If this stands up to appeal, it seems to me that if you use a network packet sniffer to gather evidence against spyware/virus writers, it will be inadmissable unless you got a court order before doing it. Can't intercept their communications without their permission. Ridiculous!
Clearly the law was not intentionally written to restrict individuals in this way. Maybe our legislators will think about fine tuning it a bit, before it becomes a factor in something like a serial child-murder case.
Spyware companies hide behind EULAs. When you (or more likely your 11-year-old) download Bonzi-Buddy and click "Accept" on the terms, you agree to let the software do whatever it wants on your machine, which is like giving somebody permission to tap your phone.
The article calls it "her husband's computer," but in most marriages that would be a euphemism for "their computer, which her husband mostly uses but is just as much hers." It doesn't make it clear whether it was truly "his" computer in this case, but that probably doesn't matter. In today's law-bound world there are all kinds of things you can't do on your own computer without somebody's permission, so I'm not totally surprised.
Wow, the one from Delft is so minimalist it doesn't even look like a real robot, more like a movie prop of a science project. Considering the bulk of some others like Asimo, and that true bipedal walking was big news only a couple years ago, reducing it to such a simple package is pretty amazing!
I don't care what he says. Dialing HIS OWN PHONE and then publishing the call stats would be a proof of concept. Dialing 911, taking police away from other situations where people really need them is not a proof of concept, it's called "being an asshole."
"...although we give people a way to enjoy music while respecting artists' rights."
Yeah, by paying money to record companies, who then withhold it from the musicians according to the terms of their contracts. The musicians get no more money when you pay for the service than when you use it illegally.
I wonder sometimes, are these spokespeople pathological liars or do they actually believe their own PR?
In high school and college I had a part time business cutting notches in the ends of cardboard tubes. The company my dad worked for made paper for thermal copying machines (long time ago). To force customers to use only that brand of paper, the copy machine maker built little metal pegs onto the hubs that held the roll, and they wanted my dad's company to cut notches in the tubes that the paper was rolled on, which would engage the pegs. My dad's company didn't have an accurate way to cut these notches, so through some wangling he got me the job as a subcontractor. For a while I used a table saw with a homemade jig to align the tubes. Later I designed a motorized notch-cutting machine and had a retired machinist down the road build it for me.
Little did I know at the time that I was probably helping them violate anti-trust laws. But it sure did help put me through college.
The moral is that this type of practice isn't limited to the software business or to the "big boys".
Good chance to slip in a plug for heavy lift rockets powered by Gas Core Nuclear Reactor engines. Here is a really interesting design for a fully reusable, non-polluting nuclear rocket based on the Saturn-V form factor, which could lift 1000 tons of cargo into Earth orbit (for comparison, the Space Shuttle can carry 30 tons) and return to a soft landing. It's a fully reusable spaceship that could haul up entire resort hotels (not just "inflatable modules") in a single trip.
Another great use for GCNR rockets would be interplanetary trips such as a Mars mission. Their cargo capacity would allow for a tremendous amount of supplies and equipment. Transit time would be half that of a conventional ship, reducing the effects of prolonged zero-gee and cosmic radiation exposure, and a host of other problems. The ability to make a powered landing on Mars would eliminate the need for an aerobraking system, Apollo-style lander/return combination or other engineering. The crew could fly there, land, take off and return home in a single vehicle, just like in all those old black and white space movies.
I agree with parent. Various house-arrest devices have been in use for many years. They are essentially lower-tech gadgets that detect when the wearer strays too far from a second gizmo attached to their house or whatever. GPS would give judges a lot more latitude in specifying the terms of probation. Example -- allow the person to travel to work and the local shopping area but nowhere else.
Near Goldendale, Washington there is a full-scale replica of Stonehenge that's made out of concrete. It was built in 1918 by a concrete tycoon named Sam Hill as a memorial for those who died in WWI, and is said to be the most accurate Stonehenge replica in the United States. There's also an observatory nearby with one of the country's largest public-access telescopes. Pretty interesting place to stop if you are going through Washington in the summer.
That's the first thing I thought of too. Every car already has an odometer, and supposedly they contain some built-in way of revealing if they have been set back. I'm surprised there aren't more posts asking this question.
My guess is that someone is thinking ahead to using the additional tracking capabilities GPS would provide. Tracking every single person's driving patterns might not be politically palatable, but if the system is introduced as a way to collect taxes, new applications for it could be "discovered" once it's in place.
Uhhhh, not to be a troll, but emptying a chamber pot out the window was simple in its day.
Imagine saying the title of a song into your cellphone and hearing the song instantly blast out of your stereo. Simpler than looking for the CD on the shelf, taking it out of the box, putting it in the player, looking for the box for the CD you took out of the player...
The ideal: "What the consumer would buy is a data file, and you could create whatever you need."
The real: Napster's To Go subscription service allows buyers to essentially rent an unlimited amount of music for $15 per month. A subscription-based service will be built into the latest version of Microsoft Windows; for between $10 and $20, users will access songs for a monthly fee but will be unable to burn them onto CDs.
You'll get the data files, but not the "buy" or "create whatever you want" parts, because that would eliminate valuable business opportunities for people who never wrote or played a line of music in their lives.
do they have the curves on days without major events?
I was thinking the same thing while reading the article, but they've got that covered. When the effect happens at the right time, it's perceiving an event. When it happens at the wrong time, it's predicting an event.
Whatever the reason for racism, it's pretty clear that governments can't stop people from feeling how they feel. Criminalizing hate speech only hides the problem so you don't have to deal with it, unless you're one of its victims. Then the fact that it's underground makes it harder to convince everybody else that there is a problem. They'll point to the censored world they see and call you a whiner.
We won't understand why people are racist and how to change that situation if all we do is force them to shut up.
Yeah, the reminds me of the standard Fark posting "Scientists discover blah blah... still no cure for cancer." No doubt somebody could make a lot of money selling grass that grows 2 inches and stops, but I hardly think curing disease is "barking up the wrong tree." I'd much rather have GM research dollars spent saving lives and alleviating misery than preventing baldness or re-colorizing autumn leaves. If the guy who wrote this article doesn't like fir needles in his yard, maybe he should plant a cedar tree or something else.
It would appear that we live in a different world than we thought. Common sense would suggest that if you can look at something without restrictions, you can take home a photo of it. Commercial use might be another issue, but simply photographing or sketching objects that have been deliberately placed in public view shouldn't be an issue.
I think it's time to change the law, or at least spell it out. If you don't know who your congressional representatives are, go here and figure it out and then write a letter asking for a comprehensive review and clarification of copyright law as it applies to works displayed in public areas.
Slashdot Mirror
The "loophole" only allows checking for authorization:
"solely to determine whether the user of the computer is authorized to use such software"
Uploading keystroke logs, web browser history, etc. would not fall under this heading.
If this stands up to appeal, it seems to me that if you use a network packet sniffer to gather evidence against spyware/virus writers, it will be inadmissable unless you got a court order before doing it. Can't intercept their communications without their permission. Ridiculous!
Clearly the law was not intentionally written to restrict individuals in this way. Maybe our legislators will think about fine tuning it a bit, before it becomes a factor in something like a serial child-murder case.
Spyware companies hide behind EULAs. When you (or more likely your 11-year-old) download Bonzi-Buddy and click "Accept" on the terms, you agree to let the software do whatever it wants on your machine, which is like giving somebody permission to tap your phone.
The article calls it "her husband's computer," but in most marriages that would be a euphemism for "their computer, which her husband mostly uses but is just as much hers." It doesn't make it clear whether it was truly "his" computer in this case, but that probably doesn't matter. In today's law-bound world there are all kinds of things you can't do on your own computer without somebody's permission, so I'm not totally surprised.
Wow, the one from Delft is so minimalist it doesn't even look like a real robot, more like a movie prop of a science project. Considering the bulk of some others like Asimo, and that true bipedal walking was big news only a couple years ago, reducing it to such a simple package is pretty amazing!
He's an asshole?
I think you're on to something!
I don't care what he says. Dialing HIS OWN PHONE and then publishing the call stats would be a proof of concept. Dialing 911, taking police away from other situations where people really need them is not a proof of concept, it's called "being an asshole."
"...although we give people a way to enjoy music while respecting artists' rights."
Yeah, by paying money to record companies, who then withhold it from the musicians according to the terms of their contracts. The musicians get no more money when you pay for the service than when you use it illegally.
I wonder sometimes, are these spokespeople pathological liars or do they actually believe their own PR?
In high school and college I had a part time business cutting notches in the ends of cardboard tubes. The company my dad worked for made paper for thermal copying machines (long time ago). To force customers to use only that brand of paper, the copy machine maker built little metal pegs onto the hubs that held the roll, and they wanted my dad's company to cut notches in the tubes that the paper was rolled on, which would engage the pegs. My dad's company didn't have an accurate way to cut these notches, so through some wangling he got me the job as a subcontractor. For a while I used a table saw with a homemade jig to align the tubes. Later I designed a motorized notch-cutting machine and had a retired machinist down the road build it for me.
Little did I know at the time that I was probably helping them violate anti-trust laws. But it sure did help put me through college.
The moral is that this type of practice isn't limited to the software business or to the "big boys".
The burglar should have "PWNED!!!" tattooed on his forehead. Backwards, so he sees it in the mirror Every Day.
Good chance to slip in a plug for heavy lift rockets powered by Gas Core Nuclear Reactor engines. Here is a really interesting design for a fully reusable, non-polluting nuclear rocket based on the Saturn-V form factor, which could lift 1000 tons of cargo into Earth orbit (for comparison, the Space Shuttle can carry 30 tons) and return to a soft landing. It's a fully reusable spaceship that could haul up entire resort hotels (not just "inflatable modules") in a single trip.
Another great use for GCNR rockets would be interplanetary trips such as a Mars mission. Their cargo capacity would allow for a tremendous amount of supplies and equipment. Transit time would be half that of a conventional ship, reducing the effects of prolonged zero-gee and cosmic radiation exposure, and a host of other problems. The ability to make a powered landing on Mars would eliminate the need for an aerobraking system, Apollo-style lander/return combination or other engineering. The crew could fly there, land, take off and return home in a single vehicle, just like in all those old black and white space movies.
You can't have any pudding if you don't eat your meat!
How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?
I agree with parent. Various house-arrest devices have been in use for many years. They are essentially lower-tech gadgets that detect when the wearer strays too far from a second gizmo attached to their house or whatever. GPS would give judges a lot more latitude in specifying the terms of probation. Example -- allow the person to travel to work and the local shopping area but nowhere else.
Near Goldendale, Washington there is a full-scale replica of Stonehenge that's made out of concrete. It was built in 1918 by a concrete tycoon named Sam Hill as a memorial for those who died in WWI, and is said to be the most accurate Stonehenge replica in the United States. There's also an observatory nearby with one of the country's largest public-access telescopes. Pretty interesting place to stop if you are going through Washington in the summer.
Well, spin my nipple nuts and send me to Alaska!
That's the first thing I thought of too. Every car already has an odometer, and supposedly they contain some built-in way of revealing if they have been set back. I'm surprised there aren't more posts asking this question.
My guess is that someone is thinking ahead to using the additional tracking capabilities GPS would provide. Tracking every single person's driving patterns might not be politically palatable, but if the system is introduced as a way to collect taxes, new applications for it could be "discovered" once it's in place.
Uhhhh, not to be a troll, but emptying a chamber pot out the window was simple in its day.
Imagine saying the title of a song into your cellphone and hearing the song instantly blast out of your stereo. Simpler than looking for the CD on the shelf, taking it out of the box, putting it in the player, looking for the box for the CD you took out of the player...
The ideal:
"What the consumer would buy is a data file, and you could create whatever you need."
The real:
Napster's To Go subscription service allows buyers to essentially rent an unlimited amount of music for $15 per month. A subscription-based service will be built into the latest version of Microsoft Windows; for between $10 and $20, users will access songs for a monthly fee but will be unable to burn them onto CDs.
You'll get the data files, but not the "buy" or "create whatever you want" parts, because that would eliminate valuable business opportunities for people who never wrote or played a line of music in their lives.
First thing I thought of too. But it would be great for LAN parties and sci-fi con road trips, especially if you hung a WAP off it!
do they have the curves on days without major events?
I was thinking the same thing while reading the article, but they've got that covered. When the effect happens at the right time, it's perceiving an event. When it happens at the wrong time, it's predicting an event.
Whatever the reason for racism, it's pretty clear that governments can't stop people from feeling how they feel. Criminalizing hate speech only hides the problem so you don't have to deal with it, unless you're one of its victims. Then the fact that it's underground makes it harder to convince everybody else that there is a problem. They'll point to the censored world they see and call you a whiner.
We won't understand why people are racist and how to change that situation if all we do is force them to shut up.
Yeah, the reminds me of the standard Fark posting "Scientists discover blah blah... still no cure for cancer." No doubt somebody could make a lot of money selling grass that grows 2 inches and stops, but I hardly think curing disease is "barking up the wrong tree." I'd much rather have GM research dollars spent saving lives and alleviating misery than preventing baldness or re-colorizing autumn leaves. If the guy who wrote this article doesn't like fir needles in his yard, maybe he should plant a cedar tree or something else.
Got what? All I got out of reading that gobbledygook was a headache.
It would appear that we live in a different world than we thought. Common sense would suggest that if you can look at something without restrictions, you can take home a photo of it. Commercial use might be another issue, but simply photographing or sketching objects that have been deliberately placed in public view shouldn't be an issue.
I think it's time to change the law, or at least spell it out. If you don't know who your congressional representatives are, go here and figure it out and then write a letter asking for a comprehensive review and clarification of copyright law as it applies to works displayed in public areas.