How is this a victimless crime? Lots of people's identity and finances were put at risk. The fact these kids were doing enough probing to find the hole shows a lack of common sense.
Or maybe you'd like criminals to come in to your neighborhood, case out all of the houses, and break in to yours when your not there. Hey if they don't take anything they've done you a favor by showing you your security issues.
Instead of calling the police you'd probably write them a big check, right?
Some nice points. However, the Internet doesn't solve the "volume, intimidation or mobs to drown us out" scenario. Slashdot itself is full of threads where logical, coherent posts are "drowned out" by the hundreds and hundreds of people firing off short-sighted, knee-jerk responses.
Add to that the fact that if you're discussing a state/regional-specific issue you'll likely have no idea if the chatter is coming from a special interest group located outside of the state/region or not.
It seems you believe Internet discussions happen in a moderated debate fashion - they don't.
The biggest drawback to the lack of face-to-face discussion is that anonymity gives people intellectual "beer muscles". Anonymity can play a role in our society (whistleblowing for one), but it shouldn't play a role in the discourse surrounding public policy.
What makes you believe you can't block the update? Just turn off Automatic Updates. If you have a large network to manage you can just add a group policy to enforce the change on all of your client desktops.
It's not that difficult and they've given folks plenty of notice about this change.
In terms of applications that get broken by SP2, considering that there are thousands of programs that run on Windows XP the list of affected apps is impressively small.
BTW, I run the latest version of Photoshop on my XP SP2 box with no problems at all. What broke for you?
"The unstated premise of the article is that users of an open-source Database are just as much at the mercy of the vendors as are the customers of a proprietary Database. I believe this is not true for the general case. So the author's argument, that Open Source is to be avoided because the vendors Can't Make Money, is fatally flawed."
You misunderstand the article. The author doesn't state (or imply) that Open Source is to be avoided. His argument is that as FOSS software becomes more accepted then companies who choose to rely on FOSS from a strategic standpoint will likely choose FOSS projects that are supported by well-funded companies to mitigate the risk of the development house going out of buisness and then being forced to rely on whoever (if anyone) picks it up from there. No flaws at all, just a realistic look at what businesses are likely to do.
Natch - since the 16th century "verbal" has meant "spoken".
verbal (vûr'bl) pronunciation adj.
1. Of, relating to, or associated with words: a detailed verbal description.
2.
1. Concerned with words only rather than with content or ideas: a merely verbal distinction.
2. Consisting of words alone without action: a verbal confrontation.
3. Expressed in spoken rather than written words; oral: a verbal contract.
4. Corresponding word for word; literal: a verbal translation.
5. Grammar.
1. Relating to, having the nature or function of, or derived from a verb.
2. Used to form verbs: a verbal suffix.
6. Of or relating to proficiency in the use and understanding of words: a verbal aptitude test.
n. Grammar.
A verbal noun or adjective.
[Middle English, from Old French, from Late Latin verblis, from Latin verbum, word. See verb.] ver'bally adv.
USAGE NOTE Verbal has been used since the 16th century to refer to spoken, as opposed to written, communication, and the usage cannot be considered incorrect. But because verbal may also mean "by linguistic means," it may be ambiguous in some contexts. Thus the phrase modern technologies for verbal communication may refer only to devices such as radio, the telephone, and the loudspeaker, or it may refer to devices such as the telegraph, the teletype, and the fax machine. In such contexts it may be clearer to use the word oral to convey the narrower sense of communication by spoken means.
Do the Mac anti-virus progs use the same virus lists as their Windows couterparts? If not, then you can't really claim a download to be clean just because you check it out on a Mac.
It's really easy to implement a policy that will disable automatic updates on all corp clients. They can also block access to the windows update site on the corp firewall.
Actually, it has nothing to do with codecs. It has to do with acquiring a license to play a video file. And you can turn this off if you'd like in WMP. The problem is that most folks have it set to automatically acquire licenses by default.
Nice link and quote. It points to an article from 2002. The quote leaves out some important follow-up information as well - "Admitting this was a flippant answer to a flippant question, Mundie said that chief information officers had only recently begun to demand security, and it is only in the last ten years that Microsoft has attempted to play in the security-requiring worlds of banking payroll and networked systems."
Still not a great response from Mundie, but at least Slashdotters have the whole picture. And, yes, security is a potential revenue stream for MS - but it's through the creation of new products, not charging folks to download and apply patches.
"If Nike can make more profit by making the shoes in Indonesia, they *should* make them there. Eventually things will equalize, but that means wages have to drop in the US and raise in Indonesia. Othewise it's just going to be cheaper to produce in Indonesia, so that's where it will happen."
You're right, things will equalize. Do you want to live off the worldwide "average" salary? I don't know what that number is but I would bet it's south of $5,000.
Please explain to me how I can make a backup of my beer - my wife is complaining about my beer tab. BTW - buying more beer is making a backup.
"You can make a backup of your prescription drugs (assuming your prescription covers the amount of your backup, it's perfectly legal to posses that new amount, though you might have trouble proving you weren't selling the rest)."
You aren't making a backup of you prescription, you're buying extra in case you lose some of it. Mr. Valenti would say that you're more than welcome to purchase as many "backup" DVDs as you'd like.
The Boston Tea Party had nothing to do with freedom - it was an act against what they perceived as an unfair trade policy. Essentially, they (local tea wholesalers) rallied against what we might consider today to be fair trade. The British government passed an act that eliminated tax on tea and allowed the East Inida Tea Company to bypass the local colonial wholesalers (who were selling smuggled tea from Holland) and sell directly to consumers. Consumers got tea at a lower price because of it.
To put that in to a modern context... Suppose a group of local buisness owners rally together to loot a local WalMart because Walmart's lower prices hurt their buisness. Would that be a demonstration of a basic value of American democracy?
Read the whole second amendment and then go to this URL: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/am endment02/ to see how the amendment has been interpreted over time. Even back in the early 1800's people did not have carte blanche when it came to owning and carrying guns.
In this case intent does not equal "intent to kill" - which is the basis for murder 1. A person could be driving their car 100mph through a street fair without intending to injure someone and end up killing quite a few people. They had no intent to kill, but clearly they should know they were acting in a way that is likely to injure/kill and are acting with extreme indifference to human life.
That would make them a murder 2 candidate. Just like the DVD-driver.
Here is a link to another negligent driver being charged with murder 2:
Do a Google search on Murder 2 cases and cars and you'll see lots of arrests being made where the person didn't intend to kill someone, but acted in a negligent way and did.
Here, I'll make it easy for you. The crime took place in Alaska, right? Here's the definition of Murder 2 from the Alaska criminal code - please pay attention to bullet #2 and note it does not depend on intent or malice. The only thing they need to prove is indifference to human life, which they can probably prove:
AS 11.41.110. Murder in the Second Degree.
(a) A person commits the crime of murder in the second degree if
(1) with intent to cause serious physical injury to another person or knowing that the conduct is substantially certain to cause death or serious physical injury to another person, the person causes the death of any person;
(2) the person knowingly engages in conduct that results in the death of another person under circumstances manifesting an extreme indifference to the value of human life;
(3) under circumstances not amounting to murder in the first degree under AS 11.41.100 (a)(3), while acting either alone or with one or more persons, the person commits or attempts to commit arson in the first degree, kidnapping, sexual assault in the first degree, sexual assault in the second degree, sexual abuse of a minor in the first degree, sexual abuse of a minor in the second degree, burglary in the first degree, escape in the first or second degree, robbery in any degree, or misconduct involving a controlled substance under AS 11.71.010 (a), 11.71.020(a), 11.71.030(a)(1) or (2), or 11.71.040(a)(1) or (2) and, in the course of or in furtherance of that crime or in immediate flight from that crime, any person causes the death of a person other than one of the participants;
(4) acting with a criminal street gang, the person commits or attempts to commit a crime that is a felony and, in the course of or in furtherance of that crime or in immediate flight from that crime, any person causes the death of a person other than one of the participants; or
(5) the person with criminal negligence causes the death of a child under the age of 16, and the person has been previously convicted of a crime involving a child under the age of 16 that was
(A) a felony violation of AS 11.41;
(B) in violation of a law or ordinance in another jurisdiction with elements similar to a felony under AS 11.41; or
(C) an attempt, a solicitation, or a conspiracy to commit a crime listed in (A) or (B) of this paragraph.
The last sentence in your definition from Cornell is interesting: "Any other murder is murder in the second degree." The findlaw definition is consistent with this one - and gives more detail as to what is meant by "any other murder."
I don't think the prosecutor will have a hard time showing the driver was engaged in dangerous conduct and that his actions show a lack of concern for human life.
I think the law supports of charge of either murder 2 or manslaughter.
Second-degree murder is ordinarily defined as 1) an intentional killing that is not premeditated or planned, nor committed in a reasonable "heat of passion" or 2) a killing caused by dangerous conduct and the offender's obvious lack of concern for human life. Second-degree murder may best be viewed as the middle ground between first-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter.
"Intent" is not a necessary ingredient for murder 2. The drivers actions could easily fall under #2 above. The prosecuter is using the correct charge.
Second-degree murder is ordinarily defined as 1) an intentional killing that is not premeditated or planned, nor committed in a reasonable "heat of passion" or 2) a killing caused by dangerous conduct and the offender's obvious lack of concern for human life. Second-degree murder may best be viewed as the middle ground between first-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter.
The drivers actions in the article clearly fall under #2 above.
In the article it stated the other person in the car didn't know how the accident happened because he was spacing out watching a movie. That makes me believe a movie was playing.
How do you know the AI is created by another entity? Why does the setup dictate a creator/createe relationship?
Is it because the AI is a complex object that could not have occurred by mere chance? Does a car fall into the same category? How about a watch? If I showed you a fully loaded car with tons of bells and whistles and told you it appeared to me by chance, would you believe that? I know I sure wouldn't because the car is complex and could not have come about by mere chance. There must have been something/someone intelligent that created it.
No, it's because in your post you said: "Let's say I was smart enough to create an AI with the intelligence of a human and put it on a PC."
That statement alone sets the scene in a way where there is absolutely a creator, the only thing to figure out is how the created object interprets its origin.
I'm not attacking your beliefs, just the analogy you're using to support a position.
Slashdot Mirror
How is this a victimless crime? Lots of people's identity and finances were put at risk. The fact these kids were doing enough probing to find the hole shows a lack of common sense.
Or maybe you'd like criminals to come in to your neighborhood, case out all of the houses, and break in to yours when your not there. Hey if they don't take anything they've done you a favor by showing you your security issues.
Instead of calling the police you'd probably write them a big check, right?
Maybe you should RTFA...
From the article:
"I decided to try and analyse the results produced by Google and IIS and compare them for bias."
"A perl script was used to perform searches against Google and MSN and scrape the results."
No other search engines are mentioned in the article.
Some nice points. However, the Internet doesn't solve the "volume, intimidation or mobs to drown us out" scenario. Slashdot itself is full of threads where logical, coherent posts are "drowned out" by the hundreds and hundreds of people firing off short-sighted, knee-jerk responses.
Add to that the fact that if you're discussing a state/regional-specific issue you'll likely have no idea if the chatter is coming from a special interest group located outside of the state/region or not.
It seems you believe Internet discussions happen in a moderated debate fashion - they don't.
The biggest drawback to the lack of face-to-face discussion is that anonymity gives people intellectual "beer muscles". Anonymity can play a role in our society (whistleblowing for one), but it shouldn't play a role in the discourse surrounding public policy.
Yeah, great point. But what does that have to do with the whole "being arrested" thing because folks thought they were counterfeit?
What makes you believe you can't block the update? Just turn off Automatic Updates. If you have a large network to manage you can just add a group policy to enforce the change on all of your client desktops.
It's not that difficult and they've given folks plenty of notice about this change.
In terms of applications that get broken by SP2, considering that there are thousands of programs that run on Windows XP the list of affected apps is impressively small.
BTW, I run the latest version of Photoshop on my XP SP2 box with no problems at all. What broke for you?
"The unstated premise of the article is that users of an open-source Database are just as much at the mercy of the vendors as are the customers of a proprietary Database. I believe this is not true for the general case. So the author's argument, that Open Source is to be avoided because the vendors Can't Make Money, is fatally flawed."
You misunderstand the article. The author doesn't state (or imply) that Open Source is to be avoided. His argument is that as FOSS software becomes more accepted then companies who choose to rely on FOSS from a strategic standpoint will likely choose FOSS projects that are supported by well-funded companies to mitigate the risk of the development house going out of buisness and then being forced to rely on whoever (if anyone) picks it up from there. No flaws at all, just a realistic look at what businesses are likely to do.
Natch - since the 16th century "verbal" has meant "spoken".
verbal (vûr'bl) pronunciation
adj.
1. Of, relating to, or associated with words: a detailed verbal description.
2.
1. Concerned with words only rather than with content or ideas: a merely verbal distinction.
2. Consisting of words alone without action: a verbal confrontation.
3. Expressed in spoken rather than written words; oral: a verbal contract.
4. Corresponding word for word; literal: a verbal translation.
5. Grammar.
1. Relating to, having the nature or function of, or derived from a verb.
2. Used to form verbs: a verbal suffix.
6. Of or relating to proficiency in the use and understanding of words: a verbal aptitude test.
n. Grammar.
A verbal noun or adjective.
[Middle English, from Old French, from Late Latin verblis, from Latin verbum, word. See verb.]
ver'bally adv.
USAGE NOTE Verbal has been used since the 16th century to refer to spoken, as opposed to written, communication, and the usage cannot be considered incorrect. But because verbal may also mean "by linguistic means," it may be ambiguous in some contexts. Thus the phrase modern technologies for verbal communication may refer only to devices such as radio, the telephone, and the loudspeaker, or it may refer to devices such as the telegraph, the teletype, and the fax machine. In such contexts it may be clearer to use the word oral to convey the narrower sense of communication by spoken means.
Do the Mac anti-virus progs use the same virus lists as their Windows couterparts? If not, then you can't really claim a download to be clean just because you check it out on a Mac.
It's really easy to implement a policy that will disable automatic updates on all corp clients. They can also block access to the windows update site on the corp firewall.
Actually, it has nothing to do with codecs. It has to do with acquiring a license to play a video file. And you can turn this off if you'd like in WMP. The problem is that most folks have it set to automatically acquire licenses by default.
Nice link and quote. It points to an article from 2002. The quote leaves out some important follow-up information as well - "Admitting this was a flippant answer to a flippant question, Mundie said that chief information officers had only recently begun to demand security, and it is only in the last ten years that Microsoft has attempted to play in the security-requiring worlds of banking payroll and networked systems."
Still not a great response from Mundie, but at least Slashdotters have the whole picture. And, yes, security is a potential revenue stream for MS - but it's through the creation of new products, not charging folks to download and apply patches.
"If Nike can make more profit by making the shoes in Indonesia, they *should* make them there. Eventually things will equalize, but that means wages have to drop in the US and raise in Indonesia. Othewise it's just going to be cheaper to produce in Indonesia, so that's where it will happen."
You're right, things will equalize. Do you want to live off the worldwide "average" salary? I don't know what that number is but I would bet it's south of $5,000.
"You can make a backup of your beer."
Please explain to me how I can make a backup of my beer - my wife is complaining about my beer tab. BTW - buying more beer is making a backup.
"You can make a backup of your prescription drugs (assuming your prescription covers the amount of your backup, it's perfectly legal to posses that new amount, though you might have trouble proving you weren't selling the rest)."
You aren't making a backup of you prescription, you're buying extra in case you lose some of it. Mr. Valenti would say that you're more than welcome to purchase as many "backup" DVDs as you'd like.
The Boston Tea Party had nothing to do with freedom - it was an act against what they perceived as an unfair trade policy. Essentially, they (local tea wholesalers) rallied against what we might consider today to be fair trade. The British government passed an act that eliminated tax on tea and allowed the East Inida Tea Company to bypass the local colonial wholesalers (who were selling smuggled tea from Holland) and sell directly to consumers. Consumers got tea at a lower price because of it.
To put that in to a modern context... Suppose a group of local buisness owners rally together to loot a local WalMart because Walmart's lower prices hurt their buisness. Would that be a demonstration of a basic value of American democracy?
Read the whole second amendment and then go to this URL: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/am endment02/ to see how the amendment has been interpreted over time. Even back in the early 1800's people did not have carte blanche when it came to owning and carrying guns.
How is the Boston Tea Party a demonstration? Is looting a store and throwing the goods in the river a "demonstration"?
They were criminals. They were our criminals which is why we think it was a cool event.
In this case intent does not equal "intent to kill" - which is the basis for murder 1. A person could be driving their car 100mph through a street fair without intending to injure someone and end up killing quite a few people. They had no intent to kill, but clearly they should know they were acting in a way that is likely to injure/kill and are acting with extreme indifference to human life.
0 4/ 04/29/BAG256CGCQ1.DTL
That would make them a murder 2 candidate. Just like the DVD-driver.
Here is a link to another negligent driver being charged with murder 2:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/20
Do a Google search on Murder 2 cases and cars and you'll see lots of arrests being made where the person didn't intend to kill someone, but acted in a negligent way and did.
Here, I'll make it easy for you. The crime took place in Alaska, right? Here's the definition of Murder 2 from the Alaska criminal code - please pay attention to bullet #2 and note it does not depend on intent or malice. The only thing they need to prove is indifference to human life, which they can probably prove:
AS 11.41.110. Murder in the Second Degree.
(a) A person commits the crime of murder in the second degree if
(1) with intent to cause serious physical injury to another person or knowing that the conduct is substantially certain to cause death or serious physical injury to another person, the person causes the death of any person;
(2) the person knowingly engages in conduct that results in the death of another person under circumstances manifesting an extreme indifference to the value of human life;
(3) under circumstances not amounting to murder in the first degree under AS 11.41.100 (a)(3), while acting either alone or with one or more persons, the person commits or attempts to commit arson in the first degree, kidnapping, sexual assault in the first degree, sexual assault in the second degree, sexual abuse of a minor in the first degree, sexual abuse of a minor in the second degree, burglary in the first degree, escape in the first or second degree, robbery in any degree, or misconduct involving a controlled substance under AS 11.71.010 (a), 11.71.020(a), 11.71.030(a)(1) or (2), or 11.71.040(a)(1) or (2) and, in the course of or in furtherance of that crime or in immediate flight from that crime, any person causes the death of a person other than one of the participants;
(4) acting with a criminal street gang, the person commits or attempts to commit a crime that is a felony and, in the course of or in furtherance of that crime or in immediate flight from that crime, any person causes the death of a person other than one of the participants; or
(5) the person with criminal negligence causes the death of a child under the age of 16, and the person has been previously convicted of a crime involving a child under the age of 16 that was
(A) a felony violation of AS 11.41;
(B) in violation of a law or ordinance in another jurisdiction with elements similar to a felony under AS 11.41; or
(C) an attempt, a solicitation, or a conspiracy to commit a crime listed in (A) or (B) of this paragraph.
The last sentence in your definition from Cornell is interesting: "Any other murder is murder in the second degree." The findlaw definition is consistent with this one - and gives more detail as to what is meant by "any other murder."
I don't think the prosecutor will have a hard time showing the driver was engaged in dangerous conduct and that his actions show a lack of concern for human life.
I think the law supports of charge of either murder 2 or manslaughter.
From Findlaw:
Second-degree murder is ordinarily defined as 1) an intentional killing that is not premeditated or planned, nor committed in a reasonable "heat of passion" or 2) a killing caused by dangerous conduct and the offender's obvious lack of concern for human life. Second-degree murder may best be viewed as the middle ground between first-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter.
"Intent" is not a necessary ingredient for murder 2. The drivers actions could easily fall under #2 above. The prosecuter is using the correct charge.
From Findlaw:
Second-degree murder is ordinarily defined as 1) an intentional killing that is not premeditated or planned, nor committed in a reasonable "heat of passion" or 2) a killing caused by dangerous conduct and the offender's obvious lack of concern for human life. Second-degree murder may best be viewed as the middle ground between first-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter.
The drivers actions in the article clearly fall under #2 above.
In the article it stated the other person in the car didn't know how the accident happened because he was spacing out watching a movie. That makes me believe a movie was playing.
If someone writes a worm/virus that ends up costing me money...well, I can always make more money.
There's really no way to recover from being murdered.
No, it's because in your post you said: "Let's say I was smart enough to create an AI with the intelligence of a human and put it on a PC."
That statement alone sets the scene in a way where there is absolutely a creator, the only thing to figure out is how the created object interprets its origin.
I'm not attacking your beliefs, just the analogy you're using to support a position.
Two reasons:
One - It is based on an object (computer/AI)we know is created by another entity. The setup dictates a creator/createe relationship.
Two - It presumes the evidence was left by some deity and that belief/atheist is just a matter of good or bad interpretation.