His movie broke plenty of records, so I'm sure the box-office employees will be doing fine, they're paid hourly anyway, and unless people stop making movies, they'll have jobs.
Paid hourly? With what? Fairy dust? No. Their pay comes from ticket and concession sales. Over the long run, fewer tickets sold might mean smaller raises. Or it could mean that the theatre doesn't remain profitable and closes down. Don't tell me you've never seen a theatre that has gone out of business.
Besides, when a theatre has 8 movies and only one of them is going gangbusters, it's not like the sales from that movie are not important. For every "Fahrenheit 9/11", there are plenty of movies like "Gigli", "You Got Served", and "Torque."
The MPAA really needs some better PR people. I'm on Michael Moore's side, but the MPAA has an easy response to his stand on piracy.
Michael Moore:
"I do well enough already and I made this film because I want the world, to change. The more people who see it the better, so I'm happy this is happening."
The correct response from the MPAA should be something along the lines of:
"While we are happy that Michael Moore's films have brought him financial success, we are disappointed in his apparent lack of empathy for the movie theatre employees who rely on box-office ticket sales for their much more modest incomes."
Again, my views are in line with Michael Moore's regarding fair use, but I'm still capable of recognizing valid arguments against that position.
The vast majority of orders from the following countries are FRAUDULENT:
* Romania
* Indonesia
* Singapore (see note below)
* Ghana (a rising star of fraud!)
* Ukraine
* Uganda
* Nigeria
* Hungary
* Belarus
* Bulgaria
* Estonia
* Latvia
* Lithuania
* Slovak Republic
* Russia
* Yugoslavia
* Macedonia
* Phillipines
* Thailand
* Malaysia (see note below)
There are many others who also report that Macedonia is a haven for online fraud and I suggest that you do this Google search to see for yourself.
I'm not trolling here, i'm just curious: you seem to be ready and willing to write them off as crooks because they're on a list without taking the time to wonder how they got on that list.
For-profit businesses are not going to refuse to do business with an entire country solely based on unsubstantiated rumor. Merchants share information. So do credit card companies. The reason that Macedonia is blacklisted is because of the high incidence of credit card fraud.
Asking someone to complain to their government because they can't order something over the internet is a waste of time: even if it did work (and that's a big if) it would take a long time for anything to happen whereas most people order on the internet because they want things now - not in six months or two years or whenever the next election comes around.
This is so screwed up that it's amazing! That's like saying "the majority of black people in the U.S. wanted civil rights immediately, so why did they waste time protesting when it would take years to ever effect a change?"
Macedonia's problem is that, with 90,000 internet users in a population of 2 million, companies just don't care.
So think about this: How much fraud had to be taking place with an online population of only 90,000 in order for a tiny country like Macedonia to appear on a blacklist? It's scary when you think about it in those terms.
You're right; as soon as I'd posted it, I realised that having Vin peering out from behind his net curtains and reporting dodgy characters to the police would make a far more exciting movie.
I don't know if it would be more exciting, but it would be funnier.
[deep announcer voice] See Vin Diesel as you've never seen him before! Bad guys don't stand a chance when Vin Diesel puts the police on auto-dial. See "Neighborhood Watch: The Final Solution."
[Weasly accountant voice] This movie rated PG-13 for audience giggling, laughter, and snickering.
Watch Vin as he takes on the might of drug barons, crackheads and assorted criminal scum, risking life and limb for his pizza!
You do realize that one can take on the criminal element by organizing neighborhood watches, calling to report suspicious activity, contacting government representatives and asking for more police patrols, etc., don't you? You don't have to go out there and resort to illegal vigilanteism.
That's not 100% fair - there's only sketchy evidence that the government of Macedonia is turning a blind eye to "massive online credit card fraud".
Then why does it continue to occur there with so much greater frequency than elsewhere? If the government was aggressively and effectively prosecuting people who committed credit card fraud, the rate would go down to something comparable to the U.S., Great Britain, France, etc.
They certainly aren't singled out for special attention in the latest report of the internet fraud complaint center.
Let's not be innumerate. That report names countries based on total number of cases, not rate per 100,000 (as it does for states within the U.S.). Therefore, a tiny country could have a very high rate of credit card fraud per capita and still not show up on the list.
Rather, the issue stems from the fact that the people compiling these black lists are private organizations - there is no way to appeal against their decision.
So are you saying that private organizations should not have free speech rights -- that they should not be able to publish their views on which countries represent an unacceptable risk?
The author's indignation seems to stem from the fact that his country has been unfairly (in his opinion) blacklisted and that there's not a whole lot they can do about it, because they don't represent a big enough market segment.
The author can complain to the government of his country. If the government is not taking the problem of credit card fraud seriously, they can make it a higher enforcement priority. If they agree with him that they have been unfairly singled out, then they can contact the organization(s) and plead their case. Businesses don't want to refuse sales. They usually only do so if making the sales would be unprofitable (e.g., why Dominoes doesn't deliver to crack houses).
Having said all this, the obvious solution to doing business with countries where "collecting payment is a crap-shoot" is to use an escrow service, of which there are several. Yes, this sucks when you want to buy a couple of books from Amazon.com - but you should only have to do it once. Once you have proved your bonafides (and have a customer number) you should be able to carry out furthur purchases with a minimum of fuss beyond sending an email instead of filling out a form...
Why should Amazon.com incur the business expense of dealing with a complicated escrow transaction for the tiny number of legitimate sales that they might make per year in Macedonia? Obviously they don't think that it would be a profitable venture.
Capitalism will make solutions happen -- if there are any. Maybe you could start a buying service for people in blacklisted countries, charging them for your service. My bet is that it would not be profitable because it's obvious enough that I thought of it in 30 seconds -- and I'm sure that others have looked into it in more depth. There is also the issue of dealing with the credit card companies. If you are setting yourself up to get a lot of fraud, it's likely that they will refuse to let you process credit card transactions.
When a governments turns a blind eye to massive online credit card fraud, blacklisting is the best answer. Rather than bitching to the people who use blacklists, those affected should complain to their governments about the lax law enforcement that caused the situation. Merchants need to be able to complain to the Macedonian authorities about credit card fraud and have reasonable expectations that investigations and legal action will take place. Until/unless that happens, don't expect merchants to ship their goods off when collecting payment is a crap-shoot.
If your neighborhood is filled with thugs, muggers, murderers, and thieves, don't whine to Dominoes when they won't deliver a pizza there. Clean up the neighborhood and then you can have your pizza.
No, it isn't your money. Congress has the right to collect taxes. Once collected, the taxes belong to the government.
Why do you think that you have a moral right to take money from future generations? That's what you are saying when you say 'issue government bonds that future generations will have to pay off so that I can have a tax cut now'.
It's worked whenever it's been done. Just ask JFK.
I'm really tired of the right invoking JFK's name every time someone rails against the reckless tax cuts for the wealthy enacted under the Bush watch. Here's an article which completely invalidates those arguments. An excerpt:
But they're wrong to see the tax reduction as a supply-side cut, like Reagan's and Bush's; it was a demand-side cut. "The Revenue Act of 1964 was aimed at the demand, rather than the supply, side of the economy," said Arthur Okun, one of Kennedy's economic advisers.
This distinction, taught in Economics 101, seldom makes it into the Washington sound-bite wars. A demand-side cut rests on the Keynesian theory that public consumption spurs economic activity. Government puts money in people's hands, as a temporary measure, so that they'll spend it. A supply-side cut sees business investment as the key to growth. Government gives money to businesses and wealthy individuals to invest, ultimately benefiting all Americans.
What you apparently don't get is that Kennedy's tax cuts came at a time when there was a $300 billion national debt and he was looking at deficit spending of $10 billion. Bush's deficit for this year alone is going to be more than $500 billion! Bush will raise the debt more in one year than it went up in the entirety of the country's first 200 years!
You might want to read some words of CLinton et al on Iraq and Al qaeda/WMDs: Al Qaeda reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the Government of Iraq.
That came from a 1998 memo from the Justice Department. That sentence was addressed at the 9/11 commission hearing held on June 16. Trying to rescue the administration from the commission's report, Fred Fielding, a Republican commissioner, asked Patrick Fitzgerald, who oversaw the 1998 African bombing case, about this May 1998 indictment. Fitzgerald told him that "when we superseded [that indictment]...we dropped that language." He added, "I think we are in full agreement with the [9/11 commission] staff statement in terms of the Iraq-al Qaeda relationship at this time..."
CIA director George Tenet in a letter to Congress on October 7, 2002:
You're quoting someone who was just forced from office in shame? And quoting what he said during the current administration? Sorry, but I don't see how that does anything but strengthen the case that the Bush administration was either lying or incompetent.
You have to remember that Presidents are presented with many conflicting bits of intelligence analysis. You will note that Clinton didn't use that one sentence you quoted, or the advice of any one individual to justify a war against Iraq. Bush, on the other hand, was eager to latch onto any intelligence or analysis, no matter how flimsy, to justify a war that he desperately wanted to wage.
Kerry's wife can give every American a $1000 out of HER own pocket according to the re-evaluated capital estimate of the Heinz concern. Seems her net worth is close to a billion dollar.
Great! That means that Kerry is going to be less beholden to special interests and their money.
Ahh, opposing view = Dumb and a bumper stick says redneck apparently.
You seem to be mistaking cause and effect. If I said "the moron in the red shirt", would you assume that I was saying that everyone with a red shirt was a "moron"?
An uneducated person wouldn't vote Republican unless his only concerns are Jesus and a gun, and that doesn't require being bought.
Many uneducated people, who have no understanding of the national debt, deficit spending, servicing the debt, etc. will believe that the government can cut taxes without any consequences. Bush said "vote for me and I'll cut your taxes." That was good enough for them.
Was he right about "weapons of mass destruction"? No. Was he right about a strong link between Bin Laden and Iraq? No. Was he right about the cost of the Iraqi war? No. Was he right about being able to balance the budget? No. Was he right to ignore dire warnings about Bin Laden? No. Was he right about the war in Iraq reducing terrorism? No. Was he right about ignoring the Geneva Convention? No.
It must frost your ass to realize that you voted for an ignoramous who has made the United States loathed worldwide while destroying the economy.
Halliburton is just another Beltway Bandit, just like the hundreds of other companies that milk the Federal government on a daily basis.
But they are not "just like" those other companies in that they still have Dick Cheney on the payroll. When the VP is the former CEO and still on the payroll ("deferred compensation"), then the company should not be getting any "no-bid" contracts. The entire contract process should be in the open and available for public scrutiny. One must be careful about an appearance of impropriety and you can't just pretend that Halliburton is just another company.
Well, in a democracy, you get votes by giving people money.
No, in a democracy, you are supposed to get votes by the strength of your ideas, your leadership, and what you stand for.
Isn't that why the Democrats were successful for so many years? Aren't all those social programs simply ways to buy votes?
Yeah. That's why Hollywood actors, directors like Michael Moore, writers like Al Franken, etc. are all Democrats. They just want to get all of those government handouts. They are just itching to benefit from the HeadStart program in inner cities getting funded.
I note that you have marked me as an "enemy." Is that just because we don't share political views? If so, that's pitiful.
You are a complete idiot -- and just the kind of guy that Bush likes. You're too uneducated/stupid to understand that you will be paying interest for years on the debt that Bush is running up. You don't care about government corruption, the environment, state budgets, or even Americans losing their limbs and/or lives over fictitious weapons and fictitious links to terrorism.
Quite[sic] your left wing extreme ranting. You sound pathetic.
So anyone who opposes $500billion dollar deficits, unjust wars, corruption, and damage to the environment holds an extreme left wing view?
Face it: You can't argue the facts so you resort to content-free posts like the one I'm responding to.
The Republican Party has figured out that they can buy votes from the uneducated. After the last election, Bush handed out $300 Treasury checks left and right after telling people throughout the campaign that it was their money due (to the budget surplus). He never discussed the national debt or the fact that over 25% of all federal taxes collected pay interest on that debt. He never suggested paying down that debt first and then cutting taxes after it was paid down.
The economy is doing well and taxes are pouring in? That means you need a tax cut because "it's your money."
The economy is in the dumps and tax revenue is way down? That, too, means that you need a tax cut to "stimulate" the economy. (Apparently, "stimulating" the economy also involves giving tax incentives to large corporations to outsource good jobs to third world countries.)
What else has Bush done? Drasticially increased the size of government. Waged horribly expensive wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. I see the dumb rednecks driving around with bumper stickers that say "I support the war in Iraq" and I think to myself, "yes you do -- to the tune of about $1000 for every man, woman, and child in your household."
And lets not forget the campaign donations. Bush has done everything he could to turn over public lands to oil companies for drilling. So when Exxon, Shell, et al, make billions despoiling the wilderness, how much money will you and I get? None. But our gas prices will be lower? Nope. The oil market is worldwide. If Shell can make more money selling the oil to China, then that's where it goes. Then there is Halliburton. Not only have they donated a ton to the Bush campaign, but with their ex-CEO in office, they have it made. They've received over $2.26billion in "no-bid" contracts in Iraq. That means that other firms weren't even allowed to compete. The way that Bush/Cheney are giving your tax dollars to Halliburtion is disgusting. I could go on and on, but Slashdot doesn't have the hard drive space to document all of the corruption in the Bush/Cheney White House.
To try to keep the record budget deficit (how much more the goverment has to borrow) to less than $500 billion dollars, Bush has cut many programs that provided federal tax dollars to the states for various programs. This has driven many states to the edge of bankruptcy. He's cut federal funding for any overseas aid organization which mentions abortion as an option (yeah, we don't want some woman with AIDS in sub-saharan Africa to have an abortion!). He's cut funding to the EPA repeatedly while increasing funding to the military to pay for his war against Iraq -- waged because of their Weapons of... scratch that... ties to terr... er, no... leader that Bush disliked.
Look, it's your computer. You paid for it. You paid for the RAM, drive space, and CPU that they want to use to run their Orwellian management software. Tell them that they may not install their software on your PC.
Better yet, tell them that you wish to review the license agreement for the software. See if you really agree to it. Does it say that the software may cause a loss of data, crashes, etc. and that the publisher is not responsible? If so, ask why you should put it on your PC. Insist that they prove that they have adequate licenses for all copies installed. Demand a signed letter stating that they are taking responsibility for the security of your system and all network data transfers to and from it. If you don't control the software, how can you be expected to be responsible for the computer?
What's to stop them from pushing RIAA-supplied software onto your system to scan for "illegal" MP3s? How do you know what they are loading on your PC?
But, if they're going to call me back - well, gee, that could be in a hour, some time today or even tomorrow. Now, I'm trapped at my phone for the indefinite future, instead of just for the next hour (at most).
We're talking about a tech support call and you're acting like it's the doctor calling to tell you whether the separation of your conjoined twins was successful. Get some perspective. Go about your life and if you miss the call, get over it. Call again. If you have 30 minutes to sit there listening to insipid music on hold while being told that "your call will be answered in the order it was received" (like one call can be in an order), then you need to get some hobbies -- or friends.
As to being trapped at your phone, they make these new-fangled mobile phones you may have heard about...
Yes, in the same way that someone chooses to eat food which, unbeknownst to them, contains poison.
They make the decision to run software including spyware, even if it's as a bundle, and so they really have no place to complain to the courts.
When they are mislead into believing that the software is a game and it really is a game plus spyware, they do have every right to complain to the courts.
Complain to the software company all you want, but the company did nothing wrong.
False and deceptive advertising isn't wrong? Misleading consumers isn't wrong? Using a game as a trojan horse to install spyware isn't wrong? Maybe on your planet.
Backdoor type trojans report back to an IP address or IRC server quite often. It spys on your computer, illegally. Thus, illegal spyware, or the illegal equivalent of spyware. So we don't go quibbling over the word virus, viruses, trojans and worms are basically in the same class.
What the legislation is addressing is Microsoft (or equivalent) releasing something like a "media player" that reports back to Microsoft with a list of all music you listen to, what software you have on your computer, and what web sites you visit. That kind of software is currently legal.
This is commonly known as wishful thinking. An objective double-blind study of human nature regarding software warnings like this will show that you are vastly overestimating the intelligence of the general population, and/or how much they actually care about protecting their information. Just because you and I care doesn't mean everyone else does. I've made this mistaken assumption often, too.
If there was not a groundswell of opposition to spyware, Congress would not be considering legislation to ban or heavily regulate it. Not to be cynical, but Congress doesn't pass laws unless it gets them votes or donations.
I'm betting there's no way in hell that "the government" will actually mandate something even close to that clear.
Did you think that RJ Reynolds decided on that wording on their own? The government has already shown a willingness to issue edicts requiring clear labeling.
Oh, and by the way, about a quarter of the population still smoke cigarettes and it didn't go down just because of that little warning, so you're not proving anything that way.
Logical disconnect: I said that the government-mandated warnings on cigarette packs showed that the government had shown a willingness to impose clear warning label requirements on private industry. People's values, acceptance of their own mortality, response to addictive substances, and peer pressure all factor into smoking. Whether smoking rates went up or down after the warnings has no bearings on how people would react to warnings about spyware.
Natural selection is a big abstract process. It doesn't have any particular purpose or job, it's just a way for us to describe something that happens over time in a population. Individuals in a species get killed off, and we call that natural selection. It's job is not to pick the best organism. In many cases it utterly fails in this, even in what you would call the "natural" world. Yet the species as a whole survives. If the best organism is not picked often enough, sometimes the species dies out.
I submit that you do not fully understand Darwin's principle of Natural Selection. It is not a random process where "failures" of the process lead to extinction. Animals which are best adapted to their environment have a statististically better chance of survival. "Organisms" aren't "picked." Individuals survive because of a genetic trait that gives them an advantage. Maybe it's a long neck which enables them to reach food that others cannot. Maybe its because they run faster and can better escape preditors. Maybe it's thicker fur that lets them survive in colder winters.
You also apparently do not recognize the difference between Natural Selection and selections made by man. From Charles Darwin's The Origin of the Species, Chapter 4: Natural Selection
How will the struggle for existence, discussed too briefly in the last chapter, act in regard to variation? Can the principle of selection, which we have seen is so potent in the hands of man, apply in nature?
As you can see from the passage above, Charles Darwin differentiates between Natural Selection and selection made by "the hands of man."
Secondly, I have a lot of experience with firearms and I can assure you that it isn't easy to hit something with most pistols even at close range. What you see in the movies is total bullshit.
You think that making spyware illegal will stop it from happening, even though its illegal equivalent (viruses) have not been stopped in the slightest by a dozen or more laws.
Viruses are not the illegal equivalent of spyware. Viruses are anonymous. Spyware reports back to an IP address or domain. Corporations don't release viruses for profit. Corporations do release spyware for profit.
But the law doesn't even go that far, it just requires the spyware to inform the user better during installation about what it will do. Spyware will not magically become extinct because of a law.
It's not magic at all. When people realize what's being installed, they will, most of the time, hit the cancel button.
How much you want to bet that this new monitorware will tell you exactly what it does behind the scenes in simple enough English to allow the common person to understand what it's doing?
A simple government-mandated warning like "this software collect information from your computer's storage and reports it to corporation X" would probably be good enough. Is the average person confused by the government-mandated warnings on cigarette packs?
I guess you've missed the fact that there are these big holes in Windows and IE that allow software to install itself on your computer without any user interaction just by going to the wrong website or previewing the wrong email, or just by being connected to the Internet.
The majority of spyware is installed by users willingly running an executable. And while it's far from perfect, Windows is far better than it was in the bad old days of Windows 98.
So natural selection ceased to function when animals with their natural brains started making tools a few million years ago? It's something that only happened in the distant past? Darwin never said that. What difference does it make what happened 50,000 years ago before civilization existed? Guns exist today, they are part of the universe now. That means in order for your genes to prosper today it will often not matter how fast, strong or smart you are if the other guy has a gun and you don't.
You just answered your own question with that last sentence. Guns allow stupid, weak, and slow people to take intelligent, strong, and fast people out of the gene pool -- consistently. That pretty much destroys natural selection. I'd agree with the argument that tool-making should lead to better survival, but most of the people who kill with guns couldn't make a pointy stick given a knife and a tree -- much less make a gun.
Regarding those "less desirable traits", desirable to whom?
Desirable from the standpoint of survival of the species. There is no particular skill involved in shooting someone at close range with a pistol. Point and squeeze the trigger. The species will not have a better chance of survival because clinically insane people like Mark David Chapman can kill people like John Lennon.
Making a personal attack to say that I'm making up for something by defending myself with a firearm is ridiculous,
It wasn't ridiculous, but it was uncalled for in a (mostly) civil debate and I regret having written that (and other things). I have a bad temper and need to learn to count to 100 more slowly.
However, if you send someone an unlabeled exe without making any claims to its contents and the user still opens it he is entirely responsible for the result.
However, that is seldom how spyware gets installed. Typically, spyware is installed when someone downloads and installs an app. The spyware is either secretly installed or there is some well hidden, confusing verbage hidden in page 11 of the "license agreement." Example: Audiogalaxy filesharing app. Install filesharing and get spyware.
Slashdot Mirror
His movie broke plenty of records, so I'm sure the box-office employees will be doing fine, they're paid hourly anyway, and unless people stop making movies, they'll have jobs.
Paid hourly? With what? Fairy dust? No. Their pay comes from ticket and concession sales. Over the long run, fewer tickets sold might mean smaller raises. Or it could mean that the theatre doesn't remain profitable and closes down. Don't tell me you've never seen a theatre that has gone out of business.
Besides, when a theatre has 8 movies and only one of them is going gangbusters, it's not like the sales from that movie are not important. For every "Fahrenheit 9/11", there are plenty of movies like "Gigli", "You Got Served", and "Torque."
The MPAA really needs some better PR people. I'm on Michael Moore's side, but the MPAA has an easy response to his stand on piracy.
Michael Moore:
"I do well enough already and I made this film because I want the world, to change. The more people who see it the better, so I'm happy this is happening."
The correct response from the MPAA should be something along the lines of:
"While we are happy that Michael Moore's films have brought him financial success, we are disappointed in his apparent lack of empathy for the movie theatre employees who rely on box-office ticket sales for their much more modest incomes."
Again, my views are in line with Michael Moore's regarding fair use, but I'm still capable of recognizing valid arguments against that position.
No, I really do not. But I do have the following:
Americart:There are many others who also report that Macedonia is a haven for online fraud and I suggest that you do this Google search to see for yourself.
I'm not trolling here, i'm just curious: you seem to be ready and willing to write them off as crooks because they're on a list without taking the time to wonder how they got on that list.
For-profit businesses are not going to refuse to do business with an entire country solely based on unsubstantiated rumor. Merchants share information. So do credit card companies. The reason that Macedonia is blacklisted is because of the high incidence of credit card fraud.
Asking someone to complain to their government because they can't order something over the internet is a waste of time: even if it did work (and that's a big if) it would take a long time for anything to happen whereas most people order on the internet because they want things now - not in six months or two years or whenever the next election comes around.
This is so screwed up that it's amazing! That's like saying "the majority of black people in the U.S. wanted civil rights immediately, so why did they waste time protesting when it would take years to ever effect a change?"
Macedonia's problem is that, with 90,000 internet users in a population of 2 million, companies just don't care.
So think about this: How much fraud had to be taking place with an online population of only 90,000 in order for a tiny country like Macedonia to appear on a blacklist? It's scary when you think about it in those terms.
You're right; as soon as I'd posted it, I realised that having Vin peering out from behind his net curtains and reporting dodgy characters to the police would make a far more exciting movie.
I don't know if it would be more exciting, but it would be funnier.
[deep announcer voice] See Vin Diesel as you've never seen him before! Bad guys don't stand a chance when Vin Diesel puts the police on auto-dial. See "Neighborhood Watch: The Final Solution."
[Weasly accountant voice] This movie rated PG-13 for audience giggling, laughter, and snickering.
Watch Vin as he takes on the might of drug barons, crackheads and assorted criminal scum, risking life and limb for his pizza!
You do realize that one can take on the criminal element by organizing neighborhood watches, calling to report suspicious activity, contacting government representatives and asking for more police patrols, etc., don't you? You don't have to go out there and resort to illegal vigilanteism.
That's not 100% fair - there's only sketchy evidence that the government of Macedonia is turning a blind eye to "massive online credit card fraud".
Then why does it continue to occur there with so much greater frequency than elsewhere? If the government was aggressively and effectively prosecuting people who committed credit card fraud, the rate would go down to something comparable to the U.S., Great Britain, France, etc.
They certainly aren't singled out for special attention in the latest report of the internet fraud complaint center.
Let's not be innumerate. That report names countries based on total number of cases, not rate per 100,000 (as it does for states within the U.S.). Therefore, a tiny country could have a very high rate of credit card fraud per capita and still not show up on the list.
Rather, the issue stems from the fact that the people compiling these black lists are private organizations - there is no way to appeal against their decision.
So are you saying that private organizations should not have free speech rights -- that they should not be able to publish their views on which countries represent an unacceptable risk?
The author's indignation seems to stem from the fact that his country has been unfairly (in his opinion) blacklisted and that there's not a whole lot they can do about it, because they don't represent a big enough market segment.
The author can complain to the government of his country. If the government is not taking the problem of credit card fraud seriously, they can make it a higher enforcement priority. If they agree with him that they have been unfairly singled out, then they can contact the organization(s) and plead their case. Businesses don't want to refuse sales. They usually only do so if making the sales would be unprofitable (e.g., why Dominoes doesn't deliver to crack houses).
Having said all this, the obvious solution to doing business with countries where "collecting payment is a crap-shoot" is to use an escrow service, of which there are several. Yes, this sucks when you want to buy a couple of books from Amazon.com - but you should only have to do it once. Once you have proved your bonafides (and have a customer number) you should be able to carry out furthur purchases with a minimum of fuss beyond sending an email instead of filling out a form...
Why should Amazon.com incur the business expense of dealing with a complicated escrow transaction for the tiny number of legitimate sales that they might make per year in Macedonia? Obviously they don't think that it would be a profitable venture.
Capitalism will make solutions happen -- if there are any. Maybe you could start a buying service for people in blacklisted countries, charging them for your service. My bet is that it would not be profitable because it's obvious enough that I thought of it in 30 seconds -- and I'm sure that others have looked into it in more depth. There is also the issue of dealing with the credit card companies. If you are setting yourself up to get a lot of fraud, it's likely that they will refuse to let you process credit card transactions.
When a governments turns a blind eye to massive online credit card fraud, blacklisting is the best answer. Rather than bitching to the people who use blacklists, those affected should complain to their governments about the lax law enforcement that caused the situation. Merchants need to be able to complain to the Macedonian authorities about credit card fraud and have reasonable expectations that investigations and legal action will take place. Until/unless that happens, don't expect merchants to ship their goods off when collecting payment is a crap-shoot.
If your neighborhood is filled with thugs, muggers, murderers, and thieves, don't whine to Dominoes when they won't deliver a pizza there. Clean up the neighborhood and then you can have your pizza.
No, it isn't your money. Congress has the right to collect taxes. Once collected, the taxes belong to the government.
Why do you think that you have a moral right to take money from future generations? That's what you are saying when you say 'issue government bonds that future generations will have to pay off so that I can have a tax cut now'.
It's worked whenever it's been done. Just ask JFK.
I'm really tired of the right invoking JFK's name every time someone rails against the reckless tax cuts for the wealthy enacted under the Bush watch. Here's an article which completely invalidates those arguments. An excerpt:What you apparently don't get is that Kennedy's tax cuts came at a time when there was a $300 billion national debt and he was looking at deficit spending of $10 billion. Bush's deficit for this year alone is going to be more than $500 billion! Bush will raise the debt more in one year than it went up in the entirety of the country's first 200 years!
You might want to read some words of CLinton et al on Iraq and Al qaeda/WMDs:
Al Qaeda reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the Government of Iraq.
That came from a 1998 memo from the Justice Department. That sentence was addressed at the 9/11 commission hearing held on June 16. Trying to rescue the administration from the commission's report, Fred Fielding, a Republican commissioner, asked Patrick Fitzgerald, who oversaw the 1998 African bombing case, about this May 1998 indictment. Fitzgerald told him that "when we superseded [that indictment]...we dropped that language." He added, "I think we are in full agreement with the [9/11 commission] staff statement in terms of the Iraq-al Qaeda relationship at this time..."
CIA director George Tenet in a letter to Congress on October 7, 2002:
You're quoting someone who was just forced from office in shame? And quoting what he said during the current administration? Sorry, but I don't see how that does anything but strengthen the case that the Bush administration was either lying or incompetent.
You have to remember that Presidents are presented with many conflicting bits of intelligence analysis. You will note that Clinton didn't use that one sentence you quoted, or the advice of any one individual to justify a war against Iraq. Bush, on the other hand, was eager to latch onto any intelligence or analysis, no matter how flimsy, to justify a war that he desperately wanted to wage.
Kerry's wife can give every American a $1000 out of HER own pocket according to the re-evaluated capital estimate of the Heinz concern. Seems her net worth is close to a billion dollar.
Great! That means that Kerry is going to be less beholden to special interests and their money.
How exactally would you pay off a debt today if the bonds don't mature for 20 years? You can't pay off the debt whenever you want to.
First off, the surplus was not even close to enough to pay off the entire national debt.
Second, the bonds were not all issued yesterday, so many of them are maturing every year.
Third, if the feds invested the money, they could accrue interest to offset the interest being paid on the government bonds until they reach maturity.
Ahh, opposing view = Dumb and a bumper stick says redneck apparently.
You seem to be mistaking cause and effect. If I said "the moron in the red shirt", would you assume that I was saying that everyone with a red shirt was a "moron"?
An uneducated person wouldn't vote Republican unless his only concerns are Jesus and a gun, and that doesn't require being bought.
Many uneducated people, who have no understanding of the national debt, deficit spending, servicing the debt, etc. will believe that the government can cut taxes without any consequences. Bush said "vote for me and I'll cut your taxes." That was good enough for them.
It must really frost your ass that Bush is right!
Bush is right wing, not right.
Was he right about "weapons of mass destruction"? No.
Was he right about a strong link between Bin Laden and Iraq? No.
Was he right about the cost of the Iraqi war? No.
Was he right about being able to balance the budget? No.
Was he right to ignore dire warnings about Bin Laden? No.
Was he right about the war in Iraq reducing terrorism? No.
Was he right about ignoring the Geneva Convention? No.
It must frost your ass to realize that you voted for an ignoramous who has made the United States loathed worldwide while destroying the economy.
Halliburton is just another Beltway Bandit, just like the hundreds of other companies that milk the Federal government on a daily basis.
But they are not "just like" those other companies in that they still have Dick Cheney on the payroll. When the VP is the former CEO and still on the payroll ("deferred compensation"), then the company should not be getting any "no-bid" contracts. The entire contract process should be in the open and available for public scrutiny. One must be careful about an appearance of impropriety and you can't just pretend that Halliburton is just another company.
Well, in a democracy, you get votes by giving people money.
No, in a democracy, you are supposed to get votes by the strength of your ideas, your leadership, and what you stand for.
Isn't that why the Democrats were successful for so many years? Aren't all those social programs simply ways to buy votes?
Yeah. That's why Hollywood actors, directors like Michael Moore, writers like Al Franken, etc. are all Democrats. They just want to get all of those government handouts. They are just itching to benefit from the HeadStart program in inner cities getting funded.
I note that you have marked me as an "enemy." Is that just because we don't share political views? If so, that's pitiful.
You are a complete idiot -- and just the kind of guy that Bush likes. You're too uneducated/stupid to understand that you will be paying interest for years on the debt that Bush is running up. You don't care about government corruption, the environment, state budgets, or even Americans losing their limbs and/or lives over fictitious weapons and fictitious links to terrorism.
Quite[sic] your left wing extreme ranting. You sound pathetic.
So anyone who opposes $500billion dollar deficits, unjust wars, corruption, and damage to the environment holds an extreme left wing view?
Face it: You can't argue the facts so you resort to content-free posts like the one I'm responding to.
The Republican Party has figured out that they can buy votes from the uneducated. After the last election, Bush handed out $300 Treasury checks left and right after telling people throughout the campaign that it was their money due (to the budget surplus). He never discussed the national debt or the fact that over 25% of all federal taxes collected pay interest on that debt. He never suggested paying down that debt first and then cutting taxes after it was paid down.
The economy is doing well and taxes are pouring in? That means you need a tax cut because "it's your money."
The economy is in the dumps and tax revenue is way down? That, too, means that you need a tax cut to "stimulate" the economy. (Apparently, "stimulating" the economy also involves giving tax incentives to large corporations to outsource good jobs to third world countries.)
What else has Bush done? Drasticially increased the size of government. Waged horribly expensive wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. I see the dumb rednecks driving around with bumper stickers that say "I support the war in Iraq" and I think to myself, "yes you do -- to the tune of about $1000 for every man, woman, and child in your household."
And lets not forget the campaign donations. Bush has done everything he could to turn over public lands to oil companies for drilling. So when Exxon, Shell, et al, make billions despoiling the wilderness, how much money will you and I get? None. But our gas prices will be lower? Nope. The oil market is worldwide. If Shell can make more money selling the oil to China, then that's where it goes. Then there is Halliburton. Not only have they donated a ton to the Bush campaign, but with their ex-CEO in office, they have it made. They've received over $2.26billion in "no-bid" contracts in Iraq. That means that other firms weren't even allowed to compete. The way that Bush/Cheney are giving your tax dollars to Halliburtion is disgusting. I could go on and on, but Slashdot doesn't have the hard drive space to document all of the corruption in the Bush/Cheney White House.
To try to keep the record budget deficit (how much more the goverment has to borrow) to less than $500 billion dollars, Bush has cut many programs that provided federal tax dollars to the states for various programs. This has driven many states to the edge of bankruptcy. He's cut federal funding for any overseas aid organization which mentions abortion as an option (yeah, we don't want some woman with AIDS in sub-saharan Africa to have an abortion!). He's cut funding to the EPA repeatedly while increasing funding to the military to pay for his war against Iraq -- waged because of their Weapons of... scratch that... ties to terr... er, no... leader that Bush disliked.
Look, it's your computer. You paid for it. You paid for the RAM, drive space, and CPU that they want to use to run their Orwellian management software. Tell them that they may not install their software on your PC.
Better yet, tell them that you wish to review the license agreement for the software. See if you really agree to it. Does it say that the software may cause a loss of data, crashes, etc. and that the publisher is not responsible? If so, ask why you should put it on your PC. Insist that they prove that they have adequate licenses for all copies installed. Demand a signed letter stating that they are taking responsibility for the security of your system and all network data transfers to and from it. If you don't control the software, how can you be expected to be responsible for the computer?
What's to stop them from pushing RIAA-supplied software onto your system to scan for "illegal" MP3s? How do you know what they are loading on your PC?
But, if they're going to call me back - well, gee, that could be in a hour, some time today or even tomorrow. Now, I'm trapped at my phone for the indefinite future, instead of just for the next hour (at most).
We're talking about a tech support call and you're acting like it's the doctor calling to tell you whether the separation of your conjoined twins was successful. Get some perspective. Go about your life and if you miss the call, get over it. Call again. If you have 30 minutes to sit there listening to insipid music on hold while being told that "your call will be answered in the order it was received" (like one call can be in an order), then you need to get some hobbies -- or friends.
As to being trapped at your phone, they make these new-fangled mobile phones you may have heard about...
Ask Slashdot: Would You Move to Space?
What if we all said "please"? Would you do it if everybody signed a petition asking you to?
Like you said, users install the spyware.
Yes, in the same way that someone chooses to eat food which, unbeknownst to them, contains poison.
They make the decision to run software including spyware, even if it's as a bundle, and so they really have no place to complain to the courts.
When they are mislead into believing that the software is a game and it really is a game plus spyware, they do have every right to complain to the courts.
Complain to the software company all you want, but the company did nothing wrong.
False and deceptive advertising isn't wrong? Misleading consumers isn't wrong? Using a game as a trojan horse to install spyware isn't wrong? Maybe on your planet.
What the legislation is addressing is Microsoft (or equivalent) releasing something like a "media player" that reports back to Microsoft with a list of all music you listen to, what software you have on your computer, and what web sites you visit. That kind of software is currently legal.
This is commonly known as wishful thinking. An objective double-blind study of human nature regarding software warnings like this will show that you are vastly overestimating the intelligence of the general population, and/or how much they actually care about protecting their information. Just because you and I care doesn't mean everyone else does. I've made this mistaken assumption often, too.
If there was not a groundswell of opposition to spyware, Congress would not be considering legislation to ban or heavily regulate it. Not to be cynical, but Congress doesn't pass laws unless it gets them votes or donations.
I'm betting there's no way in hell that "the government" will actually mandate something even close to that clear.
Did you think that RJ Reynolds decided on that wording on their own? The government has already shown a willingness to issue edicts requiring clear labeling.
Oh, and by the way, about a quarter of the population still smoke cigarettes and it didn't go down just because of that little warning, so you're not proving anything that way.
Logical disconnect: I said that the government-mandated warnings on cigarette packs showed that the government had shown a willingness to impose clear warning label requirements on private industry. People's values, acceptance of their own mortality, response to addictive substances, and peer pressure all factor into smoking. Whether smoking rates went up or down after the warnings has no bearings on how people would react to warnings about spyware.
Natural selection is a big abstract process. It doesn't have any particular purpose or job, it's just a way for us to describe something that happens over time in a population. Individuals in a species get killed off, and we call that natural selection. It's job is not to pick the best organism. In many cases it utterly fails in this, even in what you would call the "natural" world. Yet the species as a whole survives. If the best organism is not picked often enough, sometimes the species dies out.
I submit that you do not fully understand Darwin's principle of Natural Selection. It is not a random process where "failures" of the process lead to extinction. Animals which are best adapted to their environment have a statististically better chance of survival. "Organisms" aren't "picked." Individuals survive because of a genetic trait that gives them an advantage. Maybe it's a long neck which enables them to reach food that others cannot. Maybe its because they run faster and can better escape preditors. Maybe it's thicker fur that lets them survive in colder winters.
You also apparently do not recognize the difference between Natural Selection and selections made by man. From Charles Darwin's The Origin of the Species, Chapter 4: Natural Selection
As you can see from the passage above, Charles Darwin differentiates between Natural Selection and selection made by "the hands of man."
Secondly, I have a lot of experience with firearms and I can assure you that it isn't easy to hit something with most pistols even at close range. What you see in the movies is total bullshit.
You think that making spyware illegal will stop it from happening, even though its illegal equivalent (viruses) have not been stopped in the slightest by a dozen or more laws.
Viruses are not the illegal equivalent of spyware. Viruses are anonymous. Spyware reports back to an IP address or domain. Corporations don't release viruses for profit. Corporations do release spyware for profit.
But the law doesn't even go that far, it just requires the spyware to inform the user better during installation about what it will do. Spyware will not magically become extinct because of a law.
It's not magic at all. When people realize what's being installed, they will, most of the time, hit the cancel button.
How much you want to bet that this new monitorware will tell you exactly what it does behind the scenes in simple enough English to allow the common person to understand what it's doing?
A simple government-mandated warning like "this software collect information from your computer's storage and reports it to corporation X" would probably be good enough. Is the average person confused by the government-mandated warnings on cigarette packs?
I guess you've missed the fact that there are these big holes in Windows and IE that allow software to install itself on your computer without any user interaction just by going to the wrong website or previewing the wrong email, or just by being connected to the Internet.
The majority of spyware is installed by users willingly running an executable. And while it's far from perfect, Windows is far better than it was in the bad old days of Windows 98.
So natural selection ceased to function when animals with their natural brains started making tools a few million years ago? It's something that only happened in the distant past? Darwin never said that. What difference does it make what happened 50,000 years ago before civilization existed? Guns exist today, they are part of the universe now. That means in order for your genes to prosper today it will often not matter how fast, strong or smart you are if the other guy has a gun and you don't.
You just answered your own question with that last sentence. Guns allow stupid, weak, and slow people to take intelligent, strong, and fast people out of the gene pool -- consistently. That pretty much destroys natural selection. I'd agree with the argument that tool-making should lead to better survival, but most of the people who kill with guns couldn't make a pointy stick given a knife and a tree -- much less make a gun.
Regarding those "less desirable traits", desirable to whom?
Desirable from the standpoint of survival of the species. There is no particular skill involved in shooting someone at close range with a pistol. Point and squeeze the trigger. The species will not have a better chance of survival because clinically insane people like Mark David Chapman can kill people like John Lennon.
Making a personal attack to say that I'm making up for something by defending myself with a firearm is ridiculous,
It wasn't ridiculous, but it was uncalled for in a (mostly) civil debate and I regret having written that (and other things). I have a bad temper and need to learn to count to 100 more slowly.
I did not read your response when I wrote the prior comment. I assumed that you had taken a parting shot and left. I apologize.
However, if you send someone an unlabeled exe without making any claims to its contents and the user still opens it he is entirely responsible for the result.
However, that is seldom how spyware gets installed. Typically, spyware is installed when someone downloads and installs an app. The spyware is either secretly installed or there is some well hidden, confusing verbage hidden in page 11 of the "license agreement." Example: Audiogalaxy filesharing app. Install filesharing and get spyware.