They are not using what we consider to be the core "free speech" part of the first amendment, but the right to petition the government part.
Since they are not giving the data to the public, but instead to the feds, they are arguing they are covered by this.
In general this part is covered by the right of Americans, for example, to have any legislation they wish introduced to the Congress. You draft a bill and your Representative will introduce it. They won't support it probably, but you will get an H.R. number and can lobby for its passage. (note: they will probably ignore completely frivolous ideas) You also cannot be stopped from telling the government what you think of its ideas (though this does not cover threats). Anyone can also petition the Supreme Court themselves (this is how the right to an attorney in the Gideon case was presented).
I think they are on shaky footing both as a corporation (not a person) and historically. I cannot off the top of my head think of any precedent where a company reported legal activities and private data to the government and then tried to claim it was a petition.
(fyi - IANAL but I was a legislative aide for 5 years so I know the House stuff from experience)
The schools system I just finished working at for a few years (as network administrator) has a computer use policy as an addendum to the code of conduct. If you didn't return a signed copy you couldn't use the computers.
Besides, every schools has a code of conduct. The school has a mission much greater than merely teaching the three R's, and that generally means implementing policies like minimum dress codes (no miniskirts, tanktops), no gang colors, no using phones in class, etc. Each of these relates to receiving an education in a positive environment.
Here in Mass. an education is a right -- but like many rights there are limits. Just because you have a right to an education doesn't mean the school has no alternatives when you break the rules.
Frankly, if the school system had a use policy in place, and the students broke that policy, then they deserve their punishment.
You can create administrative installs for virtually all installations and use GPO's to install the software to the XP machines - works for Win2k and newer.
IANAL, but I'm pretty sure here in Massachusetts a verbal contract is still a valid contract. Maybe a lawyer can step in and add more or tell me I'm off base?
I'm sure there are similar sites for other states, but one of our NPR stations has a web tool where you choose your position on the issues and it tells you which candidate is your best choice according to those issues.
With all of the internet resources you have at your beck and call (you took the time to post a question to slashdot, but can't take 5 minutes to get informed?) you have NO EXCUSE.
GET INFORMED. VOTE. This year especially you have a chance to be a voice for change, or a voice for staying the path. These things matter.
The topic author points out $3 billion in "pet projects" -- many of which are a waste, but also many of which are valuable. Not that the budget should have itemized spending like this -- it is just absurd to say that pork of $3 billion in a year is the problem.
Even if you think the wars are legitimate, logic dictates that this huge cost is the reason why our deficit is going up, and why programs are being shortchanged.
>>Do you think it should be legal for one movie studio to copy a currently-in-theatres blockbuster that cost some other studio $100M to produce and market, and then to sell a trivially edited version to theatres at a fraction of the normal price?
Yes, if the second studio buys one full price of admission from the original studio's release for each customer who views the edited version. Again, the original studio gets all of the money they would have gotten anyways.
I can see how this violates the law, but I fail completely to see who is harmed.
I think convicted felons Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling might disagree with your assumptions. These are just today's examples, but the US has done a job on individuals who are responsible for corporate malfeasance. (sp?)
This is actually a reply to a few posts at the parent level.
I also work in education and cannot migrate to linux. There are federal and state requirements for testing and evaluations. We cannot get around those requirements. The applications that are available for these run on Windows. They don't run on Macs at this point. (The older ones run on OS7-9, but not X)
Could I try to implement WINE? Sure. But the cost is a factor. The immediate parent suggests the cost of new systems, retraining, work-arounds and whatnot are cheaper than the cost of a breach. They are, but we don't have to pay for a breach until it occurs, and there is no money for the logical (and I agree best) alternative.
My school system has 28 buildings, 26 subnets, 4000+ pc's, 100+ servers, 7000+ users. There is an IT Director who does the McAfee, ISA and some firewall maintenance. The server, LAN and helpdesk management is my responsibility. I have 3 technicians. That's right. 4 people for this network, and the city will not spend any more on IT because it means laying off teachers. (When was the last time you pushed for and voted for a tax override?)
Don't argue about how schools are funded -- that isn't the point. The point is that school IT departments have to work with the budget restraints, and that is just the way it is. So your comments about risk management are true, and should be applied. They often cannot be in the public sector (thought they should there as well).
As far as the guy who says to tell vendors to screw off, I'd love to. There is just that whole No Child Left Behind and other requirements. The feds have us in an unfunded mandate bind. We need to test and evaluate, and the software that exists is the software that exists. We can't cobble together something and expect to pass an audit. We aren't talking office apps, or learning apps, or whatever. These are expensive testing and evaluation systems that are only available in Windows for now -- and my feeble WINE attempts did not succeed -- they are complicated client-server applications with centralized reporting.
As far as training, someone made it sound like the gp couldn't be bothered. Who is going to train the users? Who will pay them? Where will the equipment come from? Who will pay the custodians' OT?
Frankly, public education IT departments are screwed and stuck with Windows, and the federal mandates make it impossible (not hard -- impossible) to migrate completely to an alternative. We have no leverage. We have no budgets. We have no staff. And I can't tell the superintendant to fire 10 teachers to hire 12 techs -- it isn't going to happen.
Harsh reality is that we are going to be stuck with Windows for the long haul -- which is why Ghost is our friend for situations like those described in the article.
Personally I like this change. Specifically, the ability to see if I've gotten hits in newsgroups, which can often be more helpful than the official company answers that google web search finds. Many newer monitors have a wider aspect, so it isn't really taking room away from my results.
It appears a game master (GM) approached him in-game and he did not respond -- he was watching a movie and pressing the keyboard buttons without watching the screen.
Put yourself in the GM's position. A character repeatedly performs the same action hundreds of times. When sent messages (tells/whispers) the character does not respond. There is no other reasonable explanation than that the character is automated. Sure, weird situations like this particular one can occur, but is there really any way for Blizzard to see that it was not a bot? The guy pressed one button that caused his character to perform repeated tasks while the player was not watching the game. That is botting. The fact that the player pressed one button every few minutes does not mitigate the rule breaking.
A GM will specifically identify himself/herself as a GM -- not just any random player name. This guy was botting, and I for one cheer his being nuked. He cheated.
The game has has a built-in macro system that does not permit you to do multiple battle actions at once (you can swap multiple items, and perform multiples of other non-combat actions) because casting multiple spells/performing multiple combat skills all with the press of a single button is botting. This guy bypassed the in-game restricions with a hardware/software combination. The rules exists for a reason, and he broke them.
Funny thing is that if he had just been paying attention to the window he would have been fine.
And your comment about English is just flamebait (not that the rest is not).
I'm a level 60 Warrior on WoW. I battle those nasty night elves and live the high life in Orgrimmar.
Oh, you mean real life?
But seriously, and related to the first part of my post...
I would love to have a Mac for browsing, mail and multimedia editing, and to also dual-boot into XP for gaming. (Yes, I know WoW comes on Mac, but many games do not).
There are no votes about Gitmo -- the GOP won't allow them. He is the sponsor of legilation calling for an independent inquiry into prisons in Cuba, Afghanistan and Iraq. HR 3003 is one of them.
A valid question. However, I worked "on the Hill" back in the early 90's, and he already had a long track record on human rights. His history is also well known and (thanks to IBM?) well documented.
He does what he can. He is a Democrat in a Congress with Republican majorities in both houses. He cannot hold hearings. He cannot force subpoenas. All he can do is vote, and make noise when given a stage. He did so, and did it well.
He has held unofficial hearings outside Congress, but they have no power and get no press.
When the Democrats held control, Lantos was at the forefront of the human rights movement that was reflected in official policy. Today he has no such power.
So he is doing what he can, in the forums he has access to, and I applaud him for it.
He is a Democrat. Democrats cannot hold hearings because they are in the minority at present.
He has called for hearings on many human rights issues, including Guantanamo Bay. Do you really think the Republicans will allow any hearings into China, Gitmo or Iraq?
You are so wrong about Tom Lantos that there is not enough room to write about it. I can assure you that as a survivor of a WWII concentration camp, Tom Lantos is in no way a supporter of Gitmo. You are showing igorance by painting an individual member of the House with a paint brush better suited to the Republican majority.
In general, I would agree with you. However, you are off base on this one because it was Tom Lantos making these statements. He is a HUGE champion of freedom (true freedom, not freedom unless it hurts a corporation). I have taken the liberty of doing a cut & paste of part of his online biography:
An American by choice, Tom Lantos was born in Budapest, Hungary, on February 1, 1928. He was 16 years of age when Nazi Germany occupied his native country. As a teenager, he was placed in a Hungarian fascist forced labor camp. He succeeded in escaping and was able to survive in a safe house in Budapest set up by Swedish humanitarian Raoul Wallenberg. His story is one of the individual accounts which forms the basis of Steven Spielberg's Academy Award winning documentary about the Holocaust in Hungary, The Last Days.
Say what you will about most Congressmen, Senators and the President, but complaints about MFT and coddling those commie bastards doen't apply to Rep. Lantos.
I'm sure someone will correct me if this is not the case, but I believe in the Queen's English (as opposed to American English), organizations are often represented in the plural because they are a group of people. You will read a US headline that says "Manchester United is likely to sell to Glazer", but in the UK, it can be "Manchester United are likely to sell to Glazer". Check out this site. Given the English source for the story, this makes sense.
Slashdot Mirror
They are not using what we consider to be the core "free speech" part of the first amendment, but the right to petition the government part.
Since they are not giving the data to the public, but instead to the feds, they are arguing they are covered by this.
In general this part is covered by the right of Americans, for example, to have any legislation they wish introduced to the Congress. You draft a bill and your Representative will introduce it. They won't support it probably, but you will get an H.R. number and can lobby for its passage. (note: they will probably ignore completely frivolous ideas) You also cannot be stopped from telling the government what you think of its ideas (though this does not cover threats). Anyone can also petition the Supreme Court themselves (this is how the right to an attorney in the Gideon case was presented).
I think they are on shaky footing both as a corporation (not a person) and historically. I cannot off the top of my head think of any precedent where a company reported legal activities and private data to the government and then tried to claim it was a petition.
(fyi - IANAL but I was a legislative aide for 5 years so I know the House stuff from experience)
The schools system I just finished working at for a few years (as network administrator) has a computer use policy as an addendum to the code of conduct. If you didn't return a signed copy you couldn't use the computers.
Besides, every schools has a code of conduct. The school has a mission much greater than merely teaching the three R's, and that generally means implementing policies like minimum dress codes (no miniskirts, tanktops), no gang colors, no using phones in class, etc. Each of these relates to receiving an education in a positive environment.
Here in Mass. an education is a right -- but like many rights there are limits. Just because you have a right to an education doesn't mean the school has no alternatives when you break the rules.
Frankly, if the school system had a use policy in place, and the students broke that policy, then they deserve their punishment.
You can create administrative installs for virtually all installations and use GPO's to install the software to the XP machines - works for Win2k and newer.
No cost, and not too tough to learn.
This link is to a Win2k install but is pretty much the same. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314934
IANAL, but I'm pretty sure here in Massachusetts a verbal contract is still a valid contract. Maybe a lawyer can step in and add more or tell me I'm off base?
I could be wrong, but I think I read at one point that XP and 2003 are different platforms -- but that XP64 and 2003 share code.
This is why the XP SP cannot be applied to XP64, but XP64 and 2003 share a service pack.
I think also that Vista is based off of 2003/XP64 not the 32-bit version of XP.
I'd like to thank Congressman Virgil Goode for his thoughts on this occasion.
I'm sure there are similar sites for other states, but one of our NPR stations has a web tool where you choose your position on the issues and it tells you which candidate is your best choice according to those issues.
http://www.votebyissue.org/election2006/
With all of the internet resources you have at your beck and call (you took the time to post a question to slashdot, but can't take 5 minutes to get informed?) you have NO EXCUSE.
GET INFORMED. VOTE. This year especially you have a chance to be a voice for change, or a voice for staying the path. These things matter.
Freeduc Live CD for primary schools
The topic author points out $3 billion in "pet projects" -- many of which are a waste, but also many of which are valuable. Not that the budget should have itemized spending like this -- it is just absurd to say that pork of $3 billion in a year is the problem.
The problem is the nearly $5 billion per month (USA Today article with the numbers here) being spent in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Even if you think the wars are legitimate, logic dictates that this huge cost is the reason why our deficit is going up, and why programs are being shortchanged.
>>Do you think it should be legal for one movie studio to copy a currently-in-theatres blockbuster that cost some other studio $100M to produce and market, and then to sell a trivially edited version to theatres at a fraction of the normal price?
Yes, if the second studio buys one full price of admission from the original studio's release for each customer who views the edited version. Again, the original studio gets all of the money they would have gotten anyways.
I can see how this violates the law, but I fail completely to see who is harmed.
Yes. I figure the US will state that only flights that comply with these information requests will be allowed to land in or overfly US territory.
Consider the consequences for BA, Air France, et al.
I think convicted felons Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling might disagree with your assumptions. These are just today's examples, but the US has done a job on individuals who are responsible for corporate malfeasance. (sp?)
This is actually a reply to a few posts at the parent level.
I also work in education and cannot migrate to linux. There are federal and state requirements for testing and evaluations. We cannot get around those requirements. The applications that are available for these run on Windows. They don't run on Macs at this point. (The older ones run on OS7-9, but not X)
Could I try to implement WINE? Sure. But the cost is a factor. The immediate parent suggests the cost of new systems, retraining, work-arounds and whatnot are cheaper than the cost of a breach. They are, but we don't have to pay for a breach until it occurs, and there is no money for the logical (and I agree best) alternative.
My school system has 28 buildings, 26 subnets, 4000+ pc's, 100+ servers, 7000+ users. There is an IT Director who does the McAfee, ISA and some firewall maintenance. The server, LAN and helpdesk management is my responsibility. I have 3 technicians. That's right. 4 people for this network, and the city will not spend any more on IT because it means laying off teachers. (When was the last time you pushed for and voted for a tax override?)
Don't argue about how schools are funded -- that isn't the point. The point is that school IT departments have to work with the budget restraints, and that is just the way it is. So your comments about risk management are true, and should be applied. They often cannot be in the public sector (thought they should there as well).
As far as the guy who says to tell vendors to screw off, I'd love to. There is just that whole No Child Left Behind and other requirements. The feds have us in an unfunded mandate bind. We need to test and evaluate, and the software that exists is the software that exists. We can't cobble together something and expect to pass an audit. We aren't talking office apps, or learning apps, or whatever. These are expensive testing and evaluation systems that are only available in Windows for now -- and my feeble WINE attempts did not succeed -- they are complicated client-server applications with centralized reporting.
As far as training, someone made it sound like the gp couldn't be bothered. Who is going to train the users? Who will pay them? Where will the equipment come from? Who will pay the custodians' OT?
Frankly, public education IT departments are screwed and stuck with Windows, and the federal mandates make it impossible (not hard -- impossible) to migrate completely to an alternative. We have no leverage. We have no budgets. We have no staff. And I can't tell the superintendant to fire 10 teachers to hire 12 techs -- it isn't going to happen.
Harsh reality is that we are going to be stuck with Windows for the long haul -- which is why Ghost is our friend for situations like those described in the article.
Personally I like this change. Specifically, the ability to see if I've gotten hits in newsgroups, which can often be more helpful than the official company answers that google web search finds. Many newer monitors have a wider aspect, so it isn't really taking room away from my results.
It appears a game master (GM) approached him in-game and he did not respond -- he was watching a movie and pressing the keyboard buttons without watching the screen.
Put yourself in the GM's position. A character repeatedly performs the same action hundreds of times. When sent messages (tells/whispers) the character does not respond. There is no other reasonable explanation than that the character is automated. Sure, weird situations like this particular one can occur, but is there really any way for Blizzard to see that it was not a bot? The guy pressed one button that caused his character to perform repeated tasks while the player was not watching the game. That is botting. The fact that the player pressed one button every few minutes does not mitigate the rule breaking.
A GM will specifically identify himself/herself as a GM -- not just any random player name. This guy was botting, and I for one cheer his being nuked. He cheated.
The game has has a built-in macro system that does not permit you to do multiple battle actions at once (you can swap multiple items, and perform multiples of other non-combat actions) because casting multiple spells/performing multiple combat skills all with the press of a single button is botting. This guy bypassed the in-game restricions with a hardware/software combination. The rules exists for a reason, and he broke them.
Funny thing is that if he had just been paying attention to the window he would have been fine.
And your comment about English is just flamebait (not that the rest is not).
I'm a level 60 Warrior on WoW. I battle those nasty night elves and live the high life in Orgrimmar.
Oh, you mean real life?
But seriously, and related to the first part of my post...
I would love to have a Mac for browsing, mail and multimedia editing, and to also dual-boot into XP for gaming. (Yes, I know WoW comes on Mac, but many games do not).
There are no votes about Gitmo -- the GOP won't allow them. He is the sponsor of legilation calling for an independent inquiry into prisons in Cuba, Afghanistan and Iraq. HR 3003 is one of them.
A valid question. However, I worked "on the Hill" back in the early 90's, and he already had a long track record on human rights. His history is also well known and (thanks to IBM?) well documented.
He does what he can. He is a Democrat in a Congress with Republican majorities in both houses. He cannot hold hearings. He cannot force subpoenas. All he can do is vote, and make noise when given a stage. He did so, and did it well.
He has held unofficial hearings outside Congress, but they have no power and get no press.
When the Democrats held control, Lantos was at the forefront of the human rights movement that was reflected in official policy. Today he has no such power.
So he is doing what he can, in the forums he has access to, and I applaud him for it.
He is a Democrat. Democrats cannot hold hearings because they are in the minority at present.
He has called for hearings on many human rights issues, including Guantanamo Bay. Do you really think the Republicans will allow any hearings into China, Gitmo or Iraq?
You are so wrong about Tom Lantos that there is not enough room to write about it. I can assure you that as a survivor of a WWII concentration camp, Tom Lantos is in no way a supporter of Gitmo. You are showing igorance by painting an individual member of the House with a paint brush better suited to the Republican majority.
In general, I would agree with you. However, you are off base on this one because it was Tom Lantos making these statements. He is a HUGE champion of freedom (true freedom, not freedom unless it hurts a corporation). I have taken the liberty of doing a cut & paste of part of his online biography:
An American by choice, Tom Lantos was born in Budapest, Hungary, on February 1, 1928. He was 16 years of age when Nazi Germany occupied his native country. As a teenager, he was placed in a Hungarian fascist forced labor camp. He succeeded in escaping and was able to survive in a safe house in Budapest set up by Swedish humanitarian Raoul Wallenberg. His story is one of the individual accounts which forms the basis of Steven Spielberg's Academy Award winning documentary about the Holocaust in Hungary, The Last Days.
Say what you will about most Congressmen, Senators and the President, but complaints about MFT and coddling those commie bastards doen't apply to Rep. Lantos.
I'm sure someone will correct me if this is not the case, but I believe in the Queen's English (as opposed to American English), organizations are often represented in the plural because they are a group of people. You will read a US headline that says "Manchester United is likely to sell to Glazer", but in the UK, it can be "Manchester United are likely to sell to Glazer". Check out this site. Given the English source for the story, this makes sense.
OK. So you are comparing Unix to nuclear power plants and oil tanker navigation?
/. point out how anyone can learn *nix. Makes me long for differential calculus.
Jeesh, usually people on