I can think of several uses for a modded playstation besides piracy. ALl of them very legal.
1. Back-ups of games that you currently own. Especially if you have kids this should be a neccesity.
2. While not legal changing the region of your DVD to play foriegn movies should be.
3. Playing Japanese and other language imports. Alternately taking a German or French system and allowing it to play american games. (note, this is what me and the roommates modded our PS1 for. You cannot get a lot of games in america.)
Anybody who is going to go to the big ass hassle of modding a playstation probably has bought a plethora of games as well. So yes, Sony is alienating thier most die-hard customers.
Actually I just wanted to stop the whining of "I cant be bothered to spend the time to make a fake password" posts that always go with a NYT article and the karma helps;)
CYBER LAW JOURNAL
Divining the Future of Law and Technology
By CARL S. KAPLAN
Carrie Boretz
Carl S. Kaplan is a New York-based lawyer and journalist.
Cyber Law Journal: The Year in Internet Law (December 28, 2001)
when I was commissioned to write Cyber Law Journal in 1997, I thought that the best way to cover my beat would be to plop myself down at the intersection of law and cyberspace and watch the litigants, lawyers, cases, professors and judges pass by. That turned out to be as good a method as any, with the added benefit that parades are fun to watch. But now after four and a half years and well over 200 columns I'm leaving my seat. Today's column is the final Cyber Law Journal.
I want to thank the many experts who shared their insights and humor over the years. To my e-mail correspondents: I have been impressed by the depth of your concern about cyberlaw issues. To the members of the legal parade -- march on. It's been a privilege writing this column.
Of course the legal puzzles created by the realm of cyberspace haven't ended. So it's appropriate that this last installment is about the future.
What are the 2-3 major Internet law and policy issues that are likely to crop up in 2002? A group of legal mavens took up that challenge, and their edited predictions appear below.
Larry Lessig
Professor, Stanford Law School
Microsoft and Disney will become the most important allies in defending the core values of the Internet.
Cass Sunstein
Professor, University of Chicago Law School
It's hard to predict the future. But let's look closely at (a) efforts to use to Internet to track terrorism and other crimes, (b) the possible diminution of privacy rights, and (c) efforts to censor apparently dangerous speech on the Internet.
Ivan Fong
Senior Counsel, E-Commerce and Information Technology, General Electric
1. The USA Patriot Act [the anti-terrorism measure that, among other things, includes new rules about the government's access to information on the Internet] will largely survive constitutional challenges in the courts.
2. The Supreme Court will strike down, on First Amendment grounds, those portions of the Child Pornography Prevention Act that effectively criminalize the generation of digital images of fictitious children engaged in imaginary but explicit sexual conduct. The high court will urge Congress to draft a narrower prohibition.
3. Congress will pass legislation to encourage companies to share cyber-security data with the government, by exempting such data from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act and by providing antitrust protection for companies that collaborate on cyber-security matters.
James Boyle
Professor, Duke University Law School
The year 2002 will see the first real chance for the Supreme Court to signal, through its consideration of a number of cert petitions, what kind of constitutional restraints, if any, it will impose on the new expansions of intellectual property law: the range wars of the Internet.
While the most dangerous of these expansions -- the so-called database bill that gives property rights over unoriginal compilations of facts -- has not yet become law, there will be continued and intense pressure to pass it, with equally strong resistance from the science, research and civil liberties communities. If the Supreme Court signals some willingness to apply the First Amendment to intellectual property rules in a serious way, or to take seriously the restrictions of the Constitution's intellectual property clause, then the database bill will be in trouble. As a result it may be drafted in a less sweeping way. The converse is also true. Dismissive treatment from the Supreme Court will merely embolden the proponents of maximalist intellectual property protection. And in the long run, it is the property rules that will shape the Internet's future more thoroughly than the rules on censorship or filtering or taxation.
Dan L. Burk
Professor, University of Minnesota Law School
First, I expect to see increasingly sophisticated attacks against the constitutionality of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's anti-circumvention provisions [which prohibit the use of, or trafficking in, a computer code the circumvents the encryption scheme protecting certain digital content]. The courts in 2001 addressed some First Amendment issues, but ducked the really hard question: whether Congress in passing the DMCA exceeded the constitutional power given to it under the Intellectual Property clause. The Supreme Court has held that Congress' power under the IP clause is limited -- copyright cannot be extended to unoriginal or factual works, and patents cannot be extended to obvious inventions. But the DMCA's anti-circumvention rules make no differentiation between protectable and unprotectable material. This exceeds Congress' power under the IP clause.
I expect to see lawsuits filed during the next year that put that question front and center, and since it is the kind of question that the Supreme Court has shown an interest in, I would expect that the Court would like to take that kind of case.
Second, and perhaps ultimately more important to Internet law, will be the resolution to the negotiations on the Hague Convention on Jurisdiction and Foreign Judgments. This is a treaty negotiation that has been going on for several years; during 2000 and 2001 it became clear that it is likely to shape the future of international e-commerce. The treaty deals with transborder enforcement of legal judgments. U.S. businesses initially pushed for this treaty, hoping to get more of their judgments enforced abroad, but apparently forgetting that it would work both ways judgments obtained in other countries could be enforced here. This has broad implications for, among other things, intellectual property, defamation, and the kind of situation Yahoo! got into regarding Nazi memorabilia in France.
David Post
Professor, Temple University Law School
Predictions are too difficult . . . though I think you can bet on the following headline: "Music Iindustry Fails in Attempts to Get Users to Patronize Sponsored Music Services."
Barry Steinhardt
American Civil Liberties Union
1. The upcoming decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in ACLU v. Ashcroft, which challenges the constitutionality of the Children's Online Protection Act -- Congress's second attempt to restrict all speech on the Internet to only that which is suitable for minors. The decision may test whether Internet speech continues to enjoy the highest constitutional protection.
2. The inevitable abuses of the free speech and privacy rights of law-abiding Americans under the USA Patriot Act. These abuses will occur under a cloak of national security and it will be years before they come to light.
3. The trial before a special U.S. Court in Philadelphia, which will test the constitutionality of the Children's Internet Protection Act, which forces libraries to install crude Internet filtering programs that will block lawful and valuable speech from their patrons -- children and adults alike.
Marc Rotenberg
Executive Director, Electronic Privacy Information Center
1. The Hague Convention on Jurisdiction and Foreign Judgments will grind to a halt. The already beleaguered effort to establish international rules for enforcement of private judgments still faces strong opposition from ISPs and consumer groups.
2. Consumer groups pressed the Federal Trade Commission in 2001 to look closely at the privacy and security implications of Microsoft's Passport -- a universal log-on service. Now that the Department of Justice's "Let-Us-Trust" Division has taken a pass on the long-running lawsuit and the private litigants seem ready to settle, the focus could quickly shift back to the FTC. Will the FTC act?
3. The copyright industry was on a roll in the past year, knocking out Napster and defending the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Now the question is whether consumers are ready for digital products that track users, report to manufacturers and shut down when licenses expire.
Jack Balkin
Professor, Yale Law School
Certainly one of the most important developments this year will be the continuing struggle between free speech and intellectual property in the courts. Civil libertarians will try to push for recognized First Amendment defenses against copyright and paracopyright. At the same time, businesses will continue to try to invoke the First Amendment as a defense against government regulation of the telecom industry.
Although these two trends both invoke the First Amendment, they actually represent very different philosophies and, indeed, mutually opposed visions of what free speech is all about.
Jessica Litman
Professor, Wayne State University Law School
Some things I'll be watching in 2002: (1) What sorts of Internet privacy measures, those to enhance and those to diminish or prevent privacy and anonymity, will be acceptable in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, and what will fly under the radar using prevention of terrorism as an excuse? (2) Whether a variety of government and business initiatives to respond to threats of cyber-terrorism will advance or undermine the adoption of open source software as an alternative to popular and currently vulnerable commercial computer programs.
Personally I think that in many ways our technology could be a liability in this war. This was already shown by using our own airplane/jet technology as a weapon. Also during the flight our cell phone technology was used as a weapon of terror by having the hostages call thier families. In the future I personally am expecting a lot more technology centered attacks. Imagine the effects to a lagre city (here in austin for instance) if all of the cell phone towers were taken out followed immediately by a propane delivery truck slamming into an office building. Hell even just cutting under-water cableing using depth charges would bring the entire world banking industry to a halt in 3 seconds flat and could be done using reletively cheap parts.
I guess the point that I am making is that most of our communications tech (at least the civilian stuff) was not made with wartime in mind. Hell I can just imagine what kind of information could be garnered by a good hacker with a portable with boosted up wireless card on it. Hell even a van with jamming equipent driving through most major cities cutting off cell phone calls would create massive havoc. And these are just some ideas I had on the spur of the moment wihtout knowing the ins and outs of a lot of these system.
I don't remember seeing anything in th constitution about internet taxes, carnivore, or the entire FBI for that matter.
Well for the FBI there is a pretty good case that to succesfully regulate interstate commerce you need a police arm so I can accept that. Internet taxes are a no brainer on interstate commerce agian. However 4th admendment (search and seizure) protections should apply to carnivore unless thaere is a warrent. Not sure how that one got through. Oh wait, someone has to sue the FBI before they can get busted for it. So the price of freedom is eternal vigilance agian. Dammit, the Simpsons are on. Gotta go watch.;)
Are our elected representatives concerned with the individuals rights regarding freedom on the internet or is all of ther time completly taken over by corperate lobbyists?
I do not ask this question as a joke. It is very common for the people here on slashdot to assume that since there have been no strong laws to protect users rights in cyberspace that congress does not care and does not listen. Occasionally we win a victory by getting a law knocked down or not passed but I have never seen a "User rights in cyberspace" bill. So I ask if the people in congress that you get to talk to discuss peoples rights in cyberspace or if that is just add-on-feel-good filler for campaign speeches while they are in california.
I agree with your point. MP3s should be freely available. Our common culture is too important of a thing to let a handful of rich white businessmen make all the decisions in where that culture leads too. However there are many laws that make it illegal for you to buy stolen property and I am sure that one would apply to this or at least that there would be a legal precedent for it.
Something like that. If all computers are quantum computers then it would be possible that they might (in a storytelling enviroment) be able to change what those computers are trying to predict.
For instance you get a Quantum computer that is doing all the math for a hurricane forcast. One particle of air is measured EXACTLY in time and space. The entirety of the hurricane model should then collapse. Using the principles of quantum articles effecting each other at a distance it would be concieveable that the hurricane would then be *forced* to follow the path that the computer set for it. If you had umbictious amounts of these systems around doing everything and more then computers do today AND they were all connected then it would be possible that this one waveform collapsing would solve space-time co-ordinates in other systems. This would collapse those computers waveforms and have a domino effect. Some sort of quantum enviromental damage in which the effect would be a completely collapsed (or partially collapsed, could make a better story) timeline that could not be deviated from. All unknowns would be able to be easily worked out.
Agian I would like to say that while I can't be sure (IANAQP IANA Quantum Physisist) I really doubt that anyt hing could ever work this way. If it did Newton would have destroyed the universe when he figured out that the apple just hit his head;)
I read it too and it is one of my earliest childhood memories as I was living in (you guessed it) Spokane Washington at the time. (In case you don't believe me I was born in Sacred Heart hospitol.) I was extremely young so I don't remember much but I remember the sky being dark and ash all over the place. On the car particularly. Hope you are one of those people that checks up on your posts in your user profile.;)
If I had any more mod points I would mod this up. It is good to know that there is someone else who sees that there are differences between corporations, privately owned businesses and individuals. The legal fiction of corporations having all of the rights of individuals is just ridiculous. Personally I believe that the dissolving of corporations (I am not sure of the legal term. Pretty much pull their license to be a an incorporated entity) has been a penalty that is applied all to infrequently. Particularly for large environmental (Valdez, Love Canal) and human rights abuses (Nike and Wal-Mart sweat shops.)
For instance, incorporated entities should not be able to donate money to the political process. Individuals of that corporation should have every right to spend their paychecks ($1k I believe is the limit) from that corporation. I am not sure about small business owners however. I am inclined to say that the business shouldn't be able to make a donation while the owner is free to do so like any other individual.
One issue I have with this solution is "no taxation without representation." However there is some precedent as corporations cannot vote and are taxed. Also there is the pragmatic issue of a corporation moving to another country that allows them to own it. I would just hope that a society based on principle which would let this sort of outcome occur would be prosperous enough by its own ideology that companies would *have* to trade with that country and would want to incorporate within that countries boundaries.
Perhaps you can deduce the future from the current quantum states of the objects around you?
I wonder if that will be the eventual effect of quantum computing. Think about it. Currently all sorts of things that happen in our lives and determin the course of history flow through computers. Votes, Communication, work schedules, Weather forcasts ect. ect. ect. This trend continues with computerss for the next 50 years at which time quantum computers are/become the norm. So at that point everything from the train arriving on time to if this comp-country goes to war is worked out on a computer. Then someone gets the bright idea to look outside of a window and finds the exact co-ordinates of a passing pigeon. Since all the Quantum computers are tied together by the Internet 3 all probability waveforms collapse and the future of the universe is set in stone from that point foward.
Before you flame yes I know that Quantum computing doesn't work like this. Still it is a good thoght experiment. Might make a good short story by an Author who may or may not be alive. (Dick perhaps;)
Not too sure about Clark but I would believe something of this order from Kubric. For instance in "The Shining" the pattern and colors of the carpet are supposed to symbolize Satan walking through the halls. Actually less Satan himself as evil incarnate (Neitzche's concept of eternal return. This info is from a interview with the man h)imself so who am I to argue.
A few other things in the movie about this.
1. The child travelling down the road to hell (the long hallway sceens on the tricycle)
2. Multiple murders in differnt time frames.
3. Pictures on the walls: Both having images of previous caretakers and in the end with the picture of Jack.
4. Many of the cut scenes in the end. Particularly the man in a yellow dog suit giving a blowjob. According to kubrick the dog was very symbolic but I think it coulda been cut and I never woulda known.
Just a little evidence that Krubrick was a crazy enough guy to do something like what the book is saying. After typeing all this out I still gotta agree that the bathroom tile thing is a little bit off.
"I don't recall you beating your chest when this happened to a TEST MODEL that never left the lab of the subcontractor that made the batteries for Apple. "
Wow, you remember every post from back in 1995? Someone's been taking their Ginseng! -grin-
Especially because at the time I was only posting on local BBS bulliton boards. Honestly I didn't catch this news item in 1995 because my interest in technology was not as high then. However from what I have reado of the apple recall I believe that I would have thought the same thing that I do about the Dell recall. "Hey, A problem happened. They are fixing it as quickly and efficiently as possible. Good job."
Thank you for backing someone up when zealots are posting with no thought. Personally I would classify the multiple "Apple" posts that my post generated as either trolls or flamebaits. I guess it depends on the original intentions.
This is some seriously irresponsible journalism. 1 system caught on fire. That's it. Because of this one system overheating Dell is recalling hundreds of thousands of batteries. We should be applauding a company that is willing to do this without waffleing around like say firestone on thier tires.
Furthermore it is not completly Dells Fault. These batteries were completely manufactured by another company. Come-on slashdot. Are we trying to do News For nerds or is this site going the way of other journalistic sites where they put up whatever will sell more papers/get more page views.
If the IT czar is anything like the drug czar they will appoint a anti-technology luddite who doesnt understand anything at all about the nations IT issues. Any new technology that comes out that didn't come from major licenced IT companies will be illegal by default because it hasn't gone through the rigorous testing programs. Now that it is illegal it can't get testing because you can't do testing on illegal software/hardware. School and college campuses will have open source rehabilitation centers where you can go to and learn why free software isn't good for the country. "Just Say No" policies towards Napster and other file sharing services will be touted by police officers in DDIT (dont do IT) classes taught to kids everywhere. SWAIT teams will be busting down doors useing now standard no knock warrents to check for illegal music codecs on your boxen.
"Shut up! Be Happy! Your government has taken care of this for you"
How about time shifting it in 10 or so years when DVD2 (or whatever replaces it) is out and you need to be able to transfer your old films to the new media or risk not being able to play those old films when your dvd player breaks because it will no longer be the standard?
The way it was explained to me in school was that the tools prove that this is not a one time incident or a moment of indescretion. The perpetrator had to have thought about what he was doing to purchase and/or collect the tools of this trade. Meaning that either this was a well thought out crime or a profesional theif.
There are quite a few reasons. Say the guy that is calling me up (major accounts portables) for help with his HP journada. Not only does noone around me have the expertise to fix it we can get sued by HP if we try. That is 2 very good reasons right there why I have to transfer you to someone else.
Lets see a few other reasons... Main one being "scope of support." From management in almost any tech support job you are limited to what was shipped with the system as to what you can fix. So yea, there are a lot of different questions that when asked we gotta say "sorry, I can't help you there."
I definately agree with you. While (as you can tell from my user number) I am not a old hand here at slashdot and dont remember the good old days I have noticed the exact same problems you have mentioned. I remember my first karma generating post. I got like a +3. So it put me where I could moderate and I cheerfully read through a few hundred posts to find out where I can spend my points. I log in the next day and my karma is at 0 agian. Yeeaaaa. This is how to encourage people to use the moderation system to help better the quality of posts on/.?
While I can see your point I see something else happening. If you happened to meet them at a concert that you just paid $25 to enter, wearing a band t-shirt that costs the same thing and then told them that you got into thier band through Napster I am sure that they would have no problem at all.
Ummm besides the MPAA -> RIAA mix up in this they are still attacking the tool. They are going after the ISP's not the individual user. There is a big difference there. Luckily ISP's have been declared common carriars so I doubt that this will really go anywhere at all.
Yea I agree with you there. I ran it on my 733 w/ a GeForce2 in it and was able to run it at a pretty good res and color depth. However if you are a VERY serious FPS gamer this might make you want to upgrade.
However I still have the right to take one of the cookies that you sold and analyze it under the super duper ingrediant finder. Then I have reverse-engineered your cookie (in a clean room supposedly) and can make as many of those cookies as I want. I could even advertise on national TV that our cookies taste exactly the same.
Under current DMCA inspired copyright law the mere act of tasting your cookie and guessing the recipe is not allowed. Even if the recipe is not the same if I make a similar cookie that has a similar taste I can be sued for this.
Another point is that this isn't like stealing the cookie recipe. THis is more like cloning your cookie using a matter cloner (tm;) and giving away free cloned cookies to everyone that asks for one. I dont even know what the recipe is because the cloner takes care of all of that. All I know is that I put your cookie into one slot, apply a house-hold current, and a virtually infinite amount of cookies appear out the other side. I can even transmit these cookies to the other side of the world without having to actually spend any time doing so. Now, if we find a product that can do this we will have an accurate anology to the current state of digital copyright.
Slashdot Mirror
1. Back-ups of games that you currently own. Especially if you have kids this should be a neccesity.
2. While not legal changing the region of your DVD to play foriegn movies should be.
3. Playing Japanese and other language imports. Alternately taking a German or French system and allowing it to play american games. (note, this is what me and the roommates modded our PS1 for. You cannot get a lot of games in america.)
Anybody who is going to go to the big ass hassle of modding a playstation probably has bought a plethora of games as well. So yes, Sony is alienating thier most die-hard customers.
Actually I just wanted to stop the whining of "I cant be bothered to spend the time to make a fake password" posts that always go with a NYT article and the karma helps ;)
Carrie Boretz Carl S. Kaplan is a New York-based lawyer and journalist. Cyber Law Journal: The Year in Internet Law (December 28, 2001)
when I was commissioned to write Cyber Law Journal in 1997, I thought that the best way to cover my beat would be to plop myself down at the intersection of law and cyberspace and watch the litigants, lawyers, cases, professors and judges pass by. That turned out to be as good a method as any, with the added benefit that parades are fun to watch. But now after four and a half years and well over 200 columns I'm leaving my seat. Today's column is the final Cyber Law Journal.
I want to thank the many experts who shared their insights and humor over the years. To my e-mail correspondents: I have been impressed by the depth of your concern about cyberlaw issues. To the members of the legal parade -- march on. It's been a privilege writing this column.
Of course the legal puzzles created by the realm of cyberspace haven't ended. So it's appropriate that this last installment is about the future.
What are the 2-3 major Internet law and policy issues that are likely to crop up in 2002? A group of legal mavens took up that challenge, and their edited predictions appear below.
Larry Lessig Professor, Stanford Law School
Microsoft and Disney will become the most important allies in defending the core values of the Internet.
Cass Sunstein Professor, University of Chicago Law School
It's hard to predict the future. But let's look closely at (a) efforts to use to Internet to track terrorism and other crimes, (b) the possible diminution of privacy rights, and (c) efforts to censor apparently dangerous speech on the Internet.
Ivan Fong Senior Counsel, E-Commerce and Information Technology, General Electric
1. The USA Patriot Act [the anti-terrorism measure that, among other things, includes new rules about the government's access to information on the Internet] will largely survive constitutional challenges in the courts.
2. The Supreme Court will strike down, on First Amendment grounds, those portions of the Child Pornography Prevention Act that effectively criminalize the generation of digital images of fictitious children engaged in imaginary but explicit sexual conduct. The high court will urge Congress to draft a narrower prohibition.
3. Congress will pass legislation to encourage companies to share cyber-security data with the government, by exempting such data from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act and by providing antitrust protection for companies that collaborate on cyber-security matters.
James Boyle Professor, Duke University Law School
The year 2002 will see the first real chance for the Supreme Court to signal, through its consideration of a number of cert petitions, what kind of constitutional restraints, if any, it will impose on the new expansions of intellectual property law: the range wars of the Internet.
While the most dangerous of these expansions -- the so-called database bill that gives property rights over unoriginal compilations of facts -- has not yet become law, there will be continued and intense pressure to pass it, with equally strong resistance from the science, research and civil liberties communities. If the Supreme Court signals some willingness to apply the First Amendment to intellectual property rules in a serious way, or to take seriously the restrictions of the Constitution's intellectual property clause, then the database bill will be in trouble. As a result it may be drafted in a less sweeping way. The converse is also true. Dismissive treatment from the Supreme Court will merely embolden the proponents of maximalist intellectual property protection. And in the long run, it is the property rules that will shape the Internet's future more thoroughly than the rules on censorship or filtering or taxation.
Dan L. Burk Professor, University of Minnesota Law School
First, I expect to see increasingly sophisticated attacks against the constitutionality of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's anti-circumvention provisions [which prohibit the use of, or trafficking in, a computer code the circumvents the encryption scheme protecting certain digital content]. The courts in 2001 addressed some First Amendment issues, but ducked the really hard question: whether Congress in passing the DMCA exceeded the constitutional power given to it under the Intellectual Property clause. The Supreme Court has held that Congress' power under the IP clause is limited -- copyright cannot be extended to unoriginal or factual works, and patents cannot be extended to obvious inventions. But the DMCA's anti-circumvention rules make no differentiation between protectable and unprotectable material. This exceeds Congress' power under the IP clause.
I expect to see lawsuits filed during the next year that put that question front and center, and since it is the kind of question that the Supreme Court has shown an interest in, I would expect that the Court would like to take that kind of case.
Second, and perhaps ultimately more important to Internet law, will be the resolution to the negotiations on the Hague Convention on Jurisdiction and Foreign Judgments. This is a treaty negotiation that has been going on for several years; during 2000 and 2001 it became clear that it is likely to shape the future of international e-commerce. The treaty deals with transborder enforcement of legal judgments. U.S. businesses initially pushed for this treaty, hoping to get more of their judgments enforced abroad, but apparently forgetting that it would work both ways judgments obtained in other countries could be enforced here. This has broad implications for, among other things, intellectual property, defamation, and the kind of situation Yahoo! got into regarding Nazi memorabilia in France.
David Post Professor, Temple University Law School
Predictions are too difficult . . . though I think you can bet on the following headline: "Music Iindustry Fails in Attempts to Get Users to Patronize Sponsored Music Services."
Barry Steinhardt American Civil Liberties Union
1. The upcoming decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in ACLU v. Ashcroft, which challenges the constitutionality of the Children's Online Protection Act -- Congress's second attempt to restrict all speech on the Internet to only that which is suitable for minors. The decision may test whether Internet speech continues to enjoy the highest constitutional protection.
2. The inevitable abuses of the free speech and privacy rights of law-abiding Americans under the USA Patriot Act. These abuses will occur under a cloak of national security and it will be years before they come to light.
3. The trial before a special U.S. Court in Philadelphia, which will test the constitutionality of the Children's Internet Protection Act, which forces libraries to install crude Internet filtering programs that will block lawful and valuable speech from their patrons -- children and adults alike.
Marc Rotenberg Executive Director, Electronic Privacy Information Center
1. The Hague Convention on Jurisdiction and Foreign Judgments will grind to a halt. The already beleaguered effort to establish international rules for enforcement of private judgments still faces strong opposition from ISPs and consumer groups.
2. Consumer groups pressed the Federal Trade Commission in 2001 to look closely at the privacy and security implications of Microsoft's Passport -- a universal log-on service. Now that the Department of Justice's "Let-Us-Trust" Division has taken a pass on the long-running lawsuit and the private litigants seem ready to settle, the focus could quickly shift back to the FTC. Will the FTC act?
3. The copyright industry was on a roll in the past year, knocking out Napster and defending the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Now the question is whether consumers are ready for digital products that track users, report to manufacturers and shut down when licenses expire.
Jack Balkin Professor, Yale Law School
Certainly one of the most important developments this year will be the continuing struggle between free speech and intellectual property in the courts. Civil libertarians will try to push for recognized First Amendment defenses against copyright and paracopyright. At the same time, businesses will continue to try to invoke the First Amendment as a defense against government regulation of the telecom industry.
Although these two trends both invoke the First Amendment, they actually represent very different philosophies and, indeed, mutually opposed visions of what free speech is all about.
Jessica Litman Professor, Wayne State University Law School
Some things I'll be watching in 2002: (1) What sorts of Internet privacy measures, those to enhance and those to diminish or prevent privacy and anonymity, will be acceptable in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, and what will fly under the radar using prevention of terrorism as an excuse? (2) Whether a variety of government and business initiatives to respond to threats of cyber-terrorism will advance or undermine the adoption of open source software as an alternative to popular and currently vulnerable commercial computer programs.
I guess the point that I am making is that most of our communications tech (at least the civilian stuff) was not made with wartime in mind. Hell I can just imagine what kind of information could be garnered by a good hacker with a portable with boosted up wireless card on it. Hell even a van with jamming equipent driving through most major cities cutting off cell phone calls would create massive havoc. And these are just some ideas I had on the spur of the moment wihtout knowing the ins and outs of a lot of these system.
Well for the FBI there is a pretty good case that to succesfully regulate interstate commerce you need a police arm so I can accept that. Internet taxes are a no brainer on interstate commerce agian. However 4th admendment (search and seizure) protections should apply to carnivore unless thaere is a warrent. Not sure how that one got through. Oh wait, someone has to sue the FBI before they can get busted for it. So the price of freedom is eternal vigilance agian. Dammit, the Simpsons are on. Gotta go watch. ;)
I do not ask this question as a joke. It is very common for the people here on slashdot to assume that since there have been no strong laws to protect users rights in cyberspace that congress does not care and does not listen. Occasionally we win a victory by getting a law knocked down or not passed but I have never seen a "User rights in cyberspace" bill. So I ask if the people in congress that you get to talk to discuss peoples rights in cyberspace or if that is just add-on-feel-good filler for campaign speeches while they are in california.
Dont forget that Goodwins law was eventually extracted to also mean that any referance to Goodwin also has killed the thread.
I agree with your point. MP3s should be freely available. Our common culture is too important of a thing to let a handful of rich white businessmen make all the decisions in where that culture leads too. However there are many laws that make it illegal for you to buy stolen property and I am sure that one would apply to this or at least that there would be a legal precedent for it.
For instance you get a Quantum computer that is doing all the math for a hurricane forcast. One particle of air is measured EXACTLY in time and space. The entirety of the hurricane model should then collapse. Using the principles of quantum articles effecting each other at a distance it would be concieveable that the hurricane would then be *forced* to follow the path that the computer set for it. If you had umbictious amounts of these systems around doing everything and more then computers do today AND they were all connected then it would be possible that this one waveform collapsing would solve space-time co-ordinates in other systems. This would collapse those computers waveforms and have a domino effect. Some sort of quantum enviromental damage in which the effect would be a completely collapsed (or partially collapsed, could make a better story) timeline that could not be deviated from. All unknowns would be able to be easily worked out.
Agian I would like to say that while I can't be sure (IANAQP IANA Quantum Physisist) I really doubt that anyt hing could ever work this way. If it did Newton would have destroyed the universe when he figured out that the apple just hit his head ;)
For instance, incorporated entities should not be able to donate money to the political process. Individuals of that corporation should have every right to spend their paychecks ($1k I believe is the limit) from that corporation. I am not sure about small business owners however. I am inclined to say that the business shouldn't be able to make a donation while the owner is free to do so like any other individual.
One issue I have with this solution is "no taxation without representation." However there is some precedent as corporations cannot vote and are taxed. Also there is the pragmatic issue of a corporation moving to another country that allows them to own it. I would just hope that a society based on principle which would let this sort of outcome occur would be prosperous enough by its own ideology that companies would *have* to trade with that country and would want to incorporate within that countries boundaries.
I wonder if that will be the eventual effect of quantum computing. Think about it. Currently all sorts of things that happen in our lives and determin the course of history flow through computers. Votes, Communication, work schedules, Weather forcasts ect. ect. ect. This trend continues with computerss for the next 50 years at which time quantum computers are/become the norm. So at that point everything from the train arriving on time to if this comp-country goes to war is worked out on a computer. Then someone gets the bright idea to look outside of a window and finds the exact co-ordinates of a passing pigeon. Since all the Quantum computers are tied together by the Internet 3 all probability waveforms collapse and the future of the universe is set in stone from that point foward.
Before you flame yes I know that Quantum computing doesn't work like this. Still it is a good thoght experiment. Might make a good short story by an Author who may or may not be alive. (Dick perhaps ;)
A few other things in the movie about this.
1. The child travelling down the road to hell (the long hallway sceens on the tricycle)
2. Multiple murders in differnt time frames.
3. Pictures on the walls: Both having images of previous caretakers and in the end with the picture of Jack.
4. Many of the cut scenes in the end. Particularly the man in a yellow dog suit giving a blowjob. According to kubrick the dog was very symbolic but I think it coulda been cut and I never woulda known.
Just a little evidence that Krubrick was a crazy enough guy to do something like what the book is saying. After typeing all this out I still gotta agree that the bathroom tile thing is a little bit off.
Especially because at the time I was only posting on local BBS bulliton boards. Honestly I didn't catch this news item in 1995 because my interest in technology was not as high then. However from what I have reado of the apple recall I believe that I would have thought the same thing that I do about the Dell recall. "Hey, A problem happened. They are fixing it as quickly and efficiently as possible. Good job." Thank you for backing someone up when zealots are posting with no thought. Personally I would classify the multiple "Apple" posts that my post generated as either trolls or flamebaits. I guess it depends on the original intentions.
Furthermore it is not completly Dells Fault. These batteries were completely manufactured by another company. Come-on slashdot. Are we trying to do News For nerds or is this site going the way of other journalistic sites where they put up whatever will sell more papers/get more page views.
"Shut up! Be Happy! Your government has taken care of this for you"
Lets see a few other reasons... Main one being "scope of support." From management in almost any tech support job you are limited to what was shipped with the system as to what you can fix. So yea, there are a lot of different questions that when asked we gotta say "sorry, I can't help you there."
While I can see your point I see something else happening. If you happened to meet them at a concert that you just paid $25 to enter, wearing a band t-shirt that costs the same thing and then told them that you got into thier band through Napster I am sure that they would have no problem at all.
Yea I agree with you there. I ran it on my 733 w/ a GeForce2 in it and was able to run it at a pretty good res and color depth. However if you are a VERY serious FPS gamer this might make you want to upgrade.
Under current DMCA inspired copyright law the mere act of tasting your cookie and guessing the recipe is not allowed. Even if the recipe is not the same if I make a similar cookie that has a similar taste I can be sued for this.
Another point is that this isn't like stealing the cookie recipe. THis is more like cloning your cookie using a matter cloner (tm;) and giving away free cloned cookies to everyone that asks for one. I dont even know what the recipe is because the cloner takes care of all of that. All I know is that I put your cookie into one slot, apply a house-hold current, and a virtually infinite amount of cookies appear out the other side. I can even transmit these cookies to the other side of the world without having to actually spend any time doing so. Now, if we find a product that can do this we will have an accurate anology to the current state of digital copyright.