The NSI letter says that auction proceeds "up to" the due amount will be retained by NSI. What it doesn't say is who gets the rest. What if I let "groceries.com" go into arrears and it's sold for hundreds of thousands. Who gets the hundreds of thousands less $70? Me, as the prior owner? If not, and NSI keeps it, I think they're letting themselves in for a class action suit, since NSI would be asserting an ownership interest that it isn't entitled to, IMO. If I as a private individual get a judgement against a party and attach and sell their property to satisfy it, I'm only entitled to what I'm owed, not the entire proceeds.
NSI is acting with ever-increasing arrogance (remember their new provision in their agreement that says, effectively, that they own your domain and can take it back at any time?). It's time to get a legislative rein put on these banditos.
If use of this program becomes widespread, I'm going to make a nice little living for myself by making available phoney "pirated" material. When the user (who will of course not have actually downloaded and verified the contents of the "pirated" material I'm offering), accuses me of infringement, that's an instant defamation lawsuit.
Perhaps MSFT needed a new language in which the world's angry loners can write viruses and trojan horses now that everyone has grown suspicious of VBScript.
If there's one thing I've learned, it's to take anything a government employee tells me with a grain of salt, particularly if there's revenue involved. A company I worked for in California was audited and assessed a big sales-tax bill for sales of software. They got an attorney specializing in tax law involved. After a few letters and other bureaucratic folderol, poof, the tax bill vanished, because the auditor either didn't understand the law, or decided to go ahead anyway in the hope that the company wouldn't put up a fight. At the very least, it's worth running the audit past someone with your interests in mind as opposed to the government's.
There's not a chance that MP3 players (at least, the variety that run on computers) will disappear. Even if the RIAA, Metallica, et al sued every software/hardware vendor out of existence, the specs are out there. The same bunch of libertarian/anarchist/hackers/whoever will carry on with the development and promulgation of new MP3 players. You only have to look to the examples of DeCSS and Gnutella to see the futility of attempting to stamp out a technology whose time has come.
It's not surprising when an industry does everything possible to retain the current way of doing business, since those with a stake in the present system fear losing it. I recall that the year after a turbine car nearly won the Indianapolis 500, they altered the rules to make it virtually impossible for a turbine car to qualify to enter. Which is why you haven't seen one since. This is just the movie industry's version of the same behavior.
If you were standing in the aisle of the store and looking at a shelf-full of software, would you be more drawn to A) the large box with the fancy cover graphic and covered with fine print and pictures on the back detailing the product features, or B) the just-large-enough-to-contain-the-jewel-case plain-cardboard box with the product name and little else? To maximize sales, software makers take advantage of the same consumer psychology that dictates, for example, bright primary colors on laundry products, and filling a third of the package with air just to make it look larger. In the absense of laws forcing smaller packaging, no manufacturer is going to take steps that will diminish their visibility on the shelf. I'm not aware of any serious effort to do this for software (or supermarket products for that matter). I think it happened with CDs because they're bought by more people, and because the package made the CD visible from the outside so the wasted space was more obvious.
If it turns out that existing law is insufficient to prosecute participants, they'll extend the law so that acting in a way that could facilitate such a scheme is illegal, and that will include participating in FreeNet, Gnutella, the Eternity service, or whatever. That's why we need both the technology and the data havens.
It's already happening. I believe that it's either a law or proposed law in Britain that would make it a crime punishable by up to 2 years in prison to refuse to provide a decrytion key for an encrypted file. If you forget or never had it, tough luck, you're still on the hook. If you have a file full of random data generated by, say, measuring the thermal noise across a semiconductor junction, prepare to be wearing stripes, since it looks like encrypted data, but there's no way you'll ever be able to provide authorities with a key. (Of course, you could generate a one-time 'decryption' pad for that data that would yield any message that you wanted, but would authorities buy it? An interesting question.)
Encrypting one's hard drive
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DeCSS Update
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· Score: 2
It's probably too late in this case, since a subpoena has already been issued and post-subpoena attempts to conceal the data might be considered obstruction (perhaps someone with a legal background can comment), but people who have an expectation that their data may be subpoened ought to consider encrypting the hard drive. It appears to be a difficult thing (at least in the U.S.) to compel disclosure of the password. "As a practical matter, getting past the encryption may not be easy, but there are several approaches to try. First of all, the computer crime lab or the software manufacturer may be able to assist in decrypting the file. Investigators should not be discouraged by claims that the password "can't be broken," as this may simply be untrue. Some can be done easily with the right software. If that fails, there may be clues to the password in the other evidence seized--stray notes on hardware or desks; scribbles in the margins of manuals or on the jackets of disks. Agents should consider whether the suspect or someone else will provide the password if requested. In some cases, it might be appropriate to compel a third party who may know the password (or even the suspect) to disclose it by subpoena (with limited immunity, if appropriate)." And there's always the "I forgot it" claim. One word of warning, though: one well-known person (sorry, my memory fails me) encrypted his hard drive, and the government refuses to give it back to him until he gives them the key. They claim that he might have dangerous material on it (nuclear launch codes, perhaps?) and need to inspect it before returning it. Keep off-site backups.
Further info on how the government goes about conducting information searches can be found here. (I am not a lawyer).
Wish I'd had moderation rights on this one, since I've got some similar stories. Screw whether it's offtopic or not, how else is anyone going to hear about this?
I was a little surprised. I thought I had just written a vision of the dystopia to come, not the daily chuckle.
Re:Not likely to happen anytime soon...Here's why
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Advertising Via GPS
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· Score: 1
The FCC has already mandated that carriers be able to pinpoint callers to within about 136 yards of their location by October 2001. There are two ways: GPS or by measuring signal strength and arrival times at the cell base stations. One way or the other, though, the ability to locate you is going to be here in a year and a half.
Not to mention that a judge issuing a restraining order will mandate that the restrainee must carry one of these phones at all times to track his/her whereabouts.
Hello, Mr. Smith? I'm Officer Martin with the police department. Phone company records show that you were in the area when a car was broken into in the 2400 block of main street about 10 pm. Could we ask what was your business in the area at the time? Were you aware that this area is notorious for drug trafficing? As we have probable cause due to your proximity, would you mind furnishing us with your fingerprints and a urine sample? By the way, the owner of the car is planning to sue the business where the car was parked, and her attorney has issued a subpoena for these records. We'll naturally be turning them over. No doubt you'll be called as a witness. If they find out you were there and didn't inform the police, you'll probably also be the next defendant. Have a nice day.
Quoting Garbus: Right now the MPAA has got an order from the court which makes it possible to stop the posting of the DeCSS. The MPAA has now made a motion to expand the injunction to include linking. What I'd like to know is, if links themselves are prohibited, can simply posting the text of the URL itself be prohibited as well? If we get to this extreme, I think we've gone way over the first amendment line.
7. Only share dirs without Metallica and don't download Metallica. 8. Tell Metallica to go fuck themselves. And never buy Metallica again. 1. Record your own personal version of "Metallica_Ban_THIS.MP3". 2. Make it available via Napster. 3. If Metallica tells Napster to ban you for copyright infringement, sue their butts for slander, tortious interference, loss of revenue (this recording would have been your big break into music stardom) etc.
So does this mean that a site that provided blind people an audio translation of other web sites would be in violation of copyright, as defined by the harrassers of Dialectizer? Wouldn't this conflict with the accessibility provisions of the Americans With Disabilities Act? The Department of Housing and Urban Development reportedly once paid to translate a pamphlet into what it considered a Haitian creole ("Yuh as a rezedent, ave di rights ahn di rispansabilities to elp mek yuh HUD-asisted owzing ah behta owme fi yuh ahn yuh famibly.") Isn't the Dialectizer essentially providing the same sort of service?
This brings to mind a question: if NSI did take away a domain, say amazon.com f'rinstance, could it auction it to the highest bidder, or are they in any way legally bound to give it to the first applicant for $70? If the former, there'd be quite an incentive for NSI to set up some sort of easily-violated 'rules' in order to seize and resell domains that have high value. Sort of like many law-enforcement agencies have a tremendous incentive to seize private property since the revenue goes directly to them.
Regarding governemnt 'planning', this brings to mind the first year the America's cup was held off of San Diego. Somehow the city got the idea that there would be massive crowds, so they sealed off the parking lots on the coast and populated them with port-a-potties and guards. If you wanted to see the races, you were supposed to stand across the street, and the guards were instructed to keep people away from the areas next to the ocean. Well, no one showed up, and I mean *no* one. Nevertheless, the guards kept the normal visitors who just wanted to visit the coastal areas from using the parking lots or even the street next to them. An acquaintance of mine rode his bicycle to the area as he usually did, and paused for a moment on the street to look out at the ocean. The port-a-pottie guards told him he had to move on. The point being, government doesn't always plan well, and even when it becomes obvious that a situation isn't turning out as expected, will continue blindly on. How many other harebrained ideas are still on autopilot out there, their purposes and goals long forgotten? That's the big question.
The pro-registration advocates overlook one fact: there is registration already. Dealers keep records on all guns sold. If the police want to trace a firearm, they can go to the dealer to find out who bought it, and in fact routinely do so. That's how the Columbine firearms were traced. If a dealer goes out of business, all his/her records are transferred to the ATF. What the registration advocates want is more centralized registration. What they haven't satisfactorily explained is: why? What will be done with this information? As the system now stands, it's difficult to get at the records unless there's a legitimate law enforcement reason. If this data is centralized, how long before it's 'accidentally' released to a partisan white house (of either party) or ends up in criminal hands? As for compliance, California passed a ban some years ago on 'assault' weapons and required those already held to be registered. Perhaps a tenth of the number thought to exist actually were. You can expect similar or worse compliance with any new national law regarding registration of firearms.
Your post regarding the "accidental" halting of gun sales was clearly meant to be facetious but it might interest you to know that here in California, it's about to become reality. The new state laws mandate that, starting next year, firearms have to pass a series of tests to certify them as 'safe'. These include not going off when dropped, not blowing up in the user's hand, etc. However, the state-run laboratory that is to perform these tests has yet to be built or funded. Ergo, there will be no firearms certified 'safe' starting next year. No need to pass potentially-unpopular gun-control laws when one can harness sheer bureaucratic inertia to achieve the same aims.
I think there is at least one more option short of quitting: immediately log off and tell your employer you refuse to use any computer that contains that notice. If computer use is a requirement of your work, then it becomes an interesting question of whether they can compel you to use such a system to keep your job. I knew a gov't laboratory employee who refused to take a 'random' drug test for the second time in as many weeks. It really gummed up the works, and got escalated to the head of the laboratory. If nothing else, your refusal would consume vast amounts of management time, and they might reconsider the policy.
Question: 335,000 is a very large number of users to identify in a single weekend. I'd like to know what means were used to determine that they were offering copyrighted Metallica material. Presumably your agents didn't have the time to actually listen to each recording allegedly in violation. Was the mere word 'Metallica' in the filename deemed evidence of infringement? If so, couldn't you be targeting innocent users? Wouldn't those users have a case against you?
Try this: create your very own MP3, perhaps containing your voice saying, "Metallica sucks. Metallica sucks. Metallica sucks." Then name it something like Metallica_Go_To_Hell.mp3. Then make it (and no real Metallica songs) available via Napster. I'm guessing the Metallica 'bot isn't smart enough to check the legitimacy of the file, nor will the humans involved (if they can identify 335,000 individual 'violators' in a weekend, they're not doing it manually). If Metallica tells Napster that you're infringing on their copyright and to remove you, BANGO! time for your *own* lawsuit. Defamation, tortious interference, slander, yadda yadda yadda. Enlist your friends and make it a class action suit. Fun for the whole family!
Slashdot Mirror
The NSI letter says that auction proceeds "up to" the due amount will be retained by NSI. What it doesn't say is who gets the rest. What if I let "groceries.com" go into arrears and it's sold for hundreds of thousands. Who gets the hundreds of thousands less $70? Me, as the prior owner? If not, and NSI keeps it, I think they're letting themselves in for a class action suit, since NSI would be asserting an ownership interest that it isn't entitled to, IMO. If I as a private individual get a judgement against a party and attach and sell their property to satisfy it, I'm only entitled to what I'm owed, not the entire proceeds.
NSI is acting with ever-increasing arrogance (remember their new provision in their agreement that says, effectively, that they own your domain and can take it back at any time?). It's time to get a legislative rein put on these banditos.
If use of this program becomes widespread, I'm going to make a nice little living for myself by making available phoney "pirated" material. When the user (who will of course not have actually downloaded and verified the contents of the "pirated" material I'm offering), accuses me of infringement, that's an instant defamation lawsuit.
Perhaps MSFT needed a new language in which the world's angry loners can write viruses and trojan horses now that everyone has grown suspicious of VBScript.
If there's one thing I've learned, it's to take anything a government employee tells me with a grain of salt, particularly if there's revenue involved. A company I worked for in California was audited and assessed a big sales-tax bill for sales of software. They got an attorney specializing in tax law involved. After a few letters and other bureaucratic folderol, poof, the tax bill vanished, because the auditor either didn't understand the law, or decided to go ahead anyway in the hope that the company wouldn't put up a fight. At the very least, it's worth running the audit past someone with your interests in mind as opposed to the government's.
There's not a chance that MP3 players (at least, the variety that run on computers) will disappear. Even if the RIAA, Metallica, et al sued every software/hardware vendor out of existence, the specs are out there. The same bunch of libertarian/anarchist/hackers/whoever will carry on with the development and promulgation of new MP3 players. You only have to look to the examples of DeCSS and Gnutella to see the futility of attempting to stamp out a technology whose time has come.
It's not surprising when an industry does everything possible to retain the current way of doing business, since those with a stake in the present system fear losing it. I recall that the year after a turbine car nearly won the Indianapolis 500, they altered the rules to make it virtually impossible for a turbine car to qualify to enter. Which is why you haven't seen one since. This is just the movie industry's version of the same behavior.
If you were standing in the aisle of the store and looking at a shelf-full of software, would you be more drawn to A) the large box with the fancy cover graphic and covered with fine print and pictures on the back detailing the product features, or B) the just-large-enough-to-contain-the-jewel-case plain-cardboard box with the product name and little else? To maximize sales, software makers take advantage of the same consumer psychology that dictates, for example, bright primary colors on laundry products, and filling a third of the package with air just to make it look larger. In the absense of laws forcing smaller packaging, no manufacturer is going to take steps that will diminish their visibility on the shelf. I'm not aware of any serious effort to do this for software (or supermarket products for that matter). I think it happened with CDs because they're bought by more people, and because the package made the CD visible from the outside so the wasted space was more obvious.
If it turns out that existing law is insufficient to prosecute participants, they'll extend the law so that acting in a way that could facilitate such a scheme is illegal, and that will include participating in FreeNet, Gnutella, the Eternity service, or whatever. That's why we need both the technology and the data havens.
It's already happening. I believe that it's either a law or proposed law in Britain that would make it a crime punishable by up to 2 years in prison to refuse to provide a decrytion key for an encrypted file. If you forget or never had it, tough luck, you're still on the hook. If you have a file full of random data generated by, say, measuring the thermal noise across a semiconductor junction, prepare to be wearing stripes, since it looks like encrypted data, but there's no way you'll ever be able to provide authorities with a key. (Of course, you could generate a one-time 'decryption' pad for that data that would yield any message that you wanted, but would authorities buy it? An interesting question.)
It's probably too late in this case, since a subpoena has already been issued and post-subpoena attempts to conceal the data might be considered obstruction (perhaps someone with a legal background can comment), but people who have an expectation that their data may be subpoened ought to consider encrypting the hard drive. It appears to be a difficult thing (at least in the U.S.) to compel disclosure of the password. "As a practical matter, getting past the encryption may not be easy, but there are several approaches to try. First of all, the computer crime lab or the software manufacturer may be able to assist in decrypting the file. Investigators should not be discouraged by claims that the password "can't be broken," as this may simply be untrue. Some can be done easily with the right software. If that fails, there may be clues to the password in the other evidence seized--stray notes on hardware or desks; scribbles in the margins of manuals or on the jackets of disks. Agents should consider whether the suspect or someone else will provide the password if requested. In some cases, it might be appropriate to compel a third party who may know the password (or even the suspect) to disclose it by subpoena (with limited immunity, if appropriate)." And there's always the "I forgot it" claim. One word of warning, though: one well-known person (sorry, my memory fails me) encrypted his hard drive, and the government refuses to give it back to him until he gives them the key. They claim that he might have dangerous material on it (nuclear launch codes, perhaps?) and need to inspect it before returning it. Keep off-site backups.
Further info on how the government goes about conducting information searches can be found here. (I am not a lawyer).
Wish I'd had moderation rights on this one, since I've got some similar stories. Screw whether it's offtopic or not, how else is anyone going to hear about this?
1) Get yourself elected president 2) Call the directors of the CIA and NSA into your office and ask them
I was a little surprised. I thought I had just written a vision of the dystopia to come, not the daily chuckle.
The FCC has already mandated that carriers be able to pinpoint callers to within about 136 yards of their location by October 2001. There are two ways: GPS or by measuring signal strength and arrival times at the cell base stations. One way or the other, though, the ability to locate you is going to be here in a year and a half.
Not to mention that a judge issuing a restraining order will mandate that the restrainee must carry one of these phones at all times to track his/her whereabouts.
Hello, Mr. Smith? I'm Officer Martin with the police department. Phone company records show that you were in the area when a car was broken into in the 2400 block of main street about 10 pm. Could we ask what was your business in the area at the time? Were you aware that this area is notorious for drug trafficing? As we have probable cause due to your proximity, would you mind furnishing us with your fingerprints and a urine sample? By the way, the owner of the car is planning to sue the business where the car was parked, and her attorney has issued a subpoena for these records. We'll naturally be turning them over. No doubt you'll be called as a witness. If they find out you were there and didn't inform the police, you'll probably also be the next defendant. Have a nice day.
Quoting Garbus: Right now the MPAA has got an order from the court which makes it possible to stop the posting of the DeCSS. The MPAA has now made a motion to expand the injunction to include linking. What I'd like to know is, if links themselves are prohibited, can simply posting the text of the URL itself be prohibited as well? If we get to this extreme, I think we've gone way over the first amendment line.
7. Only share dirs without Metallica and don't download Metallica. 8. Tell Metallica to go fuck themselves. And never buy Metallica again. 1. Record your own personal version of "Metallica_Ban_THIS.MP3". 2. Make it available via Napster. 3. If Metallica tells Napster to ban you for copyright infringement, sue their butts for slander, tortious interference, loss of revenue (this recording would have been your big break into music stardom) etc.
So does this mean that a site that provided blind people an audio translation of other web sites would be in violation of copyright, as defined by the harrassers of Dialectizer? Wouldn't this conflict with the accessibility provisions of the Americans With Disabilities Act? The Department of Housing and Urban Development reportedly once paid to translate a pamphlet into what it considered a Haitian creole ("Yuh as a rezedent, ave di rights ahn di rispansabilities to elp mek yuh HUD-asisted owzing ah behta owme fi yuh ahn yuh famibly.") Isn't the Dialectizer essentially providing the same sort of service?
This brings to mind a question: if NSI did take away a domain, say amazon.com f'rinstance, could it auction it to the highest bidder, or are they in any way legally bound to give it to the first applicant for $70? If the former, there'd be quite an incentive for NSI to set up some sort of easily-violated 'rules' in order to seize and resell domains that have high value. Sort of like many law-enforcement agencies have a tremendous incentive to seize private property since the revenue goes directly to them.
Regarding governemnt 'planning', this brings to mind the first year the America's cup was held off of San Diego. Somehow the city got the idea that there would be massive crowds, so they sealed off the parking lots on the coast and populated them with port-a-potties and guards. If you wanted to see the races, you were supposed to stand across the street, and the guards were instructed to keep people away from the areas next to the ocean. Well, no one showed up, and I mean *no* one. Nevertheless, the guards kept the normal visitors who just wanted to visit the coastal areas from using the parking lots or even the street next to them. An acquaintance of mine rode his bicycle to the area as he usually did, and paused for a moment on the street to look out at the ocean. The port-a-pottie guards told him he had to move on. The point being, government doesn't always plan well, and even when it becomes obvious that a situation isn't turning out as expected, will continue blindly on. How many other harebrained ideas are still on autopilot out there, their purposes and goals long forgotten? That's the big question.
The pro-registration advocates overlook one fact: there is registration already. Dealers keep records on all guns sold. If the police want to trace a firearm, they can go to the dealer to find out who bought it, and in fact routinely do so. That's how the Columbine firearms were traced. If a dealer goes out of business, all his/her records are transferred to the ATF. What the registration advocates want is more centralized registration. What they haven't satisfactorily explained is: why? What will be done with this information? As the system now stands, it's difficult to get at the records unless there's a legitimate law enforcement reason. If this data is centralized, how long before it's 'accidentally' released to a partisan white house (of either party) or ends up in criminal hands? As for compliance, California passed a ban some years ago on 'assault' weapons and required those already held to be registered. Perhaps a tenth of the number thought to exist actually were. You can expect similar or worse compliance with any new national law regarding registration of firearms.
Your post regarding the "accidental" halting of gun sales was clearly meant to be facetious but it might interest you to know that here in California, it's about to become reality. The new state laws mandate that, starting next year, firearms have to pass a series of tests to certify them as 'safe'. These include not going off when dropped, not blowing up in the user's hand, etc. However, the state-run laboratory that is to perform these tests has yet to be built or funded. Ergo, there will be no firearms certified 'safe' starting next year. No need to pass potentially-unpopular gun-control laws when one can harness sheer bureaucratic inertia to achieve the same aims.
I think there is at least one more option short of quitting: immediately log off and tell your employer you refuse to use any computer that contains that notice. If computer use is a requirement of your work, then it becomes an interesting question of whether they can compel you to use such a system to keep your job. I knew a gov't laboratory employee who refused to take a 'random' drug test for the second time in as many weeks. It really gummed up the works, and got escalated to the head of the laboratory. If nothing else, your refusal would consume vast amounts of management time, and they might reconsider the policy.
Question: 335,000 is a very large number of users to identify in a single weekend. I'd like to know what means were used to determine that they were offering copyrighted Metallica material. Presumably your agents didn't have the time to actually listen to each recording allegedly in violation. Was the mere word 'Metallica' in the filename deemed evidence of infringement? If so, couldn't you be targeting innocent users? Wouldn't those users have a case against you?
Try this: create your very own MP3, perhaps containing your voice saying, "Metallica sucks. Metallica sucks. Metallica sucks." Then name it something like Metallica_Go_To_Hell.mp3. Then make it (and no real Metallica songs) available via Napster. I'm guessing the Metallica 'bot isn't smart enough to check the legitimacy of the file, nor will the humans involved (if they can identify 335,000 individual 'violators' in a weekend, they're not doing it manually). If Metallica tells Napster that you're infringing on their copyright and to remove you, BANGO! time for your *own* lawsuit. Defamation, tortious interference, slander, yadda yadda yadda. Enlist your friends and make it a class action suit. Fun for the whole family!