I don't see how this can end in anything but tragedy. It's well known that using a Game Boy during a commerical flight can cause severe instrumentation malfunction because of stray radion interference. And now they want to bring radio transmitters on board? What's next, an FM station?
Not too mention that the crew and pilot will be too distracted by the Internet to concentrate on flying the plane. Do you really expect someone who checks their AOL mail every five seconds to be able to concentrate the moment you they discover that the landing gear isn't working, or an Arab terrorist is on board?
Whosever idea this was should be FIRED. Geeks do enough harm by shirking their societal duties. Now they have to kill people, too?!!
> it looks like they want to scare individual users from even trying to share movies,
And the problem here is?
Sharing movies is illegal. If someone shares a movie, they aren't going to buy it. That's money lost for the makers. What's wrong with crime prevention.
You don't get front-page articles on slashdot about people putting locks in shops to stop people to stealing the merchandise, so why should it be any different when try and stop other kinds of crime that costs money?
I don't understand why people are so defensive of pirates. I hear people talking about it all the time, and they don't feel in the least bit guilty about the fact that they're committing a criminal act.
Moreover, it's not simply a 'white-collar', victimless crime. Piracy does hurt people.
Games, which people constantly defend the pirating of, cost millions of dollars to create. Talented people put their very being into creating them. The same goes for movies.
How would you feel if something you'd spent 6-months of your life creating was being given away free?
And that a supposedly reputable website was defending this theft?
I can't see how people can object to actions that stop piracy - people seem to think no-one gets hurt by these things. They are wrong. The people working for record and computer companies have jobs and families too. And these are the ones that get hurt by the revenue lost.
It's never the big boss that gets hurt. Not Julia Roberts or Leonardo Di Caprio. It's the man who's packing the videos for $8/hour. It's the guy making them. He's the one losing the money.
These are the real victims of this crime, and I feel horrified that slashdot can condone it.
Apparently, so we are told, copyright is restricting the flow of information.
Since when? Surely you wouldn't say locks prevent the free exchange of stuff from shops? Or that guards prevent the free exchange of gold bullion from banks?
What crap. People seem to think that once I have created something, you have the right to do what the hell you like with it.
Bull!
Once I've created something, surely I am the only person who gets to decide what happens to it? You wouldn't say you have the right to do what you want with cookies I had baked, so why do you think that with my *intellectual* property?
There is no difference at all. If you don't want to use the property *I* created on *my* terms, don't use it at all. Ok? This stuff about copyright law preventing free exchange of information is nonsense.
This something I'm having trouble with, so please feel free to give me a hand. People complain that as hackers they are much-maligned and that the police should leave them alone.
Wrong.
Hackers are no different from burglars or other criminals.
They say 'Oh we're only looking around, testing security'. That's bullshit.
If I was part of a group of peoplewho came into your house and just looked around, claiming they were only testing the security of your locks and so on, what would you do?
You'd get pretty pissed off wouldn't you?
Pretty soon these guys would get locked up or blown away.
I did not invite you into my house and I'm not inviting you into my computer either. You have no right to look in my house, and you have no right to look in my computer systems either.
Now let's address the other argument they use: that they help expose security holes.
This too is bullshit.
Security holes are only an issue because of the damn hackers. Hacker: 'Hey, we're helping you exposing security holes so you can fix them'. Dude: 'And why should we fix the holes?.' Hacker: 'Um uh. To protect you from us.' That's great isn't it. WITHOUT THE HACKERS THIS WOULDN'T BE AN ISSUE.
The only thing that needs to be said is that avoiding hackers costs billions annually. This is all that counts. Billions of dollars down the tube. And *that* is not doing anyone a favor.
Microsoft have certainly been villainized over the last few years. There is a great deal of hostility, not least from this website, and I think it's great they have responded to this, this use of terms such as M$ and Winblows and so on.
I think we should make it clear that Microsoft are not the villain. In my company, and, from what I can tell, in a lot of other similar companies, we basically owe our existence to Microsoft.
We provide ISP services, using Microsoft products. As a result of this we recently got a multimillion dollar contract.
There is only one IT admin guy and he's also the sales guy. He doesn't know anything about unix, and we couldn't with such a small operation, afford a fulltime unix admin, so without Windows' ease of use (think standard dialogue boxes, GUI configuration and so on) we would not have been able to make any money.
This story is repeated across the country. Thousands of small enterprises, invigorating the US economy, as well as that of others owe their existence to Microsoft reducing the barrier to entry.
That's what matters.
And that's why I really wish people would stop attacking them. People don't seem to realize the way that prosperity comes to be. People don't become prosperous through socialism or caring and sharing (which is why China's GDP per head is 1/20 of ours), they get there through enterprise.
There is nothing more important than wealth creation. Wealth creation allows for true redistribution of wealth. Companies such as Microsoft have made tons of money and now Bill Gates is giving billions away.
The kind of socialist ideal implied by open source, where no-one makes pits of money is very bad for the country. If this happens, you get barely affluent people - people such as yourself, who in the main don't pursue any philanthropic activity.
Furthermore, just as communism doesn't encourage people to work harder or innovate (which results in stagnation), so it is with open source. Without the upgrade cycle made necessary by needing to sell more product, innovation doesn't happen.
That's why open source products such as KDE have copied all their ideas off Microsoft and Apple. They have neither the money (R & D) nor the capitalist need to be better to incentivize innovation.
I wish people would remember this when attacking MS.
While I agree that the Internet is a valuable tool for everyone and should be upheld and preserved, it is also important that it not be misused. Therefore, it seems to me that this bill is an important step in America rectifying some of the wrongs it has caused.
There will be complaints from many of you that this bill is ill-conceived and impractical. I think that it's far more important that something be done about the sin and family-destroying habit of gambling. In Hong Kong, an average of 10% of every family's income goes to horse racing, and 30% of all men have what could be described as a gambling addiction.
Needless to say, this is a huge social problem, and America could easily become just the same if we are not careful. If no one can come up with a better solution (and no one has yet), then this is the path we must choose.
I find Katz' point of view here very interesting, and it started me thinking on some positive ways to use copyright law to offset its excesses. I am a Christian, and it very much upsets me to sometimes see Biblical quotes mangled and taken out of context to mean other than their intended meaning. For example:
John 3:16, "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life."
It just makes me sick how many people believe that this means that belief in Jesus is the only requirement for salvation, and quote this as proof at every opportunity. The truth is that the "world" in this quote refers only to the elect, as shown in Psalms 67:2, "That Thy way may be known on the earth, Thy salvation AMONG all nations." Only select people AMONG the general population will be saved. Matthew 7:13 says, "Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter by it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and few are those who find it." Very few people are among the saved.
Or Exodus 20:13, in which the famous Commandment, "Thou shalt not kill," appears. Many people purposely twist the purpose of this quote to include governments. This is a lie and misleading people to Satan. At many points in the Bible, God MANDATES the death penalty as punishment for a crime. This makes it clear that this only applies to an individual killing another individual, and not the death penalty as punishment for a wrongful act.
So, what can one do to prevent this? This is simple. Are you ready?
Copyright the Bible.
That's all. Any misuse of the Bible then becomes an offense punishable by law. Anyone who purposely twists the meaning of Scripture to fit their own evil purposes can be sued or sent to prison. All that this requires is for a nationwide alliance of ministers and preachers to take up the cause, which I do not think is so unreasonable. Does anyone here have any suggestions?
I have heard that there are Satanic images included in this game. I have not been able to run it myself, so I would appreciate it if someone would tell me if this is true or not. If there are no Satanic images, what may have prompted this rumor?
You would like to believe that I am, it would support your deeply flawed worldview.
Support for my previous assertion:
2 Corinthians 4:3," And even if our gospel is veiled it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God."
The meaning of this passage is that those who do not understand the Bible or believe that it has contradictions are the unrighteous or the evil who are damned and lost to God.
What right do I have? The Bible. The Bible very clearly lays out what is good and right and moral and what is not. The Torah and the Koran are, at best, incomplete and ridden with contradictions.
Many unbelievers do see contradictions in the Bible, but this is only because they are evil and bent on confounding God's holy word. The truly righteous see no such contradictions and are able to ascertain God's true meaning.
Contemporary mainstream Christianity would say that someone who has never heard of Jesus or Church can still go to heaven (if they do, in fact, live by and with God, whether they know the word "God" or not)
This is because contemporary Christianity is for weak-minded, weak-hearted fools. How can someone live by God if they have never read the Bible? How can someone live by God if they do not love him and worship him with the fullness of their hearts?
else people will be behaving outwardly Christianly by compunction and not by choice, which is not desirable whether or not you are Christian.
How is this not desirable? God does not give us the freedom to act immorally, we take that freedom for ourselves by continuing to sin. The most immoral act that is committed today is allowing sinning to continue unabated.
I don't think that one can make decision on something he doesn't understand.
Then how can a non-Christian decide whether a man has strayed from righteousness or not?
What the hell does porno have to do with being able to make good decision in court.
If I cannot trust a man to make good decisions (not sin against God and demean his fellow men and women) in private, how can I trust him to make good decisions in a court of law?
Not all programmers are immoral. Many are, however. I only said that it's almost certain that the farmhand has had a good, traditional, American, Christian, moral upbringing, while it's much more likely that the programmer grew up with atheist parents and many more evil influences. And yes, those who do not go to Church are immoral. There is no morality without God.
You make a very good point that the information available on the Internet could (and almost certainly does) taint trials. However, you do not follow this line of thinking through to it conclusion.
"Do you own a computer?" or "Do you have an internet connection?" could be the new basis for sequestering a jury/juror, or dismissing one entirely.
What's wrong with this? Whatever is necessary to protect the objectivity of the jurors and the fairness of the trials.
So called Non-techs could wind up being the ones making decisions on increasingly technical crimes.
Implying that this is a bad thing is nothing less than elitism. What makes you think a programmer is any better qualified to make a decision on DeCSS or Napster or a website hacking than a farmhand from Kansas? I can almost guarantee you that the farmhand has had a more moral upbringing and goes to Church more than the programmer.
Another angle we should take a look at is the possibility of a law being passed amending a jurors rights and duties to include not being able to connect to the internet either at home, or at work, once notified of jury duty.
You don't go far enough on this. It should be mandatory to ask whether this juror has ever illegally downloaded any copyrighted materials, or visited any pornographic websites. Any questions about the veracity of the juror's answers should be taken care of by an inspection of his home computer. While the Internet can be used for good, it has far more potential to taint the minds of the public than any other invention since the dawn of mankind, and we should not hesitate to keep our justice system (justice system) free of such influences.
a single juror gaining knowledge of the crime ahead of time could taint the trial
Just as a single amoral or immoral juror could. These need to be screened for too.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't see how this can end in anything but tragedy. It's well known that using a Game Boy during a commerical flight can cause severe instrumentation malfunction because of stray radion interference. And now they want to bring radio transmitters on board? What's next, an FM station?
Not too mention that the crew and pilot will be too distracted by the Internet to concentrate on flying the plane. Do you really expect someone who checks their AOL mail every five seconds to be able to concentrate the moment you they discover that the landing gear isn't working, or an Arab terrorist is on board?
Whosever idea this was should be FIRED. Geeks do enough harm by shirking their societal duties. Now they have to kill people, too?!!
> it looks like they want to scare individual users from even trying to share movies,
And the problem here is?
Sharing movies is illegal. If someone shares a movie, they aren't going to buy it. That's money lost for the makers. What's wrong with crime prevention.
You don't get front-page articles on slashdot about people putting locks in shops to stop people to stealing the merchandise, so why should it be any different when try and stop other kinds of crime that costs money?
I don't understand why people are so defensive of pirates. I hear people talking about it all the time, and they don't feel in the least bit guilty about the fact that they're committing a criminal act.
Moreover, it's not simply a 'white-collar', victimless crime. Piracy does hurt people.
Games, which people constantly defend the pirating of, cost millions of dollars to create. Talented people put their very being into creating them. The same goes for movies.
How would you feel if something you'd spent 6-months of your life creating was being given away free?
And that a supposedly reputable website was defending this theft?
I can't see how people can object to actions that stop piracy - people seem to think no-one gets hurt by these things. They are wrong. The people working for record and computer companies have jobs and families too. And these are the ones that get hurt by the revenue lost.
It's never the big boss that gets hurt. Not Julia Roberts or Leonardo Di Caprio. It's the man who's packing the videos for $8/hour. It's the guy making them. He's the one losing the money.
These are the real victims of this crime, and I feel horrified that slashdot can condone it.
Apparently, so we are told, copyright is restricting the flow of information.
Since when? Surely you wouldn't say locks prevent the free exchange of stuff from shops? Or that guards prevent the free exchange of gold bullion from banks?
What crap. People seem to think that once I have created something, you have the right to do what the hell you like with it.
Bull!
Once I've created something, surely I am the only person who gets to decide what happens to it? You wouldn't say you have the right to do what you want with cookies I had baked, so why do you think that with my *intellectual* property?
There is no difference at all. If you don't want to use the property *I* created on *my* terms, don't use it at all. Ok? This stuff about copyright law preventing free exchange of information is nonsense.
This something I'm having trouble with, so please feel free to give me a hand. People complain that as hackers they are much-maligned and that the police should leave them alone.
Wrong.
Hackers are no different from burglars or other criminals.
They say 'Oh we're only looking around, testing security'. That's bullshit.
If I was part of a group of peoplewho came into your house and just looked around, claiming they were only testing the security of your locks and so on, what would you do?
You'd get pretty pissed off wouldn't you?
Pretty soon these guys would get locked up or blown away.
I did not invite you into my house and I'm not inviting you into my computer either. You have no right to look in my house, and you have no right to look in my computer systems either.
Now let's address the other argument they use: that they help expose security holes.
This too is bullshit.
Security holes are only an issue because of the damn hackers. Hacker: 'Hey, we're helping you exposing security holes so you can fix them'. Dude: 'And why should we fix the holes?.' Hacker: 'Um uh. To protect you from us.' That's great isn't it. WITHOUT THE HACKERS THIS WOULDN'T BE AN ISSUE.
The only thing that needs to be said is that avoiding hackers costs billions annually. This is all that counts. Billions of dollars down the tube. And *that* is not doing anyone a favor.
Microsoft have certainly been villainized over the last few years. There is a great deal of hostility, not least from this website, and I think it's great they have responded to this, this use of terms such as M$ and Winblows and so on.
I think we should make it clear that Microsoft are not the villain. In my company, and, from what I can tell, in a lot of other similar companies, we basically owe our existence to Microsoft.
We provide ISP services, using Microsoft products. As a result of this we recently got a multimillion dollar contract.
There is only one IT admin guy and he's also the sales guy. He doesn't know anything about unix, and we couldn't with such a small operation, afford a fulltime unix admin, so without Windows' ease of use (think standard dialogue boxes, GUI configuration and so on) we would not have been able to make any money.
This story is repeated across the country. Thousands of small enterprises, invigorating the US economy, as well as that of others owe their existence to Microsoft reducing the barrier to entry.
That's what matters.
And that's why I really wish people would stop attacking them. People don't seem to realize the way that prosperity comes to be. People don't become prosperous through socialism or caring and sharing (which is why China's GDP per head is 1/20 of ours), they get there through enterprise.
There is nothing more important than wealth creation. Wealth creation allows for true redistribution of wealth. Companies such as Microsoft have made tons of money and now Bill Gates is giving billions away.
The kind of socialist ideal implied by open source, where no-one makes pits of money is very bad for the country. If this happens, you get barely affluent people - people such as yourself, who in the main don't pursue any philanthropic activity.
Furthermore, just as communism doesn't encourage people to work harder or innovate (which results in stagnation), so it is with open source. Without the upgrade cycle made necessary by needing to sell more product, innovation doesn't happen.
That's why open source products such as KDE have copied all their ideas off Microsoft and Apple. They have neither the money (R & D) nor the capitalist need to be better to incentivize innovation.
I wish people would remember this when attacking MS.
While I agree that the Internet is a valuable tool for everyone and should be upheld and preserved, it is also important that it not be misused. Therefore, it seems to me that this bill is an important step in America rectifying some of the wrongs it has caused.
There will be complaints from many of you that this bill is ill-conceived and impractical. I think that it's far more important that something be done about the sin and family-destroying habit of gambling. In Hong Kong, an average of 10% of every family's income goes to horse racing, and 30% of all men have what could be described as a gambling addiction.
Needless to say, this is a huge social problem, and America could easily become just the same if we are not careful. If no one can come up with a better solution (and no one has yet), then this is the path we must choose.
I find Katz' point of view here very interesting, and it started me thinking on some positive ways to use copyright law to offset its excesses. I am a Christian, and it very much upsets me to sometimes see Biblical quotes mangled and taken out of context to mean other than their intended meaning. For example:
John 3:16, "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life."
It just makes me sick how many people believe that this means that belief in Jesus is the only requirement for salvation, and quote this as proof at every opportunity. The truth is that the "world" in this quote refers only to the elect, as shown in Psalms 67:2, "That Thy way may be known on the earth, Thy salvation AMONG all nations." Only select people AMONG the general population will be saved. Matthew 7:13 says, "Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter by it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and few are those who find it." Very few people are among the saved.
Or Exodus 20:13, in which the famous Commandment, "Thou shalt not kill," appears. Many people purposely twist the purpose of this quote to include governments. This is a lie and misleading people to Satan. At many points in the Bible, God MANDATES the death penalty as punishment for a crime. This makes it clear that this only applies to an individual killing another individual, and not the death penalty as punishment for a wrongful act.
So, what can one do to prevent this? This is simple. Are you ready?
Copyright the Bible.
That's all. Any misuse of the Bible then becomes an offense punishable by law. Anyone who purposely twists the meaning of Scripture to fit their own evil purposes can be sued or sent to prison. All that this requires is for a nationwide alliance of ministers and preachers to take up the cause, which I do not think is so unreasonable. Does anyone here have any suggestions?
I have heard that there are Satanic images included in this game. I have not been able to run it myself, so I would appreciate it if someone would tell me if this is true or not. If there are no Satanic images, what may have prompted this rumor?
So this is more like leaping further ahead when it comes to technology
What other changes to the technology have been made?
You would like to believe that I am, it would support your deeply flawed worldview.
," And even if our gospel is veiled it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God."
Support for my previous assertion:
2 Corinthians 4:3
The meaning of this passage is that those who do not understand the Bible or believe that it has contradictions are the unrighteous or the evil who are damned and lost to God.
Do you believe me now?
What right do I have? The Bible. The Bible very clearly lays out what is good and right and moral and what is not. The Torah and the Koran are, at best, incomplete and ridden with contradictions.
Many unbelievers do see contradictions in the Bible, but this is only because they are evil and bent on confounding God's holy word. The truly righteous see no such contradictions and are able to ascertain God's true meaning.
Contemporary mainstream Christianity would say that someone who has never heard of Jesus or Church can still go to heaven (if they do, in fact, live by and with God, whether they know the word "God" or not)
This is because contemporary Christianity is for weak-minded, weak-hearted fools. How can someone live by God if they have never read the Bible? How can someone live by God if they do not love him and worship him with the fullness of their hearts?
else people will be behaving outwardly Christianly by compunction and not by choice, which is not desirable whether or not you are Christian.
How is this not desirable? God does not give us the freedom to act immorally, we take that freedom for ourselves by continuing to sin. The most immoral act that is committed today is allowing sinning to continue unabated.
I don't think that one can make decision on something he doesn't understand.
Then how can a non-Christian decide whether a man has strayed from righteousness or not?
What the hell does porno have to do with being able to make good decision in court.
If I cannot trust a man to make good decisions (not sin against God and demean his fellow men and women) in private, how can I trust him to make good decisions in a court of law?
Not all programmers are immoral. Many are, however. I only said that it's almost certain that the farmhand has had a good, traditional, American, Christian, moral upbringing, while it's much more likely that the programmer grew up with atheist parents and many more evil influences. And yes, those who do not go to Church are immoral. There is no morality without God.
You make a very good point that the information available on the Internet could (and almost certainly does) taint trials. However, you do not follow this line of thinking through to it conclusion.
"Do you own a computer?" or "Do you have an internet connection?" could be the new basis for sequestering a jury/juror, or dismissing one entirely.
What's wrong with this? Whatever is necessary to protect the objectivity of the jurors and the fairness of the trials.
So called Non-techs could wind up being the ones making decisions on increasingly technical crimes.
Implying that this is a bad thing is nothing less than elitism. What makes you think a programmer is any better qualified to make a decision on DeCSS or Napster or a website hacking than a farmhand from Kansas? I can almost guarantee you that the farmhand has had a more moral upbringing and goes to Church more than the programmer.
Another angle we should take a look at is the possibility of a law being passed amending a jurors rights and duties to include not being able to connect to the internet either at home, or at work, once notified of jury duty.
You don't go far enough on this. It should be mandatory to ask whether this juror has ever illegally downloaded any copyrighted materials, or visited any pornographic websites. Any questions about the veracity of the juror's answers should be taken care of by an inspection of his home computer. While the Internet can be used for good, it has far more potential to taint the minds of the public than any other invention since the dawn of mankind, and we should not hesitate to keep our justice system (justice system) free of such influences.
a single juror gaining knowledge of the crime ahead of time could taint the trial
Just as a single amoral or immoral juror could. These need to be screened for too.
Sometimes she sees things a bit too clearly.
Justice can never be clear-sighted enough.