as long as they don't ban long fringes and wraparound sunglasses or mirrorshades we're safe =)
Ha ha. Not. It's already illegal to wear masks in some southern States (KKK laws) and the police in all large US and European cities regularly detain or punishment beat anyone concealing their identity during or prior to civil disorder (their definition of civil disorder, e.g. anti-capitalist demonstrations).
driven along any of GA's interstates lately? You'll notice these cameras every so many feet, but not a single streetlight
Exactly. In the UK, it's illegal to use a radar detector, and the Home Office is up in arms about new GPS based system that tells you where static camera are - they want the information to be illegal.
If the intent was to slow down traffic, they'd welcome these systems. It's not. Most traffic cameras are primarily revenue generating devices. In the UK, speeding violation fines go straight into central government coffers, not into local safety initiatives.
That's exactly what happens. CCTV is very popular in most UK cities. Urban crime dropped a little, but suburban and rural crime rocketed, and the overall street crime figures went up after CCTV took off in a big way.
Now, if they start requiring people to be bare-faced in public... that'd be a different story
It's already illegal to be masked in some Southern states (KKK laws). Police in all US and European cities regularly detain (or punishment beat) anyone wearing a mask during civil disorder - or, importantly, before expected civil disorder. Probably cause and all that. A 2600 guy got charged with conspiracy to be naughty after Seattle last year because he made a call on a cell phone to tell his buddies where the police were moving to.
It's already illegal - or punishable - to hide or conceal your actions, and to monitor the actions of the state. We're already there, in Europe and the USA.
Watching everyone all of the time takes a lot of resources
In a post above, the stats for these things are given. A ballpark figure is 47,000,000 matches a minute.
The matching isn't the problem, it's what you do with it. I can't help but wonder what exactly the police are going to do with this information? Place people near crime scenes? It's only going to take one proven false positive to screw that one up.
Just because the system alerts them saying "John #34 is on Avenue 1 with an outstanding warrant for triple homicide" and it's really you, Joe.... doesn't mean you are going to get arrested
No, if John #34 is known to use PCP/be HIV positive/be armed/be an arrest resistor/be Walking While Black, you might end up just being beaten, maced, tazered or even gunned down.
give _everyone_ the right to use public-access surveillance equipment. If the police can watch you, make sure that the citizens can watch the police, etc.
I agree. Only it's not working. During this spring's anti-capitalist protests in London, the police took the BBC's (publically funded) webcams offline whenever any trouble started. Not a great precedent.
Of course, those folks living under authoritarian regimes will not be able to get the.22s or shotguns needed. But those of us lucky enough to be living under more enlightened rulers should have no problem.
That's pretty funny, considering that you used to be able to get automatic weapons, pistols with >10 round magazines, that you didn't have to prove that you weren't a criminal before getting a gun...
Pop quiz: will taking out cameras with your guns hasten the slide towards the inevitable situation of them being taken from you?
Yes
No
Shut up, you stinking commie child molester! Cold dead fingers! This is it! No more Waco's! Not one inch further! I'll kill 'em all! I'll... oh, wait, WWF Bitchslap is on. I'll start the revolution after it's done.
There will be LOTS of false positives in a system like this. Even if the prospect of getting picked up for someone else's crime doesn't bother you
Picked up, or gunned down? What happens if your face is just a few bytes differene from Bloodbath Bill's, and some armed rookie cop gets the call that you're right there, you're standing right in front of him! ?
Extreme example, sure. The most likely snafu is people being falsely convicted after being placed near a crime scene. "Can I see the pictures?" "No, but we'll tell you the 300 bytes that identified you."
I guess the rest of us will care when they start documenting where we go in Tampa. i.e. "Mr. Neal went to a strip club last night on Ocean Blvd. - let's follow him for a few days."
Uh, actually, that's the only way I'd be happy about these things being up.
If we're having camera in public places, and I'm on them, I want public access to the feeds. Make everyone a watchman.
In other words the entire population of the US can be scanned in a few minutes with a single PC. Is it just me, or is there something scary about this
What's scary to me is that I'm almost certainly just a few bytes different from somebody that's wanted and classed as armed and dangerous.
Picture it: "John Adam Twenty, be advised that Bloodbath Bill is standing ten feet in front of you. He is known to be armed, dangerous and HIV positive. Use of unnecessary violence in the apprehension of Bloodbath Bill has been approved."
the same Tampa Police department was doing the bidding of the GOP by creating a "First Amendment Zone" when Bu$h came to town and spoke at a public event.
That's a sickening story. Is anyone else feeling like government and business (and what's the distinction?) are treating the Bill of Rights as something to be fought, rather than a guiding principle?
As in, they're saying "We'll do anything we damn well feel like. If you don't like it, argue it in court after the event. That's your, heh heh, 'right'."
I know they've always done that to some extent ("When we said 'All men are created equal', we meant 'All white land owning men'..."), but it seems more and more prevelant under the current political climate of career politicans bought and paid for by corporate America. Damn.
Can they do this [blackmail you into buying extra Windoze licenses] in Europe too?/i>
I've seen it happen in a UK operation. We think a disgruntled ex-employee shopped us to FAST (Federation Against Software Theft), and we got visits from them which basically involved us buying a bunch of Windoze licenses and waving them in their faces. Sad.
And it gets even sillier. Microsoft wants a situation where they can end up being paid twice for Windows per machine
They also want paying for machines that don't even have Windows loaded. Buy too many naked machine from the wrong vendor and you'll get The Letter from MS gently reminding you that you need X licenses. Long story short, in a large company, regardless of what you're actually using those boxen for, the cheapest option is to buy the licenses and then throw them in the bin.
Has anyone ever had a gun stuck down their throat by an MS employee and been forced to purchase MS software?
Indirectly, yes. Microsoft obtain naked hardware purchase information from vendors, and "remind" (i.e. threaten) companies that they need to buy X number of Windows licenses for those machines. In a large company, the cost of proving your innocence (by auditing your machines and persuading FAST that you're the good guys) outweighs the cost of buying a bunch of licenses to get the threat lifted - regardless of whether you are actually running Windows.. I've seen this happen in my own company. IS guys don't give a fuck. It's not their money they're spending, but it's their neck on the line if we get a visit from the FAST Stormtroopers, so they just make the call and buy the licenses.
Ultimately, if you choose to ignore their threats, men with guns and badges will kick down your door to see how many installations you've "stolen". You'd have to be pretty stubborn to reach that stage, but that's what we're talking about, right? Being forced to spend money to keep Microsoft happy.
You can build anything you like with it without releasing the source. You're only required to release the source if you release the binaries
Very good point, thanks for reminding me.
The GPL allows you to release your code to others fairly safely. Sure, it's backbone comes from copyright laws but to say that it doesn't protect anything is splitting a pretty fine hair.
I have vigorously to disagree. Everything after the copyright statement is eroding your protection. GPL is carefully worded, but it's still debatable. By that, I mean that a Monstersoft could easily afford to throw a cadre of lawyers at a court case to tie it up and bankrupt the copyright owner. They don't have to win or even be right, they just have to doublespeak until their opponent runs out of money. GPL doesn't strengthen your protection, it just defines the battlefield that you'll fight on to defend it.
Actually to correct my own statement before someone else does, what GPL effectively says is: "I retain copyright, but you may copy this source if you accept that the cost is making available the source to anything build with it and retaining this license in the copied source and adding this license to the derived product." Actually, the FSF copyleft page puts it even better (but with my emphasis)
"To copyleft a program, we first state that it is copyrighted; then we add distribution terms, which are a legal instrument that gives everyone the rights to use, modify, and redistribute the program's code or any program derived from it but only if the distribution terms are unchanged. Thus, the code and the freedoms become legally inseparable."
Don't get me wrong, I like GPL. I don't see a problem with it "infecting" source, other than that it will turn some appalingly rich people into merely very rich people. But I do think that it is fair to describe it as viral, or Borg-like, or whatever. The mechanism is the same.
But as an aside, the Borg are only frightening and evil if you've already been brainwashed by the Federation "conform to the cult of individuality" programming. In the same way, GPL is evil only if you think that the good of a culture is served by allowing a few individuals to buy anything they need (competitors, politicians, laws) to protect their monopoly on production. Just because that's the way we've worked for a few hundred years doesn't mean it's the only way to work.
Yes. I can look at that license fragment and quickly find sentences that appear totally reasonable. So? It's the license as a whole that matters. One onerous condition overwhelms a multitude of reasonable conditions
Uh, not really. Clauses are reasonable or unreasonable in isolation. Most contracts come with an (extraneous) rider to the effect that "if any part of this contract is ruled unenforcable, the rest of the contract shall stand," just to make this super explicit.
So while this is clearly Microsoft waving the FUD stick a little more eagerly than usual, it's nothing to worry about. Click through and make an informed decision to just ignore any unreasonable clauses - always remembering that it might just be you that gets the invitation from their lawyers to prove that they are unreasonable.
This EULA is a piece of shit and wouldn't hold up for very long if tested, which it never will be.
Unless you are in a UCITA state where it is perfectly legal.Why do you think Microsoft is pushing UCITA?
Good point, but even though UCITA makes shrink/click wrap licenses binding on both parties, it still doesn't mean that unreasonable clauses are enforcable, any more than they are enforcable in traditionally signed agreements.
The GPL is [..] a vaccine [...] against later abuse of your code by having someone, such as Microsoft, take your hard work, incorporate it into a proprietary product which is then extended and kept closed, marginalizing your project in the process
That's a pretty badly informed statement. Your protection against that happening isn't GPL, it's good old fashioned copyright. GPL just adds this: "I retain copyright, but you may copy this source if you accept that the cost is making available the source to anything built with it." Regardless of what you think GPL says, or what you'd like it to say, that's what it actually says.
IMHO, GPL can fairly be described as being viral, even by an advocate (such as myself), and doesn't "protect" against anything. The protection is through the copyright, which is why the FSF recommends assigning it to them so they can fight abusers who rip off GPL code without sharing back their source. Please take the time to read the copyleft pages at the FSF.
wouldn't it be nice [if] names were being put to good use and making it easier to find information in the billions of web pages out there
I get pissed too at seeing a domain name not being used, especially as my name.com goes to an AOL 404 (should I sue for defamation?;) ).
But let's not forget that domain names can be used for things other than web sites. Anyone remember the fight over mypalm.com, where the owner was using it only as a mail address, and Palm thought they could just demand because there was no port 80 server? They got burned, and eventually agreed to buy the domain but forward email to the old owner. Ironically, they're not even using it now (follow the link above and see), they just wanted it and thought that they were entitled to it because they had lawyers.
The original 3 Star Wars movies had only TWO great actors -- Harrison Ford and Sir Alec Guiness
James Earl Jones, David Prowse, Peter Mayhew, Anthony Daniels?
Just because you didn't see/hear them, doesn't mean they're not talented actors.
When you first saw Star Wars Ep 4, did you doubt for one second that C-3PO was a real robot, Chewbacca was a real Wookie, and that Darth Vadar was a really real bad guy?
Credit where credit's due, Jar Jar is certainly real enough to actually hate.;)
Slashdot Mirror
Ha ha. Not. It's already illegal to wear masks in some southern States (KKK laws) and the police in all large US and European cities regularly detain or punishment beat anyone concealing their identity during or prior to civil disorder (their definition of civil disorder, e.g. anti-capitalist demonstrations).
Exactly. In the UK, it's illegal to use a radar detector, and the Home Office is up in arms about new GPS based system that tells you where static camera are - they want the information to be illegal.
If the intent was to slow down traffic, they'd welcome these systems. It's not. Most traffic cameras are primarily revenue generating devices. In the UK, speeding violation fines go straight into central government coffers, not into local safety initiatives.
That's exactly what happens. CCTV is very popular in most UK cities. Urban crime dropped a little, but suburban and rural crime rocketed, and the overall street crime figures went up after CCTV took off in a big way.
It's already illegal to be masked in some Southern states (KKK laws). Police in all US and European cities regularly detain (or punishment beat) anyone wearing a mask during civil disorder - or, importantly, before expected civil disorder. Probably cause and all that. A 2600 guy got charged with conspiracy to be naughty after Seattle last year because he made a call on a cell phone to tell his buddies where the police were moving to.
It's already illegal - or punishable - to hide or conceal your actions, and to monitor the actions of the state. We're already there, in Europe and the USA.
In a post above, the stats for these things are given. A ballpark figure is 47,000,000 matches a minute.
The matching isn't the problem, it's what you do with it. I can't help but wonder what exactly the police are going to do with this information? Place people near crime scenes? It's only going to take one proven false positive to screw that one up.
No, if John #34 is known to use PCP/be HIV positive/be armed/be an arrest resistor/be Walking While Black, you might end up just being beaten, maced, tazered or even gunned down.
I agree. Only it's not working. During this spring's anti-capitalist protests in London, the police took the BBC's (publically funded) webcams offline whenever any trouble started. Not a great precedent.
That's pretty funny, considering that you used to be able to get automatic weapons, pistols with >10 round magazines, that you didn't have to prove that you weren't a criminal before getting a gun...
Pop quiz: will taking out cameras with your guns hasten the slide towards the inevitable situation of them being taken from you?
Picked up, or gunned down? What happens if your face is just a few bytes differene from Bloodbath Bill's, and some armed rookie cop gets the call that you're right there, you're standing right in front of him! ?
Extreme example, sure. The most likely snafu is people being falsely convicted after being placed near a crime scene. "Can I see the pictures?" "No, but we'll tell you the 300 bytes that identified you."
Uh, actually, that's the only way I'd be happy about these things being up.
If we're having camera in public places, and I'm on them, I want public access to the feeds. Make everyone a watchman.
Whoa there! Got references? Cameras everywhere, sure, but this is the first I've heard that they're tracking faces.
What's scary to me is that I'm almost certainly just a few bytes different from somebody that's wanted and classed as armed and dangerous.
Picture it: "John Adam Twenty, be advised that Bloodbath Bill is standing ten feet in front of you. He is known to be armed, dangerous and HIV positive. Use of unnecessary violence in the apprehension of Bloodbath Bill has been approved."
That's what I find scary.
That's a sickening story. Is anyone else feeling like government and business (and what's the distinction?) are treating the Bill of Rights as something to be fought, rather than a guiding principle?
As in, they're saying "We'll do anything we damn well feel like. If you don't like it, argue it in court after the event. That's your, heh heh, 'right'."
I know they've always done that to some extent ("When we said 'All men are created equal', we meant 'All white land owning men'..."), but it seems more and more prevelant under the current political climate of career politicans bought and paid for by corporate America. Damn.
I've seen it happen in a UK operation. We think a disgruntled ex-employee shopped us to FAST (Federation Against Software Theft), and we got visits from them which basically involved us buying a bunch of Windoze licenses and waving them in their faces. Sad.
They also want paying for machines that don't even have Windows loaded. Buy too many naked machine from the wrong vendor and you'll get The Letter from MS gently reminding you that you need X licenses. Long story short, in a large company, regardless of what you're actually using those boxen for, the cheapest option is to buy the licenses and then throw them in the bin.
Indirectly, yes. Microsoft obtain naked hardware purchase information from vendors, and "remind" (i.e. threaten) companies that they need to buy X number of Windows licenses for those machines. In a large company, the cost of proving your innocence (by auditing your machines and persuading FAST that you're the good guys) outweighs the cost of buying a bunch of licenses to get the threat lifted - regardless of whether you are actually running Windows.. I've seen this happen in my own company. IS guys don't give a fuck. It's not their money they're spending, but it's their neck on the line if we get a visit from the FAST Stormtroopers, so they just make the call and buy the licenses.
Ultimately, if you choose to ignore their threats, men with guns and badges will kick down your door to see how many installations you've "stolen". You'd have to be pretty stubborn to reach that stage, but that's what we're talking about, right? Being forced to spend money to keep Microsoft happy.
Does that answer your question?
Very good point, thanks for reminding me.
I have vigorously to disagree. Everything after the copyright statement is eroding your protection. GPL is carefully worded, but it's still debatable. By that, I mean that a Monstersoft could easily afford to throw a cadre of lawyers at a court case to tie it up and bankrupt the copyright owner. They don't have to win or even be right, they just have to doublespeak until their opponent runs out of money. GPL doesn't strengthen your protection, it just defines the battlefield that you'll fight on to defend it.
Actually to correct my own statement before someone else does, what GPL effectively says is: "I retain copyright, but you may copy this source if you accept that the cost is making available the source to anything build with it and retaining this license in the copied source and adding this license to the derived product." Actually, the FSF copyleft page puts it even better (but with my emphasis)
"To copyleft a program, we first state that it is copyrighted; then we add distribution terms, which are a legal instrument that gives everyone the rights to use, modify, and redistribute the program's code or any program derived from it but only if the distribution terms are unchanged. Thus, the code and the freedoms become legally inseparable."
Don't get me wrong, I like GPL. I don't see a problem with it "infecting" source, other than that it will turn some appalingly rich people into merely very rich people. But I do think that it is fair to describe it as viral, or Borg-like, or whatever. The mechanism is the same.
But as an aside, the Borg are only frightening and evil if you've already been brainwashed by the Federation "conform to the cult of individuality" programming. In the same way, GPL is evil only if you think that the good of a culture is served by allowing a few individuals to buy anything they need (competitors, politicians, laws) to protect their monopoly on production. Just because that's the way we've worked for a few hundred years doesn't mean it's the only way to work.
Uh huh, and maybe you should have read the trailing ;) before replying.
Uh, not really. Clauses are reasonable or unreasonable in isolation. Most contracts come with an (extraneous) rider to the effect that "if any part of this contract is ruled unenforcable, the rest of the contract shall stand," just to make this super explicit.
So while this is clearly Microsoft waving the FUD stick a little more eagerly than usual, it's nothing to worry about. Click through and make an informed decision to just ignore any unreasonable clauses - always remembering that it might just be you that gets the invitation from their lawyers to prove that they are unreasonable.
- This EULA is a piece of shit and wouldn't hold up for very long if tested, which it never will be.
Unless you are in a UCITA state where it is perfectly legal.Why do you think Microsoft is pushing UCITA?Good point, but even though UCITA makes shrink/click wrap licenses binding on both parties, it still doesn't mean that unreasonable clauses are enforcable, any more than they are enforcable in traditionally signed agreements.
That's a pretty badly informed statement. Your protection against that happening isn't GPL, it's good old fashioned copyright. GPL just adds this: "I retain copyright, but you may copy this source if you accept that the cost is making available the source to anything built with it." Regardless of what you think GPL says, or what you'd like it to say, that's what it actually says.
IMHO, GPL can fairly be described as being viral, even by an advocate (such as myself), and doesn't "protect" against anything. The protection is through the copyright, which is why the FSF recommends assigning it to them so they can fight abusers who rip off GPL code without sharing back their source. Please take the time to read the copyleft pages at the FSF.
I get pissed too at seeing a domain name not being used, especially as my name.com goes to an AOL 404 (should I sue for defamation? ;) ).
But let's not forget that domain names can be used for things other than web sites. Anyone remember the fight over mypalm.com, where the owner was using it only as a mail address, and Palm thought they could just demand because there was no port 80 server? They got burned, and eventually agreed to buy the domain but forward email to the old owner. Ironically, they're not even using it now (follow the link above and see), they just wanted it and thought that they were entitled to it because they had lawyers.
As long as George is raping our dreams... *cough* Boba Fett *cough*
James Earl Jones, David Prowse, Peter Mayhew, Anthony Daniels?
Just because you didn't see/hear them, doesn't mean they're not talented actors.
When you first saw Star Wars Ep 4, did you doubt for one second that C-3PO was a real robot, Chewbacca was a real Wookie, and that Darth Vadar was a really real bad guy?
Credit where credit's due, Jar Jar is certainly real enough to actually hate. ;)