Diebold'll pay with old voting machines. Which are illegal to use now in CA, so they will sit in a warehouse somewhere and gather dust until the cockroaches inherit the earth.
One of the overlooked problems with electronic voting machines is that, even if they are perfect in every way, they'll still "...sit in a warehouse somewhere and gather dust..." for the next four years, be trotted out for one day, then sit in a warehouse for another four years.
If I asked someone to do reasonable work on a computer which was "inexpensive" back in 2000 (this was the Pentium III @ 500Mhz era) I'd be accused of crimes against humanity. We expect volunteer election officials to keep half-decade old computer equipment running reliabily when it isn't even run on a daily basis for most of it's life?
Computer equipment is the most unlikely candidate for long-term depreciation, especially while Moore's Law is still in effect.
Analogies don't work when it comes to legal matters.
Well certainly analogies are neither findings nor rulings, if that's what you mean, but they are sometimes the best tool available when speaking to an audiesnce of non-lawyers.
...wibbly lines don't hold up in court.
If we've decided to make no attempt to interpret this ruling (gots to avoid those "wibbly lines" at all costs) then all it really means is that Skylink has a ruling in it's favor to strengthen it's arguments. Not much disputing that, for sure. But not really much fun in that, either. So we gather at Slashdot (where all the important stuff of the world happens anyway) to interpret this ruling.
All it means is that you can use the software embedded in your DVD player.
This ruling can be read to strengthen the argument that the DMCA was not intended to take away the rights a purchaser of copyrighted work has always been presumed to have. This was made clear from the Court's conclusions:
The DMCA does not create a new property right for copyright owners. Nor, for that matter, does it divest the public of the property rights that the Copyright Act has long granted to the public. The anticircumvention and anti-trafficking provisions of the DMCA create new grounds of liability. A copyright owner seeking to impose liability on an accused circumventor must demonstrate a reasonable relationship between the circumvention at issue and a use relating to a property right for which the Copyright Act permits the copyright owner to withhold authorization as well as notice that authorization was withheld. A copyright owner seeking to impose liability on an accused trafficker must demonstrate that the trafficker's device enables either copyright infringement or a prohibited circumvention. Here, the District Court correctly ruled that Chamberlain pled no connection between unauthorized use of its copyrighted software and Skylink's accused transmitter. This connection is critical to sustaining a
cause of action under the DMCA. We therefore affirm the District Court s summary judgment in favor of Skylink.
This ruling does not give you the right to go batshit crazy with your DVD's.
Perhaps you meant affirm instead of give? Rights are not "granted" by the courts (or even by the legislature, for that matter.) but Courts are often called upon to affirm those rights posessed by all. The ruling does clearly state that no new property rights were created by the DMCA. And if a "property right" is "the right to deny others the use of a property" then it appears no rights in this resepct were either created or destroyed.
It doesn't say I have the right to, for example, make a copy of a DVD (which Copyright law prohibits) but it does say the copyright owner who wants to charge me with circumventing his access controls has the burden to show that the circumvention has allowed me to access copyright materials which I was not previously authorized to access, and show that I was put on notice that such access is prohibited.
What that has to do with "batshit" I can't say.
DVD's are not hardware. There is no embedded software. Files are not software, ergo the precedent of this ruling means nothing.
DVD's are not protected by copyright law; it's the copyrighted content which the law protects, and protects similarly in the form of a string of bits on a DVD, software embedded in a hardware device, a file on a floppy, or whatever. Form is relevant, but media is not.
All this ruling does is ensure that you can use a universal remote with your DVD player.
Please explain your train of thought on this one, because I just don't get it.
Yes, perhaps I was a tad bit opaque...
Let's review:
Chamberlain sells a garage door opener with a proprietary remote. Skylink built a "universal" garage door opener which was able to operate a Chamberlain garage door by triggering the execution of Chamberlain software within the garage door opener unit. This undercut Chamberlain's ability to charge monopoly rents for replacement garage door openers, and pretty much shot holes through thair claim of added security of requiring a Chamberlain garage door opener in order to open a Chamberlain garage door. Since Chamberlain owns the copyright to their software within the garage door opener, and claiming Skylink was not "authorized" to copy/run their software, they charged Skylink with a DMCA violation.
The court ruled that, because the owner of the garage door opener was authorized to run that software when triggered by the Chamberlain remote, there was no infringment when the access control mechanism (the official remote) was circumvented by a competing remote.
The analogy to CSS-encrypted DVD's should be clear: If you have purchased a legitimate CSS-encrypted DVD, you have the right to access the copyrighted content on the DVD in whatever fashion you choose.
Now this ruling doesn't appear to do anything to affect the access controls portion of the DMCA. From that I'd infer, for example, that DeCSS would be clearly legal, provided it offers the same access controls as every other DVD player (won't allow direct copying of digital content, etc.) I'd also presume an X-box mod chip would be okay, provided it didn't include the to ability to play pirated games, i.e. was only usable to run linux on the hardware, not non-legit X-box games.
As with most things in life, freedom is only available to the elite few that possess enough understanding to be free in the first place. I understand that I'm free to fork the source, but if I lack the knowledge necessary to hack on the kernel what good is it to me to fork?
Your argument undercuts itself. Freedom is not only available to "the elite few that possess enough understanding to be free in the first place" but also to the ones they bring with them. If you lack the knowledge necessary to hack the kernel in order to support the binary module, then clearly you lack the knowledge to be able to create your own kernel from scratch. Yet you use such a free kernel, or you wouldn't be complaining about having to learn to hack it.
Do you owe anything to the core kernel developers for the kernels they've made available to you? If yes, then you at least owe them the respect that comes with allowing them to choose what they will or will not support. If you don't owe them anything, then take the existing kernel and leave.
This world may not always offer you just exactly what you want when you want it. Unless you are hopelessly spoiled, you'll accept that.
If the failure of the core kernel developers to provide 'convenient' access to this hardware creates a community of developers of large enough size to support a forked kernel, then it will happen. And you'll get your driver through them. If not, then there wasn't enough call in the community for that.
But there is one thing you seem to have completely missed: If you choose to develop the knowledge necessary to hack on the kernel and support a fork, no one (except perhaps the hoplessly spoiled) is going to try to stop you. I suspect you'd even get help, of a sorts, from the core kernel development team.
If SCO took GPLed code and placed that code into their UNIX products, then distributed those products to their customers, SCO could (potentially) be forced to distribute the source code to their UNIX products that contained the GPL'ed code.
I think "forced" is the wrong word. If a software distributor adds GPL'd code to their own and distributes the result, they either have to demonstrate they have a license, or they are infringing the copyrights of the GPL'd code author(s). That leaves them two choices, only one of which required them to offer their own code under a GPL-compatible license. The other option is to stop the infringement by no longer distributing the infringing code. The "rip it out and replace it" strategy works just as well for them as it does for anyone, presuming they actually understand how to code it.
If I had meant SPAM(TM) I would have written it as SPAM(TM), just like if I were referring to a certain operating system rather than a glass-covered hole in a wall I would be obligated to write Windows(TM).
If I am discussing a trademarked product and I fail to acknowledge the trademark, the owner of that trademark can rightly claim to be suffering an infringment, and they are obligated to protect their trademark or risk losing their trademark protection.
Likewise, I cannot refer to any spiced-ham product as SPAM(TM) unless I'm referring to the one produced by Hormel(R) nor can I use the word "windows" to discuss an operating system product unless it's the one produced in Redmond, and then I should acknowledge the trademark.
But if I am discussing the glass portals on my home, I need not avoid calling them windows.
I am curious as to the thought process behind ceeding a word (like SPAM) to trademarked ownership of some corporation outside the context of their trademark scope. When we rag on Windows(TM) we are rightly obligated to use the (TM) symbol. Microsoft(R) has no claim to that word outside the operating system context, and Hormel(R) has no claim to the word SPAM outside the realm of spiced ham.
If you host your own server off a local ISP, I've yet to see them block SPAM coming to said server.
As far as receiving mail, thats close enough to correct. But sending mail is a bit different. In my experience, if you "host your own server off a local ISP", you are either paying for "business-class" service or are sitting behind a port-25 (SMTP) block and smart-hosting off the ISP's mail server. You likely can't send mail directly. If you can, there are many who would label you a SPAMmer simply because you can.
Common carrier applies because they're providing the "line" to you.
I think that's a reality we'd both like to see, but it just ain't so. Common Carrier has a specific legal meaning which both requires the carrier to carry...um...commonly (if you've paid the fare, they must service you.) as well as protects the carrier in performance of those duties. Phone companies get it because regulatory agencies have granted it to them. Airlines get it, too, for the same reason. We like it because it means we get to compete with everyone else on the same level playing field. The carriers actually hate it (usually), because it means they can't offer up-market service to their most profitable customers. The times when they don't hate it is when they're being sued by someone for the service they provide. Then they love it because they can claim a regulatory-agency-provided immunity from liability. Canadian ISP's are not common carriers, which is why they had to get a Court to rule them non-liable.
That's the clearly obvious solution. I think most slashdotters would agree in an instant.
Be advised that there are segments of the industry who have vowed to never allow this to happen (again, at least in the US). They use language like "...nationalizing the infrastructure we've built with private investment..." and other such arguments. Their logic follows the general train of thought that, since (for example) the cable company paid to put down the wires, they should be able to decide what gets carried, what doesn't, and how much it costs to move a particular packet from the latter category into the former.
These industry players are all currently swearing (on their mothers graves) that they would never use their control of their infrastructure to enforce policies which are favorable to their own bottom line at the expense of competitors. But when you look at the feature set of enterprise networking equipment being offered by all the major manufacturers, you'll find nothing sells without the ability to selectively block certain ports, certain channels, etc. based on policy.
Expect the plesantness to continue until consolidation leaves us with one player owning more that 50% of the access, at which point the gloves will come off as far as the FCC will allow.
Telcos aren't responsible for people who discuss illegal activities. How would an ISP?
Because (in the US at least) ISP are not defined by the law to be Common Carriers.
A Common Carrier is required to carry whatever content is provided on a non-discriminatory basis. That means they don't get to drop something just because they don't like it (as ISP's routinely do with SPAM and such). But because they have to carry it (even if it may be illegal) they can't be held responsible for doing so.
This ruling could be read as a move toward common carrier-like status for ISP's. That could be good for people who want to pass MP3's around, bad for people who want SPAMers to not be able to fill their inbox with crud.
However, if the ruling had gone the other way, we might well have seen ISP's get a certified right to block SPAM, MP3's, and anything else they didn't like, including HTTP requests to competing search engines, and VoIP packets where the ISP isn't getting a cut of the call toll.
It's an interesting ruling, but the roulette wheel is still spinning, and the ball is still bouncing.
Is it only a matter of time before we all resort to file transfer by P2P?
Let us not forget that email was the original file transfer by P2P back before we all decided to rely on someone else to run our sendmail services.
Re:Not my area of expertise (legal or IP)
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P2P Bits
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· Score: 2, Insightful
By citing Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang and others, I believe our esteemed Senator has himself comitted an act of infringment.
Further, since he is no doubt aware that the Congressional Record is mandated, by law, to publish such proceedings, he is clearly inducing our government to commit an act of infringment too.
We should be rejoicing; in the proverbial puff of logic, he has just outlawed our government.
The surprising part is that so many people are surprised.
The reason (well, one of) why we like 802.11 so much is that it's unregulated, meaning you don't have to get a license to put up a base station or use a wireless card. But the downside to that is neither does anyone else. That means anyone can stomp on the frequencies, and there's nothing you can do about it.
If this sounds familiar, it should. It's another manifestation of the same mechanism which allows spam to DOS our inboxes.
This means we can expect the same clueless responses to this problem. Someone will suggest we regulate the access to the technology (base stations and wireless cards) or the frequency.
I'm all for anything that can solve my problem, especially if it's done in but one stroke, but I don't think my problem (not all of them at any rate) can even be described, let alone solved, by BASIC.;-)
Oh, dear me! Please forgive. I neglected to answer your question...
What the heck do you suggest?
If anyone can develop an e-vote system which is workably reliable, acceptably inexpensive, adequately protective of privacy and secrecy, and not obviously inappropriate, I'd be willing to accept it. Even if the software is not open. Even if the software is never reviewed. Even if the hardware is a sealed black box which self destructs if anyone tries to open it. Even if the coders are convicted felons, or the owners of the company which makes it are on record as "comitted to delivering the vote" for a particular party.
My demands are simple, and therefore hopefully easy to meet:
The system must produce evidence (e.g. a paper ballot) of voter intent which is tamper evident and tamper resistant. Testimony is NOT an acceptable alternative, no matter how much the source of the testimony is claimed to be trustable.
The system must allow the voter to confirm or deny that the evidence correctly indicates his preference before the ballot is comitted (e.g. placed into a box).
These are not difficult requirements to meet. Pen and paper suffice. Why anyone would want (or be willing to tolerate paying taxes to fund) a system relying on code inspectors, background checks, expensive hardware, well-trained poll workers, reliable electrical power, wireless links, etc. is beyond me.
...do we just throw our arms up and say "I give up"
No. that's a non-answer. Instead, we should be looking for an answer, but only settle for a correct one, and try to choose a good one from that set.
...these same problems exist in paper ballot voting (can you trust the poll people and the counters, etc. etc..)
I consider "common paper ballot voting systems" to be superior to e-voting systems precisely because the protocol (which is what you may have been referring to above when you talked about the "system") explicitly assumes that we cannot trust the poll people, counters, etc. and therefore does not trust them.
In "common paper ballot voting systems" I don't have to trust that the box is empty before the voting begins. I can ask to see for myself that the box is empty.
I don't have to trust that no one is adding ballots to the box secretly; the box remains in plain sight at all times. I don't have to trust that the ballot I submit correctly records my preference; I can see it with my own eyes. I don't have to trust the poll workers to count the votes correctly; I can challenge their count and even count them myself, if it becomes a point of contention.
And none of the above is dependent on my being a security expert, a l33t h4xx0r or a 3x7r0d1|/|4r3. whatever that is. Which means even Joe Sixpack can assist in guaranteeing the fair results of the election.
As a designer of a system like this, there's a few hypothetical questions I'd have to ask myself: Can I account for every single possible contingency?...Did I do the best I could?
Those are the correct questions (IMHO) to be asking, but you need to understand that the people who have an interest in promoting these systems likely aren't asking these same questions. They are more likely to asking questions like "will my boss fire me for not rigging the system as he demanded?", "how will I get health insurance for my family if I'm blacklisted out of the industry?" and "what if those darn slashdotters succeed and my candidate can't remain in power, protecting me?".
CAN-SPAM says (IIRC) that it's up to the spammer to decide what sort of hoops you need to jump through to get "unsubscribed".
For example, a spammer could offer you the opportunity to unsubscribe using a hypertext CGI command like http://example.net/cgi/unsubscribe_me_then_resubsu bscribe_me_again_in_10_minutes.cgi
Thanks. I know I do. But I'm afraid you may have missed it.
Even if we could be certain the source is good, there's no good/simple way for even the best of us to match the sources as reviewed to the binaries as installed.
If I were trying to rig an election using boxes like this, I'd set up two teams. The first team would upload the sources to SourceForge, go over every line of code with a fine tooth comb, invite public scrutiny, do full background checks on everyone with write access to the source tree, offer a cash bounty for every bug found, etc. In short, do everything in my power to insure there are no possible exploits in the source. Because I'd want the public to have full confidence that the software isn't rigged.
Then my second team would be assigned to create a rigged binary that looks exactly like the open source one from the outside. Same menus, same version string, same file size. Heck I might go so far as to rig/usr/bin/md5sum so it reports the same thing for the rigged one as for the real one, just in case some poll worker somewhere bothers to check.
And as a result, you (and thousands of other not-clinically-paranoid) people will cast their vote on my rigged e-vote box, completely confident that the box will faithfully record their vote.
No, Open Source's advantage in this case is so WE, and EVERYONE ESLE can understand who has pissed in the pool.
You are deceiving yourself if you think access to the source mitigates this problem.
Imagine: You go into a voting booth and face an e-vote machine. You have personally examined all the sources for this machine and, based on your perfect understanding of all things software, and the extensive amount of time you spent going over the 300+ source files (when you should have been paying attention to the issues) you have concluded that this one piece of software (unlike all others) actually is bug free.
How exactly do you go about convincing yourself that the "Version 11.225b(build 1107 CERTIFIED)" printed in the bottom righthand corner came from the printf statement you recall reading on line 465 of assure.c and not from some PRINT "Version 11.225b(build 1107 CERTIFIED)" statement in the BASIC program some technician loaded onto the machine while you weren't looking?
I suppose you could ask the machine. "Are you lying?"
"No, Dave. I am a HAL 9000. No HAL 9000 has ever lied or distorted information...
I didn't know George Orwell was a pen name. Now I do, and know his real name.
The purpose of communication is to share ideas. While it's easy to see how a person would be enriched by the added knowledge of Eric Arthur's association to George Orwell, I think it also obsfucates the intent of the communication. Was the goal of the statement to draw a comparison between this situation and the one in the book 1984 or was it to point out that George Orwell was a pen name for Eric Arthur? If the goal was the former, then referring to the book as Eric Arthur's 1984 does not well serve that purpose, since it's much more widely known as George Orwell's 1984. If the goal was the latter, then I can think of many ways the clarity could have been improved, if indeed the intent was necessary at all.
Why is it that we think ignorance is some God-given right...
Because it is. (And yes I mean that seriously.) I call it the God-given right to be stupid. There is no law that requires me to not be ignorant. And while you might think I'm just being argumentative, consider this...
About a hundred years ago, there were a couple of brothers who owned a bicycle shop. One day they decided to see if they could take some spare bike parts and build a machine that could fly. Now everybody knows (everybody who isn't stupid, that is) that you can't build a flying machine, especially out of spare bicycle parts. At least everybody knew it back then. We all know how that story turned out.
You see, calling someone else "ignorant" has to be seen through the lense of what you know as well. What would happen if no one was allowed to be "ignorant" by your definition, and it turned out you were wrong?
Allowing others to be, in our mind, ignorant is an acknowledgment of our own falibility. We can say "I think that's stupid", but we are morally obligated to allow that stupid behavior on the (perhaps unlikely) chance that we are incorrect in our assumption of just how stupid it is.
...believe that "personal use" also includes giving copies to your friends. I certainly wouldn't have interpreted it this way and I can't find anything on the web that confirms this.
The search key you're looking for in "Audio Home Recording Act of 1992"
Check out U.S. Code Title 17, Chapter 10, Subchapter D, section 108.
But note: This does NOT say that making a (analog or digital) copy is not an infringment; it only prohibits any copyright holder (RIAA and crew) from bringing any actions for the infringment. So anyone who wants to think of mp3 sharing as "stealing" must also admit that taping a song off the radio is also stealing. It's just that one is a protected, sanctioned form of stealing, and the other is not.
If we start with the same original, how can the results of our actions be different if our actions were the same?
Or look at it another way; if we start with the same CD. I make an analogue (lossy) copy of the CD (.WAV ->.mp3), then an analogue (lossy) copy of the result from that previous step (mp3 -> mp3), and repeat for ten thousand generations, my result will be much different than if I start with the same CD, make a digital (lossless) copy of that CD (cp file${n}.WAV file`expr ${n} + 1`.WAV) and repeat for ten thousand generations.
Slashdot Mirror
One of the overlooked problems with electronic voting machines is that, even if they are perfect in every way, they'll still "...sit in a warehouse somewhere and gather dust..." for the next four years, be trotted out for one day, then sit in a warehouse for another four years.
If I asked someone to do reasonable work on a computer which was "inexpensive" back in 2000 (this was the Pentium III @ 500Mhz era) I'd be accused of crimes against humanity. We expect volunteer election officials to keep half-decade old computer equipment running reliabily when it isn't even run on a daily basis for most of it's life?
Computer equipment is the most unlikely candidate for long-term depreciation, especially while Moore's Law is still in effect.
Well certainly analogies are neither findings nor rulings, if that's what you mean, but they are sometimes the best tool available when speaking to an audiesnce of non-lawyers.
If we've decided to make no attempt to interpret this ruling (gots to avoid those "wibbly lines" at all costs) then all it really means is that Skylink has a ruling in it's favor to strengthen it's arguments. Not much disputing that, for sure. But not really much fun in that, either. So we gather at Slashdot (where all the important stuff of the world happens anyway) to interpret this ruling.
This ruling can be read to strengthen the argument that the DMCA was not intended to take away the rights a purchaser of copyrighted work has always been presumed to have. This was made clear from the Court's conclusions:
Perhaps you meant affirm instead of give? Rights are not "granted" by the courts (or even by the legislature, for that matter.) but Courts are often called upon to affirm those rights posessed by all. The ruling does clearly state that no new property rights were created by the DMCA. And if a "property right" is "the right to deny others the use of a property" then it appears no rights in this resepct were either created or destroyed.
It doesn't say I have the right to, for example, make a copy of a DVD (which Copyright law prohibits) but it does say the copyright owner who wants to charge me with circumventing his access controls has the burden to show that the circumvention has allowed me to access copyright materials which I was not previously authorized to access, and show that I was put on notice that such access is prohibited.
What that has to do with "batshit" I can't say.
DVD's are not protected by copyright law; it's the copyrighted content which the law protects, and protects similarly in the form of a string of bits on a DVD, software embedded in a hardware device, a file on a floppy, or whatever. Form is relevant, but media is not.
Yes, perhaps I was a tad bit opaque...
Let's review:
Chamberlain sells a garage door opener with a proprietary remote. Skylink built a "universal" garage door opener which was able to operate a Chamberlain garage door by triggering the execution of Chamberlain software within the garage door opener unit. This undercut Chamberlain's ability to charge monopoly rents for replacement garage door openers, and pretty much shot holes through thair claim of added security of requiring a Chamberlain garage door opener in order to open a Chamberlain garage door. Since Chamberlain owns the copyright to their software within the garage door opener, and claiming Skylink was not "authorized" to copy/run their software, they charged Skylink with a DMCA violation.
The court ruled that, because the owner of the garage door opener was authorized to run that software when triggered by the Chamberlain remote, there was no infringment when the access control mechanism (the official remote) was circumvented by a competing remote.
The analogy to CSS-encrypted DVD's should be clear: If you have purchased a legitimate CSS-encrypted DVD, you have the right to access the copyrighted content on the DVD in whatever fashion you choose.
Now this ruling doesn't appear to do anything to affect the access controls portion of the DMCA. From that I'd infer, for example, that DeCSS would be clearly legal, provided it offers the same access controls as every other DVD player (won't allow direct copying of digital content, etc.) I'd also presume an X-box mod chip would be okay, provided it didn't include the to ability to play pirated games, i.e. was only usable to run linux on the hardware, not non-legit X-box games.
I'd question the use of "small" here. To me, this looks like the whole DMCA house of cards collapsing.
How long will it be before the Courts recognise a CSS-protected DVD as nothing more than a computer program we run to produce the video?
Your argument undercuts itself. Freedom is not only available to "the elite few that possess enough understanding to be free in the first place" but also to the ones they bring with them. If you lack the knowledge necessary to hack the kernel in order to support the binary module, then clearly you lack the knowledge to be able to create your own kernel from scratch. Yet you use such a free kernel, or you wouldn't be complaining about having to learn to hack it.
Do you owe anything to the core kernel developers for the kernels they've made available to you? If yes, then you at least owe them the respect that comes with allowing them to choose what they will or will not support. If you don't owe them anything, then take the existing kernel and leave.
This world may not always offer you just exactly what you want when you want it. Unless you are hopelessly spoiled, you'll accept that.
If the failure of the core kernel developers to provide 'convenient' access to this hardware creates a community of developers of large enough size to support a forked kernel, then it will happen. And you'll get your driver through them. If not, then there wasn't enough call in the community for that.
But there is one thing you seem to have completely missed: If you choose to develop the knowledge necessary to hack on the kernel and support a fork, no one (except perhaps the hoplessly spoiled) is going to try to stop you. I suspect you'd even get help, of a sorts, from the core kernel development team.
Can you expect the same support from Philips?
ACT NOW! Configure your routers to block all requests to these sites through the end of the election!
We'll show those evil hackers who's in charge around here.
(sprinkle liberally with smiley's for the humor impaired...)
I think "forced" is the wrong word. If a software distributor adds GPL'd code to their own and distributes the result, they either have to demonstrate they have a license, or they are infringing the copyrights of the GPL'd code author(s). That leaves them two choices, only one of which required them to offer their own code under a GPL-compatible license. The other option is to stop the infringement by no longer distributing the infringing code. The "rip it out and replace it" strategy works just as well for them as it does for anyone, presuming they actually understand how to code it.
If I had meant SPAM(TM) I would have written it as SPAM(TM), just like if I were referring to a certain operating system rather than a glass-covered hole in a wall I would be obligated to write Windows(TM).
If I am discussing a trademarked product and I fail to acknowledge the trademark, the owner of that trademark can rightly claim to be suffering an infringment, and they are obligated to protect their trademark or risk losing their trademark protection.
Likewise, I cannot refer to any spiced-ham product as SPAM(TM) unless I'm referring to the one produced by Hormel(R) nor can I use the word "windows" to discuss an operating system product unless it's the one produced in Redmond, and then I should acknowledge the trademark.
But if I am discussing the glass portals on my home, I need not avoid calling them windows.
I am curious as to the thought process behind ceeding a word (like SPAM) to trademarked ownership of some corporation outside the context of their trademark scope. When we rag on Windows(TM) we are rightly obligated to use the (TM) symbol. Microsoft(R) has no claim to that word outside the operating system context, and Hormel(R) has no claim to the word SPAM outside the realm of spiced ham.
Now please excuse me, I'm darned hungry.
As far as receiving mail, thats close enough to correct. But sending mail is a bit different. In my experience, if you "host your own server off a local ISP", you are either paying for "business-class" service or are sitting behind a port-25 (SMTP) block and smart-hosting off the ISP's mail server. You likely can't send mail directly. If you can, there are many who would label you a SPAMmer simply because you can.
I think that's a reality we'd both like to see, but it just ain't so. Common Carrier has a specific legal meaning which both requires the carrier to carry...um...commonly (if you've paid the fare, they must service you.) as well as protects the carrier in performance of those duties. Phone companies get it because regulatory agencies have granted it to them. Airlines get it, too, for the same reason. We like it because it means we get to compete with everyone else on the same level playing field. The carriers actually hate it (usually), because it means they can't offer up-market service to their most profitable customers. The times when they don't hate it is when they're being sued by someone for the service they provide. Then they love it because they can claim a regulatory-agency-provided immunity from liability. Canadian ISP's are not common carriers, which is why they had to get a Court to rule them non-liable.
That's the clearly obvious solution. I think most slashdotters would agree in an instant.
Be advised that there are segments of the industry who have vowed to never allow this to happen (again, at least in the US). They use language like "...nationalizing the infrastructure we've built with private investment..." and other such arguments. Their logic follows the general train of thought that, since (for example) the cable company paid to put down the wires, they should be able to decide what gets carried, what doesn't, and how much it costs to move a particular packet from the latter category into the former.
These industry players are all currently swearing (on their mothers graves) that they would never use their control of their infrastructure to enforce policies which are favorable to their own bottom line at the expense of competitors. But when you look at the feature set of enterprise networking equipment being offered by all the major manufacturers, you'll find nothing sells without the ability to selectively block certain ports, certain channels, etc. based on policy.
Expect the plesantness to continue until consolidation leaves us with one player owning more that 50% of the access, at which point the gloves will come off as far as the FCC will allow.
Because (in the US at least) ISP are not defined by the law to be Common Carriers.
A Common Carrier is required to carry whatever content is provided on a non-discriminatory basis. That means they don't get to drop something just because they don't like it (as ISP's routinely do with SPAM and such). But because they have to carry it (even if it may be illegal) they can't be held responsible for doing so.
This ruling could be read as a move toward common carrier-like status for ISP's. That could be good for people who want to pass MP3's around, bad for people who want SPAMers to not be able to fill their inbox with crud.
However, if the ruling had gone the other way, we might well have seen ISP's get a certified right to block SPAM, MP3's, and anything else they didn't like, including HTTP requests to competing search engines, and VoIP packets where the ISP isn't getting a cut of the call toll.
It's an interesting ruling, but the roulette wheel is still spinning, and the ball is still bouncing.
Let us not forget that email was the original file transfer by P2P back before we all decided to rely on someone else to run our sendmail services.
Further, since he is no doubt aware that the Congressional Record is mandated, by law, to publish such proceedings, he is clearly inducing our government to commit an act of infringment too.
We should be rejoicing; in the proverbial puff of logic, he has just outlawed our government.
err, or something like that...
The surprising part is that so many people are surprised.
The reason (well, one of) why we like 802.11 so much is that it's unregulated, meaning you don't have to get a license to put up a base station or use a wireless card. But the downside to that is neither does anyone else. That means anyone can stomp on the frequencies, and there's nothing you can do about it.
If this sounds familiar, it should. It's another manifestation of the same mechanism which allows spam to DOS our inboxes.
This means we can expect the same clueless responses to this problem. Someone will suggest we regulate the access to the technology (base stations and wireless cards) or the frequency.
If someone is going to go to the trouble of seriously injuring a spammer, might just as well mandate that they go the final measure, no?
Any why exactly are we limiting retribution to citizens only?
Damn. Legislation is as hard as coding sometimes...
Oh, I almost forgot: ;-)
If anyone can develop an e-vote system which is workably reliable, acceptably inexpensive, adequately protective of privacy and secrecy, and not obviously inappropriate, I'd be willing to accept it. Even if the software is not open. Even if the software is never reviewed. Even if the hardware is a sealed black box which self destructs if anyone tries to open it. Even if the coders are convicted felons, or the owners of the company which makes it are on record as "comitted to delivering the vote" for a particular party.
My demands are simple, and therefore hopefully easy to meet:
The system must produce evidence (e.g. a paper ballot) of voter intent which is tamper evident and tamper resistant. Testimony is NOT an acceptable alternative, no matter how much the source of the testimony is claimed to be trustable.
The system must allow the voter to confirm or deny that the evidence correctly indicates his preference before the ballot is comitted (e.g. placed into a box).
These are not difficult requirements to meet. Pen and paper suffice. Why anyone would want (or be willing to tolerate paying taxes to fund) a system relying on code inspectors, background checks, expensive hardware, well-trained poll workers, reliable electrical power, wireless links, etc. is beyond me.
No. that's a non-answer. Instead, we should be looking for an answer, but only settle for a correct one, and try to choose a good one from that set.
I consider "common paper ballot voting systems" to be superior to e-voting systems precisely because the protocol (which is what you may have been referring to above when you talked about the "system") explicitly assumes that we cannot trust the poll people, counters, etc. and therefore does not trust them.
In "common paper ballot voting systems" I don't have to trust that the box is empty before the voting begins. I can ask to see for myself that the box is empty.
I don't have to trust that no one is adding ballots to the box secretly; the box remains in plain sight at all times. I don't have to trust that the ballot I submit correctly records my preference; I can see it with my own eyes. I don't have to trust the poll workers to count the votes correctly; I can challenge their count and even count them myself, if it becomes a point of contention.
And none of the above is dependent on my being a security expert, a l33t h4xx0r or a 3x7r0d1|/|4r3. whatever that is. Which means even Joe Sixpack can assist in guaranteeing the fair results of the election.
Those are the correct questions (IMHO) to be asking, but you need to understand that the people who have an interest in promoting these systems likely aren't asking these same questions. They are more likely to asking questions like "will my boss fire me for not rigging the system as he demanded?", "how will I get health insurance for my family if I'm blacklisted out of the industry?" and "what if those darn slashdotters succeed and my candidate can't remain in power, protecting me?".
CAN-SPAM says (IIRC) that it's up to the spammer to decide what sort of hoops you need to jump through to get "unsubscribed".
For example, a spammer could offer you the opportunity to unsubscribe using a hypertext CGI command like http://example.net/cgi/unsubscribe_me_then_resubsu bscribe_me_again_in_10_minutes.cgi
Rule #1 is in full force here.
Thanks. I know I do. But I'm afraid you may have missed it.
Even if we could be certain the source is good, there's no good/simple way for even the best of us to match the sources as reviewed to the binaries as installed.
If I were trying to rig an election using boxes like this, I'd set up two teams. The first team would upload the sources to SourceForge, go over every line of code with a fine tooth comb, invite public scrutiny, do full background checks on everyone with write access to the source tree, offer a cash bounty for every bug found, etc. In short, do everything in my power to insure there are no possible exploits in the source. Because I'd want the public to have full confidence that the software isn't rigged.
Then my second team would be assigned to create a rigged binary that looks exactly like the open source one from the outside. Same menus, same version string, same file size. Heck I might go so far as to rig /usr/bin/md5sum so it reports the same thing for the rigged one as for the real one, just in case some poll worker somewhere bothers to check.
And as a result, you (and thousands of other not-clinically-paranoid) people will cast their vote on my rigged e-vote box, completely confident that the box will faithfully record their vote.
You are deceiving yourself if you think access to the source mitigates this problem.
Imagine: You go into a voting booth and face an e-vote machine. You have personally examined all the sources for this machine and, based on your perfect understanding of all things software, and the extensive amount of time you spent going over the 300+ source files (when you should have been paying attention to the issues) you have concluded that this one piece of software (unlike all others) actually is bug free.
How exactly do you go about convincing yourself that the "Version 11.225b(build 1107 CERTIFIED)" printed in the bottom righthand corner came from the printf statement you recall reading on line 465 of assure.c and not from some PRINT "Version 11.225b(build 1107 CERTIFIED)" statement in the BASIC program some technician loaded onto the machine while you weren't looking?
I suppose you could ask the machine. "Are you lying?"
"No, Dave. I am a HAL 9000. No HAL 9000 has ever lied or distorted information...
The purpose of communication is to share ideas. While it's easy to see how a person would be enriched by the added knowledge of Eric Arthur's association to George Orwell, I think it also obsfucates the intent of the communication. Was the goal of the statement to draw a comparison between this situation and the one in the book 1984 or was it to point out that George Orwell was a pen name for Eric Arthur? If the goal was the former, then referring to the book as Eric Arthur's 1984 does not well serve that purpose, since it's much more widely known as George Orwell's 1984. If the goal was the latter, then I can think of many ways the clarity could have been improved, if indeed the intent was necessary at all.
Because it is. (And yes I mean that seriously.) I call it the God-given right to be stupid. There is no law that requires me to not be ignorant. And while you might think I'm just being argumentative, consider this...
About a hundred years ago, there were a couple of brothers who owned a bicycle shop. One day they decided to see if they could take some spare bike parts and build a machine that could fly. Now everybody knows (everybody who isn't stupid, that is) that you can't build a flying machine, especially out of spare bicycle parts. At least everybody knew it back then. We all know how that story turned out.
You see, calling someone else "ignorant" has to be seen through the lense of what you know as well. What would happen if no one was allowed to be "ignorant" by your definition, and it turned out you were wrong?
Allowing others to be, in our mind, ignorant is an acknowledgment of our own falibility. We can say "I think that's stupid", but we are morally obligated to allow that stupid behavior on the (perhaps unlikely) chance that we are incorrect in our assumption of just how stupid it is.
The search key you're looking for in "Audio Home Recording Act of 1992"
Check out U.S. Code Title 17, Chapter 10, Subchapter D, section 108.
But note: This does NOT say that making a (analog or digital) copy is not an infringment; it only prohibits any copyright holder (RIAA and crew) from bringing any actions for the infringment. So anyone who wants to think of mp3 sharing as "stealing" must also admit that taping a song off the radio is also stealing. It's just that one is a protected, sanctioned form of stealing, and the other is not.
If we start with the same original, how can the results of our actions be different if our actions were the same?
Or look at it another way; if we start with the same CD. I make an analogue (lossy) copy of the CD (.WAV -> .mp3), then an analogue (lossy) copy of the result from that previous step (mp3 -> mp3), and repeat for ten thousand generations, my result will be much different than if I start with the same CD, make a digital (lossless) copy of that CD (cp file${n}.WAV file`expr ${n} + 1`.WAV) and repeat for ten thousand generations.