Generation gap. The 60s people marched, risked jail time, and their lives to deal with this crap.
Many of the 60s people had their lives on the line. They were being drafted. Their friends were being drafted and dying. It incentivizes a bit of civil disobedience.
In America, the cops is always right !! No matter what the cops did, or still doing, there are always people who will scream their heads off telling you that the cops are right !
It has nothing to do with 1st Amendment or Free Speech or Bill of Rights or the Constitution.
The Cops are above them all !
Actually, the issue is a bit more complex, although this is certainly how many officers behave. (Others are significantly more professional, and even courteous.)
A huge problem we have is that, realistically, the prosecution gets to write the story. The vast majority of cases settle, which means that the formal record of any criminal event in this country is the prosecution's version of events. This version of events is frequently, at best, inaccurate. The function of the prosecution and of the police, on paper, is not to be a neutral arbiter but to make sure the case is strong. This is not to say that this version of events is a deliberate lie, but it nevertheless completely fails to be an accurate record of the event. So of the huge volume of data we have of criminality, most of it is incredibly biased. Only when a case actually goes to trial does the defense present a case, and there the assumption on the part of most people in the room is that the defendant is guilty.
That being said, I also know several people who have been beaten by the cops without provocation. Those cops are not professionals, and they are not just something of an ass at times. They are fucking criminals who should be sent to jail.
There is nothing testable about any multiverse hypothesis and nothing being measured here. The.CMB's variability is indistinguishable from noise.
I hypothesize that the multiverse exists, and that the portion of it that is that portion of our universe which I observe will continue to exist even if I type squee.
I agree that shaming is a problem, although I don't agree that changing the law is necessary to work on attitudes. There are programs today where officers are being trained not to look down on prostitutes automatically and not to revictimize trafficking victims, a common problem among untrained law enforcement officers.
Shifting the demand curve is important. If you can pay for sex, but at the cost of increasing the chance of a sixteen year old being raped, then you have an option that can lower that chance. Society en masse sometimes makes decisions which lower the chances of crime, even if an activity is innocuous to the innocent--for example, public parks often close after dark.
In terms of resources, if the justice system cut back on prostitution but increased resources on going after pimps, it would be a net positive. But I find the demand curve shift too problematic--and the consequences too severe--to legalize.
I don't necessarily advocate criminalizing the person who is having paid sex. Criminalizing--or at least punishing--the person who pays for it might be a better solution. John School can work wonders, as well. (Not for everyone, but definitely for some.)
And actually proper training decreases harassment and abuse of prostitutes by law enforcement.
No, because allowing prostitution shifts the demand curve.
No, that analogy does not work, notably because we consider slavery and the repeated rape of teenage girls to be far worse than theft.
No, because with good laws and good training, a non-consenting victim can still count on the justice system for help. We are not there, but we are getting better.
So, prostitution is no crime, the woman is perfectly capable of making her own decisions. Sex-trafficking and exploiting run-aways is another matter all-together.
Problem is, you can't always tell whether the woman is perfectly capable of making her own decisions. She may be consenting only because she is abused if she does not bring back a certain amount of money, or because she has been stolen and repeatedly raped and conditioned to accept money in exchange for letting strangers rape her. A girl on the street or in a brothel may seem to be consenting but may in reality be a trafficking victim. It's quite common.
It is only when prostitution is considered a crime by society do the incentives to commit prostitution create situations where we end up with victims (pimps exploiting runaways, sex-trafficking, etc.)
Wrong. Pimping and human trafficking are about profit, period (from the perspective of the trafficker). The risk/reward ratio, as compared to smuggling drugs or guns, is much more favorable--and a lot of cops and laypeople are not going to recognize or report trafficking. That is true regardless of whether prostitution is legal, and legalizing prostitution makes it harder, not easier, to end trafficking.
If someone can rent a girl's body out, make a fortune, never have to pay her, and have only a very tiny chance of getting arrested (because, among other things, people think prostitution is a victimless crime), then they will do that regardless of whether prostitution is legal. Even if--and I stress the if--you had great certification programs for high-end and even middle-price prostitutes, where someone actually had to (for example) check a registered database before paying, it will not get rid of the problem that puts millions of teens around the world and hundreds of thousands in the US at risk every year. It will actually normalize the activity in the minds of buyers and sometimes-unknowing rapists who can't afford the high end legalized market.
Prostitution in and of itself is a victimless crime. If two consenting adults decide to exchange money for sex, where is the crime?
If two consulting adults decide to exchange money for sex, maybe--maybe--there's no problem. But when it becomes a common practice, there is a problem. When prostitution becomes legalized in an area, demand outstrips supply, prices go up enough that traffickers move in, and traffickers also provide services that registered prostitution doesn't, such as not using condoms, etc... The result is a high concentration of trafficking and a society that, in that area, looks the other way even more than society normally does.
The problem is not the consenting adults. The problem is that most of the time, even if a buyer cares, he will not even know whether the other person is a consenting adult. It is *easy* for man to rationalize abuse and even rape. Just as it is easy for the actual traffickers to rationalize their behavior, their buying and selling of women--their slave trade.
Check out River of Innocents for a primer. Or look up the Polaris Project.
The process of re-refining that "waste" is the same that's used to create weapons grade material. Don't get me wrong, I believe they should be reusing it but I can see why people would be worried about allowing it.
So what? There are enough sane people in the world to manage weapons grade material.
In DC, life expectancy drops by two years for every stop you take along the red line, IIRC. There is a lot of poverty.
As a city, there is also a high population density. It would be a very stupid place to put nuclear waste.
Don't we have a site near Yucca Mountain where we have test-exploded about a thousand nuclear bombs? What about doing it there?
And yes, we felt the need to test nuclear bombs quite frequently, it seems. Sometimes mankind seems quite primitive, even with the most advanced and destructive weapons in the world.
If standing in front of a building in protest in a way which prevents entry is free speech . ..
Stop there. Maybe I haven't heard about this exception that you claim exists, but you are not allowed to obstruct someone's movement. If that doesn't apply to entering a store, then the justice system has seriously failed. DDoS attacks will not be protected, nor should they be. It costs money and often times serious damage.
I said if, because I'm not sure what the law of picketing is, or how it varies between jurisdictions. I was not referring to false imprisonment, etc...--standing in front of someone means you are standing there first. This is not a question of you surrounding them and preventing them from leaving. I am allowed to obstruct your movement if we're both in a public park and I'm sitting on a bench--you can't sit in the spot I'm in. You're not legally allowed to make me move. Your description, on the other hand, is putting the agency in the person who stands still. If you barrel into me when I'm standing in front of a store, it may be that you are the one doing something illegal or actionable.
DDoS attacks do cost money. I do not know what kind of "serious" damage you mean, other than money. Do you mean time? Or negative publicity? Nobody is physically injured. A knife-fight on the street is much worse than a DDoS attack for the people involved, with rare exceptions which mostly involve small targets. The knife-fight costs less for society, however, in many cases. But there is more damage if you measure damage in terms that are human rather than purely economic.
If the CiC structure allows anonymous to control the machine, then voluntarily installing their botnet means one is providing them with resources, not merely protesting. (Or at least, that is the argument.)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I do believe that sit-ins and pickets cannot legally prevent or impede normal operations of the business - you cannot block customers or employees.
Picket lines and sit-ins are meant to educate people about an issue; make them think twice about it, make them realize there may be more to something that hadn't considered before. Attempt to dissuade people from working or doing business with the company or institution you don't like.
DDoS is nothing like that. It directly impedes business, it directly impedes customers. It has no message, other than an error when a customer tries to load the page; there's no persuasion there. They might read about it later - might - but then, the DDoSers no longer control the message - most people are going to read about it from a news outlet. They'll probably see it as some "hackers" preventing them from getting on with their lives. Frustrating people and not letting them handle their affairs is not a good way to get them on your side.
DDoS isn't a sit-in, isn't a protest. It's sabotage. It's revenge. It's sneaking into UPS at night and letting the air out of all the tires of all the trucks. No permanent physical damage done, but disrupts business, delays packages.
I am not sure, on the sit-ins and pickets. I would not think a sit-in can disrupt operations, since it's on private property, and it's not like they're discriminating against you based on your race or gender. A picket line might be different--if someone touches you to move you out of the way, that's a tort and a crime. But it may also be a tort and/or crime for you to physically bar their entry. (And disobeying a lawfully given police order is also a crime usually, but I'm not sure how the first amendment interacts with that in orders to disperse, etc...)
A DDoS is not sabotage--sabotage implied some kind of surreptitious damage to a machine, to equipment, etc... and a DDoS attack damages the bottom line, but not equipment. The UPS metaphor is close, although again, you're not sneaking in--you come in through the front door, the way everyone else does, you just behave differently. It's kind of like a flash-mob that doesn't steal anything, but is filling the store and and nobody else can get in.
The only real difference--and it is a big one--is that for a DDoS, there is no real way to tell someone to leave.
Denial Of Service attacks are not protected speech and are a violation of Federal law.
Probably, but has that been litigated? If standing in front of a building in protest in a way which prevents entry is free speech, a DoS attack is theoretically free speech as well. The DoS attack here was effectively civilians protesting on behalf of an organization that released large amounts of classified data. But one can also argue that it was civilians providing material support to that an organization that attempted to release classified data (depending on the CiC structure of the botnet).
It is highly unlikely that a court will support the free speech view, of course--but it is a logically valid interpretation.
This is both a question and a point but don't US courts require at least basic evidence before a suit can be brought?
Not generally, no. They require that the "pleading" or "complaint" state a claim on which relief can be granted, but they do not require evidence before you bring the suit. Evidence is produced through a process called "discovery" after the courts are formally involved (although they don't really do anything during discovery, and asking them to because you're in a fight about whether something is discoverable usually gets them mad at you. They don't like to get down in the mud, as it were). If there is no evidence after discovery, the matter will be dismissed, but if there is conflicting evidence, it will go to trial (usually).
At least, that is true in theory. In reality, the VAST majority of cases are settled.
They do require a little more than they used to--pleading standards were raised within the last few years--but they are not terribly high. The higher they are, the harder it is to sue someone who really deserves it but tries to hide evidence; the lower they are, the worse one can be harassed and the more someone can use lawsuits to reveal private company information.
Still, if you have absolutely no evidence--not even the testimony of someone who knows something happened--it would be highly inadvisable and possibly criminal to file a lawsuit. YMMV, IANAL, and consult an attorney if this is any way relevant to you, rather than purely academic.
Slashdot Mirror
You have a list of evil software companies that doesn't include Adobe or Symantec?
I like how the odd part is not making a list of evil software companies, but making the wrong one. =)
Intent to embarrass isn't a crime. Of course, only sociopaths don't feel embarrassment. Oh, wait.....
Under a definition of cyberstalking that includes intent to embarass over the internet to a third party, the majority of internet users are criminals.
Generation gap. The 60s people marched, risked jail time, and their lives to deal with this crap.
Many of the 60s people had their lives on the line. They were being drafted. Their friends were being drafted and dying. It incentivizes a bit of civil disobedience.
Of course, NOT !
In America, the cops is always right !! No matter what the cops did, or still doing, there are always people who will scream their heads off telling you that the cops are right !
It has nothing to do with 1st Amendment or Free Speech or Bill of Rights or the Constitution.
The Cops are above them all !
Actually, the issue is a bit more complex, although this is certainly how many officers behave. (Others are significantly more professional, and even courteous.)
A huge problem we have is that, realistically, the prosecution gets to write the story. The vast majority of cases settle, which means that the formal record of any criminal event in this country is the prosecution's version of events. This version of events is frequently, at best, inaccurate. The function of the prosecution and of the police, on paper, is not to be a neutral arbiter but to make sure the case is strong. This is not to say that this version of events is a deliberate lie, but it nevertheless completely fails to be an accurate record of the event. So of the huge volume of data we have of criminality, most of it is incredibly biased. Only when a case actually goes to trial does the defense present a case, and there the assumption on the part of most people in the room is that the defendant is guilty.
That being said, I also know several people who have been beaten by the cops without provocation. Those cops are not professionals, and they are not just something of an ass at times. They are fucking criminals who should be sent to jail.
I wonder how silly the guy who found the first black swan felt.
Never mind him. Think how silly the guy who put the black makeup on the swan felt!
There is nothing testable about any multiverse hypothesis and nothing being measured here. The.CMB's variability is indistinguishable from noise.
I hypothesize that the multiverse exists, and that the portion of it that is that portion of our universe which I observe will continue to exist even if I type squee.
squee.
Oh sh--
Yes. Inaccurately perhaps, but life goes on, the sun will still rise and fall.
"Flaming Error" is claiming the sun will rise tomorrow...
It reminds me of Hume.
Somewhere, an Irony Universe has just bumped into ours.
=)
In what way is e-mail used as proof of identity ?
For most business correspondence in the modern world. Not formally, but in decision-making, for example.
They can guess the first five, and the last 4 are frequently used (at colleges) to report test scores in a pseudo-anonymous manner.
That is an incredibly stupid practice. If anyone reading is a student or professor at such a college, lobby to get this changed.
I agree that shaming is a problem, although I don't agree that changing the law is necessary to work on attitudes. There are programs today where officers are being trained not to look down on prostitutes automatically and not to revictimize trafficking victims, a common problem among untrained law enforcement officers.
Shifting the demand curve is important. If you can pay for sex, but at the cost of increasing the chance of a sixteen year old being raped, then you have an option that can lower that chance. Society en masse sometimes makes decisions which lower the chances of crime, even if an activity is innocuous to the innocent--for example, public parks often close after dark.
In terms of resources, if the justice system cut back on prostitution but increased resources on going after pimps, it would be a net positive. But I find the demand curve shift too problematic--and the consequences too severe--to legalize.
Agreed. Summary is massively misleading.They are only guessing the first five digits, which is not remotely random or secure.
I don't necessarily advocate criminalizing the person who is having paid sex. Criminalizing--or at least punishing--the person who pays for it might be a better solution. John School can work wonders, as well. (Not for everyone, but definitely for some.)
And actually proper training decreases harassment and abuse of prostitutes by law enforcement.
No, because allowing prostitution shifts the demand curve.
No, that analogy does not work, notably because we consider slavery and the repeated rape of teenage girls to be far worse than theft.
No, because with good laws and good training, a non-consenting victim can still count on the justice system for help. We are not there, but we are getting better.
So, prostitution is no crime, the woman is perfectly capable of making her own decisions. Sex-trafficking and exploiting run-aways is another matter all-together.
Problem is, you can't always tell whether the woman is perfectly capable of making her own decisions. She may be consenting only because she is abused if she does not bring back a certain amount of money, or because she has been stolen and repeatedly raped and conditioned to accept money in exchange for letting strangers rape her. A girl on the street or in a brothel may seem to be consenting but may in reality be a trafficking victim. It's quite common.
It is only when prostitution is considered a crime by society do the incentives to commit prostitution create situations where we end up with victims (pimps exploiting runaways, sex-trafficking, etc.)
Wrong. Pimping and human trafficking are about profit, period (from the perspective of the trafficker). The risk/reward ratio, as compared to smuggling drugs or guns, is much more favorable--and a lot of cops and laypeople are not going to recognize or report trafficking. That is true regardless of whether prostitution is legal, and legalizing prostitution makes it harder, not easier, to end trafficking.
If someone can rent a girl's body out, make a fortune, never have to pay her, and have only a very tiny chance of getting arrested (because, among other things, people think prostitution is a victimless crime), then they will do that regardless of whether prostitution is legal. Even if--and I stress the if--you had great certification programs for high-end and even middle-price prostitutes, where someone actually had to (for example) check a registered database before paying, it will not get rid of the problem that puts millions of teens around the world and hundreds of thousands in the US at risk every year. It will actually normalize the activity in the minds of buyers and sometimes-unknowing rapists who can't afford the high end legalized market.
Prostitution in and of itself is a victimless crime. If two consenting adults decide to exchange money for sex, where is the crime?
If two consulting adults decide to exchange money for sex, maybe--maybe--there's no problem. But when it becomes a common practice, there is a problem. When prostitution becomes legalized in an area, demand outstrips supply, prices go up enough that traffickers move in, and traffickers also provide services that registered prostitution doesn't, such as not using condoms, etc... The result is a high concentration of trafficking and a society that, in that area, looks the other way even more than society normally does.
The problem is not the consenting adults. The problem is that most of the time, even if a buyer cares, he will not even know whether the other person is a consenting adult. It is *easy* for man to rationalize abuse and even rape. Just as it is easy for the actual traffickers to rationalize their behavior, their buying and selling of women--their slave trade.
Check out River of Innocents for a primer. Or look up the Polaris Project.
The process of re-refining that "waste" is the same that's used to create weapons grade material. Don't get me wrong, I believe they should be reusing it but I can see why people would be worried about allowing it.
So what? There are enough sane people in the world to manage weapons grade material.
In DC, life expectancy drops by two years for every stop you take along the red line, IIRC. There is a lot of poverty.
As a city, there is also a high population density. It would be a very stupid place to put nuclear waste.
Don't we have a site near Yucca Mountain where we have test-exploded about a thousand nuclear bombs? What about doing it there?
And yes, we felt the need to test nuclear bombs quite frequently, it seems. Sometimes mankind seems quite primitive, even with the most advanced and destructive weapons in the world.
The botnet here was a voluntary botnet, IIRC.
I was responding to Parent's claim that DDoS attacks often cause serious damage.
If standing in front of a building in protest in a way which prevents entry is free speech . . .
Stop there. Maybe I haven't heard about this exception that you claim exists, but you are not allowed to obstruct someone's movement. If that doesn't apply to entering a store, then the justice system has seriously failed. DDoS attacks will not be protected, nor should they be. It costs money and often times serious damage.
I said if, because I'm not sure what the law of picketing is, or how it varies between jurisdictions. I was not referring to false imprisonment, etc...--standing in front of someone means you are standing there first. This is not a question of you surrounding them and preventing them from leaving. I am allowed to obstruct your movement if we're both in a public park and I'm sitting on a bench--you can't sit in the spot I'm in. You're not legally allowed to make me move. Your description, on the other hand, is putting the agency in the person who stands still. If you barrel into me when I'm standing in front of a store, it may be that you are the one doing something illegal or actionable.
DDoS attacks do cost money. I do not know what kind of "serious" damage you mean, other than money. Do you mean time? Or negative publicity? Nobody is physically injured. A knife-fight on the street is much worse than a DDoS attack for the people involved, with rare exceptions which mostly involve small targets. The knife-fight costs less for society, however, in many cases. But there is more damage if you measure damage in terms that are human rather than purely economic.
If the CiC structure allows anonymous to control the machine, then voluntarily installing their botnet means one is providing them with resources, not merely protesting. (Or at least, that is the argument.)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I do believe that sit-ins and pickets cannot legally prevent or impede normal operations of the business - you cannot block customers or employees.
Picket lines and sit-ins are meant to educate people about an issue; make them think twice about it, make them realize there may be more to something that hadn't considered before. Attempt to dissuade people from working or doing business with the company or institution you don't like.
DDoS is nothing like that. It directly impedes business, it directly impedes customers. It has no message, other than an error when a customer tries to load the page; there's no persuasion there. They might read about it later - might - but then, the DDoSers no longer control the message - most people are going to read about it from a news outlet. They'll probably see it as some "hackers" preventing them from getting on with their lives. Frustrating people and not letting them handle their affairs is not a good way to get them on your side.
DDoS isn't a sit-in, isn't a protest. It's sabotage. It's revenge. It's sneaking into UPS at night and letting the air out of all the tires of all the trucks. No permanent physical damage done, but disrupts business, delays packages.
I am not sure, on the sit-ins and pickets. I would not think a sit-in can disrupt operations, since it's on private property, and it's not like they're discriminating against you based on your race or gender. A picket line might be different--if someone touches you to move you out of the way, that's a tort and a crime. But it may also be a tort and/or crime for you to physically bar their entry. (And disobeying a lawfully given police order is also a crime usually, but I'm not sure how the first amendment interacts with that in orders to disperse, etc...)
A DDoS is not sabotage--sabotage implied some kind of surreptitious damage to a machine, to equipment, etc... and a DDoS attack damages the bottom line, but not equipment. The UPS metaphor is close, although again, you're not sneaking in--you come in through the front door, the way everyone else does, you just behave differently. It's kind of like a flash-mob that doesn't steal anything, but is filling the store and and nobody else can get in.
The only real difference--and it is a big one--is that for a DDoS, there is no real way to tell someone to leave.
Denial Of Service attacks are not protected speech and are a violation of Federal law.
Probably, but has that been litigated? If standing in front of a building in protest in a way which prevents entry is free speech, a DoS attack is theoretically free speech as well. The DoS attack here was effectively civilians protesting on behalf of an organization that released large amounts of classified data. But one can also argue that it was civilians providing material support to that an organization that attempted to release classified data (depending on the CiC structure of the botnet).
It is highly unlikely that a court will support the free speech view, of course--but it is a logically valid interpretation.
This is both a question and a point but don't US courts require at least basic evidence before a suit can be brought?
Not generally, no. They require that the "pleading" or "complaint" state a claim on which relief can be granted, but they do not require evidence before you bring the suit. Evidence is produced through a process called "discovery" after the courts are formally involved (although they don't really do anything during discovery, and asking them to because you're in a fight about whether something is discoverable usually gets them mad at you. They don't like to get down in the mud, as it were). If there is no evidence after discovery, the matter will be dismissed, but if there is conflicting evidence, it will go to trial (usually).
At least, that is true in theory. In reality, the VAST majority of cases are settled.
They do require a little more than they used to--pleading standards were raised within the last few years--but they are not terribly high. The higher they are, the harder it is to sue someone who really deserves it but tries to hide evidence; the lower they are, the worse one can be harassed and the more someone can use lawsuits to reveal private company information.
Still, if you have absolutely no evidence--not even the testimony of someone who knows something happened--it would be highly inadvisable and possibly criminal to file a lawsuit. YMMV, IANAL, and consult an attorney if this is any way relevant to you, rather than purely academic.
Have a lawyer draft a letter saying you're in compliance, have them send it, registered mail, to the BSA. This should not coast more than $150 or so.
Don't take that $150 as a hard rule--rates vary by firm, attorney, location, etc...