If you're upset by kiddie porn, then treat the problem.
And how exactly do you propose that governments go about doing that?
Because I assure you, they'd be very interested in the answer.
Find the people who MAKE it. That's when the damage is done, and the crimes are committed. If some people enjoy looking at such images, that may be repulsive, but no body is getting hurt. If you want to ban that, why allow gore and splatter movies and serial killer novels? Or disturbing (to your) news photos?
Catching sad lonely guys who whack off over images on their PCs does absolutely nothing except make the cops feel they've done something. "500 arrested in Internet pedophile bust" makes a great headline. And except for destroying the lives of the 500, is nothing more than that.
It's exactly like most responses to terrorism, (harassing Muslims, confiscating nail scissors and shampoo) completely futile in addressing the real dangers, while creating immense collateral damage.
"I have no food in the freezer, and I was laid-off from work, so now I have no money to buy food."
Assuming for a moment this is true, in the USA you have welfare, food stamps, not to mention numerous charities. You will NOT starve. It is NOT a "matter of survival". You may lose your dignity. You may lose your broadband access. You may lose your car. You will NOT lose your life.
"I have no food in the freezer, and I was laid-off from work, so now I have no money to buy food." Get it now? NOW do you understand why the word survival is appropriate?
Are you talking about yourself? I somehow doubt it. If so, why are you wasting time on Slashdot and not looking for a way to feed your family?
No need to be insulting. I don't get my news from Fox. They're good at serial dramas, but that's the limit. Mostly I listen to the BBC World Service for news. After hearing what's going on in Zimbabwe, Georgia, etc, hearing First Worlders blathering about "survival" because they had to take a service sector job elicits no sympathy. My own situation is not cheerful, but I don't talk about it as if it was life and death. I may be broke, but I can still eat (and go online).
Now the resulting global economic contraction is "just" a downturn? Do you see the pattern emerging here?
I said it's "just" an economic downturn. NOT a matter of "survival". Tell me how it puts your life at risk, and I might agree "survival" is appropriate.
When I was laid-off during the 1999-2000 dot-com crash, "survival" was the appropriate term to use. I even got a job at the local store just to cover my bills.
Oh please, "survival" is about actual risks to your life, not your lifestyle. Don't confuse metaphors with reality.
And again, working at a store probably gives you plenty of time to think (while you're stacking shelves or whatever), and unless you're doing lots of overtinme, plenty of time to code.
Therefore they might not be able to pay their bills, and their priority will be survival, not opensource programming.
"Survival"? Over-dramatising, I think. It's an economic downturn, not Armageddon, plague, pestilence and firestorms.
And even during the worst disasters and wars, people still create art, literature, do maths, compose poetry. Writing software? Why not? It's a lot cheaper way to spend your evenings than going out to a bar. (Not that bars are in any danger either.)
Apologies, I really did think you were a fictional construct. I'm just a cynical bastard.
As a computer hobbyist I'd like to cordially invite you to GTFO of slashdot for even thinking I wouldn't want 'such a frankenstein jobby one at home'. Are you insane?
So are you saying you REALLY are going to build such a beast?
However, I was lightly gratified to see you call my hobby a provocative topic. I'm not sure we're talking about the same thing here, but please don't disabuse me.
In the sense of provoking discussion; i.e. generating page hits for Slashdot.
I found the question curiously unspecific as to what kinds of media -- even if you were talking about file formats or physical media -- and for what reason. Thus my suspicions were aroused that it was deliberately open-ended rather than directed at solving a real problem. But I'll take your word for it.
the intelligence in the US, UK, France..and Russia all said he had some hidden over there
No, it did not. The "intelligence" people didn't believe it. The politicians cherry picked the reports that allowed them to justify doing what they wanted to do for entirely other reasons.
Example: http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=129012
A senior military official, who asked not to be identified, told Nightline that Cheney, a former defense secretary, was extremely selective in picking out intelligence on Iraq that supported his views, and that his staff's reports were distorted and ideological..... "The whole emphasis," Cannistraro said, "was, 'We are sure that there are weapons of mass destruction. We are sure that Saddam is acquiring a nuclear capability. Why isn't your reporting showing this? We're getting reporting independently from the intelligence community that convinces us that that's the case. You're not providing any corroboration for that.' The weapons of mass destruction analysts at CIA took these visits as intimidation, as pressure."
Possibly, but I find it dishonest and exploitative to ask people to help you with what is almost surely a fictional problem, as is probably the case here. If they explicitly made it a hypothetical then I wouldn't mind.
Can't see why you'd want such a Frankenstein jobby one at home.
He doesn't. If he was serious, he'd already know exactly what kinds of disc/tape/card/wax cylinders he wanted to read and Googled how to do it. The only reason the question was submitted was to make a provocative "Ask Slashdot" topic. Same as 90% of these, hardly a word in their backstory is true, and all the brain sweat and long detailed posts written to attempt to help the poster are wasted.
The idea that libel applies to something about a party written to that party in an email is ludicrous. To put it another way, you can say anything you want to someone to their face in a forum that they can reply to: You're a fat, pus filled, copyright violating idiot!
No, you're completely wrong there about forums. Fortunately, the chances of it being tested in court are slim to none. But anyway: it's libel if it's published and ANY third party (beyond the sender and the person being defamed) see it. So an email to one person is not libellous. If however you CCed it to even one other person, then it is potentially libellous. Having right of reply is irrelevant.
True, but the problem is that often even a relatively short hiatus could mean disaster.
Has this ever happened? To anyone? Even in the Blackberry patent case, when Blackberry was eventually judged to be infringing, the court allowed the end users to keep using the software and services for some months while the case was worked through.
Why is that "better"? Very likely a software developer (anyone smaller than IBM) in that position will declare bankruptcy, or just disappear. You're very unlikely to get a cent back, no matter if you win your case or not.
Anyway: what if that bit of open source software contains proprietary code, and the owner of that code suddenly starts asserting his rights? At best, we will be forced to stop use of that software.
No. At best, after a brief hiatus the infringing code will be replaced by non-infringing code. You could even pay someone to do that for you if it was a priority. Unless the whole project is blatantly stolen code, which you probably would have noticed already when comparing it to similar offerings.
No, you CANNOT do that. It is IMPOSSIBLE to not have false positives.
They can't do it now when they're testing it. If it goes online and suddenly thousands of people are trying to circumvent it, would it magically get better?
How on earth could the billions of webpages online at any money be classified correctly?
How will you stop malicious people planting "illegal" content on a site (eg, attaching to a forum post), the reporting the site to have it blocked for an indefinite period?
You can't just assume it will be sorted out and go ahead. It will not. It hasn't in any country that has tried to do this.
Those really trading in real "illegal" content will route around it. Some will certainly do so by hijacking legit sites, using them till they're blocked, and them moving on to another.
The question is, what GOOD will it do? Bad guys will be mildly inconvenienced. The rest will have their connections slowed down and occasionally randomly blocked.
in much of the world, ethnicity actually means something pretty profound to the average person. It's one of biggest reasons why people on our own soil betray our trust to foreign governments
So, David Duke posts on Slashdot?
Skin colour aside, consider that recent immigrants quite likely have close family members back in the old country, where they can be rewarded, or punished, depending on the immigrants' response to appeals from their original government.
Either that, or we have gone back to 1984. I didn't know Orwell wrote non-fiction!
George Orwell Bibliography
Nonfiction Books: Down and Out in Paris and London. London: V. Gollancz ltd., 1933. Homage to Catalonia. London: Secker & Warburg, 1938. The Road to Wigan Pier. London: V. Gollancz ltd., 1937.
MS DOS v7 came out at the same time DR DOS upgraded to v7. Jumping over a bunch of unused version numbers to do so (AIR, it went from DOS v5.5 to DOS v7.0,
You misremember. There certainly was an MSDOS 6 (DOS versions), 6.0, 6.2, 6.22 in 1993-4; I think I actually bought them.
So? If you don't need it, don't buy it. Some people can wake up at 7 am. Others need an alarm clock. (Sorry, can't think of a car analogy off the top of my head.)
Slashdot Mirror
Are you dyslexic? Or just a troll?
And how exactly do you propose that governments go about doing that? Because I assure you, they'd be very interested in the answer.
Find the people who MAKE it. That's when the damage is done, and the crimes are committed. If some people enjoy looking at such images, that may be repulsive, but no body is getting hurt. If you want to ban that, why allow gore and splatter movies and serial killer novels? Or disturbing (to your) news photos?
Catching sad lonely guys who whack off over images on their PCs does absolutely nothing except make the cops feel they've done something. "500 arrested in Internet pedophile bust" makes a great headline. And except for destroying the lives of the 500, is nothing more than that.
It's exactly like most responses to terrorism, (harassing Muslims, confiscating nail scissors and shampoo) completely futile in addressing the real dangers, while creating immense collateral damage.
Assuming for a moment this is true, in the USA you have welfare, food stamps, not to mention numerous charities. You will NOT starve. It is NOT a "matter of survival". You may lose your dignity. You may lose your broadband access. You may lose your car. You will NOT lose your life.
Are you talking about yourself? I somehow doubt it. If so, why are you wasting time on Slashdot and not looking for a way to feed your family?
No need to be insulting. I don't get my news from Fox. They're good at serial dramas, but that's the limit. Mostly I listen to the BBC World Service for news. After hearing what's going on in Zimbabwe, Georgia, etc, hearing First Worlders blathering about "survival" because they had to take a service sector job elicits no sympathy. My own situation is not cheerful, but I don't talk about it as if it was life and death. I may be broke, but I can still eat (and go online).
I said it's "just" an economic downturn. NOT a matter of "survival". Tell me how it puts your life at risk, and I might agree "survival" is appropriate.
Oh please, "survival" is about actual risks to your life, not your lifestyle. Don't confuse metaphors with reality.
And again, working at a store probably gives you plenty of time to think (while you're stacking shelves or whatever), and unless you're doing lots of overtinme, plenty of time to code.
"Survival"? Over-dramatising, I think. It's an economic downturn, not Armageddon, plague, pestilence and firestorms.
And even during the worst disasters and wars, people still create art, literature, do maths, compose poetry. Writing software? Why not? It's a lot cheaper way to spend your evenings than going out to a bar. (Not that bars are in any danger either.)
If you are trying to read old floppies, this may be helpful: How to recover data from an improperly stored floppy diskette
As a computer hobbyist I'd like to cordially invite you to GTFO of slashdot for even thinking I wouldn't want 'such a frankenstein jobby one at home'. Are you insane?
So are you saying you REALLY are going to build such a beast?
However, I was lightly gratified to see you call my hobby a provocative topic. I'm not sure we're talking about the same thing here, but please don't disabuse me.
In the sense of provoking discussion; i.e. generating page hits for Slashdot.
I found the question curiously unspecific as to what kinds of media -- even if you were talking about file formats or physical media -- and for what reason. Thus my suspicions were aroused that it was deliberately open-ended rather than directed at solving a real problem. But I'll take your word for it.
should read:
"... just too good to be true pal"
In Saudi Arabia.
No, it did not. The "intelligence" people didn't believe it. The politicians cherry picked the reports that allowed them to justify doing what they wanted to do for entirely other reasons.
Possibly, but I find it dishonest and exploitative to ask people to help you with what is almost surely a fictional problem, as is probably the case here. If they explicitly made it a hypothetical then I wouldn't mind.
He doesn't. If he was serious, he'd already know exactly what kinds of disc/tape/card/wax cylinders he wanted to read and Googled how to do it. The only reason the question was submitted was to make a provocative "Ask Slashdot" topic. Same as 90% of these, hardly a word in their backstory is true, and all the brain sweat and long detailed posts written to attempt to help the poster are wasted.
No, you're completely wrong there about forums. Fortunately, the chances of it being tested in court are slim to none. But anyway: it's libel if it's published and ANY third party (beyond the sender and the person being defamed) see it. So an email to one person is not libellous. If however you CCed it to even one other person, then it is potentially libellous. Having right of reply is irrelevant.
Has this ever happened? To anyone? Even in the Blackberry patent case, when Blackberry was eventually judged to be infringing, the court allowed the end users to keep using the software and services for some months while the case was worked through.
Why is that "better"? Very likely a software developer (anyone smaller than IBM) in that position will declare bankruptcy, or just disappear. You're very unlikely to get a cent back, no matter if you win your case or not.
Anyway: what if that bit of open source software contains proprietary code, and the owner of that code suddenly starts asserting his rights? At best, we will be forced to stop use of that software.
No. At best, after a brief hiatus the infringing code will be replaced by non-infringing code. You could even pay someone to do that for you if it was a priority. Unless the whole project is blatantly stolen code, which you probably would have noticed already when comparing it to similar offerings.
No, you CANNOT do that. It is IMPOSSIBLE to not have false positives.
They can't do it now when they're testing it. If it goes online and suddenly thousands of people are trying to circumvent it, would it magically get better?
How on earth could the billions of webpages online at any money be classified correctly?
How will you stop malicious people planting "illegal" content on a site (eg, attaching to a forum post), the reporting the site to have it blocked for an indefinite period?
You can't just assume it will be sorted out and go ahead. It will not. It hasn't in any country that has tried to do this.
Those really trading in real "illegal" content will route around it. Some will certainly do so by hijacking legit sites, using them till they're blocked, and them moving on to another.
The question is, what GOOD will it do? Bad guys will be mildly inconvenienced. The rest will have their connections slowed down and occasionally randomly blocked.
So, David Duke posts on Slashdot?
Skin colour aside, consider that recent immigrants quite likely have close family members back in the old country, where they can be rewarded, or punished, depending on the immigrants' response to appeals from their original government.
Either that, or we have gone back to 1984. I didn't know Orwell wrote non-fiction!
George Orwell Bibliography
Nonfiction Books:
Down and Out in Paris and London. London: V. Gollancz ltd., 1933.
Homage to Catalonia. London: Secker & Warburg, 1938.
The Road to Wigan Pier. London: V. Gollancz ltd., 1937.
You misremember. There certainly was an MSDOS 6 (DOS versions), 6.0, 6.2, 6.22 in 1993-4; I think I actually bought them.
If you're a passenger "all the time", you wouldn't buy it.
So? If you don't need it, don't buy it. Some people can wake up at 7 am. Others need an alarm clock. (Sorry, can't think of a car analogy off the top of my head.)
Nothing. What's to stop you unbuckling your seat belt?
It's not meant to prevent you using your phone. It's meant to stop your phone from distracting you when you CHOOSE TO ACTIVATE THIS FUNCTION.