That's true, so long as all the staff inside the company, like the IT guys and off-site storage company managers are willing to put their liberty at risk for no reason by covering up all traces of these emails from their internal systems, so as prevent a legitimate legal inquiry from discovering the same information in a way that would be admissible in a court of law.
Look, once the cat is out of the bag, it's very very hard for someone to say "I did not write that email" b/c then if the court can find that in fact they did write the email, they're going down for perjury, even if they get off on the original offense. I suspect most defense lawyers at the caliber that will be involved are not going to dispute the emails' authenticity if they are authentic, they will fight this on other grounds.
So disclosure of these emails is almost certainly going to allow the public and press to understand who did what and when, and it will force the hand of both prosecutors and defense attorneys, as well as investigators. My opinion is that this will be a good thing, in exactly the same way that Deep Throat was a good thing, in terms of bringing down Nixon and exposing his illegal behavior. Without that public disclosure, almost certainly nothing like Nixon's resignation would have occurred: he was too powerful. Murdoch's empire is *somewhat* comparable in terms of how far out of reach of normal legal processes this organization is.
Maybe. I do think that in a technical sense you're totally right. But in a political sense, releasing these emails is perhaps more akin to releasing the state dept cables. This release is going to change the way the police and politicians are able to cover this whole thing up. It's going to open the door on far more scrutiny from "legitimate press and blog" investigators, who may be able to hold wrongdoers in the emails to account publicly and therefore eventually legally.
Hacking celebrities and royal family members to sell papers is somewhat different to releasing the Pentagon papers, state dept cables or these emails, I think. Even though the technical crime part might be the same..
I read an interesting blog years ago about the difference between a game and a toy. A game, as you suggest is goal-oriented with rules and often scores. A toy is open ended which can be applied towards one or more games or can be used for other purposes altogether which are still "fun." I think by that logic minecraft is a toy.. If you're looking for a pre-built game, it's probably not right for you.
No, you actually can't be tracked via this system from your email service provider. That was the point of this.
The system works like this: your browser gets a signed crypto certificate from your email provider (or some other proxy who can confirm you own the email address you claim to own - Mozilla is running their own email verifier already - called "auth party" or AP). Your browser resigns that cert locally and hands that over to the login website ("relying party" or RP). The RP then only has to check the public key on the cert back to the AP. So all the AP knows is that RP checked the public key - they don't know for which user the key was checked.
Now your browser can track/follow/deny/fuck you, but that's not changed. What has changed is that the email provider doesn't get to follow your login behavior as they do today with OpenID and OAUTH..
This is a major improvement in tracking prevention, especially for the limiting your privacy spillage to AP's..
As best I can make out, this is about making a shorter line for frequent travelers. I seriously doubt this is going to change the bag/person screening part of the procedure. (Not that the current screening isn't just security theater, but I don't think they're going to change it).
It's an interesting example of exactly the OP's point: that low barriers to entry and ease of adoption and growth make OSS an attractive strategy for lots of work.
I'm not trying to draw a line, I was trying to explain why some things are personally hurtful, which goes beyond just plain old offensive. I'm not saying we should ban the "pantyshot" application (or force a rename, which has happened already) or anything else. Just trying to point out that for some folks who have had a pantyshot of themselves shared out to large numbers of people, it's a big bummer. It's not rape, it's not murder, but it is humiliating.
I do see your point though b/c some cocaine addicts would probably get hurt/humiliated by some of the cocaine themed projects you propose.. So I totally agree that if you were to draw a line, it would be really wavy, and probably useless.
But that doesn't mean we can't agitate against dumbasses doing dumbass things. Call it political correctness if you want, I'll just call it politics (everyone can do what they want, but beyond law there are social pressures which can be brought to bear to encourage people to change their behavior).
While there is a lot of nonsense on/. I do find that there is a remarkable amount of good information if you filter for it. Which is why I'm still here (and you too apparently).
Well, the woman who was running the project that got sideswiped by this naming issue has now said she is leaving "open source" b/c of the experience. Seems like if you're going to ask about the impact of "what's in a name?" there's a good place to start.
I think a better naming analogy than the ones you provide for this project might be something related to violence not to theft. Project "Soldier murder" or Project "Cop killer" are (much) more extreme than Project "Pantyshot," but suggest what I'm getting at (maybe project "Beat your grandmother" gets closer?). One could of course argue that an illicit pantyshot is just stealing a photo, but I'd suggest that this argument misses the point of the issue (for many of the people it happens to).
(My main source of evidence is from some volunteer work I did at a rape crisis NGO.)
Just normal software. I think the GP was saying, "Hey this project isn't named 'child rape' it's just named 'pantyshot'" and I was saying that this name is also pretty offensive to many and the act to which the word refers is generally illegal as well (which maybe moves it beyond the "just offensive" category).
On the other hand, in parts of the Federal gov't the outsource support contracts say that users are entitled for support on versions "no less than one version behind the latest version." This genius clause gives us support for Vista where I work, but we can't upgrade to Win7 (tho when Win8 comes up we can jump to that and then sit there until Win10 - awesome idea huh?). Anyway, if companies change their version schemes, like this, it means we'll get newer software sooner. Bizarre, but nevertheless, offers me a little bene.
Exactly! Wow, I'm deep into the comments before anyone has started talking sense! The whole article is about the legal issue as to whether or not the courts can compel you to reveal your password. The courts cannot force you to testify at your own trial, and the question here is whether disclosing your password is tantamount to testimony (IANAL).
Taking a picture of someone's undies without permission, as almost all "upskirt" is, certainly isn't at the level of child rape, but it's illegal and offensive to a lot of people..
It would be nice if text-based PDF's interacted with my browser the same way text-based HTML does. So find, save as and other functions would be browser native rather than the kooky half-breed we have today (with pdf reader stuffed into a browser tab for some docs and mysteriously for other pdf docs a new pop up window with native pdf reader).
This is the best/. summary I've ever read. However I come down on the issue itself, I just wanted to say that kudos for/. for posting a thoughtful and detailed discussion, instead of the usual trollop of innuendo, non-authoritative articles, general flamebait and slashvertising.
Hey fellas, more of this kind of article/issue summary please!
Isn't that only an issue for people who don't know how to format their documents properly? I believe the Office alternatives experience the same issues too with improper formatting.
I agree with OP on this one -- MS Word lists are busted and have been for a decade. They don't work right. HTML lists work better, and that's a really low bar. If I create a blank doc from the stock normal template, the indent, spacing and numbering features don't work in the way I expect most people who use numbered lists expect them to. They certainly don't work the way I expect them to, and apparently OP too.
I don't think this is an issue with improper format, this is an issue that their numbering list system is tied to backward compatibility or something, and doesn't work intuitively, consistently or well.
It is missing features from the old menu system. There's stuff I can do in the old version that I simply can't find the equivalent in the ribbon. I know the option still exists, b/c I use this tool: http://www.ubit.ch/software/ubitmenu-languages/
It adds in some of the deeper menu features back in via the old menus. That's the only way I know to access some more obscure features in the newer versions of Word.. It's weird that there are features in Word now that apparently have no UI access - but it appears to me at least that this is the case.
It adds a ribbon element which is basically all the 2003 version menus. I have no idea why MS doesn't provide this as an option out of the box.. The ribbon is better for some stuff but there's just way too much that isn't exposed *at all* by the ribbon, and having this menu system lets me get to them via the menus I already know..
Every time I talk with MS about Sharepoint, they say "Oh that last version, just between us, was kind of a nightmare, but this version has all that stuff totally fixed up." I've been hearing this line with every new version since ~2004.
Slashdot Mirror
That's true, so long as all the staff inside the company, like the IT guys and off-site storage company managers are willing to put their liberty at risk for no reason by covering up all traces of these emails from their internal systems, so as prevent a legitimate legal inquiry from discovering the same information in a way that would be admissible in a court of law.
Look, once the cat is out of the bag, it's very very hard for someone to say "I did not write that email" b/c then if the court can find that in fact they did write the email, they're going down for perjury, even if they get off on the original offense. I suspect most defense lawyers at the caliber that will be involved are not going to dispute the emails' authenticity if they are authentic, they will fight this on other grounds.
So disclosure of these emails is almost certainly going to allow the public and press to understand who did what and when, and it will force the hand of both prosecutors and defense attorneys, as well as investigators. My opinion is that this will be a good thing, in exactly the same way that Deep Throat was a good thing, in terms of bringing down Nixon and exposing his illegal behavior. Without that public disclosure, almost certainly nothing like Nixon's resignation would have occurred: he was too powerful. Murdoch's empire is *somewhat* comparable in terms of how far out of reach of normal legal processes this organization is.
I could not thought of a better way to make that point. Well said.
Maybe. I do think that in a technical sense you're totally right. But in a political sense, releasing these emails is perhaps more akin to releasing the state dept cables. This release is going to change the way the police and politicians are able to cover this whole thing up. It's going to open the door on far more scrutiny from "legitimate press and blog" investigators, who may be able to hold wrongdoers in the emails to account publicly and therefore eventually legally.
Hacking celebrities and royal family members to sell papers is somewhat different to releasing the Pentagon papers, state dept cables or these emails, I think. Even though the technical crime part might be the same..
I read an interesting blog years ago about the difference between a game and a toy. A game, as you suggest is goal-oriented with rules and often scores. A toy is open ended which can be applied towards one or more games or can be used for other purposes altogether which are still "fun." I think by that logic minecraft is a toy.. If you're looking for a pre-built game, it's probably not right for you.
No, you actually can't be tracked via this system from your email service provider. That was the point of this.
The system works like this: your browser gets a signed crypto certificate from your email provider (or some other proxy who can confirm you own the email address you claim to own - Mozilla is running their own email verifier already - called "auth party" or AP). Your browser resigns that cert locally and hands that over to the login website ("relying party" or RP). The RP then only has to check the public key on the cert back to the AP. So all the AP knows is that RP checked the public key - they don't know for which user the key was checked.
Now your browser can track/follow/deny/fuck you, but that's not changed. What has changed is that the email provider doesn't get to follow your login behavior as they do today with OpenID and OAUTH..
This is a major improvement in tracking prevention, especially for the limiting your privacy spillage to AP's..
As best I can make out, this is about making a shorter line for frequent travelers. I seriously doubt this is going to change the bag/person screening part of the procedure. (Not that the current screening isn't just security theater, but I don't think they're going to change it).
GWB was not president in 1996. Maybe you mean 2006?
Here's a federal research project utilizing open source including CouchDb: http://www.couchbase.com/case-studies/learningregistry
www.learningregistry.org
It's an interesting example of exactly the OP's point: that low barriers to entry and ease of adoption and growth make OSS an attractive strategy for lots of work.
If he's a troll ignore him. If he's not a troll, post a reasoned rebuttal. Your post is a horrible middle ground, IMO.
I'm not trying to draw a line, I was trying to explain why some things are personally hurtful, which goes beyond just plain old offensive. I'm not saying we should ban the "pantyshot" application (or force a rename, which has happened already) or anything else. Just trying to point out that for some folks who have had a pantyshot of themselves shared out to large numbers of people, it's a big bummer. It's not rape, it's not murder, but it is humiliating.
I do see your point though b/c some cocaine addicts would probably get hurt/humiliated by some of the cocaine themed projects you propose.. So I totally agree that if you were to draw a line, it would be really wavy, and probably useless.
But that doesn't mean we can't agitate against dumbasses doing dumbass things. Call it political correctness if you want, I'll just call it politics (everyone can do what they want, but beyond law there are social pressures which can be brought to bear to encourage people to change their behavior).
:)
While there is a lot of nonsense on /. I do find that there is a remarkable amount of good information if you filter for it. Which is why I'm still here (and you too apparently).
Well, the woman who was running the project that got sideswiped by this naming issue has now said she is leaving "open source" b/c of the experience. Seems like if you're going to ask about the impact of "what's in a name?" there's a good place to start.
I think a better naming analogy than the ones you provide for this project might be something related to violence not to theft. Project "Soldier murder" or Project "Cop killer" are (much) more extreme than Project "Pantyshot," but suggest what I'm getting at (maybe project "Beat your grandmother" gets closer?). One could of course argue that an illicit pantyshot is just stealing a photo, but I'd suggest that this argument misses the point of the issue (for many of the people it happens to).
(My main source of evidence is from some volunteer work I did at a rape crisis NGO.)
Just normal software. I think the GP was saying, "Hey this project isn't named 'child rape' it's just named 'pantyshot'" and I was saying that this name is also pretty offensive to many and the act to which the word refers is generally illegal as well (which maybe moves it beyond the "just offensive" category).
On the other hand, in parts of the Federal gov't the outsource support contracts say that users are entitled for support on versions "no less than one version behind the latest version." This genius clause gives us support for Vista where I work, but we can't upgrade to Win7 (tho when Win8 comes up we can jump to that and then sit there until Win10 - awesome idea huh?). Anyway, if companies change their version schemes, like this, it means we'll get newer software sooner. Bizarre, but nevertheless, offers me a little bene.
Oblig http://science.slashdot.org/story/11/07/02/1335202/Google-Bid-Pi-Billion-Dollars-For-Nortel-Patents
Exactly! Wow, I'm deep into the comments before anyone has started talking sense! The whole article is about the legal issue as to whether or not the courts can compel you to reveal your password. The courts cannot force you to testify at your own trial, and the question here is whether disclosing your password is tantamount to testimony (IANAL).
Taking a picture of someone's undies without permission, as almost all "upskirt" is, certainly isn't at the level of child rape, but it's illegal and offensive to a lot of people..
Awesome link thx
It would be nice if text-based PDF's interacted with my browser the same way text-based HTML does. So find, save as and other functions would be browser native rather than the kooky half-breed we have today (with pdf reader stuffed into a browser tab for some docs and mysteriously for other pdf docs a new pop up window with native pdf reader).
This is the best /. summary I've ever read. However I come down on the issue itself, I just wanted to say that kudos for /. for posting a thoughtful and detailed discussion, instead of the usual trollop of innuendo, non-authoritative articles, general flamebait and slashvertising.
Hey fellas, more of this kind of article/issue summary please!
Really great points. But if MS had added a ribbon element like this: http://www.ubit.ch/software/ubitmenu-languages/
We could have met needs from both - why they don't just create this feature set suggests that they don't want to meet the needs of both kinds users..
Isn't that only an issue for people who don't know how to format their documents properly? I believe the Office alternatives experience the same issues too with improper formatting.
I agree with OP on this one -- MS Word lists are busted and have been for a decade. They don't work right. HTML lists work better, and that's a really low bar. If I create a blank doc from the stock normal template, the indent, spacing and numbering features don't work in the way I expect most people who use numbered lists expect them to. They certainly don't work the way I expect them to, and apparently OP too.
I don't think this is an issue with improper format, this is an issue that their numbering list system is tied to backward compatibility or something, and doesn't work intuitively, consistently or well.
It is missing features from the old menu system. There's stuff I can do in the old version that I simply can't find the equivalent in the ribbon. I know the option still exists, b/c I use this tool: http://www.ubit.ch/software/ubitmenu-languages/
It adds in some of the deeper menu features back in via the old menus. That's the only way I know to access some more obscure features in the newer versions of Word.. It's weird that there are features in Word now that apparently have no UI access - but it appears to me at least that this is the case.
You might find this useful: http://www.ubit.ch/software/ubitmenu-languages/
It adds a ribbon element which is basically all the 2003 version menus. I have no idea why MS doesn't provide this as an option out of the box.. The ribbon is better for some stuff but there's just way too much that isn't exposed *at all* by the ribbon, and having this menu system lets me get to them via the menus I already know..
Every time I talk with MS about Sharepoint, they say "Oh that last version, just between us, was kind of a nightmare, but this version has all that stuff totally fixed up." I've been hearing this line with every new version since ~2004.