Yes, but I built a Turing emulator, and it's indistinguishable from Alan Turing. Acording to the Turing test, this means for all intents and purposes, it is Alan Turing. Does need a working Turing machine though. Anyone know where I can get an infinitely long, infinitely erasable paper tape?
Even the most trivial investigation would have shown that the court had no jurisdiction of a UK entity.
So, why didn't spamhaus simply ignore it. Or just file a short motion to dismiss stating "Spamhaus is a UK company that does no significant business outside the UK, hence the court has no jurisdiction", instead of moving it to a district court?
Why should a UK organization bear the costs of the broken US legal system?
Because they started to.
They made the right choice by leaving us to wallow in our own feces.
They made the wrong choice by not doing so from the start.
Yes, but so what? I mean except for technical accuracy, I don't see that there's a huge difference between spamhaus listing a site in order for it to be blocked, and an admin adding a site to a blocklist in order for it to be blocked.
Name one that went to jail. Oh hey, they're not the ones breaking the law now, are they?
There is more to law than criminal law. The main reason that no blocking list has been sued is that no spammer was willing to invest the money in sueing them.
Many spammers are operating within the law.
MAPS was still in business all the way up to being bought.
But they lost all remaining credibility after settling with Experian.
A default judgement that will never be collected, and an overreaching expansion of an injunction that will never be enforced. Quite a crippling defeat, sure.
Yes... but this isn't likely to be e360's entire strategy, is it? Or do you think that they didn't consider this possibility? Do tyhe geeks and mail admins know more about e360's legal team? And the generals who say "never underestimate your enemy"?
Google's problem here is that they have deep pockets. Makes them much more of a target
Possibly too deep for the cartels. They can defend themselves. Even if they lose, the record industry is going to have to pay a lot to get a phyrric victory.
Except, I don't see how the summary of the legal expert tallies with the evidence (e360's website has all the court docs, as well as a slightly biased summary of events. quite a good resource all considered). I don't see any indication of them filing to move this case to a district court.
But this is the problem. I lurked on news.admin.net-abuse.email a bit, where they talk about this sort of thing. The naivety about the law is quite remarkable, even by my standards. They're still playing the "yah-boo can't touch me" game.
I mean, what is the point of this? Is this a legal defence? I'm sure any half competent lawyer would demolish this argument. Ultimately, by listing the IP address, they're performing an essential functional apart of the blocking process, and if they can use this argument, then you misght as well argue that the admin doesn't block it either. He just types the numbers into a list and the software does it for him.
Those who publish blocking lists should have the decency to take responsibility for their actions.
If ICANN start ordering UK websites down at the request of random US courts then that'll be a pretty hard push in that direction. Even the americans aren't that bloody stupid.
The federal court system has - quite rightly - no interest whatsoever in the diplomatic squabbles with other nations. It is ideally concerned only with interpretation of the law. Diplomacy is the government's job. Not the court's.
Is they keep thinking they're legally untouchable.
Any time they feel the need to defend their service, they use pedantic arguments based on redefining what they're doing, and actually tend tyo get away with it because most of the people they're blocking are clearly spammers and acting in a borderline legal way.
Then they get surprised when the court doesn't go exactly the way they expect.
This is what brought down MAPS. Spamhaus may fare a little better, but it looks like they were caught with their trousers down.
Maybe database design is a serious endeavor not to be left to amateurs.
I'll say. I've worked on a database like system (much simpler. No need for ACID or anything remotely complicated) and even that was a hell of a lot harder than you might expect.
I've had problems with postcode based systems as well. I lived in a town outside of Brighton. So naturally, I had a BN postcode. My street shared the same name as a street in Brighton itself. The address generation would assume I lived in Brighton, and leave off my actual town. Usually the post office was smart enough to spot this, but mail was often delivered to the other address first.
A serious terrorist would know this and plan operations in a style that fits a reasonably standard profile.
True. I remember reading about a list of items that have been used for profiling drug smugglers. Since the smugglers knew about these signs and responded to them, items included disembarking first, last and in the middle, as well as travelling alone and in a group. Wish I could remember where I read about it.
I'll try to think of justifications for the ones I can.
Frequent flyer miles flown;
Presumably frequent flyers are more likely to be businessmen
the passenger's history of not showing up for flights
Weird one this.
how the ticket was paid for (including credit card number)
Is a lot of tickets are bought witht he same CC, then I suppose this will show something. Or maybe they have some "suspicious" credit cards. That just makes it seem scarier.
whether the passenger bought the ticket at the airport just before the flight
I agree with you on this one. Sounds more like a fishing expedition. I expect that terrorists will book flights some time in advance though. I doubt this is particulalry conistent
special requests, such as requests for special meals, for a wheelchair, or help for an unaccompanied minor
I bet they're only interested in the meal requests. But the terrorists know this. Best bet for terrorists is to opt for the vegetarian option. Unlikely to offend any dietry requirements and common enough in the western world that it would be fairly ineffective.
pricing information
Businessmen wil pay more for their tickets than holidaymakers. Would not be much use on its own, but will indicate incongruities.
You just gotta love those evil, corrupt bastards that run the U.S. Government!
But they're your friends. Don't you trust them? You must be a terrorist then.
It does depend on where they are. If they're on the premises, then fair enough, but if they're just nearby, then the store owner is annexing the territory outside his shop as well, and maybe even driving business away from his neighbours.
Okay - I'm 30 with averagehearing for my age, so it isn't going to affect me. But it still seems a little unfair to ignore noise poluution if it only affects teenagers - most of whom are not doing any harm, and just want to hang around with mates. Do noise pollution laws only apply if they affect adults?
So how do we solve it? Nobody is going to listen to a bunch of kids. Could simply disable it. Nobody would know. Any other ways to deal with it?
I didn't think of that. Why do people need to upgrade their entire OS? Is it just the Watergate thing? "nobody suggested we didn't upgrade"? Or am I missing something entirely? Whatr does upgrading to Vista actually do?
But if you'ree using Office 2000, you don't need Vista. The OS on its own is useless for a business. In fact, so is the PC. People are spending that much just to run office.
Slashdot Mirror
Alan Turing committed suicide in 1954.
Yes, but I built a Turing emulator, and it's indistinguishable from Alan Turing. Acording to the Turing test, this means for all intents and purposes, it is Alan Turing. Does need a working Turing machine though. Anyone know where I can get an infinitely long, infinitely erasable paper tape?
Even the most trivial investigation would have shown that the court had no jurisdiction of a UK entity.
So, why didn't spamhaus simply ignore it. Or just file a short motion to dismiss stating "Spamhaus is a UK company that does no significant business outside the UK, hence the court has no jurisdiction", instead of moving it to a district court?
Why should a UK organization bear the costs of the broken US legal system?
Because they started to.
They made the right choice by leaving us to wallow in our own feces. They made the wrong choice by not doing so from the start.
Yes, but so what? I mean except for technical accuracy, I don't see that there's a huge difference between spamhaus listing a site in order for it to be blocked, and an admin adding a site to a blocklist in order for it to be blocked.
Name one that went to jail. Oh hey, they're not the ones breaking the law now, are they?
There is more to law than criminal law. The main reason that no blocking list has been sued is that no spammer was willing to invest the money in sueing them.
Many spammers are operating within the law.
MAPS was still in business all the way up to being bought.
But they lost all remaining credibility after settling with Experian.
A default judgement that will never be collected, and an overreaching expansion of an injunction that will never be enforced. Quite a crippling defeat, sure.
Yes... but this isn't likely to be e360's entire strategy, is it? Or do you think that they didn't consider this possibility? Do tyhe geeks and mail admins know more about e360's legal team? And the generals who say "never underestimate your enemy"?
Ah yes. Thanks. I should have read the annotations more carefully.
Google's problem here is that they have deep pockets. Makes them much more of a target
Possibly too deep for the cartels. They can defend themselves. Even if they lose, the record industry is going to have to pay a lot to get a phyrric victory.
I agree.
Except, I don't see how the summary of the legal expert tallies with the evidence (e360's website has all the court docs, as well as a slightly biased summary of events. quite a good resource all considered). I don't see any indication of them filing to move this case to a district court.
But this is the problem. I lurked on news.admin.net-abuse.email a bit, where they talk about this sort of thing. The naivety about the law is quite remarkable, even by my standards. They're still playing the "yah-boo can't touch me" game.
That's just weasel words.
I mean, what is the point of this? Is this a legal defence? I'm sure any half competent lawyer would demolish this argument. Ultimately, by listing the IP address, they're performing an essential functional apart of the blocking process, and if they can use this argument, then you misght as well argue that the admin doesn't block it either. He just types the numbers into a list and the software does it for him.
Those who publish blocking lists should have the decency to take responsibility for their actions.
If ICANN start ordering UK websites down at the request of random US courts then that'll be a pretty hard push in that direction. Even the americans aren't that bloody stupid.
The federal court system has - quite rightly - no interest whatsoever in the diplomatic squabbles with other nations. It is ideally concerned only with interpretation of the law. Diplomacy is the government's job. Not the court's.
would do a lot of good for someone to post this judges email address
Part of the ruling was a 1 inch by 1 inch message on their website! He's clearly not very tech-savvy. I doubt he has a computer.
Is they keep thinking they're legally untouchable.
Any time they feel the need to defend their service, they use pedantic arguments based on redefining what they're doing, and actually tend tyo get away with it because most of the people they're blocking are clearly spammers and acting in a borderline legal way.
Then they get surprised when the court doesn't go exactly the way they expect.
This is what brought down MAPS. Spamhaus may fare a little better, but it looks like they were caught with their trousers down.
Well, why don't you google it? (2.4 billion in the unlikely even that you;re interested).
The right people are making judgements. The wrong people are making laws. It's a pretty clear DMCA violation whether you agree with the law or not.
Maybe database design is a serious endeavor not to be left to amateurs.
I'll say. I've worked on a database like system (much simpler. No need for ACID or anything remotely complicated) and even that was a hell of a lot harder than you might expect.
I've had problems with postcode based systems as well. I lived in a town outside of Brighton. So naturally, I had a BN postcode. My street shared the same name as a street in Brighton itself. The address generation would assume I lived in Brighton, and leave off my actual town. Usually the post office was smart enough to spot this, but mail was often delivered to the other address first.
A serious terrorist would know this and plan operations in a style that fits a reasonably standard profile.
True. I remember reading about a list of items that have been used for profiling drug smugglers. Since the smugglers knew about these signs and responded to them, items included disembarking first, last and in the middle, as well as travelling alone and in a group. Wish I could remember where I read about it.
I'll try to think of justifications for the ones I can. Frequent flyer miles flown;
Presumably frequent flyers are more likely to be businessmen
the passenger's history of not showing up for flights
Weird one this.
how the ticket was paid for (including credit card number)
Is a lot of tickets are bought witht he same CC, then I suppose this will show something. Or maybe they have some "suspicious" credit cards. That just makes it seem scarier.
whether the passenger bought the ticket at the airport just before the flight
I agree with you on this one. Sounds more like a fishing expedition. I expect that terrorists will book flights some time in advance though. I doubt this is particulalry conistent
special requests, such as requests for special meals, for a wheelchair, or help for an unaccompanied minor
I bet they're only interested in the meal requests. But the terrorists know this. Best bet for terrorists is to opt for the vegetarian option. Unlikely to offend any dietry requirements and common enough in the western world that it would be fairly ineffective.
pricing information
Businessmen wil pay more for their tickets than holidaymakers. Would not be much use on its own, but will indicate incongruities.
You just gotta love those evil, corrupt bastards that run the U.S. Government!
But they're your friends. Don't you trust them? You must be a terrorist then.
It does depend on where they are. If they're on the premises, then fair enough, but if they're just nearby, then the store owner is annexing the territory outside his shop as well, and maybe even driving business away from his neighbours.
Okay - I'm 30 with averagehearing for my age, so it isn't going to affect me. But it still seems a little unfair to ignore noise poluution if it only affects teenagers - most of whom are not doing any harm, and just want to hang around with mates. Do noise pollution laws only apply if they affect adults?
So how do we solve it? Nobody is going to listen to a bunch of kids. Could simply disable it. Nobody would know. Any other ways to deal with it?
Well. That's another matter entirely:)
I didn't think of that. Why do people need to upgrade their entire OS? Is it just the Watergate thing? "nobody suggested we didn't upgrade"? Or am I missing something entirely? Whatr does upgrading to Vista actually do?
But if you'ree using Office 2000, you don't need Vista. The OS on its own is useless for a business. In fact, so is the PC. People are spending that much just to run office.
STL is great, but it's a bit of a resource hog. And kernel programmers are real misers (not to mention control freaks) when it comes to resources.
MS has partially justified their high OS prices in the past to help cover the costs of sales lost to piracy.
Has MS ever claimed this? I've seen it mentioned a lot, but it's usually from fans of MS or the anti piracy lobby rather than from Microsoft itself.
Woah Dude. What are you doing inside my head? Get out now. Weird things happen in there.
You're calling Mozart an idiot?
In certain respects. He was also a genius, I'm sure.
I bet even Einstein was capable of impressive stupidity outside the realm of Physics.