"Confidentiality agreements were once primarily used to protect commercial secrets. More recently, celebrities have adopted these contracts to protect themselves against checkbook journalism and embittered assistants. This isn't such a big deal. But increasingly, confidentiality agreements ban their signers from revealing information that furthers more meritorious public debate. The Catholic Church, for example, used them to silence victims of sexual abuse by priests, possibly allowing that crime to continue longer than it otherwise might have.
These agreements aren't made merely out of a concern for privacy. Confidentiality agreements have become a tool used by the rich and powerful against people who can't afford to turn down a job, as a way to stifle public discussion of embarrassing issues, and as a means of ensuring that a whistle-blower can't throw a wrench into the image-making machinery of a public figure."
Read the rest of the editorial to fully appreciate his view point.
While the NDAs discussed in the Slashdot article and NDAs discussed in the Times editorial are different beings (one to protect potential business plan secrets, the other to protect public debate), they still point towards a disturbing trend to use these things in almost all circumstances where they can possibly be used.
Make discussion and conversation illegal, and you've just halted the exchange of ideas.
Amazing how many of these same questions come up again and again at Gaiman interviews and talks. In any case...
At a signing, somebody asked this same question and Gaiman said that the two of them had worked on Good Omens together for fun. He didn't deny that they might ever do something like that again, but from his comments, I gathered that trying it again might not have the same excitement that the two of them were able to put into their first book together./EJS
Re:Tattoos and other forms of fan appreciation
on
Ask Neil Gaiman
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· Score: 4, Interesting
I was at a Gaiman signing for The Wolves in the Walls a number of weeks ago in lower Manhattan. One of the questions from the audience was something along the lines of "What's the strangest thing you've ever had to sign?"
Gaiman's response was that a few years ago, a woman asked him to sign her breast. After doing so, she turned around and exclaimed with glee "NOW, you'll ALWAYS remember me!" He said that he didn't have the heart to tell her how many people had already pulled the same stunt with him...
He also admitted that he was a little freaked out by the people who tattooed his signature into their skin./EJS
Creator's rights and copying technologies
on
Ask Neil Gaiman
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· Score: 5, Interesting
Neil,
I greatly enjoyed your chat last night with Art Spiegelman. After listening to both of you talk about the medium of comic books and graphic art, a question came to mind:
Unlike music and video, most people still prefer to read books page-by-page. Copying and downloading books and pictures is easier than doing so for music and video, partially because text and individual pictures are so much smaller. Yet, as of this moment, I haven't heard about a single case of writers and book artists complaining about the copying of their work on the internet.
Why do you think this is? Do you feel that this might change in the future as people become more accustomed to getting their information on a screen? Are you at all worried about the technology of copying in the same way that the music and movie industries are? Why or why not? How does your work as a free speech activist contribute to this debate? Is it a help or a hindrance to "creator's rights" that these copying technologies can allow individuals to control distribution and shake off the major media companies?
What type of legal training do investigators have?
I'm asking this as a techie who is considering attending law school. What coursework has been helpful to your jobs? What types of internships or other jobs have prepared you for your work? How many of you worked with technology as a programmer/sysadmin/etc. before going into law and/or law enforcement? Any other advice for a techie interested in IP technology law?/ephraim
(OK, so I'm a little late getting into this discussion:-) )
If you fly into New York's JFK airport, there's a nice large sign at customs announcing that all New York State residents arriving from abroad are obligated to pay sales tax on any items purchased while out of the country.
I've always wondered how many non-business types actually go up to the desk and announce "Hi, my family is returning from Paris and wants to pay NY's 8.25% tax on the $200 souvenir we bought there!"/EJS
Quite a few credit cards with online services now
offer the ability to create a one-use-only credit
card number. Some of these systems also let you
choose a specific dollar amount and expiration
date for the "card" you've created. The number is
linked to your "real" credit card number so that
all your charges show up on the same bill.
The beauty of this is that if your generated
number gets "stolen" by an unscrupulous dealer,
you don't need to worry about it because the
number will be almost useless!
I'm honestly surprised that these services aren't
advertised more widely, because they're probably
one of the best ways to protect yourself against
credit card fraud when dealing with unknown and
far-away merchants. I know that American Express
and MBNA cards have this capability, and I've
heard rumors that Discover can do the same thing.
Many of your bio-blurbs state that you clerked for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who is the most conservative justice on the current court.
In contrast, your own recently published writings have taken a more liberal or libertarian viewpoint on many issues.
I'm curious to hear about how your time as Scalia's clerk affected your views. What did you learn about civil liberties and technology law while helping to draft opinions for Scalia? Have your views changed since then? If so, why?
While all politicians pay lip service to the First Amendment, how many do you honestly feel have a good grip on how our rights to freedom of speech and of the press intersect closely with new technological advances?
/EJS, do they *really* understand how the very nature of a "press" has changed in the past 5 years?
I opened up the page with the report fully expecting to read another congressional report about how The Internet/Rap/Movies/TV is Corrupting Our Children. I had expected to find a diatribe about how government regulation was necessary to control the new "scourge of our children".
Boy, was I surprised at what I found instead.
This report is completely factually correct.
While most Slashdot readers probably know precisely how the P2P filesharing scene has changed over the past year, the fact is that most people outside our little clique don't have a clue about this stuff. All this report does is take the knowledge that we already have about these technologies and translate it into a form accessible to non-techies. And it does that extremely well by basically setting out the facts that every parent should probably know about file sharing software before allowing their kid to go online.
In summary, the report says:
(a) Since Napster's demise, new filesharing technologies have taken its place.
(b) Most of these new technologies are decentralized, unlike Napster.
(c) The technologies are not limited to music files.
(d) Porn is one of the top items searched for and is highly available on the systems.
(e) Parental control software is not incredibly effective for these new P2P systems.
(f) Because of the logistics of these systems, don't expect legislation to solve problems for parents; the parents should be more proactive.
While all the above seems obvious to us, if you were a parent who felt overwhelmed by your kid's computer knowledge, wouldn't you minimally want to have this information? Most of the posters here take the libertarian point of view that government should stay out of the regulation business. Making parents aware of their own responsibility to be aware of their children's internet activities seems the best way to deal with this.
/EJS
Re:4. Is Alan Cox still not going to US convention
on
Adobe Backs Down
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· Score: 5
Wow, that's callous.
You seem to misunderstand the point of this whole exercise. A human being, through no fault of his own, has been imprisoned against his will. The responsibility of all involved isn't just to make a point about how dumb the DMCA is. Their responsibility is to get this guy back to his home and family as quickly as possible. With Adobe backing down from their complaint, it becomes much more likely that he'll be released relatively quickly.
Sklyarov isn't some pawn the EFF can use to make their point about US Constitutional law. He's a human being, and therefore *any* lawyer trying to speak on his behalf on this case should first and foremost be trying to get him released. If a lawyer pretending to represent Sklyarov's interests allows him to remain in jail in order to advance the constitutional part of the argument, that lawyer should be disbarred for malpractice.
In other words, the EFF made the right choice in backing down from their criticism of Adobe once Adobe rescinded their complaint.
There's a time and a place for everything. The DMCA is already getting its day in court with cases that don't directly affect somebody's physical freedom. Hopefully the criminal provisions of the act will either be struck down by those cases or through a case that doesn't remove a working man as the breadwinner of a family. Your suggestion that the EFF should not have allowed Adobe to back down so easily ignores the human element of this case.
These are some of the only guys actually bothering to defend fair use rights in court, and your donated money is well spent.
This isn't meant to knock writing letters to congressional representatives (which is also a good exercise), but the issue in question is currently being decided by courts and not by congress. Money sent to the EFF allows them to take on more court cases which deal with garbage like the lawsuit threat against Professor Felten.
Well, the statement "openly lied" may be up for debate, but there's no question that Microsoft's counsel seriously screwed up in a way which badly damaged at least one major witness' credibility.
I don't have the record in front of me, but the story goes generally like this:
Some computer science professor had a program which (I think) removed the API hooks that IE had in the Windows operating system. This professor's point was to show that Windows and IE could be separated without causing harm to the OS, and thus proving that they could have been separate pieces of software.
Microsoft brought forth one of their own witnesses who showed a demo tape that compared a computer which had the API hooks removed to a computer with them left intact. According to this witness, the taped demonstration proved that removing the hooks caused performance problems.
When David Boies cross-examined Microsoft's witness, he asked a simple question about this demonstration: Was anything done to these computers during the taping of the demonstration other than what was shown on tape? The witness responded that what was shown on the tape was exactly what had occured during the test.
Boies then proceeded to point out to the court that the number of icons on the screen of the test computer had changed during the demonstration -- an indication that somebody had, in fact, made a modification to the machines. This obviously conflicted with the witness's sworn testimony, and I've heard that the judge himself suggested that the witness consult a lawyer about what had just happened.
Without having read more about this issue, it's unknown whether this was a case of blatant lying on the part of Microsoft or if their legal team simply had poor communication with the group running these tests about what constituted a legal demonstration in court. In any case, this was a major screw-up of a presentation which was vital to Microsoft's case.
Microsoft offered to do run the test again in the presence of the government lawyers, but I've heard that there were problems with that presentation as well.
/EJS
Re:Has anybody found Freenet useful yet?
on
P2P Piracy? Piffle!
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· Score: 1
The current release is numbered 0.3.5. Didn't that give you a hint?
And honestly, I really don't care what clueless reporters are writing, it just strikes me a weird that people like you take it as gospel...
Well, to be honest...
I'm not a developer. I'm an SA.
In other words, I know that 0.3.5 means that it's a pre-release version and that there have probably been quite a few improvements made beforehand.
I also understand the basic concept of what Freenet is trying to do. From what I've read, I definitely want to see more.
But ask me to understand exactly where along the development path you are or to comprehend the minutae of the networking theory that makes it work? Sorry, I just don't have the experience to do that. As I said, I'm neither a developer nor a theoretician.
Which is why I depend on people like you -- or journalists who claim to have spoken with you -- to bridge that gap.
What can I say except that it's human nature.
Those who are writing stuff like this would be wise to remember that not everybody has the experience or the knowledge to fully understand what they're doing. I can't force you to write plain-english documentation about your work and prominently place it on the SourceForge site. It is, after all, your own free time you're putting into this project. All I can do is suggest that you may want to nip the problem of all this wrong hype in the bud.
If all you want to do is code and work on a really cool project, that's fine. It's your choice and your time. Keep in mind, however, that in order for your project to be successful you *will* need non-coders like myself to have a desire to play with your product and hit it as hard as we can and give it a good production QA testing so that we can report bugs, anomalies, and successes. If you feel that you have no need for others to get involved in that way, then Power To You -- you've obviously got a fanstastic and dedicated group of people.
If you *do* in fact want Beta testers, however, you probably want to spend some time updating the SourceForge page to explain exactly what works and what doesn't work at this stage so that a visitor (i.e. journalist or other non-coder) doesn't need to try and divine that info from the CVS source tree. Keep us excited and we'll come back for more.
Re:Has anybody found Freenet useful yet?
on
P2P Piracy? Piffle!
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· Score: 1
In that case, you folks have a serious PR problem because as long as reporters can write things like the article mentioned in this Slashdot topic which includes stuff like this, you need to not only give of your free time to write your software but also to fight this type of garbage:
Freenet's gotten a lot of ink. Angry file-swappers say that even if the world's biggest record companies can sue Napster into submission, they'll never stop Freenet.
They may be right in a year or two. But for now, Freenet's still beta software, and hellishly complex to use. If you've ever wanted to learn how to set up your own proxy server, this is the software for you. I recently blew a perfectly good evening on it before finally getting it to work.
Even then, I couldn't find much of anything worth downloading. I had to rely on lists of available files published on various Web sites, because Freenet still lacks a network-wide search feature.
Keep in mind that Freenet is still under development and bound to get better. But as long as it remains a pure peer-to-peer system, with no central server to keep tabs on the network, Freenet will probably never be as slick and efficient as Napster. Which is why peer-to-peer data piracy may not be quite such an apocalyptic peril after all.
While the author does realize that Freenet isn't quite finished, he (like many of us who have tried the software) thought that we were using something in Beta -- which you clearly say it is not.
Perhaps it might be useful for one of the developers of Freenet to clarify the status of the project on the Sourceforge web site? You may want to make even clearer that the software is nowhere near ready for use in a production environment (by putting this info in big bold letters on the front page). That way, clueless reporters might stop writing things like what I quoted above.
And as for what more you should be doing? Absolutely nothing, aside from contributing to the realm of ideas and letting us know when our impression of your ideas is so off-base that it results in articles like that one.
Peer-to-peer file downloads are still a long way off from being useful in any way.
I'm really curious whether or not people have actually managed to use Freenet in the way it was intended. My own attempts at using the network found that: (a) There are almost no reliable lists of keys/files available. This is important since the network is not searchable. Without a list of keys, Freenet is a useless exercise in creating encrypted data that can never be decrypted. (b) The network is slow to use and even when I attempt to find published keys, they don't work 80% of the time and another 10% of the time it's too slow to be useful.
Thus I get about a 10% success rate in grabbing files from Freenet. This is hardly a good sign.
I'm aware that the software is "in beta" (as it has been for months already), but would somebody please tell me whether or not the project has lived up to any of its hype since it first came out? Are there any Freenet developers here who might be able to shed some light on what its current status is? Is there a concrete timeline where it will move from Beta into some semblance of production? Is there any attempt at creating a global list of keys or a search function (for those keys whose authors want them to be public)? The idea itself is incredibly interesting, but I'd like some assurance that for all the hype, we're not looking at another example of vaporware.
Keep in mind that the entire model only works if people actually *request* the keys. My understanding of the model is that files only move from place to place if they are requested with some regularity. Otherwise they just sit, taking up disk space on somebody's machine, until their lack of use causes them to be overwritten by more important keys. For the moment, all I've seen is hype about this project with very little substance.
The FCC has changed their stance on this issue as can be seen in this article found on Yahoo.
They will not require 10-digit numbers for the moment. Instead, they will attempt to work on better management of all the available numbers by the telcos.
I just want to point out that Matt Blaze and
Gene Spafford, who are listed as authors of this report, are rather big names in computer science and networking. Spaf has been involved with the internet for over 20 years. These guys *really* know their stuff when it comes to security. Which makes their findings all the more scary.
This seems like a good topic to get on my little soapbox about how anybody here could potentially save another human life. Since we're talking about bone marrow, this is surprisingly on-topic for a/. discussion.
It's not every day that you have a genuine chance to save the life of another human being. By having a vial of your blood tested and placed into a database used by the National Marrow Donor Program, you could potentially become an anonymous bone marrow donor for another person who would otherwise die of leukemia or other blood disorders.
The testing procedure only takes a few minutes and is a simple blood test. The NMDP keeps the data until you reach age 60 (or until you ask them to remove your name from their database). There's no obligation after taking the test, and if you ever match a patient, the NMDP makes every effort to ensure that you have given your informed consent before proceeding.
I can say from personal experience that these guys are true professionals and that privacy for all parties involved was taken very seriously. (This is Slashdot; somebody is sure to bring up the they've-got-information-on-you angle.)
You don't get many real chances to save a life, and this one isn't that hard to fulfill.
I voted for Chapin and Miller 5th and 6th with Langenberg in last place. I recommend that others
do the same despite Chapin and Miller's views that ICANN is doing well so far. Why? Well, the following is an excerpt from his answers to the questionnaire that the Internet Democracy project sent all candidates. This first question dealt with the candidates view of the Uniform Domain Name Resolution Dispute Policy:
I'M SORRY, BUT I DON'T KNOW ENOUGH ABOUT THE UDRP AND HOW IT WAS DEVELOPED TO ANSWER THIS QUESTION.
Folks, just about every one of Langenberg's answers is along the lines of "I don't know," "I've never heard of that," etc. From his answers, I just can't comprehend why the guy is even running. He doesn't seem to know anything about ICANN or even care about what they do.
From his statements, I feel that the guy is such a wildcard that I would actually prefer the candidates who espouse views I disagree with to somoebody who hasn't even bothered to look at the issues. I'm pretty sure that either Auerbach or Lessig will win, but if it came down to a choice between Langenberg, Miller, and Chapin, I would definitely prefer somebody who had actually studied the issues to somebody who knows nothing. Langenberg's lack of any knowledge whatsoever about the issues could be used to prove a point about the innefectiveness of At-Large members.
For these reasons, I suggest that voters put him dead last in your voting order.
Does anyone have a clue why ICANN even nominated the guy?
BTW, *everybody* should take a close look at the positions espoused by the nominees from Asia and Africa on the IDP site. Their positions on ICANN are much different than those of the American and European counterparts!
A minor point, but the MPAA and RIAA are not "over-large corporations" in and of themselves. They are industry groups formed *by* said corporations. It's a minor quibble, but I think we need to learn to differentiate between the actual movie studies and groups like the MPAA which form a sort of "union" of competing movie studios.
Part of the reason that we need to learn to differentiate is that it's quite possible to have a member studio of the MPAA that might actually disagree with the larger group regarding it's DeCSS lawsuits. If a single member studio can be convinced that it's against its best interests to participate in the case, then you have much more leverage over the actions of the industry group.
The MPAA allows the studios to decide AS A GROUP what types of lobbying they want to do. If enough member studios disagree with their actions, they will need to change them.
Of course, the chance that somebody will ever convince a company like Disney to change its mind is somewhat remote (and I even own stock in the company), but perhaps some of the smaller studios could be shown the error of their ways by encouraging them to examine ways in which DeCSS might encourage easier distribution or viewing of their titles.
Wow. I didn't realize that there was another double-degree CS/Religion major out there.
I'm glad I studied CS because I gained important knowledge about how computers work, the mathematics behind computation, and the theory which forms the basis behind the work that I do.
Despite this, I think I got more out of my Religion degree. Why? Besides the fact that I was older and more mature for my second degree, I really feel that the critical thinking and analysis skills I learned while examining religious texts and history are more important in the long run. I may not need to explain the relevance of Sankara to Hinduism on a daily basis at my job, but if you need a business report written or analyzed quickly, I'm more than up to the task!
I've also found that despite their vast computer knowledge, many of today's technology employees lack basic written communication skills. These people are in a position where they need to be able to communicate technical concepts to non-technical people via documentation, reports, etc., but few have any idea how to perform such a task. The ability to tell a team member what you're working on and what you've accomplished is 50% of the job. Taking some good courses in the humanities and social sciences will broaden your skillset in the job market and make you more employable./EJS
Article gives little attention to RMS
on
NYT On Open Source
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· Score: 2
I saw the article on NYT's web page this morning and immediately read it, thinking that since the article appears on the front page, it will probably educate many non-techs about other options that are available when purchasing software for business or home use.
For the most part, it's a fair article, talking about the issues and concerns of open source. It correctly mentions that businesses aren't going to jump right into this without some reassurances and that a balance must be reached between the needs of those who philosophically believe in free software and the business community where the bottom line matters more.
Unfortunately, there was almost no discussion of Richard Stallman (RMS) and his beliefs about free software. His name was mentioned in a single sentence which described him as a "revered programmer" and didn't really detail his beliefs.
Now, while I've got a huge amount of respect for RMS, I don't necessarily agree with his beliefs that all software should be free and that we should try everything possible to eliminate closed-source proprietary software. On the other hand, any article that talks about open source cannot do justice to the topic without at least giving a description of how "free software" differs from open source and how a huge percentage of what is generally considered "open source" is actually free software protected by the GNU license. One example of this is Linux.
While some may consider RMS' politics to be on the radical fringe of software development, his ideas have influenced the development of Linux, which is used by the authors of the article as one of their primary examples. Instead, the authors seem to dismiss Stallman as not "pragmatic." This seems somewhat strange, as one of the other major points of the article is a description of how some new models for open source permit parts of the software to remain closed source. This would be impossible given the current GNU license with Linux and it would have been nice for the article to do more than brush over those distinctions.
Slashdot Mirror
Just for comparison's sake:
W .h tml
/EJS
"Full Disclosure on Full Disclosure"
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/27/opinion/27BLO
"Confidentiality agreements were once primarily used to protect commercial secrets. More recently, celebrities have adopted these contracts to protect themselves against checkbook journalism and embittered assistants. This isn't such a big deal. But increasingly, confidentiality agreements ban their signers from revealing information that furthers more meritorious public debate. The Catholic Church, for example, used them to silence victims of sexual abuse by priests, possibly allowing that crime to continue longer than it otherwise might have.
These agreements aren't made merely out of a concern for privacy. Confidentiality agreements have become a tool used by the rich and powerful against people who can't afford to turn down a job, as a way to stifle public discussion of embarrassing issues, and as a means of ensuring that a whistle-blower can't throw a wrench into the image-making machinery of a public figure."
Read the rest of the editorial to fully appreciate his view point.
While the NDAs discussed in the Slashdot article and NDAs discussed in the Times editorial are different beings (one to protect potential business plan secrets, the other to protect public debate), they still point towards a disturbing trend to use these things in almost all circumstances where they can possibly be used.
Make discussion and conversation illegal, and you've just halted the exchange of ideas.
Just some food for thought.
Amazing how many of these same questions come up again and again at Gaiman interviews and talks. In any case...
At a signing, somebody asked this same question and Gaiman said that the two of them had worked on Good Omens together for fun. He didn't deny that they might ever do something like that again, but from his comments, I gathered that trying it again might not have the same excitement that the two of them were able to put into their first book together.
I was at a Gaiman signing for The Wolves in the Walls a number of weeks ago in lower Manhattan. One of the questions from the audience was something along the lines of "What's the strangest thing you've ever had to sign?"
/EJS
Gaiman's response was that a few years ago, a woman asked him to sign her breast. After doing so, she turned around and exclaimed with glee "NOW, you'll ALWAYS remember me!" He said that he didn't have the heart to tell her how many people had already pulled the same stunt with him...
He also admitted that he was a little freaked out by the people who tattooed his signature into their skin.
Neil,
/EJS
I greatly enjoyed your chat last night with Art Spiegelman. After listening to both of you talk about the medium of comic books and graphic art, a question came to mind:
Unlike music and video, most people still prefer to read books page-by-page. Copying and downloading books and pictures is easier than doing so for music and video, partially because text and individual pictures are so much smaller. Yet, as of this moment, I haven't heard about a single case of writers and book artists complaining about the copying of their work on the internet.
Why do you think this is? Do you feel that this might change in the future as people become more accustomed to getting their information on a screen? Are you at all worried about the technology of copying in the same way that the music and movie industries are? Why or why not? How does your work as a free speech activist contribute to this debate? Is it a help or a hindrance to "creator's rights" that these copying technologies can allow individuals to control distribution and shake off the major media companies?
Thanks for your time,
What type of legal training do investigators have?
/ephraim
I'm asking this as a techie who is considering attending law school. What coursework has been helpful to your jobs? What types of internships or other jobs have prepared you for your work? How many of you worked with technology as a programmer/sysadmin/etc. before going into law and/or law enforcement? Any other advice for a techie interested in IP technology law?
(OK, so I'm a little late getting into this discussion
If you fly into New York's JFK airport, there's a nice large sign at customs announcing that all New York State residents arriving from abroad are obligated to pay sales tax on any items purchased while out of the country.
I've always wondered how many non-business types actually go up to the desk and announce "Hi, my family is returning from Paris and wants to pay NY's 8.25% tax on the $200 souvenir we bought there!"
http://www.stickmanbangkok.com/teaching.html
MBNA's program allows you to set both dollar
amount and expiration date.
/EJS
The beauty of this is that if your generated number gets "stolen" by an unscrupulous dealer, you don't need to worry about it because the number will be almost useless!
I'm honestly surprised that these services aren't advertised more widely, because they're probably one of the best ways to protect yourself against credit card fraud when dealing with unknown and far-away merchants. I know that American Express and MBNA cards have this capability, and I've heard rumors that Discover can do the same thing.
Many of your bio-blurbs state that you clerked for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who is the most conservative justice on the current court.
In contrast, your own recently published writings have taken a more liberal or libertarian viewpoint on many issues.
I'm curious to hear about how your time as Scalia's clerk affected your views. What did you learn about civil liberties and technology law while helping to draft opinions for Scalia? Have your views changed since then? If so, why?
/EJS, do they *really* understand how the very nature of a "press" has changed in the past 5 years?
I opened up the page with the report fully expecting to read another congressional report about how The Internet/Rap/Movies/TV is Corrupting Our Children. I had expected to find a diatribe about how government regulation was necessary to control the new "scourge of our children".
Boy, was I surprised at what I found instead.
This report is completely factually correct.
While most Slashdot readers probably know precisely how the P2P filesharing scene has changed over the past year, the fact is that most people outside our little clique don't have a clue about this stuff. All this report does is take the knowledge that we already have about these technologies and translate it into a form accessible to non-techies. And it does that extremely well by basically setting out the facts that every parent should probably know about file sharing software before allowing their kid to go online.
In summary, the report says:
(a) Since Napster's demise, new filesharing technologies have taken its place.
(b) Most of these new technologies are decentralized, unlike Napster.
(c) The technologies are not limited to music files.
(d) Porn is one of the top items searched for and is highly available on the systems.
(e) Parental control software is not incredibly effective for these new P2P systems.
(f) Because of the logistics of these systems, don't expect legislation to solve problems for parents; the parents should be more proactive.
While all the above seems obvious to us, if you were a parent who felt overwhelmed by your kid's computer knowledge, wouldn't you minimally want to have this information? Most of the posters here take the libertarian point of view that government should stay out of the regulation business. Making parents aware of their own responsibility to be aware of their children's internet activities seems the best way to deal with this.
You seem to misunderstand the point of this whole exercise. A human being, through no fault of his own, has been imprisoned against his will. The responsibility of all involved isn't just to make a point about how dumb the DMCA is. Their responsibility is to get this guy back to his home and family as quickly as possible. With Adobe backing down from their complaint, it becomes much more likely that he'll be released relatively quickly.
Sklyarov isn't some pawn the EFF can use to make their point about US Constitutional law. He's a human being, and therefore *any* lawyer trying to speak on his behalf on this case should first and foremost be trying to get him released. If a lawyer pretending to represent Sklyarov's interests allows him to remain in jail in order to advance the constitutional part of the argument, that lawyer should be disbarred for malpractice.
In other words, the EFF made the right choice in backing down from their criticism of Adobe once Adobe rescinded their complaint.
There's a time and a place for everything. The DMCA is already getting its day in court with cases that don't directly affect somebody's physical freedom. Hopefully the criminal provisions of the act will either be struck down by those cases or through a case that doesn't remove a working man as the breadwinner of a family. Your suggestion that the EFF should not have allowed Adobe to back down so easily ignores the human element of this case.
Well, since you asked...
I claimed "donation to EFF" as a tax deduction on my income tax forms last year.
Go to http://www.eff.org/ to read more about them and click on the "Join EFF" link in order to donate cash.
These are some of the only guys actually bothering to defend fair use rights in court, and your donated money is well spent.
This isn't meant to knock writing letters to congressional representatives (which is also a good exercise), but the issue in question is currently being decided by courts and not by congress. Money sent to the EFF allows them to take on more court cases which deal with garbage like the lawsuit threat against Professor Felten.
I don't have the record in front of me, but the story goes generally like this:
Some computer science professor had a program which (I think) removed the API hooks that IE had in the Windows operating system. This professor's point was to show that Windows and IE could be separated without causing harm to the OS, and thus proving that they could have been separate pieces of software.
Microsoft brought forth one of their own witnesses who showed a demo tape that compared a computer which had the API hooks removed to a computer with them left intact. According to this witness, the taped demonstration proved that removing the hooks caused performance problems.
When David Boies cross-examined Microsoft's witness, he asked a simple question about this demonstration: Was anything done to these computers during the taping of the demonstration other than what was shown on tape? The witness responded that what was shown on the tape was exactly what had occured during the test.
Boies then proceeded to point out to the court that the number of icons on the screen of the test computer had changed during the demonstration -- an indication that somebody had, in fact, made a modification to the machines. This obviously conflicted with the witness's sworn testimony, and I've heard that the judge himself suggested that the witness consult a lawyer about what had just happened.
Without having read more about this issue, it's unknown whether this was a case of blatant lying on the part of Microsoft or if their legal team simply had poor communication with the group running these tests about what constituted a legal demonstration in court. In any case, this was a major screw-up of a presentation which was vital to Microsoft's case.
Microsoft offered to do run the test again in the presence of the government lawyers, but I've heard that there were problems with that presentation as well.
And honestly, I really don't care what clueless reporters are writing, it just strikes me a weird that people like you take it as gospel...
Well, to be honest...
I'm not a developer. I'm an SA.
In other words, I know that 0.3.5 means that it's a pre-release version and that there have probably been quite a few improvements made beforehand.
I also understand the basic concept of what Freenet is trying to do. From what I've read, I definitely want to see more.
But ask me to understand exactly where along the development path you are or to comprehend the minutae of the networking theory that makes it work? Sorry, I just don't have the experience to do that. As I said, I'm neither a developer nor a theoretician.
Which is why I depend on people like you -- or journalists who claim to have spoken with you -- to bridge that gap.
What can I say except that it's human nature.
Those who are writing stuff like this would be wise to remember that not everybody has the experience or the knowledge to fully understand what they're doing. I can't force you to write plain-english documentation about your work and prominently place it on the SourceForge site. It is, after all, your own free time you're putting into this project. All I can do is suggest that you may want to nip the problem of all this wrong hype in the bud.
If all you want to do is code and work on a really cool project, that's fine. It's your choice and your time. Keep in mind, however, that in order for your project to be successful you *will* need non-coders like myself to have a desire to play with your product and hit it as hard as we can and give it a good production QA testing so that we can report bugs, anomalies, and successes. If you feel that you have no need for others to get involved in that way, then Power To You -- you've obviously got a fanstastic and dedicated group of people.
If you *do* in fact want Beta testers, however, you probably want to spend some time updating the SourceForge page to explain exactly what works and what doesn't work at this stage so that a visitor (i.e. journalist or other non-coder) doesn't need to try and divine that info from the CVS source tree. Keep us excited and we'll come back for more.
Freenet's gotten a lot of ink. Angry file-swappers say that even if the world's biggest record companies can sue Napster into submission, they'll never stop Freenet.
They may be right in a year or two. But for now, Freenet's still beta software, and hellishly complex to use. If you've ever wanted to learn how to set up your own proxy server, this is the software for you. I recently blew a perfectly good evening on it before finally getting it to work.
Even then, I couldn't find much of anything worth downloading. I had to rely on lists of available files published on various Web sites, because Freenet still lacks a network-wide search feature.
Keep in mind that Freenet is still under development and bound to get better. But as long as it remains a pure peer-to-peer system, with no central server to keep tabs on the network, Freenet will probably never be as slick and efficient as Napster. Which is why peer-to-peer data piracy may not be quite such an apocalyptic peril after all.
While the author does realize that Freenet isn't quite finished, he (like many of us who have tried the software) thought that we were using something in Beta -- which you clearly say it is not.
Perhaps it might be useful for one of the developers of Freenet to clarify the status of the project on the Sourceforge web site? You may want to make even clearer that the software is nowhere near ready for use in a production environment (by putting this info in big bold letters on the front page). That way, clueless reporters might stop writing things like what I quoted above.
And as for what more you should be doing? Absolutely nothing, aside from contributing to the realm of ideas and letting us know when our impression of your ideas is so off-base that it results in articles like that one.
The author of this article has a point.
Peer-to-peer file downloads are still a long way off from being useful in any way.
I'm really curious whether or not people have actually managed to use Freenet in the way it was intended. My own attempts at using the network found that: (a) There are almost no reliable lists of keys/files available. This is important since the network is not searchable. Without a list of keys, Freenet is a useless exercise in creating encrypted data that can never be decrypted. (b) The network is slow to use and even when I attempt to find published keys, they don't work 80% of the time and another 10% of the time it's too slow to be useful.
Thus I get about a 10% success rate in grabbing files from Freenet. This is hardly a good sign.
I'm aware that the software is "in beta" (as it has been for months already), but would somebody please tell me whether or not the project has lived up to any of its hype since it first came out? Are there any Freenet developers here who might be able to shed some light on what its current status is? Is there a concrete timeline where it will move from Beta into some semblance of production? Is there any attempt at creating a global list of keys or a search function (for those keys whose authors want them to be public)? The idea itself is incredibly interesting, but I'd like some assurance that for all the hype, we're not looking at another example of vaporware.
Keep in mind that the entire model only works if people actually *request* the keys. My understanding of the model is that files only move from place to place if they are requested with some regularity. Otherwise they just sit, taking up disk space on somebody's machine, until their lack of use causes them to be overwritten by more important keys. For the moment, all I've seen is hype about this project with very little substance.
They will not require 10-digit numbers for the moment. Instead, they will attempt to work on better management of all the available numbers by the telcos.
It's not every day that you have a genuine chance to save the life of another human being. By having a vial of your blood tested and placed into a database used by the National Marrow Donor Program, you could potentially become an anonymous bone marrow donor for another person who would otherwise die of leukemia or other blood disorders.
The testing procedure only takes a few minutes and is a simple blood test. The NMDP keeps the data until you reach age 60 (or until you ask them to remove your name from their database). There's no obligation after taking the test, and if you ever match a patient, the NMDP makes every effort to ensure that you have given your informed consent before proceeding.
I can say from personal experience that these guys are true professionals and that privacy for all parties involved was taken very seriously. (This is Slashdot; somebody is sure to bring up the they've-got-information-on-you angle.)
You don't get many real chances to save a life, and this one isn't that hard to fulfill.
I'M SORRY, BUT I DON'T KNOW ENOUGH ABOUT THE UDRP AND HOW IT WAS DEVELOPED TO ANSWER THIS QUESTION.
Folks, just about every one of Langenberg's answers is along the lines of "I don't know," "I've never heard of that," etc. From his answers, I just can't comprehend why the guy is even running. He doesn't seem to know anything about ICANN or even care about what they do.
From his statements, I feel that the guy is such a wildcard that I would actually prefer the candidates who espouse views I disagree with to somoebody who hasn't even bothered to look at the issues. I'm pretty sure that either Auerbach or Lessig will win, but if it came down to a choice between Langenberg, Miller, and Chapin, I would definitely prefer somebody who had actually studied the issues to somebody who knows nothing. Langenberg's lack of any knowledge whatsoever about the issues could be used to prove a point about the innefectiveness of At-Large members.
For these reasons, I suggest that voters put him dead last in your voting order.
Does anyone have a clue why ICANN even nominated the guy?
BTW, *everybody* should take a close look at the positions espoused by the nominees from Asia and Africa on the IDP site. Their positions on ICANN are much different than those of the American and European counterparts!
Part of the reason that we need to learn to differentiate is that it's quite possible to have a member studio of the MPAA that might actually disagree with the larger group regarding it's DeCSS lawsuits. If a single member studio can be convinced that it's against its best interests to participate in the case, then you have much more leverage over the actions of the industry group.
The MPAA allows the studios to decide AS A GROUP what types of lobbying they want to do. If enough member studios disagree with their actions, they will need to change them.
Of course, the chance that somebody will ever convince a company like Disney to change its mind is somewhat remote (and I even own stock in the company), but perhaps some of the smaller studios could be shown the error of their ways by encouraging them to examine ways in which DeCSS might encourage easier distribution or viewing of their titles.
I'm glad I studied CS because I gained important knowledge about how computers work, the mathematics behind computation, and the theory which forms the basis behind the work that I do.
Despite this, I think I got more out of my Religion degree. Why? Besides the fact that I was older and more mature for my second degree, I really feel that the critical thinking and analysis skills I learned while examining religious texts and history are more important in the long run. I may not need to explain the relevance of Sankara to Hinduism on a daily basis at my job, but if you need a business report written or analyzed quickly, I'm more than up to the task!
I've also found that despite their vast computer knowledge, many of today's technology employees lack basic written communication skills. These people are in a position where they need to be able to communicate technical concepts to non-technical people via documentation, reports, etc., but few have any idea how to perform such a task. The ability to tell a team member what you're working on and what you've accomplished is 50% of the job. Taking some good courses in the humanities and social sciences will broaden your skillset in the job market and make you more employable. /EJS
For the most part, it's a fair article, talking about the issues and concerns of open source. It correctly mentions that businesses aren't going to jump right into this without some reassurances and that a balance must be reached between the needs of those who philosophically believe in free software and the business community where the bottom line matters more.
Unfortunately, there was almost no discussion of Richard Stallman (RMS) and his beliefs about free software. His name was mentioned in a single sentence which described him as a "revered programmer" and didn't really detail his beliefs.
Now, while I've got a huge amount of respect for RMS, I don't necessarily agree with his beliefs that all software should be free and that we should try everything possible to eliminate closed-source proprietary software. On the other hand, any article that talks about open source cannot do justice to the topic without at least giving a description of how "free software" differs from open source and how a huge percentage of what is generally considered "open source" is actually free software protected by the GNU license. One example of this is Linux.
While some may consider RMS' politics to be on the radical fringe of software development, his ideas have influenced the development of Linux, which is used by the authors of the article as one of their primary examples. Instead, the authors seem to dismiss Stallman as not "pragmatic." This seems somewhat strange, as one of the other major points of the article is a description of how some new models for open source permit parts of the software to remain closed source. This would be impossible given the current GNU license with Linux and it would have been nice for the article to do more than brush over those distinctions.