On the AT&T article is a link to the cable theft site. This is a wonderful location, where you are encouraged to (anonmously) rat on your friends and neighbors for stealing cable. Just for fun, I suggest you stop by this site and enter the name and address of your local govener, mayor, or other upstanding citizen.
These "rat on your neighbors" programs (Business Software Alliance in particular, but the principle is general) REALLY get on my nerves. Guilty if accused is a BADLY broken policy and needs to be driven home to everyone.
Okay... I'll flame away. The constant, repeated posting of duplicate stories, often within a day or so of each other demonstrates an unbelievably poor level of editorial oversight. I propose that/. editors lose editorial privilages for 24 hours after each such obvious gaff.
I use TortiseCVS, and it's wonderful. I'd even be willing to donate a small amount of money to help support the maintainer if that's necessary to attract one, but knowing the general practice on that grounds I do NOT recommend that you try to collect donations and pay someone... true volunteers are your only hope. With something of the quality of TortiseCVS, there's got to be SOMEBODY out there who wants the fame...
> Not everyone watched or even *could* watch Enterprise tonight.
Yep, that's me. I was called away suddenly for a family engagement and didn't even get a chance to set up my VCR. Is there any good soul out there who taped it and might be willing to dub me a copy or loan me yours briefly? Write to mike.chermside@destiny.com if you can help me!
Well *I* personally have made significant contributions to the EFF who have used them to fund legal battles in this and related arenas. So if you haven't AT LEAST done that much, get started now!
Please folks, remember this the next time/. posts some story about a violation of the GPL liscense.
Give them a chance, after it's been pointed out, to resolve things peacefully.
Of course, I wouldn't propose that we allow violations of open source liscenses to continue unchecked, just that the opportunity for good faith resolutions be allowed before crying "Boycott!".
> What, it's only censorship if the government is doing it?
Precisely.
Well, almost. Censorship can be practiced by any monopoly (the government has a monopoly on governing). So, for instance, if Microsoft were to include an ELUA with their OS that said you can't use an internet connection to disseminate info that criticizes M$, then that'd be censorship. But it is nearly always practiced by the government.
So if the government told radio stations to stop playing certain songs, then that's censorship. If the stations themselves decide not to play them then it's free speech! (Which includes the right NOT to say things that you don't want to!) The only exception would be if one company had what was effectively a monopoly on radio transmissions (I don't know... maybe 80% market share?). ClearChannel may come close, but they're not there yet.
-- Michael Chermside
Re:Who is behind Parrot?
on
Parrot: For Real
·
· Score: 3, Funny
It's likely to be the result of mis-use of Guido's time machine.
As per the EFF Request, here's the email that I sent. Why don't you join in too? The EFF site even has a form letter you can send!
TO: karen_siegel@aol.uscourts.gov
Dear Ms. Siegel and members of the Judicial Conference:
Please forward my comments on this matter to all members of the Judicial Conference.
I am writing to express my concern about the current proposals before the conference dealing with the monitoring of judicial employee communications.
Openness and privacy play vital roles in a great deal of court business. For instance, if the testimony used to convict an individual were to be kept secret it would undermine both the appearance of justice and the actual fact of justice (RARE special exceptions involving issues such as national security notwithstanding). If a judge were to hold lengthy, substantive conversations with a plaintiff's attorney without involving or permitting any counter by the defense, it would be unfair and unjust.
On the other side, if a defendant's privileged discussions with their lawyer, or between two attorneys on a defense team were to be published in the newspaper, it would undermine the court process. If the comments made by jurors during jury deliberations were available to the public, many a decision would be questioned or even thrown out.
I hope no more arguments are needed to substantiate my point that the decisions of what part of the legal process should be public and what should be private are vital ones which lie at the heart of the just functioning of our entire legal system. Over thousands of years we have developed a code for addressing these issues, and it has NOT included pervasive monitoring of judges and judicial staff, which might, or might not, become part of the public record. Even if it did not, the behavior of that staff, in their selection of what kinds of information to seek out would certainly be influenced. I think that to introduce such monitoring is unwise, but I am CERTAIN that to introduce it suddenly, without EXTENSIVE deliberation and consideration of its effects on the entire judicial system would be dangerous.
In addition to this main point, I would like to mention two other reasons why I believe that this proposed policy is misguided. One is that there is little evidence to indicate that monitoring is needed. Judge Kozinski's article in the Wall Street Journal (with which I am sure you are familiar) expresses this point quite effectively. And lastly, I feel that this is a terrible precedent to set for all workplaces. If the employees of our judicial system cannot be trusted to perform their jobs without pervasive, "Big Brother" style monitoring, then WHO CAN? And if they cannot be trusted without such monitoring, then how can they be trusted with the much more delicate and vital job of rendering justice?
I urge you to consider these issues in your decision. I would be willing to testify or to discuss such issues at further length if you feel it would be helpful, please contact me if you feel this would be desirable.
Sincerely,
Michael B Chermside
xxxx xxxxx xxxxx Ave
Chicago IL 60660
Phone: xxx-xxx-xxxx
On the other hand, I have to point out that the OBVIOUS solution is to start charging by bandwidth. While I'd probably pay LESS that way, I still wouldn't want it... it would force me to be worrying all the time "am I downloading something here that's too big? Will I be billed for this?". I'd rather pay a little extra for the convenience of the flat fee.
But as you point out, this decouples the fees from the actual costs, which makes the economics somewhat unbalanced, and the only way to balance them is to introduce arbitrary restrictions.
Yes, but he gave a talk and explained out it works in the US.. that is illegal (currently) in the US. I don't think it's right, but it's the law.. That's like saying that in some other country where it's legal to shoot somebody that they should be exempt when they come here and do the same thing. You follow the laws of the land that you're in, and he broke the law here, while he was here. The law is stupid, yes, but jurisdiction is not an issue in this case.
There is some debate on that point. I personally believe that the DMCA *does* make it illegal to give a talk about encyrption techniques (because the information imparted in such a talk would be useful in defeating security measures). In fact, this is one reason why I believe the the DMCA is bad law.
But the FBI does *NOT* agree with me on this point... they apparently do NOT feel that giving a talk is sufficient grounds to prosecute Dmitry. That is why the criminal complaint they filed does NOT complain at all about his having given the talk, but only about his having worked for Elcomsoft software, and being "listed on the Elcomsoft software products as the copyright holder of the program".
So the only actions he is being prosecuted for took place on Russian soil.
While I agree it would make a great test case, there's more than one kind of precedent. Setting a LEGAL precedent using a test case is a great idea (and the EFF is working on it already, with a really perfect case!), but I'd ALSO like to set the precedent that big companies get HURT when they try this kind of stuff, and that their best bet is to back off quickly.
I have some experience with this, since I used to teach computer
classes on the middle school level in my former life as an
(underpaid) teacher. I'll give you some of what I found, and if
you'd like, I encourage you to email me, and I'll send you my
phone number -- I'd love to discuss it.
First of all, let me compliment you for making the effort. You'll
find that much off the hard part has been done already. The kids
(well, not all of them, but a surprisingly large number) will be
very interested, right from the get-go. Part of this is because
they find computers to be "fun". Another piece is that our
society makes so many jokes about how kids know so much more about
computers than their parents, that many of the kids come to
believe it (though it's probably not true). They feel like this
stuff is fun, easy, and that it's their birthright.
Your job, (as I see it) is to encourage this. At the
elementary or middle-school level, you want to be building up
their confidence, showing them how powerful these tools can be,
and encouraging them to branch out on their own. Actual "teaching"
of particular topics comes in a distant second. Actual teaching
of programming comes a distant 5th place, after things
like word-processing. But focus on teaching "computers" (whatever
that is!) and you'll do just fine.
[NOTE: I'm sure some/. readers will disagree. I, too, remember
learning LOGO in elementary school. It was a great exercise, and
fun too. But I'd have learned programming without it. There's time
enough for that later.]
So, now for something practical. I'm proposing that you make
"computers" fun... what kinds of things do kids this age
find "fun"? Well, I tried a WIDE variety of different things when
I taught it (I too was given wide latitude with the curriculum.
After all, I was the department head -- who was to complain!;-).
Holding discussion (I didn't even TRY lecture!) on computer-related
topics was decently received, but wouldn't hold their attention
for more than a few minutes. (Really... not more than 3-8 minutes.)
Doing word-processing tasks was actually slightly MORE interesting,
but not much.
Working our way up the ladder of success, I found that going onto
the internet to look for things or look at particular sites, was
considered fun, but it never struck me as being particularly
effective. Also, when I tried this I encountered a small amount of
resistance from school officials and parents. But the main problem
was that this was a private school, and the kids just didn't find
logging on and browsing the net to be anything special... they did
it every day at home. You may find this one more successful with
your students... but maybe not, I'll bet most of the class knows
SOMEONE with a net connection (perhaps a pittifully slow one, but
it's there). I also tried teaching the kids to author their own
web pages. A few simple HTML tags is all they need, and they can
experient on their own after that. They really enjoyed linking
their pages to each others (this is ESPECIALLY strong among Middle
School students, since that's the age when they first begin
exploring certain kinds of interpersonal relationships with their
peers), and a few made pretty interesting sites, but it was only
a moderate success.
What REALLY worked for me was when I tried creative media. Getting
a really good paint/draw program and simply turning them loose was
an INCREDIBLE success. Everyone loved it, (especially playing with
digital photos of each other which we took), they did a good job,
and they were clearly learning something in the process. One person
would discover the commmand for doing a "smear", and would use it.
Then a friend would ask "How'd you do THAT?", and be shown. Pretty
soon, EVERYONE was playing with the smear tool. Once I saw how
well that pattern worked, I started taking one or two kids aside
individually and "seeding" them by showing them a new technique,
which would shortly get passed around the room.
I had similar success with some of the EXCELLENT multimedia learning
tools that were available. Things like Amazon Trails Adventure, from
MECC (cheaper),
or ANYTHING AT ALL from Tom
Snyder. The kids loved it, and it was particularly easy to
use, since most come with pre-designed grade-specific exercises.
The better ones even come
with instructions on how to use them when there are far more
students than computers.
But by far my greatest success came with just one program
-- HyperStudio. This is
a multimedia authoring program... the students could make THEIR OWN
multi-media "presentations". And it's easy enough for middle-school
(even smart elementry school) kids to actually work with it. Every
single kid in my class enjoyed working with that, and they worked
HARD, because they liked what they were doing. When they had
finished, several students had created presentations that were
amazingly good, and one student had created something which I
doubt I myself could have equaled (but he was an amazing kid).
Well, enough of the examples. By now you probably get the gist of
my suggestions... make it FUN. And try to think on the level of
what a young kid would enjoy, not the average/. reader. Good
luck, and thanks for contributing to make this a better world
for all of us.
-- Michael Chermside
PS: I meant it about emailing me if you're interested.
Well, it's hardly fair to expect him to make this effort every time a big decision is issued, with no compensation whatsoever. But hey, let's try it! Dan, you're hereby invited to write reviews on future legal topics... if the quality in any way approaches that of this response, then we here in the/. community will have to find a way to pay you for your time (assuming your employer allows that!).
I, for one, will certainly contribute. (And you can send me email to remind me that I offered...)
Slashdot Mirror
These "rat on your neighbors" programs (Business Software Alliance in particular, but the principle is general) REALLY get on my nerves. Guilty if accused is a BADLY broken policy and needs to be driven home to everyone.
Oh, to be able to spent 4 mod points on this one!
What's the number?
Okay... I'll flame away. The constant, repeated posting of duplicate stories, often within a day or so of each other demonstrates an unbelievably poor level of editorial oversight. I propose that /. editors lose editorial privilages for 24 hours after each such obvious gaff.
Hear hear!
I use TortiseCVS, and it's wonderful. I'd even be willing to donate a small amount of money to help support the maintainer if that's necessary to attract one, but knowing the general practice on that grounds I do NOT recommend that you try to collect donations and pay someone... true volunteers are your only hope. With something of the quality of TortiseCVS, there's got to be SOMEBODY out there who wants the fame...
Did you consider discussing it with them instead? After all, that was the point of this article: strengthening community ties.
I do this. I assume it works well... I'm not certain because I'm careful about viruses and worms and haven't lost (the original copy of) my data yet.
I think I'm going to patent ignorable threads!
> Not everyone watched or even *could* watch Enterprise tonight.
Yep, that's me. I was called away suddenly for a family engagement and didn't even get a chance to set up my VCR. Is there any good soul out there who taped it and might be willing to dub me a copy or loan me yours briefly? Write to mike.chermside@destiny.com if you can help me!
-- Michael Chermside
Well *I* personally have made significant contributions to the EFF who have used them to fund legal battles in this and related arenas. So if you haven't AT LEAST done that much, get started now!
Of course, I wouldn't propose that we allow violations of open source liscenses to continue unchecked, just that the opportunity for good faith resolutions be allowed before crying "Boycott!".
> What, it's only censorship if the government is doing it?
Precisely.
Well, almost. Censorship can be practiced by any monopoly (the government has a monopoly on governing). So, for instance, if Microsoft were to include an ELUA with their OS that said you can't use an internet connection to disseminate info that criticizes M$, then that'd be censorship. But it is nearly always practiced by the government.
So if the government told radio stations to stop playing certain songs, then that's censorship. If the stations themselves decide not to play them then it's free speech! (Which includes the right NOT to say things that you don't want to!) The only exception would be if one company had what was effectively a monopoly on radio transmissions (I don't know... maybe 80% market share?). ClearChannel may come close, but they're not there yet.
-- Michael Chermside
It's likely to be the result of mis-use of Guido's time machine.
TO: karen_siegel@aol.uscourts.gov
Dear Ms. Siegel and members of the Judicial Conference:
Please forward my comments on this matter to all members of the Judicial Conference.
I am writing to express my concern about the current proposals before the conference dealing with the monitoring of judicial employee communications.
Openness and privacy play vital roles in a great deal of court business. For instance, if the testimony used to convict an individual were to be kept secret it would undermine both the appearance of justice and the actual fact of justice (RARE special exceptions involving issues such as national security notwithstanding). If a judge were to hold lengthy, substantive conversations with a plaintiff's attorney without involving or permitting any counter by the defense, it would be unfair and unjust.
On the other side, if a defendant's privileged discussions with their lawyer, or between two attorneys on a defense team were to be published in the newspaper, it would undermine the court process. If the comments made by jurors during jury deliberations were available to the public, many a decision would be questioned or even thrown out.
I hope no more arguments are needed to substantiate my point that the decisions of what part of the legal process should be public and what should be private are vital ones which lie at the heart of the just functioning of our entire legal system. Over thousands of years we have developed a code for addressing these issues, and it has NOT included pervasive monitoring of judges and judicial staff, which might, or might not, become part of the public record. Even if it did not, the behavior of that staff, in their selection of what kinds of information to seek out would certainly be influenced. I think that to introduce such monitoring is unwise, but I am CERTAIN that to introduce it suddenly, without EXTENSIVE deliberation and consideration of its effects on the entire judicial system would be dangerous.
In addition to this main point, I would like to mention two other reasons why I believe that this proposed policy is misguided. One is that there is little evidence to indicate that monitoring is needed. Judge Kozinski's article in the Wall Street Journal (with which I am sure you are familiar) expresses this point quite effectively. And lastly, I feel that this is a terrible precedent to set for all workplaces. If the employees of our judicial system cannot be trusted to perform their jobs without pervasive, "Big Brother" style monitoring, then WHO CAN? And if they cannot be trusted without such monitoring, then how can they be trusted with the much more delicate and vital job of rendering justice?
I urge you to consider these issues in your decision. I would be willing to testify or to discuss such issues at further length if you feel it would be helpful, please contact me if you feel this would be desirable.
Sincerely,
Michael B Chermside
xxxx xxxxx xxxxx Ave
Chicago IL 60660
Phone: xxx-xxx-xxxx
Somebody please mod this one up, before the "parasitic" term sticks!
On the other hand, I have to point out that the OBVIOUS solution is to start charging by bandwidth. While I'd probably pay LESS that way, I still wouldn't want it... it would force me to be worrying all the time "am I downloading something here that's too big? Will I be billed for this?". I'd rather pay a little extra for the convenience of the flat fee.
But as you point out, this decouples the fees from the actual costs, which makes the economics somewhat unbalanced, and the only way to balance them is to introduce arbitrary restrictions.
And NT doesn't require a reboot either *if* you get a recent service pack. I've been doing it that way for a year.
It's a cool service. Offered free, but I recomend you pay for it... doesn't cost much and it's such a great service.
There is some debate on that point. I personally believe that the DMCA *does* make it illegal to give a talk about encyrption techniques (because the information imparted in such a talk would be useful in defeating security measures). In fact, this is one reason why I believe the the DMCA is bad law.
But the FBI does *NOT* agree with me on this point... they apparently do NOT feel that giving a talk is sufficient grounds to prosecute Dmitry. That is why the criminal complaint they filed does NOT complain at all about his having given the talk, but only about his having worked for Elcomsoft software, and being "listed on the Elcomsoft software products as the copyright holder of the program".
So the only actions he is being prosecuted for took place on Russian soil.
While I agree it would make a great test case, there's more than one kind of precedent. Setting a LEGAL precedent using a test case is a great idea (and the EFF is working on it already, with a really perfect case!), but I'd ALSO like to set the precedent that big companies get HURT when they try this kind of stuff, and that their best bet is to back off quickly.
Hurray! Good job, EFF. Now we just need to carry through.
Try this comment from the previous article.
First of all, let me compliment you for making the effort. You'll find that much off the hard part has been done already. The kids (well, not all of them, but a surprisingly large number) will be very interested, right from the get-go. Part of this is because they find computers to be "fun". Another piece is that our society makes so many jokes about how kids know so much more about computers than their parents, that many of the kids come to believe it (though it's probably not true). They feel like this stuff is fun, easy, and that it's their birthright.
Your job, (as I see it) is to encourage this. At the elementary or middle-school level, you want to be building up their confidence, showing them how powerful these tools can be, and encouraging them to branch out on their own. Actual "teaching" of particular topics comes in a distant second. Actual teaching of programming comes a distant 5th place, after things like word-processing. But focus on teaching "computers" (whatever that is!) and you'll do just fine.
[NOTE: I'm sure some /. readers will disagree. I, too, remember
learning LOGO in elementary school. It was a great exercise, and
fun too. But I'd have learned programming without it. There's time
enough for that later.]
So, now for something practical. I'm proposing that you make "computers" fun... what kinds of things do kids this age find "fun"? Well, I tried a WIDE variety of different things when I taught it (I too was given wide latitude with the curriculum. After all, I was the department head -- who was to complain! ;-).
Holding discussion (I didn't even TRY lecture!) on computer-related
topics was decently received, but wouldn't hold their attention
for more than a few minutes. (Really... not more than 3-8 minutes.)
Doing word-processing tasks was actually slightly MORE interesting,
but not much.
Working our way up the ladder of success, I found that going onto the internet to look for things or look at particular sites, was considered fun, but it never struck me as being particularly effective. Also, when I tried this I encountered a small amount of resistance from school officials and parents. But the main problem was that this was a private school, and the kids just didn't find logging on and browsing the net to be anything special... they did it every day at home. You may find this one more successful with your students... but maybe not, I'll bet most of the class knows SOMEONE with a net connection (perhaps a pittifully slow one, but it's there). I also tried teaching the kids to author their own web pages. A few simple HTML tags is all they need, and they can experient on their own after that. They really enjoyed linking their pages to each others (this is ESPECIALLY strong among Middle School students, since that's the age when they first begin exploring certain kinds of interpersonal relationships with their peers), and a few made pretty interesting sites, but it was only a moderate success.
What REALLY worked for me was when I tried creative media. Getting a really good paint/draw program and simply turning them loose was an INCREDIBLE success. Everyone loved it, (especially playing with digital photos of each other which we took), they did a good job, and they were clearly learning something in the process. One person would discover the commmand for doing a "smear", and would use it. Then a friend would ask "How'd you do THAT?", and be shown. Pretty soon, EVERYONE was playing with the smear tool. Once I saw how well that pattern worked, I started taking one or two kids aside individually and "seeding" them by showing them a new technique, which would shortly get passed around the room.
I had similar success with some of the EXCELLENT multimedia learning tools that were available. Things like Amazon Trails Adventure, from MECC (cheaper), or ANYTHING AT ALL from Tom Snyder. The kids loved it, and it was particularly easy to use, since most come with pre-designed grade-specific exercises. The better ones even come with instructions on how to use them when there are far more students than computers.
But by far my greatest success came with just one program -- HyperStudio. This is a multimedia authoring program... the students could make THEIR OWN multi-media "presentations". And it's easy enough for middle-school (even smart elementry school) kids to actually work with it. Every single kid in my class enjoyed working with that, and they worked HARD, because they liked what they were doing. When they had finished, several students had created presentations that were amazingly good, and one student had created something which I doubt I myself could have equaled (but he was an amazing kid).
Well, enough of the examples. By now you probably get the gist of my suggestions... make it FUN. And try to think on the level of what a young kid would enjoy, not the average /. reader. Good
luck, and thanks for contributing to make this a better world
for all of us.
-- Michael Chermside
PS: I meant it about emailing me if you're interested.
I, for one, will certainly contribute. (And you can send me email to remind me that I offered...)
-- Michael Chermside
-- Michael Chermside