Preventing death or great bodily harm is a valid legal reason to use deadly force... preventing loss of property is not. And yes, I know that there are a few jurisdictions (Texas, most notably) where it is legal to kill someone who is simply trying to steal from you, whether or not there is any evidence they are going to cause any bodily harm to anyone, but this is why I explicitly said "in general", because that is not actually the norm. A vast majority of robberies are of the "grab and dash" type... where an opportunistic robber happens to identify some property that is not adequately protected and is small enough for them to easily carry, makes a grab for it and tries to run away. If the robber has made no other threatening moves or otherwise suggested he would harm anyone if he was stopped, it is generally illegal to use lethal force to stop them.
This is why I said "in general".... Yes, I know you can do that in Texas, and of course, in all jurisdictions that I know of you *ARE* allowed to use lethal force against someone who is armed or you had reason to believe was armed, and there was some reasonable basis to conclude that they would cause harm to you if you did not surrender your property.
But if the person is not armed, or in particular has just tried to grab and trying to escape with some stolen property without ever actually threatening to harm anyone (which is a *HUGE* percentage of robberies), you are not allowed to use lethal force to stop them in most jurisdictions.
In general, deadly force may not be used to simply defend ones property, and can only be used to defend someone's life or safety. An unarmed thief who has grabbed a cash box right in front of the landlord and then tries to immediately run away is not a threat to one's life, and shooting him to stop him would be highly illegal.
Even if a bank account has $5, if one authorizes someone to do direct debits, they can suck out $1000.
In general, the banks will side with their own customers... at least in my experience. Having once been the victim of an online scam around 15 years ago, I was ultimately very happy with how quickly and efficiently my bank resolved the issue.
True enough.... Never happened, however. I think it's safe for me to say at this point that my roommate at the time was not the sort of person who would have done that any more than I am the sort of person who would do that to anyone else. Hypothetically speaking, if it had happened, I imagine I would have explained to the landlord what happened, given the landlord a money order, and moved out immediately, and chalked up the cost as a life lesson. However, I would not ever live with someone that I did not feel I could trust with my life, let alone my money, so the possibility of what you are describing had not even crossed my mind. Certainly with anyone that I do not know, I have always asked for a receipt if I am paying in cash.
Paypal cannot lock you out of accessing your own funds if Paypal does not actually have them. That is, money that you have received or has otherwise been transferred into your Paypal account is the only money that they can potentially block you from. If you routinely transfer money from Paypal to your bank account, and simply do not ever keep a large balance in your Paypal account, then the amount they could ever block you from accessing is minimal. One has to weigh for themselves the transaction fee costs of doing this with their overall level of comfort at simply keeping their money in their Paypal account. However, access to your main funds through banking or credit card access gives them no more ability to lock you out of accessing your funds than any other company that accepts electronic payments. As you said, Paypal is not a bank.
What if there is no debt, but simply an expression of desire to exchange goods or services? No debt has yet been incurred if a person has not received said goods or services, so the person who would otherwise get paid can refuse to accept it.
Does that mean that people and companies in that jurisdiction will be *required* to accept cash if a customer wants to pay that way? I have had landlords, for example, that plainly stated that they cannot accept cash for rent as a general rule because there would be too much of a high risk of theft. Both times that it happened to me, they allowed it the first time but told me that they wouldn't accept cash again in the future. I resolved it the first time by just paying my share of the rent to my roommate at the time in cash and letting him pay the landlord by cheque, and the second time it happened, at another place, I ended up just getting a chequing account. Still, I can understand a landlords concern on the matter. Enough cash being all in one place, and without having the levels of security around it that are typical for a bank might motivate someone to resort to (possibly armed) robbery who wouldn't otherwise bother because they might perceive (rightly or wrongly) they could get away with it.
That strikes me as having a potential to go horribly horribly wrong.
Your sentence is missing some context.... I never suggested that one would do anything in particular other than not care what they think.... and since they have no way to compel you to care, what are you thinking of that they supposedly not going to let you do, exactly?
There's a funny thing about belief.... you usually can't change people's minds if they already believe something, especially not just by telling them they are wrong.
If they are still willing to invest in your business that you are able to make successful because of that, who cares what they think? What they may believe about Open Source, after all, does not change what it actually is.
That may be true, but then they would openly have to admit as much to counter the point that I made. In light of the argument that I've presented, what counter could they possibly offer that they would actually have any confidence to take a public stance upon?
... then telling them about it isn't any more likely to convince them you are right. Clearly, those who would support encryption bans probably feel like there is any significant legal market for such technology is far outweighed by the extra efforts that law enforcement must go through because of it, or else they would not be suggesting a ban in the first place.
What I believe is more effective at convincing them is to point out that even if banning strong encryption genuinely made law enforcement's job easier in absolutely every way they expect it to, if law enforcement can read your confidential data, however benign they might claim to be, then potentially, so could someone else.... someone with less benevolent intentions, and law enforcement would actually be *further* burdened with the task of keeping those who are innocent protected from predatory criminals who would seek to exploit the now weaker security systems that everyone is supposed to use, as mandated by law. The net effect is that the law enforcement has *more* work to do... not less, and the general public's safety is weakened, not improved. The only ones that can possibly come out ahead in the game are those who break the law.
While I won't dispute that bitcoin might get used to obscure illegal activity, and I won't even argue that it may even most often be used for such purposes, it is clearly false to suggest that it is never used for anything that is actually entirely okay.
Don't blame the owners of a tool for the actions of those who might use that tool to harm others, no matter how prolific such use might appear to be. Down that same path lies the reasoning that some governments are using to try and block strong encryption entirely.
I'm suggesting that it would have made much more sense if they had made more explicit regulations that would leave toys and casual hobbyists that are not and have not ever posed any threats to anyone alone. For example, if they had said registration is only required for anything that flies more than a certain distance above the ground, or can be reasonably navigated while out of eyeshot of the operator, or possesses any autonomous flying capabilities beyond perhaps the ability to simply not immediately crash if connectivity to the controller does happen to get lost, or if the operator is not stationary, but is inside a moving vehicle themselves while controlling the UAV.
Such limitations would drastically reduce the opportunity for using UAV's in the socially irresponsible manner that has even prompted this kind of legislation, while also increasing the chance that given the proximity between it and the person controlling it who was complying with these requirements, the operator would thus be more easily identifiable.
So would that include children holding a model plane over their head and pretending it is flying under its own power? Technically, it's "tethered"... via the child's arm.
These restrictions are so outlandishly vague that they are absurd. At the very least, a minimum flying height should be mentioned, but it is nowhere to be found.
I have seen a childrens toy that has a tethered helicopter which cannot roam anywhere further than a couple of feet from the base of the tether Should those also be covered by the law?
The driver on his phone driving next to you is FAR more of a threat to more people than drones or terrorists are
Given that you are phrasing this in the present tense, and apparently a non-hypothetical sense, I imagine that the person who is reading your post at the same time while they also trying to drive is *FAR* more of a thread to more people than even a driver beside them who might be using the cell phone.
The use of strong encryption in no way implies that you are "guilty" of anything or have "done something wrong."
I didn't suggest that it did.
In the eyes of those who might believe that if one is doing nothing wrong they have nothing to hide (which is false, but there are still people who believe believe it), however, it might at the very least give them an incentive to more closely scrutinize that person's activities, at least moreso than the average person who follows the government status quo procedures.
But again, I do not ever mean to suggest that this should be an indication that one actually *has* done something wrong, only that there are people who may *believe* something wrong may be happening, and in the end, that belief will still influence what actions they take.
What I think is more interesting is that even *IF* the government could be trusted, it would still be a bad idea to give them unfettered access, because if they can read your confidential data, however benign they may claim their intentions to be, then so can somebody with less benevolent motivations. The net result is that instead of making things easier for law enforcement, it will actually made things harder because law enforcement would then be further burdened with trying to also protect those who are innocent from predatory criminals who are exploiting the weaker security that would be made mandatory.
Obviously if you don't trust the government in the first place, this is clearly a bad idea.... but it is interesting, I think, to note that even if the government *COULD* be trusted, it still works out to an overall bad idea, with a net negative benefit for absolutely everyone, both the people *AND* the government. The only ones who would really come out ahead are the ones who disregard the law.
The idea, I imagine they believe, is that when you have to go to suffficient lengths to keep your data confidential, you will actually draw even *more* attention in the process, and even if you are not guilty of anything in particular, may find yourself more heavily scrutinized by the powers that be than the average individual.
Of course it is.... if you "settle" it, then that action closes even the very possibility that further data might actually get discovered in the first place that would allow you to refine your scientific model to more accurately reflect reality. You've closed the book. You're done. If you are actually willing to revise your model later to reflect new data, then the matter isn't really settled at all. Of course, if you just gone and laid off everybody that would have even been able to provide any future data, then you're not likely to get any new data in the first place, and so you remain in ignorance.
The debate on climate change can be settled, but the science should *NEVER* be thought of as such.
Saying that the science is settled is not only saying that we know everything that we simply are able to know about something right now, it is also saying that there is nothing else that we ever even *CAN* learn about it.
Which is not true.
Not about climate change, not about gravity, which as you put it, is also "settled" science.
Slashdot Mirror
Preventing death or great bodily harm is a valid legal reason to use deadly force... preventing loss of property is not. And yes, I know that there are a few jurisdictions (Texas, most notably) where it is legal to kill someone who is simply trying to steal from you, whether or not there is any evidence they are going to cause any bodily harm to anyone, but this is why I explicitly said "in general", because that is not actually the norm. A vast majority of robberies are of the "grab and dash" type... where an opportunistic robber happens to identify some property that is not adequately protected and is small enough for them to easily carry, makes a grab for it and tries to run away. If the robber has made no other threatening moves or otherwise suggested he would harm anyone if he was stopped, it is generally illegal to use lethal force to stop them.
This is why I said "in general".... Yes, I know you can do that in Texas, and of course, in all jurisdictions that I know of you *ARE* allowed to use lethal force against someone who is armed or you had reason to believe was armed, and there was some reasonable basis to conclude that they would cause harm to you if you did not surrender your property.
But if the person is not armed, or in particular has just tried to grab and trying to escape with some stolen property without ever actually threatening to harm anyone (which is a *HUGE* percentage of robberies), you are not allowed to use lethal force to stop them in most jurisdictions.
In general, deadly force may not be used to simply defend ones property, and can only be used to defend someone's life or safety. An unarmed thief who has grabbed a cash box right in front of the landlord and then tries to immediately run away is not a threat to one's life, and shooting him to stop him would be highly illegal.
In general, the banks will side with their own customers... at least in my experience. Having once been the victim of an online scam around 15 years ago, I was ultimately very happy with how quickly and efficiently my bank resolved the issue.
True enough.... Never happened, however. I think it's safe for me to say at this point that my roommate at the time was not the sort of person who would have done that any more than I am the sort of person who would do that to anyone else. Hypothetically speaking, if it had happened, I imagine I would have explained to the landlord what happened, given the landlord a money order, and moved out immediately, and chalked up the cost as a life lesson. However, I would not ever live with someone that I did not feel I could trust with my life, let alone my money, so the possibility of what you are describing had not even crossed my mind. Certainly with anyone that I do not know, I have always asked for a receipt if I am paying in cash.
Paypal cannot lock you out of accessing your own funds if Paypal does not actually have them. That is, money that you have received or has otherwise been transferred into your Paypal account is the only money that they can potentially block you from. If you routinely transfer money from Paypal to your bank account, and simply do not ever keep a large balance in your Paypal account, then the amount they could ever block you from accessing is minimal. One has to weigh for themselves the transaction fee costs of doing this with their overall level of comfort at simply keeping their money in their Paypal account. However, access to your main funds through banking or credit card access gives them no more ability to lock you out of accessing your funds than any other company that accepts electronic payments. As you said, Paypal is not a bank.
What if there is no debt, but simply an expression of desire to exchange goods or services? No debt has yet been incurred if a person has not received said goods or services, so the person who would otherwise get paid can refuse to accept it.
Does that mean that people and companies in that jurisdiction will be *required* to accept cash if a customer wants to pay that way? I have had landlords, for example, that plainly stated that they cannot accept cash for rent as a general rule because there would be too much of a high risk of theft. Both times that it happened to me, they allowed it the first time but told me that they wouldn't accept cash again in the future. I resolved it the first time by just paying my share of the rent to my roommate at the time in cash and letting him pay the landlord by cheque, and the second time it happened, at another place, I ended up just getting a chequing account. Still, I can understand a landlords concern on the matter. Enough cash being all in one place, and without having the levels of security around it that are typical for a bank might motivate someone to resort to (possibly armed) robbery who wouldn't otherwise bother because they might perceive (rightly or wrongly) they could get away with it.
That strikes me as having a potential to go horribly horribly wrong.
Your sentence is missing some context.... I never suggested that one would do anything in particular other than not care what they think.... and since they have no way to compel you to care, what are you thinking of that they supposedly not going to let you do, exactly?
There's a funny thing about belief.... you usually can't change people's minds if they already believe something, especially not just by telling them they are wrong.
If they are still willing to invest in your business that you are able to make successful because of that, who cares what they think? What they may believe about Open Source, after all, does not change what it actually is.
That may be true, but then they would openly have to admit as much to counter the point that I made. In light of the argument that I've presented, what counter could they possibly offer that they would actually have any confidence to take a public stance upon?
That's the general idea.
What I believe is more effective at convincing them is to point out that even if banning strong encryption genuinely made law enforcement's job easier in absolutely every way they expect it to, if law enforcement can read your confidential data, however benign they might claim to be, then potentially, so could someone else.... someone with less benevolent intentions, and law enforcement would actually be *further* burdened with the task of keeping those who are innocent protected from predatory criminals who would seek to exploit the now weaker security systems that everyone is supposed to use, as mandated by law. The net effect is that the law enforcement has *more* work to do... not less, and the general public's safety is weakened, not improved. The only ones that can possibly come out ahead in the game are those who break the law.
While I won't dispute that bitcoin might get used to obscure illegal activity, and I won't even argue that it may even most often be used for such purposes, it is clearly false to suggest that it is never used for anything that is actually entirely okay.
Don't blame the owners of a tool for the actions of those who might use that tool to harm others, no matter how prolific such use might appear to be. Down that same path lies the reasoning that some governments are using to try and block strong encryption entirely.
Such limitations would drastically reduce the opportunity for using UAV's in the socially irresponsible manner that has even prompted this kind of legislation, while also increasing the chance that given the proximity between it and the person controlling it who was complying with these requirements, the operator would thus be more easily identifiable.
Out of curiosity I clicked on the tag, and two thirds of the other stories that showed up were also about SCO.
So maybe this isn't over after all.
So would that include children holding a model plane over their head and pretending it is flying under its own power? Technically, it's "tethered"... via the child's arm.
These restrictions are so outlandishly vague that they are absurd. At the very least, a minimum flying height should be mentioned, but it is nowhere to be found.
I have seen a childrens toy that has a tethered helicopter which cannot roam anywhere further than a couple of feet from the base of the tether Should those also be covered by the law?
Given that you are phrasing this in the present tense, and apparently a non-hypothetical sense, I imagine that the person who is reading your post at the same time while they also trying to drive is *FAR* more of a thread to more people than even a driver beside them who might be using the cell phone.
Which generally nullifies any contract anyways, at least for the duration of the incident.
I didn't suggest that it did.
In the eyes of those who might believe that if one is doing nothing wrong they have nothing to hide (which is false, but there are still people who believe believe it), however, it might at the very least give them an incentive to more closely scrutinize that person's activities, at least moreso than the average person who follows the government status quo procedures.
But again, I do not ever mean to suggest that this should be an indication that one actually *has* done something wrong, only that there are people who may *believe* something wrong may be happening, and in the end, that belief will still influence what actions they take.
What I think is more interesting is that even *IF* the government could be trusted, it would still be a bad idea to give them unfettered access, because if they can read your confidential data, however benign they may claim their intentions to be, then so can somebody with less benevolent motivations. The net result is that instead of making things easier for law enforcement, it will actually made things harder because law enforcement would then be further burdened with trying to also protect those who are innocent from predatory criminals who are exploiting the weaker security that would be made mandatory.
Obviously if you don't trust the government in the first place, this is clearly a bad idea.... but it is interesting, I think, to note that even if the government *COULD* be trusted, it still works out to an overall bad idea, with a net negative benefit for absolutely everyone, both the people *AND* the government. The only ones who would really come out ahead are the ones who disregard the law.
The idea, I imagine they believe, is that when you have to go to suffficient lengths to keep your data confidential, you will actually draw even *more* attention in the process, and even if you are not guilty of anything in particular, may find yourself more heavily scrutinized by the powers that be than the average individual.
Of course it is.... if you "settle" it, then that action closes even the very possibility that further data might actually get discovered in the first place that would allow you to refine your scientific model to more accurately reflect reality. You've closed the book. You're done. If you are actually willing to revise your model later to reflect new data, then the matter isn't really settled at all. Of course, if you just gone and laid off everybody that would have even been able to provide any future data, then you're not likely to get any new data in the first place, and so you remain in ignorance.
The debate on climate change can be settled, but the science should *NEVER* be thought of as such.
Saying that the science is settled is not only saying that we know everything that we simply are able to know about something right now, it is also saying that there is nothing else that we ever even *CAN* learn about it.
Which is not true.
Not about climate change, not about gravity, which as you put it, is also "settled" science.