You make an interesting point, and to the ignorant, it sounds very convincing.
The flaw, though, is the assumption that the majority of people using pockets, in your example, are using them to steal candy bars.
I'm going on a bit of an assumption here, and for that I am not using my +1 bonus, but I don't think it's too much of a stretch to conclude that the majority of Bnetd users are playing with pirated copies of Blizzard games.
The real debate, it would seem, is what the primary use of Bnetd is. It seems to me, in itself, to be a 100% legitimate program. But when the majority of it's users are using it to (essentially) circumvent the copy protection of Battle.net servers, Blizzard really has no choice but to go after Bnetd.
Apples and oranges, my friend. Banning a certain group of people from public facilities is illegal.
But as it stands, it is well within the rights of a community to define obscenity standards, and statutes associated with that definition. I would think that includes the enforcement of such standards.
Now the constitutionality of that can certainly be questioned, but I don't think that quite relates to this topic.
Exactly, my friend, but while it would seem that you are using this point to oppose the CIPA, it can also be used to support it.
If a community decides that it wants its libraries to use filtering software, don't the citizens of that community have the right to NOT fund that library if it chooses to ignore the wishes of the community?
You're correct, and that's where the problem lies... How much authority over a company or organization's foreign assets (in this case spam-originating computers) does the FTC have?
If I'm wrong, by all means correct me. IANAL, but with all the sweatshops and other shady operations by U.S. companies abroad, I haven't seen much done to bring them to justice either.
Which begs the question of how much jurisdiction and authority over spammers outside of the U.S. does the FTC have?
Being that the majority of spam (I would speculate) comes from outside of the U.S., I ultimately see this initiative being a failure, although a step in the right direction.
"The manufacturer of EverQuest purposely made it in such a way that it is more intriguing to the addict," Parker said. "It could be created in a less addictive way, but (that) would be the difference between powdered cocaine and crack cocaine."
In a related story, area cocaine and crack dealers are now affixing their product with warning labels to avoid similar lawsuits.
But seriously, has it gotten so bad that companies have to warn consumers that their product is of too high quality?
"Yeah, but the problem with a government job is that the rate of advancement is kinda slow"
Another myth, at least when it applies to government IT jobs.
If I were so motivated to take advantage of it(and I will eventually), there's a government internship program that will pay for most of my MS (as opposed to M$ of course) after 3 years, and would double my salary to a more-than-comfortable level.
The opportunities in the government are there, though sometimes you have to dig for them.
I really hate to feed a troll, but I suspect alot of people here might actualy believe the subject line of the parent.
I work for the government, and in these times when the economy is still on shaky ground, the job security alone enough was enough to get me to take the position.
The fact is that IT positions in the government actually pay quite well. Considering the area I live in, my starting salary was quite competetive with what the private sector was willing to pay. Not to mention the famous government benefits packages.
The U.S. government does indeed have alot of NT servers. The Powers That Be (TM) understand the vulnerability, and apparently are willing to pay handsomely to fix it. In a time of a job market that's uncertain at best, I can think of worse situations than a free education and a 2-yr. job guarantee.
As a recent college graduate, the thing I felt most pointedly when starting my job with the government was how sorely lacking my real-business-world preparation was. Half of my major was (supposedly) business courses, but the environment I entered was completely different from what I expected.
The fact remains that experience is often more valuable than education. You can spend as long as you want in college attaining degrees, studying code, algorithms, and all sorts of neato programming stuff, but if you haven't experienced the business environment, you are STILL a rookie.
To answer the question in the subject, the MPAA sees the personal computer as the single most popular and efficient method of illegally distributing copyrighted music, and to a degree they're right. CD burners and personal MP3 players aside, how else can you transfer gigabytes of copyrighted music? Their pressure on the PC industry shouldn't surprise anyone.
I'm not sure if this point was explored or not (I don't have time to read EVERY post) but the argument can be made that these servers, while owned by the schools, are funded by taxpayers' dollars. Some feel that the filtering of content by publicly-owned property constitutes censorship.
Now IANAL, and I don't pretend to know how public education in Australia works, but here in America we have elected officals that serve the School Board, an interface, so to speak, that connects taxpayers to the school system. These School Board members make these kinds of decisions. If we, as taxpayers, disagree with their decisions, we need simply to vote them out of office.
I suspect, though, that the majority of parents support content-filtering in schools. As long as we are a society where majority rules (as it should be), content filtering will be in schools unless a VERY GOOD reason for ending it is proposed.
An interesting observation, but I don't think you can QUITE call Slashdot moderation 'censorship'.
Moderating posts down and letting users filter lower-quality posts (by their own definition) lets people read what they want to, not what Slashdot wants them to. If a person wants to read at -1, it's his/her choice to do so.
If Slashdot truly practiced censorship, the lower-quality posts (and there are PLENTY of them) would simply be deleted.
"Most people will just happily bend over for this"
I disagree. If a game company feels it is necessary to start charging for something that was up until then free, it can only expect to see it's customer/fan base shift to a less-costly game.
How is this a troll??? Just yesterday a group that portrayed itself as a defender of trees and claimed to use "tree-free" paper, and was raising funds to cover the costs of this alternative paper was found to be, in fact, using paper from trees.
That money they raised had to have gone somewhere, no??
...is that they want to restrict online Blizzard gaming to Blizzard servers so that they can keep track of their users. They want to know how many people are playing their games online, probably for metrics data collection and marketing (advertizing) data.
Don't get me wrong, it is well within their right to do so. Blizzard has been put into a tough spot by these server emulators, because they are forced to choose between an uncontrolled environment (which leaves the very real possibility of piracy), and high server load and an irate community that somehow feels that their rights are being violated.
You don't have to agree with their position (which I personally do) but at least understand the reasons WHY they are taking this stance.
Slashdot Mirror
The flaw, though, is the assumption that the majority of people using pockets, in your example, are using them to steal candy bars.
I'm going on a bit of an assumption here, and for that I am not using my +1 bonus, but I don't think it's too much of a stretch to conclude that the majority of Bnetd users are playing with pirated copies of Blizzard games.
The real debate, it would seem, is what the primary use of Bnetd is. It seems to me, in itself, to be a 100% legitimate program. But when the majority of it's users are using it to (essentially) circumvent the copy protection of Battle.net servers, Blizzard really has no choice but to go after Bnetd.
I know it's offtopic, but I couldn't resist it.
But as it stands, it is well within the rights of a community to define obscenity standards, and statutes associated with that definition. I would think that includes the enforcement of such standards.
Now the constitutionality of that can certainly be questioned, but I don't think that quite relates to this topic.
If a community decides that it wants its libraries to use filtering software, don't the citizens of that community have the right to NOT fund that library if it chooses to ignore the wishes of the community?
If I'm wrong, by all means correct me. IANAL, but with all the sweatshops and other shady operations by U.S. companies abroad, I haven't seen much done to bring them to justice either.
Being that the majority of spam (I would speculate) comes from outside of the U.S., I ultimately see this initiative being a failure, although a step in the right direction.
In a related story, area cocaine and crack dealers are now affixing their product with warning labels to avoid similar lawsuits.
But seriously, has it gotten so bad that companies have to warn consumers that their product is of too high quality?
(tongue-in-cheek)
I don't know about you, but that sounds like a cause-and-effect if I've ever heard one.
(/tongue-in-cheek)
Enjoy it while you can, buddy. The AC's will be back tomorrow in full force.
Another myth, at least when it applies to government IT jobs.
If I were so motivated to take advantage of it(and I will eventually), there's a government internship program that will pay for most of my MS (as opposed to M$ of course) after 3 years, and would double my salary to a more-than-comfortable level.
The opportunities in the government are there, though sometimes you have to dig for them.
I work for the government, and in these times when the economy is still on shaky ground, the job security alone enough was enough to get me to take the position.
The fact is that IT positions in the government actually pay quite well. Considering the area I live in, my starting salary was quite competetive with what the private sector was willing to pay. Not to mention the famous government benefits packages.
The U.S. government does indeed have alot of NT servers. The Powers That Be (TM) understand the vulnerability, and apparently are willing to pay handsomely to fix it. In a time of a job market that's uncertain at best, I can think of worse situations than a free education and a 2-yr. job guarantee.
I guess that's somewhat analogous to Microsoft marketing "MS-Unix".
I guess you're not running Windows XP. Read it, it's in the EULA!
I support a subscription-based site if only to achieve a better concentration of quality posts and fewer trolls.
I await the abuse from the trolling community.
It sucks, but there's really nothing new here that anyone should be surprised by.
As a recent college graduate, the thing I felt most pointedly when starting my job with the government was how sorely lacking my real-business-world preparation was. Half of my major was (supposedly) business courses, but the environment I entered was completely different from what I expected.
The fact remains that experience is often more valuable than education. You can spend as long as you want in college attaining degrees, studying code, algorithms, and all sorts of neato programming stuff, but if you haven't experienced the business environment, you are STILL a rookie.
To answer the question in the subject, the MPAA sees the personal computer as the single most popular and efficient method of illegally distributing copyrighted music, and to a degree they're right. CD burners and personal MP3 players aside, how else can you transfer gigabytes of copyrighted music? Their pressure on the PC industry shouldn't surprise anyone.
Now IANAL, and I don't pretend to know how public education in Australia works, but here in America we have elected officals that serve the School Board, an interface, so to speak, that connects taxpayers to the school system. These School Board members make these kinds of decisions. If we, as taxpayers, disagree with their decisions, we need simply to vote them out of office.
I suspect, though, that the majority of parents support content-filtering in schools. As long as we are a society where majority rules (as it should be), content filtering will be in schools unless a VERY GOOD reason for ending it is proposed.
Moderating posts down and letting users filter lower-quality posts (by their own definition) lets people read what they want to, not what Slashdot wants them to. If a person wants to read at -1, it's his/her choice to do so.
If Slashdot truly practiced censorship, the lower-quality posts (and there are PLENTY of them) would simply be deleted.
Perhaps this site only deals with issues that will be decided by circuit courts.
I disagree. If a game company feels it is necessary to start charging for something that was up until then free, it can only expect to see it's customer/fan base shift to a less-costly game.
Here's the story.
That money they raised had to have gone somewhere, no??
Don't get me wrong, it is well within their right to do so. Blizzard has been put into a tough spot by these server emulators, because they are forced to choose between an uncontrolled environment (which leaves the very real possibility of piracy), and high server load and an irate community that somehow feels that their rights are being violated.
You don't have to agree with their position (which I personally do) but at least understand the reasons WHY they are taking this stance.
What the hell does this have to do with "'Net Free Speech"?