Giant corp violate the law against individual, individual already posted picture elsewhere for free, judge awards nominal $1 to individual.
Individual violate the law against giant corp, giant corp already broadcasted music over radio for free, judge awards statutory $750 per song to giant corp.
WTF?!
Seriously, privacy laws should state a minimum statutory damage per violation, for the same reason statutory damages is specified in copyright laws - difficult to quantify damage.
I agree with you that copyright damages are ridiculous in the manner the RIAA has been using them in courts but disagree on the proposed solution. The copyright statutory damages are broken and need to be fixed, implementing the same system on privacy will only make things worse. Remember: (2*wrong != right).
Although i agree with you, I would have fined Google $25,000 for the invasion of privacy. and maybe awarded the defendant their lawyers fees. They don't deserve a payday, but they certainly don't deserve loosing money from trying to secure their privacy from a company using the photos to make money (indirectly).
So if you happened to be recording your drive (many car enthusiasts do from time to time) and you went down what you thought was a road, realized it was a driveway when you saw the house and turned around you should be sued? This attitude is one of the problems with our country, people sue for everything. Yes Google was technically trespassing and the case acknowledges this with the conviction. They didn't purposely set out with the goal to get private property pictures of this family's house, they were trying to record the streets (thus "StreetView"). That they got the house at all was an error on the driver's part of mistaking the driveway for a road.
Furthermore, seemingly no attempt was made to work things out prior to filing the lawsuit. If you have a disagreement with your neighbor about where they plan to put up a fence you should first speak with your neighbor about it. Only after this avenue has been tried should a lawsuit be filed if the disagreement could not be solved between yourselves. This may not be law but it is part of being a half-decent human being.
The way I see it this is a fair judgement and good resolution to the issue. It has been established that Google was trespassing and it has also been acknowledged that the trespass was by mistake and not with malicious intent (thus the fines should not be weighted as they would be for malicious trespass). The $1 also seems to acknowledge that the Borings did not attempt to work this out before pushing the case through the court system, presumably in the hopes of getting a large settlement from Google to quietly get rid of the case out of court. I view this whole issue as something that never should have made it to court, they point out Google's mistake and ask them to fix it. Google apologizes and removes the photos (I see no reason they wouldn't but if they refused then that would be a suitable reason to sue).
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and the above is my own interpretation and opinions on the issue at hand.
Maybe all this FUD about jailbreaking/unlocking may create niche -- a cellphone for people wanting open access to their device, where the only limit on them is the hardware limitations. I'm sure there are people out there who wouldn't mind paying for an Android phone that ships with su available, stock Android UI (no MotoBlur or any other vendor/cellular carrier stuff), and with the source code available for all parts of the OS so custom builds are more of spending time making cool features, not trying to fight one's way around manufacturer created obstacles like signed kernels, eFuses, or the like.
If it wasn't so close to the end of the model's production cycle, I'd consider a N900 just on principles alone, although it really would be nice to have Google make an ADP with up to date hardware specs for running Android apps.
The Nexus One fits all of those criteria and it's still available to developers.
Who owns the copyright on those documents and is Wikileaks infringing that copyright by releasing them? If so that would also be grounds for termination under the AUP.
If we can find out what all of the information they are tracking to create this fingerprint is there should be a way via browser extension (which would need to be created) to whittle down what is actually transmitted to the most generic set that provides the minimal info necessary to correctly view the page. For example, I don't see why the user agent string needs to be accurate beyond your browser and major version.
There is no youtube support without using a third party program on a networked PC (such as TVersity, though I'm not sure if the free version will do youtube). I already use my 360 as a replacement for cable, between Netflix and streaming movies from my PC the only thing I'm really missing is football games which I solved by having an antenna hooked up to the TV to pick up the OTA broadcast. Hulu is not out yet but it has been promised in the next update. Overall it's a great solution for me but I can tolerate not seeing the newest episode of whatever show right when it comes out.
If you replace your TV subscription you can save a quite a bit. $12/mo Netflix sub for unlimited streaming and 1 Bluray at a time + ~$36/yr for LIVE gold (if you wait for a deal on a 12 month card) comes up to roughly $15/mo which is a lot cheaper than the local cable company wanted for basic digital at $60/mo.
The slim model is very quiet playing Netflix or other video, the only time it gets a little louder is playing Black Ops. The old ones were horrendously loud, though they've been getting quieter as Microsoft made revisions (my previous Elite wasn't as quiet as the slim but was much quieter than the launch unit I had before it).
why do you cower in the shadows of an assume pseudonym? what are you afraid of?
What is he afraid of? Why do you fear anonymity? Regardless of whether the poster gives their real name, a pseudonym, or chooses to remain nameless what they have to say can stand or fall on its own merits. An intelligent, well-phrased argument should not be given any less consideration if the writer chose to remain anonymous. Similarly, offensive flamebait is still considered such if the writer attaches their own name to it.
While I am in the wait and see department you do have to admit a large percentage of their recent releases have been US focused. I can certainly see where the anti-US accusations are coming from.
But using that same logic what exactly am I paying my ISP for? They send far more data onto my home network than I send back. By extension, because Comcast primarily serves end consumers they would be expected to have more data incoming than outgoing overall. The traditional peering payment method doesn't seem to be balanced here.
First thing I thought of when I saw the picture. I've seen these for sale many times, often the shelf was positioned below the outlet but I find it hard to believe changing the shelf location warrants a patent.
I don't believe that analogy adequately fits the situation. The key here is that the endpoint is within the Comcast network and those customers have already paid Comcast to deliver their requested content. Much of Comcast's business is providing service to paying customers, as opposed to a backbone provider where most of their business is transporting content from one provider to another.
Comcast should expect to have more data coming in than going out simply based on the nature of their business, that's why their customers pay for internet access. Most consumers will not use anywhere near as much upstream as downstream bandwidth and even if they wanted to the asymmetrical plans offered by Comcast effectively prevent it.
I realize Akamai was paying them but to me it seems like they were extorting Akamai and now they want to extort money out of Level 3. They have already been paid by their customers for this.
There is a possibility of competition - DSL, WiMAX, 3GPP LTE. But for some reason, competition never materializes.
DSL might be a viable alternative in some areas but the overall performance of WiMAX and LTE prevents them from being a viable alternative to cable internet. Competition requires viable alternatives, not just alternatives.
The issue is that level3 wants that comcast routes it's traffic for free, directly, and for huge (and growing) bandwidth demands (and expects comcast to upgrade it's links for this). It's not about to firewall netflix from their customers.
The issue is that level3 now gets to deliver netflix traffic (that they get paid for) for free to comcast. When comcast closes the settlement-free interconnects ("peerings") that means level3 will need to pay on of the other tier-1 carriers to deliver netflix traffic, which is why they're so upset about this.
What I'm having a hard time with here is that Comcast is already paid by their customers to deliver whatever content they request from the internet up to a certain rate of speed (determined by plan). Now I could see Level 3 being required to pay if the content was crossing Comcast's network and going into another ISP's network but in this case the endpoint is within the Comcast network. Why should Level 3 have to pay Comcast for what their customers already pay them for?
Why should Level 3 have to pay Comcast to send content to their customers?
Comcast's customers pay them to provide access to the Internet as a whole. Customers are requesting data (Netflix video) from Level 3 (who Netflix is paying to deliver the video). It would seem to me that Comcast's job here is to transport the data their customers are requesting from wherever it resides to the customer, that's what the customer pays them for in the first place.
To be fair though 60 people provide a lot less vectors for a security breach than the scale the government is working on. I'm not saying they don't deserve some flak for this, just pointing out that no matter what your procedures are the more people with access to the secure date, the more possibility there is of a leak.
Slashdot Mirror
I can think of a few phones you may be interested in then:
T-mobile: HTC G2
Verizon: Motorola Droid2 or Droid Pro
Sprint: Samsung Epic (Galaxy S line)
I'm honestly not sure about AT&T, I don't consider the Backflip worthy of recommendation.
This is about the only way I can see cellphones actually working as a free market. The market as it stands currently is broken.
Giant corp violate the law against individual, individual already posted picture elsewhere for free, judge awards nominal $1 to individual.
Individual violate the law against giant corp, giant corp already broadcasted music over radio for free, judge awards statutory $750 per song to giant corp.
WTF?!
Seriously, privacy laws should state a minimum statutory damage per violation, for the same reason statutory damages is specified in copyright laws - difficult to quantify damage.
I agree with you that copyright damages are ridiculous in the manner the RIAA has been using them in courts but disagree on the proposed solution. The copyright statutory damages are broken and need to be fixed, implementing the same system on privacy will only make things worse. Remember: (2*wrong != right).
Although i agree with you, I would have fined Google $25,000 for the invasion of privacy. and maybe awarded the defendant their lawyers fees. They don't deserve a payday, but they certainly don't deserve loosing money from trying to secure their privacy from a company using the photos to make money (indirectly).
So if you happened to be recording your drive (many car enthusiasts do from time to time) and you went down what you thought was a road, realized it was a driveway when you saw the house and turned around you should be sued? This attitude is one of the problems with our country, people sue for everything. Yes Google was technically trespassing and the case acknowledges this with the conviction. They didn't purposely set out with the goal to get private property pictures of this family's house, they were trying to record the streets (thus "StreetView"). That they got the house at all was an error on the driver's part of mistaking the driveway for a road.
Furthermore, seemingly no attempt was made to work things out prior to filing the lawsuit. If you have a disagreement with your neighbor about where they plan to put up a fence you should first speak with your neighbor about it. Only after this avenue has been tried should a lawsuit be filed if the disagreement could not be solved between yourselves. This may not be law but it is part of being a half-decent human being.
The way I see it this is a fair judgement and good resolution to the issue. It has been established that Google was trespassing and it has also been acknowledged that the trespass was by mistake and not with malicious intent (thus the fines should not be weighted as they would be for malicious trespass). The $1 also seems to acknowledge that the Borings did not attempt to work this out before pushing the case through the court system, presumably in the hopes of getting a large settlement from Google to quietly get rid of the case out of court. I view this whole issue as something that never should have made it to court, they point out Google's mistake and ask them to fix it. Google apologizes and removes the photos (I see no reason they wouldn't but if they refused then that would be a suitable reason to sue).
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and the above is my own interpretation and opinions on the issue at hand.
Maybe all this FUD about jailbreaking/unlocking may create niche -- a cellphone for people wanting open access to their device, where the only limit on them is the hardware limitations. I'm sure there are people out there who wouldn't mind paying for an Android phone that ships with su available, stock Android UI (no MotoBlur or any other vendor/cellular carrier stuff), and with the source code available for all parts of the OS so custom builds are more of spending time making cool features, not trying to fight one's way around manufacturer created obstacles like signed kernels, eFuses, or the like.
If it wasn't so close to the end of the model's production cycle, I'd consider a N900 just on principles alone, although it really would be nice to have Google make an ADP with up to date hardware specs for running Android apps.
The Nexus One fits all of those criteria and it's still available to developers.
You're asking Congress to use reason with regards to the DMCA, they already proved lacking in that department when they created it.
Who owns the copyright on those documents and is Wikileaks infringing that copyright by releasing them? If so that would also be grounds for termination under the AUP.
If we can find out what all of the information they are tracking to create this fingerprint is there should be a way via browser extension (which would need to be created) to whittle down what is actually transmitted to the most generic set that provides the minimal info necessary to correctly view the page. For example, I don't see why the user agent string needs to be accurate beyond your browser and major version.
There is no youtube support without using a third party program on a networked PC (such as TVersity, though I'm not sure if the free version will do youtube). I already use my 360 as a replacement for cable, between Netflix and streaming movies from my PC the only thing I'm really missing is football games which I solved by having an antenna hooked up to the TV to pick up the OTA broadcast. Hulu is not out yet but it has been promised in the next update. Overall it's a great solution for me but I can tolerate not seeing the newest episode of whatever show right when it comes out.
If you replace your TV subscription you can save a quite a bit. $12/mo Netflix sub for unlimited streaming and 1 Bluray at a time + ~$36/yr for LIVE gold (if you wait for a deal on a 12 month card) comes up to roughly $15/mo which is a lot cheaper than the local cable company wanted for basic digital at $60/mo.
The slim model is very quiet playing Netflix or other video, the only time it gets a little louder is playing Black Ops. The old ones were horrendously loud, though they've been getting quieter as Microsoft made revisions (my previous Elite wasn't as quiet as the slim but was much quieter than the launch unit I had before it).
why do you cower in the shadows of an assume pseudonym? what are you afraid of?
What is he afraid of? Why do you fear anonymity? Regardless of whether the poster gives their real name, a pseudonym, or chooses to remain nameless what they have to say can stand or fall on its own merits. An intelligent, well-phrased argument should not be given any less consideration if the writer chose to remain anonymous. Similarly, offensive flamebait is still considered such if the writer attaches their own name to it.
While I am in the wait and see department you do have to admit a large percentage of their recent releases have been US focused. I can certainly see where the anti-US accusations are coming from.
Interesting, so if Comcast's own streaming offerings were as popular as Netflix we might not be hearing about this right now?
But using that same logic what exactly am I paying my ISP for? They send far more data onto my home network than I send back. By extension, because Comcast primarily serves end consumers they would be expected to have more data incoming than outgoing overall. The traditional peering payment method doesn't seem to be balanced here.
Wow, that's insane... Not that I expect too much sanity from our court system but still, I didn't think this had actually happened.
First thing I thought of when I saw the picture. I've seen these for sale many times, often the shelf was positioned below the outlet but I find it hard to believe changing the shelf location warrants a patent.
You can hope the patent and patents like it get invalidated, by the way. The patent can get invalidated with Microsoft still being liable.
I may be missing something here but how can Microsoft be liable for damages from violating the patent if it is shown that the patent is not valid?
As a developer I'm actually of the opinion that an anti-software-patent precedent here would be a Good Thing
I don't believe that analogy adequately fits the situation. The key here is that the endpoint is within the Comcast network and those customers have already paid Comcast to deliver their requested content. Much of Comcast's business is providing service to paying customers, as opposed to a backbone provider where most of their business is transporting content from one provider to another.
Comcast should expect to have more data coming in than going out simply based on the nature of their business, that's why their customers pay for internet access. Most consumers will not use anywhere near as much upstream as downstream bandwidth and even if they wanted to the asymmetrical plans offered by Comcast effectively prevent it.
I realize Akamai was paying them but to me it seems like they were extorting Akamai and now they want to extort money out of Level 3. They have already been paid by their customers for this.
There is a possibility of competition - DSL, WiMAX, 3GPP LTE. But for some reason, competition never materializes.
DSL might be a viable alternative in some areas but the overall performance of WiMAX and LTE prevents them from being a viable alternative to cable internet. Competition requires viable alternatives, not just alternatives.
The issue is that level3 wants that comcast routes it's traffic for free, directly, and for huge (and growing) bandwidth demands (and expects comcast to upgrade it's links for this). It's not about to firewall netflix from their customers.
The issue is that level3 now gets to deliver netflix traffic (that they get paid for) for free to comcast. When comcast closes the settlement-free interconnects ("peerings") that means level3 will need to pay on of the other tier-1 carriers to deliver netflix traffic, which is why they're so upset about this.
What I'm having a hard time with here is that Comcast is already paid by their customers to deliver whatever content they request from the internet up to a certain rate of speed (determined by plan). Now I could see Level 3 being required to pay if the content was crossing Comcast's network and going into another ISP's network but in this case the endpoint is within the Comcast network. Why should Level 3 have to pay Comcast for what their customers already pay them for?
Why should Level 3 have to pay Comcast to send content to their customers?
Comcast's customers pay them to provide access to the Internet as a whole. Customers are requesting data (Netflix video) from Level 3 (who Netflix is paying to deliver the video). It would seem to me that Comcast's job here is to transport the data their customers are requesting from wherever it resides to the customer, that's what the customer pays them for in the first place.
Why is the military privy to diplomatic traffic at all? Why would it be on a computer entrusted to a private?
Unbelievable.
I think you may not be getting the full idea when the media keeps calling him "an Army private".
One of the earlier articles on Manning mentions that he has top-secret security clearance and an article from this summer on CNN reveals that he had both top-secret and "sensitive compartmentalized information" clearance. The CNN article also mentions that he graduated training in August 2008 as an intelligence analyst and that he was demoted from specialist to private 1st class after a fight.
Very well said, now if only I had mod points.
To be fair though 60 people provide a lot less vectors for a security breach than the scale the government is working on. I'm not saying they don't deserve some flak for this, just pointing out that no matter what your procedures are the more people with access to the secure date, the more possibility there is of a leak.