If you find a file on my hard drive with data you can't readily decode, is it:
A) Compressed with an unknown compressor B) Encrypted with an unknown encryptor C) Random bytes used for an encryption process D) Random bytes used for something else
I can't prove that answer D is wrong... but I don't have to because I know that 99% of the time, it's one of the other answers.
If you want to hide your data, the file must ostensibly have some other purpose... something that isn't obviously a lie. That's what steganography is about. For example, you might download as much of the 1 meter-resolution Google Maps satellite image as fits on your hard disk, save it uncompressed and then store encrypted data in the low-order bit of each byte (3 bytes to a pixel). Coupled with a map application that can display the imagery, it would appear to be one thing (a map) while really being another (a container for encrypted information).
At that point, unless you capture the encryption software it becomes hard to suspect that there is encrypted data, let alone prove it.
Anybody remember the Intel 487sx math coprocessor that was really a complete 486 processor which simply disabled the original 486 processor on the motherboard? Sold like hotcakes it did. Intel at their most ingenious.
Ask each student to orally explain three selected concepts you taught in the class, sans everything. No books, no calculators, nothing. The questions are pass/fail and are selected so that anyone passing the class should be able to offer a competent answer. Deliver satisfactory answers and you get whatever grade you earned on the tests. Demonstrate a lack of competence (since you cheated on the tests) and you fail the class.
If you're not selling or advertising something, I legally I have no recourse to make you stop calling. But if I welcomed your call, I wouldn't have put my name on the don't call me list, now would I?
And your point is what exactly? Your right to issue subpoenas as a result of the theft of your wallet stems from the conversion tort. The -police's- right to issue subpoenas comes from the petty theft misdemeanor, but that doesn't help you, it only helps them.
Furthermore, there IS a criminal element to downloading "latest_crap_song.mp3". Read the law.
I stand corrected. According to the Department of Labor, an employer can suspend a salaried employee without pay for up to 12 days but only pursuant to a written policy applicable to all employees and only when imposed in "good faith" for infractions of workplace rules.
I doubt it can be imposed in good faith when the employee reasonably disputes the facts and no hearing is performed. I highly doubt his workplace has a written rule against registering domain names.
First off, if the registration is in your name with your address, phone number and email address then you should have a very easy time taking control of it. Write a letter (on paper) to your employer requesting permission to do so with the intent of collecting all information contained in the account and turning it over to the company. Take no action unless they grant permission in writing.
Second, hire a lawyer to write you a letter to the effect of, "Mr. You's name was forged on the system in question. The company's reaction is unacceptable. You expect to be reinstated by date X after which you will avail yourself of all legal recourse." The lawyer can help you with the exact wording and concepts. Composing and sending the letter will cost you around $200 but it sends a message to your employer that you consider their behavior in the matter to be unacceptable.
Third, they can't "suspend" you. This isn't grade school. They can pay you, fire you or lay you off. Those are their only unilateral options and you have specific legal rights in each case. They can ask you to take leave without pay, but you have to agree and you shouldn't agree without giving them a hard deadline for reinstating you.
I'm rather touchy about that too. But the main threat isn't coming from the courts, it's coming from the congress. If there's one thing the Democrats and Republicans seem to be able to agree on it's an wholesale onslaught against personal property rights, especially the rights of the owner of a copy of an IP.
Copyright infringement for no financial gain (by which I mean, not selling the copied works) is part of the civil law, as opposed to the criminal law.
Actually, that isn't true in the US. See US code title 17 section 506. It's also criminal if you distribute infringing works with a total value over $1000 in 6 months [506(a)(1)(B)] or if you distribute a pre-release work to the public on a computer network [506(a)(1)(C)]. The punishments in title 18 section 2319 seem to hinge on whether the retail value of the copies exceeds $1000. If it does you can go to jail for up to 10 years. Otherwise, your jail time will be under a year.
It wasn't exactly ex parte now was it. Each of the subscribers apparently received a notice, the form of which was crafted by the court. And each therefore had the opportunity to move to quash.
The EFF's points about joinder and jurisdiction are more interesting. As a public policy matter, I think they're right. The judge should have given the matter a more critical eye even without objection from the defendants.
As a legal matter, none of the defendants have sought to be severed from the case on the grounds of improper joinder and none have sought dismissal for lack of jurisdiction. When and if they do, I'll be interested to read the court's response.
You may be interested to learn that I was sued once in an intellectual property matter. In Texas no less, while I live in Virginia. Hung over me for almost a year. Had a lawyer help me draft an "I deny everything" letter. Traded a few emails over the months. Finally ended up sending them a message to the effect of, "Lookit, these are the dozen false things you'll have to prove in order to prevail and these three you had no excuse for not knowing they were false when you filed the case. I expect you to review them and then end it." Two weeks later I got a notice that the case had been "non-suited," which basically means dismissed without prejudice.
The lawyer should have known better. His client acquired the IP in an asset purchase specifically designed to shed contractual baggage so he should have known that he didn't have a contract with me. That stayed with the folks I sold the IP to and they had no interest in suing. Had I been feeling vindictive, I could have given the lawyer a few very stressful months. But I don't blame the judge. He did what he was supposed to.
It's called "discovery." You don't have to prove your case to be allowed discovery. You just have to prove that you have an actionable case and that the pond you're fishing in has an appropriately narrow focus on the that case.
Yes, the judge probably would insist the kinds of proof you describe before authorizing the subpoena. As he/she should in Internet cases. The litigant generally accomplishes this by producing an expert who claims that the IP address and timestamp is usually sufficient to identify the account holder. Which is true.
Don't know where your "subsidize" comment comes in. You do realize that when you subpoena records as part of a court case from anybody other than the defendant, you are required to *pay* them for their costs in producing those records, right? Same with criminal cases, actually. If the police subpoena a third party that party can insist on being paid reasonable costs associated with fulfilling the subpoena. They usually don't unless the police are making a nuisance of themselves, but they have the right.
In the US it's both a criminal matter (petty theft) and a civil matter (conversion tort). The outcome of the criminal case can put you in jail while the outcome of the civil case can require you to repay the stolen money.
You're at a membership-only swimming pool at 3 pm on the 11th. There are four other people at the pool. Your wallet is stolen. The owners of the pool refuse to tell you who the other four members were. What do you do?
First you call the police. But if they don't help, you file a John Doe lawsuit and subpoena the pool for the identities of the other four members present. Then you speak to each one. And if you can figure out which one did it, you amend the lawsuit replacing John Doe with that individual.
That's how it's done. That's how it's been done since I don't know when. What makes you think the Internet should be any different?
You can stand up for someone's right to do a thing, yet still condemn it for a despicable act of thuggery. When the right is not threatened, the emphasis tends to shift to that latter part.
Take it with a grain of salt. The security scan was checklist-based, taking no account of the context. Worse, it's was based on version to database matches, utterly failing to account for backported security patches and similar protections that render specific vulnerabilities moot.
I have no personal knowledge of this specific case. But I've seen it enough times to know what this report really means.
Not that I know of. AFAICT Jones has a legal right.
My criticism was of the OP's choice to link something as thuggish as burning books to Westergaard's gentle satire. Westergaard is way out of Terry Jones' league.
I would defend Jones' legal right to the death but it does not offend me that Rackspace chooses not to participate in his despicable thuggery.
Which unlawful action is he exhorting who to perform and when is he asking them to do it? In the case law, "imminent and likely" boils down to inciting folks to immediate riot... and you have to be asking them to riot, not giving an "in your face dare you to stop me" speech. Pretty much anything more abstract is excluded.
Funny guy. Point is that burning a representation of something you dislike is crude and unimaginative. Legal and moral issues aside, it isn't even in the same league as sophisticated satire.
Qualify as what? My objection to the "Piss Christ" is that it was paid for with taxpayer money. NEA has no business paying artists to produce overtly religious art, either blasphemous or respectful.
Slashdot Mirror
If you find a file on my hard drive with data you can't readily decode, is it:
A) Compressed with an unknown compressor
B) Encrypted with an unknown encryptor
C) Random bytes used for an encryption process
D) Random bytes used for something else
I can't prove that answer D is wrong... but I don't have to because I know that 99% of the time, it's one of the other answers.
If you want to hide your data, the file must ostensibly have some other purpose... something that isn't obviously a lie. That's what steganography is about. For example, you might download as much of the 1 meter-resolution Google Maps satellite image as fits on your hard disk, save it uncompressed and then store encrypted data in the low-order bit of each byte (3 bytes to a pixel). Coupled with a map application that can display the imagery, it would appear to be one thing (a map) while really being another (a container for encrypted information).
At that point, unless you capture the encryption software it becomes hard to suspect that there is encrypted data, let alone prove it.
Anybody remember the Intel 487sx math coprocessor that was really a complete 486 processor which simply disabled the original 486 processor on the motherboard? Sold like hotcakes it did. Intel at their most ingenious.
Ask each student to orally explain three selected concepts you taught in the class, sans everything. No books, no calculators, nothing. The questions are pass/fail and are selected so that anyone passing the class should be able to offer a competent answer. Deliver satisfactory answers and you get whatever grade you earned on the tests. Demonstrate a lack of competence (since you cheated on the tests) and you fail the class.
If you're not selling or advertising something, I legally I have no recourse to make you stop calling. But if I welcomed your call, I wouldn't have put my name on the don't call me list, now would I?
Hey, my number is on the do not call list. You you disrespect me by calling anyway with your ever so important survey, well, you reap what you sow.
And your point is what exactly? Your right to issue subpoenas as a result of the theft of your wallet stems from the conversion tort. The -police's- right to issue subpoenas comes from the petty theft misdemeanor, but that doesn't help you, it only helps them.
Furthermore, there IS a criminal element to downloading "latest_crap_song.mp3". Read the law.
http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html#506
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00002319----000-.html
I stand corrected. According to the Department of Labor, an employer can suspend a salaried employee without pay for up to 12 days but only pursuant to a written policy applicable to all employees and only when imposed in "good faith" for infractions of workplace rules.
I doubt it can be imposed in good faith when the employee reasonably disputes the facts and no hearing is performed. I highly doubt his workplace has a written rule against registering domain names.
http://www.dol.gov/dol/allcfr/ESA/Title_29/Part_541/29CFR541.602.htm
First off, if the registration is in your name with your address, phone number and email address then you should have a very easy time taking control of it. Write a letter (on paper) to your employer requesting permission to do so with the intent of collecting all information contained in the account and turning it over to the company. Take no action unless they grant permission in writing.
Second, hire a lawyer to write you a letter to the effect of, "Mr. You's name was forged on the system in question. The company's reaction is unacceptable. You expect to be reinstated by date X after which you will avail yourself of all legal recourse." The lawyer can help you with the exact wording and concepts. Composing and sending the letter will cost you around $200 but it sends a message to your employer that you consider their behavior in the matter to be unacceptable.
Third, they can't "suspend" you. This isn't grade school. They can pay you, fire you or lay you off. Those are their only unilateral options and you have specific legal rights in each case. They can ask you to take leave without pay, but you have to agree and you shouldn't agree without giving them a hard deadline for reinstating you.
there is still a significant minority of Western people who believe that the Earth is the center of the universe: 18% of Americans
In other news, 17% of Americans were found to exhibit a sense of humor when called by pollsters while most of the rest just get upset.
"Conversion," the civil tort you commit when stealing a wallet, is and remains a civil offense.
I'm rather touchy about that too. But the main threat isn't coming from the courts, it's coming from the congress. If there's one thing the Democrats and Republicans seem to be able to agree on it's an wholesale onslaught against personal property rights, especially the rights of the owner of a copy of an IP.
Copyright infringement for no financial gain (by which I mean, not selling the copied works) is part of the civil law, as opposed to the criminal law.
Actually, that isn't true in the US. See US code title 17 section 506. It's also criminal if you distribute infringing works with a total value over $1000 in 6 months [506(a)(1)(B)] or if you distribute a pre-release work to the public on a computer network [506(a)(1)(C)]. The punishments in title 18 section 2319 seem to hinge on whether the retail value of the copies exceeds $1000. If it does you can go to jail for up to 10 years. Otherwise, your jail time will be under a year.
http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html#506
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00002319----000-.html
It wasn't exactly ex parte now was it. Each of the subscribers apparently received a notice, the form of which was crafted by the court. And each therefore had the opportunity to move to quash.
The EFF's points about joinder and jurisdiction are more interesting. As a public policy matter, I think they're right. The judge should have given the matter a more critical eye even without objection from the defendants.
As a legal matter, none of the defendants have sought to be severed from the case on the grounds of improper joinder and none have sought dismissal for lack of jurisdiction. When and if they do, I'll be interested to read the court's response.
You may be interested to learn that I was sued once in an intellectual property matter. In Texas no less, while I live in Virginia. Hung over me for almost a year. Had a lawyer help me draft an "I deny everything" letter. Traded a few emails over the months. Finally ended up sending them a message to the effect of, "Lookit, these are the dozen false things you'll have to prove in order to prevail and these three you had no excuse for not knowing they were false when you filed the case. I expect you to review them and then end it." Two weeks later I got a notice that the case had been "non-suited," which basically means dismissed without prejudice.
The lawyer should have known better. His client acquired the IP in an asset purchase specifically designed to shed contractual baggage so he should have known that he didn't have a contract with me. That stayed with the folks I sold the IP to and they had no interest in suing. Had I been feeling vindictive, I could have given the lawyer a few very stressful months. But I don't blame the judge. He did what he was supposed to.
Sorry, where exactly in the ruling do you think the judge says they don't have an actionable case?
http://www.archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.dcd.141268/gov.uscourts.dcd.141268.44.0.pdf
It's called "discovery." You don't have to prove your case to be allowed discovery. You just have to prove that you have an actionable case and that the pond you're fishing in has an appropriately narrow focus on the that case.
Yes, the judge probably would insist the kinds of proof you describe before authorizing the subpoena. As he/she should in Internet cases. The litigant generally accomplishes this by producing an expert who claims that the IP address and timestamp is usually sufficient to identify the account holder. Which is true.
Don't know where your "subsidize" comment comes in. You do realize that when you subpoena records as part of a court case from anybody other than the defendant, you are required to *pay* them for their costs in producing those records, right? Same with criminal cases, actually. If the police subpoena a third party that party can insist on being paid reasonable costs associated with fulfilling the subpoena. They usually don't unless the police are making a nuisance of themselves, but they have the right.
In the US it's both a criminal matter (petty theft) and a civil matter (conversion tort). The outcome of the criminal case can put you in jail while the outcome of the civil case can require you to repay the stolen money.
You're at a membership-only swimming pool at 3 pm on the 11th. There are four other people at the pool. Your wallet is stolen. The owners of the pool refuse to tell you who the other four members were. What do you do?
First you call the police. But if they don't help, you file a John Doe lawsuit and subpoena the pool for the identities of the other four members present. Then you speak to each one. And if you can figure out which one did it, you amend the lawsuit replacing John Doe with that individual.
That's how it's done. That's how it's been done since I don't know when. What makes you think the Internet should be any different?
A row of folks just standing there holding fire extinguishers. My hat's off to you sir, your idea is much better.
You can stand up for someone's right to do a thing, yet still condemn it for a despicable act of thuggery. When the right is not threatened, the emphasis tends to shift to that latter part.
Take it with a grain of salt. The security scan was checklist-based, taking no account of the context. Worse, it's was based on version to database matches, utterly failing to account for backported security patches and similar protections that render specific vulnerabilities moot.
I have no personal knowledge of this specific case. But I've seen it enough times to know what this report really means.
Not that I know of. AFAICT Jones has a legal right.
My criticism was of the OP's choice to link something as thuggish as burning books to Westergaard's gentle satire. Westergaard is way out of Terry Jones' league.
I would defend Jones' legal right to the death but it does not offend me that Rackspace chooses not to participate in his despicable thuggery.
Which unlawful action is he exhorting who to perform and when is he asking them to do it? In the case law, "imminent and likely" boils down to inciting folks to immediate riot... and you have to be asking them to riot, not giving an "in your face dare you to stop me" speech. Pretty much anything more abstract is excluded.
Funny guy. Point is that burning a representation of something you dislike is crude and unimaginative. Legal and moral issues aside, it isn't even in the same league as sophisticated satire.
Qualify as what? My objection to the "Piss Christ" is that it was paid for with taxpayer money. NEA has no business paying artists to produce overtly religious art, either blasphemous or respectful.