Some guy who finds your USB stick on the train isn't going to hunt you down and beat the password out of you. If he had motive and opportunity to do that he would already have done it.
> I think 20 years is a bit too short nowadays with videos and such easily > stretching back that far.
The point is to give authors a financial incentive to create works, not to make sure that they are able to extract every conceivable nickle of revenue from every work. Twenty years is quite long enough to make an author glad he wrote the thing.
> If there is a hard to define race condition locking up systems on the cars > due to a software bug, it may be triggered by a bit getting flipped that is > assumed to be an impossible event...
> If a user who goes through three levels of menus, opens an advanced > configuration window, checks three checkboxes, and hits the 'A' key > gets a weird error message for his trouble, that's a little bug.
That's a symptom, not a bug. It could be a symptom of a buffer overflow that, if not fixed, will soon be exploited to clean out the bank accounts of 100,000 of your customers. You won't know until you've fixed it.
There have been companies pushing systems that purport to remotely read meters via the distribution system for decades. Turns out to be remarkably hard to make it work. Transformers, capacitors, switches, wildly variable transmission-line impedance...
> Unfortunately, whether you're buying a DSL router yourself or getting it > from an ISP, you're almost certainly not going to get anything IPv6 capable > today.
Since the "router" in a DSL modem is crap anyway you're better off putting the damn thing in bridge mode and using a seperate router/firewall such as an old pc.
Only a fool would rely on SSL based on the certificates that come with a browser to protect against government. That isn't what it is for. While I object to government snooping in principle (I object to pretty much all government activity in principle) I really have nothing to fear from the NSA learning what parts I am ordering from Jameco. Firefox, HTTPS, and Perspectives provide adequate assurance that I am communicating with the company I intend and that some clerk at some ISP can't snoop my credit card number. For more important stuff I have GPG.
Note that they don't need to succeed in getting him to stop. They just want to be on record as having noticed his use and contacted him about it. What they want to avoid is having some more egregrious offender point to his use and say "He did it and you didn't say a word!" Unfortunately this places him in the position of having to pay a lawyer to write a persuasive explanation of why his usage does not infringe.
> Am I the only one who finds this really disturbing? Does the fact that you > uploaded the data onto their system give them ownership of it in perpetuity?
No one owns data. They do, however own their copy of the data that you gave them (why did you do so if it is secret?) as it is embodied in hardware that they own just as you own your copy of any data about them that you have obtained.
> No amount of terms and conditions should be able to override your exclusive > ownership of data about you.
I repeat: no one owns data. Why did you reveal your secrets to them without first obtaining their agreement to an NDA? Why do you think that they should be forbidden to keep information that you freely revealed to them when they never agreed to keep it secret or destroy it upon request?
> Surely a letter or email requesting deletion of your data should legally > require them to delete it.
Sure. Just send them a letter drawing their attention to the NDA clause requiring them to delete the data upon request. What? They signed no NDA? So sad.
> Any chance of convincing some gray/black hats to strike a blow for decency > and sanity, and hack Chavez's websites to portray him as a transvestigial > equinophiliac paedo-cannibal?
> anything that will make the common people laugh at him...
Why do you imagine that would "make the common people laugh at him"? He'd successfully portray it as a CIA attack.
He's the Venezuelans' problem and only they can solve it. Either they will get rid of the kook or they won't.
> Here in the US, we have a small committee (part of one state goverment) > that believes you can teach US history without mentioning Thomas Jefferson, > and biology without mentioning evolution.
Slashdot Mirror
Some guy who finds your USB stick on the train isn't going to hunt you down and beat the password out of you. If he had motive and opportunity to do that he would already have done it.
> If the papers they sign state that they are responsible for their own
> actions, it would get WB out of any counter-lawsuits for thing done.
It isn't that easy. If WB directs their actions they are agents of WB and it might be held liable regardless of what papers were signed.
> causing general frustration amongst the file-sharing population on the
> Internet.
Make that unauthorized file-sharing. There are people who have no interest WB's crap: they are unaffected.
It's level the average Web designer reaches effortlessly.
> I think 20 years is a bit too short nowadays with videos and such easily
> stretching back that far.
The point is to give authors a financial incentive to create works, not to make sure that they are able to extract every conceivable nickle of revenue from every work. Twenty years is quite long enough to make an author glad he wrote the thing.
> If there is a hard to define race condition locking up systems on the cars
> due to a software bug, it may be triggered by a bit getting flipped that is
> assumed to be an impossible event...
That assumption is a design error.
A proper fault-tolerant design (which cannot be done entirely in software) would always fail safe on any single bit error.
From the description I don't know that the bug is in the UI.
> If a user who goes through three levels of menus, opens an advanced
> configuration window, checks three checkboxes, and hits the 'A' key
> gets a weird error message for his trouble, that's a little bug.
That's a symptom, not a bug. It could be a symptom of a buffer overflow that, if not fixed, will soon be exploited to clean out the bank accounts of 100,000 of your customers. You won't know until you've fixed it.
There have been companies pushing systems that purport to remotely read meters via the distribution system for decades. Turns out to be remarkably hard to make it work. Transformers, capacitors, switches, wildly variable transmission-line impedance...
Packet radio is simpler and more robust.
> My utility company gave me web access to my smartmeter...
To the meter itself or to a Web page on their server presenting what they read from it? I'd object if my meter itself was on the Net at all.
> Unfortunately, whether you're buying a DSL router yourself or getting it
> from an ISP, you're almost certainly not going to get anything IPv6 capable
> today.
Since the "router" in a DSL modem is crap anyway you're better off putting the damn thing in bridge mode and using a seperate router/firewall such as an old pc.
> That may be true of ISP and carrier level hardware, but consumer level
> routers do not.
Most of which were supplied by the ISPs.
If ISPs would get their heads out of their asses "this idea" would not be needed.
...it is to even ask such a question.
...it is to protect teachers and adminstrators against religious zealots.
Not until someone writes a Gcc backend that produces tapes for it.
No relays. How sad.
Only a fool would rely on SSL based on the certificates that come with a browser to protect against government. That isn't what it is for. While I object to government snooping in principle (I object to pretty much all government activity in principle) I really have nothing to fear from the NSA learning what parts I am ordering from Jameco. Firefox, HTTPS, and Perspectives provide adequate assurance that I am communicating with the company I intend and that some clerk at some ISP can't snoop my credit card number. For more important stuff I have GPG.
> If the greasemonkey script is illegal...
It isn't, nor is Facebook claiming that it is. This is entirely about their trademark.
Note that they don't need to succeed in getting him to stop. They just want to be on record as having noticed his use and contacted him about it. What they want to avoid is having some more egregrious offender point to his use and say "He did it and you didn't say a word!" Unfortunately this places him in the position of having to pay a lawyer to write a persuasive explanation of why his usage does not infringe.
> Am I the only one who finds this really disturbing? Does the fact that you
> uploaded the data onto their system give them ownership of it in perpetuity?
No one owns data. They do, however own their copy of the data that you gave them (why did you do so if it is secret?) as it is embodied in hardware that they own just as you own your copy of any data about them that you have obtained.
> No amount of terms and conditions should be able to override your exclusive
> ownership of data about you.
I repeat: no one owns data. Why did you reveal your secrets to them without first obtaining their agreement to an NDA? Why do you think that they should be forbidden to keep information that you freely revealed to them when they never agreed to keep it secret or destroy it upon request?
> Surely a letter or email requesting deletion of your data should legally
> require them to delete it.
Sure. Just send them a letter drawing their attention to the NDA clause requiring them to delete the data upon request. What? They signed no NDA? So sad.
> ...how many corps actually pay their taxes?
All of them.
> That's what the Cayman Islands are for.
Complicated offshore deals that slightly reduce taxes and may or may not be worth more than they are trouble. Most businesses don't bother with them.
> Any chance of convincing some gray/black hats to strike a blow for decency
> and sanity, and hack Chavez's websites to portray him as a transvestigial
> equinophiliac paedo-cannibal?
> anything that will make the common people laugh at him...
Why do you imagine that would "make the common people laugh at him"? He'd successfully portray it as a CIA attack.
He's the Venezuelans' problem and only they can solve it. Either they will get rid of the kook or they won't.
> Here in the US, we have a small committee (part of one state goverment)
> that believes you can teach US history without mentioning Thomas Jefferson,
> and biology without mentioning evolution.
FTFY.