Whatever you decide to do, full documentation will frequently galvonize your argument. When you called, did you write down who you spoke with and when? Did you keep your emails to them? Have you sent them a registered letter?
At this point, I'd write their CEO a letter, showing all of this documentation (names, dates, etc). If I were trying to run a business, I'd be grateful to find out whose fault it is that my customer service sucks. If you don't hear back right away, follow up with a phone call to the CEO.
If a letter to their CEO fails, you have the BBB and small claims court to fall back upon as a last resort. Your documentation will be a great asset to you here as well.
Am I the only one that thinks there is something terribly wrong with a policy like this?
I think there is something wrong with a policy like this. It's a technicality, and a bullshit one at that.
I called both IBM and HP, and neither of those companies has such a policy. Any opinions? Suggestions? Comments? Whatever?
Yeah, I have a few suggestions/comments/whatever...if you can't live with their policies:
Caveat emptor.
Don't buy an Apple.
Buy an IBM.
Buy an HP.
I guess these suggestions look a little harsh, which was not my intention, but at this point you're probably better off cutting your losses and moving on.
Nice work on smearing Apple's name in public to get what you feel is yours though. You may have done well to ensure that they've lost whatever revenue they've saved with their policy. Hey -- it worked (on a different level) for those iPod battery applesdirtysecret guys, right?
The reason for the policy is simple, they are cutting out some returns for starters and the overhead those machines would bring since they would need to either track those systems seperately or remove the memory/drives before putting them back in stock. This of course only makes sense if apple is in turn selling these systems as new again.
The policy only makes sense if Appls's customers are coming back and returning their systems en masse. Otherwise, a return policy is what it is. If you're going to stand by your products, do it. If not, don't. This seems to me like a slimey way out of a guarantee. Other manucafturers take their "custom" systems back -- I believe that they're sold as refurbished or open-box.
Theres a hugeass difference between cable and broadcast.
I think that you may have missed my point. The point was not that the two are the same. The point is that cable, a very similar system to broadcast and the standards are very similar as well. However, just because cable and broadcast are not subject to the same regulation does not mean that we can't draw parallels. Although they're not regulated in the same way, the cable networks seem to have a certain standard by which they police themselves. It just works. So why can't the FCC let go and allow the networks to police themselves? We already have to pay for V-chips in our TV's anyway.
While I understand the need to regulate public airwaves, it is just plain stupid that there shuold be moral standards imposed by our government -- they're regulated to ensure that everyone has access and that the bandwidth is properly distributed. It is just stupid to not let individual families decide by using their v-chip. When the networks screw up their rating system, then they should be fined. This way, both people who feel that public nudity and naughty language is acceptable and the people who feel the former is unacceptable and that violence is fine can both share the airwaves. The current system does not allow for all (or even most) Americans to share what they think is acceptable on the airwaves. I believe that this makes the current system both wrong and broken. There is a better solution already ready to go, and there is a large branch of a government organization who will do whatever it takes to keep their jobs.
As far as telling the clowns at Viacom that enough is enough -- with my proposed system, you can have your boob-free channel, and I'll watch whatever I want to. Nobody needs to send a message to anyone. However, I feel that opponents of my proposed solution have more of an agenda than the concerns about decency and their immediate family. I think that a very vocal portion of these people want to control what we see, hear, and think.
Right... although in the case of the Nazis, folks ran out of places to run to if they lived in Europe.
Right, hence my assumption of freedom of travel.
But how do we determine those? [human rights]
Good question -- I'm not sure how to determine that. Some folks would argue that freedom of speech is a basic human right which is hindered by the censorship we're talking about. Personally, I think that there's a technological solution that can help sidestep parts of and overcome the rest of the issue ( for example, the V-chip has already taken care of this for TV broadcasts...which makes this arm of the FCC obselete).
Right... but how does one judge between the standards of various communities? I mean... I prefer Mennonites to Nazis, but why?
Well, given that you still have the right to, you can vote with your feet. Comparing federal standards with local standards -- with one, you can just move to any old town down the street, or a neighboring state. With the other, you've got Mexico or Canada to choose from. I know which one I think is easier.
The problem, again, is Germany 1937, when Jews were not considered humans. Or the U.S., 1850, when blacks were property. Those were local standards, but they were wrong. Weren't they?
I'm talking about standards of decency here -- not basic human rights. I believe that the former are exactly the type of standards which a community must dictate for itself. Also, remember that the American Civil War was fought over the federal government's right to make such laws. For about a half century after the Civil War, the federal government knew it was on thin ice (as far as passing federal law) until FDR. In the meantime (between the Civil War and FDR) is where clever trickery such as the machine gun and marijuana stamp acts came from. They couldn't make either of these illegal, so they required a federal stamp to legally obtain/manufacture these items. As you can guess, the government didn't ever issue these stamps...ever. There are still alot of people who think that the federal government has completely leapfrogged their bounds (let alone overstepping).
Anyway, I noticed that discussion is moving towards a fundamentl Libertarian debate, so I figured that I'd hurry it on (that way we can agree to stop when it begins to spiral out of control).
A delicate balance, to be sure. A tricky line to walk.
Hm. Do you think that there are any decency standards that, say, an atheist would/could support?
That's a really interesting point. I'd never really though of it. As far as decency standards go the difference between a Jew, Christian, Muslim, Agnostic, and Athiest is that the latter two generally make decisions based upon the values of the community and family that brought them up. The former three rely on an interpretation of a religous doctrine from local clergy. What does this mean? It means that everyone, regardless of religion has a set of values. Religion is not necessary for the determination of community standards. Furthermore, I believe that where the parent was coming from was the perspective that the majority of religous folks feel that everyone in the world should be bound by law to uphold their standards. This makes sense considering that the majority of other religions feel that every other religion in the world is wrong.
However, I believe that the standards should based on the local community. The community standards in Salt Lake City, UT and Boise Idaho are far different from those in NYC or LA. The current federal standards may not meet muster in the more socially conservative communities, and they're considered obselete in more progressive communities. These federal standards don't really work for the majority of Americans. The cable networks have done an excellent job of policing themselves without any federal oversight. It varies on a locality/network basis.
Furthermore, don't we live in a capitalist country? The federal government has no place regulating this stuff. IMO, this should all be regulated by the industry. It's not like the technology was abused from the start and we needed laws to curtail this abuse -- in fact, the major netowrks have always had higher decency standards than the federal government. If the community doesn't approve of the content, the community won't buy the content. If the community doesn't approve of the material on NFL broadcasts, the community shouldn't watch it. Why do we need laws for this stuff? It all seems pretty simple to me.
The Internet is no place for people looking for 'perverse gratification', claims the police officer leading the UK's fight against e-crime
That's probably the silliest thing I've ever heard. The Internet is the best place for people looking for 'perverse gratification'. I mean -- it's always worked for me.
If you want the regulations changed, fine, but enforcment of existing regulations shouldn't surprise anyone.
Not to bring up an old argument -- but what the hell. It's not just about enforcement -- it's about the level of enforcement. It's about spending tax dollars on a "full investigation" to enforce an obselete law. I mean, do you expect sodomy laws to be upheld? In some states, any sexual position other than missionary position between a married couple is illegal. Do you really want those laws to be enforced? How about a "full investigation"? Maybe we should start a special squad in police departments across the country to investigate all rumors of blowjobs. Another, less salacious example are public intoxication laws. Last year, in Fairfax County, VA -- the local cops went into bars, and breathilyzed the patrons. Anyone who blew over the legal DUI limit was arrested for public intoxication. A bar is considered a public place, and these people were blowing over the limit -- so they were arrested on a dumb technicality. Surprised? I sure am -- even though they're enforcing existing regulations. FWIW, these arrests were eventually thrown out, not because the arrests were specifically unlawful, but because the breathilyzer (specifically, the imposed limit) is only legit for testing imparement of a driver. Point is -- sure, it's a regulation, but do you think that police departments have any business enforcing the regulation like this?
The reason we still have bad laws on the books is because no politician wants to have their name on the bill to revoke said laws. It's the same reason we still have bule laws and other really, really dumb laws.
How are the FCC's "decency" regulations obselete? Well, I'll just use a quickie example. The federal decency broadcast regulations don't apply to cable TV networks -- only broadcast. Is there really a big difference in what's allowed to fly on provate cable networks? No. The industry polices itself. However, no politican wants to be known as the senator that removed decency laws. The best way to repeal these laws -- stop enforcing them. Eventually, they'll be repealed
This shuldn't surprise anyone? Frankly, I'm still surprised.
Why not? They make radar detector detectors... In those US States where they are illegal, the cops sometimes use them to nab people for using detectors.
Yeah, I was trying to make a joke. Just the same, I'll bite -- cause I happen to have some experience with this. Radar detectors are only illegal in VA and Washington DC (in the US, anyway). In these places they use VG2 (and other) detector detectors. However, it's illegal to scramble radar or (AFAIK) detector signals -- actually highly illegal. Now, the FCC doesn't make the radar detectors illegal -- in fact, they're only radios. They just listen into a given radio frequency and tell you if there's activity in that spectrum. Consequently, they broadcast a tiny amount of RF (the same as radar). This is why the guy in the lane next to you with a cheapo radar detector might set yours off -- his probably has crappy shielding. All the VG2 (and similar devices) do is listen for these very small signals. There is no jamming taking place at all. The police can't even jam radar detectors -- they can only change the spectrum (like using Lidar/Laser) or use technology like POP to fool the radar detectors. (BTW, there's all kinds of info here -- it's a review, but they talk about all the newest technology on all side of this). The new technology the the police use will eventually be countered by the radar detector manufacturers...it's nothing special, just a dumb cat-and-mouse game for an additional "driving tax".
Radio frequencies are governed by the FCC, and they tend to enforce the law as far as jamming signals goes. However, if their law doesn't apply to this, I'd bet this bag would count as some sort of circumvention device (what if the RFID tags were protecting IP like a book, CD, or software?). If it's a circumvention device, someone will make the stretch that it violates the DMCA. A circumvention device that circumvents the protections afforded by a circumvention device -- well, someone could probably invoke the DMCA against that too. I guess I'm not as funny as I thought...just the same, however, I don't think that your radar example applies to this.
RSA's next annoucment will be tags that will block the operation of the tags that block the operation of the tags on the things you buy. This will be offered as a security enhancement to stores to prevent the RFID system from being jammed.
Circumvention of circumvention technology.
ERROR: DMCA buffer overflow
One thing that most people fail to mention in the 911/VoIP discussion is that POTS providers are required by the FCC to provide 911 service, even if your service is disconnected.
What does this mean? It means that if you've dropped your POTS line for VoIP (like me), you can keep an "emergency" phone plugged into your POTS line for 911-only use. For most people, the 911-over-VoIP discussion is no more than a bunch of FUD. Thanks, FCC, for the extra regulation -- I've always said that those people were a bunch of fu[BEEEEEP] who don't know their heads from their as[BEEEEEP]. FCC, you can suck my co[BEEEEEP].
Fortunately, for home users, we can get the Academic version for about $150. It comes with everything except Access (which I could care less about anyway... I use MySQL).
I appreciate the advice, but since we're in a corporate setting, I can't do that. Furthermore, I consider managing software licensing part of my job...ya' never know when a disgruntled employee (or former employee) will call the BSA and start an audit.
I probably wouldn't have the same problem if the license costs were only a one-time thing, but I buy a whole lot of PC's for my company and those numbers add up. I mean, that's $10,000 for every 25 PC's. It's too much...I guess it's time to start showing those numbers to my CFO.
I didn't read all of the linked article -- so whatever...however, I will say this: Anything that makes Microsoft Office look bad and (insert cheaper solution here) look better, I like.
For a $1000 computer, I pay ~$400 per license for MS Office Professional -- that's 40% of the cost of the computer. If I could convince management and our user base, I'd change to anything else because anything else would be cheaper (Star Office, Lotus Smart Suite, OpenOffice, whatever). I checked out Open Office with one of our accounting guys, and it worked just fine with all of his macros. Peace of mind against FUD just isn't worth that much. MS Office is a fine product, just not worth the price. If there was anything with a remotely competitive amount of market share, I'm sure that MS would drop their prices to stay competitive.
Spammers are also blending approaches; for example, they might take the required snail-mail address and place hidden characters between letters. "Houston, TX" might appear on screen as "H o u s t o n, T X" where each space is filled with, say, a white, invisible x. In this case, the text filter, which some anti-spam engines employ, sees ""Hxoxuxsxtxoxn, TxX." The filter sees only nonsensical words, but the address still looks real on your PC. The result: There's no way for the filters to capture a traceable address, but end-users still think they're seeing a real mailing address.
Maybe we can use the DMCA here -- they're trying to circumvent SPAM detection technology...sure it's a pretty serious stretch, it'd be applying a bad law to a bunch of bastards. Bad law (applied to) bad people is just like multiplying two negatives to equal a positive, right?
That's not really 'an awful lot of things', its just pure x86
I tried reading it in the same context as you and thought the same thing. He must have meant an awful lot of computers -- not different types of architecture.
there should be an initial period in which these de jure (meaning "because we can") laws only apply to the governor and legislators in the particular state.
That's probably the smartest thing I've heard all day. It's so concise that just about anything I add to it would just detract from the clarity of his comment...with the exception of the following: me too!
Car safety systems are optimized for the use of both seatbelts and airbags at the same time. Airbags don't just benefit the idiots who can't be bothered to put their seatbelts on; they make it safer for seatbelt wearers as well.
You're propising to shift the cost of accident risk from your new car purchase to my taxes and insurance bills.
I'm not sure that I agree with you on either count. This is exactly the rhetoric that you'll hear from the insurance industry. If a driver is seated properly in the vehicle with their seatbelt properly fastened, there is no way that their head could come into contact with the steering wheel. The world's safest cars in a crash, race cars, have no airbags at all whatsoever (in fact, most organizations ban them due to safety concerns). The drivers are in a proper seating position and are securely belted in. Now granted they have a proper roll cage (unrelated to any airbag issues) and a 5 or 6-point harness (which will help keep a driver in place), but a regular pretensioned 3-point seatbelt (if operating properly) should keep a driver's head from hitting a steering wheel. Ironically, the same type of regulation you praise keeps these 5/6-point harnesses illegal in most states, and on all cars imported to the states (presumably to protect you from higher premiums...by some logic that still defies me).
You also forget that there is no published evidence that airbags have actually cut traffic fatalities. It's been an assumption from the start (thanks Ralph Nader). Personally, I'd prefer to make up my own mind than have NHTSA push laws through without any real evidence. The idea that airbags lower your insurance premiums is toally unjustified.
Finally, with compulsory insurance laws, how can another drivers' side airbag lessen your insurance premium? They're required to have insurance. Further, how does this affect your tax bill? Are these insurance companies subsidized? I contend that it's the other way around -- more regulation means more enforcement means more taxes. Where your reasoning fails is that you're doing is piling legislature upon legialature, increasing costs of car ownership for everyone. How do we pretect people from themselves? Under your logic, more legislature (compulsory insurance laws) -- stick it to the consumer. Wait -- it's too expensive! What do we do? More legislature (seatbelt, helmet, and airbag laws) -- stick it to the consumer. Hmm -- pretty soon, we need someone to keep track of all this regulation, so we open more government offices -- more taxes. It all piles up. Combine this with a large population of people who feel entitled to someone elses money and we're left with some very steep insurance premiums.
To start with, we don't need new mandatory safety equipment on cars -- the rules are already too restrictive. All this does is makes owning a car more expensive, and increases your taxes. (Not to mention that the insurance companies are already heavily regulated by the government, and heavy government regulation typicaly equals higher cost to you in the long run). What we need more than any of this other regulation is tort reform.
For Pete's sake, we're supposed to be capitalists! Let's stop blabbing about freedom and actually practice it.
Why should I have to be penalized because some people drive drunk? It's a severe inconvenience to the driver, and will increase the purchase price of the car. This is just like the federally mandated airbags in new cars. The consumer should have had the choice with airbags all along, but some legislator thought that because some people can't wear seatbelts -- we should all pay for mandatory airbags. I find this type of thinking unacceptable, and if I were a NM voter, I know who I'd vote out of office next election.
Sorry, but you've got to force people's hands on things like this.
Forcing someone's hand would be to release vulnerabilities without any warning. Releasing an exploit (or even the relevant part) is just being a monkeyboy. The only people an exploit in the wild helps are script kiddies.
As far as your boss goes -- sorry. However, understand that just because your boss doesn't have any clue doesn't mean that all bosses don't. Mine knows just enough to respect my expertise -- that I keep her systems and network running at the lowest possible cost (within reason). Some executives who run software companies are smarter than others. Believe it or not, the folks at the top of the largest software company in the world know a thing or two about the business (I'd hope so, otherwise their shareholders are assholes for not firing them), and really do take security seriously. Things at Microsoft tend to run like molasses on a number of different levels. Furthermore, there are so many holes in their software that these things likely need to be triaged -- so an IE5 vulnerability might take a back seat to, say, a hole in the TCP stack that makes all network applications vulnerable. In any case, yah...I sorta do think that it's a stretch to take your single bad experience with your boss and apply it to all upper management everywhere...such thinking has led to very Bad Things throughout history.
Slashdot Mirror
Hey, it's still a whole lot more flexible than Apple's policy.
Whatever you decide to do, full documentation will frequently galvonize your argument. When you called, did you write down who you spoke with and when? Did you keep your emails to them? Have you sent them a registered letter?
At this point, I'd write their CEO a letter, showing all of this documentation (names, dates, etc). If I were trying to run a business, I'd be grateful to find out whose fault it is that my customer service sucks. If you don't hear back right away, follow up with a phone call to the CEO.
If a letter to their CEO fails, you have the BBB and small claims court to fall back upon as a last resort. Your documentation will be a great asset to you here as well.
I think there is something wrong with a policy like this. It's a technicality, and a bullshit one at that.
Yeah, I have a few suggestions/comments/whatever...if you can't live with their policies:
- Caveat emptor.
- Don't buy an Apple.
- Buy an IBM.
- Buy an HP.
I guess these suggestions look a little harsh, which was not my intention, but at this point you're probably better off cutting your losses and moving on.Nice work on smearing Apple's name in public to get what you feel is yours though. You may have done well to ensure that they've lost whatever revenue they've saved with their policy. Hey -- it worked (on a different level) for those iPod battery applesdirtysecret guys, right?
The policy only makes sense if Appls's customers are coming back and returning their systems en masse. Otherwise, a return policy is what it is. If you're going to stand by your products, do it. If not, don't. This seems to me like a slimey way out of a guarantee. Other manucafturers take their "custom" systems back -- I believe that they're sold as refurbished or open-box.
I think that you may have missed my point. The point was not that the two are the same. The point is that cable, a very similar system to broadcast and the standards are very similar as well. However, just because cable and broadcast are not subject to the same regulation does not mean that we can't draw parallels. Although they're not regulated in the same way, the cable networks seem to have a certain standard by which they police themselves. It just works. So why can't the FCC let go and allow the networks to police themselves? We already have to pay for V-chips in our TV's anyway.
While I understand the need to regulate public airwaves, it is just plain stupid that there shuold be moral standards imposed by our government -- they're regulated to ensure that everyone has access and that the bandwidth is properly distributed. It is just stupid to not let individual families decide by using their v-chip. When the networks screw up their rating system, then they should be fined. This way, both people who feel that public nudity and naughty language is acceptable and the people who feel the former is unacceptable and that violence is fine can both share the airwaves. The current system does not allow for all (or even most) Americans to share what they think is acceptable on the airwaves. I believe that this makes the current system both wrong and broken. There is a better solution already ready to go, and there is a large branch of a government organization who will do whatever it takes to keep their jobs.
As far as telling the clowns at Viacom that enough is enough -- with my proposed system, you can have your boob-free channel, and I'll watch whatever I want to. Nobody needs to send a message to anyone. However, I feel that opponents of my proposed solution have more of an agenda than the concerns about decency and their immediate family. I think that a very vocal portion of these people want to control what we see, hear, and think.
Right, hence my assumption of freedom of travel.
Good question -- I'm not sure how to determine that. Some folks would argue that freedom of speech is a basic human right which is hindered by the censorship we're talking about. Personally, I think that there's a technological solution that can help sidestep parts of and overcome the rest of the issue ( for example, the V-chip has already taken care of this for TV broadcasts...which makes this arm of the FCC obselete).
Well, given that you still have the right to, you can vote with your feet. Comparing federal standards with local standards -- with one, you can just move to any old town down the street, or a neighboring state. With the other, you've got Mexico or Canada to choose from. I know which one I think is easier.
I'm talking about standards of decency here -- not basic human rights. I believe that the former are exactly the type of standards which a community must dictate for itself. Also, remember that the American Civil War was fought over the federal government's right to make such laws. For about a half century after the Civil War, the federal government knew it was on thin ice (as far as passing federal law) until FDR. In the meantime (between the Civil War and FDR) is where clever trickery such as the machine gun and marijuana stamp acts came from. They couldn't make either of these illegal, so they required a federal stamp to legally obtain/manufacture these items. As you can guess, the government didn't ever issue these stamps...ever. There are still alot of people who think that the federal government has completely leapfrogged their bounds (let alone overstepping).
Anyway, I noticed that discussion is moving towards a fundamentl Libertarian debate, so I figured that I'd hurry it on (that way we can agree to stop when it begins to spiral out of control).
You took the words right out of my mouth.
That's a really interesting point. I'd never really though of it. As far as decency standards go the difference between a Jew, Christian, Muslim, Agnostic, and Athiest is that the latter two generally make decisions based upon the values of the community and family that brought them up. The former three rely on an interpretation of a religous doctrine from local clergy. What does this mean? It means that everyone, regardless of religion has a set of values. Religion is not necessary for the determination of community standards. Furthermore, I believe that where the parent was coming from was the perspective that the majority of religous folks feel that everyone in the world should be bound by law to uphold their standards. This makes sense considering that the majority of other religions feel that every other religion in the world is wrong.
However, I believe that the standards should based on the local community. The community standards in Salt Lake City, UT and Boise Idaho are far different from those in NYC or LA. The current federal standards may not meet muster in the more socially conservative communities, and they're considered obselete in more progressive communities. These federal standards don't really work for the majority of Americans. The cable networks have done an excellent job of policing themselves without any federal oversight. It varies on a locality/network basis.
Furthermore, don't we live in a capitalist country? The federal government has no place regulating this stuff. IMO, this should all be regulated by the industry. It's not like the technology was abused from the start and we needed laws to curtail this abuse -- in fact, the major netowrks have always had higher decency standards than the federal government. If the community doesn't approve of the content, the community won't buy the content. If the community doesn't approve of the material on NFL broadcasts, the community shouldn't watch it. Why do we need laws for this stuff? It all seems pretty simple to me.
That's probably the silliest thing I've ever heard. The Internet is the best place for people looking for 'perverse gratification'. I mean -- it's always worked for me.
Not to bring up an old argument -- but what the hell. It's not just about enforcement -- it's about the level of enforcement. It's about spending tax dollars on a "full investigation" to enforce an obselete law. I mean, do you expect sodomy laws to be upheld? In some states, any sexual position other than missionary position between a married couple is illegal. Do you really want those laws to be enforced? How about a "full investigation"? Maybe we should start a special squad in police departments across the country to investigate all rumors of blowjobs. Another, less salacious example are public intoxication laws. Last year, in Fairfax County, VA -- the local cops went into bars, and breathilyzed the patrons. Anyone who blew over the legal DUI limit was arrested for public intoxication. A bar is considered a public place, and these people were blowing over the limit -- so they were arrested on a dumb technicality. Surprised? I sure am -- even though they're enforcing existing regulations. FWIW, these arrests were eventually thrown out, not because the arrests were specifically unlawful, but because the breathilyzer (specifically, the imposed limit) is only legit for testing imparement of a driver. Point is -- sure, it's a regulation, but do you think that police departments have any business enforcing the regulation like this?
The reason we still have bad laws on the books is because no politician wants to have their name on the bill to revoke said laws. It's the same reason we still have bule laws and other really, really dumb laws.
How are the FCC's "decency" regulations obselete? Well, I'll just use a quickie example. The federal decency broadcast regulations don't apply to cable TV networks -- only broadcast. Is there really a big difference in what's allowed to fly on provate cable networks? No. The industry polices itself. However, no politican wants to be known as the senator that removed decency laws. The best way to repeal these laws -- stop enforcing them. Eventually, they'll be repealed
This shuldn't surprise anyone? Frankly, I'm still surprised.
Sorry man, however, we are posting on Slashdot -- what did you expect? A non-technical discussion of technical law?
Yeah, I was trying to make a joke. Just the same, I'll bite -- cause I happen to have some experience with this. Radar detectors are only illegal in VA and Washington DC (in the US, anyway). In these places they use VG2 (and other) detector detectors. However, it's illegal to scramble radar or (AFAIK) detector signals -- actually highly illegal. Now, the FCC doesn't make the radar detectors illegal -- in fact, they're only radios. They just listen into a given radio frequency and tell you if there's activity in that spectrum. Consequently, they broadcast a tiny amount of RF (the same as radar). This is why the guy in the lane next to you with a cheapo radar detector might set yours off -- his probably has crappy shielding. All the VG2 (and similar devices) do is listen for these very small signals. There is no jamming taking place at all. The police can't even jam radar detectors -- they can only change the spectrum (like using Lidar/Laser) or use technology like POP to fool the radar detectors. (BTW, there's all kinds of info here -- it's a review, but they talk about all the newest technology on all side of this). The new technology the the police use will eventually be countered by the radar detector manufacturers...it's nothing special, just a dumb cat-and-mouse game for an additional "driving tax".
Radio frequencies are governed by the FCC, and they tend to enforce the law as far as jamming signals goes. However, if their law doesn't apply to this, I'd bet this bag would count as some sort of circumvention device (what if the RFID tags were protecting IP like a book, CD, or software?). If it's a circumvention device, someone will make the stretch that it violates the DMCA. A circumvention device that circumvents the protections afforded by a circumvention device -- well, someone could probably invoke the DMCA against that too. I guess I'm not as funny as I thought...just the same, however, I don't think that your radar example applies to this.
Circumvention of circumvention technology.
ERROR: DMCA buffer overflow
Wow...Age/Sex/Location -- now finally GPL friendly. Now I can finally meet people in AOL chatrooms without all of the propritary headache! ;)
One thing that most people fail to mention in the 911/VoIP discussion is that POTS providers are required by the FCC to provide 911 service, even if your service is disconnected.
What does this mean? It means that if you've dropped your POTS line for VoIP (like me), you can keep an "emergency" phone plugged into your POTS line for 911-only use. For most people, the 911-over-VoIP discussion is no more than a bunch of FUD. Thanks, FCC, for the extra regulation -- I've always said that those people were a bunch of fu[BEEEEEP] who don't know their heads from their as[BEEEEEP]. FCC, you can suck my co[BEEEEEP].
I appreciate the advice, but since we're in a corporate setting, I can't do that. Furthermore, I consider managing software licensing part of my job...ya' never know when a disgruntled employee (or former employee) will call the BSA and start an audit.
I probably wouldn't have the same problem if the license costs were only a one-time thing, but I buy a whole lot of PC's for my company and those numbers add up. I mean, that's $10,000 for every 25 PC's. It's too much...I guess it's time to start showing those numbers to my CFO.
I didn't read all of the linked article -- so whatever...however, I will say this: Anything that makes Microsoft Office look bad and (insert cheaper solution here) look better, I like.
For a $1000 computer, I pay ~$400 per license for MS Office Professional -- that's 40% of the cost of the computer. If I could convince management and our user base, I'd change to anything else because anything else would be cheaper (Star Office, Lotus Smart Suite, OpenOffice, whatever). I checked out Open Office with one of our accounting guys, and it worked just fine with all of his macros. Peace of mind against FUD just isn't worth that much. MS Office is a fine product, just not worth the price. If there was anything with a remotely competitive amount of market share, I'm sure that MS would drop their prices to stay competitive.
Maybe we can use the DMCA here -- they're trying to circumvent SPAM detection technology...sure it's a pretty serious stretch, it'd be applying a bad law to a bunch of bastards. Bad law (applied to) bad people is just like multiplying two negatives to equal a positive, right?
I tried reading it in the same context as you and thought the same thing. He must have meant an awful lot of computers -- not different types of architecture.
That's probably the smartest thing I've heard all day. It's so concise that just about anything I add to it would just detract from the clarity of his comment...with the exception of the following: me too!
I'm not sure that I agree with you on either count. This is exactly the rhetoric that you'll hear from the insurance industry. If a driver is seated properly in the vehicle with their seatbelt properly fastened, there is no way that their head could come into contact with the steering wheel. The world's safest cars in a crash, race cars, have no airbags at all whatsoever (in fact, most organizations ban them due to safety concerns). The drivers are in a proper seating position and are securely belted in. Now granted they have a proper roll cage (unrelated to any airbag issues) and a 5 or 6-point harness (which will help keep a driver in place), but a regular pretensioned 3-point seatbelt (if operating properly) should keep a driver's head from hitting a steering wheel. Ironically, the same type of regulation you praise keeps these 5/6-point harnesses illegal in most states, and on all cars imported to the states (presumably to protect you from higher premiums...by some logic that still defies me).
You also forget that there is no published evidence that airbags have actually cut traffic fatalities. It's been an assumption from the start (thanks Ralph Nader). Personally, I'd prefer to make up my own mind than have NHTSA push laws through without any real evidence. The idea that airbags lower your insurance premiums is toally unjustified.
Finally, with compulsory insurance laws, how can another drivers' side airbag lessen your insurance premium? They're required to have insurance. Further, how does this affect your tax bill? Are these insurance companies subsidized? I contend that it's the other way around -- more regulation means more enforcement means more taxes. Where your reasoning fails is that you're doing is piling legislature upon legialature, increasing costs of car ownership for everyone. How do we pretect people from themselves? Under your logic, more legislature (compulsory insurance laws) -- stick it to the consumer. Wait -- it's too expensive! What do we do? More legislature (seatbelt, helmet, and airbag laws) -- stick it to the consumer. Hmm -- pretty soon, we need someone to keep track of all this regulation, so we open more government offices -- more taxes. It all piles up. Combine this with a large population of people who feel entitled to someone elses money and we're left with some very steep insurance premiums.
To start with, we don't need new mandatory safety equipment on cars -- the rules are already too restrictive. All this does is makes owning a car more expensive, and increases your taxes. (Not to mention that the insurance companies are already heavily regulated by the government, and heavy government regulation typicaly equals higher cost to you in the long run). What we need more than any of this other regulation is tort reform.
For Pete's sake, we're supposed to be capitalists! Let's stop blabbing about freedom and actually practice it.
Why should I have to be penalized because some people drive drunk? It's a severe inconvenience to the driver, and will increase the purchase price of the car. This is just like the federally mandated airbags in new cars. The consumer should have had the choice with airbags all along, but some legislator thought that because some people can't wear seatbelts -- we should all pay for mandatory airbags. I find this type of thinking unacceptable, and if I were a NM voter, I know who I'd vote out of office next election.
Was this FTC suit based on their violation of the JEDEC non-compete over SDRAM? Did that document just not hold up in court? Why?
I thought that was long gone...or is this a completely different issue?
LOL. For sure, he totally could have acted way more out. I wasn't going all the way up the bastard there...just to his level.
Forcing someone's hand would be to release vulnerabilities without any warning. Releasing an exploit (or even the relevant part) is just being a monkeyboy. The only people an exploit in the wild helps are script kiddies.
As far as your boss goes -- sorry. However, understand that just because your boss doesn't have any clue doesn't mean that all bosses don't. Mine knows just enough to respect my expertise -- that I keep her systems and network running at the lowest possible cost (within reason). Some executives who run software companies are smarter than others. Believe it or not, the folks at the top of the largest software company in the world know a thing or two about the business (I'd hope so, otherwise their shareholders are assholes for not firing them), and really do take security seriously. Things at Microsoft tend to run like molasses on a number of different levels. Furthermore, there are so many holes in their software that these things likely need to be triaged -- so an IE5 vulnerability might take a back seat to, say, a hole in the TCP stack that makes all network applications vulnerable. In any case, yah...I sorta do think that it's a stretch to take your single bad experience with your boss and apply it to all upper management everywhere...such thinking has led to very Bad Things throughout history.