Look at the two Stuart Little movies. CGI mouse with a known actor (Michael J. Fox) doing the voice. CGI can only go far right now, mostly being in the "cartoon character" stage, without alienating the viewing audience.
Ah, right. Shows how much I know about stocks then. Still, trading at $0.40 a share is pretty crappy, no matter how many outstanding shares are out there.
Considering that Sonic Blue is trading at $0.40 a share, it's pretty much tanked already. With a volume of 386,565 shares, any investor who wanted to (why, I have no idea) could buy those outstanding shares for $154,526, plus broker fees.
Of course, it is a small company. As a reference point, Microsoft (which is trading at $48, off from it's yearly high around $70) has an outstanding volume of over 19 million shares.
Face facts, in the grand scheme of things, Sonic Blue probably isn't even big enough to register at Camp Get-them-Execs (aka the White House).
Yes, it's deplorable that it should be possible for them to get away with it. It's even more deplorable that they probably will get away with it.
Or you could always kill the lizard and then cook it.....
Oh wait, that would translate, in your analogy, to killing the customer (and then probably selling the nearest funeral home the information about the death). Well, they haven't done that yet, have they?
Okay, what if someone is able to access, through faulty security, the information stored in say, 10,000 Passport accounts at one time. Would that be one incident, for the $11,000 fine, or 10,000 incidents (i.e. each Passport account accessed is a separate incident) for a $110 million fine?
Nine megs for the secretaries fair, Seven megs for the hackers scarce, Five megs for the grads in smoky lairs, Three megs for the system source.
One disk to rule them all, One disk to bind them, One disk to hold the files, And in the darkness grind them. In the lands of Redmond, where the shadows lie. -Unknown
Of course kicking the cube wall accomplishes something. It lets the person in the next cube over know you're upset about something and not to bother you.
And what kind of public awareness? TV? They dumb it down so more people can understand it. Radio? The same. Newspapers? Please.
You're going to run into one of two cases. Either the above, where you can't expect the public to get the entire picture, or forms of media so marginalized that you're probably only reaching the people who know about this kind of thing already. (Gee, like Slashdot....)
Someone needs to hit the people in charge of the RIAA with a clue-bat several times, and not for the inducement of concussion.
"Hey, we're not nearly gouging the artists and the paying public out of nearly enough money, and we have these completely bogus statistics that webcasting is costing us money somehow. Why don't we drive this free method of advertising out of business?"
"Sounds like a plan. Oh, and people are humming some of the songs we control, and not paying for it either. Why don't we get Berman to enact a law against that as well?"
The problem is, society as a whole did not set the usage. There are still quite a lot of people who know the difference between a hacker and a cracker. The news media and the government sound-bites have tried to set the usage, but that doesn't stop people from trying to correct them.
Personally, I'd say that if a programmer knowingly and willingly created/promulgated bugs and vulnerabilities, there should be some sort of legal response to that. If it's a bug/vulnerability that was not obvious or possible to be noticed until distribution, that should not carry anywhere near the amount of action against the programmer. (They should still fix it, mind you.)
Likewise, someone who publishes bugs and vulnerabilities with no actual interest in seeing those fixed should be hammered as well. I mean, if it's a cracker or a script kiddie who is publishing vulnerabilities so that other crackers and script kiddies can exploit them, well, that's just as bad as not fixing the vulnerability. If it's someone publishing them with the intended purpose of having them fixed, again, different circumstances.
Um, no. Hacking is not a crime. Cracking is a crime. The term 'hacking' has been misused by government "experts", reporters who can't learn the difference, and idiots since damn near the dawn of the age of the Internet. I put you in the last category.
Um, if it's a simple Caesar cipher (i.e. all characters in the message are shifted a constant number of characters) then at most you'll have 25 1-place iterations, at most (assuming that you're only using alphabetic characters; if you're using alpha-numeric characters, it's at most 35 1-place iterations) to go through before you "stumble" on the right answer...
Whether or not it is a trade secret in the traditional sense of the term is irrelevent. These companies spent signifigant man-hours compiling these lists. Forcing the publication of these lists would be unfair to the companies.
Yeah, it brings me to tears to force a company to be accountable for it's actions. It produces a software that claims to filter web-sites. We cannot judge how accurate that claim is because of the DMCA. Therefore, as far as we, the consumer, knows, we are buying the program blind. And with government mandated filtering software, we're paying for it with our tax money. We deserve to know if that money is being spent effectively and productively.
Are libraries forced to provide lists of all the books they decided against carrying?
Been in a library much? All the ones around here, it's fairly easy to tell what they do and don't have. It's either listed in a card catalog or listed in a computer index (or both). If it's not listed, I go ask a librarian, and they can tell me whether they can get a copy through library-sharing programs. If they can't get a copy, guess what, they also tell me that. Therefore, a list can be generated, by brute force methods, if nothing else. Hell(tm), most libraries would probably be willing to provide lists of materials they never plan on acquiring, just to make things simpler for the people who would routinely ask. Your arguement lacks wang.
Fact of the matter is this. The filtering software promises to filter out "offensive" sites. However, because most filtering software does not easily allow the easy access to the criteria judging whether any given site is filtered, we have no idea whether it's doing a proper job, under-performing, or over-reacting.
While I don't like the idea of Johnny 4th-grader seeing pr0n from his school's computers, I also don't like the idea of those same children being "protected" falsely from sites that should not be filtered out because the designers of the software set the program up to filter out too much.
So what you're saying is that a list of URL's and the decision making trees to add to that list of URLs is now a trade secret? Bollocks.
Most of these filtering programs use fairly simple (read: stupid) decision-making trees to determine whether a site is banned or not. Sure, it's real easy to see that most pr0n sites are banned, but guess what... they haven't gotten them all.
And quite frankly, with the idea of "government mandated" filtering software, as a tax-paying citizen, I should have the right to know what sites and/or topics will be banned should I decide to use any of the computers that have these filtering programs on them.
So what's keeping some small company that hates the DMCA from somehow taking a DMCA case to court? Okay, there's probably something illegal about manufacturing your own DMCA violation in order to take it to court in order to get the DMCA overthrown, but could it be done?
They have themselves to blame for a lot of this, considering the amount of advertising the telecom giants have been doing to get people to hop on the cable/DSL/whatever band(width)wagon. So you have all the costs incurred with the advertising, the support structure, etc. and considering some of the price wars they have been having, it's not overly surprising that when one of the big ones should declare bankruptcy (okay, they haven't done that yet, but it's damn near a certainty come Monday), everybody else starts getting nervous...
Take a look at various telecom stocks and see if you don't see a lot of lack of trust in those stocks....
I am reminded of a Dudley Moore movie called "Crazy People", where Moore's character was sent to an insane asylum for suggesting that advertising use the truth....
Such gems as "Volvo: We're boxy but we're safe." and "Don't go to France, the French are rude. Come to Jamaica, we're nicer."
Of course, I am also reminded of the time I ordered food at Denny's and asked for the burger that looked just like the one on the menu. The waitress laughed.
Why? Because he's saying that if you want to read his works, either go out and buy a copy or go to a library and check it out?
The first costs you around $6 or less, at least in these parts what with all the used bookstores, and the second costs you practically nothing.
Sure, it's "intellectual property" in the same terms as music and may contain all the self-aggrandizing baggage the average/. thinks may pertain to that topic, but it is different.
I'm sorry, but if an author's belief that you shouldn't steal stops you from paying money for his books, I question whether you were ever interested in his books to begin with.
Your assumption is that only one ISP is being hit with these C&Ds. It's spread over a lot of different ISPs. It's not like AOL (as an example) is solely taking the hit to the wallet on this.
Yeah, but even with inflated CD prices, that does not equal a loss of $150 to the RIAA or the recording labels. First, there is the percentage that the store you're buying it at gets. They have to get a small amount at least, otherwise, why would they waste valuable space in the store on that item when they could put something else there?
Then there is a cut for whatever business got the album to the store. Depending on the store (if it's a large chain or not), it might be a licensed distributor of the label, or it might not.
There's also a nominal cut for the artist.
And taxes on the CDs go to the appropriate government agencies to waste on things like $400 toilet seats.
The label gets the lion's share of it, of course, but it's by no means the entire amount.
Sure, it might equal lost sales, but from my POV, if the record labels represented by the RIAA can't do anything but churn out the crap that they have been, they deserve to lose record sales.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to out and legitimately buy the one CD I've shown any interest in getting, and that was only through hearing an mp3 of one of the songs.
It was hyperbole. The vast majority of Chinese either know nothing about what the Falun Gong are really like, or they are told exaggerations. The Chinese government has shown, repeatedly, that they have no compunctions about jailing Falun Gong members for what most Americans would consider little to no reason at all. (Actually, most Americans would consider it a basic freedom...)
BTW, four members of the Falun Gong were jailed for broadcasting information on a state cable television network on May 18. Two of them received seven years in jail, the other two got 15+ years each. Hundreds of members of the Falun Gong have been sent to jail for lengthy terms on the basis of vaguely worded statues already.
So, do you honestly think that this same Chinese government is not going to avail itself of any means to keep other Chinese from considering joining the Falun Gong?
Slashdot Mirror
Look at the two Stuart Little movies. CGI mouse with a known actor (Michael J. Fox) doing the voice. CGI can only go far right now, mostly being in the "cartoon character" stage, without alienating the viewing audience.
Kierthos
Ah, right. Shows how much I know about stocks then. Still, trading at $0.40 a share is pretty crappy, no matter how many outstanding shares are out there.
Kierthos
Considering that Sonic Blue is trading at $0.40 a share, it's pretty much tanked already. With a volume of 386,565 shares, any investor who wanted to (why, I have no idea) could buy those outstanding shares for $154,526, plus broker fees.
Of course, it is a small company. As a reference point, Microsoft (which is trading at $48, off from it's yearly high around $70) has an outstanding volume of over 19 million shares.
Face facts, in the grand scheme of things, Sonic Blue probably isn't even big enough to register at Camp Get-them-Execs (aka the White House).
Yes, it's deplorable that it should be possible for them to get away with it. It's even more deplorable that they probably will get away with it.
Kierthos
Or you could always kill the lizard and then cook it.....
Oh wait, that would translate, in your analogy, to killing the customer (and then probably selling the nearest funeral home the information about the death). Well, they haven't done that yet, have they?
Kierthos
Rather, centralization can be bad. It can be good. It all depends on the implementation. Oh whoops, we all know about M$'s track record on that....
Kierthos
Okay, what if someone is able to access, through faulty security, the information stored in say, 10,000 Passport accounts at one time. Would that be one incident, for the $11,000 fine, or 10,000 incidents (i.e. each Passport account accessed is a separate incident) for a $110 million fine?
Kierthos
"Oh, Mr. Arbogast, it's time for your memory wipe so you can truly claim to know of no problems with our products!" - the M$ Public Relations Team.
Kierthos
Nine megs for the secretaries fair,
Seven megs for the hackers scarce,
Five megs for the grads in smoky lairs,
Three megs for the system source.
One disk to rule them all,
One disk to bind them,
One disk to hold the files,
And in the darkness grind them.
In the lands of Redmond, where the shadows lie.
-Unknown
Kierthos
Of course kicking the cube wall accomplishes something. It lets the person in the next cube over know you're upset about something and not to bother you.
And what kind of public awareness? TV? They dumb it down so more people can understand it. Radio? The same. Newspapers? Please.
You're going to run into one of two cases. Either the above, where you can't expect the public to get the entire picture, or forms of media so marginalized that you're probably only reaching the people who know about this kind of thing already. (Gee, like Slashdot....)
Kierthos
It also seems to me that M$ was "requiring" Passports to use certain other services they provided....
Nothing I use, mind you....
Kierthos
Someone needs to hit the people in charge of the RIAA with a clue-bat several times, and not for the inducement of concussion.
"Hey, we're not nearly gouging the artists and the paying public out of nearly enough money, and we have these completely bogus statistics that webcasting is costing us money somehow. Why don't we drive this free method of advertising out of business?"
"Sounds like a plan. Oh, and people are humming some of the songs we control, and not paying for it either. Why don't we get Berman to enact a law against that as well?"
Kierthos
That's with shipping and handling, which typically runs 8-10 dollars with Amazon (but it all depends on what/how much you buy).
Kierthos
The problem is, society as a whole did not set the usage. There are still quite a lot of people who know the difference between a hacker and a cracker. The news media and the government sound-bites have tried to set the usage, but that doesn't stop people from trying to correct them.
Kierthos
Personally, I'd say that if a programmer knowingly and willingly created/promulgated bugs and vulnerabilities, there should be some sort of legal response to that. If it's a bug/vulnerability that was not obvious or possible to be noticed until distribution, that should not carry anywhere near the amount of action against the programmer. (They should still fix it, mind you.)
Likewise, someone who publishes bugs and vulnerabilities with no actual interest in seeing those fixed should be hammered as well. I mean, if it's a cracker or a script kiddie who is publishing vulnerabilities so that other crackers and script kiddies can exploit them, well, that's just as bad as not fixing the vulnerability. If it's someone publishing them with the intended purpose of having them fixed, again, different circumstances.
Kierthos
Um, no. Hacking is not a crime. Cracking is a crime. The term 'hacking' has been misused by government "experts", reporters who can't learn the difference, and idiots since damn near the dawn of the age of the Internet. I put you in the last category.
Kierthos
Um, if it's a simple Caesar cipher (i.e. all characters in the message are shifted a constant number of characters) then at most you'll have 25 1-place iterations, at most (assuming that you're only using alphabetic characters; if you're using alpha-numeric characters, it's at most 35 1-place iterations) to go through before you "stumble" on the right answer...
Now, if it's a Vigenere cipher, that's different.
Kierthos
Whether or not it is a trade secret in the traditional sense of the term is irrelevent. These companies spent signifigant man-hours compiling these lists. Forcing the publication of these lists would be unfair to the companies.
Yeah, it brings me to tears to force a company to be accountable for it's actions. It produces a software that claims to filter web-sites. We cannot judge how accurate that claim is because of the DMCA. Therefore, as far as we, the consumer, knows, we are buying the program blind. And with government mandated filtering software, we're paying for it with our tax money. We deserve to know if that money is being spent effectively and productively.
Are libraries forced to provide lists of all the books they decided against carrying?
Been in a library much? All the ones around here, it's fairly easy to tell what they do and don't have. It's either listed in a card catalog or listed in a computer index (or both). If it's not listed, I go ask a librarian, and they can tell me whether they can get a copy through library-sharing programs. If they can't get a copy, guess what, they also tell me that. Therefore, a list can be generated, by brute force methods, if nothing else. Hell(tm), most libraries would probably be willing to provide lists of materials they never plan on acquiring, just to make things simpler for the people who would routinely ask. Your arguement lacks wang.
Fact of the matter is this. The filtering software promises to filter out "offensive" sites. However, because most filtering software does not easily allow the easy access to the criteria judging whether any given site is filtered, we have no idea whether it's doing a proper job, under-performing, or over-reacting.
While I don't like the idea of Johnny 4th-grader seeing pr0n from his school's computers, I also don't like the idea of those same children being "protected" falsely from sites that should not be filtered out because the designers of the software set the program up to filter out too much.
Kierthos
So what you're saying is that a list of URL's and the decision making trees to add to that list of URLs is now a trade secret? Bollocks.
Most of these filtering programs use fairly simple (read: stupid) decision-making trees to determine whether a site is banned or not. Sure, it's real easy to see that most pr0n sites are banned, but guess what... they haven't gotten them all.
And quite frankly, with the idea of "government mandated" filtering software, as a tax-paying citizen, I should have the right to know what sites and/or topics will be banned should I decide to use any of the computers that have these filtering programs on them.
Kierthos
So what's keeping some small company that hates the DMCA from somehow taking a DMCA case to court? Okay, there's probably something illegal about manufacturing your own DMCA violation in order to take it to court in order to get the DMCA overthrown, but could it be done?
Kierthos
They have themselves to blame for a lot of this, considering the amount of advertising the telecom giants have been doing to get people to hop on the cable/DSL/whatever band(width)wagon. So you have all the costs incurred with the advertising, the support structure, etc. and considering some of the price wars they have been having, it's not overly surprising that when one of the big ones should declare bankruptcy (okay, they haven't done that yet, but it's damn near a certainty come Monday), everybody else starts getting nervous...
Take a look at various telecom stocks and see if you don't see a lot of lack of trust in those stocks....
Kierthos
I am reminded of a Dudley Moore movie called "Crazy People", where Moore's character was sent to an insane asylum for suggesting that advertising use the truth....
Such gems as "Volvo: We're boxy but we're safe." and "Don't go to France, the French are rude. Come to Jamaica, we're nicer."
Of course, I am also reminded of the time I ordered food at Denny's and asked for the burger that looked just like the one on the menu. The waitress laughed.
Kierthos
Why? Because he's saying that if you want to read his works, either go out and buy a copy or go to a library and check it out?
/. thinks may pertain to that topic, but it is different.
The first costs you around $6 or less, at least in these parts what with all the used bookstores, and the second costs you practically nothing.
Sure, it's "intellectual property" in the same terms as music and may contain all the self-aggrandizing baggage the average
I'm sorry, but if an author's belief that you shouldn't steal stops you from paying money for his books, I question whether you were ever interested in his books to begin with.
Kierthos
Your assumption is that only one ISP is being hit with these C&Ds. It's spread over a lot of different ISPs. It's not like AOL (as an example) is solely taking the hit to the wallet on this.
Kierthos
Yeah, but even with inflated CD prices, that does not equal a loss of $150 to the RIAA or the recording labels. First, there is the percentage that the store you're buying it at gets. They have to get a small amount at least, otherwise, why would they waste valuable space in the store on that item when they could put something else there?
Then there is a cut for whatever business got the album to the store. Depending on the store (if it's a large chain or not), it might be a licensed distributor of the label, or it might not.
There's also a nominal cut for the artist.
And taxes on the CDs go to the appropriate government agencies to waste on things like $400 toilet seats.
The label gets the lion's share of it, of course, but it's by no means the entire amount.
Sure, it might equal lost sales, but from my POV, if the record labels represented by the RIAA can't do anything but churn out the crap that they have been, they deserve to lose record sales.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to out and legitimately buy the one CD I've shown any interest in getting, and that was only through hearing an mp3 of one of the songs.
Kierthos
It was hyperbole. The vast majority of Chinese either know nothing about what the Falun Gong are really like, or they are told exaggerations. The Chinese government has shown, repeatedly, that they have no compunctions about jailing Falun Gong members for what most Americans would consider little to no reason at all. (Actually, most Americans would consider it a basic freedom...)
BTW, four members of the Falun Gong were jailed for broadcasting information on a state cable television network on May 18. Two of them received seven years in jail, the other two got 15+ years each. Hundreds of members of the Falun Gong have been sent to jail for lengthy terms on the basis of vaguely worded statues already.
So, do you honestly think that this same Chinese government is not going to avail itself of any means to keep other Chinese from considering joining the Falun Gong?
Kierthos