If the law doesn't match up to what rights the person thinks the author should have, then of course you can.
<reductio ad absurdum> Great! I think idiots who want everything free shouldn't have the right to life, so I'm going to go kill them all and make the world a better place. </reductio ad absurdum>
The annoying thing about principles is that by definition they don't adapt to circumstance. Neither does copyright law. Both my principles and my country's laws say that ripping off any target is as morally wrong as any other.
Of course, the damage done may be different, but that's the key thing about crimes: the effects are measured in terms of damages to the victim, not benefits to the perpetrator. The fact that you guys are ripping music for personal use and not for profit doesn't mean that it isn't damaging the people whose legal rights you are infringing. The amount of damage (real damage, not random music industry figures with unrealistic bases) should be the basis for any penalties.
So because you and your ilk want to copy things for purely selfish reasons, those of us who don't should be forced to prove our own activities are benign just to avoid paying a tax to make up for what you guys are doing?
Saying you need regular reboots is the same as saying you need a firewall to protect against viruses: both show flaws in the design of OS.
That may be true, but the world is an imperfect place. Failing to acknowledge that, and to follow known procedures to mitigate that imperfection, is negligent. Blaming it on the original flaws that you knew were there and you knew how to avoid is just shirking your responsibility for the screw up.
Sorry boss, you're getting paid to know. Spend some time (gasp! outside of work if you need to) and read up. While you're not expected to know every last implementation detail, you should understand the capabilities of your chosen platforms completely.
No, he's getting paid to find out whatever he needs to. The developers are getting paid to know the tech, and to tell him if he asks, just as the sales and marketing guys are getting paid to know the business opportunities, and to tell him if he asks. When he's asked enough, the manager will make his call from the information he's obtained, and then the other guys go run with it.
While I'm not a software engineer, and I don't play one on television, it seems to me that commercial software vendors likely don't test for security flaws at all, or program with that sorta thing in mind. Functionality is their number one concern, and testing for security issues is a bitch.
It really does depend on the development team and their management. In many places, you're certainly correct, but plenty of commercial software houses do take pride in their work and/or realise that producing a well-tested, secure product is priceless in maintaining a good reputation. I've known plenty of development shops where security, and reliability for that matter, are taken seriously, planned for throughout the design and implementation, included in the review processes, and tested with enthusiasm. Unsurprisingly, these places turn out good code.
Of course, a lot of this stuff is done by software houses or contractors whose reputation is their livelihood, and it's done for private clients so most people never know about it. Compare and contrast with a major product company like Microsoft or Apple, where if they screw up even once in an enormous project, the whole world hears about how "insecure" closed source commercial software is, and you can see why a lot of people who aren't in the business get the wrong idea.
Very few 21-year-olds, even those who got the best grades at the best schools, understand software design or business process well enough for a major company to be able to rely on them.
I seem to recall a study, by IBM possibly, into how much young developers really contribute to software projects. The conclusion was that most of the young starters (up to age 25 IIRC) were only good for writing docs and possibly testing. You shouldn't let them near the code, because in the balance of probability, they will be counter-productive overall. Those up to age 30 were found to handle development on a single, focussed project usefully, but no more than that. Those over 30 could handle working on multiple areas at once competently.
Those figures are all from memory, but I'm pretty sure they're close. They're also a pretty damning indictment of the age discrimination that is rampant in the software development industry, and a fairly compelling explanation for why so many projects fail after the management choose to hire youngsters because they're cheap and willing to do whatever to advance their careers...
In a gorilla war set against today's climate of terrorism and suicide bombers, sadly the story can easily be different.
So, hopefully before anyone else points it out... No, I am not proposing invading North Korea with gorillas, and yes, I can spell "guerrilla". Usually.
This is just FUD by South Korea against it's arch enemy, and even if it isn't, so what? How many crackers are employed by the CIA? The Mossad? MI5? Or even the RIAA & MPAA?
That's not really the point. You have to be lucky every time. They only have to be lucky once to hurt you. Given the number of viruses and worms that have taken out PCs on a large scale and cost the US economy (amongst others) probably billions of dollars in down-time, it's pretty clear that however many L337 Hax0rz are employed by the governments in the West, it's not enough to stop everything all the time.
ANY Western country could kick serious ass in Afghanistan, Iraq or North Korea (though not with zero casualities). These countries have no tech. None. How hard is it to drop fire one 'soldiers' with AK-47s and sandals?
May I suggest that you consider the results of US military actions everywhere from Vietnam to Iraq before casting aside poorer countries so disdainfully? In open warfare, of course they'd be toasted by better trained, better equipped forces. In a gorilla war set against today's climate of terrorism and suicide bombers, sadly the story can easily be different.
Rather than force Americans to pay extra for smart cards, why not start by having the US banking officials require that internet connected ATMs not run unpatched versions of MS Windows?
Because the decision about whether to apply an unknown and untested patch to a security-sensitive system isn't that simple.
Or require that all PCs sold in the US that are sold with an OS be sold with a secure OS?
Because on current evidence, there is no such thing, and even if there were, there would be no way to prove it.
There are many much better ways to deal with the sort of problem we're talking about, starting with not connecting every computer in the world together via a global network that has a laughable basis when it comes to security.
Judging from the Koreans I've met playing online games, maybe 1 year is spent learning-to-hack; the other 4 are spent learning the social skills needed to relieve passwords by means of human to human attacks.
That's because the wetware is the weakest link in most security chains.
No, that really wasn't a joke. It's sad, but true.
B: to be able to publish an article linking to them and therefore slashdot their communications into oblivion?
I'm just waiting for the Slashdot Effect to be classified officially as a WMD, so that next time there's an article that doesn't support Bush/Blair, the author can be branded a terrorist and summarily imprisoned without trial. But in the meantime, the US is allowed to have WMDs that no-one else is, so DoS away!:-)
Like many others here it seems, I run AVG, ZoneAlarm, Ad-Aware and Spybot on my WinXP box, and use Firefox and Thunderbird. However, I recently hooked up ADSL through my ISP-supplied Binatone 4-port ADSL modem/router, and now I have concerns. My system used to be invisible c/o ZoneAlarm, but now I've got a fixed IP and this wonderful connection hardware that advertises its existence to anyone who cares to ask, and even leaves the FTP port open to the outside world!
Of course I've changed the password on the ADSL box to something absurdly long and unguessable, but I'm still worried that my PC (and any laptops connected to the same 4-port box) are now obviously visible. Anyone have any suggestions? I'm pretty much a geek, but not yet sufficiently knowledgable about ADSL hardware and hardware firewalls to make informed decisions here...
That's an assumption, of course. However, if a way to compromise it ever leaked out in public, I doubt you or I would have to worry about Joe Hacker giving us a hard time, given the number of far more juicy targets that also use RSA...
A bit like the medical researcher on the radio every few weeks being introduced as talking about a 'newfound cure for cancer' and saying 'this is certainly an exciting development' being asked 'so when will it actually be used to cure cancer' and having to say 'well... possibly never,... certainly 20 years, actually I never claimed.'
Except that, of course, cancer survivability rates and treatments are improving, quite dramatically for some types of cancer, thanks to the continued research of these people. While today's research may not bring practical benefits for 5 or 10 years in most cases, some of the research announced 5 or 10 years ago is coming good in practical applications today. So it is with many environmental issues as well, including this one.
Sorry if I'm going a bit serious, but as someone who actively supports cancer research and has lost loved ones to the illness, I'd hate to see new research trivialised in the way you suggest. The improvements in results today are great motivation for those researching the next generation of treatments, and for those of us who support them. Again, so it is with many environmental issues.
What's wrong with "If one candidate beats all the others in a head-to-head, that candidate wins"? I'm pretty sure most people would understand that idea.
The difficult part, IMHO, would be convincing a politically-motivated media to run their fact files and commentary on why such-and-such a method would meet the goal(s) of a fair election, so enough people actually understood what was going on that the general population would accept it (the two not being the same thing at all).
The problem with Condorcet, for example, is going to be explaining how they break a tie -- not really an issue if you're used to a duopoly, but rather important here! What you need to make it successful is a system that is sound, which will stand up to critical examination from the few, but that can be summed up in a nutshell so the many understand how to vote. Fortunately, most systems meet the latter criterion: you say "list the candidates in order of preference", "vote for the guy you want", "tick all the guys you'd be happy with", etc.
BTW, if anyone hasn't looked, the linked site (electionmethods.org) is very well done. As a mathematician and someone who cares about elections, I found the page on technical evaluations of the various methods most interesting. The kind of criteria it presents for a good system -- the one-liner sound-bites -- are the sort of thing that should be fed to the general public, with the accompanying reasoning available for those critical enough to examine the details.
I don't see why the deal is particularly intended to cause "pain to the US economy". There are no special anti-US provisions in there, as far as I can see. Indeed, you could argue that reading a level deeper some of it is pretty beneficial for the US economy compared to others.
As usual, the simplest explanation is probably the right one: if the US has to suffer more to comply with the rules under Kyoto, perhaps that's because the US position was worse than others in the first place. Just take a look at what the average US family drives compared to those in Europe, Japan and elsewhere, as an obvious starting point.
As a free marketer and based on my own experience I can only conclude that for people who don't like windows but still use it: 1) the cost of switching is too high and/or 2) people don't have enough information.
Of course, there is a third, much simpler explanation: while they don't like Windows, they don't see any better alternative.
Copyright covers different things in different places. There is no such thing as "copyright law" in a single, global sense.
You can believe what you like about EULAs, but they have been held up as valid in court in several test cases in several jurisdictions. You may have a case if you never had chance to read it before being told you'd accepted it, but that's about it looking at current case law.
Your copyright law might be USC17. Mine isn't. Whatever your president may like to believe, the whole world is not subject to US laws.
See also my reply to the AC, acknowledging some merit in your argument but pointing out that I wouldn't like to be the one defending it in court.
If you own a single copy of a copyrighted work, you don't need any permission from the owner of the copyright to use that work in any way you want, as long as you don't try to distribute new copies of it.
OK, there is merit to that argument in some cases. Still, there's often not a lot of case law in this area, and I wouldn't want to be the guy arguing in court that my copy was legal because someone else had installed it, and the fact that I'd paid them for doing so wasn't my problem. It's like claiming you're innocent of wrong-doing even though you've knowingly downloading ripped songs/games/films over P2P, because "the copy was made at the other end and I'm just using it, Your Honour". Even if you're not technically guilty of copyright infringement in your jurisdiction, you're probably still guilty of a related offence.
I've always wondered exactly what grounds microsoft has to pursue legal action against me when it was walmart that I gave my money to for my copy of Windows and my copy of Office.
This is indeed an interesting area of contract law. However, you'd better hope you have some agreement with or permission from Microsoft, because otherwise you're violating their copyright.
I'm confused; is 'Windows Sans WMP' a font of some sort?
Yep, it's a variant on the usual Windows without the irritating twiddles. Consequently, it's much easier on the eye if extended screen viewing periods are required.
No, what I really would like to see, is Windows coming with a selection of browsers (perhaps a "Welcome to your brand new Microsoft (R) Windows (R) [TM] installation - which browser(s) do you want to install?" and it automatically grabs the latest version of that browser) , and be able to choose which of them to embed in explorer. Now *THAT* would be cool...
No, it really wouldn't. I'd bet that your average PC user doesn't appreciate the issues with IE. Many probably don't even know what a "browser" is, they just know to click this button for "the Internet" (not to be confused with e-mail).
Choice is not always a good thing. For average people without the time or inclination to learn the finer points of a subject, a single "good enough" option is often better than a choice. For people who do have the inclination to learn more, the choice is always there anyway, as the fact that I'm typing this in Firefox testifies.
Slashdot Mirror
<reductio ad absurdum> Great! I think idiots who want everything free shouldn't have the right to life, so I'm going to go kill them all and make the world a better place. </reductio ad absurdum>
The annoying thing about principles is that by definition they don't adapt to circumstance. Neither does copyright law. Both my principles and my country's laws say that ripping off any target is as morally wrong as any other.
Of course, the damage done may be different, but that's the key thing about crimes: the effects are measured in terms of damages to the victim, not benefits to the perpetrator. The fact that you guys are ripping music for personal use and not for profit doesn't mean that it isn't damaging the people whose legal rights you are infringing. The amount of damage (real damage, not random music industry figures with unrealistic bases) should be the basis for any penalties.
So because you and your ilk want to copy things for purely selfish reasons, those of us who don't should be forced to prove our own activities are benign just to avoid paying a tax to make up for what you guys are doing?
That may be true, but the world is an imperfect place. Failing to acknowledge that, and to follow known procedures to mitigate that imperfection, is negligent. Blaming it on the original flaws that you knew were there and you knew how to avoid is just shirking your responsibility for the screw up.
No, he's getting paid to find out whatever he needs to. The developers are getting paid to know the tech, and to tell him if he asks, just as the sales and marketing guys are getting paid to know the business opportunities, and to tell him if he asks. When he's asked enough, the manager will make his call from the information he's obtained, and then the other guys go run with it.
It really does depend on the development team and their management. In many places, you're certainly correct, but plenty of commercial software houses do take pride in their work and/or realise that producing a well-tested, secure product is priceless in maintaining a good reputation. I've known plenty of development shops where security, and reliability for that matter, are taken seriously, planned for throughout the design and implementation, included in the review processes, and tested with enthusiasm. Unsurprisingly, these places turn out good code.
Of course, a lot of this stuff is done by software houses or contractors whose reputation is their livelihood, and it's done for private clients so most people never know about it. Compare and contrast with a major product company like Microsoft or Apple, where if they screw up even once in an enormous project, the whole world hears about how "insecure" closed source commercial software is, and you can see why a lot of people who aren't in the business get the wrong idea.
I seem to recall a study, by IBM possibly, into how much young developers really contribute to software projects. The conclusion was that most of the young starters (up to age 25 IIRC) were only good for writing docs and possibly testing. You shouldn't let them near the code, because in the balance of probability, they will be counter-productive overall. Those up to age 30 were found to handle development on a single, focussed project usefully, but no more than that. Those over 30 could handle working on multiple areas at once competently.
Those figures are all from memory, but I'm pretty sure they're close. They're also a pretty damning indictment of the age discrimination that is rampant in the software development industry, and a fairly compelling explanation for why so many projects fail after the management choose to hire youngsters because they're cheap and willing to do whatever to advance their careers...
I wrote:
So, hopefully before anyone else points it out... No, I am not proposing invading North Korea with gorillas, and yes, I can spell "guerrilla". Usually.
That's not really the point. You have to be lucky every time. They only have to be lucky once to hurt you. Given the number of viruses and worms that have taken out PCs on a large scale and cost the US economy (amongst others) probably billions of dollars in down-time, it's pretty clear that however many L337 Hax0rz are employed by the governments in the West, it's not enough to stop everything all the time.
May I suggest that you consider the results of US military actions everywhere from Vietnam to Iraq before casting aside poorer countries so disdainfully? In open warfare, of course they'd be toasted by better trained, better equipped forces. In a gorilla war set against today's climate of terrorism and suicide bombers, sadly the story can easily be different.
Because the decision about whether to apply an unknown and untested patch to a security-sensitive system isn't that simple.
Because on current evidence, there is no such thing, and even if there were, there would be no way to prove it.
There are many much better ways to deal with the sort of problem we're talking about, starting with not connecting every computer in the world together via a global network that has a laughable basis when it comes to security.
That's because the wetware is the weakest link in most security chains.
No, that really wasn't a joke. It's sad, but true.
I'm just waiting for the Slashdot Effect to be classified officially as a WMD, so that next time there's an article that doesn't support Bush/Blair, the author can be branded a terrorist and summarily imprisoned without trial. But in the meantime, the US is allowed to have WMDs that no-one else is, so DoS away! :-)
Like many others here it seems, I run AVG, ZoneAlarm, Ad-Aware and Spybot on my WinXP box, and use Firefox and Thunderbird. However, I recently hooked up ADSL through my ISP-supplied Binatone 4-port ADSL modem/router, and now I have concerns. My system used to be invisible c/o ZoneAlarm, but now I've got a fixed IP and this wonderful connection hardware that advertises its existence to anyone who cares to ask, and even leaves the FTP port open to the outside world!
Of course I've changed the password on the ADSL box to something absurdly long and unguessable, but I'm still worried that my PC (and any laptops connected to the same 4-port box) are now obviously visible. Anyone have any suggestions? I'm pretty much a geek, but not yet sufficiently knowledgable about ADSL hardware and hardware firewalls to make informed decisions here...
That's an assumption, of course. However, if a way to compromise it ever leaked out in public, I doubt you or I would have to worry about Joe Hacker giving us a hard time, given the number of far more juicy targets that also use RSA...
Except that, of course, cancer survivability rates and treatments are improving, quite dramatically for some types of cancer, thanks to the continued research of these people. While today's research may not bring practical benefits for 5 or 10 years in most cases, some of the research announced 5 or 10 years ago is coming good in practical applications today. So it is with many environmental issues as well, including this one.
Sorry if I'm going a bit serious, but as someone who actively supports cancer research and has lost loved ones to the illness, I'd hate to see new research trivialised in the way you suggest. The improvements in results today are great motivation for those researching the next generation of treatments, and for those of us who support them. Again, so it is with many environmental issues.
That's OK. We just need to form a cunning plan that renders the votes of everyone in Florida irrelevant, and replace the current scheme with that!
What's wrong with "If one candidate beats all the others in a head-to-head, that candidate wins"? I'm pretty sure most people would understand that idea.
The difficult part, IMHO, would be convincing a politically-motivated media to run their fact files and commentary on why such-and-such a method would meet the goal(s) of a fair election, so enough people actually understood what was going on that the general population would accept it (the two not being the same thing at all).
The problem with Condorcet, for example, is going to be explaining how they break a tie -- not really an issue if you're used to a duopoly, but rather important here! What you need to make it successful is a system that is sound, which will stand up to critical examination from the few, but that can be summed up in a nutshell so the many understand how to vote. Fortunately, most systems meet the latter criterion: you say "list the candidates in order of preference", "vote for the guy you want", "tick all the guys you'd be happy with", etc.
BTW, if anyone hasn't looked, the linked site (electionmethods.org) is very well done. As a mathematician and someone who cares about elections, I found the page on technical evaluations of the various methods most interesting. The kind of criteria it presents for a good system -- the one-liner sound-bites -- are the sort of thing that should be fed to the general public, with the accompanying reasoning available for those critical enough to examine the details.
I don't see why the deal is particularly intended to cause "pain to the US economy". There are no special anti-US provisions in there, as far as I can see. Indeed, you could argue that reading a level deeper some of it is pretty beneficial for the US economy compared to others.
As usual, the simplest explanation is probably the right one: if the US has to suffer more to comply with the rules under Kyoto, perhaps that's because the US position was worse than others in the first place. Just take a look at what the average US family drives compared to those in Europe, Japan and elsewhere, as an obvious starting point.
Of course, there is a third, much simpler explanation: while they don't like Windows, they don't see any better alternative.
Thanks for the reply, but...
See also my reply to the AC, acknowledging some merit in your argument but pointing out that I wouldn't like to be the one defending it in court.
OK, there is merit to that argument in some cases. Still, there's often not a lot of case law in this area, and I wouldn't want to be the guy arguing in court that my copy was legal because someone else had installed it, and the fact that I'd paid them for doing so wasn't my problem. It's like claiming you're innocent of wrong-doing even though you've knowingly downloading ripped songs/games/films over P2P, because "the copy was made at the other end and I'm just using it, Your Honour". Even if you're not technically guilty of copyright infringement in your jurisdiction, you're probably still guilty of a related offence.
This is indeed an interesting area of contract law. However, you'd better hope you have some agreement with or permission from Microsoft, because otherwise you're violating their copyright.
Yep, it's a variant on the usual Windows without the irritating twiddles. Consequently, it's much easier on the eye if extended screen viewing periods are required.
No, it really wouldn't. I'd bet that your average PC user doesn't appreciate the issues with IE. Many probably don't even know what a "browser" is, they just know to click this button for "the Internet" (not to be confused with e-mail).
Choice is not always a good thing. For average people without the time or inclination to learn the finer points of a subject, a single "good enough" option is often better than a choice. For people who do have the inclination to learn more, the choice is always there anyway, as the fact that I'm typing this in Firefox testifies.
Of course they are. They gave Ballmer such a warm welcome when he arrived to make his 11th hour plea for leniency last time, after all.