I think Google's point is that they don't want a stalker to sneak 2 minutes on a target's phone while they're going to the bathroom and install the app easily from the Android App Store.
Does Android not require a password to install software? If it does, then your scenario is not a problem. If it doesn't, then the lack of a password is a bigger security problem than the existence of this app.
If you have access to someone else's phone to install this spyware, you have access to approve the SMS permissions on install. The person being spied on gets no warning.
Easy solution, don't give people you don't trust root access.
On thinking this over, I have more to say. Lets use your argument, but substitute political messages instead of violent imagery. Since any parent who wants their child to be exposed to, say, Karl Rove's book (or a Noam Chomsky book, etc) can go out and buy it for them prohibiting sales of that book to minors is OK by your logic.
Can you see now how your argument is entirely incompatible with free speech?
How much is it to ask the government to infringe upon the free speech rights of every minor in the country because you're too lazy to enforce your rules? That's a hell of a lot to ask.
If you don't automatically accept that violent video games lead to violent behavior, then a rating system with 100% compliance can be successful by simply allowing parents to have a reasonable, standardized assessment of whether or not the content of a game is age-appropriate for their child
If allowing parents to have a reasonable, standardized assessment of whether or not the content of a game is age appropriate for their children does not lead to a drop in anti-social behavior, then it's pointless not successful.
The problem with this legislation is that even your child has a right to free speech that may not be infringed upon by the government. Parents can infringe that right, but the government can't. If you really want this sort of law, you're going to have to amend the constitution to make it legal. (or pull one over on a gullible elderly Supreme Court, which is what they're trying to do here.)
BTW, if you want the government to fight your battles for you, then yes you are a lazy parent.
Which may or may not be related to any societal benefit. A rating system with 100% compliance which causes no decrease in violence can not be accurately described as successful.
The SC justices are pretty good at being able to understand the details of a case and apply the law to it in a theoretical way, even if they themselves have no experience.
Didn't we just have a story last week that showed how false that is? If they can't accurately predict the consequences of their decisions on the field of politics, which they should be experts at, how can you expect them to make good judgments about anything?
I fully expect the Supreme Court to declare software as mechanical, not speech, which would allow it to be banned just like realistic toy guns. Obviously the wrong decision, but you can't count on the Supreme Court to make the obviously right ruling. Remember, these are the best lawyers in the country. They can find a way to twist the law (and reality) to fit their argument, instead of the other way around.
I actually chose to say it that way because I liked the way it sounded, "even eviler". Technically incorrect, but it amused me. I was surprised to see that Firefox didn't redline "eviler".
Protecting the rights of everyone (including the few) is beneficial to everyone. If we have sheep for dinner tonight, there's nothing to stop me from being next. Therefore it's in my best interest to vote for constitutional limitations preventing anyone from being dinner, no matter how delicious that sheep may be.
evil things including letting a few starve so everyone else can live.
As opposed to letting everyone starve? That's even eviler.
Utilitarianism negates free will
There is no such thing as free will in the first place.
property rights
If property rights cause more harm than good they should be abandoned.
individuality
Not sure what you mean here. Your individuality is a physical fact. Different people have different bodies, brains, and therefore minds. It's as if you said "Utilitarianism negates hair color". Nonsensical.
You might be surprised to learn that there is information that retains its relevance beyond the 6 month mark. Beyond the 2 year, or even 20 year mark. For my part, if a piece of information goes out of date in 6 months, it wasn't worth learning in the first place. If you want serious in depth information about any subject, you're still better off going to the library than cruising the web.
The age of consent is 16 in many places in the US too. It's still illegal to take explicit pictures of anyone under 18. Fuck her all you want, but take a picture and you're going to jail.
Bullshit is never fun. Making shit up is really uncomfortable for those of use who care about intellectual honesty. Never mind the fact that they never teach you how to do it. English class consists of example after example of bullshit, and then they expect you to do the same. But they never teach you a method, or give you any way to check your answers. Personally, I found English classes (once we stopped doing grammar/spelling) to be mentally abusive.
I can safely say that I've never used literary analysis, even in school. English classes amounted to nothing more than making things up out of whole cloth. That can in no way be described as "analysis".
Want to frustrate an English professor? When he says that some motif in a book is a symbol for something, ask him how he knows it's a symbol at all.
Driving after using Cannabis is a bigger deal, I've used and driven and it was at least as impairing as drinking alcohol.
The DOT has done studies that show even at the higher range of recreational doses Cannabis is not as impairing as legal doses of alcohol. In fact, cannabis users over estimate their impairment and over compensate for it, which is what I expect you experienced.
Also, you can't tell me that coffee impairs you worse than Cannabis while working.
Depends entirely on the person and the type of work. I don't smoke before work, but I know people who do and they're all good at their jobs. Even high pressure jobs dealing with lots of information and deadlines. Give some of these same people 2 cups of coffee and they may well have a panic attack before lunch.
I'll be honest about what I want. Cannabis should have roughly the same legal status as coffee. As a daily user of each, I can tell you which is more harmful and it sure as hell isn't Cannabis.
Unfortunatly, Prop 19 may end up making Cannabis less legal in California than it is now. Today possession of less than an ounce of Cannabis is not a jailable offense in California. Prop 19 would recriminalize it in some circumstances under the auspices of "regulation". It would restrict legal Cannabis productions to a small number of registered growers, setting the stage for corporate domination of the Cannabis market. It also allows cities to prohibit the sale of legal Cannabis, which will actually reduce the availability of Cannabis.
This law, like so many, has had so many gotchas thrown in it to appease the negative nincompoops that it's worse than nothing.
As a developer BSD me the right to incorporate the software into my own application under a different license, including GPL. while GPL does not tolerate licenses with more, less or different restrictions.
That's what I said. BSD gives the developer the right to take rights away from end users and other developers. That's not exactly a right worth standing up for.
Changing licenses from GPL always results in a decrease in freedom. The only restriction in the GPL is that you have to preserve all the rights granted for everyone. The *only* reason for removing that restriction is to remove the freedom of others.
Complaining about how "restrictive" the GPL is is like saying that pesky First Amendment restricts my freedom to tell other people what to say, so we're more free without it.
the end user doesn't have any useful rights with GPL unless they are developer (what good is source code if you don't understand it, you can compile it but that sounds more like a chore than a right).
Even if you never write a line of code, you benefit from all those who have.
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I think Google's point is that they don't want a stalker to sneak 2 minutes on a target's phone while they're going to the bathroom and install the app easily from the Android App Store.
Does Android not require a password to install software? If it does, then your scenario is not a problem. If it doesn't, then the lack of a password is a bigger security problem than the existence of this app.
If you have access to someone else's phone to install this spyware, you have access to approve the SMS permissions on install. The person being spied on gets no warning.
Easy solution, don't give people you don't trust root access.
but that corporations DO have a Right to Free Speech when it comes to publishing games/movies/whatever.
No no no, not at all. It is the customers that have a right to free speech, even if they are minors.
On thinking this over, I have more to say. Lets use your argument, but substitute political messages instead of violent imagery. Since any parent who wants their child to be exposed to, say, Karl Rove's book (or a Noam Chomsky book, etc) can go out and buy it for them prohibiting sales of that book to minors is OK by your logic.
Can you see now how your argument is entirely incompatible with free speech?
How much is it to ask the government to infringe upon the free speech rights of every minor in the country because you're too lazy to enforce your rules? That's a hell of a lot to ask.
If you don't automatically accept that violent video games lead to violent behavior, then a rating system with 100% compliance can be successful by simply allowing parents to have a reasonable, standardized assessment of whether or not the content of a game is age-appropriate for their child
If allowing parents to have a reasonable, standardized assessment of whether or not the content of a game is age appropriate for their children does not lead to a drop in anti-social behavior, then it's pointless not successful.
The problem with this legislation is that even your child has a right to free speech that may not be infringed upon by the government. Parents can infringe that right, but the government can't. If you really want this sort of law, you're going to have to amend the constitution to make it legal. (or pull one over on a gullible elderly Supreme Court, which is what they're trying to do here.)
BTW, if you want the government to fight your battles for you, then yes you are a lazy parent.
Which may or may not be related to any societal benefit. A rating system with 100% compliance which causes no decrease in violence can not be accurately described as successful.
The SC justices are pretty good at being able to understand the details of a case and apply the law to it in a theoretical way, even if they themselves have no experience.
Didn't we just have a story last week that showed how false that is? If they can't accurately predict the consequences of their decisions on the field of politics, which they should be experts at, how can you expect them to make good judgments about anything?
I fully expect the Supreme Court to declare software as mechanical, not speech, which would allow it to be banned just like realistic toy guns. Obviously the wrong decision, but you can't count on the Supreme Court to make the obviously right ruling. Remember, these are the best lawyers in the country. They can find a way to twist the law (and reality) to fit their argument, instead of the other way around.
How exactly do you measure "success" for a rating system?
I actually chose to say it that way because I liked the way it sounded, "even eviler". Technically incorrect, but it amused me. I was surprised to see that Firefox didn't redline "eviler".
The fact that I could read your comment and reply, or not, in any manner I see fit negates your statement
You read my comment and you replied. I do not believe that you could have done otherwise. I challenge you to show that you could.
Protecting the rights of everyone (including the few) is beneficial to everyone. If we have sheep for dinner tonight, there's nothing to stop me from being next. Therefore it's in my best interest to vote for constitutional limitations preventing anyone from being dinner, no matter how delicious that sheep may be.
evil things including letting a few starve so everyone else can live.
As opposed to letting everyone starve? That's even eviler.
Utilitarianism negates free will
There is no such thing as free will in the first place.
property rights
If property rights cause more harm than good they should be abandoned.
individuality
Not sure what you mean here. Your individuality is a physical fact. Different people have different bodies, brains, and therefore minds. It's as if you said "Utilitarianism negates hair color". Nonsensical.
You might be surprised to learn that there is information that retains its relevance beyond the 6 month mark. Beyond the 2 year, or even 20 year mark. For my part, if a piece of information goes out of date in 6 months, it wasn't worth learning in the first place. If you want serious in depth information about any subject, you're still better off going to the library than cruising the web.
The age of consent is 16 in many places in the US too. It's still illegal to take explicit pictures of anyone under 18. Fuck her all you want, but take a picture and you're going to jail.
Bullshit is never fun. Making shit up is really uncomfortable for those of use who care about intellectual honesty. Never mind the fact that they never teach you how to do it. English class consists of example after example of bullshit, and then they expect you to do the same. But they never teach you a method, or give you any way to check your answers. Personally, I found English classes (once we stopped doing grammar/spelling) to be mentally abusive.
I can safely say that I've never used literary analysis, even in school. English classes amounted to nothing more than making things up out of whole cloth. That can in no way be described as "analysis".
Want to frustrate an English professor? When he says that some motif in a book is a symbol for something, ask him how he knows it's a symbol at all.
Driving after using Cannabis is a bigger deal, I've used and driven and it was at least as impairing as drinking alcohol.
The DOT has done studies that show even at the higher range of recreational doses Cannabis is not as impairing as legal doses of alcohol. In fact, cannabis users over estimate their impairment and over compensate for it, which is what I expect you experienced.
Also, you can't tell me that coffee impairs you worse than Cannabis while working.
Depends entirely on the person and the type of work. I don't smoke before work, but I know people who do and they're all good at their jobs. Even high pressure jobs dealing with lots of information and deadlines. Give some of these same people 2 cups of coffee and they may well have a panic attack before lunch.
Is there a class of argument that I've not witnessed which is fundamentally dishonest?
No, but one of the classes you have witnessed is fundamentally dishonest.
After, it will be legal unless an honest to god federal agent catches you.
Or if you enjoy a joint in your own home when there are children in the house.
Any adult can grow 25 square feet legally
It's not 25 square feet per person, it's 25 square feet per property. This could be a big problem for multi-home properties.
I'll be honest about what I want. Cannabis should have roughly the same legal status as coffee. As a daily user of each, I can tell you which is more harmful and it sure as hell isn't Cannabis.
Unfortunatly, Prop 19 may end up making Cannabis less legal in California than it is now. Today possession of less than an ounce of Cannabis is not a jailable offense in California. Prop 19 would recriminalize it in some circumstances under the auspices of "regulation". It would restrict legal Cannabis productions to a small number of registered growers, setting the stage for corporate domination of the Cannabis market. It also allows cities to prohibit the sale of legal Cannabis, which will actually reduce the availability of Cannabis.
This law, like so many, has had so many gotchas thrown in it to appease the negative nincompoops that it's worse than nothing.
As a developer BSD me the right to incorporate the software into my own application under a different license, including GPL. while GPL does not tolerate licenses with more, less or different restrictions.
That's what I said. BSD gives the developer the right to take rights away from end users and other developers. That's not exactly a right worth standing up for.
Changing licenses from GPL always results in a decrease in freedom. The only restriction in the GPL is that you have to preserve all the rights granted for everyone. The *only* reason for removing that restriction is to remove the freedom of others.
Complaining about how "restrictive" the GPL is is like saying that pesky First Amendment restricts my freedom to tell other people what to say, so we're more free without it.
the end user doesn't have any useful rights with GPL unless they are developer (what good is source code if you don't understand it, you can compile it but that sounds more like a chore than a right).
Even if you never write a line of code, you benefit from all those who have.
The only "rights" BSD grants that GPL doesn't is the "right" to remove the rights of the end user.