. This gets really political when farmer John is flooding farmer Bill's field two miles down the road. 3) Lots of dead wildlife (birds).
Dear Critter. Cable theft is when you steal the cable (don't laugh, its quite common in Africa, and a real problem).
Going off topic for a sec - but cable theft is a problem here in the states too. My dad is a member of a streetcar preservation organization. They've got a little two mile siding along a major railway, complete with overhead cabling to run the cars for demonstrations and stuff. More than once they've had problems with people coming and yanking the cables down in the middle of the night, because copper isn't exactly cheap. They had two options - put night vision cameras up all along the route and hope to catch someone; or leave the cable live with 600 volts 24/7. For only the cost of electrocuting the occasional thief, they've not had any problems since they selected the latter. They have, however found the occasional smoldered shoe or melted glove along the tracks in the morning.:)
From the sounds of it, it's not illegal because the FCC apparently doesn't have restrictions for broadcasting infrared, which the system uses (good thing, since things like headlights and tailpipes are major emitters). I guess the receivers are just looking for specific IR wavelengths. Yes, the devices are made to change the light, but a pedestrian pressing the button on the pole can trigger a cycle too, and that's not illegal.
Just to throw in an oddball note - the closet thing to light emission regulation is Laser. Laser device regulations and compliance generally falls on the FDA. Yes, the Food and Drug Administration.
That being said, it should make it fairly easy for the states to regulate these devices, because nobody could claim that a federal agency has exclusive regulatory authority over this particular technology. In most cases, it's very difficult for a state to pass a law regulating radio technology - the FCC quickly sends its trenchcoats to remind them of who sets the rules.
Most inept states will probably pass a law prohibiting the emission of infrared light from a vehicle, which won't get far considering all the other sources of infrared emission. The smart ones will lump this into their traffic mischief laws, like vandalizing signs, opening a traffic control box and messing with the wires, etc.
I'm just waiting for some city that establishes a lock-out code sequence or something to go after people for violating the DMCA. That'd be a hell of a traffic ticket.
Actually, you're not even in public on their planes. It's their property, they can tape whatever they want (as long as they tell you). Don't like it, don't fly their airline.
Just my two cents here - Yes and no. As a charter airline, I think they can probably do whatever they want. Full fledged commercial airlines are classified as Common Carriers, and thus they lose a lot of the rights that are normally granted to commercial entities.
Obviously, if this becomes mandated by the feds, it'll all be a moot point. However, until such mandate is made, one might be able to argue that as a common carrier they shouldn't be allowed to do this.
They may very well be able to do whatever they want in this case, especially given that SouthEast is probably not classified as a CC. I just wanted to point out that although airlines are private (well, owned by shareholders) companies, they don't automatically enjoy the same "this is private property, we do what the hell we want" abilities as other non-CC companies/industries. Example: WalMart can kick you out of the store just because they don't like how you look/act/smell (provided they don't violate the federal and state equal protection laws), but United Airlines can't.
Re:What does the NDA encompass?
on
My Visit to SCO
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· Score: 3, Interesting
So, are there links etc to any case law supporting your idea of the invalid NDA? Does it supercede the Utah state law governing the SCO NDA? That would be *very* useful information to have handy for those under this particular NDA..
While I work quite extensively with our legal department on IP and security matters, I'm not a lawyer, so I can't pull any cases right from me at the time. Perhaps a Lexis search on company time tomorrow:) But, having said that, on all cases where we've made folks sign NDAs as a part of doing business with us, our lawyers always remind us that we must have (among several other standard clauses) the following clause in there (customized of course), or else the document can be thrown out in any court in the country as being overly broad and infringing on other's rights to free speech and whatnot:
"The term "Confidential Information", as used herein, does not include information which (i) was lawfully in Company B''s possession prior to any disclosure by Company A, (ii) is or becomes generally available to the public other than as a result of disclosure by Company B, Company B''s employees, agents, representatives or others acting on Company B''s behalf (snip)"
What does the NDA encompass?
on
My Visit to SCO
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· Score: 4, Interesting
I've wondered this ever since SCO started saying they'd let people look at the code under an NDA. Perhaps you can give us some light as to what the NDA swore you to?
NDAs are held to be invalid if the information that you agree not to disclose is already public information, or is revealed to the general public through someone elses doing at a later time.
If the claim is that certain lines of code belonging to SCO are now being distributed in the public domain then it would seem that you couldn't NDA that away - the cat's already out of the bag so to speak. Assuming their claims are 100% valid, everyone who signed the NDAs is perfectly free to tell you exactly what lines of code are infringing, yet nobody has done this. Suppose because they can't find anything that's conclusively out in the open already (the basis of SCO's claims)
If SCO is seeking an injunction, does that mean they would have to prove to a judge that there is sufficient evidence for such an injunction? And if they do happen to convince a judge...
What's interesting is that they are seeking a permanent injunction. Such an animal is generally part of the "punishment" phase. Seeking a permanent injunction now is part of the legal process to say that IF I WIN THE CASE, I want them to stop forever. I think it's interesting that they have not gone for the TEMPORARY injunction that they said they would. A TRO is typically issued before the whole case gets underway and expires at some phase of the trial.
In order to be granted a TRO, you must show that not only will you be harmed if the action continues, but that the harm will be direct and irreparable and that you have a reasonably high probability of proving your case. Without being able to prove irreparable harm, judges generally like to maintain the status quo until the whole thing is sorted out.
From my experience in the legal field, if they grant their opponent 100 days to "Fix it up", they would have a higher burden of proof to say that they are being irreparably harmed as each day goes by than if they filed suit right away. A judge is more likely to look at this case and say "Well, you might be harmed somewhat, assuming your allegations are true, but you put up well enough for three months, another two months to sort this out probably won't be irreparable. Motion denied"
Consider another use of TROs: battered women are generally granted TROs after a domestic dustup the night of, or the following morning. Such matters are so urgent that they cannot be delayed even a day. Giving someone 100 days to clean up just seems to show that you can tolerate it better than you would otherwise admit.
I think there is a critical difference between a contractor and a consultant. The former is hired to complete a specified task (the more specific the better). The latter is hired to provide information, knowledge, expertise, etc. in order to make better decisions.
In my experience working as a consultant and contractor, the terms are used interchangably. I always went by what my contract said I was brought on to do, not the title that was attached to my position. Titles really mean nothing - it all comes down to the bottom line: What are you being paid to do? I wish I would've had a chance to read the original posters contract, but it sounds like he is the code-monkey type who doesn't like something in the project, not directly related to his task. It would be TOTALLY different if he was hired as a project management consultant.
When you hire a lawyer, you are explicitly seeking her advice and guidance. When you contract with a programmer to develop something from *your* requirements, it's questionable whether that type of person should be questioning the objectives, regardless of what you call them. That programmer's relationship with, and obligations to the client is entirely and only defined by the written agreement between them.
There is a form of consulting that is distinct from the kind you are discussing. Often a consultant is working with a consultancy company. In that case, the consultant must consider the relationship between the company and the client. It is always correct to discuss any such major issues with your company in this case -- and be guided by how they want to deal with it.
Yeah I did this kind of stuff for about a year or so before I went off on my own (and began that SAP stint)... My company which contracted me out had pretty strict rules. If we had concerns with how or what we were supposed to be doing things, they were to be done through them. That is, my boss back at the consulting company would be the one to make the call to the client, not me. The reason for that was because I was officially acting on their behalf, so they wanted to CYA as well.
Man I wish I still had my handbook, but it said something along the lines of "unless instructed by your boss otherwise..." basically that unless I was contracted to set objectives, make decisions and whatnot, any concerns had to go through my employer, not the client.
It's sad really, but it's all in an effort to prevent being sued. So many times I wanted to be able to just say "oh yeah, here's how you do that", but that was outside the scope of my employment, and my employers contract with the client, so I couldn't.
I quit there after a year:)
And yes - anything and everything MUST be writing. Conversations are easily denied or twisted, then it's you, the contractor versus the people suing you.
I think this is really unethical. If you take the job, then do the work. Doing a lousy job not only going to hurt you, it's going to hurt your reputation.
But you're not doing a lousy job - you're doing exactly what you were paid to do. Legally, consultants are supposed to make a minimal number of decisions that are typically made by the full-time employees, unless that is the express reason for them being there. Consultants are supposed to get in and do what their assignment is. In cases where you are supposed to be deciding policy, ultimately your work will come out through a full-time employee. That is, if you develop a new Email Policy because you're an email consultant, management is going to implement the policy you recommend. YOU are not going to implement anything.
If you are truly a consultant, then you are paid your fee for doing what your contract stipulates. One of the critical legal distinctions between being an employee and being a consultant is that an employee has a stake in the company's future, whereas a contractor is strictly a temporary resource being used to fit the particular needs of the company at that time.
I've always been very careful to stay out of such things unless they are directly covered under what I am supposed to be doing. For example, back when I did SAP consulting, my job was to devise the role assignments so as to avoid collusion between employees. When some group (I believe it was Finance), wanted to create combined roles just to 'make it easier', I stepped up. My job was to ensure that the new roles had a minimal risk of collusion and Finance wanted to do something directly contrary to that. In that case, I took it to my contact person (note, NOT my boss) and explained. He then had the Finance group meet with the consultants to justify their need (they were shot down).
However, if it's a question of implementation or something, like where the client is bringing you on to do 10 tasks, if those tasks are the wrong tasks to be doing or incorrect - too bad. You get paid to do your contractual assignment.
Look at it this way - the company went out of their way to bring you on as a consultant rather than a regular employee. (Note I did not say 'hire you') There's a reason for that - they believe that you have certain talents and skills that can directly impact one of their objectives. You weren't brought on to create the objectives.
Things can get very ugly, legally, if you and your client begin to act as if an employer-employee relationship exists.
Microsoft had this sort of problem a few years ago where they had all these permatemp contractors. Basically people they didn't want to hire full-time so they just called them consultants, but continued to use them over and over on different assignments. The permatemps argued that they were really full-time employees and sued for a fair chunk of change, and won. Consequently, if a company brings you on as a contractor, they want to do everything possible to make sure that the distinction exists, lest you sue them for backpay, overtime and benefits. For that reason I think you'd be totally out of line speaking up.
You're a consultant, finish your job there and move on to the next client.
The question here is whether or not the guy can/should be harassed, rather it's a question of whether or not Uy can be compelled to remove the guy's information from his website.
What little precedent exists in this area seems to side with Uy. The mere posting of this kind of information (whether home or business) is not illegal. The article didn't say (or maybe I read too quickly) whether or not Uy was inciting others to harrass the spammer. The closest I can find is:
Moore, who uses an e-mail moniker of Dr. Fatburn, said in an interview that Uy broadcast the presence of his Web site on numerous Internet discussion areas, which incited others to harass him.
It seems to me like he just posted the information, and other people acted on their own with the information.
Although it *is* the Ninth District Court (everyone roll eyes here) there is precedent in "Planned Parenthood v American Coalition of Life Activists" in which the ACLA had posted on their website photos, home addresses, license plate numbers, and names of family and children of doctors who performed abortions. Several doctors were killed, and a jury found that the website gave information that encouraged the violence. Thus, they held the ACLA liable for posting that information. That was overturned on appeal because the ACLA made no statements mentioning violence, harassment etc, and the actions were carried out by people acting on their own.
As long as Uy simply posts the information and doesn't say "GET THE GUY", there's really not much that can be done about it. This court case seems to even remove the distinction between home and business addresses.
I'm definitely an engineer, because the code I write gets loaded into flash memory on circuit boards I also designed! I figure I've got all the bases covered.
Surely you'd qualify as an Electrical Engineer at the least. Out of curiosity, are you licensed? In Texas you'd have to get a license for that too!:)
This bill is intended for radio, and is to prevent you from having a scanner....
However, this is just like the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1987 - it may be illegal to eavesdrop on cellular communications, but it did'nt really stop anybody from doing it. Going from an insecure system (AMPS) to more secure systems (GSM, CDMA) did that.
Actually, if these bills are truly aimed at radio these laws are pointless. The reason amateurs are exempt from state laws is because the FCC has been explicitly granted an authority by Congress to regulate everything having to do with radios. This is why your landline phone service is regulated by a state utilities board, but your cellular phone provider is regulated by the FCC.
The federal preemption basically says that no law may be passed by the states to in some way regulate anything that makes use of the airwaves. It isn't entirely accurate to say that the amateur preemption to scanner laws is because of their roll in emergency services. The preemption exists because the scanner laws could interfere with the exercise of federally licensed service (Ham Radio). If I have an FCC license to operate a radio and that radio is capable of receiving certain frequencies, Joe Hickabilly Cop cannot prevent me from do what I am legally licensed to do. There is some gray area with regards to scanners that cannot transmit. Clearly in the case of wireless routers and whatnot, which DO transmit, and are regulated as Part 15 devices, I think a strong case for preemption would exist.
The ECP Act you speak of is a FEDERAL law, as such it is enforced by the feds, not the states. If Ohio were to pass a similar ECP law without Congress also doing so, it is unlikely that Ohio would have much to stand on.
Towns have sometimes attempted to pass laws prohibiting someone from interfering with a person's TV set by way of radio. Usually it turns out to be Ham interference, but sometimes it's because there's a 100,000 Watt FM station in the middle of town. Each and every time they are quickly slapped by the FCC and made to pay any legal fees incurred by people who were charged under those local laws.
I've read three of these proposed bills, and I'm just not sure what the true intent is. Having said that, if the aim is truly at radio problems, they'll all be slapped silly by the FCC.
No, it's not. It's not reasonable for GM to put an additive in a GM-brand gas, and have GM cars only run on that. It's not reasonable for Lexmark to force you to use lexmark-brand ink.
Now, if they were to say that using 3rd-party ink violated the warranty, and detected that, so if you had a printer gunged up by a cheap knock-off ink they wouldn't replace it, then that's reasonable. But a blanket "you can't use it" isn't.
Actually your car analogy reminds me of an interesting point. It is illegal for vehicle manufacturers to require that you use only their replacable parts (I'm talking oil, filters, etc, not engines and whatnot). It is legal for them to void your warranty for using non OEM parts only if they provide them to you free of charge.
Wouldn't that be a hoot - you can tell me I can only use Lexmark cartridges, void my warranty if I don't, but you have to give them to me for free.:)
A lot of companies get to keep a portion of the taxes they collect from their customers.
I don't know what planet you are from, but I have been collecting sales tax from customers, from several business, in several states, and I have never been able to keep one penny.
Just an aside to this point: Back in my days as a contractor who was required to charge sales tax in Ohio, I got to keep 3/4th of 1% (.0075) or so of whatever sales tax I collected. The idea is to offset the cost maintaining records, collecting the payment from customers etc.
Say I've collected $10,000 in sales tax for this reporting period, at the end of the period, I fill out the paperwork (which includes a "discount" line), remit a check in the amount of $9,925 and keep $75 for myself. Given that my bill generator program automatically totalled sales tax and whatnot and produced reports on demand, my total expense involved for any given sales tax report was about 30 minutes (to print the report, fill out the forms, write a check, walk to the mailbox, etc), plus the cost of a stamp.
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* Why do faculty members have access to Social Security numbers?
* What are you doing with Social Security numbers to begin with? Sure, you need them for employees, but why for students?
* Why do faculty members have access to other sensitive pieces of data? If they don't need it, they shouldn't have access (principal of least privilege)
Trying to keep my submission short, I didn't include my commentary on these items, but as an alum from 2003, I can explain a little bit of this...
At the time, the school was using SSNs. Although students had "Banner IDs" since about a year before, all the internal systems were still keyed on SSNs, the Banner ID was a simple lookup table. Right after I graduated in May of 2003, they did a full conversion and everyone had to get new IDs, which previously, had been encoded with SSNs. After the conversion, it was the other way around, where the Banner ID was the key for everything, and there was a lookup table to go the other way. That lookup table, by the way, was only available to a small number of offices that actually needed it, such as the Student Aid office. Even the Registrar couldn't look you up by social anymore.
None of this answers to me, however, why a faculty member of the Business School needed or was given access to the entire University. At work, I can pull up the performance reports and salary information for the team I supervise, and, with deapartment head approval, anyone in the department. I cannot, however, pull up anything related to what someone in Marketing does. I only took two classes in the Business school, and both were in 2000. As such, the Business School had no need or right to know anything about me in 2002 other than the fact that I was an active student.
It's a good thing I hadn't sent in my "Deans Fund for Excellence" donation yet. I know what I'll be returning in that postage paid envelope now.
Where I work, we've found it helpful to have multiple domains with different policies. All the developers have access to the MAINDEV domain, and they have administrative rights to those workstations. There's also a MAINTEST domain where devlopers have mid-level access, and then MAINPROD which is the corporate network - on this, developers are just like anyone else, limited rights. Each of the domains are on their own physical subnets with firewalls between them. For example, a developer can TS into his MAINDEV workstation from his MAINPROD workstation, but not transfer files. In fact, we keep all the development machines physically under lock and key as part of the server farm and require TS/Raritan for any type of console access. When push comes to shove, there's a web interface for rebuilding DEV and TEST workstations.
As for apps required on the main corporate domain, there's a small group of people who are full-time dedicated to scripting apps and their related plug ins. Access to the apps is controlled strictly by AD groups, which is good because it then forces the install script to run as opposed to the user configuring as they see fit. At the same time, it also gives us license compliance. Regular workstation scans are run at random intervals to compare the applications that each workstation reports as installed to the active directory groups that the user is a member of. Any difference is sent to an administrator who will remotely access the workstation and assess the situation. If it turns out there is unauthorized software, the user is booted immediately from the machine and their user ID is locked out until they call the help desk. At that point, there's a procedure to go through where someone has to come out and reimage your machine, no questions asked.
As to the idea of employees rebuilding their machines, any machine that attempts to connect to a network segment is checked to see if it is a member of the domain it is trying to get an IP address on. If the answer is NO, it is investigated. Hooking an unauthorized PC to any network segment is an immediate termination situation - I've seen it enforced many times, and on people who are "too important" to be bothered by such policy drivel.
Getting the OK for this policy was easy - the costs of unauthorized software, from license compliance costs, and the potential of employee/company downtime was presented to the Board of Directors and they directed the CEO to adopt the policy, in full. It also worked well that the policy was sold at about the time that SOX was coming in as the latest buzzword, so it really was an easy sell.
I knew it was only a matter of time until PayPal shot themselves in the foot with something like this. Better yet, it was a charity drive they fucked over. This company's business practices might finally receive serious media scrutiny over this.
No..I doubt it. PayPal's running their own "Donate to Katrina" effort on their homepage. Any bad PR would simply be countered roughly as follows: "As a company, we are doing what's right, which is why we provide a method for our users to contribute to the relief efforts. Those rumors of other people collecting money being locked out? Well, sad to say, the hucksters always come out after a disaster, and you can never be too cautious. We'd hate for someone to feel they're contributing to a good cause only to be taken advantage of. That's why we encourage people to only use our official contribution link."
Sad...but true. On the other hand, I can sort of, not totally, agree with that point. Personally, my contributions have been in the form of equipment loans, cash for gas/food, etc, for some of my friends who are helping the Red Cross with Amateur Radio support. I *know* that's going to a good cause.
I'm just shocked at what *isn't* on my cards. For example, every time I go to my bank's ATM, I have to indicate whether I want to do business in English or Spanish. Shouldn't that information be on the card? I mean, the card is *mine* - they know who I am. Surely that should indicate what language I speak...
Working for a bank, this one should be a home run, and a shameless plug...except that I'm not going to name my employer. There's several different reasons why that stuff isn't stored on a card itself. The two biggest are bandwidth and the availability of equipment to re-encode a card with your preferences.
However, that does not mean that the ATM network servers cannot store your preferences. The bank I work for has begun rolling out a "My Preferences" feature on the new Diebold ATM machines. It lets you set a language, receipt option (yes/no), fast cash amount, and some other options. When you stick your card in, not only does it authenticate your PIN, but it pulls your preference file from the server. You can make updates any time from the on screen selections. It's pretty neat, you can cut at least three screens out by setting up those default responses.
It has been interesting to see the marketing stats on how many times customers interface with the ATM before they decide to press the "Set up My Preferences" button. Right now the average is about 3 for those that are going to use the feature.
[i] This is one incident where being named Jones makes me happy.
I can never find myself on Google, even with my full name. Sometimes not even with the city I'm in.[/i]
Must be nice - I don't exactly have a common name, but anyone who searches for it will find that there is a college instructor in my age bracket from Europe who actively promotes "hacktivism" and defacing corporate websites. You can imagine the fun that I had when I went to an interview and they kept asking me questions about ethics and "bending the rules for a cause." After I looked completely dumbfounded, the interviewer explained that they had done a Google on me and found all sorts of stuff attached to my name. Funny the job was for an IT security position. They hired me anyway, after the interviewer pulled up the instructor's site and looked him up at his Univ and called him right from the interview room. Once my alter ego answered and announced himself with our mutual name the interviewer was like "Sorry, wrong number."
Cleared that bit of confusion right up, but made for a very anxious few minutes! Incidentally, I can't find anything about *myself* on Google, just this other guy. I'm just thankful that they even let me come in the door for a sit-down and didn't just "assume." Now that I'm in management myself, I've vowed to never assume - whenever I interview a candidate, I always let them come in and speak their piece, especially when something circumstancial points negative.
Many people don't realize how long it can take for a check to bounce. The standard method of clearing checks is still physically shipping little pieces of paper around the country. So for a California check to bounce in New York requires the physical check to travel across the country, sit on a manager's desk until he gets around to dealing with it, and physically travel back before you find out it's no good. This can take weeks. Overseas, longer.
Just wait til tomorrow (the 28th). It'll be interesting to see how quickly checks start bouncing. Check 21 takes effect in the US. Quick version, it gives banks and merchants the option to move images of your original check electronically and destroy the original. I work a bank and the retail folks have been cautioning customers for a while now that float time (time it takes a check to clear your bank after you write it) can be reduced to almost nothing, and thus people should be more careful about what they write checks for. For example, did you know that Target Inc has their own bank? A check you write at Target can be posted against your account before you walk out the door, and processed as a check (not just an electronic debit as some places do now).
It won't be a sudden transformation, but I'm guessing that within the next two years people will be asking "what the heck WAS float?" As another side effect, it will also cut down on check kiting schemes that rely on float.
While I agree that this is a good idea, it is not a complete solution. Imagine if you will, as you are approaching the Holidays getting ready to put the finishing touches on your killer term paper, and poof your laptop is gone.
Flash forward to your friendly neighborhood insurance agent office, filling out your claim for your uber cool $3k laptop, they may well cut you a check, but I doubt they will provide you with the 20 pages of history term paper that you have already pounded out.
Hint, when backing up your work, start thinking multiple physical locations....
Most colleges provide students with some amount of disk space on a network share. Where I was, it was as simple as connecting to a mapped network drive that only you had write access to. Even if it's only 100 MB or so, that should more than cover the current semester's work. A scheduled XCOPY that ran nightly took care of my problems quite nicely. As a side bonus, stuff on the shares is generally backed up by the university as well, so if you go the extreme and some asshat steals your computer AND deletes your stuff from the share, your work can still be recalled from backup. I think our policy was that the last 7 days was immediately recallable by visiting any computer lab, after that some tech had to go find the tape.
Agreed. A lot of it too depends on what the group of guys you live with are like. During the two years I lived in a dorm, the guys in my corridor were all really cool. Anytime someone saw something that didn't look legit, they'd step up. During the evenings it was common for people to have their doors propped open with laptops open on their desk, but only if some of the corridor-mates were hanging in the hall.
Really, the simplest thing is to exercise basic security precautions. If you don't go out of your way to flaunt all your expensive stuff, and you and your roommate keep your door locked at all times, you'll be problem free. As a side benefit of always locking your door, you'll never lock yourself out because you will always be in the habit of patting your pocket as you shut the door to make sure your keys are there. It's the guys who sometimes lock their door, sometimes don't that are always having to pay to be let back in by the RA.
Trust me, your average college thief is an opportunist, or a drunk. If it requires more than a little bit of effort, they'll move on. And in a typical dorm, there are plenty of easier targets out there. Kicking in a door in a dorm is bound to attract some attention.
You really need to worry about the security of your possessions when you move OFF campus to a house or something where there are parties going on. Mix in 100+ people who are imbibing, and there's always the potential for something bad to happen. Generally it's not theft, it's puke. Here again, locking your door at all times will keep 99.995% of the problems away.
Good luck to you - I'm sure once you've settled in and gotten a term or two under your belt, you'll be like I was saying "now what in the world was I so worried about?" You'll know you've made the transition when you start using the word "Home" to refer to whatever place you're not at without even thinking about it (ie, at your parent's you say 'Well, I need to load the car to head home', while at school you say 'I'm going home this weekend!')
Another related example, it appears you now have to get tickets to attend a speech by George W. It would be interesting to see if there is fine print on the tickets. But apparently if you, for example, wear a hidden T shirt that is critical of Bush and unveil it during the event your ticket is instantaneously revoked and you are arrested for trespassing even if you are in what would otherwise be a public space. There is a couple fighting a court battle for this for no crime other than quietly unveiling T shirts with the name Bush under a red circle with a diagonal line through it. A family went to a Bush event in Minnesota. Apparently it was reveiled during the strip search to get in one of the teens had a Kerry sticker on his billfold. The family was ordered to leave and was threatened with arrest.
So? I don't have a problem with that. Nor would I have a problem with someone being shown the door for pulling a similar stunt at the DNC. One of the benefits from the freedom of assembly is that it is against the law to disturb a lawful gathering. Pretty much every legal entity that passes laws has something on the books to cover this topic. For instance, my hometown's law states (in part):
(a) No person, with purpose to prevent or disrupt a lawful meeting, procession or gathering, shall do either of the following:
(1) Do any act which obstructs or interferes with the due conduct of such meeting, procession or gathering;
(2) Make any utterance, gesture or display which outrages the sensibilities of the group.
A small, but important distinction that has long been upheld in this country is that while you do have a freedom of speech, you do not have the right to be heard. There is a time and place for everything, and it is commonly accepted through our laws that inside someone else's lawful gathering is not the right time nor place.
I remember when I was taking my intro to weather classes, we discussed such a device. The Russians used to try something similar in an attempt to break up thunderstorms. The idea was basically the same, just shoot something up into the cloud and disturb its ability to hail. Problems with this device fell into three major categories:
1) Didn't work at all.
2) When it did work, all it did was move the storm out of range of the device. Once out of range, the cloud would dump twice as much on the unprotected area. This gets really political when farmer John is flooding farmer Bill's field two miles down the road.
3) Lots of dead wildlife (birds).
Dear Critter. Cable theft is when you steal the cable (don't laugh, its quite common in Africa, and a real problem).
:)
Going off topic for a sec - but cable theft is a problem here in the states too. My dad is a member of a streetcar preservation organization. They've got a little two mile siding along a major railway, complete with overhead cabling to run the cars for demonstrations and stuff. More than once they've had problems with people coming and yanking the cables down in the middle of the night, because copper isn't exactly cheap. They had two options - put night vision cameras up all along the route and hope to catch someone; or leave the cable live with 600 volts 24/7. For only the cost of electrocuting the occasional thief, they've not had any problems since they selected the latter. They have, however found the occasional smoldered shoe or melted glove along the tracks in the morning.
From the sounds of it, it's not illegal because the FCC apparently doesn't have restrictions for broadcasting infrared, which the system uses (good thing, since things like headlights and tailpipes are major emitters). I guess the receivers are just looking for specific IR wavelengths. Yes, the devices are made to change the light, but a pedestrian pressing the button on the pole can trigger a cycle too, and that's not illegal.
Just to throw in an oddball note - the closet thing to light emission regulation is Laser. Laser device regulations and compliance generally falls on the FDA. Yes, the Food and Drug Administration.
That being said, it should make it fairly easy for the states to regulate these devices, because nobody could claim that a federal agency has exclusive regulatory authority over this particular technology. In most cases, it's very difficult for a state to pass a law regulating radio technology - the FCC quickly sends its trenchcoats to remind them of who sets the rules.
Most inept states will probably pass a law prohibiting the emission of infrared light from a vehicle, which won't get far considering all the other sources of infrared emission. The smart ones will lump this into their traffic mischief laws, like vandalizing signs, opening a traffic control box and messing with the wires, etc.
I'm just waiting for some city that establishes a lock-out code sequence or something to go after people for violating the DMCA. That'd be a hell of a traffic ticket.
Actually, you're not even in public on their planes. It's their property, they can tape whatever they want (as long as they tell you). Don't like it, don't fly their airline.
Just my two cents here - Yes and no. As a charter airline, I think they can probably do whatever they want. Full fledged commercial airlines are classified as Common Carriers, and thus they lose a lot of the rights that are normally granted to commercial entities.
Obviously, if this becomes mandated by the feds, it'll all be a moot point. However, until such mandate is made, one might be able to argue that as a common carrier they shouldn't be allowed to do this.
They may very well be able to do whatever they want in this case, especially given that SouthEast is probably not classified as a CC. I just wanted to point out that although airlines are private (well, owned by shareholders) companies, they don't automatically enjoy the same "this is private property, we do what the hell we want" abilities as other non-CC companies/industries. Example: WalMart can kick you out of the store just because they don't like how you look/act/smell (provided they don't violate the federal and state equal protection laws), but United Airlines can't.
So, are there links etc to any case law supporting your idea of the invalid NDA? Does it supercede the Utah state law governing the SCO NDA? That would be *very* useful information to have handy for those under this particular NDA..
:) But, having said that, on all cases where we've made folks sign NDAs as a part of doing business with us, our lawyers always remind us that we must have (among several other standard clauses) the following clause in there (customized of course), or else the document can be thrown out in any court in the country as being overly broad and infringing on other's rights to free speech and whatnot:
While I work quite extensively with our legal department on IP and security matters, I'm not a lawyer, so I can't pull any cases right from me at the time. Perhaps a Lexis search on company time tomorrow
"The term "Confidential Information", as used herein, does not include information which (i) was lawfully in Company B''s possession prior to any disclosure by Company A, (ii) is or becomes generally available to the public other than as a result of disclosure by Company B, Company B''s employees, agents, representatives or others acting on Company B''s behalf (snip)"
I've wondered this ever since SCO started saying they'd let people look at the code under an NDA. Perhaps you can give us some light as to what the NDA swore you to?
NDAs are held to be invalid if the information that you agree not to disclose is already public information, or is revealed to the general public through someone elses doing at a later time.
If the claim is that certain lines of code belonging to SCO are now being distributed in the public domain then it would seem that you couldn't NDA that away - the cat's already out of the bag so to speak. Assuming their claims are 100% valid, everyone who signed the NDAs is perfectly free to tell you exactly what lines of code are infringing, yet nobody has done this. Suppose because they can't find anything that's conclusively out in the open already (the basis of SCO's claims)
If SCO is seeking an injunction, does that mean they would have to prove to a judge that there is sufficient evidence for such an injunction? And if they do happen to convince a judge...
What's interesting is that they are seeking a permanent injunction. Such an animal is generally part of the "punishment" phase. Seeking a permanent injunction now is part of the legal process to say that IF I WIN THE CASE, I want them to stop forever. I think it's interesting that they have not gone for the TEMPORARY injunction that they said they would. A TRO is typically issued before the whole case gets underway and expires at some phase of the trial.
In order to be granted a TRO, you must show that not only will you be harmed if the action continues, but that the harm will be direct and irreparable and that you have a reasonably high probability of proving your case. Without being able to prove irreparable harm, judges generally like to maintain the status quo until the whole thing is sorted out.
From my experience in the legal field, if they grant their opponent 100 days to "Fix it up", they would have a higher burden of proof to say that they are being irreparably harmed as each day goes by than if they filed suit right away. A judge is more likely to look at this case and say "Well, you might be harmed somewhat, assuming your allegations are true, but you put up well enough for three months, another two months to sort this out probably won't be irreparable. Motion denied"
Consider another use of TROs: battered women are generally granted TROs after a domestic dustup the night of, or the following morning. Such matters are so urgent that they cannot be delayed even a day. Giving someone 100 days to clean up just seems to show that you can tolerate it better than you would otherwise admit.
I think there is a critical difference between a contractor and a consultant. The former is hired to complete a specified task (the more specific the better). The latter is hired to provide information, knowledge, expertise, etc. in order to make better decisions.
In my experience working as a consultant and contractor, the terms are used interchangably. I always went by what my contract said I was brought on to do, not the title that was attached to my position. Titles really mean nothing - it all comes down to the bottom line: What are you being paid to do? I wish I would've had a chance to read the original posters contract, but it sounds like he is the code-monkey type who doesn't like something in the project, not directly related to his task. It would be TOTALLY different if he was hired as a project management consultant.
When you hire a lawyer, you are explicitly seeking her advice and guidance. When you contract with a programmer to develop something from *your* requirements, it's questionable whether that type of person should be questioning the objectives, regardless of what you call them. That programmer's relationship with, and obligations to the client is entirely and only defined by the written agreement between them.
There is a form of consulting that is distinct from the kind you are discussing. Often a consultant is working with a consultancy company. In that case, the consultant must consider the relationship between the company and the client. It is always correct to discuss any such major issues with your company in this case -- and be guided by how they want to deal with it.
:)
Yeah I did this kind of stuff for about a year or so before I went off on my own (and began that SAP stint)... My company which contracted me out had pretty strict rules. If we had concerns with how or what we were supposed to be doing things, they were to be done through them. That is, my boss back at the consulting company would be the one to make the call to the client, not me. The reason for that was because I was officially acting on their behalf, so they wanted to CYA as well.
Man I wish I still had my handbook, but it said something along the lines of "unless instructed by your boss otherwise..." basically that unless I was contracted to set objectives, make decisions and whatnot, any concerns had to go through my employer, not the client.
It's sad really, but it's all in an effort to prevent being sued. So many times I wanted to be able to just say "oh yeah, here's how you do that", but that was outside the scope of my employment, and my employers contract with the client, so I couldn't.
I quit there after a year
And yes - anything and everything MUST be writing. Conversations are easily denied or twisted, then it's you, the contractor versus the people suing you.
I think this is really unethical. If you take the job, then do the work. Doing a lousy job not only going to hurt you, it's going to hurt your reputation.
But you're not doing a lousy job - you're doing exactly what you were paid to do. Legally, consultants are supposed to make a minimal number of decisions that are typically made by the full-time employees, unless that is the express reason for them being there. Consultants are supposed to get in and do what their assignment is. In cases where you are supposed to be deciding policy, ultimately your work will come out through a full-time employee. That is, if you develop a new Email Policy because you're an email consultant, management is going to implement the policy you recommend. YOU are not going to implement anything.
If you are truly a consultant, then you are paid your fee for doing what your contract stipulates. One of the critical legal distinctions between being an employee and being a consultant is that an employee has a stake in the company's future, whereas a contractor is strictly a temporary resource being used to fit the particular needs of the company at that time.
I've always been very careful to stay out of such things unless they are directly covered under what I am supposed to be doing. For example, back when I did SAP consulting, my job was to devise the role assignments so as to avoid collusion between employees. When some group (I believe it was Finance), wanted to create combined roles just to 'make it easier', I stepped up. My job was to ensure that the new roles had a minimal risk of collusion and Finance wanted to do something directly contrary to that. In that case, I took it to my contact person (note, NOT my boss) and explained. He then had the Finance group meet with the consultants to justify their need (they were shot down).
However, if it's a question of implementation or something, like where the client is bringing you on to do 10 tasks, if those tasks are the wrong tasks to be doing or incorrect - too bad. You get paid to do your contractual assignment.
Look at it this way - the company went out of their way to bring you on as a consultant rather than a regular employee. (Note I did not say 'hire you') There's a reason for that - they believe that you have certain talents and skills that can directly impact one of their objectives. You weren't brought on to create the objectives.
Things can get very ugly, legally, if you and your client begin to act as if an employer-employee relationship exists.
Microsoft had this sort of problem a few years ago where they had all these permatemp contractors. Basically people they didn't want to hire full-time so they just called them consultants, but continued to use them over and over on different assignments. The permatemps argued that they were really full-time employees and sued for a fair chunk of change, and won. Consequently, if a company brings you on as a contractor, they want to do everything possible to make sure that the distinction exists, lest you sue them for backpay, overtime and benefits. For that reason I think you'd be totally out of line speaking up.
You're a consultant, finish your job there and move on to the next client.
The question here is whether or not the guy can/should be harassed, rather it's a question of whether or not Uy can be compelled to remove the guy's information from his website.
What little precedent exists in this area seems to side with Uy. The mere posting of this kind of information (whether home or business) is not illegal. The article didn't say (or maybe I read too quickly) whether or not Uy was inciting others to harrass the spammer. The closest I can find is:
Moore, who uses an e-mail moniker of Dr. Fatburn, said in an interview that Uy broadcast the presence of his Web site on numerous Internet discussion areas, which incited others to harass him.
It seems to me like he just posted the information, and other people acted on their own with the information.
Although it *is* the Ninth District Court (everyone roll eyes here) there is precedent in "Planned Parenthood v American Coalition of Life Activists" in which the ACLA had posted on their website photos, home addresses, license plate numbers, and names of family and children of doctors who performed abortions. Several doctors were killed, and a jury found that the website gave information that encouraged the violence. Thus, they held the ACLA liable for posting that information. That was overturned on appeal because the ACLA made no statements mentioning violence, harassment etc, and the actions were carried out by people acting on their own.
As long as Uy simply posts the information and doesn't say "GET THE GUY", there's really not much that can be done about it. This court case seems to even remove the distinction between home and business addresses.
I'm definitely an engineer, because the code I write gets loaded into flash memory on circuit boards I also designed! I figure I've got all the bases covered.
:)
Surely you'd qualify as an Electrical Engineer at the least. Out of curiosity, are you licensed? In Texas you'd have to get a license for that too!
This bill is intended for radio, and is to prevent you from having a scanner.
However, this is just like the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1987 - it may be illegal to eavesdrop on cellular communications, but it did'nt really stop anybody from doing it. Going from an insecure system (AMPS) to more secure systems (GSM, CDMA) did that.
Actually, if these bills are truly aimed at radio these laws are pointless. The reason amateurs are exempt from state laws is because the FCC has been explicitly granted an authority by Congress to regulate everything having to do with radios. This is why your landline phone service is regulated by a state utilities board, but your cellular phone provider is regulated by the FCC.
The federal preemption basically says that no law may be passed by the states to in some way regulate anything that makes use of the airwaves. It isn't entirely accurate to say that the amateur preemption to scanner laws is because of their roll in emergency services. The preemption exists because the scanner laws could interfere with the exercise of federally licensed service (Ham Radio). If I have an FCC license to operate a radio and that radio is capable of receiving certain frequencies, Joe Hickabilly Cop cannot prevent me from do what I am legally licensed to do. There is some gray area with regards to scanners that cannot transmit. Clearly in the case of wireless routers and whatnot, which DO transmit, and are regulated as Part 15 devices, I think a strong case for preemption would exist.
The ECP Act you speak of is a FEDERAL law, as such it is enforced by the feds, not the states. If Ohio were to pass a similar ECP law without Congress also doing so, it is unlikely that Ohio would have much to stand on.
Towns have sometimes attempted to pass laws prohibiting someone from interfering with a person's TV set by way of radio. Usually it turns out to be Ham interference, but sometimes it's because there's a 100,000 Watt FM station in the middle of town. Each and every time they are quickly slapped by the FCC and made to pay any legal fees incurred by people who were charged under those local laws.
I've read three of these proposed bills, and I'm just not sure what the true intent is. Having said that, if the aim is truly at radio problems, they'll all be slapped silly by the FCC.
No, it's not. It's not reasonable for GM to put an additive in a GM-brand gas, and have GM cars only run on that. It's not reasonable for Lexmark to force you to use lexmark-brand ink.
:)
Now, if they were to say that using 3rd-party ink violated the warranty, and detected that, so if you had a printer gunged up by a cheap knock-off ink they wouldn't replace it, then that's reasonable. But a blanket "you can't use it" isn't.
Actually your car analogy reminds me of an interesting point. It is illegal for vehicle manufacturers to require that you use only their replacable parts (I'm talking oil, filters, etc, not engines and whatnot). It is legal for them to void your warranty for using non OEM parts only if they provide them to you free of charge.
Wouldn't that be a hoot - you can tell me I can only use Lexmark cartridges, void my warranty if I don't, but you have to give them to me for free.
A lot of companies get to keep a portion of the taxes they collect from their customers.
:)
I don't know what planet you are from, but I have been collecting sales tax from customers, from several business, in several states, and I have never been able to keep one penny.
Just an aside to this point:
Back in my days as a contractor who was required to charge sales tax in Ohio, I got to keep 3/4th of 1% (.0075) or so of whatever sales tax I collected. The idea is to offset the cost maintaining records, collecting the payment from customers etc.
Say I've collected $10,000 in sales tax for this reporting period, at the end of the period, I fill out the paperwork (which includes a "discount" line), remit a check in the amount of $9,925 and keep $75 for myself. Given that my bill generator program automatically totalled sales tax and whatnot and produced reports on demand, my total expense involved for any given sales tax report was about 30 minutes (to print the report, fill out the forms, write a check, walk to the mailbox, etc), plus the cost of a stamp.
Hey, I'll work for Uncle Ohio for $150 an hour