So why not charge her with that, rather than using a law that should be irrelevant to the case, and setting some dangerous, awful and nonsensical precedent with the definition of "hacking"?
Which has nothing to do with this case. In that example, it would only be yelling fire that is restricted.
This ruling would criminalise anyone who doesn't obey the terms of services of a website.
A better analogy would be someone yells fire in a crowded theater, and in order to convict them, a precedent is set that not following cinema rules is illegal. Next thing you know, someone is sent to prison for not following some completely trivial rule set by the cinema.
If yelling fire - or harrassing teenagers - is illegal, then it should be illegal in itself, no matter what rules or ToS is set by a private company. This ruling however means that harrassing teenager (or yelling fire) is fine so long as it doesn't violate any rules set by a company, and meanwhile allows private companies to basically write new laws.
This is no argument for setting the precedent that disobeying arbitrarily set "terms of services" constitutes "hacking". Consider, what she did should be just as bad whether it was offline or online. If it would've been illegal offline, prosecute her under that law. If it would've been legal offline, why should it be any different because a computer is involved?
- The terms of services of replying to this post are that you must agree with me. -
Actually proving a manned moon landing is difficult. It's a lot like trying to prove/disprove the existence of god.
Well, except that one has overwhelming evidence, and the other does not. Just because two things can't be proven with 100% certainty, doesn't mean that they are in any way comparable.
The difference is that it's fairly popular these days to take the skeptical side of the god debate.
Outside of Europe at least, this (sadly) is still not yet true. (I'm not sure why you would label this as a "difference", anyway - I'm sceptical about God, for rather much the same reasons that I'm sceptical about a fake moon landing conspiracy: lack of evidence.)
But the truth is really orthogonal to how popular a side of a debate is at a point in time.
Indeed, something that the "But billions of people all believe in God" crowd would do well to remember. There is just as much likelihood of Zeus, of the Flying Spaghetti Monster existing - that fewer people believe in such entities doesn't affect the likelihood of their existence.
Mozilla today announced Firefox 3.5, which will be compulsory for all citizens to install on their machines.
"The public support these plans," claimed the Mozilla spokesperson, "So we have passed legislation that will require Firefox to be installed on all computers, allowing us to keep track of the population, which is essential in the battle against terrorism".
A copy of Firefox is expected to cost around £100. "Most people keep their computers for about 8 years," claimed the Government, "So it's only actually £12.50 per year."
It's not clear to me how this actually *gains* you time. Sure, you have 4 extra hours a day, but there's now only 6 days in a week. The number of hours in a week obviously doesn't change, so you can't magic extra hours out of nothing. The extra hours staying up awake is compensated by sleeping for longer (unless there is evidence to suggest that people don't need to sleep extra on this cycle?) My understanding was the benefits weren't more time overall, but that it fits in better with people's desire to stay up later each day, as well as meaning you can go out all night on weekends (but it doesn't sound like the person here has much time for partying...)
If he really wants a sleep pattern that gives him vastly more time, then he might like to look into polyphasic sleep patterns, which involves only taking short (e.g., 30 minutes) naps several times throughout the 24 hour period, requiring in only a few hours sleep in total each day. (I have not tried this myself, nor AFAIK is it known what the long term effects of this might be!)
But the submitter is working 60-72 hour weeks! If he was only doing 36 hours, he'd have plenty of time to exercise on the days that he isn't working...
The only website I've come across that Opera doesn't render properly is Slashdot. By which, the correct statement is actually Slashdot "can't be rendered in anything correctly".
(Opera doesn't crash for me, either, discounting the Flash plugin that crashes, and Adobe have yet to fix. Works fine now that I've uninstalled it.)
Yes, I'm obviously blind because I have a different point of view to you. Do you have evidence for your arguments, or are you just going to whine "political correct" and blame "liberal principles"? What problems are you referring to, that have resulted from a liberal point of view? What problems with immigration do you refer to (I don't believe in opening our borders altogether, but at the same time, I don't have any sympathy for people whining that their jobs are being "stolen"; and if my girlfriend from America should choose to move here, I don't see why she should be restricted because of a bunch of Daily Mail readers and BNP voters). I also agree that there are areas where multiple cultures are being handled badly - e.g., the whole issue with faith schools - but for some reason, a move to secular education seems to be opposed by people who think schools should still be a place to force religion down children's throats, and it certainly isn't "liberals" doing the opposing.
But what about parties like UKIP then? Not that I'm any fan of UKIP - but the OP asserted that for people with these views, there was no other party offering a voice to them. But what you talk about sounds right up UKIP's street.
Oh, hurray! We don't have to worry about the ID card scheme, because the money will be put to "good use" by implementing the same thing we were objecting to in passports? I don't follow that reasoning...
Yes, it's bad if the money is wasted, but that is no argument for "We should go ahead and do it, or a very similar thing, anyway so the money isn't wasted".
Nonsense. Sure, you can choose to use debit/credit cards most places in the UK, but just about everywhere accepts cash. I use cash most the time, and in fact I can't think of any place I've ever been to that doesn't accept cash.
Also note that some people (particular young people) do not have a credit card (I have some friends who have yet to obtain one), and they seem to manage without starving to death or otherwise unable to buy anything.
If the plans go ahead (either for everyone, or when you next renew your passport), please do let her pay the £93+ bill each for you both - and say "So what" when she complains;)
(How does "I admit I don't have a clue about this issue, so I'll just have a guess" get +3 Insightful?)
If we already have it, why the need for this new expensive scheme?
This looks like it just standardizes the process.
Yeah, and costs £93+ in the process.
The issue is not with having a "card" or "ID" - that's a straw man argument. The issues include:
* The National Identity Register database. * The vast cost of it (passports will end up costing £93, plus an estimated £30 for processing fees). The Government is spending billions on the project. * Being fined £1000 for not notifying the Government of change in details. * Making any such scheme compulsory.
If any credit card company offered such a scheme, do you honestly think that people would be queuing up to join it? And now think of making it compulsory (either for everyone, or everyone who wants a passport, or whatever).
What information is held in the National Identity Register database that the government doesn't already have access to via bank records, tax records, drivers license and DVLA database, mobile phone subscriber and call logs, passport, etc.?
Let's see - at the least, finger prints, iris scans, all past residences, other names by which you are known. The information that can be stored can be extended at any time. There is the issue of who is allowed to access this data. Not to mention the massive fines for failing to notify the authorities of change in details.
There are 15 million actively used Tesco Clubcards in the U.K., and only 24 million households. The Tesco receipt database stores every single purchase made linked along with the Clubcard holders info. 25% of money spent in the U.K. is spent at Tesco, so this is not an insubstantial amount of data.
Well whoopy-do for them. Why is that an argument for me having to be entered onto such a database? I can choose not to have a clubcard.
Clubcards don't cost £93, nor do you get find £1000 for failing to notify Tesco of a change in details.
I see no evidence that the British people, as a whole, care about privacy from the government.
I never suggested otherwise. But they do care about things such as cost. And the £93 figure doesn't include the hidden "processing fees" for fingerprinting etc, which judging by the reason estimates for the standalone card trials, could add another £30 to the cost (currently the passport processing fees are only a few pounds).
Sad thing is that I have no faith in the Tories to do any better.
My thoughts too - whilst I'm glad of their announcements of shelving the project, my fear is that this will only be the ID card for everyone that they get rid of, and they'll still gladly keep the National Identity Register database for everyone getting a passport.
Indeed, this is worrying. And before anyone says "You have no right to go to another country", what about UK citizens who might have a partner from abroad moving to live with them? I as a UK citizen object that we'd have to undergo such schemes, and pay such vast amounts of money.
that we have trouble telling apart from 'real' life.
Well, you might have trouble. That's all the more reason why we should teach children the difference between fiction and reality.
As for your example - if I have a "friend" who hates someone enough at my party that he's willing to kill them, I'd be worried whether they've been playing games or not. And if they don't hate someone enough to kill them, it's not a problem.
The same argument could be made now about people who play paintball (and indeed, IIRC Germany didn't recently criminalise that, for the same kneejerk arguments).
Anyhow, if the technology exists to make computer games indistinguishable from real life, and you were worried about such a possibility, then you are free to host your dinner party in a virtual environment too:/ Problem solved.
Whilst this is a great step forward, one of the big problems with this scheme is that over the last few years, the Government has been basically turning the British passport into the ID card (the plan was that anyone getting a passport would have a "combined" passport and ID card).
So my fear is that we'll still end up with the same problems for anyone who wants a passport:
* Being put on the National Identity Register database (which is actually what the ID card criticism is mainly about - it's not about the physical "card" as such), along with regulations such as being fined £1,000 for failing to notify authorities of change of address. * Biometric passports. TFA says these have "cross-part support" - it's unclear if this means fingerprints (currently we already have "biometrics" in the sense of digital photos, which I don't have a problem with, but fingerprints are another issue). * The cost. Passports have risen from around £30 to £72 in recent years, much of this is due to basically turning the passport into the ID card. This is expected to rise to at least £93.
Even though a passport is not compulsory for everyone, for those of us who want to travel to another country (and remember, the UK isn't a big place like the US - most of the population have passports, and a lot of us like to travel), so my fear is that unless you are giving up your ability to travel, it will still be a compulsory ID card in everything but the name.
Does anyone have more info as to whether the National Identity Register itself will be shelved, or is it simply stepping back the plans on who will have to have one?
The other posts have simply been ideas related to a galatic cycle, but claimed a different cause to what is discussed in TFA. We have a word for "same theory, except for this and this and this" - we call it "different".
I've lost count of the number of 'discoveries' that are already known, both in IT and the wider areas of science and beyond.
Well come on then, let's have some examples?
Whilst it's not inconceivable that researchers may overlap in their work without realising it, I find it hard to believe that a cosmologists is unaware of something that is apparently common knowledge on a random Internet forum...
though I think the theory than was than the gravitational field of passing stars was changing the orbit of comets in the Oort cloud and causing comet impacts.
So in other words, it is a new idea, as the one you read about was a different idea.
Slashdot Mirror
So why not charge her with that, rather than using a law that should be irrelevant to the case, and setting some dangerous, awful and nonsensical precedent with the definition of "hacking"?
Which has nothing to do with this case. In that example, it would only be yelling fire that is restricted.
This ruling would criminalise anyone who doesn't obey the terms of services of a website.
A better analogy would be someone yells fire in a crowded theater, and in order to convict them, a precedent is set that not following cinema rules is illegal. Next thing you know, someone is sent to prison for not following some completely trivial rule set by the cinema.
If yelling fire - or harrassing teenagers - is illegal, then it should be illegal in itself, no matter what rules or ToS is set by a private company. This ruling however means that harrassing teenager (or yelling fire) is fine so long as it doesn't violate any rules set by a company, and meanwhile allows private companies to basically write new laws.
See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8127533.stm for the details.
But only under the correct law.
This is no argument for setting the precedent that disobeying arbitrarily set "terms of services" constitutes "hacking". Consider, what she did should be just as bad whether it was offline or online. If it would've been illegal offline, prosecute her under that law. If it would've been legal offline, why should it be any different because a computer is involved?
- The terms of services of replying to this post are that you must agree with me. -
Great, now we have Fake Moon Landing Conspiracy Conspiracy Theorists who say that the Fake Moon Landing Conspiracy Theorists don't exist!
Actually proving a manned moon landing is difficult. It's a lot like trying to prove/disprove the existence of god.
Well, except that one has overwhelming evidence, and the other does not. Just because two things can't be proven with 100% certainty, doesn't mean that they are in any way comparable.
The difference is that it's fairly popular these days to take the skeptical side of the god debate.
Outside of Europe at least, this (sadly) is still not yet true. (I'm not sure why you would label this as a "difference", anyway - I'm sceptical about God, for rather much the same reasons that I'm sceptical about a fake moon landing conspiracy: lack of evidence.)
But the truth is really orthogonal to how popular a side of a debate is at a point in time.
Indeed, something that the "But billions of people all believe in God" crowd would do well to remember. There is just as much likelihood of Zeus, of the Flying Spaghetti Monster existing - that fewer people believe in such entities doesn't affect the likelihood of their existence.
Mozilla today announced Firefox 3.5, which will be compulsory for all citizens to install on their machines.
"The public support these plans," claimed the Mozilla spokesperson, "So we have passed legislation that will require Firefox to be installed on all computers, allowing us to keep track of the population, which is essential in the battle against terrorism".
A copy of Firefox is expected to cost around £100. "Most people keep their computers for about 8 years," claimed the Government, "So it's only actually £12.50 per year."
Helpful timetable: http://xkcd.com/320/
I didn't realise people had actually tried it :)
It's not clear to me how this actually *gains* you time. Sure, you have 4 extra hours a day, but there's now only 6 days in a week. The number of hours in a week obviously doesn't change, so you can't magic extra hours out of nothing. The extra hours staying up awake is compensated by sleeping for longer (unless there is evidence to suggest that people don't need to sleep extra on this cycle?) My understanding was the benefits weren't more time overall, but that it fits in better with people's desire to stay up later each day, as well as meaning you can go out all night on weekends (but it doesn't sound like the person here has much time for partying...)
If he really wants a sleep pattern that gives him vastly more time, then he might like to look into polyphasic sleep patterns, which involves only taking short (e.g., 30 minutes) naps several times throughout the 24 hour period, requiring in only a few hours sleep in total each day. (I have not tried this myself, nor AFAIK is it known what the long term effects of this might be!)
But the submitter is working 60-72 hour weeks! If he was only doing 36 hours, he'd have plenty of time to exercise on the days that he isn't working...
And Linux is the closest fully Open Source operating system to the desktop?
The only website I've come across that Opera doesn't render properly is Slashdot. By which, the correct statement is actually Slashdot "can't be rendered in anything correctly".
(Opera doesn't crash for me, either, discounting the Flash plugin that crashes, and Adobe have yet to fix. Works fine now that I've uninstalled it.)
Yes, I'm obviously blind because I have a different point of view to you. Do you have evidence for your arguments, or are you just going to whine "political correct" and blame "liberal principles"? What problems are you referring to, that have resulted from a liberal point of view? What problems with immigration do you refer to (I don't believe in opening our borders altogether, but at the same time, I don't have any sympathy for people whining that their jobs are being "stolen"; and if my girlfriend from America should choose to move here, I don't see why she should be restricted because of a bunch of Daily Mail readers and BNP voters). I also agree that there are areas where multiple cultures are being handled badly - e.g., the whole issue with faith schools - but for some reason, a move to secular education seems to be opposed by people who think schools should still be a place to force religion down children's throats, and it certainly isn't "liberals" doing the opposing.
But what about parties like UKIP then? Not that I'm any fan of UKIP - but the OP asserted that for people with these views, there was no other party offering a voice to them. But what you talk about sounds right up UKIP's street.
Yes, this is why we ban all DVDs and Tetris games.
Oh wait, we don't.
It doesn't have to be 100% real to affect your behavior.
Yes, this is why we ban all depictions of crimes, no matter how unrealistic, or even if it's just in a book.
Oh wait, we don't.
The "solutions" they propose are as sharp as a brick, but the problems they raise are real.
What are these problems you refer to?
Oh, hurray! We don't have to worry about the ID card scheme, because the money will be put to "good use" by implementing the same thing we were objecting to in passports? I don't follow that reasoning...
Yes, it's bad if the money is wasted, but that is no argument for "We should go ahead and do it, or a very similar thing, anyway so the money isn't wasted".
Nonsense. Sure, you can choose to use debit/credit cards most places in the UK, but just about everywhere accepts cash. I use cash most the time, and in fact I can't think of any place I've ever been to that doesn't accept cash.
Also note that some people (particular young people) do not have a credit card (I have some friends who have yet to obtain one), and they seem to manage without starving to death or otherwise unable to buy anything.
My wife said "so what" last night too.
If the plans go ahead (either for everyone, or when you next renew your passport), please do let her pay the £93+ bill each for you both - and say "So what" when she complains ;)
(How does "I admit I don't have a clue about this issue, so I'll just have a guess" get +3 Insightful?)
If we already have it, why the need for this new expensive scheme?
This looks like it just standardizes the process.
Yeah, and costs £93+ in the process.
The issue is not with having a "card" or "ID" - that's a straw man argument. The issues include:
* The National Identity Register database.
* The vast cost of it (passports will end up costing £93, plus an estimated £30 for processing fees). The Government is spending billions on the project.
* Being fined £1000 for not notifying the Government of change in details.
* Making any such scheme compulsory.
If any credit card company offered such a scheme, do you honestly think that people would be queuing up to join it? And now think of making it compulsory (either for everyone, or everyone who wants a passport, or whatever).
What information is held in the National Identity Register database that the government doesn't already have access to via bank records, tax records, drivers license and DVLA database, mobile phone subscriber and call logs, passport, etc.?
Let's see - at the least, finger prints, iris scans, all past residences, other names by which you are known. The information that can be stored can be extended at any time. There is the issue of who is allowed to access this data. Not to mention the massive fines for failing to notify the authorities of change in details.
There are 15 million actively used Tesco Clubcards in the U.K., and only 24 million households. The Tesco receipt database stores every single purchase made linked along with the Clubcard holders info. 25% of money spent in the U.K. is spent at Tesco, so this is not an insubstantial amount of data.
Well whoopy-do for them. Why is that an argument for me having to be entered onto such a database? I can choose not to have a clubcard.
Clubcards don't cost £93, nor do you get find £1000 for failing to notify Tesco of a change in details.
I see no evidence that the British people, as a whole, care about privacy from the government.
I never suggested otherwise. But they do care about things such as cost. And the £93 figure doesn't include the hidden "processing fees" for fingerprinting etc, which judging by the reason estimates for the standalone card trials, could add another £30 to the cost (currently the passport processing fees are only a few pounds).
Thanks for the link, that confirms my fears.
Sad thing is that I have no faith in the Tories to do any better.
My thoughts too - whilst I'm glad of their announcements of shelving the project, my fear is that this will only be the ID card for everyone that they get rid of, and they'll still gladly keep the National Identity Register database for everyone getting a passport.
Indeed, this is worrying. And before anyone says "You have no right to go to another country", what about UK citizens who might have a partner from abroad moving to live with them? I as a UK citizen object that we'd have to undergo such schemes, and pay such vast amounts of money.
that we have trouble telling apart from 'real' life.
Well, you might have trouble. That's all the more reason why we should teach children the difference between fiction and reality.
As for your example - if I have a "friend" who hates someone enough at my party that he's willing to kill them, I'd be worried whether they've been playing games or not. And if they don't hate someone enough to kill them, it's not a problem.
The same argument could be made now about people who play paintball (and indeed, IIRC Germany didn't recently criminalise that, for the same kneejerk arguments).
Anyhow, if the technology exists to make computer games indistinguishable from real life, and you were worried about such a possibility, then you are free to host your dinner party in a virtual environment too :/ Problem solved.
Whilst this is a great step forward, one of the big problems with this scheme is that over the last few years, the Government has been basically turning the British passport into the ID card (the plan was that anyone getting a passport would have a "combined" passport and ID card).
So my fear is that we'll still end up with the same problems for anyone who wants a passport:
* Being put on the National Identity Register database (which is actually what the ID card criticism is mainly about - it's not about the physical "card" as such), along with regulations such as being fined £1,000 for failing to notify authorities of change of address.
* Biometric passports. TFA says these have "cross-part support" - it's unclear if this means fingerprints (currently we already have "biometrics" in the sense of digital photos, which I don't have a problem with, but fingerprints are another issue).
* The cost. Passports have risen from around £30 to £72 in recent years, much of this is due to basically turning the passport into the ID card. This is expected to rise to at least £93.
Even though a passport is not compulsory for everyone, for those of us who want to travel to another country (and remember, the UK isn't a big place like the US - most of the population have passports, and a lot of us like to travel), so my fear is that unless you are giving up your ability to travel, it will still be a compulsory ID card in everything but the name.
Does anyone have more info as to whether the National Identity Register itself will be shelved, or is it simply stepping back the plans on who will have to have one?
As others have noticed, this is hardly new.
Citation needed?
The other posts have simply been ideas related to a galatic cycle, but claimed a different cause to what is discussed in TFA. We have a word for "same theory, except for this and this and this" - we call it "different".
I've lost count of the number of 'discoveries' that are already known, both in IT and the wider areas of science and beyond.
Well come on then, let's have some examples?
Whilst it's not inconceivable that researchers may overlap in their work without realising it, I find it hard to believe that a cosmologists is unaware of something that is apparently common knowledge on a random Internet forum...
though I think the theory than was than the gravitational field of passing stars was changing the orbit of comets in the Oort cloud and causing comet impacts.
So in other words, it is a new idea, as the one you read about was a different idea.
I wonder how much of $4.7M they could make back using that strategy and with access to that data...
I calculate that it comes to just under 59 mp3s.