You're reading too much science fiction friend. Do you honestly think the situation you describe is any different from the current world situation? If a person has no power and no wealth then their intelligence is irrelevant. As things stand the majority of people are working for little more than the equivalent of a cheap meal, in living arrangements scarcely better than cages, making our cheap commodities. Child and slave labor are alive and well all over the world. Why spend billions on genetic engineering when the impoverished labor class constantly refreshes itself for free (and takes care of its own offspreing)? Meanwhile, engineering a labor cost would expose the wealthy to the liability of responsibility for its labor force: at the moment the ideology that "they're getting the deal they agree to" absolves the wealthy 5% of humanity from any sense of responsibility for the miserable lives of those who create their wealth. You really want to improve the world you might spend less time worrying about the long term implications of screening eggs for alzheimer's and a little more thinking about who assembled your fucking shoes.
>sheesh, i've posted 184 comments since i created the account last summer.
My mistake; you just hapeened to have posted more than a dozen this week.
Responding to your posts is a great way to burn karma; which is a stupid concept anyway but it seems to be like ass hair; nobody in their right mind wants it but I got it in spades anyway.
Hey Sexual Asspussy, I've always wanted to know: what's the attraction of your particular lifestyle (so to speak)? Why do you troll? What's the aim? This is a serious question - there's this whole "below the threshold" world of wack shit like yours all over the internet and I've never figured out exactly what it is about what you do that satisfies. Also, how the hell do you manage to post so much? What do you do with your time?
There are scary inmplications but I think it needs to be viewed in context. For starts, a lot (I will hazard a guess at a majority) of people will simply reject this or be priced out of the possibility. You have to accept in-vitro for starts, I suspect it's going to be a lot harder to type sperm, so you still have some serious uncertainty there. And while some traits and diseases will yield easily to genetic typing, others, particularly complex ones like intelligence or athletic ability, will not. And is it worth 10s or 100s of thousands of dollars to have a kid with blue eyes?
Yeah, yeah, the gentic superclass of the wealthy. Big deal, they're already a superclass in terms of quality of life and survival due to simple wealth. And remember, they're still confined to the leash of their personal genetics.
We don't know nearly as much about genetic impact on traits and development as we sometimes like to pretend. It's highly likely that more devlopment occurs in the womb than many people acknowledge - pure environment, and the kind that is hard to account for in the kinds of population studies that end up defining our assumptions about what traits are genetic.
"It's against evolution and/or natural selection!" It's amazing, I've heard it a million times and it still makes me laugh. No baby, it is Evolution AND natural selection if anything is. Evolution occurs on a time scale that, whatever we may say, defies our attempts to truly understand the consequences of our present actions. There's no such thing as a bad or good adaptation in it: some individuals pass on their genetics and some don't: end ah' fuckin' story.
In the Gattaca world I probably wouldn't exist, what with the bad eyesight and predisposition for substance abuse and all the rest. I'll be passing on my genes anyway if I have anything to say about it, the old-fashioned way, thank you very much, and another fucked up kid will come into this world. I'll put mine up against a superbaby any day.
"This strange doctrine is not supported by statute or common law."
The problem with this Heinlein quote is that the RIAA's beef, however much we may vilify them (and they are unquestionably vile), IS supported by statute and common law. There are few people less supportive of the Content Kings than me but if I have to say it a million times I will: as long as all we're doing is trying to justify the violation of copyright law, which is what downloading copyrighted music or burning a copyrighted CD that you do not own UNQUESTIONABLY is, we will NEVER make progress in changing things to a better system.
Legitimate consumer and legal beefs with the RIAA are plentiful:
* Do the Content Kings REALLY own the copyright to specifc recordings, or should many have reverted to the authors?
* Does the way the "legitimate" online music businees operates qualify as monopolistic practices?
* Is the DMCA constitutional, or is it in fact an example of "prior restraint," illegalizing the POTENTIAL uses of legitimate tools?
* Copy-protection schemes that produce "CDs" that do not follow CD specs, do not play in the range of equipment the consumer has reasonably come to expect, and reduces the versatility of the product.
* Treatment of artists, overpricing, the endless extension of copyrights... All these and more are totally valid points of attack. You wanna burn CDs, download free music? Be my guest. Hell, I speed. But stop this nonsense that somehow the courts and corporations should recognize our "right" to violate copyright law. Every argument like this just strengthens their case and makes the further legislation of information tools that much more likely.
The idea that the 'net somehow makes censorship magically impossible is a pernicious and dangerous one. From the point of view of the absolute control of information, censorship has always been impossible. There has always been pornography, heresy, sedition. "Dangerous" information. The web multiplies the sources of these things, just as printing or photography did in the past.
But wherever control can be organized censorship can occur. Did you know, for example, that pror to the September terrorist attacks on the USA, AG John Ashcroft was planning a massive prosecutorial attack on pornography? A lot of people on sites like Slashdot seem to think that with a few exceptions (i.e. kiddie porn) you can say anything you want and get away with it because of the First Amendment. But the First Amendment doesn't apply to "obscenity" and obscenity is defined by the entirely subjective principles of community standards and redeeming social value. Don't think censorship ended with Larry Flint, and don't forget what happened to Mike Diana. With the "new" threat of terrorism you should, in fact, expect things to get worse for certain kinds of information and expression.
And let's consider the case of DeCSS (to get out of the seedy stuff at least somewhat). They haven't made much headway with that code as expression argument yet, have they? That's a whole 'nother can of worms, where communication that contains NO proprietary elements and is not intrinsically obscene or dangerous (in a here's how to make a bomb in your shoes sense) can nonetheless be made illegal. Thank you DMCA, for building prior restraint into the constitution.
As long as people are being successfully sued, prosecuted, punished and imprisoned, censorship is occuring and it is far from "futile" from the points of view of those that practice it.
The consolidation of all electronic media under an increasingly tiny number of media conglomerate umbrellas... the fact that the legislation is being pushed and promoted by one of the most powerful and representative of these new conglomerates, AOL-Time Warner, representing the world's largest ISP...
What could this possibly have to do with news for nerds?
There is a battle going on right now over how much right the major owners of copyrighted materials have to invade our privacy (examine our information transfers, impose anti-piracy technology on our personal equipment, prevent us from owning equipment/software with legitimate uses because it has the capacity to "circumvent" electronic access restrictions) to address the awful specter of copyright piracy. Hmm, I wonder if it makes any difference if the world's biggest ISP is merged to one of the world's biggest copyrighted media content producers?
"what in the name of all that is good and holy does this have anything to do with news for nerds?"
Hmm, let's throw cable into the mix - eliminate all restrictions. What the hell does that have to do with anything? It isn't like you can hook a computer up to some kind of "cable modem" and connect to some kind of "cable internet." That's science fiction stuff! It's not like the cable companies are heavily involved in internet access. It's not like this is an invitation to allow one company to be able to control ALL inputs to your home, leaving you to basically get OMNICORP STANDARD INTER-TEEVEE service or suffer with a rabbit ears antenna and a 56K dial-up.
Yeah, okay, that may be pushing it a bit but what the hell, RN. OF COURSE this is relevant. What's your real issue?
http://www.loc.gov/copyright/legislation/dmca.pd f
DMCA summary & analysis
Section 1201 of the DMCA is basically the anticircumvention stuff. It makes a distinction between devices that allow illegal access to copyrighted material and devices that make illegal copies of copyrighted material. The legal question here is, is this doodad a circumvention device? Does it illegally circumvent some encryption of the ROM data on the GBA cart? If not then it's an issue of, is this a fair use case of copying?
Only one way to deal with that and that is take a case to court and win, or for Congress to repeal the legislation (and that ain't gonna happen - your congresspeople could give a relative rat's ass about your letters compared to the fat checks they get from big businesses). Try voting for someone who isn't in the pockets of major corporations next election (hint - not a democrat or republican).
Of course, the industry is well aware of the weaknesses of the DMCA and will try hard to avboid a weak case going to court. That's why they dropped their beef with Felten/Princeton over digital audio watermarking, for example. Whenever they encounter credible resistance they will back off. Eventually it's going to have to go to court, though.
I think you're judging the merits of a different question. Unfortunately this article is not really clear. But I believe from the wording that the real issue under discussion is whether someone can make internet communications available to the police without obtaining consent from the other participant in the conversation.
In most places the question is moot. You have a legal right to record an electronic communication with or without the other participant's knowledge or consent. An UC cop can record conversations or pose as a 15 yr-old in a chatroom, this does not require a warrant (I don't know if the cops need a warrant to send in someone wearing a wire. Anyone?)
In PA, on the other hand, you cannot record a telephone conversation without the consent of the other party - it is a technical wiretap even if the recording party is not a cop. Mr. Pedophile X-Cop is arguing that his e-mails and chats to the girl and UC cop are under the same protection. Prosecution is saying bullshit, anyone knows that by its very nature e-mail and IM is "recorded" - that a non-ephemeral record of the conversation exists by default.
Personally, I agree with the state. I don't think there is a reasonable expectation of the privacy of communication of this nature, if one of the parties involved chooses to make that communication public. If the cops were siezing this information from the ISP, or Mr. Pervert, or the 15-yr-old without warrant or consent, it would be a different story.
So with all due respect, I think you're wrong. This is just another ped asshole trying to sleeze out from under just consequences on a technicality.
I agree with you, mostly. This article illustrates the weaknesses of extreme information freedom advocacy: the tendency to paint everything with one brush and to fall prey to hyperbole. Check this statement from the article:
"Over the last several years, the entertainment industry has railroaded a number of laws and treaties through Washington and Geneva that are driving us rapidly toward a future in which the fruits of the mind cannot be shared."
What burns me about this kind of "sky is falling" statement is that it is completely rooted in the same false assumption that is driving the policies of the industry: that corporations have some kind of monopoly on content, that, like the diamond cartels, they can keep the market all locked up.
As the technologies of creating words, music, and film become more and more accessible this idea becomes more and more obsolete. As long as this argument is defined by the idea of THEIR restrictions on how we get to utilize THEIR intellectual property, we've lost the argument before we've started. Because in the end, despite being misguided and fundamentally flawed, recent legislation like the DMCA really just attempts to make the existing notion of copyright enforceable in the digital age. The basic notion of the copyright owner's rights are unchanged.
One of the big flaws in the middle of all these arguments is the notion that there is a strong, clearly stated principle of Fair Use in copyright law. There isn't. Fair use is a concept, in its literal presentation in the law, mainly geared at institutional uses and extended to a limited range of personal applications by precedents. And while recent legislation and trends are attempting to restrict even those limited definitions, it only weakens the case of fair use to try to argue that it extends to things like the widespread distribution of someone else's intellectual property over a P2P network.
The arguments of information freedom advocates are also not helped by outright falsehood. The article gives an unqualified interpretation of the Felten DMCA case that is simply untrue.
Creators have the right to produce and distribute their work any way they want. What is needed far more than revisions in legislation is for enlightened consumers to seek out creators offering their work in a rational, unencombered way. As the content kings spend more and more to make their products les and less versatile in the face of increasingly versatile technologies, individual creators and collectives have the opportunity to offer a more and more valuable product at a lower and lower cost. If we focus on this opportunity, then there is a rational, constitutionally defensible wedge to drive between the need to protect creators' rights to profit by their work, and the industry trend to control and define the individuals experience of consuming the product of that work.
As long as the focus of this dialog is the consumer's "right" to infringe copyright (which is not the same as "stealing" incidentally - that's why it has its own legal name and definition) neither the rights of creators nor of individuals will be protected Find something legal to protect and a lot more progress will be made.
More to the point, are they gonna put up a big lead roof over the whole county? Just because there are no cell-phones in town, doesn't mean they aren't getting hammered by signals from sattelites, television stations, radio stations, power lines...
Get a friend who might not normally respond to submit your comments for you in his/her name.
And even more important - pay attention to actions in your own country and the EU and make sure you give your support to any actions in that arena. Be sure to save that letter - trust me, it will come up again and won't be wasted!
Honestly, the majority of non-sophisticated users (even relatively computer savvy users like myself who have been using computers all their lives) are not anywhere near supporting any kind of Linux as a desktop solution.
It can be talked to death but everyone knows the bottom line - I know what to expect with MS Windows or an Apple OS out of the box. I don't know what to expect with Linux and I have no idea whether I'll be able to resolve any problems I have, and if I can't suddenly I have a very expensive paperweight on my desk.
(Please don't flame me about how Linux is just as good or better or tell me all I need is to get this or that. I don't dispute this. I say only: I've been using Apples and Windows PCs for 16 years, I know what to expect, I know will be able to make the computer do what I want it to. I don't know this about Linux. I don't know what a kernel is, really. The last thing I compiled was som crap Pascal code I wrote in college about 9 years ago. And I would guess about 90% of the computer buying public knows less than me)
So the question is framed wrong. The real question is, do sophisticated users, already capable of operating in a Linux environment, want this? To me the basic concept sounds great - streamline my computer's OS to maximize efficiency for my particular needs? Wonderful. But don't sell to me that I'm "building my own kernel..." I don't know what that means so I don't want anything to do with it. Offer me a supported service to "customize my computer..." if I can get it in a box, if it loads and runs out of that box, if there is a number I can call that will help me when I have problems, I'll not only use it... I'll pay for it.
Sandia, creators of this technology, have more detaile information on their web page (which is surprisingly junky to look at, considering) but the parent to this comment is essentially right. Deposition, photolithography (applying, through printing a photosensitive mask then exposing it selectively to light through a filter, which allows selective chemical etching). They do some whach stuff with layers and combined processes though.
Granted. But okay, I'll still stick by my complaint: too much talk about the cult of personality, the MS versus Apple skullduggery, not enough about what the kind of exciting stuff you're describing. So I ask: Digital Hub: realistic (if optimistic) product description, or marketing hype? Jobs did a little presentation, complete with a bunch of ads, of the "evolution" of the iMac. My first impression was, "the evolution of style over substance." But is that just the presentation, or is it the truth of what Jobs is really about (as Katz seems to assert)? Does Jobs cleverly candy-coat the product to sell a better computer, or is he merely dressing up something not so much different from the same old thing? What is a digital hub? Will Apples product lines and open/closed source hybrids overcome interoperability problems? Where will it fall out in the whole digital rights management issue that threatens to derail a digitally interconnected home before it starts?
I'd love to hear an article about the kind of things you're talking about. Unfortunately, articles like Katz's or Cringely's recent one don't deliver the goods.
First off, AC, I'm surfing through IE on a T1 line at work. I've never owned an AOL account in my life. I know how what a fast connection is. I have 56K and a very slow computer at home and it became basically unnacceptable. However, working on a 56K line on a modern computer was an acceptable experience. I'm not saying it is "comparable" to broadband. Idiot, yes, I know how to divide. I'm saying, it meets my needs, and there isn't anything out there now that NEEDS broadband to work that I want badly enough to justify the cost.
Of course we're all used to drooling gibberish from Mr. Katz, but this really takes the cake. Who woulda thunk this would be the day I sign on to Slashdot to be told that AOL and Microsoft are succeeding because they're "useful and easy to use?" The shit I saw my brother go through with AOL on his brand new Dell last night I've NEVER gotten close to, stupidity and frustration-wise, even though I'm improbably running Netscape 3 on a Mac LCIII!
There is plenty of astute commentary, which Katz has apparently not bothered to read nor absorb, on how MS won the desktop battle. It was over and above all a business victory, not a technical one. The only thing easy about AOL and Windows is that they're easy to buy. The so-called "ease of use" falls into two categories: familiarity due to dominance of the market share, and being forced into limited options of what you can actually do by poorly designed software.
I'm not a Mac fanatic. I've used both systems extensively and all computers basically suck to work with, because they're like Model T's: very early phases of a burgeoning technology. I was convinced enough to put in an early order for a new iMac because it was a truly different entity from the usual desktop monolith, because it was a powerful computer for an acceptable price, and because it meant I could stay away from Windows XP. Having seen plenty of OSX and XP there is no question whatsoever what is the OS I'd rather own.
It is the first new computer I've purchased, although I've owned or borrowed several and been working with computers near-daily for the last 16 years. Not a bad accomplishment for Mr. Jobs.
All this being said, I'm sick to the teeth of hearing about Steve Jobs' "attitude," about hipness, squareness, personality, and market shares. I don't care if Steve Jobs is an egomaniac or obsessed with being the hippest. I don't care if he's a maverick just to satisfy some mental hang-up. Would someone just review the damn computer?!
Precisely! I was all ready to buy broadband when I decided to finally upgrade to a "real" computer. Then I saw how my brother's 56K dial-up service did just fine, at a fraction of the cost. I strongly suspect a lot of people upgraded their access and their computers at the same time and fail to realize that the processor improvements have as much to do with how much better their internet is as the broadband does. Media Kings have made it clear that the price of content online is going to be THEIR digital rights management on your machines, THEM calling the shots about how you can use - even within the non-commercial bounds of your own home - THEIR bought and paid for Congressional sorties against the Constitution. Why the hell should I encourage that?
Meanwhile, they're suing Napster (not that they didn't deserve it) but can't get it together to offer any comprehensive on-line music service that isn't a flat-out lousy deal. I'm supposed to cough up 50 (or even thirty - 3X a dial-up fee, plus the special equipment, plus the high potential for service hassles) in faith I'll be able to download movies "someday?" When I could basically bet a million dollars that they'll charge more than the video store, even though they're incurring minimal overhead shipping bits over a line I'M paying for - for the, ahem, convenience. I'm fat enough as it is, I think I can hoist my lazy ass off the sofa and waddle around the video store for half an hour, thank you very much. Plus I can pick up some tacos on my way back.
To me the idea of the internet was to make information - mostly text and music, although video and interactive environments seemed a burgeoning possibility - more accessible by overcoming the economies of scale of material production. Instead the best idea these yahoos can come up with is to feed us the same damn content we already have available with rotten economics forced by the artificial scarcity of intellectual property - and a ton of baggage from their piracy paranoia to boot!
Saving 4 or 5 hundred bucks a year is not insignificant. It can mean a serious computer upgrade, a serious upgrade to teevee service (with them premium movie channels where the movies are actually, like, available), a video game console and several games. I fail to see what broadband has to offer me of comparable value right now.
Yeah, next thing people will want wireless phones, wireless networks for their computers, they'll be selling wireless doorbells in the damn Hardware stores! This guy doesn't know what he's talking about. There's plenty of FCC approved, consumer bandwidth in the electromagnaetic spectrum for use in very local sgnialling, which is why we can have things like cordless phones, airports, and remote control cars.
And hah hah, it's all funny, except for this: The computer as digital operator allows us to take all the communications that flow through our homes and do really neat things with them... and these content bastards are going to just screw it all up wanting to sniff every signal I send and impose all sorts of cumbersome rights management bullshit on my gear? Fuck them. I'm sick of these pissant media mobesters content tail wagging the giant, potential filled dog of digital media and communications technology. I'll buy another Phillips product when hell freezes over.
I think that's "in my HUMBLE opinion," actually. And what the hell, man - the abbreviations are just part of any English language forum. And they're just as mystifying to English-speaking newbies as to anyone else.
Slashdot Mirror
You're reading too much science fiction friend. Do you honestly think the situation you describe is any different from the current world situation? If a person has no power and no wealth then their intelligence is irrelevant. As things stand the majority of people are working for little more than the equivalent of a cheap meal, in living arrangements scarcely better than cages, making our cheap commodities. Child and slave labor are alive and well all over the world. Why spend billions on genetic engineering when the impoverished labor class constantly refreshes itself for free (and takes care of its own offspreing)? Meanwhile, engineering a labor cost would expose the wealthy to the liability of responsibility for its labor force: at the moment the ideology that "they're getting the deal they agree to" absolves the wealthy 5% of humanity from any sense of responsibility for the miserable lives of those who create their wealth. You really want to improve the world you might spend less time worrying about the long term implications of screening eggs for alzheimer's and a little more thinking about who assembled your fucking shoes.
My mistake; you just hapeened to have posted more than a dozen this week.
Responding to your posts is a great way to burn karma; which is a stupid concept anyway but it seems to be like ass hair; nobody in their right mind wants it but I got it in spades anyway.
-A curious admirer.
Yeah, yeah, the gentic superclass of the wealthy. Big deal, they're already a superclass in terms of quality of life and survival due to simple wealth. And remember, they're still confined to the leash of their personal genetics.
We don't know nearly as much about genetic impact on traits and development as we sometimes like to pretend. It's highly likely that more devlopment occurs in the womb than many people acknowledge - pure environment, and the kind that is hard to account for in the kinds of population studies that end up defining our assumptions about what traits are genetic.
"It's against evolution and/or natural selection!" It's amazing, I've heard it a million times and it still makes me laugh. No baby, it is Evolution AND natural selection if anything is. Evolution occurs on a time scale that, whatever we may say, defies our attempts to truly understand the consequences of our present actions. There's no such thing as a bad or good adaptation in it: some individuals pass on their genetics and some don't: end ah' fuckin' story.
In the Gattaca world I probably wouldn't exist, what with the bad eyesight and predisposition for substance abuse and all the rest. I'll be passing on my genes anyway if I have anything to say about it, the old-fashioned way, thank you very much, and another fucked up kid will come into this world. I'll put mine up against a superbaby any day.
"a Disney lobbyist defended Hollings' draft SSSCA as "an exceedingly moderate and reasonable approach." "
Well then, I don't see that I have any cause to be concerned... I mean, if DISNEY says it's okay how bad can it be?
The problem with this Heinlein quote is that the RIAA's beef, however much we may vilify them (and they are unquestionably vile), IS supported by statute and common law. There are few people less supportive of the Content Kings than me but if I have to say it a million times I will: as long as all we're doing is trying to justify the violation of copyright law, which is what downloading copyrighted music or burning a copyrighted CD that you do not own UNQUESTIONABLY is, we will NEVER make progress in changing things to a better system.
Legitimate consumer and legal beefs with the RIAA are plentiful:
* Do the Content Kings REALLY own the copyright to specifc recordings, or should many have reverted to the authors?
* Does the way the "legitimate" online music businees operates qualify as monopolistic practices?
* Is the DMCA constitutional, or is it in fact an example of "prior restraint," illegalizing the POTENTIAL uses of legitimate tools?
* Copy-protection schemes that produce "CDs" that do not follow CD specs, do not play in the range of equipment the consumer has reasonably come to expect, and reduces the versatility of the product.
* Treatment of artists, overpricing, the endless extension of copyrights... All these and more are totally valid points of attack. You wanna burn CDs, download free music? Be my guest. Hell, I speed. But stop this nonsense that somehow the courts and corporations should recognize our "right" to violate copyright law. Every argument like this just strengthens their case and makes the further legislation of information tools that much more likely.
But wherever control can be organized censorship can occur. Did you know, for example, that pror to the September terrorist attacks on the USA, AG John Ashcroft was planning a massive prosecutorial attack on pornography? A lot of people on sites like Slashdot seem to think that with a few exceptions (i.e. kiddie porn) you can say anything you want and get away with it because of the First Amendment. But the First Amendment doesn't apply to "obscenity" and obscenity is defined by the entirely subjective principles of community standards and redeeming social value. Don't think censorship ended with Larry Flint, and don't forget what happened to Mike Diana. With the "new" threat of terrorism you should, in fact, expect things to get worse for certain kinds of information and expression.
And let's consider the case of DeCSS (to get out of the seedy stuff at least somewhat). They haven't made much headway with that code as expression argument yet, have they? That's a whole 'nother can of worms, where communication that contains NO proprietary elements and is not intrinsically obscene or dangerous (in a here's how to make a bomb in your shoes sense) can nonetheless be made illegal. Thank you DMCA, for building prior restraint into the constitution.
As long as people are being successfully sued, prosecuted, punished and imprisoned, censorship is occuring and it is far from "futile" from the points of view of those that practice it.
What could this possibly have to do with news for nerds?
There is a battle going on right now over how much right the major owners of copyrighted materials have to invade our privacy (examine our information transfers, impose anti-piracy technology on our personal equipment, prevent us from owning equipment/software with legitimate uses because it has the capacity to "circumvent" electronic access restrictions) to address the awful specter of copyright piracy. Hmm, I wonder if it makes any difference if the world's biggest ISP is merged to one of the world's biggest copyrighted media content producers?
"what in the name of all that is good and holy does this have anything to do with news for nerds?"
Hmm, let's throw cable into the mix - eliminate all restrictions. What the hell does that have to do with anything? It isn't like you can hook a computer up to some kind of "cable modem" and connect to some kind of "cable internet." That's science fiction stuff! It's not like the cable companies are heavily involved in internet access. It's not like this is an invitation to allow one company to be able to control ALL inputs to your home, leaving you to basically get OMNICORP STANDARD INTER-TEEVEE service or suffer with a rabbit ears antenna and a 56K dial-up.
Yeah, okay, that may be pushing it a bit but what the hell, RN. OF COURSE this is relevant. What's your real issue?
http://www.hrrc.org/html/DMCA-leg-hist.html
DMCA history website.
http://www.loc.gov/copyright/
US Copyright office.
http://www.loc.gov/copyright/legislation/dmca.p
DMCA summary & analysis
Section 1201 of the DMCA is basically the anticircumvention stuff. It makes a distinction between devices that allow illegal access to copyrighted material and devices that make illegal copies of copyrighted material. The legal question here is, is this doodad a circumvention device? Does it illegally circumvent some encryption of the ROM data on the GBA cart? If not then it's an issue of, is this a fair use case of copying?
Of course, the industry is well aware of the weaknesses of the DMCA and will try hard to avboid a weak case going to court. That's why they dropped their beef with Felten/Princeton over digital audio watermarking, for example. Whenever they encounter credible resistance they will back off. Eventually it's going to have to go to court, though.
In most places the question is moot. You have a legal right to record an electronic communication with or without the other participant's knowledge or consent. An UC cop can record conversations or pose as a 15 yr-old in a chatroom, this does not require a warrant (I don't know if the cops need a warrant to send in someone wearing a wire. Anyone?)
In PA, on the other hand, you cannot record a telephone conversation without the consent of the other party - it is a technical wiretap even if the recording party is not a cop. Mr. Pedophile X-Cop is arguing that his e-mails and chats to the girl and UC cop are under the same protection. Prosecution is saying bullshit, anyone knows that by its very nature e-mail and IM is "recorded" - that a non-ephemeral record of the conversation exists by default.
Personally, I agree with the state. I don't think there is a reasonable expectation of the privacy of communication of this nature, if one of the parties involved chooses to make that communication public. If the cops were siezing this information from the ISP, or Mr. Pervert, or the 15-yr-old without warrant or consent, it would be a different story.
So with all due respect, I think you're wrong. This is just another ped asshole trying to sleeze out from under just consequences on a technicality.
"Over the last several years, the entertainment industry has railroaded a number of laws and treaties through Washington and Geneva that are driving us rapidly toward a future in which the fruits of the mind cannot be shared."
What burns me about this kind of "sky is falling" statement is that it is completely rooted in the same false assumption that is driving the policies of the industry: that corporations have some kind of monopoly on content, that, like the diamond cartels, they can keep the market all locked up.
As the technologies of creating words, music, and film become more and more accessible this idea becomes more and more obsolete. As long as this argument is defined by the idea of THEIR restrictions on how we get to utilize THEIR intellectual property, we've lost the argument before we've started. Because in the end, despite being misguided and fundamentally flawed, recent legislation like the DMCA really just attempts to make the existing notion of copyright enforceable in the digital age. The basic notion of the copyright owner's rights are unchanged.
One of the big flaws in the middle of all these arguments is the notion that there is a strong, clearly stated principle of Fair Use in copyright law. There isn't. Fair use is a concept, in its literal presentation in the law, mainly geared at institutional uses and extended to a limited range of personal applications by precedents. And while recent legislation and trends are attempting to restrict even those limited definitions, it only weakens the case of fair use to try to argue that it extends to things like the widespread distribution of someone else's intellectual property over a P2P network.
The arguments of information freedom advocates are also not helped by outright falsehood. The article gives an unqualified interpretation of the Felten DMCA case that is simply untrue.
Creators have the right to produce and distribute their work any way they want. What is needed far more than revisions in legislation is for enlightened consumers to seek out creators offering their work in a rational, unencombered way. As the content kings spend more and more to make their products les and less versatile in the face of increasingly versatile technologies, individual creators and collectives have the opportunity to offer a more and more valuable product at a lower and lower cost. If we focus on this opportunity, then there is a rational, constitutionally defensible wedge to drive between the need to protect creators' rights to profit by their work, and the industry trend to control and define the individuals experience of consuming the product of that work.
As long as the focus of this dialog is the consumer's "right" to infringe copyright (which is not the same as "stealing" incidentally - that's why it has its own legal name and definition) neither the rights of creators nor of individuals will be protected Find something legal to protect and a lot more progress will be made.
More to the point, are they gonna put up a big lead roof over the whole county? Just because there are no cell-phones in town, doesn't mean they aren't getting hammered by signals from sattelites, television stations, radio stations, power lines...
Get a friend who might not normally respond to submit your comments for you in his/her name.
And even more important - pay attention to actions in your own country and the EU and make sure you give your support to any actions in that arena. Be sure to save that letter - trust me, it will come up again and won't be wasted!
It can be talked to death but everyone knows the bottom line - I know what to expect with MS Windows or an Apple OS out of the box. I don't know what to expect with Linux and I have no idea whether I'll be able to resolve any problems I have, and if I can't suddenly I have a very expensive paperweight on my desk.
(Please don't flame me about how Linux is just as good or better or tell me all I need is to get this or that. I don't dispute this. I say only: I've been using Apples and Windows PCs for 16 years, I know what to expect, I know will be able to make the computer do what I want it to. I don't know this about Linux. I don't know what a kernel is, really. The last thing I compiled was som crap Pascal code I wrote in college about 9 years ago. And I would guess about 90% of the computer buying public knows less than me)
So the question is framed wrong. The real question is, do sophisticated users, already capable of operating in a Linux environment, want this? To me the basic concept sounds great - streamline my computer's OS to maximize efficiency for my particular needs? Wonderful. But don't sell to me that I'm "building my own kernel..." I don't know what that means so I don't want anything to do with it. Offer me a supported service to "customize my computer..." if I can get it in a box, if it loads and runs out of that box, if there is a number I can call that will help me when I have problems, I'll not only use it... I'll pay for it.
Sandia, creators of this technology, have more detaile information on their web page (which is surprisingly junky to look at, considering) but the parent to this comment is essentially right. Deposition, photolithography (applying, through printing a photosensitive mask then exposing it selectively to light through a filter, which allows selective chemical etching). They do some whach stuff with layers and combined processes though.
I'd love to hear an article about the kind of things you're talking about. Unfortunately, articles like Katz's or Cringely's recent one don't deliver the goods.
First off, AC, I'm surfing through IE on a T1 line at work. I've never owned an AOL account in my life. I know how what a fast connection is. I have 56K and a very slow computer at home and it became basically unnacceptable. However, working on a 56K line on a modern computer was an acceptable experience. I'm not saying it is "comparable" to broadband. Idiot, yes, I know how to divide. I'm saying, it meets my needs, and there isn't anything out there now that NEEDS broadband to work that I want badly enough to justify the cost.
There is plenty of astute commentary, which Katz has apparently not bothered to read nor absorb, on how MS won the desktop battle. It was over and above all a business victory, not a technical one. The only thing easy about AOL and Windows is that they're easy to buy. The so-called "ease of use" falls into two categories: familiarity due to dominance of the market share, and being forced into limited options of what you can actually do by poorly designed software.
I'm not a Mac fanatic. I've used both systems extensively and all computers basically suck to work with, because they're like Model T's: very early phases of a burgeoning technology. I was convinced enough to put in an early order for a new iMac because it was a truly different entity from the usual desktop monolith, because it was a powerful computer for an acceptable price, and because it meant I could stay away from Windows XP. Having seen plenty of OSX and XP there is no question whatsoever what is the OS I'd rather own.
It is the first new computer I've purchased, although I've owned or borrowed several and been working with computers near-daily for the last 16 years. Not a bad accomplishment for Mr. Jobs.
All this being said, I'm sick to the teeth of hearing about Steve Jobs' "attitude," about hipness, squareness, personality, and market shares. I don't care if Steve Jobs is an egomaniac or obsessed with being the hippest. I don't care if he's a maverick just to satisfy some mental hang-up. Would someone just review the damn computer?!
Meanwhile, they're suing Napster (not that they didn't deserve it) but can't get it together to offer any comprehensive on-line music service that isn't a flat-out lousy deal. I'm supposed to cough up 50 (or even thirty - 3X a dial-up fee, plus the special equipment, plus the high potential for service hassles) in faith I'll be able to download movies "someday?" When I could basically bet a million dollars that they'll charge more than the video store, even though they're incurring minimal overhead shipping bits over a line I'M paying for - for the, ahem, convenience. I'm fat enough as it is, I think I can hoist my lazy ass off the sofa and waddle around the video store for half an hour, thank you very much. Plus I can pick up some tacos on my way back.
To me the idea of the internet was to make information - mostly text and music, although video and interactive environments seemed a burgeoning possibility - more accessible by overcoming the economies of scale of material production. Instead the best idea these yahoos can come up with is to feed us the same damn content we already have available with rotten economics forced by the artificial scarcity of intellectual property - and a ton of baggage from their piracy paranoia to boot!
Saving 4 or 5 hundred bucks a year is not insignificant. It can mean a serious computer upgrade, a serious upgrade to teevee service (with them premium movie channels where the movies are actually, like, available), a video game console and several games. I fail to see what broadband has to offer me of comparable value right now.
Yeah, damnit... When I want a gun I want it NOW!
I think we've got ourselves a bumpersticker.
Run that one, Baby!
And hah hah, it's all funny, except for this: The computer as digital operator allows us to take all the communications that flow through our homes and do really neat things with them... and these content bastards are going to just screw it all up wanting to sniff every signal I send and impose all sorts of cumbersome rights management bullshit on my gear? Fuck them. I'm sick of these pissant media mobesters content tail wagging the giant, potential filled dog of digital media and communications technology. I'll buy another Phillips product when hell freezes over.
It's sad we've all been so corrupted by IP theft. Thank God Phillips is there to keep us in line.
I think that's "in my HUMBLE opinion," actually. And what the hell, man - the abbreviations are just part of any English language forum. And they're just as mystifying to English-speaking newbies as to anyone else.