In Germany, every mobile phone, Internet connection and other communications device needs to be registered with the government, under your real name and address; without it, you can't use those devices. The German government tried to get companies to record all connection information and store it for a period of six months. Even broadcast receivers require a license. And if you want to communicate across your property lines even with a WiFi access point, you need a license for that too. Receiving transmissions without a license can land you in jail for two years. For the German government to complain about privacy violations because Google recorded publicly broadcast packets is a joke. Germany is a police state when it comes to communications, with laws and regulations on the books that would cause massive protests in other nations.
It is also far from clear whether Google has actually broken any laws. In order to violate the German telecommunications law, the communication being recorded actually needs to be a telecommunications message as defined by the law. It is doubtful that unencrypted WiFi transmissions from unlicensed equipment meet that standard. Furthermore, any provider of telecommunications services is themselves legally responsible for safeguarding transmissions with cryptography. So, unencrypted WiFi broadcasts can't fall under the telecommunications laws. And German courts just handed down the decision that you effectively are not allowed to run open WiFi access points at all because they enable copyright violations.
Contributing to this uproar is that the right wing populist German government is tapping into widespread latent anti-Americanism in Germany. We' re not talking about foaming-at-the-mouth, burning-US-presidents-in-effigy anti-Americanism, but Germans are largely convinced that America has one of the worst governments in the world and that Germany is a shining beacon of democracy and human rights to the rest of the world. You could hear the same kind of rhetoric in the 1920's and 1930's in Germany, and in East Germany until that state failed. And the people indoctrinated with, and spreading those ideas didn't just disappear from the face of the earth, and neither did the people supporting them (and both the Third Reich and the DDR had considerable popular support).
German politicians and corporate interests love taking advantage of this. Instead of addressing the serious data protection shortcomings and invasions of privacy in the German government, politicians find it much easier to spread FUD about Google. And because German telecommunications companies have spied on their employees and misused data and are complicit in the recording of communications by the government, they love the idea of deflecting scrutiny from themselves.
Recording unencrypted packets broadcast over public airwaves should be legal anywhere. It probably is legal in Germany. Google should take a principled stand, tell German "privacy" regulators to go take a hike and take this to the German supreme court if need be. Or maybe Google should just leave Germany altogether, like they did in China, for pretty much the same reason: unwarranted and unacceptable government interference in communications.
As for Germans themselves: start learning something about the world outside your borders, start learning something about your own history, and start showing some humility in light of your own history. And start realizing that good democracy is more like a GM car than a Mercedes: good democracy is not a perfectly oiled luxury vehicle, it's messy, inconvenient, and barely gets you to where you want to go.
And who is an "adult"? Someone who has crossed an arbitrarily chosen age limit? Legally, yes. But not morally, socially, or psychologically. A 19 year old is not all that more adult or responsible than a 16 year old. And some 16 year olds are more adult and responsible than many 30 year olds.
It's fine to draw arbitrary lines, we need some rules and laws. But it is not fine for people like you to treat these lines as if they had mathematical precision. And your kind of demonization and black-and-white worldview contributes to the harm that sexual abuse of minors causes.
Microsoft so far are one of the few companies that don't patent troll. They tend to use their portfolio as defensive patents.
Bullshit. Microsoft of course uses their patent portfolio offensively. The reason you don't see these things go to court is because they are so good at it. They have patent cross-license agreements with all the big players, and none of the little players have the resources to fight them. Microsoft has a huge patent portfolio.
If Microsoft wants money from you, they can come with a huge stack of patents and an army of lawyers and say: "Look, we think you violate this patent, but if you think you don't, here are another two dozen you probably violate. And these are the dozen lawyers that are going to tie your company and your employees up in knots for the next ten years with depositions and court dates, keep you from shipping your products, and give you bad press. Now, for just 5% of your revenue, you can save yourself all this trouble. Do the math: even if you eventually win it's cheaper. Any questions?"
The only people moderately immune from this are open source developers, because they can basically tell Microsoft to put their cards on the table or go f*ck themselves.
Microsoft doesn't really care much about the $200m; yeah, it's going to dent their income a little, but they get something back for it: the technology cannot be used by open source software.
And in this case, that might matter. The patent is on a simple way of establishing VPNs. There are lots of applications for VPNs, but establishing them in the past has been pretty tough, so people haven't been using it much. I don't think the method described in the patent is particularly deep, but as far as patents go, it is more innovative than the average crap that gets patented.
If this becomes a widely-used standard and can't be worked around, it's a big problem for Linux because you might not be able to connect securely to much of anything.
Retroactively, it's often pretty easy to tell whether a doctor got it right or not. In my experience, doctors make mistakes fairly frequently, maybe about 1/3 of the time.
Given British history and how it is taught and perceived in Britain, the lack of separation of church and state, and the kind of nutty statements from UK Christian leaders, it's kind of ironic for the UK to point the finger at the US over this.
We can do that now, and it won't take much more time than drilling for a nuke.
You only need to drill a few hundred feet for a bomb (it probably doesn't even have to be nuclear). The relief wells apparently have to go all the way down. Furthermore, what makes you think they won't screw up on the relief wells as well? Hurricane season is coming up. Then, oil comes bubbling out of two or three holes.
We could nuke the BP headquarters, though - that might help...
I'm not sure I'd like to see London nuked just because of BP; I actually like London. On the other hand, maybe Europeans would then start realizing that European companies are responsible for this.
you americans are fucked, hahah. thats what you get with your evil oil companies.
Actually, it's what Americans get when they let a British oil company deploy a Swiss drilling platform with German companies responsible for safety. Massive US lobbying efforts by BP also contributed to the lack of regulation, all in the name of international fairness and free trade.
Hopefully, as a result of this disaster, the US will severely limit the ability of foreign companies to lobby in the US, and hopefully it will kick out European oil companies with their poor safety records once and for all.
iPhone -- goes up to 150 mph (but doesn't really matter on US highways), refuses to take you to stores selling PCs and porn theaters, trunk is there but permanently locked; range is somewhat limited, and if there's any kind of mechanical problem, you buy a new one
Android -- if you try to drive 90 mph, sometimes inexplicably drops to 70 mph; otherwise, fairly easy to live with
Windows Mobile -- goes up to 110 mph, but the accelerator is a button behind the rear visor, it has two hand brakes and no brake pedal, and you never can find out how to put it in reverse
Windows Mobile 7 -- same as Windows Mobile, but in stylish colors, and the trunk is locked, just like the iPhone, because that's less confusing; like Apple, Microsoft will happily take care of all your shipping needs... for a fee
Apple is steeped in the desktop "PC" world. While their mobile devices support some OTA operations, sooner or later, you must hook them up to a desktop for maintenance and synchronization. And when it comes to the cloud, Apple is trying to make it inconvenient to connect to services other than their own.
Yes, Mr. Jobs, the PC world is ending, but you don't seem to understand yet what is replacing it.
Slashdot Mirror
In Germany, every mobile phone, Internet connection and other communications device needs to be registered with the government, under your real name and address; without it, you can't use those devices. The German government tried to get companies to record all connection information and store it for a period of six months. Even broadcast receivers require a license. And if you want to communicate across your property lines even with a WiFi access point, you need a license for that too. Receiving transmissions without a license can land you in jail for two years. For the German government to complain about privacy violations because Google recorded publicly broadcast packets is a joke. Germany is a police state when it comes to communications, with laws and regulations on the books that would cause massive protests in other nations.
It is also far from clear whether Google has actually broken any laws. In order to violate the German telecommunications law, the communication being recorded actually needs to be a telecommunications message as defined by the law. It is doubtful that unencrypted WiFi transmissions from unlicensed equipment meet that standard. Furthermore, any provider of telecommunications services is themselves legally responsible for safeguarding transmissions with cryptography. So, unencrypted WiFi broadcasts can't fall under the telecommunications laws. And German courts just handed down the decision that you effectively are not allowed to run open WiFi access points at all because they enable copyright violations.
Contributing to this uproar is that the right wing populist German government is tapping into widespread latent anti-Americanism in Germany. We' re not talking about foaming-at-the-mouth, burning-US-presidents-in-effigy anti-Americanism, but Germans are largely convinced that America has one of the worst governments in the world and that Germany is a shining beacon of democracy and human rights to the rest of the world. You could hear the same kind of rhetoric in the 1920's and 1930's in Germany, and in East Germany until that state failed. And the people indoctrinated with, and spreading those ideas didn't just disappear from the face of the earth, and neither did the people supporting them (and both the Third Reich and the DDR had considerable popular support).
German politicians and corporate interests love taking advantage of this. Instead of addressing the serious data protection shortcomings and invasions of privacy in the German government, politicians find it much easier to spread FUD about Google. And because German telecommunications companies have spied on their employees and misused data and are complicit in the recording of communications by the government, they love the idea of deflecting scrutiny from themselves.
Recording unencrypted packets broadcast over public airwaves should be legal anywhere. It probably is legal in Germany. Google should take a principled stand, tell German "privacy" regulators to go take a hike and take this to the German supreme court if need be. Or maybe Google should just leave Germany altogether, like they did in China, for pretty much the same reason: unwarranted and unacceptable government interference in communications.
As for Germans themselves: start learning something about the world outside your borders, start learning something about your own history, and start showing some humility in light of your own history. And start realizing that good democracy is more like a GM car than a Mercedes: good democracy is not a perfectly oiled luxury vehicle, it's messy, inconvenient, and barely gets you to where you want to go.
Adults are supposed to know better.
And who is an "adult"? Someone who has crossed an arbitrarily chosen age limit? Legally, yes. But not morally, socially, or psychologically. A 19 year old is not all that more adult or responsible than a 16 year old. And some 16 year olds are more adult and responsible than many 30 year olds.
It's fine to draw arbitrary lines, we need some rules and laws. But it is not fine for people like you to treat these lines as if they had mathematical precision. And your kind of demonization and black-and-white worldview contributes to the harm that sexual abuse of minors causes.
Microsoft so far are one of the few companies that don't patent troll. They tend to use their portfolio as defensive patents.
Bullshit. Microsoft of course uses their patent portfolio offensively. The reason you don't see these things go to court is because they are so good at it. They have patent cross-license agreements with all the big players, and none of the little players have the resources to fight them. Microsoft has a huge patent portfolio.
If Microsoft wants money from you, they can come with a huge stack of patents and an army of lawyers and say: "Look, we think you violate this patent, but if you think you don't, here are another two dozen you probably violate. And these are the dozen lawyers that are going to tie your company and your employees up in knots for the next ten years with depositions and court dates, keep you from shipping your products, and give you bad press. Now, for just 5% of your revenue, you can save yourself all this trouble. Do the math: even if you eventually win it's cheaper. Any questions?"
The only people moderately immune from this are open source developers, because they can basically tell Microsoft to put their cards on the table or go f*ck themselves.
Microsoft doesn't really care much about the $200m; yeah, it's going to dent their income a little, but they get something back for it: the technology cannot be used by open source software.
And in this case, that might matter. The patent is on a simple way of establishing VPNs. There are lots of applications for VPNs, but establishing them in the past has been pretty tough, so people haven't been using it much. I don't think the method described in the patent is particularly deep, but as far as patents go, it is more innovative than the average crap that gets patented.
If this becomes a widely-used standard and can't be worked around, it's a big problem for Linux because you might not be able to connect securely to much of anything.
Retroactively, it's often pretty easy to tell whether a doctor got it right or not. In my experience, doctors make mistakes fairly frequently, maybe about 1/3 of the time.
Given British history and how it is taught and perceived in Britain, the lack of separation of church and state, and the kind of nutty statements from UK Christian leaders, it's kind of ironic for the UK to point the finger at the US over this.
I have no problem with school books portraying US history or the free enterprise system in a positive light.
I do have a problem with school books singling out and particular religion, because separation of church and state is a bedrock of US law.
Is it politically correct to be for oral sex in fruit bats or against it? Could someone please explain?
We can do that now, and it won't take much more time than drilling for a nuke.
You only need to drill a few hundred feet for a bomb (it probably doesn't even have to be nuclear). The relief wells apparently have to go all the way down. Furthermore, what makes you think they won't screw up on the relief wells as well? Hurricane season is coming up. Then, oil comes bubbling out of two or three holes.
We could nuke the BP headquarters, though - that might help...
I'm not sure I'd like to see London nuked just because of BP; I actually like London. On the other hand, maybe Europeans would then start realizing that European companies are responsible for this.
you americans are fucked, hahah. thats what you get with your evil oil companies.
Actually, it's what Americans get when they let a British oil company deploy a Swiss drilling platform with German companies responsible for safety. Massive US lobbying efforts by BP also contributed to the lack of regulation, all in the name of international fairness and free trade.
And historically, Europe's record on oil spills is far worse than that of the US. Of course, being obedient little nationalists, Europeans love to find fault with the US while their own governments are screwing them.
Hopefully, as a result of this disaster, the US will severely limit the ability of foreign companies to lobby in the US, and hopefully it will kick out European oil companies with their poor safety records once and for all.
Apple is steeped in the desktop "PC" world. While their mobile devices support some OTA operations, sooner or later, you must hook them up to a desktop for maintenance and synchronization. And when it comes to the cloud, Apple is trying to make it inconvenient to connect to services other than their own. Yes, Mr. Jobs, the PC world is ending, but you don't seem to understand yet what is replacing it.