Basically that is the key - if you are a retailer/distributor and your fans are doing something you don't like... well it probably means you are NOT giving them what they want, or not how they want it. You CANNOT CHANGE what the fans want. Forcing them to settle for what you're offering just pisses them off. They are TELLING you what they want, and are usually very willing to pay you for it if only you offered it to them. Once you realize this, it becomes obvious what you must do.
The sad reality is that it's usually incredibly cheaper to deliver content the way people prefer it, which lowers your overhead and lowers your workload.
if MS would just make exploder work properly and not force web page developers to write custom HTML for each and every version of IE so things display consistently.
MS made this mess, and now they're freaking out because the whole world isn't going out of its way to cover for MS's mistakes.
There is one minor issue with that though - lets say burger king has pissed you off. "Don't eat at Burger King" - ok, that's reasonable, there's McDonalds, Wendy's, etc., you have the option to take your business elsewhere. There are other near-equivelent businesses to pick from.
Problem is when someone is offering a unique service or product. (and with the disgraceful state of our IP management laws nowadays this is happening a lot) Now say Disney pisses you off. Where else do you plan on taking the kids for spring break? Sure you can take them to see a different show, but if they want to see the mouse, you don't really have a choice now do you?
IP laws create "limited monopolies". Unfortunately, during this limiting time, they do indeed have a government-granted monopoly, and the consumer is at their mercy. (this is particularly bad with Walt Disney, that has a *congress*-granted *extended* "limited" monopoly - i.e. they probably have a "limited monopoly for life" on the mouse)
So you really don't have a good choice. Saying someone has a choice when they can either have what they want or have something that's not even close is not really a choice, it's more of a "like it or lump it" situation. Disneyland is a unique place, and as such there should be restrictions on what rights they can force you to give away to attend their unique attraction. But that's not likely to happen.
I hopped on board the USB flash drive bus fairly early, and am quite glad I'm rid of floppies. First was a pair of 64's. Then a 512. Then a 1gb. I currently tote around a 4gb SanDisk Cruzer Mini. Handy buggers, and the Cruzer Minis are very small profile and will not block adjacent USB ports like many of the other large capacity drives do.
The only disadvantage I run into occasionally is that the large capacity drives are almost always USB 2.0 "high speed", and register on the USB bus as a powered device. This means you can't plug them into the USB ports on a keyboard, or you'll get a low power / device disabled warning. It's fairly common to run into a computer with say, the keyboard in one port and the printer in the other built in port, so you have to unplug the printer to plug in the flash drive. Annoying if you're trying to grab a test image off the flash drive to print.
It'll be nice when they make those flash drives able to detect when plugged into an unpowered hub and can kick it down a notch to 2.0 "full speed" and still work.
Speeds on USB2.0HS ports are quite nice, easily getting 8-10mb/sec write speeds. Now if OS X could just get fixed so it can boot off USB, I'll make this bugger bootable too, and that will rock...
Why should they be able to make that illegal? The customer paid for that information, and entered into no agreement with the publisher about what they would or would not do with the information once they got it. The only implied agreement is copyright. Critique/review is not covered against by copyright. If the injunction itself makes this illegal, then the judge that gave out the injunction should be smacked because the judge has no place enforcing the secrecy of the plot in a book.
I don't see how they can possibly do anything to the people who bought the book. (besides attempt to bribe them) It was legally sold to them, in good faith, with no agreement of any kind, other than "you give me book, I give you money." Even if they did have your name from a credit card recipt, they shouldn't be able to to jack about it, and if they tried, they should be on the receiving end of a harassment lawsuit.
The only ones legally liable are the stores that sold copies early, who have broken a written agreement with the publisher. (they should...er... get the book thrown at them?)
Strange, at nasa's nasatv page they list links for flash, realplayer, wmp, and quicktime. I can't see any use for the quicktime, as the nasatv appears to only be on realplayer and wmp. Is there really a quicktime link buried somewhere, or is that quicktime download link irrelevent?
Assuming nobody manages to get ahold of an early copy, the book will be scanned and posted within an hour of the midnight release date. Does a few hours really make a difference? Is it a big enough difference to justify all the added costs? (though they probably just pass on the costs to us...)
I tried a subscription, sent in my cheque. Months go by, cheque not cashed, no mags. I try to call them... has anybody found their phone number? So I email them. They say they never got the cheque. So I send another. Poof, instantly both cheques are cashed, ON THE SAME DAY. Pissed, I email them. Every email I send goes absolutely ignored by Wired, including an attempt to cancel my subscription. So I suffered through two years of Wired. Can't say as I found anything worthwhile in there the whole time. They sent me renewal notices which I ignored just like they ignored me.
As far as I can tell, Wired is just a group of scammers.
true, but unfortunate. Most people and most politicians that run into a law that is not doing its job immediately assume that the law is too weak, and they stiffen it. In reality, the problem is usually a lack of proper enforcement. So what you end up with is a law that is still not being properly enforced, though the terms of the law have become so broad that, should they really WANT to enforce the law, they could arrest half the country and successfully prossecute a quarter.
A bus carrying a load of politicians ran off a cliff. What was the trajedy? There were two empty seats.
The only way to "safely" close a popup is to go to the task bar and close it from the popup menu. "Close" buttons, "Cancel" buttons, "OK" buttons, and sometimes even the little "x" in the upper corner of the window are all javascript buttons. Clicking any of them (or anywhere in the window, really, it's usually just one big "install" button) will trigger an installation of malware.
If the window doesn't have a presense in the menu bar below, (most do, fortunately) you have to force-quit it.
We must be giving our customers quite a deal - most of our service is covered in 1 hour's time, $80.25 w/tax. I've watched our PC tech clean up computers on several occasions, and it astounds me how much you really need to know to pull that crap out, even with the automated programs. After he runs two or three apps, he opens up folders and goes recursively through them all, and selects what appear to be a random assortment of folders and files and deletes them. "All of this is spyware." These things are named in such a way as to look like they belong, and it's amazing that anyone can remember all the "bad" names from the good. That being said though, the PCs usually spend about 2 hours on the bench, mostly spent scanning while he works on another machine that needs more focus.
I'm the mac tech so I don't see the spyware first-hand but I know it keeps the PC tech pleanty busy. Most entertaining aspect of spyware: when one of the other employees uses the PC tech's PC to web browse, and he comes in to find popups on his own machine. hehe..
Then there are the oh... 1 in 15 customers that can bring in their machine every two weeks to have us remove the spyware, again. Some customers just can't get "don't click the popup's close button" through their head. There ought to be a simple law that states that "any software installer must clearly label the buttons and other control areas in their installer, such that there can be no confusion or deception as to the function of each control, whereas a user could be tricked into allowing the installation without his consent."
I was just thinking - this could be viewed from another angle as well. Imagine the owner of a new drive-in theatre, but he sets up no privacy fence along the back of his lot, which is exposed to a little cafe with outside seating. Lots of people come to the cafe each evening, and watch the show from there.
The drive-in owner gets pissed because people are obtaining a free service (entertainment) from him without his permission. It's possible to assume a dim bulb might not realize this is going to be a problem. There are privacy measures he can take (set up a fence) and should reasonably assume are required to insure his privacy. (you don't change into your swimsuit while standing by your pool in your back yard unless you have a privacy fence) In this respect you can say that a person's privacy is their own responsibility, and if they take no actions to enforce their privacy and it is violated, that it is their own fault.
Based on this argument, if I were hauled into court over accessing an open access point, the most important piece of evidence I would present would be the WAP's owner's manual. I would highlight the places in the booklet that described the security and privacy features available to the consumer, and highlight the places where it stated what the default behavior of the unit was. I believe this would be an adequate defense. If the consumer chooses to be ignorant about his property that is capable of interacting with the public, then they accept this interaction. Otherwise if they've read the manual and not used these privacy features, they have knowingly accepted the risk of having their privacy violated.
I was just fine-tuning the analogies being used here and have one of my own that's a little closer to the point.
Imagine your neighbor has a TV going loudly - he has cable TV and you do not. You hear a show playing you've been meaning to see. You yell over the fence, "mind if I come over and watch that show?" The neighbor's butler yells back, "Sure, come around through the gate.". You go over, sit down and enjoy the show. After the show is over, the owner shows up, and is PISSED because you are there.
The neighbor has not lost any property, but has been denied payment for a service he has performed. (providing you with entertainment) Unfortunately for the neighbor, you were allowed free access to the entertainment indirectly by the neighbor. The neighbor has no legal grounds against you because you were acting with permission of an agent of the neighbor. (the butler)
This is very similar to the issue of open access points. The wireless router being the butler that's been told to allow anyone that asks to be given free internet access. Just because you get upset that the currentl policy of your own access point bothers you does not give you free license to sue someone that has taken advantage of your offerings.
Looked at another way, if a store owner places a tray out in his grocery store labeled "free samples", and some kids come in and start eating the samples, the store owner has no right to prossicute the kids for theft just because it's not "what he intended". He has every right to change his mind and tell the kids to leave, but what's done is done. Give someone permission to do something, and you're just going to have to accept it when they've done it.
This second example has only one assumption to be made though... does an open access point imply a "free samples" sign? Surely we can agree it would not be the same if the tray was sitting in the store and did NOT have a "free samples" sign, surely anyone in the store would be apprehensive about taking something from the tray, and surely the store owner would have right to be upset if someone started snacking on his new display he was setting up. Unfortunataely, access points come from the factory open, and unedjucated consumers don't realize the door is open by default for the world, so they feel that their beliefs take precidence over their actions. This complicates the matter of assuming an open access point is intended to be a free access point, because it can't easily be said that most access points that are open are intended to be free. I'd be willing to bet that 90% of the open access points in my city would get closed if the owner realized I had free and unimpeded access to them. Given that simple reality, I realize that most laws are made to protect the majority, sometimes from their own stupidity.
Should accessing open wireless access points be illegal? That is a tough question for me to answer. I believe the 'free' sign cannot be assumed because the majority of WAP owners simply don't realize the WAP is open to all - this is not something that anyone can effectively argue against. This makes the open access point much more akin to the plate of what appear to be free samples in the grocery store, but with no sign saying "free samples". This places Joe Public on much more shakey legal ground if he digs in. It could then be assumed that the onus is on the public to determine whether they really are free samples before digging in, and if they eat some and then the store manager storms out and is pissed because you are eating his display, I believe it could be assumed he has a right to be upset.
The simplest way to clear this up is to ship WAPs with free access disabled, OR to ship all WAPs with a label taped over the power jack, saying THIS ACCESS POINT SHIPS FROM THE FACTORY WITH ALL SECURITY AND PRIVACY FEATURES DISABLED. UNLESS THIS CONFIGURATION IS CHANGED BY THE CONSUMER, ANY MEMBER OF THE PUBLIC THAT COMES WITHIN THE RANGE OF THIS DEVICE MAY HAVE UNRESTRICTED ACCESS TO YOUR INTERNET CONNECTION. With that in place, the onus then falls on the WAP owner to secure his access point, and we can more easily say the "free" sign is out on the WAP if it is left unprotected.
I don't know that I can entirely agree with that. When the courts become involved, companies become incredibly well-behaved. (they may not act legally before the courts are involved, but once the magnifying glass comes out, they straighten up usually) Individuals are less predictable that way. Again, likening it to a hostage situation, you never know what a despirate kidnapper might do - maybe he'll kill the hostage if he feels his advantage has disappeared? I think the judges may look at it the same way, considering the individual less predictable and possibly more "dangerous" in many respecs as a result. Companies usually act on their financial best interinst, but individuals can be more prone to things like revenge, and the judge will take that possibility into consideration.
What it all seems to boil down to is that the courts WILL trample on one person's rights in order to protect another person's rights. So in many cases, it's a matter of he who gets to the judge first wins.
Part of the problem is that with electronic data, specifically data that might be unique, is that there is a genuine risk that if you let a malicious person know you are going to try to take that unique information, that they might destroy it. It doesn't take much effort convince a judge to give someone a warrant if they lead him to belive that the victim has the only copy of precious data and is ready to erase it at a moment's notice. They'll paint it like a hostage situation, and judge/law will react accordingly - with a great deal of very sudden force, in an attempt to throw the victim off balance while they rescue the data, "just in case".
In some respects this method makes sense. Until you remember that it's wrong to infringe on the rights of one to protect the rights of another. Usually, if the ONLY way to guarantee the rights of one person is to infringe on the rights of another, they usually permit it, which is completely retarded.
I think the courts/police do it out of sense of duty... if they're presented with a scenario where they can either do nothing and risk one person being injured, or take action to protect that person and in doing so, injure another, they seem to prefer taking action. I think it's a matter of them simply wanting to take some action, trying to protect something, irrespectful of who gets trampled in the process.
I think most of us saw that in the last Star Wars movie, that's where you have like an astro-droid mounted in your er... space shuttle.
The article said the three points that were not met were "the thoughest"... ya, science fiction is rather tough to make come true.
Though I suppose when you're a committee making recommendations, you have to cover the entire spectrum. Start with the no-brainers that amount to "stop doing stupid things". Then comes the middle ground where most of the practical improvements are suggested. Lastly they have to round out the recommendations with some "mission impossible" suggestions. Force fields, warp drive, and in-flight auto repair systems go here.
Well yes, if you are in the minority that has a disadvantage, you'd be inclined to think you were deserving of all sorts of special considerations. That is what we would call a biased opinion.
Besides, if my vision issues continue at their present rate, I will be legally blind by 2015 or so. So maybe I have a more relevent opinion than you? If I end up losing my vision, I don't expect to continue to use a computer. That'd be stupid. That's like driving a unicycle to work - maybe you can do it, but it's not very efficient and doesn't make sense on a lot of levels.
Parapalegics don't use a stairmaster, deaf people don't use tape recorders. It just doesn't make sense for some people to use some things. You can always try, but it's folley, and I'm well within my right to point and giggle when someone tries to do something they have no business trying, and fails at, with complete predictably.
This doesn't have to apply to people with disabilities, but it can certainly include them as an example of people trying to do things any sensible person would say is a waste of time and effort.
I realize that blind or (and?!) dead people want to use a computer, but it's very possible that computers are just not a medium well-suited for them. We don't look for ways for blind people to drive cars. Maybe it's technologically possible, but it's not practical. There is probably no practical way for a blind person to use a computer with any degree of effectiveness. Maybe this is a waste of time trying to work on?
Flame away, but at least admit I have a point worth considering.
I just picked up a pair of 300gb seagates (5 yrs warranty) for under $145 ea. (and I was in a hurry, could have done better at Circuit City if I'd have been patient!) That's less than 50 cents/gb. That works out to what, $5.50 for that 11gb of data your digicam captures per hour. If you want to make sure you keep the data even barring drive failures, get drives in pairs like I do and mirror them. It's not the world's most efficient use of space, but it's very easy to maintain and highly resistant to failure. It also lets you store the data in two places, preventing total loss by fire or flood such as you might risk with a single raid-5. That would drive your cost up to about a buck a gig, but for "irreplaceable" data, that's not really out of line. Also, IDE HDs are much more likely to be technologically accessible 10 yrs from now than (name your backup tape media). It's already getting hard to find replacement tape drives for tapes that were made 6-8 yrs ago. Try to find a drive to read a low density DAT tape sometime - you can find them, but not in a hurry and not cheap.
Take one set of your hard drives and drop them in a safe deposit box. ($15/yr) Keep the others at home in case you need access to the data. Physically label your drives, and keep an index spreadsheet so you can find the clippings you need quickly. Record the drive ID, the filename, size, and a short description so you can find it quickly later. Keep two copies of this index - burn one to CD each time you drop off a new HD to the safe deposit box - losing this index file would make for a mound of work to rebuild.
DVDs are nice for price when taken one at a time, but at (only) 4.7gb each, the time you spend backing up 290gb of data (60 discs!) that could have just been a drag-and-drop to a mirror and go to the park with the kids for the afternoon, the savings in your own personal time add up and break the cost-savings of optical media. Then there's the issue of having to segment files > 4.7gb, and that just makes matters all the more complicated and wastes more of your valuable time. Never forget, your time is worth something.
The controller chips can limit speeds, (and in the cheaper models sometimes DO) but the main limiting factor is the flash memory chips themselves. If you hunt really hard, you can find speed specs on compactflash cards. The ones that are rated much faster cost a lot more than the standard ones. Finding a speed rating on a memory module is still about impossible though, so you either have to have read a review or you have to assume you're buying the slow stuff. I think it'll take a federal labeling law to get them to start telling what speed their flash runs at.
Slashdot Mirror
(foregoing mod pts...)
Basically that is the key - if you are a retailer/distributor and your fans are doing something you don't like... well it probably means you are NOT giving them what they want, or not how they want it. You CANNOT CHANGE what the fans want. Forcing them to settle for what you're offering just pisses them off. They are TELLING you what they want, and are usually very willing to pay you for it if only you offered it to them. Once you realize this, it becomes obvious what you must do.
The sad reality is that it's usually incredibly cheaper to deliver content the way people prefer it, which lowers your overhead and lowers your workload.
Proffit awaits the enlightened.
if MS would just make exploder work properly and not force web page developers to write custom HTML for each and every version of IE so things display consistently.
MS made this mess, and now they're freaking out because the whole world isn't going out of its way to cover for MS's mistakes.
You beat me to the post. +5 insightful all the way.
Once people get over their silly "I don't want a mac... just BECAUSE..." then reality closes in for the kill.
Not sure where you live, but assuming it's the USA...
you must not be a big believer in the Bill of Rights? I suppose we should just abolish that nonsense and say "if you don't like it here, get out."
Same effect. There are some rights that no one should be able to force you to surrender, for any reason.
There is one minor issue with that though - lets say burger king has pissed you off. "Don't eat at Burger King" - ok, that's reasonable, there's McDonalds, Wendy's, etc., you have the option to take your business elsewhere. There are other near-equivelent businesses to pick from.
Problem is when someone is offering a unique service or product. (and with the disgraceful state of our IP management laws nowadays this is happening a lot) Now say Disney pisses you off. Where else do you plan on taking the kids for spring break? Sure you can take them to see a different show, but if they want to see the mouse, you don't really have a choice now do you?
IP laws create "limited monopolies". Unfortunately, during this limiting time, they do indeed have a government-granted monopoly, and the consumer is at their mercy. (this is particularly bad with Walt Disney, that has a *congress*-granted *extended* "limited" monopoly - i.e. they probably have a "limited monopoly for life" on the mouse)
So you really don't have a good choice. Saying someone has a choice when they can either have what they want or have something that's not even close is not really a choice, it's more of a "like it or lump it" situation. Disneyland is a unique place, and as such there should be restrictions on what rights they can force you to give away to attend their unique attraction. But that's not likely to happen.
I hopped on board the USB flash drive bus fairly early, and am quite glad I'm rid of floppies. First was a pair of 64's. Then a 512. Then a 1gb. I currently tote around a 4gb SanDisk Cruzer Mini. Handy buggers, and the Cruzer Minis are very small profile and will not block adjacent USB ports like many of the other large capacity drives do.
The only disadvantage I run into occasionally is that the large capacity drives are almost always USB 2.0 "high speed", and register on the USB bus as a powered device. This means you can't plug them into the USB ports on a keyboard, or you'll get a low power / device disabled warning. It's fairly common to run into a computer with say, the keyboard in one port and the printer in the other built in port, so you have to unplug the printer to plug in the flash drive. Annoying if you're trying to grab a test image off the flash drive to print.
It'll be nice when they make those flash drives able to detect when plugged into an unpowered hub and can kick it down a notch to 2.0 "full speed" and still work.
Speeds on USB2.0HS ports are quite nice, easily getting 8-10mb/sec write speeds. Now if OS X could just get fixed so it can boot off USB, I'll make this bugger bootable too, and that will rock...
Why should they be able to make that illegal? The customer paid for that information, and entered into no agreement with the publisher about what they would or would not do with the information once they got it. The only implied agreement is copyright. Critique/review is not covered against by copyright. If the injunction itself makes this illegal, then the judge that gave out the injunction should be smacked because the judge has no place enforcing the secrecy of the plot in a book.
I don't see how they can possibly do anything to the people who bought the book. (besides attempt to bribe them) It was legally sold to them, in good faith, with no agreement of any kind, other than "you give me book, I give you money." Even if they did have your name from a credit card recipt, they shouldn't be able to to jack about it, and if they tried, they should be on the receiving end of a harassment lawsuit.
The only ones legally liable are the stores that sold copies early, who have broken a written agreement with the publisher. (they should...er... get the book thrown at them?)
Strange, at nasa's nasatv page they list links for flash, realplayer, wmp, and quicktime. I can't see any use for the quicktime, as the nasatv appears to only be on realplayer and wmp. Is there really a quicktime link buried somewhere, or is that quicktime download link irrelevent?
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html
Assuming nobody manages to get ahold of an early copy, the book will be scanned and posted within an hour of the midnight release date. Does a few hours really make a difference? Is it a big enough difference to justify all the added costs? (though they probably just pass on the costs to us...)
What has you chained to your firewall?"
My firewall? (Oh, do you mean my macintosh?)
I tried a subscription, sent in my cheque. Months go by, cheque not cashed, no mags. I try to call them... has anybody found their phone number? So I email them. They say they never got the cheque. So I send another. Poof, instantly both cheques are cashed, ON THE SAME DAY. Pissed, I email them. Every email I send goes absolutely ignored by Wired, including an attempt to cancel my subscription. So I suffered through two years of Wired. Can't say as I found anything worthwhile in there the whole time. They sent me renewal notices which I ignored just like they ignored me.
As far as I can tell, Wired is just a group of scammers.
true, but unfortunate. Most people and most politicians that run into a law that is not doing its job immediately assume that the law is too weak, and they stiffen it. In reality, the problem is usually a lack of proper enforcement. So what you end up with is a law that is still not being properly enforced, though the terms of the law have become so broad that, should they really WANT to enforce the law, they could arrest half the country and successfully prossecute a quarter.
A bus carrying a load of politicians ran off a cliff. What was the trajedy? There were two empty seats.
The only way to "safely" close a popup is to go to the task bar and close it from the popup menu. "Close" buttons, "Cancel" buttons, "OK" buttons, and sometimes even the little "x" in the upper corner of the window are all javascript buttons. Clicking any of them (or anywhere in the window, really, it's usually just one big "install" button) will trigger an installation of malware.
If the window doesn't have a presense in the menu bar below, (most do, fortunately) you have to force-quit it.
We must be giving our customers quite a deal - most of our service is covered in 1 hour's time, $80.25 w/tax. I've watched our PC tech clean up computers on several occasions, and it astounds me how much you really need to know to pull that crap out, even with the automated programs. After he runs two or three apps, he opens up folders and goes recursively through them all, and selects what appear to be a random assortment of folders and files and deletes them. "All of this is spyware." These things are named in such a way as to look like they belong, and it's amazing that anyone can remember all the "bad" names from the good. That being said though, the PCs usually spend about 2 hours on the bench, mostly spent scanning while he works on another machine that needs more focus.
I'm the mac tech so I don't see the spyware first-hand but I know it keeps the PC tech pleanty busy. Most entertaining aspect of spyware: when one of the other employees uses the PC tech's PC to web browse, and he comes in to find popups on his own machine. hehe..
Then there are the oh... 1 in 15 customers that can bring in their machine every two weeks to have us remove the spyware, again. Some customers just can't get "don't click the popup's close button" through their head. There ought to be a simple law that states that "any software installer must clearly label the buttons and other control areas in their installer, such that there can be no confusion or deception as to the function of each control, whereas a user could be tricked into allowing the installation without his consent."
Following up on my own post...
I was just thinking - this could be viewed from another angle as well. Imagine the owner of a new drive-in theatre, but he sets up no privacy fence along the back of his lot, which is exposed to a little cafe with outside seating. Lots of people come to the cafe each evening, and watch the show from there.
The drive-in owner gets pissed because people are obtaining a free service (entertainment) from him without his permission. It's possible to assume a dim bulb might not realize this is going to be a problem. There are privacy measures he can take (set up a fence) and should reasonably assume are required to insure his privacy. (you don't change into your swimsuit while standing by your pool in your back yard unless you have a privacy fence) In this respect you can say that a person's privacy is their own responsibility, and if they take no actions to enforce their privacy and it is violated, that it is their own fault.
Based on this argument, if I were hauled into court over accessing an open access point, the most important piece of evidence I would present would be the WAP's owner's manual. I would highlight the places in the booklet that described the security and privacy features available to the consumer, and highlight the places where it stated what the default behavior of the unit was. I believe this would be an adequate defense. If the consumer chooses to be ignorant about his property that is capable of interacting with the public, then they accept this interaction. Otherwise if they've read the manual and not used these privacy features, they have knowingly accepted the risk of having their privacy violated.
I was just fine-tuning the analogies being used here and have one of my own that's a little closer to the point.
Imagine your neighbor has a TV going loudly - he has cable TV and you do not. You hear a show playing you've been meaning to see. You yell over the fence, "mind if I come over and watch that show?" The neighbor's butler yells back, "Sure, come around through the gate.". You go over, sit down and enjoy the show. After the show is over, the owner shows up, and is PISSED because you are there.
The neighbor has not lost any property, but has been denied payment for a service he has performed. (providing you with entertainment) Unfortunately for the neighbor, you were allowed free access to the entertainment indirectly by the neighbor. The neighbor has no legal grounds against you because you were acting with permission of an agent of the neighbor. (the butler)
This is very similar to the issue of open access points. The wireless router being the butler that's been told to allow anyone that asks to be given free internet access. Just because you get upset that the currentl policy of your own access point bothers you does not give you free license to sue someone that has taken advantage of your offerings.
Looked at another way, if a store owner places a tray out in his grocery store labeled "free samples", and some kids come in and start eating the samples, the store owner has no right to prossicute the kids for theft just because it's not "what he intended". He has every right to change his mind and tell the kids to leave, but what's done is done. Give someone permission to do something, and you're just going to have to accept it when they've done it.
This second example has only one assumption to be made though... does an open access point imply a "free samples" sign? Surely we can agree it would not be the same if the tray was sitting in the store and did NOT have a "free samples" sign, surely anyone in the store would be apprehensive about taking something from the tray, and surely the store owner would have right to be upset if someone started snacking on his new display he was setting up. Unfortunataely, access points come from the factory open, and unedjucated consumers don't realize the door is open by default for the world, so they feel that their beliefs take precidence over their actions. This complicates the matter of assuming an open access point is intended to be a free access point, because it can't easily be said that most access points that are open are intended to be free. I'd be willing to bet that 90% of the open access points in my city would get closed if the owner realized I had free and unimpeded access to them. Given that simple reality, I realize that most laws are made to protect the majority, sometimes from their own stupidity.
Should accessing open wireless access points be illegal? That is a tough question for me to answer. I believe the 'free' sign cannot be assumed because the majority of WAP owners simply don't realize the WAP is open to all - this is not something that anyone can effectively argue against. This makes the open access point much more akin to the plate of what appear to be free samples in the grocery store, but with no sign saying "free samples". This places Joe Public on much more shakey legal ground if he digs in. It could then be assumed that the onus is on the public to determine whether they really are free samples before digging in, and if they eat some and then the store manager storms out and is pissed because you are eating his display, I believe it could be assumed he has a right to be upset.
The simplest way to clear this up is to ship WAPs with free access disabled, OR to ship all WAPs with a label taped over the power jack, saying THIS ACCESS POINT SHIPS FROM THE FACTORY WITH ALL SECURITY AND PRIVACY FEATURES DISABLED. UNLESS THIS CONFIGURATION IS CHANGED BY THE CONSUMER, ANY MEMBER OF THE PUBLIC THAT COMES WITHIN THE RANGE OF THIS DEVICE MAY HAVE UNRESTRICTED ACCESS TO YOUR INTERNET CONNECTION. With that in place, the onus then falls on the WAP owner to secure his access point, and we can more easily say the "free" sign is out on the WAP if it is left unprotected.
Just musing, will http://thepiratebay.org/ even care about this? They tend to take a pleasantly flippant attitude toward things like this...
I don't know that I can entirely agree with that. When the courts become involved, companies become incredibly well-behaved. (they may not act legally before the courts are involved, but once the magnifying glass comes out, they straighten up usually) Individuals are less predictable that way. Again, likening it to a hostage situation, you never know what a despirate kidnapper might do - maybe he'll kill the hostage if he feels his advantage has disappeared? I think the judges may look at it the same way, considering the individual less predictable and possibly more "dangerous" in many respecs as a result. Companies usually act on their financial best interinst, but individuals can be more prone to things like revenge, and the judge will take that possibility into consideration.
What it all seems to boil down to is that the courts WILL trample on one person's rights in order to protect another person's rights. So in many cases, it's a matter of he who gets to the judge first wins.
Part of the problem is that with electronic data, specifically data that might be unique, is that there is a genuine risk that if you let a malicious person know you are going to try to take that unique information, that they might destroy it. It doesn't take much effort convince a judge to give someone a warrant if they lead him to belive that the victim has the only copy of precious data and is ready to erase it at a moment's notice. They'll paint it like a hostage situation, and judge/law will react accordingly - with a great deal of very sudden force, in an attempt to throw the victim off balance while they rescue the data, "just in case".
In some respects this method makes sense. Until you remember that it's wrong to infringe on the rights of one to protect the rights of another. Usually, if the ONLY way to guarantee the rights of one person is to infringe on the rights of another, they usually permit it, which is completely retarded.
I think the courts/police do it out of sense of duty... if they're presented with a scenario where they can either do nothing and risk one person being injured, or take action to protect that person and in doing so, injure another, they seem to prefer taking action. I think it's a matter of them simply wanting to take some action, trying to protect something, irrespectful of who gets trampled in the process.
I think most of us saw that in the last Star Wars movie, that's where you have like an astro-droid mounted in your er... space shuttle.
The article said the three points that were not met were "the thoughest"... ya, science fiction is rather tough to make come true.
Though I suppose when you're a committee making recommendations, you have to cover the entire spectrum. Start with the no-brainers that amount to "stop doing stupid things". Then comes the middle ground where most of the practical improvements are suggested. Lastly they have to round out the recommendations with some "mission impossible" suggestions. Force fields, warp drive, and in-flight auto repair systems go here.
Well yes, if you are in the minority that has a disadvantage, you'd be inclined to think you were deserving of all sorts of special considerations. That is what we would call a biased opinion.
Besides, if my vision issues continue at their present rate, I will be legally blind by 2015 or so. So maybe I have a more relevent opinion than you? If I end up losing my vision, I don't expect to continue to use a computer. That'd be stupid. That's like driving a unicycle to work - maybe you can do it, but it's not very efficient and doesn't make sense on a lot of levels.
Parapalegics don't use a stairmaster, deaf people don't use tape recorders. It just doesn't make sense for some people to use some things. You can always try, but it's folley, and I'm well within my right to point and giggle when someone tries to do something they have no business trying, and fails at, with complete predictably.
This doesn't have to apply to people with disabilities, but it can certainly include them as an example of people trying to do things any sensible person would say is a waste of time and effort.
I realize that blind or (and?!) dead people want to use a computer, but it's very possible that computers are just not a medium well-suited for them. We don't look for ways for blind people to drive cars. Maybe it's technologically possible, but it's not practical. There is probably no practical way for a blind person to use a computer with any degree of effectiveness. Maybe this is a waste of time trying to work on?
Flame away, but at least admit I have a point worth considering.
I just picked up a pair of 300gb seagates (5 yrs warranty) for under $145 ea. (and I was in a hurry, could have done better at Circuit City if I'd have been patient!) That's less than 50 cents/gb. That works out to what, $5.50 for that 11gb of data your digicam captures per hour. If you want to make sure you keep the data even barring drive failures, get drives in pairs like I do and mirror them. It's not the world's most efficient use of space, but it's very easy to maintain and highly resistant to failure. It also lets you store the data in two places, preventing total loss by fire or flood such as you might risk with a single raid-5. That would drive your cost up to about a buck a gig, but for "irreplaceable" data, that's not really out of line. Also, IDE HDs are much more likely to be technologically accessible 10 yrs from now than (name your backup tape media). It's already getting hard to find replacement tape drives for tapes that were made 6-8 yrs ago. Try to find a drive to read a low density DAT tape sometime - you can find them, but not in a hurry and not cheap.
Take one set of your hard drives and drop them in a safe deposit box. ($15/yr) Keep the others at home in case you need access to the data. Physically label your drives, and keep an index spreadsheet so you can find the clippings you need quickly. Record the drive ID, the filename, size, and a short description so you can find it quickly later. Keep two copies of this index - burn one to CD each time you drop off a new HD to the safe deposit box - losing this index file would make for a mound of work to rebuild.
DVDs are nice for price when taken one at a time, but at (only) 4.7gb each, the time you spend backing up 290gb of data (60 discs!) that could have just been a drag-and-drop to a mirror and go to the park with the kids for the afternoon, the savings in your own personal time add up and break the cost-savings of optical media. Then there's the issue of having to segment files > 4.7gb, and that just makes matters all the more complicated and wastes more of your valuable time. Never forget, your time is worth something.
The controller chips can limit speeds, (and in the cheaper models sometimes DO) but the main limiting factor is the flash memory chips themselves. If you hunt really hard, you can find speed specs on compactflash cards. The ones that are rated much faster cost a lot more than the standard ones. Finding a speed rating on a memory module is still about impossible though, so you either have to have read a review or you have to assume you're buying the slow stuff. I think it'll take a federal labeling law to get them to start telling what speed their flash runs at.