These rules about requiring subpoenas are a result of data theft in earlier times. It is supposed to prevent a police officer from abusing his position to collect sensitive information. All too often it's forgotten that there have been cops who will dig up dirt to be used for personal gain. Who's to say the cop wasn't trying to intimidate his sister's boyfriend? The subpoena says it.
That's the real stupidity here: the system worked like it was supposed to, but because the cops were too careless to ensure they had a proper subpoena beforehand, they are trying to shift the blame to the library director. She on the other hand was ensuring that neither the library nor the police would be open to a technicality.
That's the real irony: she helped the cops cover their asses, and they're pissed because she knew their resposibilities better than they did.
Wireless isn't the answer you think it is, because the question of who broadcasts in what weavelength is also regulated. Telecoms buy licenses to send their signals on a certain wavelength, and competitors aren't allowed on that frequency. You may think this is unfair, but if this regulation wasn't there companies would sabotage each others' nets with useless chatter and jamming until the entire network was useless.
Cable communications networks (broadband internet, cable TV, phone lines, et cetera) need to be treated like roads, as public property. The community should (technically) own the wires and the junctions, much like they own the roads and the street lights. The community could then award service contracts to competitors, much like road construction today.
Sure, you may complain about roads in your community, but I can guarantee you that if they were private, the situation in most areas would deteriorate rapidly. It would be Enron all over again, with companies cannibalising the roads for short-term profit.
Ah, but these 200 engineers will buy housing, buy groceries, and all the day-to-day consumer thingies you do that don't require a trip to The City. If they earn well, they're also bringing tax dollars to help finance community resources.
Little things like that keep a community alive, my friend.
One of the biggest sellers I saw in a department store was a "gag" accessory: a bakelite handset you could plug in to your cell phone. Complete with curly cable. I kid you not.
I think the newer trend in telecom devices will be towards devices with a slight heft to them. More rugged devices, ones that feel like they won't bust when you drop them or get caught in a rainstorm. People have a psychological tendency to equate dense and solid equipment with quality and durability, so I expect manufacturers to exploit that with vanity weight.
I also think the other trend will be to go in the other direction, to modularise and divide the phone up even further. You could take base element the size of a USB stick and plug it into your car stereo, your mobile or your bigger home phone. It would let customers have the feeling that their data goes with them on the stick, and they can then shoose the device that fits the job. It could even possibly work as a phone by itself, drawing its inspiration from Star Trek's phaser type I/type II configuration.
Thanks. Ritalin worked well enough for me that I never had to try Adderal, and I got it confused with Wellbutrin. That's the problem when dealing with brand names, I guess.
On the other hand, it's easier to say "Ritalin" than "Methylphenidatehydrochloride".
A lot of foul-mouthed vitriol, but it's clear to me that you have no real knowledge of methylphenidates (Ritalin is just a brand name). One of the reasons they are the first drug of choice when treating ADHD is because they really are nonaddictive. I know this from personal experience, and quite often a person with ADHD will forget their dosage. I've tried but failed to find a single person who has a craving for ADHD, or a withdrawl phase worse than a couple of hours of "jaggies". Adderall is becoming popular because it has signs of being just as nonaddictive as Ritalin & co., but with longer active period and less side effects.
Speed is a different class of "uppers", namely amphetamines. Chemically, they're totally different, but sometimes a psychotherapist would try a mild amphetamine if methylphenidate don't work. They weren't desirable, though, as they still had the stigma of being abusable. Nowadays if Ritalin (or a competing brand) doesn't work, then a different tack is taken: either an antidepressant is tried or the ADHD diagnosis is called into question, often both.
Oh, and there really is a huge difference in caffeine and cocaine. Or do you want to ban Gatorade as well, since its main component is a saline solution?
It's not just kids, but American foodstuffs have increased their sugar load across the board. I notice this every time I go back to the USA. When I moved overseas, there was a slight difference in taste between European and American products, but the difference has gotten more noticeable. Mind you, this is only anecdotal (like your tale of people living in the hinterlands), and although I remember reading somewhere that sugar usage in bread has gone up, I'm too lazy to bother digging for facts.
Please note that suger is a very short-term boost. Insulin often kicks in to compensate, and you end up even more tired than before. That is the real problem, as the overworked insulin system suffers, and we're seeing more diabetes per capita in the USA thanks to it.
Actually, there was some controversy a while back about her sales numbers being inflated by mass purchases, mostly from rightwing mailing organisations that then gave them away. You know the sort, the "join now and we'll send you Ann Coulter's new bestseller for free!" offers.
I have heard and read anecdotal evidence that her books actually have low turnover at brick-and-mortar bookstores. But anecdotal evidence isn't worth much.
While I'm on the subject of anecdotal evidence, the few times I talk to registered Republican voters, I get the feeling that there is a huge disconnect between what voters think and what party leaders think. Party affiliation is based more upon tradition ("we've always voted Republican") and peer pressure than on any issues. I get this vibe from Democrat voters as well, but to a lesser degree.
As for Dvorak and Coulter, they both have one thing in common: a strong desire for "strokes". Be it a caress or a slap, the main thing is that they get you to make contact with them. Everything they write is designed for their own benefit, and the topic is merely a vehicle for getting strokes. Actual discourse is not desired. I've had my fill of both, and refuse to grant them page clicks any more.
Actually, there is the possibility that Microsoft had a peek at the inner workings of Acrobat, and signed off on a lot of legal stuff that makes it impossible for them to prove that they didn't outright steal the PDF technology. Therefore Microsoft feels it's easier to just push their own new competing format rather than risk a lawsuit from Adobe.
I think what he describes was "worst-case", which assumes that even the anal bean-counters get tricked. The point was (as I understand it) due to the lead time and the ambibuity of computers, it's nigh impossible for the cybersaboteur to claim credit. It's far too easy to claim that mislabeling was the cause, and that the group claiming responsibility is just trying to cash in.
I think the whole idea of ideological terrorists suing the internet is rather silly. Instead, the greater threat is from competitors hiring black hats to gum up rivals, and would-be terrorists are not nearly as sophisticated in that sense. In the case of the automobile plant, the safeguards are probably already in place due to fears that, say, Fnord Motors would try to introduce subtle flaws in rival GW cars.
Communication is what makes terrorism so effective. It's not the dead that interest terrorists so much as the shocking pictures they create, the way they grab the evening news. The whole objective of terrorism is to create fear far out of proportion to the threat.
Now you're right in that communication in itself isn't terrorism, but it is the most vital part of it. A terrorist wants people to see his actions. And that's really the weak part of cyberterrorism. Since it's so ambiguous, it's easily deniable and far too easy for a successful sabotage act to go unrecognised, when authorities claim that it was a software cockup. The real saboteur is then framed in the discussion as a fraud trying to adorn himself with borrowed plumes.
So yaeh, from a practical point this is mostly FUD. Real terrorists want shocking photos, not wishy-washy low-level suspicions that maybe they were, maybe they weren't. striking through the internet actually works against them due to the ease of spoofing.
It seems that the real problem is not that filesharers are evil 'pirates' who are cutting into MPAA/RIAA profits due to their wicked refusal to pay for culture... the problem is that when you buy a cinema ticket or buy/rent a DVD, and you have never seen the film or heard the album before purchasing...
What you have just described is the Sideshow Attraction. The tent with the aggressive sales pitch and wild claims, and most often a tired rundown show inside the tent. And like the carnival barkers, the big studios hate it when you get too much of a peek at the contents.
So Sweden is to bootlegging/piracy as the Netherlands is to Cannabis?
On a different note, it was pointed out somewhere else that Sweden and Finland are forerunners in Free Information because of a different mentality. Up there, information shared helped the community as a whole. Down here in the more temperate climes, information was locked up in guilds, and storytellers guarded their tales. An interesting theory...
Your reading of the history is actually wrong. The original copyright laws were codified because of printers protesting about rival print shops merely printing the same book without recompense. The original print shop's expenditures in finding new and original content were then for naught.
The purpose of copyright was to protect the investment of the original commissioner, not the artist. Authors then worked on a commission basis, and weren't able to sell their manuscripts to more than one publisher. It wasn't until much later that limits were set upon copyright.
Copyright in modern sense is supposed to ensure that the author is compensated, but as then it only ensures publishers micromonopolies. It is the loss of this monopoly of distribution that the publishers/studios are afraid of. They aren't so much afraid of bootlegged songs and movies, but of the artists bypassing the studio distribution model altogether. Thus the attack on any distribution scheme that doesn't exist in their realm of control or pay them tithes.
Well, I think the biggest problem is that you equate unlicensed copying with illegal substances. The unlicensed copying over the internet is more akin to cheap sweatshops passing off their goods as being from Nike or Adidas, or like somebody burning copies of his CD's and giving them out. The crime isn't theft per se, but fraud.
Now, to return to your example. The Pirate Bay was marginally like the old man, in that it was giving out free maps to all passers-by of the open-air market, not caring if the goods offered were authentic or ripoffs.
Not really. The old man in your example has no connection to the pushers, he just knows that if you want weed, you go talk to Leon over there, and say you want oregano. In theory, the old guy will tell you whether you're a cop or a buyer.
Mind you, a more appropriate example would be the old guy telling you where to buy cheap rip-offs. He knows where to go to get bootleg DVD's but doesn't own any himself. "Oh, you want Pirates of the Carribean? Check out Jack, the guy in the coffee shop. He'll burn you a copy."
Naw, you're thinking too complicated. Granted, the heyday of the sneakernet was in the 1980's to 1990's, but most sneakernet trading happened with copying vinyl to cassettes and copying VHS tapes. I had about a hundred floppies of Apple II and Commodore 64 games (which I sold in 1990, fool that I was!), but I still have boxes of "pirated" movies in my basement (actually, mostly time-shifted or otherwise under fair use, but I'm using the Jack Valenti term).
The Sneakernet is still in use, and I use it for the larger updates or other legal/alloweds: I download at work and USB-stick/iPod to transfer to my home setup. Besides, when swapping music or films, the Sneakernet enjoys a far higherlevel of trust than a faceless P2P.
There is a new variation of P2P emerging, though, with the e-mail dropboxes like yousendit.com et al. It will be interesting to see how that evolves, since most of these transfer services don't keep copies, deleting the files as soon as the FTP transfer is complete.
Remember, customs isn't really interested in much more than ensuring that items aren't being declared below value or otherwise trying to avoid taxes. I've had my arguments with German customs agents when bringing home souvenirs that I had purchased in Mexico for a pittance, but the overeager agent would argue that it must cost more than what I had declared.
I've also paid VAT on stuff shipped from the USA, but that's no big deal. Only once when I purchased a refurbished computer did I have to go to the customs office to prove that the PowerBook wasn't in new condition, and still ended up paying a fine.
Thus the usage of the word "weak" in my analogy. I was trying to express how this case could be made understandable to a computer-illiterate, something we still have to expect from judges and juries.
The weakness of my analogy, I'll admit, is that it suggests that the filing cabinet is property that can only be accessed by trespassing. That is really not well defined: I couldn't see from the article where McDaniels needed to physically access the data. What he did was request the data, and tricked the server into giving it to him.
What it boils down to, though, is that McDaniels proved that he could see information that was supposed to be inaccessable, and the company claims that it is trespassing. After some thought, I see it more like knowing the right words to get a copy of files mailed to you that you weren't supposed to get.
In the end, that is what happens in most cases of data theft: rather than gaining entry, the systems inside the data archive are tricked into delivering a copy of the data to a nonauthorised source. In the noncumputer world, the clerk who was tricked gets punished, but how do you punish an inanimate object?
Yeah, I waste too much time on thinking like this. But we've gotten used to seeing data as property, not as abstract information that can be shared. But I spend a lot of time with computer-disinterested, and thus have to keep coming up with new ways to make information security understandable.
The image a prosecuter wants to project is one of infallibility: if the prosecuter isn't sure himself that the suspect is guilty, then he wouldn't go to trial. The image a prosecutor wants to have is that of a guy that is fair, and doesn't waste time or money prosecuting innocents.
That said, I think I ought to reiterate that I'm talking about image, not whether the prosecutor is actually fair. Far too many prosecutors are willing to tar innocents rather than admit they nabbed the wrong guy.
That said, it may be that this prosecutor actually may have learned something, and decided to cut his losses rather than look like a bully working for the company (instead of the public interest). This was a criminal case after all, not a civil lawsuit.
Exactly. Ignoring the nutjobs was what got the GOP usurped by more radical elements, it's what keeps faith-healers and snake-oil salesmen in business, it's how Scientology stays in business, and so on...
Sigh.
The problem with nutjobs. Unless they are agressively debunked, they will continue to bamboozle and fast-talk to rake in cash from less critical people. They abuse the trust of people, misusing semiotics that we normally associate with trustworthiness. To ignore Jack Thompson would be to let him hoodwink more people into supporting him with donations.
It's people like Jack Thompson that make "Question Authority" an ever relevant phrase. Unless authority is questioned and examined, fools like Mr. Thompson will continue to rule discourse.
I think the key here is what brings about "suspension of disbelief". Some gamers lose SoD when they hit a "Murphy's Rule" (where rules bring about a situation that is unrealistic), others lose it when forced to break the narrative pace due to complex rules and flipping through tables and references.
There have been plenty of tomes written about this, talking about narrative players versus simulationist players (and of course the dreaded munchkin). I wish I could get into more detail, but my knowledge of these discussions is rusty at the moment.
So, yeah, a lot of words that could have been summed up with a standard AOL-esque "I agree".
It was published by FASA in the 1980's, and was similar to the Star Trek RPG that FASA also made (with the main difference being that Star Trek used percentile dice, and Dr. Who 6-sided). It started off well, but soon suffered from lousy artwork and a decidedly American slant in supplements, conflicting versions of canon villains and monstors, etc.
I still have a copy of it.
I also thought about doing a GURPS conversion back in 1999/2000, but I was foolish enough to ask the BBC for permission first. That taught me a lesson about how expensive licensing can be. As other projects piled up, I soon abandoned the idea, and haven't returned to it since then.
I know, I know, it's hard to resist, but the post you replied to wasn't stating those as reasons per se, but as reasons MSWindows users tell themselves why they haven't switched. It all really boils down to "I've invested all this time and money on Windows. If I get a Mac, then I'm admitting that I made a mistake."
I think the main reason people still use Windows is that it's good enough. Sure, it's not as great as you'd like, but it's the devil you know. Besides, everybody else uses it, so it can't be that bad, can it?
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These rules about requiring subpoenas are a result of data theft in earlier times. It is supposed to prevent a police officer from abusing his position to collect sensitive information. All too often it's forgotten that there have been cops who will dig up dirt to be used for personal gain. Who's to say the cop wasn't trying to intimidate his sister's boyfriend? The subpoena says it.
That's the real stupidity here: the system worked like it was supposed to, but because the cops were too careless to ensure they had a proper subpoena beforehand, they are trying to shift the blame to the library director. She on the other hand was ensuring that neither the library nor the police would be open to a technicality.
That's the real irony: she helped the cops cover their asses, and they're pissed because she knew their resposibilities better than they did.
Wireless isn't the answer you think it is, because the question of who broadcasts in what weavelength is also regulated. Telecoms buy licenses to send their signals on a certain wavelength, and competitors aren't allowed on that frequency. You may think this is unfair, but if this regulation wasn't there companies would sabotage each others' nets with useless chatter and jamming until the entire network was useless.
Cable communications networks (broadband internet, cable TV, phone lines, et cetera) need to be treated like roads, as public property. The community should (technically) own the wires and the junctions, much like they own the roads and the street lights. The community could then award service contracts to competitors, much like road construction today.
Sure, you may complain about roads in your community, but I can guarantee you that if they were private, the situation in most areas would deteriorate rapidly. It would be Enron all over again, with companies cannibalising the roads for short-term profit.
Ah, but these 200 engineers will buy housing, buy groceries, and all the day-to-day consumer thingies you do that don't require a trip to The City. If they earn well, they're also bringing tax dollars to help finance community resources.
Little things like that keep a community alive, my friend.
One of the biggest sellers I saw in a department store was a "gag" accessory: a bakelite handset you could plug in to your cell phone. Complete with curly cable. I kid you not.
I think the newer trend in telecom devices will be towards devices with a slight heft to them. More rugged devices, ones that feel like they won't bust when you drop them or get caught in a rainstorm. People have a psychological tendency to equate dense and solid equipment with quality and durability, so I expect manufacturers to exploit that with vanity weight.
I also think the other trend will be to go in the other direction, to modularise and divide the phone up even further. You could take base element the size of a USB stick and plug it into your car stereo, your mobile or your bigger home phone. It would let customers have the feeling that their data goes with them on the stick, and they can then shoose the device that fits the job. It could even possibly work as a phone by itself, drawing its inspiration from Star Trek's phaser type I/type II configuration.
Thanks. Ritalin worked well enough for me that I never had to try Adderal, and I got it confused with Wellbutrin. That's the problem when dealing with brand names, I guess.
On the other hand, it's easier to say "Ritalin" than "Methylphenidatehydrochloride".
A lot of foul-mouthed vitriol, but it's clear to me that you have no real knowledge of methylphenidates (Ritalin is just a brand name). One of the reasons they are the first drug of choice when treating ADHD is because they really are nonaddictive. I know this from personal experience, and quite often a person with ADHD will forget their dosage. I've tried but failed to find a single person who has a craving for ADHD, or a withdrawl phase worse than a couple of hours of "jaggies". Adderall is becoming popular because it has signs of being just as nonaddictive as Ritalin & co., but with longer active period and less side effects.
Speed is a different class of "uppers", namely amphetamines. Chemically, they're totally different, but sometimes a psychotherapist would try a mild amphetamine if methylphenidate don't work. They weren't desirable, though, as they still had the stigma of being abusable. Nowadays if Ritalin (or a competing brand) doesn't work, then a different tack is taken: either an antidepressant is tried or the ADHD diagnosis is called into question, often both.
Oh, and there really is a huge difference in caffeine and cocaine. Or do you want to ban Gatorade as well, since its main component is a saline solution?
It's not just kids, but American foodstuffs have increased their sugar load across the board. I notice this every time I go back to the USA. When I moved overseas, there was a slight difference in taste between European and American products, but the difference has gotten more noticeable. Mind you, this is only anecdotal (like your tale of people living in the hinterlands), and although I remember reading somewhere that sugar usage in bread has gone up, I'm too lazy to bother digging for facts.
Please note that suger is a very short-term boost. Insulin often kicks in to compensate, and you end up even more tired than before. That is the real problem, as the overworked insulin system suffers, and we're seeing more diabetes per capita in the USA thanks to it.
Actually, there was some controversy a while back about her sales numbers being inflated by mass purchases, mostly from rightwing mailing organisations that then gave them away. You know the sort, the "join now and we'll send you Ann Coulter's new bestseller for free!" offers.
I have heard and read anecdotal evidence that her books actually have low turnover at brick-and-mortar bookstores. But anecdotal evidence isn't worth much.
While I'm on the subject of anecdotal evidence, the few times I talk to registered Republican voters, I get the feeling that there is a huge disconnect between what voters think and what party leaders think. Party affiliation is based more upon tradition ("we've always voted Republican") and peer pressure than on any issues. I get this vibe from Democrat voters as well, but to a lesser degree.
As for Dvorak and Coulter, they both have one thing in common: a strong desire for "strokes". Be it a caress or a slap, the main thing is that they get you to make contact with them. Everything they write is designed for their own benefit, and the topic is merely a vehicle for getting strokes. Actual discourse is not desired. I've had my fill of both, and refuse to grant them page clicks any more.
Actually, there is the possibility that Microsoft had a peek at the inner workings of Acrobat, and signed off on a lot of legal stuff that makes it impossible for them to prove that they didn't outright steal the PDF technology. Therefore Microsoft feels it's easier to just push their own new competing format rather than risk a lawsuit from Adobe.
I think what he describes was "worst-case", which assumes that even the anal bean-counters get tricked. The point was (as I understand it) due to the lead time and the ambibuity of computers, it's nigh impossible for the cybersaboteur to claim credit. It's far too easy to claim that mislabeling was the cause, and that the group claiming responsibility is just trying to cash in.
I think the whole idea of ideological terrorists suing the internet is rather silly. Instead, the greater threat is from competitors hiring black hats to gum up rivals, and would-be terrorists are not nearly as sophisticated in that sense. In the case of the automobile plant, the safeguards are probably already in place due to fears that, say, Fnord Motors would try to introduce subtle flaws in rival GW cars.
Communication is what makes terrorism so effective. It's not the dead that interest terrorists so much as the shocking pictures they create, the way they grab the evening news. The whole objective of terrorism is to create fear far out of proportion to the threat.
Now you're right in that communication in itself isn't terrorism, but it is the most vital part of it. A terrorist wants people to see his actions. And that's really the weak part of cyberterrorism. Since it's so ambiguous, it's easily deniable and far too easy for a successful sabotage act to go unrecognised, when authorities claim that it was a software cockup. The real saboteur is then framed in the discussion as a fraud trying to adorn himself with borrowed plumes.
So yaeh, from a practical point this is mostly FUD. Real terrorists want shocking photos, not wishy-washy low-level suspicions that maybe they were, maybe they weren't. striking through the internet actually works against them due to the ease of spoofing.
What you have just described is the Sideshow Attraction. The tent with the aggressive sales pitch and wild claims, and most often a tired rundown show inside the tent. And like the carnival barkers, the big studios hate it when you get too much of a peek at the contents.
So Sweden is to bootlegging/piracy as the Netherlands is to Cannabis?
On a different note, it was pointed out somewhere else that Sweden and Finland are forerunners in Free Information because of a different mentality. Up there, information shared helped the community as a whole. Down here in the more temperate climes, information was locked up in guilds, and storytellers guarded their tales. An interesting theory...
Your reading of the history is actually wrong. The original copyright laws were codified because of printers protesting about rival print shops merely printing the same book without recompense. The original print shop's expenditures in finding new and original content were then for naught.
The purpose of copyright was to protect the investment of the original commissioner, not the artist. Authors then worked on a commission basis, and weren't able to sell their manuscripts to more than one publisher. It wasn't until much later that limits were set upon copyright.
Copyright in modern sense is supposed to ensure that the author is compensated, but as then it only ensures publishers micromonopolies. It is the loss of this monopoly of distribution that the publishers/studios are afraid of. They aren't so much afraid of bootlegged songs and movies, but of the artists bypassing the studio distribution model altogether. Thus the attack on any distribution scheme that doesn't exist in their realm of control or pay them tithes.
Well, I think the biggest problem is that you equate unlicensed copying with illegal substances. The unlicensed copying over the internet is more akin to cheap sweatshops passing off their goods as being from Nike or Adidas, or like somebody burning copies of his CD's and giving them out. The crime isn't theft per se, but fraud.
Now, to return to your example. The Pirate Bay was marginally like the old man, in that it was giving out free maps to all passers-by of the open-air market, not caring if the goods offered were authentic or ripoffs.
Not really. The old man in your example has no connection to the pushers, he just knows that if you want weed, you go talk to Leon over there, and say you want oregano. In theory, the old guy will tell you whether you're a cop or a buyer.
Mind you, a more appropriate example would be the old guy telling you where to buy cheap rip-offs. He knows where to go to get bootleg DVD's but doesn't own any himself. "Oh, you want Pirates of the Carribean? Check out Jack, the guy in the coffee shop. He'll burn you a copy."
Naw, you're thinking too complicated. Granted, the heyday of the sneakernet was in the 1980's to 1990's, but most sneakernet trading happened with copying vinyl to cassettes and copying VHS tapes. I had about a hundred floppies of Apple II and Commodore 64 games (which I sold in 1990, fool that I was!), but I still have boxes of "pirated" movies in my basement (actually, mostly time-shifted or otherwise under fair use, but I'm using the Jack Valenti term).
The Sneakernet is still in use, and I use it for the larger updates or other legal/alloweds: I download at work and USB-stick/iPod to transfer to my home setup. Besides, when swapping music or films, the Sneakernet enjoys a far higherlevel of trust than a faceless P2P.
There is a new variation of P2P emerging, though, with the e-mail dropboxes like yousendit.com et al. It will be interesting to see how that evolves, since most of these transfer services don't keep copies, deleting the files as soon as the FTP transfer is complete.
Remember, customs isn't really interested in much more than ensuring that items aren't being declared below value or otherwise trying to avoid taxes. I've had my arguments with German customs agents when bringing home souvenirs that I had purchased in Mexico for a pittance, but the overeager agent would argue that it must cost more than what I had declared.
I've also paid VAT on stuff shipped from the USA, but that's no big deal. Only once when I purchased a refurbished computer did I have to go to the customs office to prove that the PowerBook wasn't in new condition, and still ended up paying a fine.
Thus the usage of the word "weak" in my analogy. I was trying to express how this case could be made understandable to a computer-illiterate, something we still have to expect from judges and juries.
The weakness of my analogy, I'll admit, is that it suggests that the filing cabinet is property that can only be accessed by trespassing. That is really not well defined: I couldn't see from the article where McDaniels needed to physically access the data. What he did was request the data, and tricked the server into giving it to him.
What it boils down to, though, is that McDaniels proved that he could see information that was supposed to be inaccessable, and the company claims that it is trespassing. After some thought, I see it more like knowing the right words to get a copy of files mailed to you that you weren't supposed to get.
In the end, that is what happens in most cases of data theft: rather than gaining entry, the systems inside the data archive are tricked into delivering a copy of the data to a nonauthorised source. In the noncumputer world, the clerk who was tricked gets punished, but how do you punish an inanimate object?
Yeah, I waste too much time on thinking like this. But we've gotten used to seeing data as property, not as abstract information that can be shared. But I spend a lot of time with computer-disinterested, and thus have to keep coming up with new ways to make information security understandable.
GREEN: "Mr. White, you shouldn't trust Mr. Brown with your data. The locks on his filing cabinets can be bypassed with a bent paper clip."
WHITE: "That's a stiff accusation. Before I believe you, I'm going to need proof. What evidence do you have?"
GREEN: "Here. I was able to take these files with no problems."
WHITE: "By golly, you're right!" (Runs to take Mr. Brown to task)
BROWN: "Green! How dare you intrude! I'll have you arrested for breaking and entering!"
The image a prosecuter wants to project is one of infallibility: if the prosecuter isn't sure himself that the suspect is guilty, then he wouldn't go to trial. The image a prosecutor wants to have is that of a guy that is fair, and doesn't waste time or money prosecuting innocents.
That said, I think I ought to reiterate that I'm talking about image, not whether the prosecutor is actually fair. Far too many prosecutors are willing to tar innocents rather than admit they nabbed the wrong guy.
That said, it may be that this prosecutor actually may have learned something, and decided to cut his losses rather than look like a bully working for the company (instead of the public interest). This was a criminal case after all, not a civil lawsuit.
Exactly. Ignoring the nutjobs was what got the GOP usurped by more radical elements, it's what keeps faith-healers and snake-oil salesmen in business, it's how Scientology stays in business, and so on...
Sigh.
The problem with nutjobs. Unless they are agressively debunked, they will continue to bamboozle and fast-talk to rake in cash from less critical people. They abuse the trust of people, misusing semiotics that we normally associate with trustworthiness. To ignore Jack Thompson would be to let him hoodwink more people into supporting him with donations.
It's people like Jack Thompson that make "Question Authority" an ever relevant phrase. Unless authority is questioned and examined, fools like Mr. Thompson will continue to rule discourse.
I think the key here is what brings about "suspension of disbelief". Some gamers lose SoD when they hit a "Murphy's Rule" (where rules bring about a situation that is unrealistic), others lose it when forced to break the narrative pace due to complex rules and flipping through tables and references.
There have been plenty of tomes written about this, talking about narrative players versus simulationist players (and of course the dreaded munchkin). I wish I could get into more detail, but my knowledge of these discussions is rusty at the moment.
So, yeah, a lot of words that could have been summed up with a standard AOL-esque "I agree".
It was published by FASA in the 1980's, and was similar to the Star Trek RPG that FASA also made (with the main difference being that Star Trek used percentile dice, and Dr. Who 6-sided). It started off well, but soon suffered from lousy artwork and a decidedly American slant in supplements, conflicting versions of canon villains and monstors, etc.
I still have a copy of it.
I also thought about doing a GURPS conversion back in 1999/2000, but I was foolish enough to ask the BBC for permission first. That taught me a lesson about how expensive licensing can be. As other projects piled up, I soon abandoned the idea, and haven't returned to it since then.
I know, I know, it's hard to resist, but the post you replied to wasn't stating those as reasons per se, but as reasons MSWindows users tell themselves why they haven't switched. It all really boils down to "I've invested all this time and money on Windows. If I get a Mac, then I'm admitting that I made a mistake."
I think the main reason people still use Windows is that it's good enough. Sure, it's not as great as you'd like, but it's the devil you know. Besides, everybody else uses it, so it can't be that bad, can it?
(disclaimer: I own and prefer Apple computers)