On the other hand, if AOL/TW can offer the 24/7 support that's necessary for corporate folks to switch from NT to linux, the buyout may prove to be a very good thing.
Remember, terrorists are like most of the people in the world in that they are not computer geeks. They're not interested in having the latest kernel or compiling gnupg by hand. Like Aunt Tillie, they have other things to do with their time, namely blowing stuff up. To that end, they're going to choose a software package that is already built and easy to use.
I still have some lingering questions about this. E-mail is asynchronous. With many e-mail services (Eudora, Outlook, and AOL), the underlying software lets you compose e-mail offline and store it to disk, automatically transferring it at a later date. Personally, I compose a lot of my e-mail when my computer is offline -- these days, I spend half my time on airplanes, it is when I get the most e-mail written, I sync when I land at the next destination.
An interesting point, but remember that only the actual communication itself is protected under the wiretap statute, 18 USC 2518. That is, the actual bits you sent as e-mail are protected by this law. Any drafts or other documents you make on your computer are protected as stored communications, which are discussed in 18 USC 2703, also called the Electronic Communications Privacy Act.
Could they be bugging the room while you are on the phone without a wiretap order? That seems like a pretty obvious way to get around needing a court order.
Yes, they can pick up phone conversations while bugging the room. But! In order to get the authority to monitor the room, the government has to show probable cause that monitoring the communications in the room will give evidence of a crime. They can't say, "We'll be able to listen to the guy on the phone," becuase the judge will bitch slap them and say, "ask for a wiretap!" They have to show that people will be in the room talking and they they're trying to monitor that.
If such a legal monitor happens to pick up other audio information not origingally intended, but that is evidence, it is admissible. The same way that if any member of law enforcement is in a legal position and observes evidence of a crime, it's admissible. (Example: Guy calls the cops to say his TV was stolen. While the cops are in the guys house with him writing out a report, they notice a ten pound bag of crack on the table.)
(BTW, this is first really intelligible discussion I've been able to have on/. regarding these kinds of things. Thank you!)
Active communications (e.g. e-mail in transit) are protected by 18 USC 2518. Stored communications that you're talking about, such as e-mails you've received, chat logs, and the like, are protected under 18 USC 2703. The rules regarding these protections, also sometimes called the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) are rather complicated and depend greatly on the type of information, how old it is, and where it's being stored.
The differences active and stored communications can be summed up this way: To intercept an active communication, the government must show probable cause that the interception will yield evidence of a crime. If a federal judge agrees, he will grant a wiretap order, or authority. To obtain stored communications (e.g. connection logs, billing records, stored e-mail, etc.), the government must present probable cause to a judge, who can grant either a search warrant or a court order (also called a 2703 order). The type of records being obtained determines whether a court order or search warrant is issued.
The heck with that. What if you had an icon on your desktop named "Shortcut MSWORD97.EXE". To enter your password, select this icon, copy it, and paste it into the password dialog box. Let's keep it simple folks... (Even chose a decent password too! upper and lower case, numbers, punctuation, spaces, and 21 characters to boot. Break that!)
Whatever you type on your computer is a document. In fact, this comment that I am typing to Slashdot right now is just a document on my computer (in RAM, on disk, whatever), until I click the "Submit" button and transmit data to Slashdot. The bits that go across the wire from me to Slashdot are a communication, and that communication is protected. Any prepatory work done before or afterwards is not protected under the law under 18 USC 2518.
it's more or less an open secret that wiretaps are often done without a wiretap order
Really? If an agent runs an intercept without court authorization, they are personally liable for civil damages for running an illegal wiretap. If you know of this happening, you should contact your local US Attorney's office. For more information, check out 18 USC 2520, which says, in part, "any person whose wire, oral, or electronic communication is intercepted, disclosed, or intentionally used in violation of this chapter may in a civil action recover from the person or entity which engaged in that violation such relief as may be appropriate" and then goes on to spell out civil penalties of "the sum of the actual damages suffered by the plaintiff and any profits made by the violator as a result of the violation; or statutory damages of whichever is the greater of $100 a day for each day of violation or $10,000."
Granted, in a computer not all keystrokes are going to be transfered over the network, but how can you, the observing FBI agent, know which are which until you look at all of them? I can't see how you could possibly avoid looking at information (like a typed email) that should be require a wiretap order.
The FBI's tool took very careful steps to not record anything when the user was on-line. It checked whether the modem was in use, Internet Explorer was running, and a few other details. (That information comes from the EPIC web site, sorry I don't have a better link.)
I agree that you could argue that the user was typing an e-mail in Notepad that was going to become a communication, but the typing in Notepad is not, in an of itself, a communication. The actual e-mail leaving the system is a communication only.
How is using a particular OS going to protect you against a physical device that sniffs key strokes? (i.e. something between the keyboard cable and the CPU.) They're commerically available now.
The FBI still had to obtain a search warrant. That means they have to go before a judge and show that there is probable cause (i.e. enough information available to convince a reasonable person) to believe that such a search will yield evidence of a crime. The FBI can't just do this willy-nilly. They have to get a judge's approval first.
Previously, the FBI had to get a wiretap order, under Title III, which has to be signed by the Attorney General or the Deputy. In this case, the FBI was able to gather their evidence using only a search warrant, which any judge can issue.
The FBI's argument was that because the device only intercepted intra-computer communication (i.e. from the keyboard to the CPU) and not computer to computer communications, those communications are not protected by the Wiretap statute (18 USC 2518).
Ok, great I live in CA but what if the spammer doesn't?
Then you'll be like a French person trying to buy Nazi gear via Yahoo auctions. The law is only valid in California, and AFAIK, other states/countries have no obligation to uphold it.
The New York Times is not Free. It costs 35 cents at the newsstand, or you have to provide a username and password to view it on-line. Either way you have to give them something.
Well, if you pay using anything except cash (e.g. credit card, check, almost every payment on the Internet), you do have to give some identifying information. So if you're going to pay for information *and* get it on-line (e.g. Paying for Salon.com or downloading music from a service), you'd better get used to the idea of giving your ID when you pay for things.)
Well, you're right, Ogg Vorbis streaming is cool, but unfortunately it won't work for the BBC in the long run, for reasons you've put in your post.
The problem is that you had to install something to your base system in order to listen to the stream. There are millions (yes, millions) of users who don't want to have to install anything else, they just want things to work straight of the box. These are exactly the sort of people BBC doesn't want calling their tech support. Any costs saved by avoiding Microsoft license fees get eaten up by the phone calls and e-mails that these people will send to the BBC asking "how the heck do I install this silly plugin thing?"
Microsoft isn't about to give up their licensing fee revenue stream without a fight, and so they're not going to include the Ogg Vorbis codec in the Media Player anytime soon.
The BBC is a business. They don't care anything about "free" software versus things they have to pay for. The question is, which costs more: Providing tech support to people so that they can view their content, or writing one simple check to Microsoft. Unfortunately, the business solution is to just pay Microsoft, it's probably cheaper.
There's one completely practical aspect of all of this which hasn't been mentioned yet. I volunteer with a dog rescue organization which tries to use the chipping technology to match lost pets with their owners. When it works, it's great.
But the chips, which are usually implanted in the back of the animals neck, can occasionally migrate inside the animal's body. Mostly they just slide down the back, but there have been cases where they just disappear. (I'm sure the chip is in there somewhere, I just don't want to find out...)
Either way though, if it's possible for the chips to move after implantation, I think the technology needs more work before we start putting them in people.
A question: The amount of space users require has increased with the types of files being used (or is it vice versa). EIther way, as we've gone from text files to graphics to audio to video, we've been using more and more space. What comes after video? What's going to be the next disk space hog? (And who's going to be controlling *that* media?)
Slashdot Mirror
On the other hand, if AOL/TW can offer the 24/7 support that's necessary for corporate folks to switch from NT to linux, the buyout may prove to be a very good thing.
Remember, terrorists are like most of the people in the world in that they are not computer geeks. They're not interested in having the latest kernel or compiling gnupg by hand. Like Aunt Tillie, they have other things to do with their time, namely blowing stuff up. To that end, they're going to choose a software package that is already built and easy to use.
The punishment for a crime should be something that forces you to repay your debt to society. You must repair the damage you've done.
I still have some lingering questions about this. E-mail is asynchronous. With many e-mail services (Eudora, Outlook, and AOL), the underlying software lets you compose e-mail offline and store it to disk, automatically transferring it at a later date. Personally, I compose a lot of my e-mail when my computer is offline -- these days, I spend half my time on airplanes, it is when I get the most e-mail written, I sync when I land at the next destination.
An interesting point, but remember that only the actual communication itself is protected under the wiretap statute, 18 USC 2518. That is, the actual bits you sent as e-mail are protected by this law. Any drafts or other documents you make on your computer are protected as stored communications, which are discussed in 18 USC 2703, also called the Electronic Communications Privacy Act.
Could they be bugging the room while you are on the phone without a wiretap order? That seems like a pretty obvious way to get around needing a court order.
/. regarding these kinds of things. Thank you!)
Yes, they can pick up phone conversations while bugging the room. But! In order to get the authority to monitor the room, the government has to show probable cause that monitoring the communications in the room will give evidence of a crime. They can't say, "We'll be able to listen to the guy on the phone," becuase the judge will bitch slap them and say, "ask for a wiretap!" They have to show that people will be in the room talking and they they're trying to monitor that.
If such a legal monitor happens to pick up other audio information not origingally intended, but that is evidence, it is admissible. The same way that if any member of law enforcement is in a legal position and observes evidence of a crime, it's admissible. (Example: Guy calls the cops to say his TV was stolen. While the cops are in the guys house with him writing out a report, they notice a ten pound bag of crack on the table.)
(BTW, this is first really intelligible discussion I've been able to have on
Actually, it's a joke. I'm not a vegetarian, so I deliberately misspelled it.
Ah, the key difference.
Active communications (e.g. e-mail in transit) are protected by 18 USC 2518. Stored communications that you're talking about, such as e-mails you've received, chat logs, and the like, are protected under 18 USC 2703. The rules regarding these protections, also sometimes called the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) are rather complicated and depend greatly on the type of information, how old it is, and where it's being stored.
The differences active and stored communications can be summed up this way: To intercept an active communication, the government must show probable cause that the interception will yield evidence of a crime. If a federal judge agrees, he will grant a wiretap order, or authority. To obtain stored communications (e.g. connection logs, billing records, stored e-mail, etc.), the government must present probable cause to a judge, who can grant either a search warrant or a court order (also called a 2703 order). The type of records being obtained determines whether a court order or search warrant is issued.
The heck with that. What if you had an icon on your desktop named "Shortcut MSWORD97.EXE". To enter your password, select this icon, copy it, and paste it into the password dialog box. Let's keep it simple folks... (Even chose a decent password too! upper and lower case, numbers, punctuation, spaces, and 21 characters to boot. Break that!)
You won't find anything. They still need probable cause.
Whatever you type on your computer is a document. In fact, this comment that I am typing to Slashdot right now is just a document on my computer (in RAM, on disk, whatever), until I click the "Submit" button and transmit data to Slashdot. The bits that go across the wire from me to Slashdot are a communication, and that communication is protected. Any prepatory work done before or afterwards is not protected under the law under 18 USC 2518.
it's more or less an open secret that wiretaps are often done without a wiretap order
Really? If an agent runs an intercept without court authorization, they are personally liable for civil damages for running an illegal wiretap. If you know of this happening, you should contact your local US Attorney's office. For more information, check out 18 USC 2520, which says, in part, "any person whose wire, oral, or electronic communication is intercepted, disclosed, or intentionally used in violation of this chapter may in a civil action recover from the person or entity which engaged in that violation such relief as may be appropriate" and then goes on to spell out civil penalties of "the sum of the actual damages suffered by the plaintiff and any profits made by the violator as a result of the violation; or statutory damages of whichever is the greater of $100 a day for each day of violation or $10,000."
Granted, in a computer not all keystrokes are going to be transfered over the network, but how can you, the observing FBI agent, know which are which until you look at all of them? I can't see how you could possibly avoid looking at information (like a typed email) that should be require a wiretap order.
The FBI's tool took very careful steps to not record anything when the user was on-line. It checked whether the modem was in use, Internet Explorer was running, and a few other details. (That information comes from the EPIC web site, sorry I don't have a better link.)
I agree that you could argue that the user was typing an e-mail in Notepad that was going to become a communication, but the typing in Notepad is not, in an of itself, a communication. The actual e-mail leaving the system is a communication only.
How is using a particular OS going to protect you against a physical device that sniffs key strokes? (i.e. something between the keyboard cable and the CPU.) They're commerically available now.
The FBI still had to obtain a search warrant. That means they have to go before a judge and show that there is probable cause (i.e. enough information available to convince a reasonable person) to believe that such a search will yield evidence of a crime. The FBI can't just do this willy-nilly. They have to get a judge's approval first.
Please read the article.
Previously, the FBI had to get a wiretap order, under Title III, which has to be signed by the Attorney General or the Deputy. In this case, the FBI was able to gather their evidence using only a search warrant, which any judge can issue.
The FBI's argument was that because the device only intercepted intra-computer communication (i.e. from the keyboard to the CPU) and not computer to computer communications, those communications are not protected by the Wiretap statute (18 USC 2518).
Ok, great I live in CA but what if the spammer doesn't?
Then you'll be like a French person trying to buy Nazi gear via Yahoo auctions. The law is only valid in California, and AFAIK, other states/countries have no obligation to uphold it.
Here's a better link:
http://www.napster.com/preview/
Is there a reason why the link to Napster is going through fark.com?? They don't appear to have anything to do with Napster...
The New York Times is not Free. It costs 35 cents at the newsstand, or you have to provide a username and password to view it on-line. Either way you have to give them something.
Just because somebody is dead doesn't mean they can't put him in a major motion picture.
Well, if you pay using anything except cash (e.g. credit card, check, almost every payment on the Internet), you do have to give some identifying information. So if you're going to pay for information *and* get it on-line (e.g. Paying for Salon.com or downloading music from a service), you'd better get used to the idea of giving your ID when you pay for things.)
Are you suggesting we replace the editors with a series of FPGAs?
Well, you're right, Ogg Vorbis streaming is cool, but unfortunately it won't work for the BBC in the long run, for reasons you've put in your post.
The problem is that you had to install something to your base system in order to listen to the stream. There are millions (yes, millions) of users who don't want to have to install anything else, they just want things to work straight of the box. These are exactly the sort of people BBC doesn't want calling their tech support. Any costs saved by avoiding Microsoft license fees get eaten up by the phone calls and e-mails that these people will send to the BBC asking "how the heck do I install this silly plugin thing?"
Microsoft isn't about to give up their licensing fee revenue stream without a fight, and so they're not going to include the Ogg Vorbis codec in the Media Player anytime soon.
The BBC is a business. They don't care anything about "free" software versus things they have to pay for. The question is, which costs more: Providing tech support to people so that they can view their content, or writing one simple check to Microsoft. Unfortunately, the business solution is to just pay Microsoft, it's probably cheaper.
Sad, but true.
There's one completely practical aspect of all of this which hasn't been mentioned yet. I volunteer with a dog rescue organization which tries to use the chipping technology to match lost pets with their owners. When it works, it's great.
But the chips, which are usually implanted in the back of the animals neck, can occasionally migrate inside the animal's body. Mostly they just slide down the back, but there have been cases where they just disappear. (I'm sure the chip is in there somewhere, I just don't want to find out...)
Either way though, if it's possible for the chips to move after implantation, I think the technology needs more work before we start putting them in people.
A question: The amount of space users require has increased with the types of files being used (or is it vice versa). EIther way, as we've gone from text files to graphics to audio to video, we've been using more and more space. What comes after video? What's going to be the next disk space hog? (And who's going to be controlling *that* media?)