It's interesting to see a scientific discussion of it. I live in England. As much as the tech companies of the US might tempt me, I could never work there because of (a) their laws, (b) their police, and (c) their food (:-p)
Is the UK good enough? I don't know. I follow the UK parliament legislation reasonably carefully, and I've not found anything that I could seriously critisize. Everything there is quite well thought-out.
I am looking at somewhere else to work though. Maybe Norway, maybe French Canada, maybe France. Does anyone (ask slashdot, ooooh!) have much experience of countries they would consider to be "free" as we understand the word?
The easy answer, the rest of the world will be laughing at you dumb americans who will have allowed the scssa to have been passed. We have mobile phones, encryption, and the BBC, so neeeh!
The real answer is that we're funding the EFF at this very moment, so scared are we of what the US government is trying to do to the electronic systems of the world. I'll never be able to match the $10,000 that the movie industry "donated" to every single senator, but we do realise what's going on in America, and we are doing everything we can to stop it.
You'd be *extremely* worried to know how far that argument set-back the rail industry.;-)
Why does Kingston upon Thames not have a mainline railway station? Because the stagecoach industry thought it would threaten them. The horses are long-gone, but we still don't have a proper railway station.
Those who embraced the new technology got the benefit of it. Those who were defensive about it lost out.
That would be the greek democracy system (i.e. the original, and the origin of the word democracy)
"Holding office encourages people to abuse the power. Therefore, juries, judges, presidents, and senators are chosen at random from the eligible population, and the length of time they serve is inversely proportional to the power they hold"
If you think about it, it's similar to SlashDot moderation, but with people who take it more seriously, and it's actually a pretty good system.
Hint: When you want to estimate the losses due to piracy, take the following steps:
(a) See how many people use it in a small group
(b) Extrapolate to the entire population of several countrues
(c) Multiply by the retail cost of your software
(d) (optional) Don't show this as a "loss" on your balance sheet. It's still "theft" and "piracy" but your shareholders don't need to know about the "money" it's costing you.
Yes, I know it doesn't make sense. Who are you going to complain to?
[Because Adobe will no longer spend money translating it to Chineese (800 billion speakers)]
Am I the only one who thinks so, or is Adobe Acrobat really shite? Everyone keeps telling me that "it's open-format, it's really great", but:
(a) Their page-down/arrow-down buttons are the wrong way around
(b) It's terrible to try and read a PDF document from the screen. Reams of paper and tens of ink-cartriges, anyone?
(c) It's just generally shite.
Am I just missing something? Will it be any better when I go to linux?
Why does something like this get modded-down? Is it off-topic? NO! Is it illegal or flame-bait? NO! So STFU and let people speak when they want to. Moderation is to filter out spam, not people trying to talk.
How about violating human rights? 1/100 people in the US are in prison, this rises to 1/30 for black people. They are the only "civilised" country to kill people, they've just introduced extra-judicial "summary courts", they've just imprisoned tens of people on no charge, without even disclosing who or why, and Amnesty International has a list as long as your arm of other human rights violations in the USA.
And don't forget they refused to overturn the convictions of those defended by a "constistantly unconscious" lawyer. Who needs 'em to be awake anyway? They're only defending poor people.
(p.s. This isn't an anti-american rant, just anti-american-law.)
Yeah, and the company that makes cracking tools for windows' passwords (i.e. elcomsoft) recently had one of their programmers arrested in the US for the trouble.
A Russian, no less. Good to see the international kidnapping phase of our relationship with Russia is over.
They used windows encryption? If I was working for an Arab government, I sure wouldn't want proprietry encryption from Microsoft, especially not when PGP is free. (Get it off P2P, or an anonymiser if the website blocks you)
Actually, I found that reading their court filings gives a really good insight into the various legal issues - they need to explain it well for the benefit of the jury.
Welcome to the dark ages of software, Mike. Our computers are fortresses, my security arrangements multiply daily, as do the attacks on them. We've long since stopped trusting the next town, or anyone we don't personally know. The raging tribes of lawyers, hostile programmers, hostile laws, and hostile programs are throwing themselves against our defences.
The guy claims, he's gonna be charged an extra $8 million for upgrading everyone to the new office?
Just think what sort of an OpenOffice you could buy for that money. That would pay 30 programmers for 2 years, and once that money was spent, you could have as many copies as you like.
Slashdot Mirror
Adobe? These are the people whose PDF files can be cracked in minutes-hours by the "Ultimate PDF password recovery program" (search Elcomsoft)
;-) )
Hmmm. And guess who got imprisoned for the trouble. It seems that the US don't like Mr. Skylarov's pointing out how flawed Adobe's encryption is...
(That's their theory. It's more likely that Skylarov was a genius
It's interesting to see a scientific discussion of it. I live in England. As much as the tech companies of the US might tempt me, I could never work there because of (a) their laws, (b) their police, and (c) their food (:-p)
Is the UK good enough? I don't know. I follow the UK parliament legislation reasonably carefully, and I've not found anything that I could seriously critisize. Everything there is quite well thought-out.
I am looking at somewhere else to work though. Maybe Norway, maybe French Canada, maybe France. Does anyone (ask slashdot, ooooh!) have much experience of countries they would consider to be "free" as we understand the word?
The easy answer, the rest of the world will be laughing at you dumb americans who will have allowed the scssa to have been passed. We have mobile phones, encryption, and the BBC, so neeeh!
The real answer is that we're funding the EFF at this very moment, so scared are we of what the US government is trying to do to the electronic systems of the world. I'll never be able to match the $10,000 that the movie industry "donated" to every single senator, but we do realise what's going on in America, and we are doing everything we can to stop it.
You'd be *extremely* worried to know how far that argument set-back the rail industry. ;-)
Why does Kingston upon Thames not have a mainline railway station? Because the stagecoach industry thought it would threaten them. The horses are long-gone, but we still don't have a proper railway station.
Those who embraced the new technology got the benefit of it. Those who were defensive about it lost out.
That would be the greek democracy system (i.e. the original, and the origin of the word democracy)
"Holding office encourages people to abuse the power. Therefore, juries, judges, presidents, and senators are chosen at random from the eligible population, and the length of time they serve is inversely proportional to the power they hold"
If you think about it, it's similar to SlashDot moderation, but with people who take it more seriously, and it's actually a pretty good system.
Hint: When you want to estimate the losses due to piracy, take the following steps:
(a) See how many people use it in a small group
(b) Extrapolate to the entire population of several countrues
(c) Multiply by the retail cost of your software
(d) (optional) Don't show this as a "loss" on your balance sheet. It's still "theft" and "piracy" but your shareholders don't need to know about the "money" it's costing you.
Yes, I know it doesn't make sense. Who are you going to complain to?
[Because Adobe will no longer spend money translating it to Chineese (800 billion speakers)]
Am I the only one who thinks so, or is Adobe Acrobat really shite? Everyone keeps telling me that "it's open-format, it's really great", but:
(a) Their page-down/arrow-down buttons are the wrong way around
(b) It's terrible to try and read a PDF document from the screen. Reams of paper and tens of ink-cartriges, anyone?
(c) It's just generally shite.
Am I just missing something? Will it be any better when I go to linux?
Ok then, can I bring up the example of Burma. In Burma, everything is illegal (political parties, unlicensed companies, opposing the government)
But also, illegal things are okay. Stealing is okay. Corruption is okay. Military force is okay. False imprisonment is okay.
In the words of Scott Adams:
"Can I see this alleged list of things which are illegal?"
"Well, It's not so much a list, as a philosophy"
So how does this compare? Do we expect the CSA to go this way eventually?
(* Corporate states of America. It's not quite in common usage yet, but it's getting there!)
No, greed does not kill.
Greed creates absolute power. Absolute power creates absolute corruption.
If you don't like it, join a religion.
So will the unions release their music on P2P, now the "hated middleman" is no longer needed?
I used to listen to music, and buy tapes/CDs of the bands I liked. I'd be more than happy to download music, and donate the $20 to bands I liked.
"Thanks for the music, and for sharing it"
Why does something like this get modded-down? Is it off-topic? NO! Is it illegal or flame-bait? NO! So STFU and let people speak when they want to. Moderation is to filter out spam, not people trying to talk.
2 milennia ago, they had the REAL olympics, on Olympia.
Slashdot, "The official geek news site of the 2002 Olympic Games"
Wonder how much that would cost?
How about violating human rights? 1/100 people in the US are in prison, this rises to 1/30 for black people. They are the only "civilised" country to kill people, they've just introduced extra-judicial "summary courts", they've just imprisoned tens of people on no charge, without even disclosing who or why, and Amnesty International has a list as long as your arm of other human rights violations in the USA.
And don't forget they refused to overturn the convictions of those defended by a "constistantly unconscious" lawyer. Who needs 'em to be awake anyway? They're only defending poor people.
(p.s. This isn't an anti-american rant, just anti-american-law.)
Yeah, and the company that makes cracking tools for windows' passwords (i.e. elcomsoft) recently had one of their programmers arrested in the US for the trouble.
A Russian, no less. Good to see the international kidnapping phase of our relationship with Russia is over.
You mean, along the lines of:
;-)
"Take Windows.exe, start at the 13,200'th byte, and use this as a one-time pad"
Voilá, strong encryption for little or no effort. No export controls, and best of all, an innoculous-looking codepad.
Well, maybe not so innoculous, but that's another context
They used windows encryption? If I was working for an Arab government, I sure wouldn't want proprietry encryption from Microsoft, especially not when PGP is free. (Get it off P2P, or an anonymiser if the website blocks you)
Actually, I found that reading their court filings gives a really good insight into the various legal issues - they need to explain it well for the benefit of the jury.
The introduction to EFF is here
Ah, but they're not planning to solve this by changing the software. They're planning to solve this by changing the dump trucks. read about it ;-)
Welcome to the dark ages of software, Mike. Our computers are fortresses, my security arrangements multiply daily, as do the attacks on them. We've long since stopped trusting the next town, or anyone we don't personally know. The raging tribes of lawyers, hostile programmers, hostile laws, and hostile programs are throwing themselves against our defences.
How long until the renaissance?
The guy claims, he's gonna be charged an extra $8 million for upgrading everyone to the new office?
Just think what sort of an OpenOffice you could buy for that money. That would pay 30 programmers for 2 years, and once that money was spent, you could have as many copies as you like.
So what are they going to do to us if we take one of these CDs to Iraq?
Maybe we can post some CDs from France to Burma, just so we can call ourselves "international arms dealers".
Would you be interested in working on a P2P where a group of 20 friends can bounce HTTP requests through each others' IP addresses?
Kinda' like the privacy-added browser the hackers were supposed to be working on last year, but with the lovely people from slashdot to help?
Let me know, it's just an idea at the moment
Spyware for phones, anyone?
If you're interested in how much the computer industry pay to senators, you can read about it here