Re:Ethics Rules and Devil's Advocate
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SCO Vs. Groklaw
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· Score: 1
Yes, but they have to actually work around the rules. Claiming that they are not in fact an attorney representing IBM or the like is going to be impossible to argue was a genuine mistake or confusion.
But working around the rules would be exactly the other alternative I left open, namely getting someone who is not actually representing IBM at the moment to run the site. Then the attorneys representing IBM could claim ignorance of any statements she made that contradicted their actual relationship even though they might be feeding her info.
Re:Ethics Rules and Devil's Advocate
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SCO Vs. Groklaw
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· Score: 1
That is just what I was saying: maybe she is employed by IBM but it is very unlikely that it is written by the same attorneys who are actually representing them.
Re:Ethics Rules and Devil's Advocate
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SCO Vs. Groklaw
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· Score: 1
Yes, exactly what the first reply said. I wasn't very clear but it is extremely doubtful that a big corporate lawyer would engage in such a clear cut violation of the rule.
I'm not ruling out the idea that they are engaged in some sort of greyish or more deniable area like feeding the information to someone else.
Yes, wikipedia lists her as author of several books and gives us her name as Pamela Jones but is curiously devoid of any actual identifying information or biographical information. Compare to the page on Tim O'Reilly where we learn where and when he was born and how he did in college despite a much shorter entry than the one on Pamela Jones.
Or she doesn't want to be subpoenaed for various reasons.
I mean what if she is actually a lawyer at a firm that works with SCO (or a SCO employee)? Hell, if she is any lawyer, para-legal or judge the revelation that she runs groklaw could cause serious problems for her. Many big companies, especially software companies, might be quite reluctant to trust their work to a firm whose employee is so passionately advocating for free software on the Internet.
Maybe she is afraid that as a witness she will get tangled up in the case and run into trouble blogging about it? Or maybe she just doesn't want to spend many days in court testifying. Maybe she is only 16 or received money from IBM so she could devote more time to posting. There are a 100 reasons she might have not to want to receive the subpoena.
Obviously there is some reason she doesn't want to be really identified or who she really was would be listed on wikipedia. This reason might be totally benign or not so benign but since it appears she has taken pains to keep her identity secret it is far to much of a coincidence to think she decided to take time off after many years just when SCO is trying to subpoena her.
Ethics Rules and Devil's Advocate
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SCO Vs. Groklaw
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· Score: 4, Interesting
I don't know whether it should have any legal effect but if true it would certainly cause credibility problems for IBM with many people, perhaps including the judge. Moreover, we don't know all of what has been stated in depositions. If IBM or other companies have made claims incompatible with the facts behind groklaw that could be problematic.
Additionally there are ethical guidelines with real force that prohibit attorneys from using lies in the course of their representation. Remember in one state it even went so far as to create problems for prosecutors who wanted to give advice to undercover officers. Since she appears to have made claims that would be lies if she was an IBM lawyer this might be problematic for her and any lawyers who participated in the scheme.
In order to play devil's advocate for a moment wouldn't blogging about the sony rootkit and other issues provide important cover for really being an IBM lawyer? If IBM was going engage in such deceitful tactics they would be betting much on the truth not being discovered so criticizing sony wouldn't be problematic. Besides, do you really think the reason people do or don't buy the PS3 has much to do with Sony's rootkit fiasco?
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However, having said this these very considerations make it extremely unlikely this blog is written by IBM lawyers as such. For starters it would be idiotic to put someone who was actually involved in trying the case in such a position where gag orders, conflicts of interest and rules about not suborning perjury might become incompatible with keeping the secret. Secondly, the very fact that it might run afoul of these ethics guidelines makes it very unlikely that the IBM attorneys would be doing it.
A more interesting question is whether PJ receives any financial remuneration from IBM. It is a far more plausible story that PJ is in fact a lawyer/para-legal who genuinely has many of these views but was paid by IBM so they could devote more time to them. In this case they would not be acting as legal consul so most of the ethics rules I've mentioned would not apply and this would be a much better explanation of the choices of subjects than a blog run by a corporate committee.
In this case, absent some PR effects of depositions to the contrary by IBM I'm unsure if there would be any legal repercussions. But who can say until we know what SCO is trying to subpoena her for.
THESE AREN'T THE FUCKING PAPERS. Those are still just lay explanations I cited as evidence that this is hardly an unconsidered topic in climate science. If you read the actual articles published in journals you will find responses of exactly the form you give, points based on reason and argument not authority. Besides, you yourself are saying what sort of language is used shouldn't matter only who has the better argument should matter.
Bringing up ID is a perfect example. Do you think that ID is a better theory than evolution because of the tone to the discussions? If so there really isn't much point continuing the discussion but if not then you admit that this tone also characterizes people who actually have the evidence and arguments on their side but can't convey them to the public because it is too technical.
The scientific papers (things published in nature, climate science journals etc..) are there if you want to read them and they just give the argument and evidence. If you can't understand them or don't have the time to read them you can't blame the scientists for not giving you the real arguments.
Actually all the journal articles I've seen in the climate science field seem perfectly normal scientific articles. Of course getting through even one journal article is *very* difficult if not impossible for your average person much less keeping up with the subject.
So yes it is impossible for the average citizen to keep abreast of climate science because reports in the mass media necessarily leave out the real details and they don't have the time or expertise to read the real arguments. You can spout off whatever high minded ideas you want about republics and the people it doesn't change the fact that some aspects of the world just ARE complex and require lots of training and study to comprehend.
The facts about global warming aren't going to go away just because the evidence for it can't be compellingly conveyed in a sound bite.
What I'm saying is that people need to either get off their asses and really learn climate science (very very unlikely) or admit that they don't know enough to debate the issue themselves and instead just figure out whose opinions to trust. It's a lot like going to the doctor. It's only an idiot who refuses to get surgery when their doctor tells them they have a malignant growth because they read some article in newsweek. A smart individual gets a second or third opinion and asks doctors they trust whether it really is a tumor and then takes action based on the expert advice. All I'm saying is we should do the same with the climate as we would do with our own bodies.
So what I said broke down the situation into two cases.
1) You want to argue about the merits of the evidence, e.g., does anthropogenic global warming explain things like the (supposed) medieval warm period. In this case you really should actually know what the evidence is before you start arguing. You don't have to be a scientist but if you can't be bothered to actually read through the evidence they are using to make their argument it's just foolish to think you know enough to respond.
2) You want to leave interpreting the evidence to the experts and argue about which of them are more credible. In this case it's perfectly reasonable to comment without actually having read the papers but you are trying to establish that the few climate change deniers are more credible than the vast majority of scientists who accept the consensus view. So sure you should be allowed to make the point but it's just a dumb one.
Some positions just don't have good arguments. If you pick an incorrect position like arguing the earth is flat or that UFOs make crop circles it isn't my fault that you won't be able to make a compelling case it's yours because you picked a ridiculous position. The position that the vast majority of climate change researchers is less credible than the doubters just happens to be one of those positions.
Or, could it be....maybe the research is actually crap and that's why they didn't accept it?
Maybe there are valid reasons for not believing that cosmic rays provide a good explanation for the data (say like the ones that a search on realclimate.org will turn up)?
I think it's safe to assume that you are actually not a climate science researcher. As such you don't actually have the ability to evaluate whether or not this guy's work is compelling or crap. In fact all you can do is decide who to believe in a he said she said. Except one side is the vast vast majority of scientists and the other side ia a handful of climate deniers.
So are you really suggesting that the claims made by the small handful of climate deniers are more credible than the scientific establishment? If not what is your evidence that my interpretation isn't the correct one?
Yah, and every day every physics department in the world recieves letters from nutters who think they've discovered the ultimate theory of everything in their basement.
So sure is it logically possible this guy is right and the rest of the scientific establishment wrong? Sure, though there are some quite compelling reasons not to think cosmic rays explain climate change. It's also logically possible that Xenu really did bring 50 billion aliens to earth on DC-10s and kill them with hydrogen bombs. Do you think we should plan for the future based on mainstream science or the threat from the thetans?
The question is how likely is this guy to be right. Now if you happen to be a climate scientists you should evaluate that based only on the merits of the idea, i.e., the evidence for it. If you don't read climate science papers and keep up with the subject it is just idiotic for you to evaluate the merits of his theory. Instead you have to compare the credibility of the vast vast majority of the scientific establishment and a few dissenters. There isn't much of a contest here.
Let's put the issue a little bit more concretely. Suppose some guy comes up to you with a proposal to mine gold based on a new process for leaching it from rocks other companies are ignoring. He wants you to invest money in his company but when you consult experts in chemistry, mining and geology they all tell you he is a complete quack and his idea is completely bogus. Would you invest?
Do you read the research papers in climate science? If you answered no to both these questions then you shouldn't be trying to weigh the evidence yourself based on what you read in newspapers.
In any scientific discipline, and particularly complex ones like climate science, it is easy to select evidence (even honestly) to make almost anything appear to be the right explanation. The reason the scientific process works is because it doesn't just let each theory get up and give a stump speech but demands to know how it can answer tough questions and fit consistently with our other knowledge. The question is not, 'would cosmic rays make for a good hypothesis on the basis of our inexpert knowledge,' but 'given the vast body of knowledge scientists have is it plausible that cosmic rays explain climate variation.'
Thankfully, climate scientists have not only already addressed this question but even written lay explanations about it. You can find plenty of other discussions about cosmic rays over on realclimate.org and they point out that there is considerable reason to discredit the cosmic ray explanation for global warming.
What disgusts me about this whole buisness is that whenever something like this comes up a bunch of people who can't be bothered to actually read the journal articles but think they are entitled to second guess the people who have pipe up and complain about how global warming is just a dogma. Like any topic you have a choice. You can either choose to learn enough about the subject to intelligently weigh the evidence, which in this case would mean keeping up with the actual scientific papers not just media summaries, or you can count on experts to analyze that evidence for you and reach your conclusion on the authority of those experts.
Look it's simple really. Either you can read the scientific papers yourself and argue with the other experts about the evidence or you can argue about which experts are more credible. If you are debating the matter here you are doing the later. So do you really expect anyone to believe that the handful of climate change deniers are more credible than all experts who find the evidence for global warming compelling? If the positions were reversed and it was the deniers who were claiming it was global warming would you believe?
The worst part of all this is that these very idiots who claim that climate science is just some dogma pose a real threat to important dissent in the climate science community. While we may be sure of the vague outlines of human caused climate change there are many issues that still require vigorous scientific debate but if this debate is jumped on by skeptics as proof that global warming is a fraud then responsible scientists will be more reluctant to publicly express such disagreements.
I'm sure Nick Gisburne is a nice guy and all but you'll excuse me if I'm hesitant to go just by the word of one of the parties to the dispute. Either I would like to hear both sides, his and google's, or at least a report by a neutral third party that has done some research.
Everyone feels the temptation to exaggerate their case when they feel they've been wronged and it is all to easy to jump to outraged conclusions about why some action was taken.
I don't see the problem with the way amazon is handling free speech. In fact just the opposite, they seem to be standing up for it in this case. If they have started hanging up on people commenting about the matter this may be a PR blunder but it is hardly a free speech deficit. Besides, Amazon sets up these phones for people to call with genuine issues about orders and products not as a place for the public to express it's opinion. Besides, what is likely to cost amazon money would be a humane society boycott and that is all about whether they stop selling the video. It isn't like there is some magical way for them to handle the free speech issue that would avoid pulling the video but avoid risking a boycott.
So sure there is an argument that hanging up was a bad choice for amazon's bottom line but supposing they weren't going to pull the video the case isn't very clear cut.
Personally I'm not willing to criticize amazon at all for hanging up on people calling to complain about what they sell. Companies like private citizens have no obligation to accept phone calls berating their moral choices. I suspect everyone here would hang up on people calling because you were selling things on ebay they found morally objectionable and why should we condemn amazon for doing the same. In fact I'm a little outraged that people feel amazon is doing bad because they don't want to tie up their phone lines with demands that they censor their product lines.
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As an aside I wish these links had been to more impartial news sources. I couldn't find any documentation about this being why the youtube user had been banned, for all I know he was uploading Britney Spears videos too. Also the site linked about the animal issue was obviously biased and I found it's legal opinions questionable.
For example the argument on the HSUS website about the illegality of the amazon products is that the first amendment does not protect speech that proposes an unlawful transaction. Yet what unlawful transaction is being proposed? These videos, while viscous and likely images of unlawful acts, likely don't say 'Thursday night let's get together and have a dog fight.' Moreover, the supposed analogy with the man they mention is unpersuasive without additional context.
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Finally I should say that while I certainly disapprove of these kind of animal cruelty videos I reluctantly have to agree that amazon should continue to stock them unless they are themselves illegal or depict illegal acts staged for the purpose of making the video. If they do otherwise why not refuse to sell pornography or books/videos that show how to engage in civil disobedience? I mean many of the civil rights protests were technically illegal but selling videos of them should not be.
The essential test of free speech is whether you stand up for it even when it is distasteful and while amazon is a private entity it is important that we don't end up with effective censorship because all our bookstores and media outlets refuse to carry controversial material.
Ohh c'mon people. This is interesting from a brain research perspective but it hardly provides any reason to worry about arresting people for their intentions.
We already have a much more reliable and convenient way to judge people's criminal intent, namely their body language and facial expression. Evolution has nicely provided us a way of distinguishing between your loving significant other who is absently gesturing with the knife he was using to cook and your jilted lover who is coming after you with it. Shop owners pick out people who look like their about to steal all the time. We are just sane enough not to throw people in jail for 'looking suspicious.'
Besides this machine is only set to measure what someone is currently preparing to do (as in seconds) trying to decode someone's long term plans is similar only in that both would require looking at the brain. This story shouldn't really raise anyone's estimate of the feasibility of reading someone's long term plans, or their eventual actions. It's nothing but an excuse for someone to spin a scare story.
In any case if the goal is to jail future criminals decoding their future plans seems wholly besides the point. It would be more effective to try and predict how much impulse control someone has or their resistance to temptation than to figure out if they currently have a plan to commit a criminal act.
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As an aside I don't see what the doublethink in that comment was. It is true, if we did have a means to demonstrate a lack of intent to say blow up a plane then people who did so wouldn't need to be inconvenienced by all the crazy carry on restrictions. It might not be a compelling argument to use the technology but it isn't 'doublethink'.
First of all the bit about them getting a free pass is just absurd, despite what the TSA does the idea of these precautions is to catch terrorists not make sure everyone is annoyed equally.
Secondly I think it is unfortunate that the distinction between privacy and anonymity is so often blurred. This technology does not infringe on your privacy, the front of your house is visible to any passerby and has undoubtedly been published in some picture on the web or a newspaper already. Nothing that was not previously visible to complete strangers has been revealed. All that has changed is that it is now easy for people to find that information and make use of it. In other words your anonymity has been reduced though your privacy has not been affected (they aren't always so clearly cut but here it is).
Now I find it pretty ironic that the same vocal slashdot lobby that is so strongly against any sort of free speech restriction or data lockdown technology seem to think that we can and should do something to stop the loss of (physical) anonymity. Frankly the two goals are fundamentally incompatible.
As it gets easier and easier for people to post information to the web they will do it. Today we have camera phones, tomorrow we will have glasses that record video, recognize faces and code geographic information into that data. Either you pass draconian laws that prevent people from posting the snapshots/movies online or that data will eventually be there, and sooner or later better search and geographic information will make it possible for search to organize it in ways that let people determine what city your in on a given day (face recognition on photos taken that day) and certainly they will be able to track down a picture of your house.
This sort of loss of anonymity is inevitable if we don't want to give up our freedom. It isn't all bad, after all this is the way people lived in small towns for most of history. But so long as we keep whining about it rather than facing up to the fact we make sure that it will be lost in the worst possible ways, i.e., useful features that expose the information to us will be stopped but governments and corporations will be able to use it as they wish. What we need to be doing is making sure that anonymity is lost equally, i.e., we don't get situations where the ghetto is filled with cameras but the suburbs are not (it is too easy to demonize 'other' people when the unblinking eye isn't trained at 'your kind'), and beefing up genuine privacy protections in the face of this loss of anonymity.
It doesn't surprise me that what music you like correlates with certain personality types. However, I think the assumption that people are making, that what music you like reflects something deep about you, is totally bullshit.
Musical preferences, like many other preferences, are formed as much by associations and practice as anything else. Often we might not like something at first or be neutral to it but then when your friends keep putting it on you associate it with good times (or just by repetition) and start to like it. One reason that our musical preferences say things about us is that it reflects on who are friends were and what sort of environment we grew up in. Another reason is that these very societal stereotypes affect what music we are likely to be open to liking.
For instance I know several people who weren't particularly into jazz (never really listened to it at all) but they view themselves as intellectuals and having heard that jazz is so complex and deep if you only know how to listen to it they decided to start listening to jazz. Of course they eventually started to get into but I think they could have done the same thing with Britney Spears if they had honestly believe that the music was really deep and complex.
In other words how we feel about music is often just a reflection about the societal stereotypes we have about that sort of music.
If you don't believe me try and think of how many people you know who claim to hate country music who have ever given it a really fair chance? Same with rap. However, pick a song they think they 'should' like and they will give it a much better chance. Particularly with rap and country our likes/dislikes have a lot to do with our attitudes to social class.
I know many people won't believe me because it very much *feels* like you are responding to something in the music. However, just think about how strong the placebo effect can be and how good we are at tricking ourselves and ask whether this is a plausible explanation.
Or maybe a better way of putting the point is that music is non-threatening and it is easy for you to trick yourself into agreeing with someone. There are so many bands that you probably feel 'ehh' about it isn't too hard to think you like them when the person your talking to clearly wants you to like them.
Furthermore, once you've convinced yourself you like them you often will so it won't fall apart later.
I've always been aware that when people get together they tend to talk about music, and it's always disgusted me. The reason it disgusts me is that they are not talking about music because they have really strongly felt preferences or something of interest to say but because you can always find someway to agree and the conversation topic is so bland it won't frighten anyone off. Music has two properties that make it so apt for this purpose.
First of all it is all about preferences so it isn't intimidating like history, mathematics, science, religion or anything else with definite answers you could be wrong about. History might otherwise be a good topic to talk about at a party but it intimidates many people because they don't want to admit they don't know things nor turn out to say something and have it be wrong. Admittedly hipsters are pretty good at turning music into a similar sort of topic but if you are inclined to be friendly with someone there is nothing you *need* to correct them about as you might with history.
Second of all the terminology and the classifications are sufficiently vague and deep that it is easy to subconciously twist your responses into agreement. I mean suppose she asks how you feel about rap, maybe you say something negative she can respond by saying, how can you not like so-and-so at which point you can clarify well their okay what I really dislike is Y or I don't know I've only heard Z type of rap. It might sound slimy but just listen to any two people who are meeting and want to like each other talking about music and you will see everyone tries hard to end up agreeing. Also since music is such a broad topic with various small preferences you will likely uncover SOME interest that you two have in common.
I mean how the hell do you think we get so many people excited about the boy/girl they met b/c 'we both like band Y' or 'we both hate punk'.
Music is a non-conversation. It is a way to make noises while avoiding actually saying anything of substance and that really annoys me. I want to know something about the personality of the people I meet not hear generic drivel. Sure one could talk about music reasonably that's what music critics and hardcore aficionados do but when they talk about it agreement isn't the normal course of business.
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By the way "likes jazz" usually means "I want people to think I'm deep and intellectual." Now often that is correlated with really being an intellectual but that isn't what it indicates. I know this is tough to believe but what music you like is just a matter of taste, just like what food you like. Preferring fine french dining to burgers and beer may show you have spent time refining your pallet and indicate a certain social class but it doesn't say anything about being an intellectual, being smart or anything of the kind. Similarly with what music you like.
I mean to phrase the point more simply it's like you are arguing because politics would be better off without campaign contributions or if interest groups couldn't give money you would be an evil person to make a campaign contribution or donate to your interest group.
In fact refusing to give money to your candidates or causes, assuming you believe them to be good, would be the morally worst thing you could do. Not only do you let the candidates you think are worse gain an advantage this way you actually discourage people to change the law as your opponents have a stronger vested interest to keep the advantage you won't use. Similarly if google refused to use this method it would just encourage their competitors to support it more.
That as I said is a reasonable argument about what *government* policy should be. This justifies trying to change that policy, though as discussed in another post on this threat it is not totally clear that the advantages of demanding openness (effectively eliminating this negotation in many situations) are worth the costs. However, this does not make google's actions even questionable.
Giving people tax breaks for owning homes is a horrible policy that encourages suburban sprawl and disadvantages those who don't have the money or credit history to purchase a home and is just unfair. I oppose this policy strongly. However, if I owned a home it would do no good for me to refuse to take the tax break, it would do nothing to end the policy and just make me poorer. Similarly for google.
In fact supposing one feels that one is doing good then one would have a moral obligation not to waste your money pointlessly in situations like this when it could be used for good elsewhere.
The problem is that judges, juries and prosecutors aren't really comfortable and familiar with technology so they apply the law stupidly and literally. Kinda like the same way some earlier comment took 'no internet' to mean not using any device that happens to utilize the internet.
I mean consider an appropriate physical analogy for what this kid did. It would be like if he walked into a bookstore that looked to be open but turned out that the staff had taken the day off and gone home but forgot to lock up but then instead of stealing anything rearranged all the books so they spelled out funny comments and left a little note on the cash register suggesting they lock the store next time. Now obviously it would be a bad idea to do this as it would be a bad idea to run this myspace worm, however, because the prosecutors, judges and juries would correctly see this as a mere youthful prank rather than a serious threat to public order and give him community service. This to a large part is how a good legal system operates, having strong punishments for behavior that can be used maliciously but showing mercy when used more innocently.
In the computer case the offended company (and eventually the prosecutor) talks about how the offender used "sophisticated computer hacking techniques" and spouts off all sorts of words the average person doesn't understand. Thus in their mind far from a kid playing a trick on a company that left the door open the situation becomes a precocious teen who used sophisticated criminal techniques to break into a locked store and thinks it's all a game. What is the real world equivalent of rearranging the books can be made to seem the activities of some kind of online underground.
Even the harm caused is easily distorted. While it might be clear to us that this kid was taking steps to avoid causing harm (not releasing info etc..) the prosecution just talks about how it was a DOS attack and the jury isn't going to know any better. In fact it is all to easy to spin horror stories about what the attack 'could have done' if it hadn't been dealt with by their computer people (the equivalent of saying what could have happened if the bookstore never resorted the books). Finally this lack of knowledge and the difficulty valuing IP makes it super easy (as in the mitnick case) to over estimate the seriousness of the harm. Even if it may have actually made more people visit myspace (I looked).
Obviously it isn't a good idea to release a javascript worm like this but it surely doesn't deserve more than community service and a good scolding. If the people in the system understood the technology it would do just that.
No, I'm saying that there is no reason to presume this is wrong.
The reason why anyone even suspects something wrong is going on is that the confidentiality and special negotiations sound like they might be illegal or inapproriate influence. Demonstrating that negotiating with a company is a commonly accepted practice approved of by the state voters and that their are perfectly above board reasons to want confidentiality undermines the only reason you MIGHT suspect this was somehow unethical.
The burden then is on you to give some reason to think it is unethical.
The fact that it might be bad policy to allow these sorts of deals (and I am not even sure of that) has nothing to do with whether it is moral for a company to make use of it. Just like not taking advantage of a tax cut you think is bad policy not making negotiating it doesn't avert the damage of a bad policy it just screws you over.
How did this involve denying people access to their legislators?
In fact the government was doing EXACTLY what the people of the state elected them to be doing, making arrangements for the good of the people. The fact that it was negotiated in secret is no different than the fact that the congress reviews intelligence in secret.
The public WANTS it's government to bring employers to the state. If the employers care about secrecy, as it is reasonable for many to do, the people would rather have the government negotiate in secret than give up the jobs. I mean do you think the people of the state would have preferred if google had refused to negotiate with it's government and gone elsewhere because of some minor rule/charge that could have easily been changed?
Maybe it isn't clear to you but the very reason our founding fathers decided to make us a republic is because they felt it appropriate that the people elect representatives who would run the government rather than dictating it's policies by direct vote. In fact the founding fathers went to great trouble to ensure that people have very little direct control over individual policies.
The problem with secrecy in government is that it can remove the legislators from accountability for their actions, not that people don't have direct input before they happen. In this case the agreement will come out reasonably after it is agreed upon meaning the public has every opportunity to punish or praise these legislators for their actions.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, but they have to actually work around the rules. Claiming that they are not in fact an attorney representing IBM or the like is going to be impossible to argue was a genuine mistake or confusion.
But working around the rules would be exactly the other alternative I left open, namely getting someone who is not actually representing IBM at the moment to run the site. Then the attorneys representing IBM could claim ignorance of any statements she made that contradicted their actual relationship even though they might be feeding her info.
That is just what I was saying: maybe she is employed by IBM but it is very unlikely that it is written by the same attorneys who are actually representing them.
Yes, exactly what the first reply said. I wasn't very clear but it is extremely doubtful that a big corporate lawyer would engage in such a clear cut violation of the rule.
I'm not ruling out the idea that they are engaged in some sort of greyish or more deniable area like feeding the information to someone else.
Yes, wikipedia lists her as author of several books and gives us her name as Pamela Jones but is curiously devoid of any actual identifying information or biographical information. Compare to the page on Tim O'Reilly where we learn where and when he was born and how he did in college despite a much shorter entry than the one on Pamela Jones.
Or she doesn't want to be subpoenaed for various reasons.
I mean what if she is actually a lawyer at a firm that works with SCO (or a SCO employee)? Hell, if she is any lawyer, para-legal or judge the revelation that she runs groklaw could cause serious problems for her. Many big companies, especially software companies, might be quite reluctant to trust their work to a firm whose employee is so passionately advocating for free software on the Internet.
Maybe she is afraid that as a witness she will get tangled up in the case and run into trouble blogging about it? Or maybe she just doesn't want to spend many days in court testifying. Maybe she is only 16 or received money from IBM so she could devote more time to posting. There are a 100 reasons she might have not to want to receive the subpoena.
Obviously there is some reason she doesn't want to be really identified or who she really was would be listed on wikipedia. This reason might be totally benign or not so benign but since it appears she has taken pains to keep her identity secret it is far to much of a coincidence to think she decided to take time off after many years just when SCO is trying to subpoena her.
I don't know whether it should have any legal effect but if true it would certainly cause credibility problems for IBM with many people, perhaps including the judge. Moreover, we don't know all of what has been stated in depositions. If IBM or other companies have made claims incompatible with the facts behind groklaw that could be problematic.
Additionally there are ethical guidelines with real force that prohibit attorneys from using lies in the course of their representation. Remember in one state it even went so far as to create problems for prosecutors who wanted to give advice to undercover officers. Since she appears to have made claims that would be lies if she was an IBM lawyer this might be problematic for her and any lawyers who participated in the scheme.
In order to play devil's advocate for a moment wouldn't blogging about the sony rootkit and other issues provide important cover for really being an IBM lawyer? If IBM was going engage in such deceitful tactics they would be betting much on the truth not being discovered so criticizing sony wouldn't be problematic. Besides, do you really think the reason people do or don't buy the PS3 has much to do with Sony's rootkit fiasco?
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However, having said this these very considerations make it extremely unlikely this blog is written by IBM lawyers as such. For starters it would be idiotic to put someone who was actually involved in trying the case in such a position where gag orders, conflicts of interest and rules about not suborning perjury might become incompatible with keeping the secret. Secondly, the very fact that it might run afoul of these ethics guidelines makes it very unlikely that the IBM attorneys would be doing it.
A more interesting question is whether PJ receives any financial remuneration from IBM. It is a far more plausible story that PJ is in fact a lawyer/para-legal who genuinely has many of these views but was paid by IBM so they could devote more time to them. In this case they would not be acting as legal consul so most of the ethics rules I've mentioned would not apply and this would be a much better explanation of the choices of subjects than a blog run by a corporate committee.
In this case, absent some PR effects of depositions to the contrary by IBM I'm unsure if there would be any legal repercussions. But who can say until we know what SCO is trying to subpoena her for.
THESE AREN'T THE FUCKING PAPERS. Those are still just lay explanations I cited as evidence that this is hardly an unconsidered topic in climate science. If you read the actual articles published in journals you will find responses of exactly the form you give, points based on reason and argument not authority. Besides, you yourself are saying what sort of language is used shouldn't matter only who has the better argument should matter.
Bringing up ID is a perfect example. Do you think that ID is a better theory than evolution because of the tone to the discussions? If so there really isn't much point continuing the discussion but if not then you admit that this tone also characterizes people who actually have the evidence and arguments on their side but can't convey them to the public because it is too technical.
The scientific papers (things published in nature, climate science journals etc..) are there if you want to read them and they just give the argument and evidence. If you can't understand them or don't have the time to read them you can't blame the scientists for not giving you the real arguments.
Actually all the journal articles I've seen in the climate science field seem perfectly normal scientific articles. Of course getting through even one journal article is *very* difficult if not impossible for your average person much less keeping up with the subject.
So yes it is impossible for the average citizen to keep abreast of climate science because reports in the mass media necessarily leave out the real details and they don't have the time or expertise to read the real arguments. You can spout off whatever high minded ideas you want about republics and the people it doesn't change the fact that some aspects of the world just ARE complex and require lots of training and study to comprehend.
The facts about global warming aren't going to go away just because the evidence for it can't be compellingly conveyed in a sound bite.
What I'm saying is that people need to either get off their asses and really learn climate science (very very unlikely) or admit that they don't know enough to debate the issue themselves and instead just figure out whose opinions to trust. It's a lot like going to the doctor. It's only an idiot who refuses to get surgery when their doctor tells them they have a malignant growth because they read some article in newsweek. A smart individual gets a second or third opinion and asks doctors they trust whether it really is a tumor and then takes action based on the expert advice. All I'm saying is we should do the same with the climate as we would do with our own bodies.
So what I said broke down the situation into two cases.
1) You want to argue about the merits of the evidence, e.g., does anthropogenic global warming explain things like the (supposed) medieval warm period. In this case you really should actually know what the evidence is before you start arguing. You don't have to be a scientist but if you can't be bothered to actually read through the evidence they are using to make their argument it's just foolish to think you know enough to respond.
2) You want to leave interpreting the evidence to the experts and argue about which of them are more credible. In this case it's perfectly reasonable to comment without actually having read the papers but you are trying to establish that the few climate change deniers are more credible than the vast majority of scientists who accept the consensus view. So sure you should be allowed to make the point but it's just a dumb one.
Some positions just don't have good arguments. If you pick an incorrect position like arguing the earth is flat or that UFOs make crop circles it isn't my fault that you won't be able to make a compelling case it's yours because you picked a ridiculous position. The position that the vast majority of climate change researchers is less credible than the doubters just happens to be one of those positions.
Or, could it be....maybe the research is actually crap and that's why they didn't accept it?
Maybe there are valid reasons for not believing that cosmic rays provide a good explanation for the data (say like the ones that a search on realclimate.org will turn up)?
I think it's safe to assume that you are actually not a climate science researcher. As such you don't actually have the ability to evaluate whether or not this guy's work is compelling or crap. In fact all you can do is decide who to believe in a he said she said. Except one side is the vast vast majority of scientists and the other side ia a handful of climate deniers.
So are you really suggesting that the claims made by the small handful of climate deniers are more credible than the scientific establishment? If not what is your evidence that my interpretation isn't the correct one?
Yah, and every day every physics department in the world recieves letters from nutters who think they've discovered the ultimate theory of everything in their basement.
So sure is it logically possible this guy is right and the rest of the scientific establishment wrong? Sure, though there are some quite compelling reasons not to think cosmic rays explain climate change. It's also logically possible that Xenu really did bring 50 billion aliens to earth on DC-10s and kill them with hydrogen bombs. Do you think we should plan for the future based on mainstream science or the threat from the thetans?
The question is how likely is this guy to be right. Now if you happen to be a climate scientists you should evaluate that based only on the merits of the idea, i.e., the evidence for it. If you don't read climate science papers and keep up with the subject it is just idiotic for you to evaluate the merits of his theory. Instead you have to compare the credibility of the vast vast majority of the scientific establishment and a few dissenters. There isn't much of a contest here.
Let's put the issue a little bit more concretely. Suppose some guy comes up to you with a proposal to mine gold based on a new process for leaching it from rocks other companies are ignoring. He wants you to invest money in his company but when you consult experts in chemistry, mining and geology they all tell you he is a complete quack and his idea is completely bogus. Would you invest?
Do you read the research papers in climate science? If you answered no to both these questions then you shouldn't be trying to weigh the evidence yourself based on what you read in newspapers.
In any scientific discipline, and particularly complex ones like climate science, it is easy to select evidence (even honestly) to make almost anything appear to be the right explanation. The reason the scientific process works is because it doesn't just let each theory get up and give a stump speech but demands to know how it can answer tough questions and fit consistently with our other knowledge. The question is not, 'would cosmic rays make for a good hypothesis on the basis of our inexpert knowledge,' but 'given the vast body of knowledge scientists have is it plausible that cosmic rays explain climate variation.'
Thankfully, climate scientists have not only already addressed this question but even written lay explanations about it. You can find plenty of other discussions about cosmic rays over on realclimate.org and they point out that there is considerable reason to discredit the cosmic ray explanation for global warming.
What disgusts me about this whole buisness is that whenever something like this comes up a bunch of people who can't be bothered to actually read the journal articles but think they are entitled to second guess the people who have pipe up and complain about how global warming is just a dogma. Like any topic you have a choice. You can either choose to learn enough about the subject to intelligently weigh the evidence, which in this case would mean keeping up with the actual scientific papers not just media summaries, or you can count on experts to analyze that evidence for you and reach your conclusion on the authority of those experts.
Look it's simple really. Either you can read the scientific papers yourself and argue with the other experts about the evidence or you can argue about which experts are more credible. If you are debating the matter here you are doing the later. So do you really expect anyone to believe that the handful of climate change deniers are more credible than all experts who find the evidence for global warming compelling? If the positions were reversed and it was the deniers who were claiming it was global warming would you believe?
The worst part of all this is that these very idiots who claim that climate science is just some dogma pose a real threat to important dissent in the climate science community. While we may be sure of the vague outlines of human caused climate change there are many issues that still require vigorous scientific debate but if this debate is jumped on by skeptics as proof that global warming is a fraud then responsible scientists will be more reluctant to publicly express such disagreements.
I'm sure Nick Gisburne is a nice guy and all but you'll excuse me if I'm hesitant to go just by the word of one of the parties to the dispute. Either I would like to hear both sides, his and google's, or at least a report by a neutral third party that has done some research.
Everyone feels the temptation to exaggerate their case when they feel they've been wronged and it is all to easy to jump to outraged conclusions about why some action was taken.
I don't see the problem with the way amazon is handling free speech. In fact just the opposite, they seem to be standing up for it in this case. If they have started hanging up on people commenting about the matter this may be a PR blunder but it is hardly a free speech deficit. Besides, Amazon sets up these phones for people to call with genuine issues about orders and products not as a place for the public to express it's opinion. Besides, what is likely to cost amazon money would be a humane society boycott and that is all about whether they stop selling the video. It isn't like there is some magical way for them to handle the free speech issue that would avoid pulling the video but avoid risking a boycott.
So sure there is an argument that hanging up was a bad choice for amazon's bottom line but supposing they weren't going to pull the video the case isn't very clear cut.
Personally I'm not willing to criticize amazon at all for hanging up on people calling to complain about what they sell. Companies like private citizens have no obligation to accept phone calls berating their moral choices. I suspect everyone here would hang up on people calling because you were selling things on ebay they found morally objectionable and why should we condemn amazon for doing the same. In fact I'm a little outraged that people feel amazon is doing bad because they don't want to tie up their phone lines with demands that they censor their product lines.
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As an aside I wish these links had been to more impartial news sources. I couldn't find any documentation about this being why the youtube user had been banned, for all I know he was uploading Britney Spears videos too. Also the site linked about the animal issue was obviously biased and I found it's legal opinions questionable.
For example the argument on the HSUS website about the illegality of the amazon products is that the first amendment does not protect speech that proposes an unlawful transaction. Yet what unlawful transaction is being proposed? These videos, while viscous and likely images of unlawful acts, likely don't say 'Thursday night let's get together and have a dog fight.' Moreover, the supposed analogy with the man they mention is unpersuasive without additional context.
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Finally I should say that while I certainly disapprove of these kind of animal cruelty videos I reluctantly have to agree that amazon should continue to stock them unless they are themselves illegal or depict illegal acts staged for the purpose of making the video. If they do otherwise why not refuse to sell pornography or books/videos that show how to engage in civil disobedience? I mean many of the civil rights protests were technically illegal but selling videos of them should not be.
The essential test of free speech is whether you stand up for it even when it is distasteful and while amazon is a private entity it is important that we don't end up with effective censorship because all our bookstores and media outlets refuse to carry controversial material.
Hmm, didn't know about that second definition.
I'm still not convinced it qualifies but I'll admit it's certainly an arguable usage.
Ohh c'mon people. This is interesting from a brain research perspective but it hardly provides any reason to worry about arresting people for their intentions.
We already have a much more reliable and convenient way to judge people's criminal intent, namely their body language and facial expression. Evolution has nicely provided us a way of distinguishing between your loving significant other who is absently gesturing with the knife he was using to cook and your jilted lover who is coming after you with it. Shop owners pick out people who look like their about to steal all the time. We are just sane enough not to throw people in jail for 'looking suspicious.'
Besides this machine is only set to measure what someone is currently preparing to do (as in seconds) trying to decode someone's long term plans is similar only in that both would require looking at the brain. This story shouldn't really raise anyone's estimate of the feasibility of reading someone's long term plans, or their eventual actions. It's nothing but an excuse for someone to spin a scare story.
In any case if the goal is to jail future criminals decoding their future plans seems wholly besides the point. It would be more effective to try and predict how much impulse control someone has or their resistance to temptation than to figure out if they currently have a plan to commit a criminal act.
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As an aside I don't see what the doublethink in that comment was. It is true, if we did have a means to demonstrate a lack of intent to say blow up a plane then people who did so wouldn't need to be inconvenienced by all the crazy carry on restrictions. It might not be a compelling argument to use the technology but it isn't 'doublethink'.
First of all the bit about them getting a free pass is just absurd, despite what the TSA does the idea of these precautions is to catch terrorists not make sure everyone is annoyed equally.
Secondly I think it is unfortunate that the distinction between privacy and anonymity is so often blurred. This technology does not infringe on your privacy, the front of your house is visible to any passerby and has undoubtedly been published in some picture on the web or a newspaper already. Nothing that was not previously visible to complete strangers has been revealed. All that has changed is that it is now easy for people to find that information and make use of it. In other words your anonymity has been reduced though your privacy has not been affected (they aren't always so clearly cut but here it is).
Now I find it pretty ironic that the same vocal slashdot lobby that is so strongly against any sort of free speech restriction or data lockdown technology seem to think that we can and should do something to stop the loss of (physical) anonymity. Frankly the two goals are fundamentally incompatible.
As it gets easier and easier for people to post information to the web they will do it. Today we have camera phones, tomorrow we will have glasses that record video, recognize faces and code geographic information into that data. Either you pass draconian laws that prevent people from posting the snapshots/movies online or that data will eventually be there, and sooner or later better search and geographic information will make it possible for search to organize it in ways that let people determine what city your in on a given day (face recognition on photos taken that day) and certainly they will be able to track down a picture of your house.
This sort of loss of anonymity is inevitable if we don't want to give up our freedom. It isn't all bad, after all this is the way people lived in small towns for most of history. But so long as we keep whining about it rather than facing up to the fact we make sure that it will be lost in the worst possible ways, i.e., useful features that expose the information to us will be stopped but governments and corporations will be able to use it as they wish. What we need to be doing is making sure that anonymity is lost equally, i.e., we don't get situations where the ghetto is filled with cameras but the suburbs are not (it is too easy to demonize 'other' people when the unblinking eye isn't trained at 'your kind'), and beefing up genuine privacy protections in the face of this loss of anonymity.
It doesn't surprise me that what music you like correlates with certain personality types. However, I think the assumption that people are making, that what music you like reflects something deep about you, is totally bullshit.
Musical preferences, like many other preferences, are formed as much by associations and practice as anything else. Often we might not like something at first or be neutral to it but then when your friends keep putting it on you associate it with good times (or just by repetition) and start to like it. One reason that our musical preferences say things about us is that it reflects on who are friends were and what sort of environment we grew up in. Another reason is that these very societal stereotypes affect what music we are likely to be open to liking.
For instance I know several people who weren't particularly into jazz (never really listened to it at all) but they view themselves as intellectuals and having heard that jazz is so complex and deep if you only know how to listen to it they decided to start listening to jazz. Of course they eventually started to get into but I think they could have done the same thing with Britney Spears if they had honestly believe that the music was really deep and complex.
In other words how we feel about music is often just a reflection about the societal stereotypes we have about that sort of music.
If you don't believe me try and think of how many people you know who claim to hate country music who have ever given it a really fair chance? Same with rap. However, pick a song they think they 'should' like and they will give it a much better chance. Particularly with rap and country our likes/dislikes have a lot to do with our attitudes to social class.
I know many people won't believe me because it very much *feels* like you are responding to something in the music. However, just think about how strong the placebo effect can be and how good we are at tricking ourselves and ask whether this is a plausible explanation.
Or maybe a better way of putting the point is that music is non-threatening and it is easy for you to trick yourself into agreeing with someone. There are so many bands that you probably feel 'ehh' about it isn't too hard to think you like them when the person your talking to clearly wants you to like them.
Furthermore, once you've convinced yourself you like them you often will so it won't fall apart later.
I've always been aware that when people get together they tend to talk about music, and it's always disgusted me. The reason it disgusts me is that they are not talking about music because they have really strongly felt preferences or something of interest to say but because you can always find someway to agree and the conversation topic is so bland it won't frighten anyone off. Music has two properties that make it so apt for this purpose.
First of all it is all about preferences so it isn't intimidating like history, mathematics, science, religion or anything else with definite answers you could be wrong about. History might otherwise be a good topic to talk about at a party but it intimidates many people because they don't want to admit they don't know things nor turn out to say something and have it be wrong. Admittedly hipsters are pretty good at turning music into a similar sort of topic but if you are inclined to be friendly with someone there is nothing you *need* to correct them about as you might with history.
Second of all the terminology and the classifications are sufficiently vague and deep that it is easy to subconciously twist your responses into agreement. I mean suppose she asks how you feel about rap, maybe you say something negative she can respond by saying, how can you not like so-and-so at which point you can clarify well their okay what I really dislike is Y or I don't know I've only heard Z type of rap. It might sound slimy but just listen to any two people who are meeting and want to like each other talking about music and you will see everyone tries hard to end up agreeing. Also since music is such a broad topic with various small preferences you will likely uncover SOME interest that you two have in common.
I mean how the hell do you think we get so many people excited about the boy/girl they met b/c 'we both like band Y' or 'we both hate punk'.
Music is a non-conversation. It is a way to make noises while avoiding actually saying anything of substance and that really annoys me. I want to know something about the personality of the people I meet not hear generic drivel. Sure one could talk about music reasonably that's what music critics and hardcore aficionados do but when they talk about it agreement isn't the normal course of business.
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By the way "likes jazz" usually means "I want people to think I'm deep and intellectual." Now often that is correlated with really being an intellectual but that isn't what it indicates. I know this is tough to believe but what music you like is just a matter of taste, just like what food you like. Preferring fine french dining to burgers and beer may show you have spent time refining your pallet and indicate a certain social class but it doesn't say anything about being an intellectual, being smart or anything of the kind. Similarly with what music you like.
I mean to phrase the point more simply it's like you are arguing because politics would be better off without campaign contributions or if interest groups couldn't give money you would be an evil person to make a campaign contribution or donate to your interest group.
In fact refusing to give money to your candidates or causes, assuming you believe them to be good, would be the morally worst thing you could do. Not only do you let the candidates you think are worse gain an advantage this way you actually discourage people to change the law as your opponents have a stronger vested interest to keep the advantage you won't use. Similarly if google refused to use this method it would just encourage their competitors to support it more.
That as I said is a reasonable argument about what *government* policy should be. This justifies trying to change that policy, though as discussed in another post on this threat it is not totally clear that the advantages of demanding openness (effectively eliminating this negotation in many situations) are worth the costs. However, this does not make google's actions even questionable.
Giving people tax breaks for owning homes is a horrible policy that encourages suburban sprawl and disadvantages those who don't have the money or credit history to purchase a home and is just unfair. I oppose this policy strongly. However, if I owned a home it would do no good for me to refuse to take the tax break, it would do nothing to end the policy and just make me poorer. Similarly for google.
In fact supposing one feels that one is doing good then one would have a moral obligation not to waste your money pointlessly in situations like this when it could be used for good elsewhere.
The problem is that judges, juries and prosecutors aren't really comfortable and familiar with technology so they apply the law stupidly and literally. Kinda like the same way some earlier comment took 'no internet' to mean not using any device that happens to utilize the internet.
I mean consider an appropriate physical analogy for what this kid did. It would be like if he walked into a bookstore that looked to be open but turned out that the staff had taken the day off and gone home but forgot to lock up but then instead of stealing anything rearranged all the books so they spelled out funny comments and left a little note on the cash register suggesting they lock the store next time. Now obviously it would be a bad idea to do this as it would be a bad idea to run this myspace worm, however, because the prosecutors, judges and juries would correctly see this as a mere youthful prank rather than a serious threat to public order and give him community service. This to a large part is how a good legal system operates, having strong punishments for behavior that can be used maliciously but showing mercy when used more innocently.
In the computer case the offended company (and eventually the prosecutor) talks about how the offender used "sophisticated computer hacking techniques" and spouts off all sorts of words the average person doesn't understand. Thus in their mind far from a kid playing a trick on a company that left the door open the situation becomes a precocious teen who used sophisticated criminal techniques to break into a locked store and thinks it's all a game. What is the real world equivalent of rearranging the books can be made to seem the activities of some kind of online underground.
Even the harm caused is easily distorted. While it might be clear to us that this kid was taking steps to avoid causing harm (not releasing info etc..) the prosecution just talks about how it was a DOS attack and the jury isn't going to know any better. In fact it is all to easy to spin horror stories about what the attack 'could have done' if it hadn't been dealt with by their computer people (the equivalent of saying what could have happened if the bookstore never resorted the books). Finally this lack of knowledge and the difficulty valuing IP makes it super easy (as in the mitnick case) to over estimate the seriousness of the harm. Even if it may have actually made more people visit myspace (I looked).
Obviously it isn't a good idea to release a javascript worm like this but it surely doesn't deserve more than community service and a good scolding. If the people in the system understood the technology it would do just that.
No, I'm saying that there is no reason to presume this is wrong.
The reason why anyone even suspects something wrong is going on is that the confidentiality and special negotiations sound like they might be illegal or inapproriate influence. Demonstrating that negotiating with a company is a commonly accepted practice approved of by the state voters and that their are perfectly above board reasons to want confidentiality undermines the only reason you MIGHT suspect this was somehow unethical.
The burden then is on you to give some reason to think it is unethical.
The fact that it might be bad policy to allow these sorts of deals (and I am not even sure of that) has nothing to do with whether it is moral for a company to make use of it. Just like not taking advantage of a tax cut you think is bad policy not making negotiating it doesn't avert the damage of a bad policy it just screws you over.
How did this involve denying people access to their legislators?
In fact the government was doing EXACTLY what the people of the state elected them to be doing, making arrangements for the good of the people. The fact that it was negotiated in secret is no different than the fact that the congress reviews intelligence in secret.
The public WANTS it's government to bring employers to the state. If the employers care about secrecy, as it is reasonable for many to do, the people would rather have the government negotiate in secret than give up the jobs. I mean do you think the people of the state would have preferred if google had refused to negotiate with it's government and gone elsewhere because of some minor rule/charge that could have easily been changed?
Maybe it isn't clear to you but the very reason our founding fathers decided to make us a republic is because they felt it appropriate that the people elect representatives who would run the government rather than dictating it's policies by direct vote. In fact the founding fathers went to great trouble to ensure that people have very little direct control over individual policies.
The problem with secrecy in government is that it can remove the legislators from accountability for their actions, not that people don't have direct input before they happen. In this case the agreement will come out reasonably after it is agreed upon meaning the public has every opportunity to punish or praise these legislators for their actions.