Isn't a sphere with a bubble in it (say, A = {x in R^n: 1/2
Sure, but I think the whole point is to prove that a compact 3d shape, that is, the one with the greatest surface area in relation to its internal volume, is a sphere.
My question is, for the n>3 cases, were they basically doing geometry on hyperspheres? That's one thing I've never been able to wrap my head around.
I don't believe the federal government has ever gone after a cancer patient who grows marijuana for their own personal use.
Well, there's this, or this, or this, or this, just from the first 10 Google results. To be sure, medical marijuana use is legal in some areas, but cops arrest them anyway.
The word manufacture means create, not use. If you possess marijuana seeds with the intent to grow pot, that would be illegal, but if you merely possess marijuana (with some seeds attached) with the intent to smoke, that's not illegal (under federal law).
Huh? I'm allowed to have it but I'm not allowed to grow it, buy it, import it, or do anything that might bring it into my possession? Also, if I cultivate marijuana and make a joint out of it, mighn't that count as manufacturing? Moot point, since regardless of what the law is supposed to be, there are thousands of people arrested every year for nothing more than possession. Not selling it, not growing/synthesizing it, not using it, but simply having it on their person.
Wait a second now. Making the fruits of your work public does affect interstate commerce.
My point was that a lot of people will work a way around the DRM, and some of them will make it public, despite it being illegal to do so. Hollings and co. will look at that and say, "Guess we need to clamp down further" and try to limit even personal development of workarounds. And it's not unreasonable to think they'll try.
I think the achilles heel of the CBDTPA is section (3) part (d)
"In achieving the goals of setting open security standards that will provide effective security for copyrighted works, the security system standards shall ensure, to the extent practicable, that
(1) the standard security technologies are
(A) reliable;
(B) renewable;
(C) resistant to attack;
(D) readily implemented;
(E) modular;
(F) applicable in multiple technology platforms;
(G) extensible;
(H) upgradable;
(I) not cost prohibitive; and
(2) any software portion of such standards is based on open source code."
In other words, the perfect secure system, that can not only tell the difference between protected and unprotected bits, but can also tell when I'm making a legitimate copy under the Fair Use doctrine (section 3, part e), all to be implemented in hardware and software that you sell to hackers who have lots of spare time. What a joke. I agree with you in that respect, but you and I know infinitely more about computers than any judge or politician is likely to. 'Security' is the new computer buzzword and they'll toss it around like it's a minor feature that you can add in your spare time.
Right, and there is no federal law [cornell.edu] against posession without intent to distribute. Or against intrastate transportation for personal consumption.
If that's the case, then why do they keep going after people like cancer patients who grow marijuana for their own personal use? Or would that be a state-level thing?
From your link:
"it shall be unlawful for any person knowingly or intentionally to manufacture, distribute, or dispense, or possess with intent to manufacture, distribute, or dispense, a controlled substance; or"
I don't see any exceptions made for possession without it changing hands. "Possess with intent to manufacture" seems to me to mean to "Have with intent to use". But IANAL and if you can explain why I'm wrong, feel free to do so.
Regardless, how long do you think it would take before making a device that prevents you from having to buy a movie (i.e., by ripping a DVD rental) and thus 'depriving an author of income', is deemed to affect interstate commerce? Lots of people will do exactly that and some of them will make the fruits of their work public, thus drawing the ire of Hollings' friends.
I figure the CBDTPA is the technological equivalent to the Drug War. Take every crazy law they've ever passed and ridiculous scenario that has arisen from the WoD and apply it to electronics and you'd have the state of affairs 5 or 10 years after S.2048's passing. 'Illicit periphenalia' would end up including things like soldering irons and hex editors and books on programming languages, just as people have been harassed for things like film containers and bottled water and the whole Methamphetamines Anti-Proliferation Act bit.
Suffice to say, I think we both agree that it would be bad.
Here's what we do. Get our Congresscritters to try and go a whole day without using anything that has been touched by un-DRM-ed digital equipment. Point out that either the product itself or the equiment used to make it would have to be scrapped under the CBDTPA. Obviously no computers or phones. Likely no TV since even analog airwaves probably pass through something digital somewhere and the TV itself was almost certainly designed or built with digital equipment. After that it gets good. No cars, since they are built with and use unprotected computer equipment. No trains or subways for the same reason. They might be able to take a 20-year old hunk-o-junk somewhere, but of course the traffic lights are controlled electronically. No contact lenses or glasses since I doubt they were manufactured by hand using slide rules. No food from grocery stores since buying it would require using computers to ring it up. Same goes for buying anything from a store that isn't using an antique cash register. No credit cards or checks since they are read by computers that could be used to pirate movies. No going to banks at all. No mail service since it's 99.999% likely the envelope was scanned by a computer. No electricity in your house since the power plant uses lots of unprotected digital equipment.
Once they've learned that every single aspect of life in this country is affected by computers and by extension the CBDTPA, they just might change their tune.
(1) sell[s], or offer for sale, in interstate commerce, or (2) cause[s] to be transported in, or in a manner affecting, interstate commerce
Isn't this a wonderful clause? One would think that this means that you simply can't sell across state lines, right? Wrong. By selling to someone in your state, you are affecting commerce in that state which in turn affects commerce with other states. If I buy from Local Computerama instead of Best Buy, we both affect Best Buy's interstate earnings. Therefore, everything you do can be considered to affect interstate commerce.
is only breaking the law when s/he sells or gives away the device.
Nope, that's not what it says. Merely transporting it in a way that affects interstate commerce is an offense. We've already established that everything I do affects interstate commerce, therefore it is illegal solely by virtue of existing.
And before you say "But that's fscking stupid, they'd never do that", they already have. The federal government's control over the War on Drugs is based almost entirely on the Interstate Commerce clause of the Constitution.
But this damned government of mine wants it both ways. They want our law to apply to actions done in other countries, but not foreign laws to apply to US citizens while here in the States. If a US citizen abroad was arrested for something he did that was perfectly legal before ever leaving home, we'd never stand for it. Do I not dare ever go to China because, regardless of my behavior there, I said something critical of their government while over here?
Why would Russia really want a treaty with a country that tries Russians for acts that are legal in Russia commited whilest in Russia? If Dmitri is convicted and forced to remain here, that treaty isn't worth the scrap it's printed on.
I realize I'm preaching to the choir here. But someone needs to take the US government down a peg or two. They evidently aren't listening to their own citizenry or little things like reason or logic; that leaves only the other countries whose citizens are getting screwed by us.
It's certainly better to be able to save the forty-nine lives (or forty-nine artistic talents, or whatever) via genetic engineering, but do you want to be the one who has to decide which one must lose theirs?
Problem solved. You are never even aware that any particular schlob would have been a Nobel prize winner in another universe, so there's no stress involved.
To take your scenario of "you choose one or I'll choose 50"; you are never really aware that it is going on. Your 'choice', though it changes the fate of many, involves nothing more strenuous than deciding to innoculate your child against some harmful illness. If you knew beforehand that of these 50 children, one of them will do great things for the human race but only at the cost of untold misery for the others and you had to decide what to do, you're right, it'd be ulcer city. But you can't know, so you don't know, so there's no dillema.
E.g., If I'd left home 5 minutes earier, I wouldn't have been in that car accident and this lady wouldn't have been killed and her unborn child would have become the first American Dictator and started WW3. I must be a hero, but all I did was misplace my keys. I don't worry about it because even though I know that even my most trivial acts can change the future, it's obvious that second guessing everything I do will get me nowhere. All I can do is make the best choice based on the info I have. In this case, I choose to give a child an immune system.
Except there is no reason why one should douse oneself in gasoline. CD's are meant to be played in CD-ROMs. If one uses a product exactly as the standard says it should be used, and it still screws up...
But as has been pointed out, these are not, strictly speaking, audio CD's. Someone suggested we techies start reffering to them as "Crapio" CDs. Might start a trend.
My advice would be for record stores to print out a bunch of stickers that say "This CD has been deliberately damaged by the manufacturer and will destroy a computer!" and stick them on all of these copy-prevented labels. Make it glarish and totally unavoidable. People won't be buying them, but then they won't be buying and returning them either.
But of couse they usually get money from returned CD's anyway so it'll probably never happen.
Tomorrow, when a doctor acts to correct a mental disorder on your child and winds up deleting the spark for the next Van Gogh, what will you think?
I will think of all the other "next Van Goghs" whose lives were saved by genetic engineering.
Should we ban polio vaccines because it causes the disease in a handful of children who otherwise might not have had it, thereby essentially forcing it onto millions of others?
The server that serves up Yahoo France is still in the US
I did a traceroute to yahoo.fr and I'm pretty certain there's a trans-Atlantic hop in there. The trace crosses into ebone.net, which is physically based in Europe.
I think the simplest way to solve this whole thing would be for France to snatch the first Yahoo! employee to come along and demand consistency from the US government. If Dmitri isn't released, then France's 'hostage' goes to trial for selling Nazi paraphernalia. It'd be certain to get attention.
Except he didn't break any laws while in the States. He wrote the DMCA-illegal code in Russia and Elcomsoft sold it in the US. Why aren't they being tried? Why just one of their employees who is no more or less guilty than any other?
Here's my question. If he gets convicted and sentenced to prison, you say he can opt to go back to Russia. Assuming that's true, and since what he did is not illegal there, wouldn't it be perfectly legal for them to simply release him the minute he gets back home?
Damn. Is it region coded? And what movies are due to come into public domain soon? I mean, by your reasoning, which is very clever, all we need is one single DVD which should be public domain on which DeCSS can be used for the whole thing to be made legal.
So.... the only reason the steam engine was invented was because some lazy proto-/.er bum didn't want to have to hire a lot of muscle? The invention of the light bulb was bad because it stole potential revenue from oil and wood companies? The electronic/mechanical computer should never have been developed because it was just a rip off of what the flesh and blood varieties did at the time? We should all have stuck with cave drawings because wanting to paint on, say, a canvas instead of getting a rock is somehow bad?
Hey stupid! Every single thing new under the sun is here because someone didn't want to pay for the existing products!
Ok, I think the fact that I can't come up with a single reason why you couldn't pull a stunt like this is a good indicator that copyright law is fubar.
This is a huge bill, they are pretending that all the electronic devices covered are like a little local business they can spank instead of billions of dollar companies which do a lot of business outside the country as well.
I could have sworn I came across a comment by Hollings along the lines of, "I can't believe that some teens in a basement somewhere couldn't pull it [SSSCA tech] off." But I'm having the damndest time finding the link. Have I just been hitting the magic mushrooms a little hard lately or does someone else know what I'm talking about?
Not only interstate but intrastate commerce as well. It doesn't actually say that in the constitution, but they do it anyway. Usually on the basis that what I do entirely in one state affects commerce with other states.
Independent artists are repersented by the RIAA, just not directly.
Oh? So any bonus money that the RIAA gets from tariffs or taxes or whatever gets split up fairly among the giants and the non-RIAA artists and publishers? If you believe that, I have this bridge I could sell to you.
What would be cool is if there was a "competing" record company(s) that weren't members of the RIAA that sold CD's at a decent price
It'd be great, but only if the retailers sold them with the discount intact. The unscrupulous might simply see it as a way to jack up their own profits on those titles; after all, how many customers have any idea of the wholesale cost of the CD they're buying? Or they (the larger chains, at least) might be pressured by the RIAA to not even carry them in the first place. You know, typical M$ tactics: "Do not even offer products that aren't ours or we'll cut you off completely".
If enough of the retailers gave them the finger in response to that kind of treatment, we'd win. If not, the upstart publisher gets crushed. Bummer.
So now we have the litany of the RIAA's predictive prowess. Most informative, thank you.
My question is, what other similar assurances have we heard from the MPAA? We're all familiar with Valenti comparing the VCR to a serial killer, but what else is there?
And what about the independent artists that use CD-R media to release their work?
Now how wacked is this? 230 years ago the proto-US was pissed because they had no say in how they were paying taxes. Today indy Canadian artists are pissed because they have no say in how they receive the money from taxes. Both extremes of insanity on the same continent! I love it!
The definition of "Theft of intellectual property" has already been established by the courts.
Yes, and the courts are totally infallable. The courts decided that 2600 was in the wrong. The courts decided that Napster should die. The courts have repeatedly decided that AOL/TW, MPAA, RIAA, Vivendi, you name it, are beyond reproach. Face it, sometimes their definitions and conclusions are total bullshit and not something we should accept as correct.
Recording the Superbowl for your own use is "fair use" but strictly speaking giving the tape to another is probably a violation.
Oh? So my giving away the only copy I have of something away is illegal? Gee, I guess that puts used book stores and yard sales on par with the chop shop in NYC. No doubt they're next on Valenti's hitlist.
You see the problem here? Once you start saying, "Well these are acceptable means of transferring information and these are not", you will have problems because there will always be totally reasonable actions which will fall into the 'naughty' category. And the courts are notorious for following the letter and not the spirit of the law.
I'm going to decline to comment on the futuristic fantasy of "copying food."
Don't be a jackass. It was an analogy. I never said it was going to happen or had even any chance of doing so. It was an example of this exact same problem applied to something that has inherently been un-mass-copyable, much like information a few centuries ago. The position taken by the status quo side looked stupid, and rightly so. A resource suddenly becomes infinitely available at almost no expense, limited only in the uniqueness of new variations. And what do you propose in response? Let's ignore it and maintain an artificial scarcity! Let's ignore all the positive consequences of this ability and arrest anyone trying to use them!
Slashdot Mirror
Sure, but I think the whole point is to prove that a compact 3d shape, that is, the one with the greatest surface area in relation to its internal volume, is a sphere.
My question is, for the n>3 cases, were they basically doing geometry on hyperspheres? That's one thing I've never been able to wrap my head around.
Well, there's this, or this, or this, or this, just from the first 10 Google results. To be sure, medical marijuana use is legal in some areas, but cops arrest them anyway.
The word manufacture means create, not use. If you possess marijuana seeds with the intent to grow pot, that would be illegal, but if you merely possess marijuana (with some seeds attached) with the intent to smoke, that's not illegal (under federal law).
Huh? I'm allowed to have it but I'm not allowed to grow it, buy it, import it, or do anything that might bring it into my possession? Also, if I cultivate marijuana and make a joint out of it, mighn't that count as manufacturing? Moot point, since regardless of what the law is supposed to be, there are thousands of people arrested every year for nothing more than possession. Not selling it, not growing/synthesizing it, not using it, but simply having it on their person.
Wait a second now. Making the fruits of your work public does affect interstate commerce.
My point was that a lot of people will work a way around the DRM, and some of them will make it public, despite it being illegal to do so. Hollings and co. will look at that and say, "Guess we need to clamp down further" and try to limit even personal development of workarounds. And it's not unreasonable to think they'll try.
I think the achilles heel of the CBDTPA is section (3) part (d)
"In achieving the goals of setting open security standards that will provide effective security for copyrighted works, the security system standards shall ensure, to the extent practicable, that
(1) the standard security technologies are
(A) reliable;
(B) renewable;
(C) resistant to attack;
(D) readily implemented;
(E) modular;
(F) applicable in multiple technology platforms;
(G) extensible;
(H) upgradable;
(I) not cost prohibitive; and
(2) any software portion of such standards is based on open source code."
In other words, the perfect secure system, that can not only tell the difference between protected and unprotected bits, but can also tell when I'm making a legitimate copy under the Fair Use doctrine (section 3, part e), all to be implemented in hardware and software that you sell to hackers who have lots of spare time. What a joke. I agree with you in that respect, but you and I know infinitely more about computers than any judge or politician is likely to. 'Security' is the new computer buzzword and they'll toss it around like it's a minor feature that you can add in your spare time.
If that's the case, then why do they keep going after people like cancer patients who grow marijuana for their own personal use? Or would that be a state-level thing?
From your link:
"it shall be unlawful for any person knowingly or intentionally to manufacture, distribute, or dispense, or possess with intent to manufacture, distribute, or dispense, a controlled substance; or"
I don't see any exceptions made for possession without it changing hands. "Possess with intent to manufacture" seems to me to mean to "Have with intent to use". But IANAL and if you can explain why I'm wrong, feel free to do so.
Regardless, how long do you think it would take before making a device that prevents you from having to buy a movie (i.e., by ripping a DVD rental) and thus 'depriving an author of income', is deemed to affect interstate commerce? Lots of people will do exactly that and some of them will make the fruits of their work public, thus drawing the ire of Hollings' friends.
I figure the CBDTPA is the technological equivalent to the Drug War. Take every crazy law they've ever passed and ridiculous scenario that has arisen from the WoD and apply it to electronics and you'd have the state of affairs 5 or 10 years after S.2048's passing. 'Illicit periphenalia' would end up including things like soldering irons and hex editors and books on programming languages, just as people have been harassed for things like film containers and bottled water and the whole Methamphetamines Anti-Proliferation Act bit.
Suffice to say, I think we both agree that it would be bad.
Once they've learned that every single aspect of life in this country is affected by computers and by extension the CBDTPA, they just might change their tune.
Isn't this a wonderful clause? One would think that this means that you simply can't sell across state lines, right? Wrong. By selling to someone in your state, you are affecting commerce in that state which in turn affects commerce with other states. If I buy from Local Computerama instead of Best Buy, we both affect Best Buy's interstate earnings. Therefore, everything you do can be considered to affect interstate commerce.
is only breaking the law when s/he sells or gives away the device.
Nope, that's not what it says. Merely transporting it in a way that affects interstate commerce is an offense. We've already established that everything I do affects interstate commerce, therefore it is illegal solely by virtue of existing.
And before you say "But that's fscking stupid, they'd never do that", they already have. The federal government's control over the War on Drugs is based almost entirely on the Interstate Commerce clause of the Constitution.
Why would Russia really want a treaty with a country that tries Russians for acts that are legal in Russia commited whilest in Russia? If Dmitri is convicted and forced to remain here, that treaty isn't worth the scrap it's printed on.
I realize I'm preaching to the choir here. But someone needs to take the US government down a peg or two. They evidently aren't listening to their own citizenry or little things like reason or logic; that leaves only the other countries whose citizens are getting screwed by us.
Problem solved. You are never even aware that any particular schlob would have been a Nobel prize winner in another universe, so there's no stress involved.
To take your scenario of "you choose one or I'll choose 50"; you are never really aware that it is going on. Your 'choice', though it changes the fate of many, involves nothing more strenuous than deciding to innoculate your child against some harmful illness. If you knew beforehand that of these 50 children, one of them will do great things for the human race but only at the cost of untold misery for the others and you had to decide what to do, you're right, it'd be ulcer city. But you can't know, so you don't know, so there's no dillema.
E.g., If I'd left home 5 minutes earier, I wouldn't have been in that car accident and this lady wouldn't have been killed and her unborn child would have become the first American Dictator and started WW3. I must be a hero, but all I did was misplace my keys. I don't worry about it because even though I know that even my most trivial acts can change the future, it's obvious that second guessing everything I do will get me nowhere. All I can do is make the best choice based on the info I have. In this case, I choose to give a child an immune system.
But as has been pointed out, these are not, strictly speaking, audio CD's. Someone suggested we techies start reffering to them as "Crapio" CDs. Might start a trend.
My advice would be for record stores to print out a bunch of stickers that say "This CD has been deliberately damaged by the manufacturer and will destroy a computer!" and stick them on all of these copy-prevented labels. Make it glarish and totally unavoidable. People won't be buying them, but then they won't be buying and returning them either.
But of couse they usually get money from returned CD's anyway so it'll probably never happen.
I will think of all the other "next Van Goghs" whose lives were saved by genetic engineering.
Should we ban polio vaccines because it causes the disease in a handful of children who otherwise might not have had it, thereby essentially forcing it onto millions of others?
I did a traceroute to yahoo.fr and I'm pretty certain there's a trans-Atlantic hop in there. The trace crosses into ebone.net, which is physically based in Europe.
I think the simplest way to solve this whole thing would be for France to snatch the first Yahoo! employee to come along and demand consistency from the US government. If Dmitri isn't released, then France's 'hostage' goes to trial for selling Nazi paraphernalia. It'd be certain to get attention.
Here's my question. If he gets convicted and sentenced to prison, you say he can opt to go back to Russia. Assuming that's true, and since what he did is not illegal there, wouldn't it be perfectly legal for them to simply release him the minute he gets back home?
Damn. Is it region coded? And what movies are due to come into public domain soon? I mean, by your reasoning, which is very clever, all we need is one single DVD which should be public domain on which DeCSS can be used for the whole thing to be made legal.
Hey stupid! Every single thing new under the sun is here because someone didn't want to pay for the existing products!
Ok, I think the fact that I can't come up with a single reason why you couldn't pull a stunt like this is a good indicator that copyright law is fubar.
I could have sworn I came across a comment by Hollings along the lines of, "I can't believe that some teens in a basement somewhere couldn't pull it [SSSCA tech] off." But I'm having the damndest time finding the link. Have I just been hitting the magic mushrooms a little hard lately or does someone else know what I'm talking about?
Not only interstate but intrastate commerce as well. It doesn't actually say that in the constitution, but they do it anyway. Usually on the basis that what I do entirely in one state affects commerce with other states.
Oh? So any bonus money that the RIAA gets from tariffs or taxes or whatever gets split up fairly among the giants and the non-RIAA artists and publishers? If you believe that, I have this bridge I could sell to you.
It'd be great, but only if the retailers sold them with the discount intact. The unscrupulous might simply see it as a way to jack up their own profits on those titles; after all, how many customers have any idea of the wholesale cost of the CD they're buying? Or they (the larger chains, at least) might be pressured by the RIAA to not even carry them in the first place. You know, typical M$ tactics: "Do not even offer products that aren't ours or we'll cut you off completely".
If enough of the retailers gave them the finger in response to that kind of treatment, we'd win. If not, the upstart publisher gets crushed. Bummer.
I agree, but where the hell's Grammar Nazi? Isn't he supposed to be pointing these things out? I tell you, he's gotten really slack in his old age. :)
My question is, what other similar assurances have we heard from the MPAA? We're all familiar with Valenti comparing the VCR to a serial killer, but what else is there?
Well, if your second post gets modded down far enough then it'll offset the first and you'll be morally neutral again. Hooray!
All it says to me is that lawyers have more say in designing the RIAA's webpage than coders.
Now how wacked is this? 230 years ago the proto-US was pissed because they had no say in how they were paying taxes. Today indy Canadian artists are pissed because they have no say in how they receive the money from taxes. Both extremes of insanity on the same continent! I love it!
Try... "Copy protection software is bad, m'kay?" They bought it hook line and sinker for the War on Drugs, why not this?
Yes, and the courts are totally infallable. The courts decided that 2600 was in the wrong. The courts decided that Napster should die. The courts have repeatedly decided that AOL/TW, MPAA, RIAA, Vivendi, you name it, are beyond reproach. Face it, sometimes their definitions and conclusions are total bullshit and not something we should accept as correct.
Recording the Superbowl for your own use is "fair use" but strictly speaking giving the tape to another is probably a violation.
Oh? So my giving away the only copy I have of something away is illegal? Gee, I guess that puts used book stores and yard sales on par with the chop shop in NYC. No doubt they're next on Valenti's hitlist.
You see the problem here? Once you start saying, "Well these are acceptable means of transferring information and these are not", you will have problems because there will always be totally reasonable actions which will fall into the 'naughty' category. And the courts are notorious for following the letter and not the spirit of the law.
I'm going to decline to comment on the futuristic fantasy of "copying food."
Don't be a jackass. It was an analogy. I never said it was going to happen or had even any chance of doing so. It was an example of this exact same problem applied to something that has inherently been un-mass-copyable, much like information a few centuries ago. The position taken by the status quo side looked stupid, and rightly so. A resource suddenly becomes infinitely available at almost no expense, limited only in the uniqueness of new variations. And what do you propose in response? Let's ignore it and maintain an artificial scarcity! Let's ignore all the positive consequences of this ability and arrest anyone trying to use them!