Don't laugh! They should have patented "filenames over 8 characters."
I kind of wished Apple had patented and trademarked and so on the heck out of their wares so Microsoft would have had to come up with its own stuff. It would be interesting to see what their "freedom to innovate" came up with, maybe even something better. (Obviously I don't think they did.)
Do you have a cite to anywhere that talks about CTW getting grouchy over The Grouch? I know if I read it on the internet it's true, but if I read it in two places I'm sure of it!
I know they did get ticked off over Evil Bert, but not until Bert was paired with Osama by some third party. The "inventor" took down the site eventually on his own initiative.
I'm just interested how an ostensibly non-greedy group like CPB (the parent) goes about protecting its intellectual property. They have been under increasing pressure from certain conservatives to pay their own way my marketing Barney and the like, though the public contributes just 15% of their budget and they broadcast and sell an extraordinary amout of commercial crud as it is. Anyway, obviously as their dependence on these revenues increases their legal defense will become more rabid.
Yeah, I had a copy of Oscar. Was it ever sold? How about the rocker scientist who came up with the flushing toilet sound for emptying the trash.... The modern Mac OS X is just so sober and dignified.
Doesn't your spam, like mine, usually claim you signed up to get it? Often with some meta-list like GREATDEALZ that you can't possibly unsubscribe from, and unsubcribing removes you from this vendor's list only, that is, if unsubscribing ever worked because it's either a scam or the account is shut down before you can reach it. Maybe I did consent, by not reading every word of a privacy policy that probably didn't exist anyway.
You can sense my cynicism. I think the rule makes sense, but question how much good it will do. Now, innovative enforcement I would be interested in. How about threatening to punish the originating ISP? Is it too much to require them to examine mass mailers, obtain a bond against abuse, and so on? After all, they provide the tools that make spam possible.
With all respect, what percentage of average users do you think would understand you after "So"? They'd say "whitelist, huh?" (I'd like to think I'm far from clueless, but had to look up teergrube -- German for tar pit, very clever.) Most people don't want to learn this crap because they are lazy or naive or, like me, are resentful at having to lift a finger to keep out these little cockroaches. Even many sysadmins are like this, else would there be so many fscking open relays? If many don't understand, they will prove fertile ground for spammers to continue (they're probably the class of user that responds to these things anyway, especially if they're too green to have learned to hate spam).
I do believe technical solutions should be implemented in parallel with legal ones, just as deadbolts pair nicely with burglary laws. I just don't think they'll be enough alone, and the cost of implementing them in education alone is high. I'm impressed also with the borg-like ability of spammers to adapt, not that they're technically astute, but they can buy spambot/mailer packages from others.
I was just reading about a $2700 gadget that allows telemarkers to evade Telezapper and spoof caller id (which I thought was illegal), for legitimate purposes of course. The battle escalates a notch.
BTW, I speak from the perspective of someone interested in voting rights -- in a law review election I proposed a ranked voting method to suppress to grinding multiple run-offs. I discovered that people like simple, even if it's unjust. Although they trusted me to run it, and the election proceeded quickly and efficiently, I'm sure my system was never used again.:)
And another word inspired by the neologisms: genericide. I.e., the tragic loss of a trademark when it enters the vernacular. That's why companies act so rudely in enforcing their trademarks: if they don't, the trademarks aren't worth a dime, and their products are no longer special by name.
Sometimes manufacturers crack down a little late -- did you notice when everyone started talking about "in-line skates" instead of rollerblades? Um, Rollerblades®:) (I've heard of companies asking newspapers to included those little warts after their brand names, but they won't do it. However, I've noticed papers consciously using the generic names, probably to avoid the appearance of promotions... meanwhil Hollywood movies are moving in the opposite direction, e.g., I Am Sam (blech).)
Did you know spork is a trademark? I came across that yesterday, looking for the origin of the term. (I think foon didn't get so far.)
Last tidbit, TM and ® aren't the same, only the latter is registered and enjoys additional legal protection.
Yeah, I sort of read it that way, too, but my real objection is not taxing "private" users, although this model begs the Q of who decides what is "bulk e-mail advertising", by what standards, and who administers the damn thing. The lethal problem is the establishment of what you dub a "central spam authority." Central anything that everyone must participate in at consortium fixed rates smells of antitrust.
Realistically I don't think one can expect to identify "bulk e-mail advertising" with any accuracy, and how to do it in advance! Senders would have to self-identify and, well, that's obviously flawed. And if you could identify the flavor of the mail, why not just go ahead and identify the subset spam, and ban it.
What I think will actually happen is an imperfect national law regulating the practice, which will nonetheless rein in all but the sleaziest operators. Junk faxes really did dry up, and though a few still trickle through it doesn't paralyze your fax machine like before. As it is now, a lot of spam breaks no law.
Good points, but I don't see how substituting a timeliness penalty for money changes anything essential. As we all know, time == money.:)
Seriously, I expect my mail to get there ASAP, and anyone conducting business by email expects it to get there even sooner. We would all pay to avoid eunuched email account, and as with the pay-per-item approach would resent suffering another burden for the illegitimate activities of a few. Some people conduct actual commerce by email.
Last, there are quite a few legitimate bulk mailers, and people who sign up for their services. I get an NYT digest every day within minutes of its completion. It's worth far less if delayed, news goes stale. NYT offets costs with advertising, but there are plenty of political actions groups and the like who don't, and who send legitimate albeit bulk email.
The single most lethal problem though is anything resembling the ISP's getting together to set fees or policies. Imagine the airlines doing that, even to set the price of in-flight soda pop. Even if the organization itself were "not-for-profit" (and why wouldn't it be) the underlying interests are not. Competitors acting in concert is generally barred by antitrust law. I would not sacrifice this protection to screen out spam, indeed I'm tired of sacrificing *anything* to fight off the continual harassment.:)
I could go on an refine these arguments and add new ones, yet without doing so I doubt this proposal could ever go anywhere without attracting angered consumer and antitrust investigators like starving hounds.
This plan sound kinda nice -- make the internet too expensive for spammers, we bankrupt them in a pseudo-free market way. But where the force to make everyone use this? As soon as some entities (i'm not assuming who this will be) try to impose fees, others will leap forward to say hey, we don't charge! Use us! And who wouldn't. This is capitalism. The system fails on a market level, and that without even addressing all the transactional problems in accounting for the fees, collection costs against deadbeats (spammers), and so on.
The only alternative would be for large groups of ISP's to band to together to impose uniform fees, making the system the de facto standard. Um, can anyone spell antitrust?? The idea doesn't clear the laugh test.
I think sender pays maybe would work in principle, but is entirely impractical. As a practical matter, it will just piss off a public that HATES being nickle-and-dimed to death. Notice the unpopularity of metered ISP access? Americans in particular like flat rate, whether it be email, telephones, or whatever.
These are just a few problems off the top of my head, I'm sure I can think of more. But *please* don't ask me for the real solution.:) Of course self-help like filters will be a factor. And legislation as well; I think he's right when he says:
Pressure your legislators to enforce the laws already on the books! Hijacking others' systems, identity falsification, and fraud are already illegal. These aren't legitimate business people who send all this bulk mail, they're crooks.
Even if a spammer can sneak around the laws making it clear that the activity is illegal, this prevents a spammer from getting investors, incorporating, taking out bank loans, obtaining legal indemnification against liability, buying business insurance, registering with their state or owning intellectual property (e.g., trademarks), etc.
Laws don't stop crime, but do make it hurt. And who among us wouldn't mind seeing a few spammers do some time? Even if they get to us because we fail to protect ourselves, what they're doing is wrong (fraud etc.) and should be punished. Let's not blame the victim.
I encountered that typo oddity a long time ago, and use it to my advantage today by giving every entity a different email address under our domain. I've noticed other people doing this, too. All mail gets forwarded to the same place, but I know who spilled the beans that led to spam. There's not a whole lot I can do to whoevergave, sold, or lost my email address, but that address gets added to my filters, and when I contact them I can really insist it HAD to be their fault not mine, and they should fix their problem, such as vulnerability to data mining (spambots). The last site I complained to -- a group I'm a member of -- commented that ten other people used their name in the given email, in other words at least 10 others were using the same trick.
Thankfully, the amount of physical junk mail has dropped off in recent years, at least here after my various efforts to keep the tree-killers at bay. Spam on the other hand... sigh.
The default rule should be that public data is open to the public, Mr. Cheney notwithstanding. There are exception such as statutorily-granted privacy, (gov't) doctor-patient privilege, national security, executive privilege (narrow!), and so on. In general, though, we should expect such records to be open when we go looking for them and when we turn over data to them. I don't see a reasonable expectation of privacy UNLESS the gov't assured me of one; and I wouldn't give them an email address of any value to me without assurances. If the gov't gave such assurances falsely, they should at least purge the data they have, or be liable for damages.
I do think such records should probably be protected, but by law. There were some nasty problems, for example, when states such as California were not just releasing driver's license data, but selling it for profit. In CA, and at least one other place, this led to stalking/murder, such as by someone who knew only a license plate.
But generally, we should expect gov't to be open by default -- we pay for the system, we gets the fruits -- as always, IMHO....
Hee hee. Can you picture that thing without laughing? They probably had to dub over laughter from the set. I kept hoping the little boy would get vaporized. Remember that one woman, a radar operator or something, who's only job appeared to be counting down to their doom? And then Adama always looked like he needed some Metamucil.
A friend and I were just yesterday discussing BG euphemism swear words -- I can't remember BG's signature one now, something like frebcolm? Farscape has a much richer pretend vocabulary -- at least, the oaths cut much closer to what the characters really mean!
BG is campy fun, but it's hard to make money off of that. SciFi just wants to draw attention to themselves, get thirty-something loser like me (with disposable income!) to switch over, etc. But the *real* scifi fans have already come, and soon will be gone. Two words: John Edward.
Oh yeah, and they f*cked up cancelling Farscape. So there. Let's make it the SciForgotten network.
Star Trek: The Motionless Picture -- hadn't heard that one, thanks.:)
That SciFi would be spinning out a 25 y.o. retread when they have fresh, creative series like Farscape is pathetic. They're wary of anything new, perhaps because one flop can end an executive's career. It is a system designed to smother creativity. Remember that the original Star Trek was almost a 2-season job, then limped to 3.
A friend and I were just discussing BG as a golden example of old hokey TV. What's next, a Fantasy Island remake?
Anyway, I wouldn't blame the production companies that pitch new ideas and are shot down, but the lumbering networks that choose the same formula over and over. Perhaps too one should look at the advertisers. So many acclaimed series are coming out of a private network I don't subscribe to (HBO) that something is going on here. (Sopranos, Band of Brothers, Six Feet Under, Sex In The City, etc. Quick, name equivalent ad-driven TV creations.)
And then, there's always the audience. ST:DS9 was the only one of the modern series to attempt a serious departure from formula, and was not widely accepted by audiences looking for, I suppose, the comfort food of the old style. (It looks like Enterprise is twitching for something new; we'll see if it works; but I'd rather flesh out a whole new universe in the uneven but ingenious Farscape.)
Did I mention I'm pissed at SciFi for dropping Farscape?:) I'm seriously considering boycotting the whole damn network for promoting crap like "Crossing Over With John Edward" in preference to new, innovative series, Stargate being the exception. But should be blame them for reaching for the easy buck? I don't know.
The jury aspect is interesting but not relevant -- American law makes no distinction. A defendant can waive the jury right and be tried by the judge; double jeopardy applies the same. In fact, under American law jeopardy attaches not with the verdict but when the trial begins or jury is sworn, often preventing retrial even if the trial ends prematurely. It's not so much the existence of the acquittal as the prior jeopardy that prevents retrial. (There are some excpetions to the acquittal rule, say where the acquittal was obtain by the defendant bribing judge or jury.)
Then there's the mistrial -- the initial jeopardy continues into a retrial.
*Everything* is a slippery slope. How many absolutes can you state? Do not kill. Well.... The slippery slope is usually an illogical throwaway argument. We tolerate innumerable necessary compromises where priorities like civil rights and security conflict. The only time the argument makes sense is where there are no manageable standards to figure out where one is on the slope and stay there. Such situations are the exception.
Personally I believe in democracy over not violence. To argue justice is better served with the barrel of a gun than through principles and political action runs directly against our framers' intent(s). The Constitution embodies this desire for liberty through order, as the so preamble nicely captures:
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Armed insurrection is inconsistent with upholding the Constitution -- it is the path to abrogating it, as was attempted in the Civil War. And before anyone cite Jefferson's words about watering trees with blood (the quote McVeigh wore on his T-shirt when arrested), note that he was soon talked out of his momentary exuberance by a friend.
There are many routes of protest and resistance far short of shooting people (and which people would these be?). What is necessary is for Americans aggrieved to pursue them.
Etymological note: Actually it should be biennial flight review. Biannual means twice a year, though it's been perverted to mean both (rendering it ambiguous). This is the kind of thing you talk about when bored and hanging around a hangar.
If you want to stay private, you'll have to get the training but not the rating. I'm a (rusty) CFII/MEII and what's that knocking at the door? I'm sure I'm in some damn national security database.
I refuse to believe anything they're doing would have stopped the 9/11 crowd, except perhaps enforcing existing immigration laws accurately (are they even doing that?).
Perhaps submitter "kmitnick" is experienced with criminal law, but the sentence "Jon Johansen will be back in court, tried again in an appeals court, because Hollywood knows better than the Norwegian legal system." makes no sense. The Norwegian legal system is the one prosecuting, appealing, and deciding the case. Hollywood "filed the complaint" -- exactly as it is done in the US -- but doesn't the Norwegian legal system take the blame for heeding it?
The article says, "There is no specific legislation in Norway to protect digital content, but Johansen's program has been criminalized in the United States under the Digital Copyright Millennium Act" -- a strange comment, too. Who cares about the DMCA with Johansen in Norwegian court? Another article explained better, "Johansen was accused of violating Norway's computer crime law by helping to create the DeCSS DVD-descrambling utility."
On the double jeopardy angle, I looked around and can't find enough info. I assume that, as in several other countries, the appeals court looks for mistakes of law committed by the judge, not the weight of the evidence. I doubt he would be "tried again in an appeals court," notwithstanding the submitter's implication; it probably goes back to the Norwegian trial court. But who knows. Anyway, American double jeopardy has a surprising number of holes in it, such as the dual sovereignty doctrine that allows reprosecution up to 3 times in state/federal/military courts.
The US has some especially strict criminal rules. Whether Norway's system is a violation of fundamental civil rights is Norway's question, not Hollywood's. To compare Norway's system to, say, the United States, we'd want to weigh all their criminal rules as a batch, plus their discretion and fairness in executing those laws.
Disclaimer, I think this prosecution is a bunch of cr*p, but am totally confused by the reporting as to what's actually happening.
Obviously, IANANL. (Norwegian lawyer.) Be glad to hear from one!
Don't forget the classic stupid patent. I don't see any concern for blinding the cat. I'm intrigued by this "invisible beam of light" description. True if used in a vacuum, not our house.
I'm unsure whether it's more aberrant for an applicant to expect to get a patent for something like this, or for them to actually get one. With the trend, I guess it's become the latter, though with time that will become accepted as well.
Seriously, for anyone with that click paralysis that prevents reading source materials, here is the *gist* of the patent, which targets merchandise (almost unlike/.) and, I agree, has been done more or less a thousand times elsewhere.
I wish we were seeing more original examples of software method patents, if they are to be allowed at all. There's a lot of patenting the wheel going on here. I wouldn't assume, though, that Amazon enforcing a patent like this would have that much effect. Everyone will migrate elsewhere, as appears (?) to be happening to GIF's following Unisys's demand for license fees. Perhaps I'm an optimist, though I've been rarely accused of it.
What is claimed is:
1. A method in a computer system of a non-participant for starting a discussion relating to an item offered for sale, the method including:
providing information describing a plurality of items being offered for sale;
receiving from an originating participant a selection of one of the items being offered for sale;
providing to the originating participant information describing the selected item offered for sale and an indicator for starting a discussion relating to the item being offered for sale, the information and the indicator to be displayed to the originating participant;
in response to selection of the displayed indicator by the originating participant of the discussion, providing to the originating participant an initial discussion thread that includes a description of the item being offered for sale;
receiving from the originating participant comments to be added to the discussion thread;
receiving from the originating participant an indication of one or more other participants of the discussion;
providing the discussion thread, with the description of the item and the received comments added along with a link that when selected effects the placing of an order to purchase the item, to the one or more other participants, and
tracking the discussion thread as one or more of the participants add comments to the discussion.
2. The method of claim 1 wherein the link is a URL.
3. The method of claim 1 wherein the sent discussion thread includes a link that when selected effects the providing of additional information relating to the item.
4. The method of claim 3 wherein the link is a URL.
5. The method of claim 1 including:
displaying the sent discussion thread to a participant;
receiving from the participant comments to be added to the discussion;
sending the discussion thread with the received comments added to other participants of the discussion.
6. The method of claim 5 including receiving from the participant to whom the discussion thread is displayed an indication of another item and adding information relating to that item to the discussion thread before sending the email to the other participants of the discussion.
7. The method of claim 6 wherein the information relating to the other item is a link to additional information relating to the other item.
8. The method of claim 7 wherein the link is a URL.
9. The method of claim 6 wherein the information relating to the other item is a description of the other item.
10. The method of claim 5 wherein the sending of the discussion thread with the received comments added includes sending the discussion thread to a discussion system to track the discussion.
11. The method of claim 1 wherein the receiving of an indication of the one or more other participants includes receiving an identifier of a group of participants.
12. The method of claims 1, 3, 5, or 6 wherein the discussion thread is implemented via email.
13. A method in a computer system for joining an discussion relating to an item being offered for sale, the method including:
tracking a discussion thread as one or more participants add information to the discussion;
providing information describing the item and au indicator for joining a discussion relating to the item, the information and the indicator to be displayed to a requesting user;
in response to selection of the displayed indicator by the requesting user, notifying a designated user for the discussion that the requesting user has requested to join the discussion;
receiving from the designated user a join indication as to whether the requesting user may join the discussion; and
when the join indication indicates that the requesting user may join the discussion,
adding the requesting user as a participant of the discussion; and
notifying the requesting user in accordance with the join indication, the notifying including providing the discussion thread to the requesting user, the discussion thread including a link that when selected effects the placing of an order to purchase the item.
I really wish I could agree with you, that there is a tech solution to spam. But I refuse to believe that spammers can't in time outsmart a dumb filter. The filters performs very well now -- I use one -- but how long will that last? Few people are blocking spam at all, but when they do the spammers, like the Borg, will adapt.
Moreover, the mere transmission of spam is causing harm. It clogs the arteries of the Internet. The ISP's despise it, and spend money fighting it -- my money. Finally, even though I have broadband it takes significant time for me to download those extra 20 messages. Thanks to some idiot out there who typed in my email as his, I've seen geometric growth in spam lately, from maybe 10% to 60% of incoming material.
It is often argued that if you make something illegal people will just break the law, but that proves too much --- the same argument would supposedly undermine every law. Making it illegal will scare off the legit or semilegit bulk emailers, and it will make the shadiest spammer tempting targets for the prosecutors who has much better investigatory abilities than we do. I've talked to one of these guys, an assistant attorney general in Washington state, and was impressed how much work it took them to pin down one spammer. The state spam law was the hook they used to snare him, then they could also be sure to put him out of business. Believe it or not, there are smart people working for government, and in that case they even hired some outside help, PI's to track the guy down (he was quite slippery).
I don't like the idea that the defense to burglars is better locks, and I'm willing to ask for the government's help on this one.
Jurisdiction and venue are both easier and harder than you paint them. There are entire law courses on things like jurisdiction.
Then there is subject matter jurisdiction versus personal jurisdiction, and the constitutional limits on jurisdiction versus the prudential rules of venue. If you're going to small claims court you hardly have to worry about all that. The pivotal issue is fairness. Sears was "present" locally, both because they had a store and because they inflicted an injury on the plaintiff in his home jurisdiction (imagine they'd sent him a bomb -- no one would quibble that it was "unfair" to drag Sears to the plaintiff, and the prosecutor). The small claims court has subject matter jurisdiction under the federal junk fax law, meaning they were the right place to hear this sort of case. And so on.
The bomb example is a little unsubtle, but an illegal email is just a milder example of the same sort of civil wrong. It would be quite unfair to force the plaintiff to go to whatever rock the defendant was lurking under to litigate a $500 claim.
If you really want to bend you mind, sometimes a place is appropriate for the lawsuit to be heard, but the law of another jurisdiction is applied (choice of law). Then you may find yourself applying a mix of local procedural law and foreign substantive law.
yeah, so much is this cheesy "these people are such dummies" or simpler still, use liberal as synonym for stupid. It's not to much that I disagree with him as I tune out to empty rhetoric. The conservative writers I take seriously -- and enjoy reading -- are the ones who write well and persuasively.
The NYT was for a while running Sullivan prominently, even a Sunday Magazine cover if i recall. I don't know whether they were making the same mistake as Salon, thinking that bring Sullivan on innoculates against charges of liberal bias. I haven't noticed him much lately. But really guys, there are better choices! I'm glad they keep Safire, even if I detest him 2/3 of the time.:)
Personally I don't object to taxes that pay for what we've spent. Sounds pretty reasonable. But I don't like complicated taxes that cost time and money and headaches to comply with, and which let some people cheat. Plenty of people have said the same thing probably ever since taxes were thought of in the first place.
The biggest problem with these multiple taxes is the inefficiency they create. Each tax has to be assess and remitted separately. Exemptions and such have to be accounted for. In some cases, entirely new agencies are formed. (In California, a friend who is an accountant for a restaurant had to endure an unfounded audit by the Franchise Tax Board -- and that was just over SALES TAX!)
I think these multiple taxes evolve because taxpayers naturally resist raising taxes, but are less sensitive to novel taxes on items they figure affect someone else. Few add up all the taxes they pay to assess the total burden. I can tell you my state tax rate, but the total rate? Where do I start? Sales+gasoline+utilities+....
The taxes can also be used to pay for related projects or shape behavior, which is a little more credible. For example, gasoline taxes might be raised to pay for increased road repairs (common). Or they might be raised just to encourage less driving and greater use of or subsidy of public transit, so fewer roads need be built. Or to persuade people to buy more efficient cars so that air pollution goals can be met. Sometimes they turn it around and offer a tax credit. Sales taxes are believed to discourage consumption and encourage savings -- that's just a rationale, I think they're usually imposed just to raise more money.
This internet tax thing will not go away, but is an opportunity to try to harmonize the laws of the different states and provide mechanisms to make compliance easier. There should be a deduction that would simply zero out the liability for many small retailers, for whom the mechanics of collecting and paying the tax would cost more than the tax itself is worth to the gov't. The big players, well, it's just a cost of doing business, one that is diluted by the volume they handle. I guess it's a hallucination that states might equal out their sales tax rates? It could be a variation on the European VAT. Getting rid of sales tax altogether would of course be nicer, but the lost income will have to be compensated somehow.
And what a total waste, all these transaction expenses! Absolute waste, and though I suppose it creates a few jobs, those same folks could be doing something constructive, providing services people actually like.
Just put 7 currencies on your card in as many days and alarm bells seem to ring
Who are you, Jason Bourne?? I thought I liked to travel fast and light.
More seriously, I'm surprised they haven't typed you to avoid bothering you. I've only been contacted once, and they were dead on. What was odd was that the 2 suspect online purchases for like $20 and $15 dollars in the wee hours of a Saturday morning. I'm curious what exactly tripped the algorithm. But one true positive and no false trips, well, that's pretty impressive -- or I'm pretty predictable.:)
They'll have a lot of phone calls to field as they freeze all those cards. I hope they nail Kev--... I mean, whoever did this.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't laugh! They should have patented "filenames over 8 characters."
I kind of wished Apple had patented and trademarked and so on the heck out of their wares so Microsoft would have had to come up with its own stuff. It would be interesting to see what their "freedom to innovate" came up with, maybe even something better. (Obviously I don't think they did.)
Do you have a cite to anywhere that talks about CTW getting grouchy over The Grouch? I know if I read it on the internet it's true, but if I read it in two places I'm sure of it!
I know they did get ticked off over Evil Bert, but not until Bert was paired with Osama by some third party. The "inventor" took down the site eventually on his own initiative.
I'm just interested how an ostensibly non-greedy group like CPB (the parent) goes about protecting its intellectual property. They have been under increasing pressure from certain conservatives to pay their own way my marketing Barney and the like, though the public contributes just 15% of their budget and they broadcast and sell an extraordinary amout of commercial crud as it is. Anyway, obviously as their dependence on these revenues increases their legal defense will become more rabid.
Yeah, I had a copy of Oscar. Was it ever sold? How about the rocker scientist who came up with the flushing toilet sound for emptying the trash.... The modern Mac OS X is just so sober and dignified.
Doesn't your spam, like mine, usually claim you signed up to get it? Often with some meta-list like GREATDEALZ that you can't possibly unsubscribe from, and unsubcribing removes you from this vendor's list only, that is, if unsubscribing ever worked because it's either a scam or the account is shut down before you can reach it. Maybe I did consent, by not reading every word of a privacy policy that probably didn't exist anyway.
You can sense my cynicism. I think the rule makes sense, but question how much good it will do. Now, innovative enforcement I would be interested in. How about threatening to punish the originating ISP? Is it too much to require them to examine mass mailers, obtain a bond against abuse, and so on? After all, they provide the tools that make spam possible.
With all respect, what percentage of average users do you think would understand you after "So"? They'd say "whitelist, huh?" (I'd like to think I'm far from clueless, but had to look up teergrube -- German for tar pit, very clever.) Most people don't want to learn this crap because they are lazy or naive or, like me, are resentful at having to lift a finger to keep out these little cockroaches. Even many sysadmins are like this, else would there be so many fscking open relays? If many don't understand, they will prove fertile ground for spammers to continue (they're probably the class of user that responds to these things anyway, especially if they're too green to have learned to hate spam).
:)
I do believe technical solutions should be implemented in parallel with legal ones, just as deadbolts pair nicely with burglary laws. I just don't think they'll be enough alone, and the cost of implementing them in education alone is high. I'm impressed also with the borg-like ability of spammers to adapt, not that they're technically astute, but they can buy spambot/mailer packages from others.
I was just reading about a $2700 gadget that allows telemarkers to evade Telezapper and spoof caller id (which I thought was illegal), for legitimate purposes of course. The battle escalates a notch.
BTW, I speak from the perspective of someone interested in voting rights -- in a law review election I proposed a ranked voting method to suppress to grinding multiple run-offs. I discovered that people like simple, even if it's unjust. Although they trusted me to run it, and the election proceeded quickly and efficiently, I'm sure my system was never used again.
And another word inspired by the neologisms: genericide. I.e., the tragic loss of a trademark when it enters the vernacular. That's why companies act so rudely in enforcing their trademarks: if they don't, the trademarks aren't worth a dime, and their products are no longer special by name.
:) (I've heard of companies asking newspapers to included those little warts after their brand names, but they won't do it. However, I've noticed papers consciously using the generic names, probably to avoid the appearance of promotions ... meanwhil Hollywood movies are moving in the opposite direction, e.g., I Am Sam (blech).)
Sometimes manufacturers crack down a little late -- did you notice when everyone started talking about "in-line skates" instead of rollerblades? Um, Rollerblades®
Did you know spork is a trademark? I came across that yesterday, looking for the origin of the term. (I think foon didn't get so far.)
Last tidbit, TM and ® aren't the same, only the latter is registered and enjoys additional legal protection.
Yeah, I sort of read it that way, too, but my real objection is not taxing "private" users, although this model begs the Q of who decides what is "bulk e-mail advertising", by what standards, and who administers the damn thing. The lethal problem is the establishment of what you dub a "central spam authority." Central anything that everyone must participate in at consortium fixed rates smells of antitrust.
Realistically I don't think one can expect to identify "bulk e-mail advertising" with any accuracy, and how to do it in advance! Senders would have to self-identify and, well, that's obviously flawed. And if you could identify the flavor of the mail, why not just go ahead and identify the subset spam, and ban it.
What I think will actually happen is an imperfect national law regulating the practice, which will nonetheless rein in all but the sleaziest operators. Junk faxes really did dry up, and though a few still trickle through it doesn't paralyze your fax machine like before. As it is now, a lot of spam breaks no law.
Good points, but I don't see how substituting a timeliness penalty for money changes anything essential. As we all know, time == money. :)
:)
Seriously, I expect my mail to get there ASAP, and anyone conducting business by email expects it to get there even sooner. We would all pay to avoid eunuched email account, and as with the pay-per-item approach would resent suffering another burden for the illegitimate activities of a few. Some people conduct actual commerce by email.
Last, there are quite a few legitimate bulk mailers, and people who sign up for their services. I get an NYT digest every day within minutes of its completion. It's worth far less if delayed, news goes stale. NYT offets costs with advertising, but there are plenty of political actions groups and the like who don't, and who send legitimate albeit bulk email.
The single most lethal problem though is anything resembling the ISP's getting together to set fees or policies. Imagine the airlines doing that, even to set the price of in-flight soda pop. Even if the organization itself were "not-for-profit" (and why wouldn't it be) the underlying interests are not. Competitors acting in concert is generally barred by antitrust law. I would not sacrifice this protection to screen out spam, indeed I'm tired of sacrificing *anything* to fight off the continual harassment.
I could go on an refine these arguments and add new ones, yet without doing so I doubt this proposal could ever go anywhere without attracting angered consumer and antitrust investigators like starving hounds.
The only alternative would be for large groups of ISP's to band to together to impose uniform fees, making the system the de facto standard. Um, can anyone spell antitrust?? The idea doesn't clear the laugh test.
I think sender pays maybe would work in principle, but is entirely impractical. As a practical matter, it will just piss off a public that HATES being nickle-and-dimed to death. Notice the unpopularity of metered ISP access? Americans in particular like flat rate, whether it be email, telephones, or whatever.
These are just a few problems off the top of my head, I'm sure I can think of more. But *please* don't ask me for the real solution.
Laws don't stop crime, but do make it hurt. And who among us wouldn't mind seeing a few spammers do some time? Even if they get to us because we fail to protect ourselves, what they're doing is wrong (fraud etc.) and should be punished. Let's not blame the victim.
I encountered that typo oddity a long time ago, and use it to my advantage today by giving every entity a different email address under our domain. I've noticed other people doing this, too. All mail gets forwarded to the same place, but I know who spilled the beans that led to spam. There's not a whole lot I can do to whoevergave, sold, or lost my email address, but that address gets added to my filters, and when I contact them I can really insist it HAD to be their fault not mine, and they should fix their problem, such as vulnerability to data mining (spambots). The last site I complained to -- a group I'm a member of -- commented that ten other people used their name in the given email, in other words at least 10 others were using the same trick.
... sigh.
Thankfully, the amount of physical junk mail has dropped off in recent years, at least here after my various efforts to keep the tree-killers at bay. Spam on the other hand
The default rule should be that public data is open to the public, Mr. Cheney notwithstanding. There are exception such as statutorily-granted privacy, (gov't) doctor-patient privilege, national security, executive privilege (narrow!), and so on. In general, though, we should expect such records to be open when we go looking for them and when we turn over data to them. I don't see a reasonable expectation of privacy UNLESS the gov't assured me of one; and I wouldn't give them an email address of any value to me without assurances. If the gov't gave such assurances falsely, they should at least purge the data they have, or be liable for damages.
I do think such records should probably be protected, but by law. There were some nasty problems, for example, when states such as California were not just releasing driver's license data, but selling it for profit. In CA, and at least one other place, this led to stalking/murder, such as by someone who knew only a license plate.
But generally, we should expect gov't to be open by default -- we pay for the system, we gets the fruits -- as always, IMHO....
One word: Boxy.
:)
Hee hee. Can you picture that thing without laughing? They probably had to dub over laughter from the set. I kept hoping the little boy would get vaporized. Remember that one woman, a radar operator or something, who's only job appeared to be counting down to their doom? And then Adama always looked like he needed some Metamucil.
A friend and I were just yesterday discussing BG euphemism swear words -- I can't remember BG's signature one now, something like frebcolm? Farscape has a much richer pretend vocabulary -- at least, the oaths cut much closer to what the characters really mean!
BG is campy fun, but it's hard to make money off of that. SciFi just wants to draw attention to themselves, get thirty-something loser like me (with disposable income!) to switch over, etc. But the *real* scifi fans have already come, and soon will be gone. Two words: John Edward.
Oh yeah, and they f*cked up cancelling Farscape. So there. Let's make it the SciForgotten network.
Star Trek: The Motionless Picture -- hadn't heard that one, thanks.
That SciFi would be spinning out a 25 y.o. retread when they have fresh, creative series like Farscape is pathetic. They're wary of anything new, perhaps because one flop can end an executive's career. It is a system designed to smother creativity. Remember that the original Star Trek was almost a 2-season job, then limped to 3.
:) I'm seriously considering boycotting the whole damn network for promoting crap like "Crossing Over With John Edward" in preference to new, innovative series, Stargate being the exception. But should be blame them for reaching for the easy buck? I don't know.
A friend and I were just discussing BG as a golden example of old hokey TV. What's next, a Fantasy Island remake?
Anyway, I wouldn't blame the production companies that pitch new ideas and are shot down, but the lumbering networks that choose the same formula over and over. Perhaps too one should look at the advertisers. So many acclaimed series are coming out of a private network I don't subscribe to (HBO) that something is going on here. (Sopranos, Band of Brothers, Six Feet Under, Sex In The City, etc. Quick, name equivalent ad-driven TV creations.)
And then, there's always the audience. ST:DS9 was the only one of the modern series to attempt a serious departure from formula, and was not widely accepted by audiences looking for, I suppose, the comfort food of the old style. (It looks like Enterprise is twitching for something new; we'll see if it works; but I'd rather flesh out a whole new universe in the uneven but ingenious Farscape.)
Did I mention I'm pissed at SciFi for dropping Farscape?
The jury aspect is interesting but not relevant -- American law makes no distinction. A defendant can waive the jury right and be tried by the judge; double jeopardy applies the same. In fact, under American law jeopardy attaches not with the verdict but when the trial begins or jury is sworn, often preventing retrial even if the trial ends prematurely. It's not so much the existence of the acquittal as the prior jeopardy that prevents retrial. (There are some excpetions to the acquittal rule, say where the acquittal was obtain by the defendant bribing judge or jury.)
Then there's the mistrial -- the initial jeopardy continues into a retrial.
Personally I believe in democracy over not violence. To argue justice is better served with the barrel of a gun than through principles and political action runs directly against our framers' intent(s). The Constitution embodies this desire for liberty through order, as the so preamble nicely captures:
Armed insurrection is inconsistent with upholding the Constitution -- it is the path to abrogating it, as was attempted in the Civil War. And before anyone cite Jefferson's words about watering trees with blood (the quote McVeigh wore on his T-shirt when arrested), note that he was soon talked out of his momentary exuberance by a friend.
There are many routes of protest and resistance far short of shooting people (and which people would these be?). What is necessary is for Americans aggrieved to pursue them.
Etymological note: Actually it should be biennial flight review. Biannual means twice a year, though it's been perverted to mean both (rendering it ambiguous). This is the kind of thing you talk about when bored and hanging around a hangar.
If you want to stay private, you'll have to get the training but not the rating. I'm a (rusty) CFII/MEII and what's that knocking at the door? I'm sure I'm in some damn national security database.
I refuse to believe anything they're doing would have stopped the 9/11 crowd, except perhaps enforcing existing immigration laws accurately (are they even doing that?).
Perhaps submitter "kmitnick" is experienced with criminal law, but the sentence "Jon Johansen will be back in court, tried again in an appeals court, because Hollywood knows better than the Norwegian legal system." makes no sense. The Norwegian legal system is the one prosecuting, appealing, and deciding the case. Hollywood "filed the complaint" -- exactly as it is done in the US -- but doesn't the Norwegian legal system take the blame for heeding it?
The article says, "There is no specific legislation in Norway to protect digital content, but Johansen's program has been criminalized in the United States under the Digital Copyright Millennium Act" -- a strange comment, too. Who cares about the DMCA with Johansen in Norwegian court? Another article explained better, "Johansen was accused of violating Norway's computer crime law by helping to create the DeCSS DVD-descrambling utility."
On the double jeopardy angle, I looked around and can't find enough info. I assume that, as in several other countries, the appeals court looks for mistakes of law committed by the judge, not the weight of the evidence. I doubt he would be "tried again in an appeals court," notwithstanding the submitter's implication; it probably goes back to the Norwegian trial court. But who knows. Anyway, American double jeopardy has a surprising number of holes in it, such as the dual sovereignty doctrine that allows reprosecution up to 3 times in state/federal/military courts.
The US has some especially strict criminal rules. Whether Norway's system is a violation of fundamental civil rights is Norway's question, not Hollywood's. To compare Norway's system to, say, the United States, we'd want to weigh all their criminal rules as a batch, plus their discretion and fairness in executing those laws.
Disclaimer, I think this prosecution is a bunch of cr*p, but am totally confused by the reporting as to what's actually happening.
Obviously, IANANL. (Norwegian lawyer.) Be glad to hear from one!
Hence "almost." :)
Don't forget the classic stupid patent. I don't see any concern for blinding the cat. I'm intrigued by this "invisible beam of light" description. True if used in a vacuum, not our house.
I'm unsure whether it's more aberrant for an applicant to expect to get a patent for something like this, or for them to actually get one. With the trend, I guess it's become the latter, though with time that will become accepted as well.
Seriously, for anyone with that click paralysis that prevents reading source materials, here is the *gist* of the patent, which targets merchandise (almost unlike
I wish we were seeing more original examples of software method patents, if they are to be allowed at all. There's a lot of patenting the wheel going on here. I wouldn't assume, though, that Amazon enforcing a patent like this would have that much effect. Everyone will migrate elsewhere, as appears (?) to be happening to GIF's following Unisys's demand for license fees. Perhaps I'm an optimist, though I've been rarely accused of it.
I really wish I could agree with you, that there is a tech solution to spam. But I refuse to believe that spammers can't in time outsmart a dumb filter. The filters performs very well now -- I use one -- but how long will that last? Few people are blocking spam at all, but when they do the spammers, like the Borg, will adapt.
Moreover, the mere transmission of spam is causing harm. It clogs the arteries of the Internet. The ISP's despise it, and spend money fighting it -- my money. Finally, even though I have broadband it takes significant time for me to download those extra 20 messages. Thanks to some idiot out there who typed in my email as his, I've seen geometric growth in spam lately, from maybe 10% to 60% of incoming material.
It is often argued that if you make something illegal people will just break the law, but that proves too much --- the same argument would supposedly undermine every law. Making it illegal will scare off the legit or semilegit bulk emailers, and it will make the shadiest spammer tempting targets for the prosecutors who has much better investigatory abilities than we do. I've talked to one of these guys, an assistant attorney general in Washington state, and was impressed how much work it took them to pin down one spammer. The state spam law was the hook they used to snare him, then they could also be sure to put him out of business. Believe it or not, there are smart people working for government, and in that case they even hired some outside help, PI's to track the guy down (he was quite slippery).
I don't like the idea that the defense to burglars is better locks, and I'm willing to ask for the government's help on this one.
Jurisdiction and venue are both easier and harder than you paint them. There are entire law courses on things like jurisdiction.
Then there is subject matter jurisdiction versus personal jurisdiction, and the constitutional limits on jurisdiction versus the prudential rules of venue. If you're going to small claims court you hardly have to worry about all that. The pivotal issue is fairness. Sears was "present" locally, both because they had a store and because they inflicted an injury on the plaintiff in his home jurisdiction (imagine they'd sent him a bomb -- no one would quibble that it was "unfair" to drag Sears to the plaintiff, and the prosecutor). The small claims court has subject matter jurisdiction under the federal junk fax law, meaning they were the right place to hear this sort of case. And so on.
The bomb example is a little unsubtle, but an illegal email is just a milder example of the same sort of civil wrong. It would be quite unfair to force the plaintiff to go to whatever rock the defendant was lurking under to litigate a $500 claim.
If you really want to bend you mind, sometimes a place is appropriate for the lawsuit to be heard, but the law of another jurisdiction is applied (choice of law). Then you may find yourself applying a mix of local procedural law and foreign substantive law.
yeah, so much is this cheesy "these people are such dummies" or simpler still, use liberal as synonym for stupid. It's not to much that I disagree with him as I tune out to empty rhetoric. The conservative writers I take seriously -- and enjoy reading -- are the ones who write well and persuasively.
:)
The NYT was for a while running Sullivan prominently, even a Sunday Magazine cover if i recall. I don't know whether they were making the same mistake as Salon, thinking that bring Sullivan on innoculates against charges of liberal bias. I haven't noticed him much lately. But really guys, there are better choices! I'm glad they keep Safire, even if I detest him 2/3 of the time.
For the record, I did subscribe to Salon.
Actually, they run Andrew Sullivan so they're trying to appeal to a broader spectrum. I assume someone reads Sullivan, and it ain't me.
(Mostly I'm sick of seeing his name *everywhere* -- worse than Coulter)
Personally I don't object to taxes that pay for what we've spent. Sounds pretty reasonable. But I don't like complicated taxes that cost time and money and headaches to comply with, and which let some people cheat. Plenty of people have said the same thing probably ever since taxes were thought of in the first place.
The biggest problem with these multiple taxes is the inefficiency they create. Each tax has to be assess and remitted separately. Exemptions and such have to be accounted for. In some cases, entirely new agencies are formed. (In California, a friend who is an accountant for a restaurant had to endure an unfounded audit by the Franchise Tax Board -- and that was just over SALES TAX!)
I think these multiple taxes evolve because taxpayers naturally resist raising taxes, but are less sensitive to novel taxes on items they figure affect someone else. Few add up all the taxes they pay to assess the total burden. I can tell you my state tax rate, but the total rate? Where do I start? Sales+gasoline+utilities+....
The taxes can also be used to pay for related projects or shape behavior, which is a little more credible. For example, gasoline taxes might be raised to pay for increased road repairs (common). Or they might be raised just to encourage less driving and greater use of or subsidy of public transit, so fewer roads need be built. Or to persuade people to buy more efficient cars so that air pollution goals can be met. Sometimes they turn it around and offer a tax credit. Sales taxes are believed to discourage consumption and encourage savings -- that's just a rationale, I think they're usually imposed just to raise more money.
This internet tax thing will not go away, but is an opportunity to try to harmonize the laws of the different states and provide mechanisms to make compliance easier. There should be a deduction that would simply zero out the liability for many small retailers, for whom the mechanics of collecting and paying the tax would cost more than the tax itself is worth to the gov't. The big players, well, it's just a cost of doing business, one that is diluted by the volume they handle. I guess it's a hallucination that states might equal out their sales tax rates? It could be a variation on the European VAT. Getting rid of sales tax altogether would of course be nicer, but the lost income will have to be compensated somehow.
And what a total waste, all these transaction expenses! Absolute waste, and though I suppose it creates a few jobs, those same folks could be doing something constructive, providing services people actually like.
Just put 7 currencies on your card in as many days and alarm bells seem to ring
:)
Who are you, Jason Bourne?? I thought I liked to travel fast and light.
More seriously, I'm surprised they haven't typed you to avoid bothering you. I've only been contacted once, and they were dead on. What was odd was that the 2 suspect online purchases for like $20 and $15 dollars in the wee hours of a Saturday morning. I'm curious what exactly tripped the algorithm. But one true positive and no false trips, well, that's pretty impressive -- or I'm pretty predictable.
They'll have a lot of phone calls to field as they freeze all those cards. I hope they nail Kev--... I mean, whoever did this.