Surely you could at least just reformat the harddrive?
Throwing out the whole PC seems a bit excessive..
A reformated hard drive doesn't come with a warranty, a new computer does, plus, depending on what computer you buy, some other stuff might be upgraded (though I'm not sure about this in the $400 range).
Does this mean that the actions that the MPAA took against sites like LokiTorrent, EliteTorrents, and TorrentSpy, are now invalid? After all, the sites only offered lists of material avaiable; any downloading of copyrighted content was done by individual users, not the websites.
It seems that virus writers have gotten even lower-simply destroying your work wasn't enough, now they hold it ramsom. I hope that they follow the money trail to this scum, and hit him with not only computer crime charges, but extortion charges.
If the software library is weak, it doesn't matter how powerful the console itself is (N64 anyone?). In my case, I'm most interested in RPGs. The PS2 had more of them than the Xbox, so I got a PS2, even though the Xbox was more powerful. Now, with Square going to the Xbox 360, it's possible that there will be more RPGs for the 360 than the PS3. In that case, I'll go with the 360, no matter how much more powerful the PS3 is.
I'm an RPG fan. Now that Square's going for the Xbox 360, will other RPG makers follow suit? RPGs were one area in which the Xbox was weaker than the PS2.
I agree with this decision. It is not the state's business whether or not I get my wine from a liquor store or over the Internet. Despite their talk about sales to minors, the real concern of people who supported the bans on out of state direct shipments (and now all direct shipments) was/is the bottom line of wholesalers and liquor store owners.
The percentage of people that do that (along with the number of people that make a sandwich or go to the bathroom) is factored into their 'numbers of eyeballs' calculations. The advertisers, networks, and media survey people have surveys and stats on this going back decades.
So redo the calculation, this time taking into account the number of people who download.
If the EFF offered its own course in Intellectual Property, would the Boy Scouts accept completion of that course as meeting the requirements for getting this merit badge?
How is towns offering WiFi different from towns offering garbage pickup, or electricity, or water, or cable? In each case, the town decides to go with one company or another, but it could choose to provide the serivce by itself.
Go a week without using a shell. Easier said than done.
I don't think I could manage that even on Windows. I use the Windows command prompt almost every day. The difference is that I can do more at the Linux command line. Everything is scriptable. In Windows, I'm simply out of luck from time to time.
I use Windows, and I almost never have to use the command prompt. At most, I use it once or twice a month, to do pings and traceroutes.
Crime is the business of the *police* (gee, it's STILL the business of the *police* in cyberspace, imagine that), not of any common carrier, business association, or individual.
True, but copyright infringment is a civil offence, not a criminal one (I agree with you that it's not the business of the ISP, though).
From the article:
In the UK, ISPA's not happy about the growing pressure. "ISPs have obligations to protect the privacy of their subscribers," said ISPA's man. "This could be seen as the thin end of the wedge to get access to everyone's organisation. But these suggestions are impossible and impractical." The idea of blocking access where someone is using a lot of bandwidth just doesn't work. What if they're using a webcam? Or voice over internet? They all use similar ports as some of the file-sharing systems. There's no real way of determining whether just because someone's using a lot of bandwidth that they're contravening copyright."
As for banning access to P2P services, ISPA's position - and remember, they'll make this next Monday - is that "it's important not to criminalise the technology. There are people who misuse the internet; that doesn't mean that you shut down the Net."
In the UK they have a data protection act which restricts personal data from going outside their country. The U.S. would be wise to adopt such a policy.
Well, there are some foreign countries that have decent protection laws against stuff like this (like, I'm guessing, the UK). Companies shouldn't be penalized for using data services there. Rather, I think that penalities should only apply when a company sends its customers' data to countries with lax personal data protection. The penality I propose is a 50% tax on their earnings, used to help victims of ID theft.
You get what you pay for. Do you honestly think that somebody could actually go unpunished doing what the Pakistani woman did with confidential medical records in the US? Offshoring has turned into a race to the bottom. I think that companies that put their customers' information at risk by sending it to places with lax privacy laws should be subject to a tax of 50% of their total earnings. The funds of this tax will be used to help ID theft vitctims get their lives back together.
Just because something's not equal to murder doesn't mean it's not a serious crime. These people did something that could have resulted in the loss of millions of dollars. They deserve to be punished for that. Or maybe demanding that theives be punished is simply my American arrogance.
Until Linux is a simple grandmother-friendly install, desktop Linux is going to stay in the ghetto, restricted to people who don't panic at the words "patch and recompile the kernel."
I can't speak for every slashdotter, but I was thinking of phishers in this post. These people cheat others out of their life savings. Copyright infringers, on the other hand, make some exec buy the $20,000 yacht instead of the $25,000 one. Phishers are deserving of a more severe punishment.
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A reformated hard drive doesn't come with a warranty, a new computer does, plus, depending on what computer you buy, some other stuff might be upgraded (though I'm not sure about this in the $400 range).
Does this mean that the actions that the MPAA took against sites like LokiTorrent, EliteTorrents, and TorrentSpy, are now invalid? After all, the sites only offered lists of material avaiable; any downloading of copyrighted content was done by individual users, not the websites.
I think this is directed to the people who sell pirated DVDs on the street, not P2P users.
It seems that virus writers have gotten even lower-simply destroying your work wasn't enough, now they hold it ramsom. I hope that they follow the money trail to this scum, and hit him with not only computer crime charges, but extortion charges.
I think one of the articles says the DS outsold the PSP.
Third party support.
Where is it?
If the software library is weak, it doesn't matter how powerful the console itself is (N64 anyone?). In my case, I'm most interested in RPGs. The PS2 had more of them than the Xbox, so I got a PS2, even though the Xbox was more powerful. Now, with Square going to the Xbox 360, it's possible that there will be more RPGs for the 360 than the PS3. In that case, I'll go with the 360, no matter how much more powerful the PS3 is.
I'm an RPG fan. Now that Square's going for the Xbox 360, will other RPG makers follow suit? RPGs were one area in which the Xbox was weaker than the PS2.
I agree with this decision. It is not the state's business whether or not I get my wine from a liquor store or over the Internet. Despite their talk about sales to minors, the real concern of people who supported the bans on out of state direct shipments (and now all direct shipments) was/is the bottom line of wholesalers and liquor store owners.
So redo the calculation, this time taking into account the number of people who download.
If the EFF offered its own course in Intellectual Property, would the Boy Scouts accept completion of that course as meeting the requirements for getting this merit badge?
I think that getting federal time for basically making a copy of something is extremly Draconian. Hell, getting any time for that is Draconian.
How is towns offering WiFi different from towns offering garbage pickup, or electricity, or water, or cable? In each case, the town decides to go with one company or another, but it could choose to provide the serivce by itself.
I don't think I could manage that even on Windows. I use the Windows command prompt almost every day. The difference is that I can do more at the Linux command line. Everything is scriptable. In Windows, I'm simply out of luck from time to time.
I use Windows, and I almost never have to use the command prompt. At most, I use it once or twice a month, to do pings and traceroutes.
Hell, VLC's less arcane than Windows Media Player-no need for codecs!
True, but copyright infringment is a civil offence, not a criminal one (I agree with you that it's not the business of the ISP, though).
From the article: In the UK, ISPA's not happy about the growing pressure. "ISPs have obligations to protect the privacy of their subscribers," said ISPA's man. "This could be seen as the thin end of the wedge to get access to everyone's organisation. But these suggestions are impossible and impractical." The idea of blocking access where someone is using a lot of bandwidth just doesn't work. What if they're using a webcam? Or voice over internet? They all use similar ports as some of the file-sharing systems. There's no real way of determining whether just because someone's using a lot of bandwidth that they're contravening copyright."
As for banning access to P2P services, ISPA's position - and remember, they'll make this next Monday - is that "it's important not to criminalise the technology. There are people who misuse the internet; that doesn't mean that you shut down the Net."
Because, as stated in the article, it is more difficult to apprehend the offenders when they live in foreign countries.
Well, there are some foreign countries that have decent protection laws against stuff like this (like, I'm guessing, the UK). Companies shouldn't be penalized for using data services there. Rather, I think that penalities should only apply when a company sends its customers' data to countries with lax personal data protection. The penality I propose is a 50% tax on their earnings, used to help victims of ID theft.
You get what you pay for.
Do you honestly think that somebody could actually go unpunished doing what the Pakistani woman did with confidential medical records in the US? Offshoring has turned into a race to the bottom. I think that companies that put their customers' information at risk by sending it to places with lax privacy laws should be subject to a tax of 50% of their total earnings. The funds of this tax will be used to help ID theft vitctims get their lives back together.
Just because something's not equal to murder doesn't mean it's not a serious crime. These people did something that could have resulted in the loss of millions of dollars. They deserve to be punished for that. Or maybe demanding that theives be punished is simply my American arrogance.
Wire fraud is not a serious crime?
Just pick one type of time (DST or standard) and stick to it?
I can't speak for every slashdotter, but I was thinking of phishers in this post. These people cheat others out of their life savings. Copyright infringers, on the other hand, make some exec buy the $20,000 yacht instead of the $25,000 one. Phishers are deserving of a more severe punishment.