Where are you getting these stats from? Everywhere I've seen the numbers for every speciality except family practice you are over $150k within 3 years in just about any city. Even the AMA 8 years ago agreed average salary had passed the $200k mark.
What's the problem with the RAD tools being KDEish? KDE works on Mac, and a cross platform development environment can be hosted anywhere.... As for small developers and shareware/freeware, hopefully one of:
1) don't need cross platform 2) They are OK with the QT non commercial license (QT has 4 licenses) (genuine shareware should be) 3) They don't need "good" cross platform, so things like WX are fine 4) They already have a copy 5) They can afford to pay a few grand
The H1B people by in large would be happy to stay and become citizens. I'd say get rid of H1B all together, or create a very large tax on it (say something like 40% directed to unemployment and training/retraining costs). But its pointless talking about policies that would be good for the American people until we get our democracy back.
A computer science post doc has roughly as much education as a doctor. "Can command six figures" displays the shortage is nowhere near serious enough. "Can command seven figures" and you would have a flood of people willing to do 8-11 years of post college education.
First off even windows no longer uses a bios in the sense of providing services that do more than bootstrap the computer. So no Mac doesn't have a bios. But even if one were to dismiss that they point EFI is the next version and hence not obsolete. There is no "real mode" on an Itanium. Further even on the x86 chip EFI is way more advanced, EFI currently supports: 128 partitions with drives up to 18 exabytes in size. That's not obsolete.
QT is a good cross platform GUI API. The only real criticism is you have to pay for it. Also there are a ton of fairly complex apps you can integrate with.
I agree with everything you said. BTW a good analogy for what they are like is Sun, or IBM. Pretty much any non x86 vendor is both a software and a hardware company. The reason IBM, HP and SGI like Linux so much is they are tired of having to lose money on software to sell hardware (I'm talking P-Series with respect to IBM here).
Pretty much I would argue that the entire x86 line is basically Microsoft + commodity hardware vendors. That is the vendor really is Microsoft. The best evidence for that is that Microsoft gets buggy hardware to work via OS patches, i.e. they see themselves as ultimately responsible for the total system.
The price of a dell + an extra $200 is more than the swing for an equivalent mac product. You can't argue that Macs are too pricey when arguing you wouldn't mind paying hundreds extra for an OS. When the macbook pro came out I priced it against Dell's offerings. Without going to a much thinker book you couldn't get anything close and even then it was more money.
No there has to be some sort of positive attempt to determine. If they did try and determine it, then maybe but I still have some questions:
1) There aren't clear definitions of what a server means. 2) Under lots of those definitions would a DLink qualify 3) Even assuming 1, 2 don't work you could argue that DLink isn't the one performing the deception, their clients are. Dlink would be the one causing the deception to be performed so maybe maybe you could swing a conspiracy for theft of service but it sure is a stretch. 4) As someone else mentioned on this thread client based discrimination at the point of the transaction is illegal. Theft of service requires a legal agreement, if I trick you into driving me somewhere where you have the expectation of receiving pot as payment then that isn't theft of service.
Ah, but there is. D-Link is conspiring to have owners of their routers trespass into those NTP servers. I believe thay call this conspiracy "sales" or "marketing". I'm not sure if the owners themselves would have to have knowledge of this for it to be a conspiracy, but I don't beleive it would be.
You are missing the point. It is against the law to conspire with someone to commit trespass. So even if you can prove (2) and (3) (that is the DLink's customers were trespassing) you still have problems getting anything criminal on DLink.
I'm not sure what you mean by this. Read the article: The routers are intentionally made to connect into a server where the stated policy of that server indicates that they are not welcome there. That seems like trespass to me
Right and the law (again the trespass statues) seems to define "access" as more than a simple packet exchange. It reads like it requires a log in.
I bet it might if the producer of that data has asked that it not be taken. See above. Also, what's being taken here is not just data; It's really a service: the availability of a very accurate source of time data. Anyone can give you the time, but this is something that has to be maintained at some expense so it has a definite value whether he's charging for it or not.
There is serious question whether you can "own" facts. For example lets say I compute the product of two 50000 digit numbers. I may have been the first one to compute this product. Can I enforce a copyright on that fact? Can I patent this? Basically the law says no. The correct time may not be considered an own-able fact.
As for stealing a service, go back to ggggp. The whole trespass thread started because DLink doesn't meet the criteria for theft of service (they don't have enough control over the server, nor did they use deception).
Because of that, saying it was "given away for free" or "just the time" might not work as a defense if this went to court.
Forget about defense. I'm still waiting for anyone to actually show a possible prosecution. That is a place where DLink fulfilled all the elements of a crime.
Trespass is a different crime than theft. I've responded a couple of times elsewhere but... the problem with the trespass statute is:
1) tieing DLink to the act of trespass (there isn't a conspiracy to commit trespass) 2) proving they actually had access relative to the law 3) there has to be a taking of data and I'm not sure the correct time qualifies
Basically, you could make a better case (but IMHO) not a winning one against DLink's customers.
Well, if they had a pile of calenders behind the desk, with a sign above it that said "free calenders for customers", and then you said "hey, give me one of those", and you were not a customer, then that would be stealing
You have to actually practice deception. "I just bought an XYZ give me one of those". If you think not then cite a case. The law looks pretty clear to me.
If a requirement for theft of service be that you were given control of that system, then people who get "free" cable are not stealing. Thats absurd.
People who steal cable are charged with a different crime BTW Section 633 of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended (47 U.S.C. ß553): which bans tapping into cable. There is a specific black letter law because (IMHO) the general laws do not ban it.
OK that one is more reasonable then theft of service. The problem is whether NTP constitutes "gaining access" and whether the denmark guy can be said to own the data (the correct time). I hope the answer to the second question is no. Now for a publicly available server which answers any request I think its going to be hard to argue DLink is "gaining access". Further still is the problem they themselves don't make the request the clients do. I'd think you have to nail an individual user and get DLink on conspiracy or something even assuming you don't agree with the other two points.
So in short:
1) Your "follows trivially" may not even follow at all 2) I have questions whether they accessed the server (in terms of law you site) 3) Even if you use that definition of access I'm not sure the access in and of itself constitutes the trespass without the data exchange.
Script kiddies charged under the theft of service law are often charged because of the servers they hacked into. They used deception and deception is where they end up in violation. The NTP access doesn't require deception.
Your stretching, and this isn't a crime anymore but a civil violation (copying of a trade practice). Even here I think you would lose.
1) The owner of the denmark NTP server doesn't have standing to sue on behalf of the creators of NTP for misuse 2) The creators don't have the legal authority to grant the denmark guy standing without actually signing over rights 2b) If they had actually signed over rights then they did it to all NTP servers which means DLink probably has their own rights and then they are immune to the misuse claim.
As a side point I don't agree with GPL authors have the right to revoke rights like this. I think the law is pretty clear (Cleanflix case) that licenses attach to each copy and not to some platonic "original". So on GPL software you can violate one license (and be sued for those violations) but if I let you download another copy you have a brand new clean license for that copy and can do anything you want with the license.
Spammers generally pretend to be someone else. That is they get the service by means of deception. That falls under a different part of the theft of service law. Once you need to practice deception to get a service you are SOL.
DLink isn't bound by a contract they never signed nor agreed to. The server never asks for consent to its terms prior to allowing you to use it. You are arguing for something like an EULA (which is already questionable) on steroids. For example would you agree an album has the right to say the cover "this may be listened to in a car but not in truck" and that being binding to people listening on the radio?
This is where we differ. I've never seen it applied anywhere near that widely. Generally, control means control assigned by the owner. For example an employee stealing services from his employer. In this case DLink has no relationship with the NTP server.
That's like arguing that taking the free lollypops from a dentist office after asking the receptionist for permission is stealing. I guess its possible the law could view NTP as so passive that everyone has "control" and thus everyone has responsibilities. I just doubt it.
Won't work DLink doesn't have enough control of the server. The only criteria this is close is:
Knowingly or purposely diverts another's services to the actor's own benefit or to the benefit of a third person, when the actor has control over the disposition of services to another to which the actor is not entitled;
I think unauthorized is going to be tough to prove.
1) The name of the server is public 2) The address of the server is public 3) The access to the server is public 4) No attempt has been made to limit traffic.
To use your trespass analogy:
land that borders a public park without a fence without anything distinguishing it from the park.
More importantly the time doesn't meet the criteria:
(A) information contained in a financial record of a financial institution, or of a card issuer as defined in section 1602(n) of title 15, or contained in a file of a consumer reporting agency on a consumer, as such terms are defined in the Fair Credit Reporting Act (15 U.S.C. 1681 et seq.);
(B) information from any department or agency of the United States; or
(C) information from any protected computer if the conduct involved an interstate or foreign communication;
________
As for theft of service. No way. DLink would need control of the service. I assuming you mean criteria (b) below:
a) -- deception or threat b) -- Knowingly or purposely diverts another's services to the actor's own benefit or to the benefit of a third person, when the actor has control over the disposition of services to another to which the actor is not entitled; or c) -- holding personal property beyond the expiration of rental period without consent of the owner." He can't allege anything of the sort.
Yeah he seems to have wanted it to be a private NTP server for about 2000 servers in denmark. Which seems like an easy thing if they just did NTP over SSL or something. He is estimating under $10k / year in extra costs in damages, so the problem is that this is an individual and not an institution.
Slashdot Mirror
Where are you getting these stats from? Everywhere I've seen the numbers for every speciality except family practice you are over $150k within 3 years in just about any city. Even the AMA 8 years ago agreed average salary had passed the $200k mark.
What's the problem with the RAD tools being KDEish? KDE works on Mac, and a cross platform development environment can be hosted anywhere.... As for small developers and shareware/freeware, hopefully one of:
1) don't need cross platform
2) They are OK with the QT non commercial license (QT has 4 licenses) (genuine shareware should be)
3) They don't need "good" cross platform, so things like WX are fine
4) They already have a copy
5) They can afford to pay a few grand
Otherwise yeah they are SOL.
Well yeah, native is always better. But you can't have "native" and cross platform.
The H1B people by in large would be happy to stay and become citizens. I'd say get rid of H1B all together, or create a very large tax on it (say something like 40% directed to unemployment and training/retraining costs). But its pointless talking about policies that would be good for the American people until we get our democracy back.
A computer science post doc has roughly as much education as a doctor. "Can command six figures" displays the shortage is nowhere near serious enough. "Can command seven figures" and you would have a flood of people willing to do 8-11 years of post college education.
First off even windows no longer uses a bios in the sense of providing services that do more than bootstrap the computer. So no Mac doesn't have a bios.
But even if one were to dismiss that they point EFI is the next version and hence not obsolete. There is no "real mode" on an Itanium. Further even on the x86 chip EFI is way more advanced, EFI currently supports: 128 partitions with drives up to 18 exabytes in size. That's not obsolete.
And where are you gong to get the drivers for the tablet? How many apps are going to support tablet entry?
I think Apple is going to be thrilled. You are say another 50 buddies are going to do tons of testing and configuring for them at now cost at all.
QT is a good cross platform GUI API. The only real criticism is you have to pay for it. Also there are a ton of fairly complex apps you can integrate with.
I agree with everything you said. BTW a good analogy for what they are like is Sun, or IBM. Pretty much any non x86 vendor is both a software and a hardware company. The reason IBM, HP and SGI like Linux so much is they are tired of having to lose money on software to sell hardware (I'm talking P-Series with respect to IBM here).
Pretty much I would argue that the entire x86 line is basically Microsoft + commodity hardware vendors. That is the vendor really is Microsoft. The best evidence for that is that Microsoft gets buggy hardware to work via OS patches, i.e. they see themselves as ultimately responsible for the total system.
+ Apple will never ship an obsolete BIOS
And how has that changed? They are using the 64 bit (Itanium) bios not the x86 bios.
The price of a dell + an extra $200 is more than the swing for an equivalent mac product. You can't argue that Macs are too pricey when arguing you wouldn't mind paying hundreds extra for an OS. When the macbook pro came out I priced it against Dell's offerings. Without going to a much thinker book you couldn't get anything close and even then it was more money.
No there has to be some sort of positive attempt to determine. If they did try and determine it, then maybe but I still have some questions:
1) There aren't clear definitions of what a server means.
2) Under lots of those definitions would a DLink qualify
3) Even assuming 1, 2 don't work you could argue that DLink isn't the one performing the deception, their clients are. Dlink would be the one causing the deception to be performed so maybe maybe you could swing a conspiracy for theft of service but it sure is a stretch.
4) As someone else mentioned on this thread client based discrimination at the point of the transaction is illegal. Theft of service requires a legal agreement, if I trick you into driving me somewhere where you have the expectation of receiving pot as payment then that isn't theft of service.
Ah, but there is. D-Link is conspiring to have owners of their routers trespass into those NTP servers. I believe thay call this conspiracy "sales" or "marketing". I'm not sure if the owners themselves would have to have knowledge of this for it to be a conspiracy, but I don't beleive it would be.
You are missing the point. It is against the law to conspire with someone to commit trespass. So even if you can prove (2) and (3) (that is the DLink's customers were trespassing) you still have problems getting anything criminal on DLink.
I'm not sure what you mean by this. Read the article: The routers are intentionally made to connect into a server where the stated policy of that server indicates that they are not welcome there. That seems like trespass to me
Right and the law (again the trespass statues) seems to define "access" as more than a simple packet exchange. It reads like it requires a log in.
I bet it might if the producer of that data has asked that it not be taken. See above. Also, what's being taken here is not just data; It's really a service: the availability of a very accurate source of time data. Anyone can give you the time, but this is something that has to be maintained at some expense so it has a definite value whether he's charging for it or not.
There is serious question whether you can "own" facts. For example lets say I compute the product of two 50000 digit numbers. I may have been the first one to compute this product. Can I enforce a copyright on that fact? Can I patent this? Basically the law says no. The correct time may not be considered an own-able fact.
As for stealing a service, go back to ggggp. The whole trespass thread started because DLink doesn't meet the criteria for theft of service (they don't have enough control over the server, nor did they use deception).
Because of that, saying it was "given away for free" or "just the time" might not work as a defense if this went to court.
Forget about defense. I'm still waiting for anyone to actually show a possible prosecution. That is a place where DLink fulfilled all the elements of a crime.
Trespass is a different crime than theft. I've responded a couple of times elsewhere but... the problem with the trespass statute is:
1) tieing DLink to the act of trespass (there isn't a conspiracy to commit trespass)
2) proving they actually had access relative to the law
3) there has to be a taking of data and I'm not sure the correct time qualifies
Basically, you could make a better case (but IMHO) not a winning one against DLink's customers.
Well, if they had a pile of calenders behind the desk, with a sign above it that said "free calenders for customers", and then you said "hey, give me one of those", and you were not a customer, then that would be stealing
You have to actually practice deception. "I just bought an XYZ give me one of those". If you think not then cite a case. The law looks pretty clear to me.
If a requirement for theft of service be that you were given control of that system, then people who get "free" cable are not stealing. Thats absurd.
People who steal cable are charged with a different crime BTW Section 633 of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended (47 U.S.C. ß553): which bans tapping into cable. There is a specific black letter law because (IMHO) the general laws do not ban it.
OK that one is more reasonable then theft of service. The problem is whether NTP constitutes "gaining access" and whether the denmark guy can be said to own the data (the correct time). I hope the answer to the second question is no. Now for a publicly available server which answers any request I think its going to be hard to argue DLink is "gaining access". Further still is the problem they themselves don't make the request the clients do. I'd think you have to nail an individual user and get DLink on conspiracy or something even assuming you don't agree with the other two points.
So in short:
1) Your "follows trivially" may not even follow at all
2) I have questions whether they accessed the server (in terms of law you site)
3) Even if you use that definition of access I'm not sure the access in and of itself constitutes the trespass without the data exchange.
Script kiddies charged under the theft of service law are often charged because of the servers they hacked into. They used deception and deception is where they end up in violation. The NTP access doesn't require deception.
Your stretching, and this isn't a crime anymore but a civil violation (copying of a trade practice). Even here I think you would lose.
1) The owner of the denmark NTP server doesn't have standing to sue on behalf of the creators of NTP for misuse
2) The creators don't have the legal authority to grant the denmark guy standing without actually signing over rights
2b) If they had actually signed over rights then they did it to all NTP servers which means DLink probably has their own rights and then they are immune to the misuse claim.
As a side point I don't agree with GPL authors have the right to revoke rights like this. I think the law is pretty clear (Cleanflix case) that licenses attach to each copy and not to some platonic "original". So on GPL software you can violate one license (and be sued for those violations) but if I let you download another copy you have a brand new clean license for that copy and can do anything you want with the license.
Spammers generally pretend to be someone else. That is they get the service by means of deception. That falls under a different part of the theft of service law. Once you need to practice deception to get a service you are SOL.
DLink isn't bound by a contract they never signed nor agreed to. The server never asks for consent to its terms prior to allowing you to use it. You are arguing for something like an EULA (which is already questionable) on steroids. For example would you agree an album has the right to say the cover "this may be listened to in a car but not in truck" and that being binding to people listening on the radio?
This is where we differ. I've never seen it applied anywhere near that widely. Generally, control means control assigned by the owner. For example an employee stealing services from his employer. In this case DLink has no relationship with the NTP server.
That's like arguing that taking the free lollypops from a dentist office after asking the receptionist for permission is stealing. I guess its possible the law could view NTP as so passive that everyone has "control" and thus everyone has responsibilities. I just doubt it.
Won't work DLink doesn't have enough control of the server. The only criteria this is close is:
Knowingly or purposely diverts another's services to the actor's own benefit or to the benefit of a third person, when the actor has control over the disposition of services to another to which the actor is not entitled;
I think unauthorized is going to be tough to prove.
1) The name of the server is public
2) The address of the server is public
3) The access to the server is public
4) No attempt has been made to limit traffic.
To use your trespass analogy:
land that borders a public park without a fence without anything distinguishing it from the park.
More importantly the time doesn't meet the criteria:
(A) information contained in a financial record of a financial institution, or of a card issuer as defined in section 1602(n) of title 15, or contained in a file of a consumer reporting agency on a consumer, as such terms are defined in the Fair Credit Reporting Act (15 U.S.C. 1681 et seq.);
(B) information from any department or agency of the United States; or
(C) information from any protected computer if the conduct involved an interstate or foreign communication;
________
As for theft of service. No way. DLink would need control of the service. I assuming you mean criteria (b) below:
a) -- deception or threat
b) -- Knowingly or purposely diverts another's services to the actor's own benefit or to the benefit of a third person, when the actor has control over the disposition of services to another to which the actor is not entitled; or
c) -- holding personal property beyond the expiration of rental period without consent of the owner." He can't allege anything of the sort.
OK, keep going. Pretend it was in the US what's the crime?
Yeah he seems to have wanted it to be a private NTP server for about 2000 servers in denmark. Which seems like an easy thing if they just did NTP over SSL or something. He is estimating under $10k / year in extra costs in damages, so the problem is that this is an individual and not an institution.