As long as unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material over internet is illegal, this is a direct consequence. No news, really.
Well that's the point. Here in Australia it is not illegal, but as we have no idea what laws these three are being charged under we can't make an informed protest.
Imagine if the headline read "Aussies Face Jail Over Slander". It really is a scary prospect! Slander is a civil matter and cannot result in criminal action being taken against the defendant. Copyright infringement is also a civil matter, but recent changes in law have criminalised certain acts which facilitate copyright infringement (such as the creation of circumvention devices) and it is probably this that the three in question have been charged with. This is "news" in that it is unprecidented for someone to face jail time for simple copyright infringement in Australia, but its probably just bad reporting.
For some reason I really think we're missing a large amount of information about what these three were charged with. Australia has pretty reasonable copyright laws. We don't send people to jail for copying things. We do, however, share the circumvention provisions which is maybe what they got charged under. Frankly, I have no idea what they've been charged with, because the reporting agency didn't find it necessary to get ahold of the indictment.
On the hand, we do have the same civil laws as other countries, so I wouldn't be surprised to hear of Sony or some other media company suing these three, but prison sentences for something which doesn't appear to involve circumvention devices seems much less likely.
This is kind of like hearing that someone has been imprisoned for slandering something. It's just not the way to treat citizens in a free society.
I'm reminded of Stallman's reasons for believing copyright needs revision. Basically the argument goes that we, the public, chose to give up a freedom that we couldn't really use for more copyright works. So, even though we were no longer allowed to use a printing press to make our own copies of books it didn't really matter because very few people had access to a print press anyway. It was a "good deal" to give up a freedom we didn't use for more books. But now-a-days we all have access to copying equipment and the deal no longer looks any good.
DRM is very similar. People are willing to give up a freedom they don't use (control over their operating system) for a gain they want (Britney mp3s). People who like to have control over their operating system obviously feel ripped off by the deal -- and who like's Britney anyways? But the vast majority of people never logged in as Administrator anyways, so they're not going to miss it.
you totally missed the point. It's not YOUR machine. You may have paid for it but you're choosing to share it with people who don't trust you, and the only way they are going to do that is if you ceed control to someone they trust, i.e., Microsoft.
Thanks for once again missing the point. Maybe you're new to the game, so I'll explain. Microsoft does things slowly, very slowly. They slowly switched DOS users to WinNT. They made their software slower in every release to force you to upgrade your machine. Then when everyone had machines powerful enough to run NT they ditched DOS. Yah, now they only have one product to support. Now they're doing the same thing. Get used to using your computer without access to the Administrator account (by hiding the account from ordinary view and giving an alternative to using it anyway -- the Administrators group). When they remove the ability to use the Administrator account (which, BTW - I'm curious to know how you went about obtaining the Administrator password, I never set it when installing my copy of WinXP), you won't even notice because you'll still be able to do everything you could before (that they deem you fit to do), like install new software.
wow, this is the second post on Slashdot today where I'm mentioned mandatory access control. For those not in the know, consider a mainframe computer in a military installation. Clearly it makes no sense to go about classifying documents as "Restricted", "Secret" and "Top Secret" if the people with the clearance to read those documents have the discressional control to go and reclassify them at some lower level. The shared computer's operating system has the job of making sure only those who are authorized can access these documents.
Microsoft is taking the control out of users hands for just the same reason (and for anyone in denial, try to log in as "Administrator" on a WinXP machine). It wouldn't make sense for anyone to be able to bypass the mandatory access controls on a military mainframe, and if they can they have to be very very trusted.
I hear you out there! Screaming that your home computer isn't a shared, let alone military, machine. Well, here's a message for you: it's shared with all the people who write software for your computer. That's right, software has owners and when their software is on your computer they think they should have a say over how it is controlled. For better or worse, your choice to share your computer with the owners of this software is what is driving this effort.
Not that sharing is bad. It makes sense to share. You have the choice of who you share your computer with. I've chosen to share my computer with people who have similar views to me on what is a fair. These people write software that they license under so called "liberal" licenses -- the GPL and the BSD licenses for starters.
there's virtually no information in this pop-targeted piece. Frankly I think half the problem is calling something a virus that is clearly a worm. They're two different risks and require two different approaches to countermeasures. A simple layer of mandatory access control would stop the kinds of computer viruses I'm more likely to be refering to when I say 'virus'. Network worms require an approach that is mainly to do with a lack of any access control on sockets. Consider this: once one has gone to the trouble of indentifying and authenticating one's self to a computer system, why is one then permitted to start a process which gives the same access rights to anyone who connects on a high port? Surely anyone connecting on any port should be required to provide the same authentication to gain the access rights that are granted by the ssh daemon, for example. A system wide policy of how much access a process which is connected to the network should have by default is simple. To put this in terms that the unix jockeys will understand, accept() should result in setuid(nobody), until such time that the process can authenticate itself again.
There was a time where shareware was a simple way to support independant closed-source software. Unfortunately the popup boxes, countdown timers and trial period expiration warning ruined it for everyone. All of a sudden it was as if someone who you had never met was demanding that you give them money. Of course, proprietory software has always been like this but the naggers of shareware really put the jack boot in your face (some shareware even held your data hostage until you paid the fee or tried to delete itself!)
These days I refuse to support shareware unless there is no alternate free software solution. Why? Because I value source code as much as I value the freedom to share.
The only reason Adobe make Photoshop is because they can sell it to lots and lots of people. So why not get all those people together and pool your money to pay for the development of an open source product? I guarentee that you'll pay less overall.
Man, how simple can I put this? Say some company wants a piece of software written, they don't want some off the shelf solution, they go and hire a bunch of programmers and get it done. Where's the copyright issue in this? There isn't one. They pay you to do some work, end of story. Ok, so sometimes you can't afford to pay for the development of some software, maybe you're a small business. Well, any software that you could buy off the shelf under a copyright like system will only be there if the people who wrote it think that they can sell it to lots of people, so get those lots of people together (people just like you) and pool your money. I guarentee you'll pay less for it and you'll get exactly what you need -- without the bloat.
Copyright is the lazy immoral way to fund software development.
Rather than slinking around and trying not to get caught, people who like to copy software, movies, music and other copyright works should come out of the closet and declare themselves persecuted. I don't care how much money the big companies stand to lose or how many people's business plans are destroyed overnight, copyright law has got to go, simple because the people don't want it.
My computer. My money's paying for the electricity and the phone bill. I've never met any of the musicians who claim to own the music I download. They've never entered into a contract with me . I never promised I wouldn't copy what I want, when I want. So take off your storm trooper boots and get the fuck out of my university.
Oh,and with your spelling I actually honestly do believe you are a musician.
What right does a musician have to tell me what I can and cant do with my own god damn computer. If you wanted to lock your music up, why did you put it on a CD? Oh, that's right, to make money. Fuck off and die ya parasite.
As much as the Internet is a useful resource, knowledge is still best gained through the pages of a book. I would recommend Executable UML. A Foundation For Model-Driven Architecture by Stephen J. Mellor and Marc J. Balcer and Executable UML. How To Build Class Models by Leon Starr is also good.
YES, I'm an UML/OO Consultant. You can hire me for $1000 a day plus hotel and traveling.
Well at least I now know why you bothered to reply. KnightStalker is clearly an undereducated perl hacker who has never had the joy of picking up someone else's code or thought about the long term effects of writing reams and reams of source code that he figures will be stop being used before the end of his lifetime (but actually will probably outlive the companies that made the machines that it was written for). So why bother talking to him? If he was truely interested in what I had to say he would have took the hint I gave him and gone and learnt something about it before he exposed his ignorance.
What you say about pictures is reasonable, but what I think is more important is that UML is a way of representing models. Whenever you read or write software (that textual format stuff you talked about), you buy a model of what the software does in your head. Often you don't build the right model or you revise that model a dozen times as you experience more of the software. Communicating your model of the software to someone else is next to impossible because it is not formalized and communicating with someone about the software is difficult because you both probably don't have the same model of the software in mind. So why the heck don't people document the model before they write the software? Because it's pointless 99% of the time. The source code you write is no better represented by the formal model you constructed than it is represented by the mental model. This is because source code causes software models to drift into implementation details. What we need is a system of transforming the model into the software (note: not the source code, the software) and stop people from building incorrect mental models. Then maybe we can get the job done.
Because remember, it's not the credit card processor's fault that your credit card got stolen, it's the evil hacker who bypassed the security. If we told you which credit card processor it was you might take your business elsewhere, therefore ensuring that security of your credit card is taken seriously -- and we don't want that, do we? I mean, that would be like punishing the credit card processor for the evil hacker's crime!
The simplest explanation of the space elevator is that it is a cable with one end attached to the Earth's surface and the other end in space beyond the geosynchronous orbit (35,800 km altitude). The competing forces of gravity at the lower end and outward centrifugal acceleration at the farther end keep the cable under tension and stationary over a single position on Earth. This cable, once deployed, can be ascended by mechanical means to Earth orbit.
Which just goes to show, if you're asking on Slashdot, then you're either too lazy or too stupid to find out yourself.
Slashdot Mirror
As long as unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material over internet is illegal, this is a direct consequence. No news, really.
Well that's the point. Here in Australia it is not illegal, but as we have no idea what laws these three are being charged under we can't make an informed protest.
Imagine if the headline read "Aussies Face Jail Over Slander". It really is a scary prospect! Slander is a civil matter and cannot result in criminal action being taken against the defendant. Copyright infringement is also a civil matter, but recent changes in law have criminalised certain acts which facilitate copyright infringement (such as the creation of circumvention devices) and it is probably this that the three in question have been charged with. This is "news" in that it is unprecidented for someone to face jail time for simple copyright infringement in Australia, but its probably just bad reporting.
On the hand, we do have the same civil laws as other countries, so I wouldn't be surprised to hear of Sony or some other media company suing these three, but prison sentences for something which doesn't appear to involve circumvention devices seems much less likely.
This is kind of like hearing that someone has been imprisoned for slandering something. It's just not the way to treat citizens in a free society.
DRM is very similar. People are willing to give up a freedom they don't use (control over their operating system) for a gain they want (Britney mp3s). People who like to have control over their operating system obviously feel ripped off by the deal -- and who like's Britney anyways? But the vast majority of people never logged in as Administrator anyways, so they're not going to miss it.
you totally missed the point. It's not YOUR machine. You may have paid for it but you're choosing to share it with people who don't trust you, and the only way they are going to do that is if you ceed control to someone they trust, i.e., Microsoft.
Thanks for once again missing the point. Maybe you're new to the game, so I'll explain. Microsoft does things slowly, very slowly. They slowly switched DOS users to WinNT. They made their software slower in every release to force you to upgrade your machine. Then when everyone had machines powerful enough to run NT they ditched DOS. Yah, now they only have one product to support. Now they're doing the same thing. Get used to using your computer without access to the Administrator account (by hiding the account from ordinary view and giving an alternative to using it anyway -- the Administrators group). When they remove the ability to use the Administrator account (which, BTW - I'm curious to know how you went about obtaining the Administrator password, I never set it when installing my copy of WinXP), you won't even notice because you'll still be able to do everything you could before (that they deem you fit to do), like install new software.
Microsoft is taking the control out of users hands for just the same reason (and for anyone in denial, try to log in as "Administrator" on a WinXP machine). It wouldn't make sense for anyone to be able to bypass the mandatory access controls on a military mainframe, and if they can they have to be very very trusted.
I hear you out there! Screaming that your home computer isn't a shared, let alone military, machine. Well, here's a message for you: it's shared with all the people who write software for your computer. That's right, software has owners and when their software is on your computer they think they should have a say over how it is controlled. For better or worse, your choice to share your computer with the owners of this software is what is driving this effort.
Not that sharing is bad. It makes sense to share. You have the choice of who you share your computer with. I've chosen to share my computer with people who have similar views to me on what is a fair. These people write software that they license under so called "liberal" licenses -- the GPL and the BSD licenses for starters.
there's virtually no information in this pop-targeted piece. Frankly I think half the problem is calling something a virus that is clearly a worm. They're two different risks and require two different approaches to countermeasures. A simple layer of mandatory access control would stop the kinds of computer viruses I'm more likely to be refering to when I say 'virus'. Network worms require an approach that is mainly to do with a lack of any access control on sockets. Consider this: once one has gone to the trouble of indentifying and authenticating one's self to a computer system, why is one then permitted to start a process which gives the same access rights to anyone who connects on a high port? Surely anyone connecting on any port should be required to provide the same authentication to gain the access rights that are granted by the ssh daemon, for example. A system wide policy of how much access a process which is connected to the network should have by default is simple. To put this in terms that the unix jockeys will understand, accept() should result in setuid(nobody), until such time that the process can authenticate itself again.
These days I refuse to support shareware unless there is no alternate free software solution. Why? Because I value source code as much as I value the freedom to share.
The only reason Adobe make Photoshop is because they can sell it to lots and lots of people. So why not get all those people together and pool your money to pay for the development of an open source product? I guarentee that you'll pay less overall.
Copyright is the lazy immoral way to fund software development.
Rather than slinking around and trying not to get caught, people who like to copy software, movies, music and other copyright works should come out of the closet and declare themselves persecuted. I don't care how much money the big companies stand to lose or how many people's business plans are destroyed overnight, copyright law has got to go, simple because the people don't want it.
Has Slashdot been hacked again or did someone just let the trained monkey out of its cage?
Oh,and with your spelling I actually honestly do believe you are a musician.
What right does a musician have to tell me what I can and cant do with my own god damn computer. If you wanted to lock your music up, why did you put it on a CD? Oh, that's right, to make money. Fuck off and die ya parasite.
As much as the Internet is a useful resource, knowledge is still best gained through the pages of a book. I would recommend Executable UML. A Foundation For Model-Driven Architecture by Stephen J. Mellor and Marc J. Balcer and Executable UML. How To Build Class Models by Leon Starr is also good.
Well at least I now know why you bothered to reply. KnightStalker is clearly an undereducated perl hacker who has never had the joy of picking up someone else's code or thought about the long term effects of writing reams and reams of source code that he figures will be stop being used before the end of his lifetime (but actually will probably outlive the companies that made the machines that it was written for). So why bother talking to him? If he was truely interested in what I had to say he would have took the hint I gave him and gone and learnt something about it before he exposed his ignorance.
What you say about pictures is reasonable, but what I think is more important is that UML is a way of representing models. Whenever you read or write software (that textual format stuff you talked about), you buy a model of what the software does in your head. Often you don't build the right model or you revise that model a dozen times as you experience more of the software. Communicating your model of the software to someone else is next to impossible because it is not formalized and communicating with someone about the software is difficult because you both probably don't have the same model of the software in mind. So why the heck don't people document the model before they write the software? Because it's pointless 99% of the time. The source code you write is no better represented by the formal model you constructed than it is represented by the mental model. This is because source code causes software models to drift into implementation details. What we need is a system of transforming the model into the software (note: not the source code, the software) and stop people from building incorrect mental models. Then maybe we can get the job done.
Because remember, it's not the credit card processor's fault that your credit card got stolen, it's the evil hacker who bypassed the security. If we told you which credit card processor it was you might take your business elsewhere, therefore ensuring that security of your credit card is taken seriously -- and we don't want that, do we? I mean, that would be like punishing the credit card processor for the evil hacker's crime!
Sigh, you could have actually learnt what Executable UML is before you replied.
Executable UML
The fact that we still use these beasts to develop software says a lot about our industry.
Have "you" heard of independant film?
There are no stupid questions, just stupid people.
Which just goes to show, if you're asking on Slashdot, then you're either too lazy or too stupid to find out yourself.
Hope you don't get into trouble for this.