I think the candidates want things to stay relatively the same. They got as far as they did by using the current system, and if the system changed, they might not be the ones on top anymore.
Or at least, that's my rationalization about why politicians refuse to entertain the idea that statistical polling could be accurate. --
I think that if citizens really felt that their rights were in jeopardy, then almost all of them would turn out at the polls to vote for the guy who will screw them less.
Today, if you'd ask a random person if they think there's a credible possibility that their rights will be significantly erroded in the next four years, probably at least 95% would say No. --
What does @Home do about ICQ? I bet they ignore certain open ports just because John. Q User would be pissed if he @Home tells him that he can't run ICQ.
So, I wonder if you could just set up SSH on the ICQ port, and they'd ignore it. Might even be able to multiplex the port and get both ICQ or SSH out of it depending on the source address or even the first few bytes of each protocol.
I'm a soon-to-be @Home customer (no alternatives), and it pisses me off that they don't want to allow me to set up an ftp server for my sole use to get files that I forgot.
PS. I've always wondered why they don't just block incoming SYN packets. There's ways to get around that still, but it'd enforce their policy for 99% of the people.
PS2. They already cap the bandwidth, so that shouldn't be a problem. I don't see why ISP's or schools don't give users a fixed amount of bandwidth and let them do whatever they want with it. If the user is doing something illegal, then someone can sue the user. End of story.
PS2. If @Home were to be held liable for assiting warez distribution, then so could any other ISP, including AOL. So at most, a law could be passed that says "in 3 months, you'll be required to block napster ports". --
From Justice Reinhardt's decision on Sega v. Accolade:
Accolade used a two- step process to render its video games compatible with the Genesis console. First, it "reverse engineered" Sega's video game programs in order to discover the requirements for compatibility with the Genesis console. As part of the reverse engineering process, Accolade transformed the machine- readable object code contained in commercially available copies of Sega's game cartridges into human- readable source code using a process called "disassembly" or "decompilation".[1] Accolade purchased a Genesis console and three Sega game cartridges, wired a decompiler into the console circuitry, and generated printouts of the resulting source code. Accolade engineers studied and annotated the printouts in order to identify areas of commonality among the three gameprograms. They then loaded the disassembled code back into a computer, and experimented to discover the interface specifications for the Genesis console by modifying the programs and studying the results. At the end of the reverse engineering process, Accolade created a development manual that incorporated the information it had discovered about the requirements for a Genesis- compatible game. According to the Accolade employees who created the manual, the manual contained only functional descriptions of the interface requirements and did not include any of Sega's code.
This was eventually found to be legal.
I believe one of the reasons for clean room reverse engineering is stated in the last line there, to make sure none of Sega's IP (their copyrighted code) gets copied into the new code. Copyright only covers implementation, so clean room reverse engineering translates Sega's implentation into conceptual stuff that copyright can't cover and then into Accolade's implentation, without skipping the concept part.
--
Actually, reverse engineering is legal in the sense of stepping through instructions and watching everything or even decompiling (eg. the first step of clean room reverse engineering that took place in the IBM v. Compaq case). So even though this definition is more than curiousity or obviousness, it's allowed.
Otherwise, yes, interoperability is one of the main (only?) reasons that reverse engineering is considered a fair use. --
Consideration of profit is only one of the factors laid out in 17 USC 107, the fair use clause of copyright law. Another one is "the amount and substantiality of the portion used in
relation to the copyrighted work as a whole". In other words, if nothing is copied exactly, then it could be a possible fair use.
Anyway, it's a judge's responsibility to eventually decide if the factors of fair use, taken as a whole, allow the alleged infringement to be considered a fair use. In Sega v. Accolade, (notice that the defendant is Accolade, which is a company, not an individual) the judge decided that reverse engineering can be a fair use.
--
Here's some further elaboration, in case someone has some additional ideas or if someone wants to help develop it.
Basically the system will be an event-driven system similar to the popular GUIs out there, but will be aimed at devices whose main output device is a speaker. Other outputs could be used, but the event system and apps would be targeted towards audio output.
If it's engineered well enough, it could be used for systems with only audio input, and thus could be put in a car, allowing PIM and notation activities to occur there. --
It seems to be conspicuously missing radio functionality. If you live in a bigger city with lots of selection, or have a particular format you like to listen to (eg. public radio), then the radio functionality would be helpful. --
I don't think it's so much that they're poorly designed, it's more that the designers are trying to grab as much of the marketshare as they can by interoperating only with their own products. --
Yeah, but I want more than just sending/receiving X10 events.
I want to develop "audio widgets" (eg. listboxes, radio buttons, maybe text entry) whose only output is the speakers and whose only input is a wireless device that has numbers 0 through 9 on it (there are some relatively cheap ones from X10, so you could buy a bunch and leave them laying all over). And of course, develop an event system to deal with incoming events from the 'net or PIM or caller ID.
Then I'd use the UI with little apps I'd develop that would allow me to control things through X10 or control the radio or MP3 or DVD or TV. --
I'd love to see an open source solution that would do some of these things and more.
Right now, I'm working on a similar system to tie together the TV, DVD drive, wireless speakers throughout the apartment, X10 modules, and some RF remotes. I'm aiming for something like the automated telephone menus for interacting with the system from anywhere in the apartment. Also, it would alert me to various unsolicited events (new email, caller ID info, scheduled appointments, CNN.com breaking news, grandfather clock, UPS tracking status changes, etc...).
The separate pieces exist in open source already. But unless it's engineered well, each person's solution is likely to be a hack that's only useful to them
because the pieces can be put together in so many different ways.
--
Here's a very good quote from that usenet post which seems to succinctly address this entire story:
Anonymous posters don't need to be trusted--take them cum grano salis, because the possibilites for them to do *actual* damage to someone are minuscule, whereas the possibilities for the government and corporate authorities to do actual damage to a non-anonymous poster are are extreme and likely.
--
Re:If anonymity is the cause of repeated stories..
on
Anonymity
·
· Score: 2
The value in ACs is that they can point the public to independently verifiable evidence that was previously being actively hidden. --
Re:Supreme Court Precedent
on
Anonymity
·
· Score: 2
Well, we have a right to free speech as well, but it's superceded by quite a few laws.
In Roth v. United States (1957), the Justice said:
In the light of history, it is apparent that the unconditional phrasing
of the First Amendment was not intended to protect every utterance. The protection given speech and press was fashioned to assure unfettered interchange of ideas for the bringing about of political
and social changes desired by the people.
So as long as there is historical precident or probable future use of free speech in encouraging political or social changes, then the free speech should absolutely be protected. In other cases where other guaranteed rights conflict, those other rights may be able to supercede the right to free speech.
Perhaps the same sort of idea could be applied to anonymous speech. It's guaranteed as long as it's at all possible to use it for political or social change. The ability to lie about an entity that has a lot at stake in its reputation doesn't seem like it could ever be used for legitimate political or social change (unless that change is towards anarchy). --
Sec 602(a)(5)(B) says that school must block all illegal pornography. Sec 602(a)(5)(H) says that if they go above and beyond that in any way, that they have to "ensure the ready availability to the public of information on such policy and on its policy".
Doesn't that mean that anything that's blocked (that's not strictly illegal) has to be disclosed? Not 100%, but close enough? --
See my post during that story. The "common carrier" thing is really two distinct concepts in two very separate parts of the law.
The FCC common carrier is more like "basic infrastructure such as telegraph cables or radio airwaves that should be regulated by the FCC to benifit society in general".
The DMCA/Copyright common carrier is something like "a system that blindly passes on information in such quantities that it's not practical to weed out the copyrighted works".
Close, but not the same. It was ruled that the FCC shouldn't regulate ISP's. ISP's can still pass on copyrighted info. --
Actually, adults are NOT allowed to view obscene materials or child pornography. The legal definition of obscene doesn't include run-of-the-mill pornography.
Yes, I believe you're correct in your interpretation of (ii), but it's still almost vague about adults, and most parts of the U.S.C. like to clarify everything possible. --
Well, technically, you can do just about any illegal act you want to, you just have to face the consequences afterwards.
What bothers me about this bill is that they're trying to pre-emptively prevent people from breaking the law. That means that the usual roles of a Judge (interpretation of the law, use of discretion because of circumstances, etc...) are put in the hands of the blocked-list creators. And on top of that, they're often wrong. --
Well, DMCA says that ISP's aren't required to block copyrighted material (implied: because it's impossible). It's not a huge leap to say determine that it's impractical for ISP's to block illegal content, and then that it's not practical for libraries to block illegal content unless the government is going to provide salaries for one librarian per computer so that little Johny will have his eyes covered whenever he accesses a page with illegal content on it.
But maybe that's too big of a leap, I don't know. --
as elaborated in subsequent cases, three elements must coalesce: it must be established that
(a) the dominant theme of the material taken as a whole appeals to a prurient interest in sex;
(b) the material is patently offensive because it affronts contemporary community standards relating to the description or representation of sexual matters; and
(c) the material is utterly without redeeming social value
So instead of the core question being "who's standards do we apply when we block porn" (since they only include material that is illegal anywhere in the US), the central question is "do the library computers count as common carriers like ISP's are"?
There's no law that requires libraries to prevent children from trading copyrighted material on the internet. There's nothing that says that libraries have to have software that pre-emptively prevents children from making death threats against the president. So why is there such a law for porn? --
The bill number is hr4577, Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2001, TITLE VI--Children's Internet Protection. Check thomas.loc.gov.
It's strange that it's so unspecific. Perhaps necessarily so, since no software can guarantee blocking all illegal images, unless it prevents all access.
(B) CERTIFICATION- A certification under this subparagraph is a certification that the school, school board, or other authority with responsibility for administration of the school--
(i) has selected a technology for its computers with Internet access in order to filter or block Internet access through such computers to--
(I) material that is obscene; and
(II) child pornography; and
(ii) is enforcing a policy to ensure the operation of the technology during any use of such computers by minors.
Why the (ii)? Are adults allowed to see child porn on school computers?
And does it mean "block ALL material that's obscene"? Certainly they couldn't expect that... everyone would be in violation. So do they mean "block SOME obscene images"? "Try to get as much as possible"?
Also note that Playboy doesn't count as obscene or as child porn, so this bill leaves the decision to block sites such as playboy up to the individual libraries. It just says that libraries must block images that everyone has supposedly decided is extremely offensive.
--
Slashdot Mirror
You don't moderate up a post that has a score of 3 if you think it should be there at 3. (this is even more relevant at Kuro5hin)
Same thing in the US. The US government is pretty okay by most people, so there's no reason to take the effort to try to induce a change.
--
Or at least, that's my rationalization about why politicians refuse to entertain the idea that statistical polling could be accurate.
--
Today, if you'd ask a random person if they think there's a credible possibility that their rights will be significantly erroded in the next four years, probably at least 95% would say No.
--
So, I wonder if you could just set up SSH on the ICQ port, and they'd ignore it. Might even be able to multiplex the port and get both ICQ or SSH out of it depending on the source address or even the first few bytes of each protocol.
I'm a soon-to-be @Home customer (no alternatives), and it pisses me off that they don't want to allow me to set up an ftp server for my sole use to get files that I forgot.
PS. I've always wondered why they don't just block incoming SYN packets. There's ways to get around that still, but it'd enforce their policy for 99% of the people.
PS2. They already cap the bandwidth, so that shouldn't be a problem. I don't see why ISP's or schools don't give users a fixed amount of bandwidth and let them do whatever they want with it. If the user is doing something illegal, then someone can sue the user. End of story.
PS2. If @Home were to be held liable for assiting warez distribution, then so could any other ISP, including AOL. So at most, a law could be passed that says "in 3 months, you'll be required to block napster ports".
--
- Accolade used a two- step process to render its video games compatible with the Genesis console. First, it "reverse engineered" Sega's video game programs in order to discover the requirements for compatibility with the Genesis console. As part of the reverse engineering process, Accolade transformed the machine- readable object code contained in commercially available copies of Sega's game cartridges into human- readable source code using a process called "disassembly" or "decompilation".[1] Accolade purchased a Genesis console and three Sega game cartridges, wired a decompiler into the console circuitry, and generated printouts of the resulting source code. Accolade engineers studied and annotated the printouts in order to identify areas of commonality among the three gameprograms. They then loaded the disassembled code back into a computer, and experimented to discover the interface specifications for the Genesis console by modifying the programs and studying the results. At the end of the reverse engineering process, Accolade created a development manual that incorporated the information it had discovered about the requirements for a Genesis- compatible game. According to the Accolade employees who created the manual, the manual contained only functional descriptions of the interface requirements and did not include any of Sega's code.
This was eventually found to be legal.I believe one of the reasons for clean room reverse engineering is stated in the last line there, to make sure none of Sega's IP (their copyrighted code) gets copied into the new code. Copyright only covers implementation, so clean room reverse engineering translates Sega's implentation into conceptual stuff that copyright can't cover and then into Accolade's implentation, without skipping the concept part.
--
Otherwise, yes, interoperability is one of the main (only?) reasons that reverse engineering is considered a fair use.
--
Anyway, it's a judge's responsibility to eventually decide if the factors of fair use, taken as a whole, allow the alleged infringement to be considered a fair use. In Sega v. Accolade, (notice that the defendant is Accolade, which is a company, not an individual) the judge decided that reverse engineering can be a fair use.
--
Basically the system will be an event-driven system similar to the popular GUIs out there, but will be aimed at devices whose main output device is a speaker. Other outputs could be used, but the event system and apps would be targeted towards audio output.
If it's engineered well enough, it could be used for systems with only audio input, and thus could be put in a car, allowing PIM and notation activities to occur there.
--
It seems to be conspicuously missing radio functionality. If you live in a bigger city with lots of selection, or have a particular format you like to listen to (eg. public radio), then the radio functionality would be helpful.
--
I don't think it's so much that they're poorly designed, it's more that the designers are trying to grab as much of the marketshare as they can by interoperating only with their own products.
--
I want to develop "audio widgets" (eg. listboxes, radio buttons, maybe text entry) whose only output is the speakers and whose only input is a wireless device that has numbers 0 through 9 on it (there are some relatively cheap ones from X10, so you could buy a bunch and leave them laying all over). And of course, develop an event system to deal with incoming events from the 'net or PIM or caller ID.
Then I'd use the UI with little apps I'd develop that would allow me to control things through X10 or control the radio or MP3 or DVD or TV.
--
Right now, I'm working on a similar system to tie together the TV, DVD drive, wireless speakers throughout the apartment, X10 modules, and some RF remotes. I'm aiming for something like the automated telephone menus for interacting with the system from anywhere in the apartment. Also, it would alert me to various unsolicited events (new email, caller ID info, scheduled appointments, CNN.com breaking news, grandfather clock, UPS tracking status changes, etc...).
The separate pieces exist in open source already. But unless it's engineered well, each person's solution is likely to be a hack that's only useful to them because the pieces can be put together in so many different ways.
--
--
The value in ACs is that they can point the public to independently verifiable evidence that was previously being actively hidden.
--
In Roth v. United States (1957), the Justice said:
- In the light of history, it is apparent that the unconditional phrasing
So as long as there is historical precident or probable future use of free speech in encouraging political or social changes, then the free speech should absolutely be protected. In other cases where other guaranteed rights conflict, those other rights may be able to supercede the right to free speech.of the First Amendment was not intended to protect every utterance.
The protection given speech and press was fashioned to assure
unfettered interchange of ideas for the bringing about of political
and social changes desired by the people.
Perhaps the same sort of idea could be applied to anonymous speech. It's guaranteed as long as it's at all possible to use it for political or social change. The ability to lie about an entity that has a lot at stake in its reputation doesn't seem like it could ever be used for legitimate political or social change (unless that change is towards anarchy).
--
Sec 602(a)(5)(B) says that school must block all illegal pornography. Sec 602(a)(5)(H) says that if they go above and beyond that in any way, that they have to "ensure the ready availability to the public of information on such policy and on its policy".
Doesn't that mean that anything that's blocked (that's not strictly illegal) has to be disclosed? Not 100%, but close enough?
--
The FCC common carrier is more like "basic infrastructure such as telegraph cables or radio airwaves that should be regulated by the FCC to benifit society in general".
The DMCA/Copyright common carrier is something like "a system that blindly passes on information in such quantities that it's not practical to weed out the copyrighted works".
Close, but not the same. It was ruled that the FCC shouldn't regulate ISP's. ISP's can still pass on copyrighted info.
--
Yes, I believe you're correct in your interpretation of (ii), but it's still almost vague about adults, and most parts of the U.S.C. like to clarify everything possible.
--
What bothers me about this bill is that they're trying to pre-emptively prevent people from breaking the law. That means that the usual roles of a Judge (interpretation of the law, use of discretion because of circumstances, etc...) are put in the hands of the blocked-list creators. And on top of that, they're often wrong.
--
As I read the bill, it says nothing about looking at playboy.com in the library.
--
But maybe that's too big of a leap, I don't know.
--
(a) the dominant theme of the material taken as a whole appeals to a prurient interest in sex;
(b) the material is patently offensive because it affronts contemporary community standards relating to the description or representation of sexual matters; and
(c) the material is utterly without redeeming social value
--
There's no law that requires libraries to prevent children from trading copyrighted material on the internet. There's nothing that says that libraries have to have software that pre-emptively prevents children from making death threats against the president. So why is there such a law for porn?
--
It's strange that it's so unspecific. Perhaps necessarily so, since no software can guarantee blocking all illegal images, unless it prevents all access.
- (B) CERTIFICATION- A certification under this subparagraph is a certification that the school, school board, or other authority with responsibility for administration of the school--
Why the (ii)? Are adults allowed to see child porn on school computers?- (i) has selected a technology for its computers with Internet access in order to filter or block Internet access through such computers to--
(I) material that is obscene; and
(ii) is enforcing a policy to ensure the operation of the technology during any use of such computers by minors.(II) child pornography; and
And does it mean "block ALL material that's obscene"? Certainly they couldn't expect that... everyone would be in violation. So do they mean "block SOME obscene images"? "Try to get as much as possible"?
Also note that Playboy doesn't count as obscene or as child porn, so this bill leaves the decision to block sites such as playboy up to the individual libraries. It just says that libraries must block images that everyone has supposedly decided is extremely offensive.
--
The 7867 has CDMA 1.9GHz and Analog 800MHz.
The hardware layers are probably implemented differently.
--