But you probably couldn't burgle a gazebo or open pavillion, which is more like an unfiltered mail account.
First, you most certainly can be arrested for removing things that don't belong to you from a gazebo or open pavillion. If you want to argue that it's a different crime, fine -- I don't mind having a spammer prosecuted for different crimes depending on whether he merely steals resources or whether he also engages in filter-cracking.
Second, you are being disingenuous to draw a distinction for an "unfiltered" mail account, given that for some reason you refuse to acknowledge that a filter is a security measure worthy of legal protection.
What I'm saying is that where people choose to have email accounts, they implicitly welcome all communication, unless they explicitly provide reasonable notice that they don't want it.
The moment a spammer uses any filter-evasion technique, no matter how trivial, he confesses to already being on notice to that effect and refusing to obey it. QED.
Still not a good reason to attack all spam; you're admitting that they're not coextensive.
Nope; he said that the two (spamming and cost-shifting) were effectively coextensive in the real world, even if one acknowledges a theoretical possibility of a case where the former exists without the latter.
"Effectively coextensive in the real world" is good enough for the law (e.g. I might want to have a nuclear warhead in the garage for scientific study or because it makes a neat conversation piece, but the law will assume that "having a private nuclear warhead" is effectively coextensive to "intending to engage in mass destruction or threat thereof" and prohibit it).
From a legal perspective, there's no relevance to how much senders pay. There could at least be an argument regarding recipient costs, but the Court has already told us that some recipient costs are okay. And it's arguable that any recipient costs are okay if we don't enter new and weird territory such as harassment
Filters are passive; a spammer has no way of knowing if a recipient has filters, and if so, what they are. All he can do is guess.
Meaningless. A burglar doesn't know in advance whether a given door is locked -- but if he brings burglary tools on a job and finds that the door is unlocked anyway, the tools are still going to constitute rather damning evidence of his intentions if he's caught with them.
So, you're trying to seriously advance the notion that there is some basic difference whereby it should be legal to circumvent user-machine filtering but a federal felony to circumvent ISP-machine filtering?
This seems like the sort of reasoning only a lawyer hired to save a guilty-as-hell client could advocate with a straight face.
It's perfectly okay for junk mailers to send out junk mail in hand-addressed envelopes. This gets past the 'mental filters' of a person sorting through their junk mail, but isn't actually fraudulent or deceptive.
A spam filter is an instruction to a mail server not to deliver certain messages. The analogous function exists in meatspace -- an instruction to the post office not to deliver certain mailings. If a junk mailer attempts to evade the latter through a disguise, Mister Postal Inspector and Mister Federal Judge will explain to him that, no, it isn't "perfectly okay". Simply apply the same principle to spam filtering, and most of the problem can be readily cleaned up.
Getting through filters without rising to deceptive levels
A contradiction in terms. Deliberate evasion of a "don't deliver messages from such-and-such a source" is inherently deceptive.
Firstly, receiving any communication incurs a cost on the recipient: junk mail has to be sorted through and thrown away. Telemarketing calls have to be hung up on. Door to door solicitors involve getting up, opening the door, telling them to go to hell, and slamming it again. There's always a cost in time, and sometimes in resources.
Likewise, there is always a cost to the sender: junk mail needs postage; telemarketing needs phones, phone service, and people to man them; spam requires computers and bandwidth.
By this ridiculous "analysis", there is no legally significant difference between my paying you for mowing my lawn and you picking my pocket as I walk down the street -- both involve some effort on my part and some effort on your part.
As the courts have correctly found in junk-fax cases, substantial cost-shifting from sender to recipient makes the difference between protected free speech and unprotected theft of services.
It is also a matter of common knowledge that spammers routinely sabotage attempts to reject their communications.
How so? I've never yet seen a spam that resisted attempts to delete
You are being deliberately obtuse, as I was clearly (and explicitly, slightly later in the message) referring to the use of filter-cracking techniques to bypass the recipient's protections.
But truthful and forthright spam that nevertheless can get through filters seems to fall within the shield of free speech.
If it incorporates filter-cracking, it is by definition neither truthful nor forthright.
seems to fall within the shield of free speech. (c.f. junk mail sent in hand-addressed envelopes, which at first glance would not appear to be junk mail, but isn't really deceptive)
Paper junk mail sent in a manner analogous to filter-evading spam (i.e. Joe Blow knows that a large number or recipients have instructed the post office to not deliver his mailings, so he changes his name to avoid the block) is most certainly not protected.
I'm talking about people who want unsolicted spam.
Contradiction in terms, and hence meaningless.
The law need only treat e-mail filtering as it treats other form of comptuter security, and the problem is solved.
Actually, it would be disasterous.
Only if you're a criminal spammer (but I repeat myself).
But this is the sort of thing that separates the men from the boys in the free speech arena; willingness to defend speech that's repulsive to you.
No, what separates the men from the boys is the ability to rationally analyze when asserted "free speech" rights are invalid because they incur the violation of other people's rights.
Now, run along, little boy, and let Mummy and Daddy use the computer.
The drug kingpin analogy is invalid. The maximum possible profit from pushing illegal drugs is extremely high (and has been proven to be high enough to entice people to take the risk of long jail sentences or even execution). The maximum possible profit from spamming is capped -- the moment the cost of spamming exceeds the cost of sending the message through legitimate advertising channels, there is absolutely no profit in the former.
Thus, all you need to do is raise the penalty for being caught times the probability of being caught above that eminently reachable threshold.
Nonsense -- a single spammer with enough bandwidth most certainly can destroy the e-mail system all by himself. Even if that were not the case, deterrence of others is a long-recognized component of what defines proper punishment for a given crime.
There is no legally significant difference between someone sending you a million emails and someone sending you a million pieces of junk mail.
The difference (the senders of junk snailmail pay for the service they use; the senders of spam impose this cost on their targets) is a matter of common knowledge. This statement can thus only be interperpreted as willful trolling (and will presumably be moderated accordingly).
you can refuse to accept them, or can throw them away unseen, and with virtually no effort on your part
It is also a matter of common knowledge that spammers routinely sabotage attempts to reject their communications. If the law treated the matter rationally (i.e. if it regarded attempted evasion of spam filtering as a form of unauthorized computer access, and applied the established penalties for that crime), the problem could be readily brought under control.
I place spam in the same category as the KKK
Yes -- KKK members are known to engage in vandalism and trespass, and are generally punished when they get caught at it.
If someone out there wants spam
Solicited mailings are, by definition, not spam.
If someone out there wants to send messages to people, then were I to ban their message based on its content or it being widely disseminated
An irrelevant hypothetical, since the issue here is banning a particular method of message delivery, for the same reasons similar meatspace methods (spray painting on the recipient's house, heaving a note wrapped around a brick through the recipient's window, parking a sound truck in the recipient's driveway and firing it up at 3 AM) are prohibited.
Free speech means having to tolerate the existence of speech you don't like.
It does not, however, mean tolerating theft and trespass.
No one is making you listen to it, however.
See above. The law need only treat e-mail filtering as it treats other form of comptuter security, and the problem is solved.
Spammers have the ability to make millions of people a tiny bit miserable with their crime.
Nope -- spammers have the ability to completely destroy e-mail as a usable medium of communication with their crime if not deterred. Nine years is, if anything, too lenient.
built their houses to specifically suit crack dealers
I'm sure you will be glad to explain to the class which feature of P2P networking was specifically designed to favor the transmission of illegally bootlegged data over the transmission of legally authorized or public-domain data.
An AK-47 Assault rifle is a tool designed for the purpose of killing people.
Even if we stipulate that (despite the obvious counterexamples of hunting, sport shooting, etc), killing people can be either lawful (self-defense, warfare) or not (murderous assault). Thus, the general principle that moral judgment rests on the user rather than the tool applies.
Is it really the job of the government to rip up an existing, heavily used infrastructure and force the providers and users onto a new infrastructure?
Perhaps not -- but they badly need the money from selling off the old analog spectrum to wage war on terrorists who want to levy the AMT on people's private Social Security accounts, or something. Thus, the government just isn't going to delay the transition much longer than they already have, and they shouldn't be playing these pretty-please games with the incumbent media providers.
The FCC has said copyright protections are needed to help speed the adoption of digital television.
BS. The government is determined to take back the analog spectrum and move TV to the new digital channels. All they have to do is just do it, and the entertainment industry will have to deal with life in the new reality.
Are there even any aliens in the show? I don't want it "chock full of nuts" aliens like Voyager was at its worst, but given 5 years and whatever budget Whedon wants, would there still be any?
What ever does this have to do with the question of Firefly's merits or lack thereof?
Yeah, why don't they enact a tax that roughly correlates with those variables without the need for any fancy new devices?
They can call it THE GAS TAX.
The down side of the gas tax is that it encourages people to buy less gas, and thus reduces the income of the main state sponsors of terrorism. Obviously, the people who came up with this idea are on the side of the terrorists. Off to Gitmo with them!
Luna (the Earth's Moon) is large enough to be called a planet in its own right, and if it were orbiting the Sun independently would perhaps be called exactly that.
In a sense, it is. The Sun's gravitational pull on Luna is about double that of Earth.
Shred everything, even those credit card applications.
Credit card applications go back in their postpaid envelopes (after shredding). If you put a One-Stop Identity Theft Kit in my mailbox, it's gonna cost you.
Slashdot Mirror
First, you most certainly can be arrested for removing things that don't belong to you from a gazebo or open pavillion. If you want to argue that it's a different crime, fine -- I don't mind having a spammer prosecuted for different crimes depending on whether he merely steals resources or whether he also engages in filter-cracking.
Second, you are being disingenuous to draw a distinction for an "unfiltered" mail account, given that for some reason you refuse to acknowledge that a filter is a security measure worthy of legal protection.
The moment a spammer uses any filter-evasion technique, no matter how trivial, he confesses to already being on notice to that effect and refusing to obey it. QED.
Nope; he said that the two (spamming and cost-shifting) were effectively coextensive in the real world, even if one acknowledges a theoretical possibility of a case where the former exists without the latter.
"Effectively coextensive in the real world" is good enough for the law (e.g. I might want to have a nuclear warhead in the garage for scientific study or because it makes a neat conversation piece, but the law will assume that "having a private nuclear warhead" is effectively coextensive to "intending to engage in mass destruction or threat thereof" and prohibit it).
From a legal perspective, there's no relevance to how much senders pay. There could at least be an argument regarding recipient costs, but the Court has already told us that some recipient costs are okay. And it's arguable that any recipient costs are okay if we don't enter new and weird territory such as harassment
The junk fax cases (correctly) say otherwise.
Meaningless. A burglar doesn't know in advance whether a given door is locked -- but if he brings burglary tools on a job and finds that the door is unlocked anyway, the tools are still going to constitute rather damning evidence of his intentions if he's caught with them.
This seems like the sort of reasoning only a lawyer hired to save a guilty-as-hell client could advocate with a straight face.
A spam filter is an instruction to a mail server not to deliver certain messages. The analogous function exists in meatspace -- an instruction to the post office not to deliver certain mailings. If a junk mailer attempts to evade the latter through a disguise, Mister Postal Inspector and Mister Federal Judge will explain to him that, no, it isn't "perfectly okay". Simply apply the same principle to spam filtering, and most of the problem can be readily cleaned up.
Getting through filters without rising to deceptive levels
A contradiction in terms. Deliberate evasion of a "don't deliver messages from such-and-such a source" is inherently deceptive.
Likewise, there is always a cost to the sender: junk mail needs postage; telemarketing needs phones, phone service, and people to man them; spam requires computers and bandwidth.
By this ridiculous "analysis", there is no legally significant difference between my paying you for mowing my lawn and you picking my pocket as I walk down the street -- both involve some effort on my part and some effort on your part.
As the courts have correctly found in junk-fax cases, substantial cost-shifting from sender to recipient makes the difference between protected free speech and unprotected theft of services.
It is also a matter of common knowledge that spammers routinely sabotage attempts to reject their communications.
How so? I've never yet seen a spam that resisted attempts to delete
You are being deliberately obtuse, as I was clearly (and explicitly, slightly later in the message) referring to the use of filter-cracking techniques to bypass the recipient's protections.
But truthful and forthright spam that nevertheless can get through filters seems to fall within the shield of free speech.
If it incorporates filter-cracking, it is by definition neither truthful nor forthright.
seems to fall within the shield of free speech. (c.f. junk mail sent in hand-addressed envelopes, which at first glance would not appear to be junk mail, but isn't really deceptive)
Paper junk mail sent in a manner analogous to filter-evading spam (i.e. Joe Blow knows that a large number or recipients have instructed the post office to not deliver his mailings, so he changes his name to avoid the block) is most certainly not protected.
I'm talking about people who want unsolicted spam.
Contradiction in terms, and hence meaningless.
The law need only treat e-mail filtering as it treats other form of comptuter security, and the problem is solved.
Actually, it would be disasterous.
Only if you're a criminal spammer (but I repeat myself).
No, what separates the men from the boys is the ability to rationally analyze when asserted "free speech" rights are invalid because they incur the violation of other people's rights.
Now, run along, little boy, and let Mummy and Daddy use the computer.
Thus, all you need to do is raise the penalty for being caught times the probability of being caught above that eminently reachable threshold.
Nonsense -- a single spammer with enough bandwidth most certainly can destroy the e-mail system all by himself. Even if that were not the case, deterrence of others is a long-recognized component of what defines proper punishment for a given crime.
Theft of services is not "free speech".
There is no legally significant difference between someone sending you a million emails and someone sending you a million pieces of junk mail.
The difference (the senders of junk snailmail pay for the service they use; the senders of spam impose this cost on their targets) is a matter of common knowledge. This statement can thus only be interperpreted as willful trolling (and will presumably be moderated accordingly).
you can refuse to accept them, or can throw them away unseen, and with virtually no effort on your part
It is also a matter of common knowledge that spammers routinely sabotage attempts to reject their communications. If the law treated the matter rationally (i.e. if it regarded attempted evasion of spam filtering as a form of unauthorized computer access, and applied the established penalties for that crime), the problem could be readily brought under control.
I place spam in the same category as the KKK
Yes -- KKK members are known to engage in vandalism and trespass, and are generally punished when they get caught at it.
If someone out there wants spam
Solicited mailings are, by definition, not spam.
If someone out there wants to send messages to people, then were I to ban their message based on its content or it being widely disseminated
An irrelevant hypothetical, since the issue here is banning a particular method of message delivery, for the same reasons similar meatspace methods (spray painting on the recipient's house, heaving a note wrapped around a brick through the recipient's window, parking a sound truck in the recipient's driveway and firing it up at 3 AM) are prohibited.
Free speech means having to tolerate the existence of speech you don't like.
It does not, however, mean tolerating theft and trespass.
No one is making you listen to it, however.
See above. The law need only treat e-mail filtering as it treats other form of comptuter security, and the problem is solved.
Nope -- spammers have the ability to completely destroy e-mail as a usable medium of communication with their crime if not deterred. Nine years is, if anything, too lenient.
I'm sure you will be glad to explain to the class which feature of P2P networking was specifically designed to favor the transmission of illegally bootlegged data over the transmission of legally authorized or public-domain data.
Even if we stipulate that (despite the obvious counterexamples of hunting, sport shooting, etc), killing people can be either lawful (self-defense, warfare) or not (murderous assault). Thus, the general principle that moral judgment rests on the user rather than the tool applies.
That's Sir Borg to you, peasant!
You lost me. Are you arguing about a TV show's quality, or about its popularity (the two are, if anything, negatively correlated)?
Perhaps not -- but they badly need the money from selling off the old analog spectrum to wage war on terrorists who want to levy the AMT on people's private Social Security accounts, or something. Thus, the government just isn't going to delay the transition much longer than they already have, and they shouldn't be playing these pretty-please games with the incumbent media providers.
BS. The government is determined to take back the analog spectrum and move TV to the new digital channels. All they have to do is just do it, and the entertainment industry will have to deal with life in the new reality.
I picture you writing, a la the old Bart Simpson blackboard gag, "IT'S A PROPERTY RIGHTS ISSUE, NOT A FREE SPEECH ISSUE."
Again, this has absolutely nothing to do with your point (whatever point you were trying to make) about the absence of aliens.
What ever does this have to do with the question of Firefly's merits or lack thereof?
What color is the sky on your planet?
If the perpetrator of this proposal is not slapped down hard, the politicians will interpret it as an opportunity to impose both taxes.
They can call it THE GAS TAX.
The down side of the gas tax is that it encourages people to buy less gas, and thus reduces the income of the main state sponsors of terrorism. Obviously, the people who came up with this idea are on the side of the terrorists. Off to Gitmo with them!
In a sense, it is. The Sun's gravitational pull on Luna is about double that of Earth.
Credit card applications go back in their postpaid envelopes (after shredding). If you put a One-Stop Identity Theft Kit in my mailbox, it's gonna cost you.