Ummm, UT and Quake are not supposed to be accurate simulations of reality.
No, they are not, but neither are they supposed to be something totally alien, which explains the humanoid characters, conventional aiming sights, physics models, injuries from falling too far, etc.
Is using medkits cheap because they exploit the flaw that people can't really instantly heal themselves?
That's not a flaw, it's an integral part of the game design. It's not an unintended consequence or side-effect. You accept that when you buy the game.
Stop whining and learn to aim.
Gee, now you sound like the author of the article: 'I like to cheat and anyone who doesn't like it is a whiner.'
If these "cheesey" moves are so terrible then why are they in the games in the first place?
Because the games had unforseen consequences to their designs and implementations. That's like saying "if the Code Red worm is so bad, why was Microsoft build in a vulnerability to it in the first place?"
Unless someone is actually cheating, you should STFU.
Someone who abuses a flaw in a game design is cheating.
I think it works both ways, if you can defeat the chesser by being more skillful, the cheeser will soon learn that his cheesy tactics are not working anymore.
And what if you can't beat the cheeser with skill? What if you have reached the limits of your skill, reflexes, and coordination? That's what pisses people off about cheese moves. They allow a less-skilled, and less ethical, player to consistently win.
"I'm certainly not above all this. Sometimes I can ride a move or two all the way to victory, and it makes me smile... The challenge then, for those who prefer to take the high road, is to find ways to beat them... Don't get mad. Get better."
What a load of crap! This guy just likes to exploit flaws in games for his own advantage. He knows damned well that there are often no effective counters to the cheese moves he's so fond of -- that's why he uses them. He's no better than the people who hop, run, and jump for three hours at a time in FPS games (exploiting the flaw that your character never tires from such acrobatics).
Moral of the story: People suck. They rationalize that whatever they do in the game is okay, whether it's bunny-hopping through FPS games, repetitive moves for which their is no counter, or 60 keystroke macros.
I'd love to help vote them out of office but who would be better?
Almost anyone and certainly Kerry.
Anyone else that sits in that position of power has a media appearance to uphold. In order to keep their media appearance up they have to give the impression that they're doing something.
I think that you are being overly cynical. Look to history and you will see that a President doing something doesn't have to entail the curtailment of rights and privacy. John F. Kennedy did "something" and it involved expanding rights, not reducing them. Shortly before his assassination, Kennedy gave a speech endorsing the civil rights agenda and calling for federal legislation to end segregation in public accommodations and racial discrimination in employment. While campaigning, Kennedy promised an executive order barring racial discrimination in federal housing programs "with a stroke of [his] pen." Throughout his term, Carter fought for civil rights and human rights. Bill Clinton wrote on the subject of abortion; "Still, I believe the ultimate choice should remain a matter for a woman to decide in consultation with her conscience, her doctor, and her God." He didn't abuse the power of the Presidency to put gag orders on aid organizations who did not share his views.
We have not had 220+ years of Presidents reducing, curtailing, and circumventing Constititutional rights or other rights. Many of our Presidents have fought long and hard to expand rights.
It may be affirmed that they cannot demand your PGP key but that won't keep them from using "Failure to voluntarily disclose PGP key" as a reason to increase surveillance. Suspicion is easily aroused in a state that benefits financially from violating the rights of its people.
I agree and I strongly urge you to help vote Bush, Cheney, and, with them, Ashcroft, out of office. The erosion of rights we have seen since those three took office has been horrifying. Practically on inauguration day, Bush signed executive "gag orders" that took away all federal funding for humanitarian organizations which even mentioned abortions as an option (and we sure don't want to let an AIDS-infected woman in Sub-Saharan Africa to know that she could have an abortion). Ashcroft basically penned the "PATRIOT Act" which has done more to undermine Constitutional rights than any other law in the last fifty years (or more). Bush uses Presidential access as a tool to reward those who speak positively about the administration, while denying those critical of the administration the access that they need to do their jobs. It was the Bush administration that came up with the concept of locking people up in Cuba while not charging them or giving them access to lawyers. And it was the Bush Administration that came up with the idea of "Free Speech Zones" -- basically areas away from cameras and the press where the corral those who wish to exercise their First Amendment rights to speak out against the administration.
Your point is well taken. You might only spend six to eighteen months in the clink, waiting for your appeals and challenges to go through the legal system. In the meantime, as you pace your 6X9 cell, you can't earn money, and your lawyers drain your bank account, and your kids are shortchanged one parent. How many people can really afford the luxury of testing their case? The uncertainty has a substantial chilling effect.
I agree fully, but once that first case is decided, it won't happen again. "Testing" the case might be the alternative to certain, lengthy prison terms for some people and those people will be the ones most likely to appeal this up to higher courts. That's almost always how it works.
Your faith is touching, but not wholly convincing. The Supreme Court is likely to rule as narrowly as possible, linking the ruling to as many specifics of the case as possible, and leaving as much of the terrain undecided as possible. At least that's what they usually do. Couragous rulings like Roe v. Wade come along less than once in a generation.
I also agree there, but it might be hard to decide a case involving a remembered encryption key without deciding on the broader issue of whether revealing such a key is a form of self-incriminating testimony.
Yes. The Fifth Amendment is the best legal citation that one can provide. Miranda is another good one because, in it, the Supreme Court recognized one's right to remain silent. There are countless cases where the courts have ruled that one is not required to provide testimony which could incriminate them.
There seem to be a lot of issues here. My current understanding is that you should not expect to keep you encryption key secret. This is mainly because a judge might hold you in contemp of court indefinately, until you gave them your key.
That's like saying that a judge might hold you in contempt of court indefinitely until you tell them where the murder weapon is. That some yahoo judge in the sticks is willing to do something is no guarantee that his actions would stand up to a constitutional challenge.
Here's another discussion of the topic on the Rubberhose website (an encryotion scheme which offers deniable encryption). It's by far the best discussion of the subject I've seen, but even this (with its 159 footnotes) refuses to make a conclusive judgement on the topic. It states what the courts "should" do, but wouldn't do me much good in a jail cell. It's seems like the privacy of your crypto key is quite debatable.
That was a superb document, but I believe, strongly, that the Supreme Court will uphold a person's right not to provide a memorized key. I have no doubt that the courts have a legal right to subpeona anything written down, but I do not believe that they can compel you to provide testimony about something you remember which could be incriminating. The courts are not going to be allowed to compel you to provide incriminatory information, whether a cryptographic key or where you hid the murder weapon.
Regarding fifth-amendment rights: one cannot be compelled to provide self-incriminating evidence, but one may be compelled to provide evidence against someone else, so the attack would go down something like this:
That's a common misconception. The only way that they could compel you to provide self-incriminating evidence would be for them to give you immunity from prosecution. If someone witnessed a hit-and-run while soliciting a prostitute, they would have a Fifth Amendment right to refuse to testify as to why they were in the area.
FBI believes person A committed crime (or otherwise wants information on person A). FBI accuses person B of being an accessory to said crime and subpoenas all of person A's evidence related to person B. Since person A has encrypted files which might reasonably contain details on the "crime" that B committed, the FBI can reasonably subpoena A's encryption keys.
No, no, no! The FBI cannot make any person provide testimony which would be self-incriminating. If person A has been trading kiddie porn on Kazaa, they cannot make person B turn over the encryption key to the ZIP file that contains all of the kiddie porn he downloaded from person A.
Saying "I can't recall" will earn you an interminate stay in the county jug until your memory improves dramatically.
Absolutely untrue. Witnesses are often unable to recall things. How long did Reagan end up in jail for his inability to recall facts about what happened during Iran-Contra? Are you telling me that you've never forgotten a password, encryption key, or PIN? They can't jail people for not being able to remember things. That's the very kind of torture and intimidation to which you allude in your own posting.
The privelege against self-incrimination can be invoked only during interrogation and at trial.
When the police are shining a bright light in your eyes and asking what the encryption key is to your hard drive, what is that, if not an interrogation? Have you heard of Miranda rights? The very first one is the right to remain silent. The Fifth Amendment is not limited solely to interrogations and trials in which you are a defendent. A judge cannot force you to testify against yourself in a pre-trial hearing, can he? If you witnessed bank robbery, the court cannot compel you to reveal that you were buying heroin when you saw it -- even though you are not the one on trial.
But it does not protect you from bring compelled to provide fingerprint and DNA samples, surrender your private correspondence, account books and ledgers, etc.
Physical evidence is not the same as testimony. The courts can make you turn over your hard drive, but they can't make you reveal them the encryption key. They can make you turn over your personal correspondence, but they cannot make you translate it into English for them.
If you EVER get arrested, detained, questioned, etc., do yourself a huge favor and get an attorney before saying anything. Remember, YANAL.
Requiring that someone provide encryption keys would likely be construed as a violation of a U.S. citizen's Fifth Amendment rights: "nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself." If the hard drive had incriminating evidence of ANY crime on it, then the person would be within their Constitutional rights to refuse to provide the encryption keys to access the data.
From a practical standpoint, "I can't recall" is a very effective three words sentence in such a case. It's not like any of us can honestly say that we've never forgotten a password or encryption key, so the prosecution would be hard-pressed to convince a judge and jury that such a claim is preposterous.
Despite the jokes to the contrary, there are Americans who speak other languages. Have you tried placing 'help-wanted' ads for American technical support personnel who are fluent in French, German, and Spanish? With all of the U.S. tech support people who are out of work, I can't believe that it will be very difficult to find qualified people who speak other languages.
You'd be better off not paying a middle-man. Hiring multi-lingual employees would give you people who could fill multiple roles, you would be able to supervise and train them directly, and you'd have a staff that worked as a team and could consult one another directly. Think about the flexibility; If, for example, there were no French-speaking callers at any given time, the bilingual French/English tech support person could handle calls from English-speaking callers.
You are kidding yourself if you think that unemployment insurance rates are going to remain constant in the wake of outsourcing. As more and more people lose their jobs, the cost of unemployment insurance will rise. When it rises, the costs will be passed on to consumers (in the form of higher prices) and employees (in the form of lower pay).
In fact, the FUTA varies by state. Here's more information on it:
Regarding the tax write-off, I thought you were worth so much that a meazly monthly mortgage payment interest did not really matter as a worth-enough tax break.
It's all percentages and net-present-value. Being well off does not make it prudent to ignore the tax benefits of mortgage interest tax write-offs. In fact, it is even more important as those with more taxable income are taxed at a higher rate.
I admit that I have made the mistake in assuming that the tax benefits from the mortgage interest in your case were negligible.
With a mortgage well below 6% and a tax write-off on the mortgage interest, one would have to find very low-yield investments for it to be financially advisable to pay off the mortgage.
PS: For the purposes of invsetment consideration, I consider a primary home as more of a liability than an asset because even though it has monetary value, it doesn't make sense to liquidate it due to the fact that one has to live somewhere.
In general, I would agree with you, but I live in one of the most expensive housing markets in the country. We are experiencing phenomenal growth in home prices -- especially if one has a relatively nice home. Yes, I do have to live somewhere, but more typical areas of the country, especially where I might someday retire, have far lower prices. The longer I stay here watching my home appreciate, the greater the delta between what I sell my home for here and what I pay for an equivalent (or nicer) home elsewhere. That's what makes it an investment. If I lived in Fort Wayne or Deluth, I'd agree that the home hardly qualifies as an investment.
Apparently the post to which you're responding with so much vitriol hit close to home!
Not at all. I'm just an unpleasant, nasty person who enjoys attacking others with little provocation. Your amateur psychiatry attempts, while humorous, really aren't hitting "close to home" at all.
That shows where the spammers are located, not from where the spam is sent. Sure, Alan Ralsky lives in the U.S., but he happily contracts with ISPs in other countries to send the spam.
I think you should seriously consult your financial advisor because I am not the idiot here... If you carry a mortgage and at the same time you have investments and savings etc. in sizes that you claim to have, then you are a fool:
Untrue. In fact, my CPA strongly discouraged me from paying off my mortgage (a suggestion that I made). He termed it "a common mistake". Don't ignore the tax write-off associated with a mortgage. Another mistake is to assume that one should liquidate their retirement investments, many of which are tax-deferred to pay off their home. Again, another big mistake. Perhaps you should hire a licensed CPA instead of a "financial advisor." I've found them to be far more helpful once one gets beyond thinking that CDs at a bank are an investment.
I am sorry, I don't really want to reveal too much pesonal information here.
Then please don't presume to tell everyone else how to run their lives.
I assure you that I am doing well for myself.
Enjoy your success, but don't assume that everyone who has not travelled your path in life is somehow your inferior. Recognizing that outsourcing is bad for the economy does not mean that someone is insecure about their own career.
I'm sorry if you've devoted your life so thoroughly to one particular career that you can't feasibly find another way to support yourself, and I'm sorry that you're so deeply entrenched in your current lifestyle that you can't feasibly reduce your expenses.
I appreciate your heartfelt sympathy, but I don't need it. I have a good job, it's solid, and I'm not going to lose it to outsourcing (it's in a sector which can't outsource). I have more than sufficient savings to support myself for years to come -- probably enough to retire. I don't have dependents, debt, etc. I'm fine, so don't cry for me.
Your concern should be for the health of the economy, the country, and the welfare of the millions of people who are facing outsourcing. They did not, as a group, make poor choices in life. Most of them chose wisely, with no reasonable alternative employment that would have been safe from the wave of outsourcing that's hitting every sector from insurance claim processing to manufacturing to biotech. There simply aren't an infinite number of jobs out there. If 1,000 bank workers lose their jobs to outsourcing, there are not 1,000 jobs that magically appear in other sectors. If 3,000 engineering jobs are outsourced, there aren't suddenly 3,000 other jobs at comparable pay rates created to fill the void. That's the problem with massive outsourcing; jobs go away and new ones aren't created for the displaced workers.
Whoah - just as a quick note, I am *not*, in any way shape or form, a Bush supporter.
My apologies then. Good to know that we are on the same side.
1. The out-of-work engineer won't be able to afford that cheaper DVD-changer, but some part of the other 93% (or so) working Americans will be more able to afford it.
Except that more and more of them are falling out of work due to outsourcing. We're losing manufacturing, engineering, customer support, biotech, etc. What's left? Fast food workers, Walmart greeters, and lawn mowers don't buy a lot of consumer goods.
2. Quick point - you didn't disprove my argument. You argued about "some of the richest counties in the nation", which I would estimate are only a few % of the total number of counties. In the late 90s, lots of places had a budget surplus; now everywhere there's a deficit, and it's not due to outsourcing (unless you care to make the argument the dot-com-bust was due to outsourcing).
You claimed that "funding almost always falls short of needs" and that it is due to government waste. Well, when there was adequate funding, governments weren't spending it on gold-plated traffic lights or Segways for every teacher in the school system, so they clearly can live within their means. What we are seeing now is the result of both the economy overall and of an increase in unfunded federal mandates (can you say "Terror Threat Level Orange"?) as well as reduced flow of federal funds to localities.
3. Outsourcing *will* have an effect upon tax revenue, but I don't think it will be significant enough (on the national scale) to affect taxes.
I think that it will. It's a trickle-down in the ugliest manner. Reduced wages and unemployment lead to lower consumer confidence and reduced spending. That leads to more layoffs in the retail sector, which leads to more layoffs in the manufacturing sector, which leads to more unemployment and downwards pressure on wages.
As for raising taxes - as much as I hate to say it, it's far more likely that the American people will shoulder that increased tax burden, rather than businesses. That's been the ugly trend in the last few decades - shifting the tax burden to the individual tax payers, away from corporations.
Sadly, I believe that you are probably right.
Now I'm going to sound like a conservative, but I believe that all businesses should be tax-exempt. Companies invest huge sums of money doing stupid, uproductive things to reduce taxes. I've worked for companies that rented storage so that they could store outdated equipment that they depreciated on their taxes. I know about the hordes of accountants and lawyers who concentrate on ways to reduce company tax burdens. I'd much rather have my company just try to be competitive in its market rather than wasting money trying to find tax loopholes.
Unemployment insurance is paid by employers, not by Joe Taxpayer. A common mistake.
Right. And companies pay that out of the good of their hearts, right? They don't pass that on in the form of lower wages or higher prices for goods, eh?
Regarding your nice home. You most likely have a mortgage and call it "owning a home" even though it is nothing more than a tax break gained from "trying to own" instead of "renting from someone else".
Do you own a home outright? If not, STFU, loser.
I would not even be surprised if you had taken out a home equity loan at least once in the past of your "career" to pay off higher-interest debt (such as credit cards).
Another stupid assumption on your part. I have one credit card and I pay off the entire amount every month. I paid for my car, boat, motorcycle, and Jeep in cash. The only debt I carry is on my home mortgage, and that's an investment that has almost doubled in value in five years. I've probably saved up more for retirement than you'll ever earn.
Arguing that you are working for money because you have a family for which you are financially responsible is rendered as a pathetic situation you got yourself into.
I don't have dependents. I have plenty of savings. And my job is not threatened in any way. At all. It's just that, unlike you, I can have empathy for others and I understand enough about economics to recognize that my personal success is unrelated to the overall health of the economy.
Not to mention your fixation on the assumption that you HAVE to go to college to get into a career.
Please, tell all of us on Slashdot about what kind of "career" you have. Tell us what kind of training you had. Tell us all about your lifestyle. How many times have you changed careers (and going from cashier at McDonalds to "Sales Associate" at K-Mart doesn't count as a career change)? What kind of training did you get to change careers if you didn't go to college for the change? Tell us how you got hired for these "careers" when you went in with no experience or degree. You must have quite the impressive resume.
You failed to plan with responsiblity.
What an idiot you are. I have investments, savings, and net worth that would let me retire long before you even move out of your parents' basement.
You don't understand the concept of a career and you have the maturity of a six year old who tells people he's going to be an astronaut one week and a fireman the next. You love to throw around idiotic terms like "value creator", but the only way that you will "create value" is if you use some of your bullshit as fertilizer.
P.S. Your sock-puppet response to your own post was pitiful.
If this is the kind of logic you use in your programs as you have used to make these derivation, no wonder your job is outsourced and if it is not then it should be.
Obviously you couldn't find any basic flaws in my argument (or you would have pointed them out), so I'll just take your childish insults as evidence of your frustration.
* Company X's products & services are now cheaper, allowing consumers and/or Company Y to purchase more of them
Just how cheap does a DVD changer have to be before an engineer who's been out of work for six months can afford it? How many more will he buy?
* Funding almost always falls short of needs, and it's not simply because workers are paying less in taxes. In many cases it is also due in large part to financial irresponsibility on the part of the levels of government
More right-wing vagaries and hand-waving instead of dealing with the problem. Some of the richest counties in the nation, those that were running budget surpluses for year, now find that there is not enough tax revenue to pay for basic services and they are raising taxes to cover the costs. So, no, funding does not almost always fall short of needs.
* Some taxes do go up, but it is much more common to cut or reduce various government programs to make up the shortfalls
Bush told those same lies to get appointed President. Now we have higher government spending than we ever did before he took office -- and we have staggering record federal deficits. I know two teachers who don't know if they'll have jobs next year. Maybe that's what you mean by 'reducing various government programs.'
* Company X saves far more money from outsourcing than they end up paying in increased taxes, if indeed taxes are increased at all (which is very doubtful, particularly in this economic climate)
So you can't see more than six months into the future? How do you think that we'll pay the interest on the federal debt that's accruing? Taxes, that's how. So Bush & Co. can cut taxes now, increase spending, rack up a huge debt, and then leave his successor to break the bad news that taxes have to be raised. All secure in the knowledge that the average voter will be too stupid to recognize the Ponzi Scheme that's being passed off for "fiscal responsibility."
Clearly you must be the one living in your parent's basement since you appear to have zero motivation or ambition and simply want to hold on to your existing job until somebody pries it out of your cold, dead hands.
Unlike you, I'm a successful engineer who has built up his skills and risen through the ranks for the last couple of decades. I live in a nice home, have nice vehicles, and can afford to spend money on my interests. I have enough real-world experience to know that changing fields entails starting off at the bottom again and never having the earning potential of someone who has been in that field throughout their career.
You, on the other hand, sound like someone with no real skills, no real achievements, and no real ambition. You just figure easy-come, easy-go when it comes to jobs and careers. You don't seem to have any passion for the work you do. Sure, you'll have no trouble changing jobs at this stage in your life. All you'll have to remember is to say "crispy or Original Recipe" rather than "would you like fries with that".
Unless you're 70 years old and suffer from some mental retardation issue there are always opportunities to learn and do something else.
Bullshit. Utter, stinking, right-wing bullshit. If a middle-aged engineer with a wife, children, a house, etc. loses his job, you're telling him to back to college for four years to become a lawyer, investment banker, or chemist? I guess you think his family can live in a 1989 Ford Fiesta while he gets his degree and tries to climb the corporate ladder all over again -- starting at the bottom rung.
You just don't want to face reality. You can't deal with it. The thought that you might find yourself middle-aged, unemployed, and in a field that's going away scares the hell out of you. You want to try to convince yourself that you can be a software engineer this month and next month be a neurosurgeon the next if your job is outsourced. Well my little friend, that's not reality.
Slashdot Mirror
Ummm, UT and Quake are not supposed to be accurate simulations of reality.
No, they are not, but neither are they supposed to be something totally alien, which explains the humanoid characters, conventional aiming sights, physics models, injuries from falling too far, etc.
Is using medkits cheap because they exploit the flaw that people can't really instantly heal themselves?
That's not a flaw, it's an integral part of the game design. It's not an unintended consequence or side-effect. You accept that when you buy the game.
Stop whining and learn to aim.
Gee, now you sound like the author of the article: 'I like to cheat and anyone who doesn't like it is a whiner.'
If these "cheesey" moves are so terrible then why are they in the games in the first place?
Because the games had unforseen consequences to their designs and implementations. That's like saying "if the Code Red worm is so bad, why was Microsoft build in a vulnerability to it in the first place?"
Unless someone is actually cheating, you should STFU.
Someone who abuses a flaw in a game design is cheating.
I think it works both ways, if you can defeat the chesser by being more skillful, the cheeser will soon learn that his cheesy tactics are not working anymore.
And what if you can't beat the cheeser with skill? What if you have reached the limits of your skill, reflexes, and coordination? That's what pisses people off about cheese moves. They allow a less-skilled, and less ethical, player to consistently win.
"I'm certainly not above all this. Sometimes I can ride a move or two all the way to victory, and it makes me smile... The challenge then, for those who prefer to take the high road, is to find ways to beat them... Don't get mad. Get better."
What a load of crap! This guy just likes to exploit flaws in games for his own advantage. He knows damned well that there are often no effective counters to the cheese moves he's so fond of -- that's why he uses them. He's no better than the people who hop, run, and jump for three hours at a time in FPS games (exploiting the flaw that your character never tires from such acrobatics).
Moral of the story: People suck. They rationalize that whatever they do in the game is okay, whether it's bunny-hopping through FPS games, repetitive moves for which their is no counter, or 60 keystroke macros.
I'd love to help vote them out of office but who would be better?
Almost anyone and certainly Kerry.
Anyone else that sits in that position of power has a media appearance to uphold. In order to keep their media appearance up they have to give the impression that they're doing something.
I think that you are being overly cynical. Look to history and you will see that a President doing something doesn't have to entail the curtailment of rights and privacy. John F. Kennedy did "something" and it involved expanding rights, not reducing them. Shortly before his assassination, Kennedy gave a speech endorsing the civil rights agenda and calling for federal legislation to end segregation in public accommodations and racial discrimination in employment. While campaigning, Kennedy promised an executive order barring racial discrimination in federal housing programs "with a stroke of [his] pen." Throughout his term, Carter fought for civil rights and human rights. Bill Clinton wrote on the subject of abortion; "Still, I believe the ultimate choice should remain a matter for a woman to decide in consultation with her conscience, her doctor, and her God." He didn't abuse the power of the Presidency to put gag orders on aid organizations who did not share his views.
We have not had 220+ years of Presidents reducing, curtailing, and circumventing Constititutional rights or other rights. Many of our Presidents have fought long and hard to expand rights.
It may be affirmed that they cannot demand your PGP key but that won't keep them from using "Failure to voluntarily disclose PGP key" as a reason to increase surveillance. Suspicion is easily aroused in a state that benefits financially from violating the rights of its people.
I agree and I strongly urge you to help vote Bush, Cheney, and, with them, Ashcroft, out of office. The erosion of rights we have seen since those three took office has been horrifying. Practically on inauguration day, Bush signed executive "gag orders" that took away all federal funding for humanitarian organizations which even mentioned abortions as an option (and we sure don't want to let an AIDS-infected woman in Sub-Saharan Africa to know that she could have an abortion). Ashcroft basically penned the "PATRIOT Act" which has done more to undermine Constitutional rights than any other law in the last fifty years (or more). Bush uses Presidential access as a tool to reward those who speak positively about the administration, while denying those critical of the administration the access that they need to do their jobs. It was the Bush administration that came up with the concept of locking people up in Cuba while not charging them or giving them access to lawyers. And it was the Bush Administration that came up with the idea of "Free Speech Zones" -- basically areas away from cameras and the press where the corral those who wish to exercise their First Amendment rights to speak out against the administration.
Your point is well taken. You might only spend six to eighteen months in the clink, waiting for your appeals and challenges to go through the legal system. In the meantime, as you pace your 6X9 cell, you can't earn money, and your lawyers drain your bank account, and your kids are shortchanged one parent. How many people can really afford the luxury of testing their case? The uncertainty has a substantial chilling effect.
I agree fully, but once that first case is decided, it won't happen again. "Testing" the case might be the alternative to certain, lengthy prison terms for some people and those people will be the ones most likely to appeal this up to higher courts. That's almost always how it works.
Your faith is touching, but not wholly convincing. The Supreme Court is likely to rule as narrowly as possible, linking the ruling to as many specifics of the case as possible, and leaving as much of the terrain undecided as possible. At least that's what they usually do. Couragous rulings like Roe v. Wade come along less than once in a generation.
I also agree there, but it might be hard to decide a case involving a remembered encryption key without deciding on the broader issue of whether revealing such a key is a form of self-incriminating testimony.
Regards,
Fred Maxwell
Can you cite any relevant laws or cases?
Yes. The Fifth Amendment is the best legal citation that one can provide. Miranda is another good one because, in it, the Supreme Court recognized one's right to remain silent. There are countless cases where the courts have ruled that one is not required to provide testimony which could incriminate them.
There seem to be a lot of issues here. My current understanding is that you should not expect to keep you encryption key secret. This is mainly because a judge might hold you in contemp of court indefinately, until you gave them your key.
That's like saying that a judge might hold you in contempt of court indefinitely until you tell them where the murder weapon is. That some yahoo judge in the sticks is willing to do something is no guarantee that his actions would stand up to a constitutional challenge.
Here's another discussion of the topic on the Rubberhose website (an encryotion scheme which offers deniable encryption). It's by far the best discussion of the subject I've seen, but even this (with its 159 footnotes) refuses to make a conclusive judgement on the topic. It states what the courts "should" do, but wouldn't do me much good in a jail cell. It's seems like the privacy of your crypto key is quite debatable.
That was a superb document, but I believe, strongly, that the Supreme Court will uphold a person's right not to provide a memorized key. I have no doubt that the courts have a legal right to subpeona anything written down, but I do not believe that they can compel you to provide testimony about something you remember which could be incriminating. The courts are not going to be allowed to compel you to provide incriminatory information, whether a cryptographic key or where you hid the murder weapon.
Regarding fifth-amendment rights: one cannot be compelled to provide self-incriminating evidence, but one may be compelled to provide evidence against someone else, so the attack would go down something like this:
That's a common misconception. The only way that they could compel you to provide self-incriminating evidence would be for them to give you immunity from prosecution. If someone witnessed a hit-and-run while soliciting a prostitute, they would have a Fifth Amendment right to refuse to testify as to why they were in the area.
FBI believes person A committed crime (or otherwise wants information on person A). FBI accuses person B of being an accessory to said crime and subpoenas all of person A's evidence related to person B. Since person A has encrypted files which might reasonably contain details on the "crime" that B committed, the FBI can reasonably subpoena A's encryption keys.
No, no, no! The FBI cannot make any person provide testimony which would be self-incriminating. If person A has been trading kiddie porn on Kazaa, they cannot make person B turn over the encryption key to the ZIP file that contains all of the kiddie porn he downloaded from person A.
Saying "I can't recall" will earn you an interminate stay in the county jug until your memory improves dramatically.
Absolutely untrue. Witnesses are often unable to recall things. How long did Reagan end up in jail for his inability to recall facts about what happened during Iran-Contra? Are you telling me that you've never forgotten a password, encryption key, or PIN? They can't jail people for not being able to remember things. That's the very kind of torture and intimidation to which you allude in your own posting.
The privelege against self-incrimination can be invoked only during interrogation and at trial.
When the police are shining a bright light in your eyes and asking what the encryption key is to your hard drive, what is that, if not an interrogation? Have you heard of Miranda rights? The very first one is the right to remain silent. The Fifth Amendment is not limited solely to interrogations and trials in which you are a defendent. A judge cannot force you to testify against yourself in a pre-trial hearing, can he? If you witnessed bank robbery, the court cannot compel you to reveal that you were buying heroin when you saw it -- even though you are not the one on trial.
But it does not protect you from bring compelled to provide fingerprint and DNA samples, surrender your private correspondence, account books and ledgers, etc.
Physical evidence is not the same as testimony. The courts can make you turn over your hard drive, but they can't make you reveal them the encryption key. They can make you turn over your personal correspondence, but they cannot make you translate it into English for them.
If you EVER get arrested, detained, questioned, etc., do yourself a huge favor and get an attorney before saying anything. Remember, YANAL.
Requiring that someone provide encryption keys would likely be construed as a violation of a U.S. citizen's Fifth Amendment rights: "nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself." If the hard drive had incriminating evidence of ANY crime on it, then the person would be within their Constitutional rights to refuse to provide the encryption keys to access the data.
From a practical standpoint, "I can't recall" is a very effective three words sentence in such a case. It's not like any of us can honestly say that we've never forgotten a password or encryption key, so the prosecution would be hard-pressed to convince a judge and jury that such a claim is preposterous.
Despite the jokes to the contrary, there are Americans who speak other languages. Have you tried placing 'help-wanted' ads for American technical support personnel who are fluent in French, German, and Spanish? With all of the U.S. tech support people who are out of work, I can't believe that it will be very difficult to find qualified people who speak other languages.
You'd be better off not paying a middle-man. Hiring multi-lingual employees would give you people who could fill multiple roles, you would be able to supervise and train them directly, and you'd have a staff that worked as a team and could consult one another directly. Think about the flexibility; If, for example, there were no French-speaking callers at any given time, the bilingual French/English tech support person could handle calls from English-speaking callers.
Thanks for the positive end to what started off as a less-than-positive discussion.
Peace.
You are kidding yourself if you think that unemployment insurance rates are going to remain constant in the wake of outsourcing. As more and more people lose their jobs, the cost of unemployment insurance will rise. When it rises, the costs will be passed on to consumers (in the form of higher prices) and employees (in the form of lower pay).
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In fact, the FUTA varies by state. Here's more information on it:
http://workforcesecurity.doleta.gov/unemploy/ui
Regarding the tax write-off, I thought you were worth so much that a meazly monthly mortgage payment interest did not really matter as a worth-enough tax break.
It's all percentages and net-present-value. Being well off does not make it prudent to ignore the tax benefits of mortgage interest tax write-offs. In fact, it is even more important as those with more taxable income are taxed at a higher rate.
I admit that I have made the mistake in assuming that the tax benefits from the mortgage interest in your case were negligible.
With a mortgage well below 6% and a tax write-off on the mortgage interest, one would have to find very low-yield investments for it to be financially advisable to pay off the mortgage.
PS: For the purposes of invsetment consideration, I consider a primary home as more of a liability than an asset because even though it has monetary value, it doesn't make sense to liquidate it due to the fact that one has to live somewhere.
In general, I would agree with you, but I live in one of the most expensive housing markets in the country. We are experiencing phenomenal growth in home prices -- especially if one has a relatively nice home. Yes, I do have to live somewhere, but more typical areas of the country, especially where I might someday retire, have far lower prices. The longer I stay here watching my home appreciate, the greater the delta between what I sell my home for here and what I pay for an equivalent (or nicer) home elsewhere. That's what makes it an investment. If I lived in Fort Wayne or Deluth, I'd agree that the home hardly qualifies as an investment.
Apparently the post to which you're responding with so much vitriol hit close to home!
Not at all. I'm just an unpleasant, nasty person who enjoys attacking others with little provocation. Your amateur psychiatry attempts, while humorous, really aren't hitting "close to home" at all.
That shows where the spammers are located, not from where the spam is sent. Sure, Alan Ralsky lives in the U.S., but he happily contracts with ISPs in other countries to send the spam.
I think you should seriously consult your financial advisor because I am not the idiot here... If you carry a mortgage and at the same time you have investments and savings etc. in sizes that you claim to have, then you are a fool:
Untrue. In fact, my CPA strongly discouraged me from paying off my mortgage (a suggestion that I made). He termed it "a common mistake". Don't ignore the tax write-off associated with a mortgage. Another mistake is to assume that one should liquidate their retirement investments, many of which are tax-deferred to pay off their home. Again, another big mistake. Perhaps you should hire a licensed CPA instead of a "financial advisor." I've found them to be far more helpful once one gets beyond thinking that CDs at a bank are an investment.
I am sorry, I don't really want to reveal too much pesonal information here.
Then please don't presume to tell everyone else how to run their lives.
I assure you that I am doing well for myself.
Enjoy your success, but don't assume that everyone who has not travelled your path in life is somehow your inferior. Recognizing that outsourcing is bad for the economy does not mean that someone is insecure about their own career.
I'm sorry if you've devoted your life so thoroughly to one particular career that you can't feasibly find another way to support yourself, and I'm sorry that you're so deeply entrenched in your current lifestyle that you can't feasibly reduce your expenses.
I appreciate your heartfelt sympathy, but I don't need it. I have a good job, it's solid, and I'm not going to lose it to outsourcing (it's in a sector which can't outsource). I have more than sufficient savings to support myself for years to come -- probably enough to retire. I don't have dependents, debt, etc. I'm fine, so don't cry for me.
Your concern should be for the health of the economy, the country, and the welfare of the millions of people who are facing outsourcing. They did not, as a group, make poor choices in life. Most of them chose wisely, with no reasonable alternative employment that would have been safe from the wave of outsourcing that's hitting every sector from insurance claim processing to manufacturing to biotech. There simply aren't an infinite number of jobs out there. If 1,000 bank workers lose their jobs to outsourcing, there are not 1,000 jobs that magically appear in other sectors. If 3,000 engineering jobs are outsourced, there aren't suddenly 3,000 other jobs at comparable pay rates created to fill the void. That's the problem with massive outsourcing; jobs go away and new ones aren't created for the displaced workers.
Whoah - just as a quick note, I am *not*, in any way shape or form, a Bush supporter.
My apologies then. Good to know that we are on the same side.
1. The out-of-work engineer won't be able to afford that cheaper DVD-changer, but some part of the other 93% (or so) working Americans will be more able to afford it.
Except that more and more of them are falling out of work due to outsourcing. We're losing manufacturing, engineering, customer support, biotech, etc. What's left? Fast food workers, Walmart greeters, and lawn mowers don't buy a lot of consumer goods.
2. Quick point - you didn't disprove my argument. You argued about "some of the richest counties in the nation", which I would estimate are only a few % of the total number of counties. In the late 90s, lots of places had a budget surplus; now everywhere there's a deficit, and it's not due to outsourcing (unless you care to make the argument the dot-com-bust was due to outsourcing).
You claimed that "funding almost always falls short of needs" and that it is due to government waste. Well, when there was adequate funding, governments weren't spending it on gold-plated traffic lights or Segways for every teacher in the school system, so they clearly can live within their means. What we are seeing now is the result of both the economy overall and of an increase in unfunded federal mandates (can you say "Terror Threat Level Orange"?) as well as reduced flow of federal funds to localities.
3. Outsourcing *will* have an effect upon tax revenue, but I don't think it will be significant enough (on the national scale) to affect taxes.
I think that it will. It's a trickle-down in the ugliest manner. Reduced wages and unemployment lead to lower consumer confidence and reduced spending. That leads to more layoffs in the retail sector, which leads to more layoffs in the manufacturing sector, which leads to more unemployment and downwards pressure on wages.
As for raising taxes - as much as I hate to say it, it's far more likely that the American people will shoulder that increased tax burden, rather than businesses. That's been the ugly trend in the last few decades - shifting the tax burden to the individual tax payers, away from corporations.
Sadly, I believe that you are probably right.
Now I'm going to sound like a conservative, but I believe that all businesses should be tax-exempt. Companies invest huge sums of money doing stupid, uproductive things to reduce taxes. I've worked for companies that rented storage so that they could store outdated equipment that they depreciated on their taxes. I know about the hordes of accountants and lawyers who concentrate on ways to reduce company tax burdens. I'd much rather have my company just try to be competitive in its market rather than wasting money trying to find tax loopholes.
Unemployment insurance is paid by employers, not by Joe Taxpayer. A common mistake.
Right. And companies pay that out of the good of their hearts, right? They don't pass that on in the form of lower wages or higher prices for goods, eh?
Regarding your nice home. You most likely have a mortgage and call it "owning a home" even though it is nothing more than a tax break gained from "trying to own" instead of "renting from someone else".
Do you own a home outright? If not, STFU, loser.
I would not even be surprised if you had taken out a home equity loan at least once in the past of your "career" to pay off higher-interest debt (such as credit cards).
Another stupid assumption on your part. I have one credit card and I pay off the entire amount every month. I paid for my car, boat, motorcycle, and Jeep in cash. The only debt I carry is on my home mortgage, and that's an investment that has almost doubled in value in five years. I've probably saved up more for retirement than you'll ever earn.
Arguing that you are working for money because you have a family for which you are financially responsible is rendered as a pathetic situation you got yourself into.
I don't have dependents. I have plenty of savings. And my job is not threatened in any way. At all. It's just that, unlike you, I can have empathy for others and I understand enough about economics to recognize that my personal success is unrelated to the overall health of the economy.
Not to mention your fixation on the assumption that you HAVE to go to college to get into a career.
Please, tell all of us on Slashdot about what kind of "career" you have. Tell us what kind of training you had. Tell us all about your lifestyle. How many times have you changed careers (and going from cashier at McDonalds to "Sales Associate" at K-Mart doesn't count as a career change)? What kind of training did you get to change careers if you didn't go to college for the change? Tell us how you got hired for these "careers" when you went in with no experience or degree. You must have quite the impressive resume.
You failed to plan with responsiblity.
What an idiot you are. I have investments, savings, and net worth that would let me retire long before you even move out of your parents' basement.
You don't understand the concept of a career and you have the maturity of a six year old who tells people he's going to be an astronaut one week and a fireman the next. You love to throw around idiotic terms like "value creator", but the only way that you will "create value" is if you use some of your bullshit as fertilizer.
P.S. Your sock-puppet response to your own post was pitiful.
If this is the kind of logic you use in your programs as you have used to make these derivation, no wonder your job is outsourced and if it is not then it should be.
Obviously you couldn't find any basic flaws in my argument (or you would have pointed them out), so I'll just take your childish insults as evidence of your frustration.
* Company X's products & services are now cheaper, allowing consumers and/or Company Y to purchase more of them
Just how cheap does a DVD changer have to be before an engineer who's been out of work for six months can afford it? How many more will he buy?
* Funding almost always falls short of needs, and it's not simply because workers are paying less in taxes. In many cases it is also due in large part to financial irresponsibility on the part of the levels of government
More right-wing vagaries and hand-waving instead of dealing with the problem. Some of the richest counties in the nation, those that were running budget surpluses for year, now find that there is not enough tax revenue to pay for basic services and they are raising taxes to cover the costs. So, no, funding does not almost always fall short of needs.
* Some taxes do go up, but it is much more common to cut or reduce various government programs to make up the shortfalls
Bush told those same lies to get appointed President. Now we have higher government spending than we ever did before he took office -- and we have staggering record federal deficits. I know two teachers who don't know if they'll have jobs next year. Maybe that's what you mean by 'reducing various government programs.'
* Company X saves far more money from outsourcing than they end up paying in increased taxes, if indeed taxes are increased at all (which is very doubtful, particularly in this economic climate)
So you can't see more than six months into the future? How do you think that we'll pay the interest on the federal debt that's accruing? Taxes, that's how. So Bush & Co. can cut taxes now, increase spending, rack up a huge debt, and then leave his successor to break the bad news that taxes have to be raised. All secure in the knowledge that the average voter will be too stupid to recognize the Ponzi Scheme that's being passed off for "fiscal responsibility."
Clearly you must be the one living in your parent's basement since you appear to have zero motivation or ambition and simply want to hold on to your existing job until somebody pries it out of your cold, dead hands.
Unlike you, I'm a successful engineer who has built up his skills and risen through the ranks for the last couple of decades. I live in a nice home, have nice vehicles, and can afford to spend money on my interests. I have enough real-world experience to know that changing fields entails starting off at the bottom again and never having the earning potential of someone who has been in that field throughout their career.
You, on the other hand, sound like someone with no real skills, no real achievements, and no real ambition. You just figure easy-come, easy-go when it comes to jobs and careers. You don't seem to have any passion for the work you do. Sure, you'll have no trouble changing jobs at this stage in your life. All you'll have to remember is to say "crispy or Original Recipe" rather than "would you like fries with that".
Unless you're 70 years old and suffer from some mental retardation issue there are always opportunities to learn and do something else.
Bullshit. Utter, stinking, right-wing bullshit. If a middle-aged engineer with a wife, children, a house, etc. loses his job, you're telling him to back to college for four years to become a lawyer, investment banker, or chemist? I guess you think his family can live in a 1989 Ford Fiesta while he gets his degree and tries to climb the corporate ladder all over again -- starting at the bottom rung.
You just don't want to face reality. You can't deal with it. The thought that you might find yourself middle-aged, unemployed, and in a field that's going away scares the hell out of you. You want to try to convince yourself that you can be a software engineer this month and next month be a neurosurgeon the next if your job is outsourced. Well my little friend, that's not reality.