If, after you've been fired, you refuse to disclose the passwords necessary for your successor to do your job, then it is no longer something they can simply "fire" you for, (as you no longer work there) so it becomes something you need to take to court, not "theft" in this case, but "denial of service" because his action of refusing to release the passwords denied them access to administer those systems.
Fine. Take them to court in a civil suit, asking the judge to order the employee to give up the passwords. Why does it need to be a criminal case? Why does someone need to go to jail over a password dispute? Even if Mr. Childs was in the wrong (and I don't know enough about the case to make that determination either way) I don't see why failure to disclose passwords to your boss should be a crime, especially when there was some ambiguity surrounding the correct security policy. I don't think there was any malicious intent on Mr. Childs' part, at worst it was poor judgment or a misinterpretation of security policy.
#2 - If you are a PASSENGER in said motor vehicle, you are required to be able to identify yourself to an officer as well. This is constitutional.. Reference: US v. Slater.
Nice try, but US. v. Slater is a case about copyright infringement and has nothing to do with passengers being required to carry identification.
That's always been the trouble with `software', it don't ever wear out. The producers of the software would like if it was a consumable product like movies, which is why they would like to move us to software-as-a-service, in the Cloud.
Actually, software does "wear out", and a lot quicker than music or movies. What happens with software is that new versions come out that fix bugs and add important features, and generally there is a charge to upgrade. Hardware upgrades also dictate software upgrades over time. Case in point: my dad still listens to LPs that he bought in the 70's, but how many people still write their documents with WordStar for CP/M?
We are humans. As RAH said, we are probably the most warlike and violent race that has reached rudimentary intelligence in the universe. If there were other intelligent races, far advance of us, but with our innate bloodthirstiness and violent tendencies, we would dead.
As others have pointed out, not necessarily. Light speed limits and the large size of the galaxy might simply mean they haven't reached us yet.
But I would make the following correction to your statement: If there were other intelligent races, far advance of us, but with our innate bloodthirstiness and violent tendencies, they would dead. Yes, they would have annihilated themselves long before they developed the technology for deep space travel, just as we likely will. With technology that advanced, it would take only one crazy, lone terrorist to wipe out the planet, just as I'm sure will eventually happen on earth.
So your point stands, although not for exactly the reason you give.
People can go on about 'heating effects' which is a common response I see to the non-ionizing radiation bit, but if that were the case, prolonged exposure to heat packs should also cause cancer. Luckily the body is quite good at dissipating heat.
Difference is, heat packs apply heat from outside the body, and we've evolved to dissipate that kind of heating, as you've said. Heating by radiation can cause localized heating inside the brain, which is quite different, and we don't have the same mechanisms for dissipating that type of heat. We've never evolved such mechanisms as we've never needed them before. Pretty much all chemical reaction rates are temperature dependent, and small changes in temperature can also affect the relative rates of different reactions, so in a system as complex as a biological cell, the outcomes of these systems of reactions can be very different at different temperatures.
And even if the brain is good at dissipating heat, when there is a constant input of radiation as you hold the phone up to your ear for prolonged periods of time, even with dissipation the temperature can still be elevated during your phone call, and that might be long enough to do some damage.
You are not a real, proper IT geek until you've either been fired or quit over this sort of nonsense.
Securing systems from morons is just part of the job.
Even if said morons are the people that hired you? Imagine if you hired a locksmith to install locks on your house. When they finished the job, they refused to hand you the keys because they don't trust you to keep your house properly secure. Would that be okay?
The fact that the case has dragged on this long and that some of the charges have already been dropped seem to highlight the fact that there is some doubt as to whether or not he actually broke the law.
Not really. It's typical for a DA to charge someone with as many laws as they can, and as the case goes on, see which ones have a chance of sticking. The less promising charges are often dropped so the prosecutor can focus their arguments on the charges they think have a chance of succeeding. The fact that the case has gone on this long is probably due to its highly technical nature not its merit or lack thereof.
A wise wise network engineer at UW once showed me the following diagram several years ago:
INTERNET -> PORT80, PORT443
Actually, it's more like: INTERNET -> PORT22, since just about anything can be sent through an ssh tunnel. And the encryption makes most types of deep packet inspection impossible.
As far as a perfectly framed photo, it's simple. Take a randomly framed picture every fifteen minutes until you have hundreds of photos. Most of them won't be any good, but there will be a few gems in there.
Only if the student is in the habit of leaving his laptop turned on with the camera pointed right at his face when he goes to sleep. Otherwise, you could take a million photos (while he's asleep) and the framing won't change. Unless the computer has legs and walks randomly about the room. (I once had a TV remote that I swear had that capability!)
Now, if you were the lawyer for the family and had all the photos taken of your client, which one would you release?
To the press? None. (If I had a legitimate case, that is. That was kind of my point. Generally those with a legitimate case don't have it tried in the media.)
Back when this story first broke, I was not at all convinced that school officials were spying on kids. One student had been suspended for alleged inappropriate activity captured by the camera and everyone immediately assumed it was the result of this surveillance system. The only statement the school made on the issue was that the photo had been taken by the student and left on the hard drive of the laptop when he returned it. To me, that seemed a lot more plausible, if less juicy. (After all, who wasn't excited by the thought of photos of horny high school kids in their bedrooms, and equally excited by the thought of school officials getting raked over the coals.)
I saw this story earlier today and now I'm more convinced than ever the whole thing is BS. Look carefully at the photograph (provided by the parents, I might add.) Who goes to sleep with their laptop turned on and the camera pointed right at their face, so that it's perfectly centered in the frame and just well lit enough to show it clearly? If you've ever seen real photographs taken by peeping toms with hidden cameras, they're always grainy and show subjects in unflattering lighting conditions. This picture is just to perfect to be real.
Generally speaking, when there's a lawsuit going on and one side says nothing to the press, citing that it would be imprudent to do so during proceedings, and the other site leaks all kinds of juicy stuff to the press, I tend to believe the party that shows discretion.
As for the Fifth Amendment issue, as others have noted, it's standard practice when you're suspected of a crime to always invoke the 5th and say nothing before the trial. That's perfectly normal and doesn't mean anything at all.
If I were to anonymously, repeatedly, and convincingly (perhaps I'm a REALLY GOOD TROLL) outright state that you are a rapist and the only reason you are not in jail is because of some technicality, what recourse do you have?
I reply to the post, with the facts, backed up with documentation (trial transcripts, etc.).
If you are in the intersection before the light turns red, you have not run it, even if it takes a little while to clear it (say to yield to an unexpected obstacle). Wouldn't you need two pictures — one just before the light went red showing you are not in the intersection, and another after the light went red showing you in the intersection?"
The purpose of the photograph isn't to prove you ran a red light. The motion sensors, and in some cases underground magnetometers, can detect if your car enters the intersection on a red. The only purpose of the photograph is to record your license plate so they know who to send the ticket to. The photograph is one, but not the only, piece of evidence.
It's my personal belief that kids should be taught this at home.
Public health and public safety have nothing to do with your personal belief. Which is why you will be vaccinated regardless.
I don't know what country you live in, but here in the U.S., vaccination is voluntary. Why do you think there's so much press lately about parents who aren't getting their kids vaccinated for fear of an autism link, and doctors trying to persuade them otherwise.
Actually, it wasn't crappy at all, and was one of the best graphics cards for Microsoft Word for DOS, Lotus 1-2-3, and AutoCAD. I had a cheap Hercules compatible card and it worked great for the software I wanted to run. Better than the CGA or even EGA if you didn't need color or didn't want to spend money on a color monitor.
I'm really tempted to buy a copy of that skiing book. It might really be worth something, someday. Especially if Amazon drops this publisher. At the very least, with a title like that it would be a great conversation starter as a coffee table book.
Yes, but he didn't make and act on plans to have sex with a 13 year old girl. He made and acted on plans to have sex with an adult who he thought was a 13 year old girl. That's the difference between a conspiracy crime and a thought crime.
Um... No. Thought crime would be thinking of having sex with a 13 year old girl - you know, fantasizing. This guy went beyond that and attempted to have sex with a 13 year old girl.
Wrong! Read the case document. He did not attempt to have sex with a 13 year old girl. He attempted to have sex with an adult who he thought was a 13 year old girl.
But if you make plans to have sex with a 13 year old, and you act (even if those specific actions are not illegal) toward executing those plans, that is illegal.
Yes, but he didn't make and act on plans to have sex with a 13 year old girl. He made and acted on plans to have sex with an adult who he thought was a 13 year old girl. That's the difference between a conspiracy crime and a thought crime.
Problem is, we're doing a really bad job separating the folks that "just want to have fun" with the folks that want to rape and murder children.
And the key word here is want. We are now putting people away for what they might want to do, instead of what they actually have done.
Since when did we start prosecuting people for thought crimes?
Since it became unconfortable telling parents that their child was killed by someone that it was known would re-offend since very nearly 100% do so.
And the key word there is re-offend. In order to re-offend, you must have offended in the first place. What bothers me as that thought crimes are now an offense.
Slashdot Mirror
these are teen and pre-teen boys, you left out 3 hours a day for masturbation
Three hours?!?!? When I was a teen, it only took me 5 minutes, thus totalling about 30 minutes per day.
If, after you've been fired, you refuse to disclose the passwords necessary for your successor to do your job, then it is no longer something they can simply "fire" you for, (as you no longer work there) so it becomes something you need to take to court, not "theft" in this case, but "denial of service" because his action of refusing to release the passwords denied them access to administer those systems.
Fine. Take them to court in a civil suit, asking the judge to order the employee to give up the passwords. Why does it need to be a criminal case? Why does someone need to go to jail over a password dispute? Even if Mr. Childs was in the wrong (and I don't know enough about the case to make that determination either way) I don't see why failure to disclose passwords to your boss should be a crime, especially when there was some ambiguity surrounding the correct security policy. I don't think there was any malicious intent on Mr. Childs' part, at worst it was poor judgment or a misinterpretation of security policy.
#2 - If you are a PASSENGER in said motor vehicle, you are required to be able to identify yourself to an officer as well. This is constitutional.. Reference: US v. Slater.
Nice try, but US. v. Slater is a case about copyright infringement and has nothing to do with passengers being required to carry identification.
This DOESN'T infect the iPad at all. It targets the idiots who bought an iPad but it is a WINDOWS virus.
Uh. I wasn't aware the iPad even ran Windows.
That's always been the trouble with `software', it don't ever wear out. The producers of the software would like if it was a consumable product like movies, which is why they would like to move us to software-as-a-service, in the Cloud.
Actually, software does "wear out", and a lot quicker than music or movies. What happens with software is that new versions come out that fix bugs and add important features, and generally there is a charge to upgrade. Hardware upgrades also dictate software upgrades over time. Case in point: my dad still listens to LPs that he bought in the 70's, but how many people still write their documents with WordStar for CP/M?
Sell the Vatican; donate the proceeds to the poor ( and victimized )
Who would buy it? I mean seriously, there's no way anyone would be willing to pay what it's worth.
We are humans. As RAH said, we are probably the most warlike and violent race that has reached rudimentary intelligence in the universe. If there were other intelligent races, far advance of us, but with our innate bloodthirstiness and violent tendencies, we would dead.
As others have pointed out, not necessarily. Light speed limits and the large size of the galaxy might simply mean they haven't reached us yet.
But I would make the following correction to your statement: If there were other intelligent races, far advance of us, but with our innate bloodthirstiness and violent tendencies, they would dead. Yes, they would have annihilated themselves long before they developed the technology for deep space travel, just as we likely will. With technology that advanced, it would take only one crazy, lone terrorist to wipe out the planet, just as I'm sure will eventually happen on earth.
So your point stands, although not for exactly the reason you give.
People can go on about 'heating effects' which is a common response I see to the non-ionizing radiation bit, but if that were the case, prolonged exposure to heat packs should also cause cancer. Luckily the body is quite good at dissipating heat.
Difference is, heat packs apply heat from outside the body, and we've evolved to dissipate that kind of heating, as you've said. Heating by radiation can cause localized heating inside the brain, which is quite different, and we don't have the same mechanisms for dissipating that type of heat. We've never evolved such mechanisms as we've never needed them before. Pretty much all chemical reaction rates are temperature dependent, and small changes in temperature can also affect the relative rates of different reactions, so in a system as complex as a biological cell, the outcomes of these systems of reactions can be very different at different temperatures.
And even if the brain is good at dissipating heat, when there is a constant input of radiation as you hold the phone up to your ear for prolonged periods of time, even with dissipation the temperature can still be elevated during your phone call, and that might be long enough to do some damage.
I've seen the movie Brazil and I know what it's like there! Also interesting that in terms of information requests, USA is a very close second.
You are not a real, proper IT geek until you've either been fired or quit over this sort of nonsense.
Securing systems from morons is just part of the job.
Even if said morons are the people that hired you? Imagine if you hired a locksmith to install locks on your house. When they finished the job, they refused to hand you the keys because they don't trust you to keep your house properly secure. Would that be okay?
The fact that the case has dragged on this long and that some of the charges have already been dropped seem to highlight the fact that there is some doubt as to whether or not he actually broke the law.
Not really. It's typical for a DA to charge someone with as many laws as they can, and as the case goes on, see which ones have a chance of sticking. The less promising charges are often dropped so the prosecutor can focus their arguments on the charges they think have a chance of succeeding. The fact that the case has gone on this long is probably due to its highly technical nature not its merit or lack thereof.
The city does have some culpability. They should have ensured at least one other person had the passwords, in case Childs was hit by a bus.
Who says they didn't? My understanding is that Mr. Childs changed all the passwords just before he got canned.
A wise wise network engineer at UW once showed me the following diagram several years ago:
INTERNET -> PORT80, PORT443
Actually, it's more like: INTERNET -> PORT22, since just about anything can be sent through an ssh tunnel. And the encryption makes most types of deep packet inspection impossible.
As far as a perfectly framed photo, it's simple. Take a randomly framed picture every fifteen minutes until you have hundreds of photos. Most of them won't be any good, but there will be a few gems in there.
Only if the student is in the habit of leaving his laptop turned on with the camera pointed right at his face when he goes to sleep. Otherwise, you could take a million photos (while he's asleep) and the framing won't change. Unless the computer has legs and walks randomly about the room. (I once had a TV remote that I swear had that capability!)
Now, if you were the lawyer for the family and had all the photos taken of your client, which one would you release?
To the press? None. (If I had a legitimate case, that is. That was kind of my point. Generally those with a legitimate case don't have it tried in the media.)
Back when this story first broke, I was not at all convinced that school officials were spying on kids. One student had been suspended for alleged inappropriate activity captured by the camera and everyone immediately assumed it was the result of this surveillance system. The only statement the school made on the issue was that the photo had been taken by the student and left on the hard drive of the laptop when he returned it. To me, that seemed a lot more plausible, if less juicy. (After all, who wasn't excited by the thought of photos of horny high school kids in their bedrooms, and equally excited by the thought of school officials getting raked over the coals.)
I saw this story earlier today and now I'm more convinced than ever the whole thing is BS. Look carefully at the photograph (provided by the parents, I might add.) Who goes to sleep with their laptop turned on and the camera pointed right at their face, so that it's perfectly centered in the frame and just well lit enough to show it clearly? If you've ever seen real photographs taken by peeping toms with hidden cameras, they're always grainy and show subjects in unflattering lighting conditions. This picture is just to perfect to be real.
Generally speaking, when there's a lawsuit going on and one side says nothing to the press, citing that it would be imprudent to do so during proceedings, and the other site leaks all kinds of juicy stuff to the press, I tend to believe the party that shows discretion.
As for the Fifth Amendment issue, as others have noted, it's standard practice when you're suspected of a crime to always invoke the 5th and say nothing before the trial. That's perfectly normal and doesn't mean anything at all.
Chatroulette did the same thing to me.
If I were to anonymously, repeatedly, and convincingly (perhaps I'm a REALLY GOOD TROLL) outright state that you are a rapist and the only reason you are not in jail is because of some technicality, what recourse do you have?
I reply to the post, with the facts, backed up with documentation (trial transcripts, etc.).
If you are in the intersection before the light turns red, you have not run it, even if it takes a little while to clear it (say to yield to an unexpected obstacle). Wouldn't you need two pictures — one just before the light went red showing you are not in the intersection, and another after the light went red showing you in the intersection?"
The purpose of the photograph isn't to prove you ran a red light. The motion sensors, and in some cases underground magnetometers, can detect if your car enters the intersection on a red. The only purpose of the photograph is to record your license plate so they know who to send the ticket to. The photograph is one, but not the only, piece of evidence.
It's my personal belief that kids should be taught this at home.
Public health and public safety have nothing to do with your personal belief. Which is why you will be vaccinated regardless.
I don't know what country you live in, but here in the U.S., vaccination is voluntary. Why do you think there's so much press lately about parents who aren't getting their kids vaccinated for fear of an autism link, and doctors trying to persuade them otherwise.
How do you determine which is the best clock in the universe? Don't you need a better one to run a comparison against?
A crappy old green 720×348 graphic card?
Actually, it wasn't crappy at all, and was one of the best graphics cards for Microsoft Word for DOS, Lotus 1-2-3, and AutoCAD. I had a cheap Hercules compatible card and it worked great for the software I wanted to run. Better than the CGA or even EGA if you didn't need color or didn't want to spend money on a color monitor.
I'm really tempted to buy a copy of that skiing book. It might really be worth something, someday. Especially if Amazon drops this publisher. At the very least, with a title like that it would be a great conversation starter as a coffee table book.
Um... No. Thought crime would be thinking of having sex with a 13 year old girl - you know, fantasizing. This guy went beyond that and attempted to have sex with a 13 year old girl.
Wrong! Read the case document. He did not attempt to have sex with a 13 year old girl. He attempted to have sex with an adult who he thought was a 13 year old girl.
But if you make plans to have sex with a 13 year old, and you act (even if those specific actions are not illegal) toward executing those plans, that is illegal.
Yes, but he didn't make and act on plans to have sex with a 13 year old girl. He made and acted on plans to have sex with an adult who he thought was a 13 year old girl. That's the difference between a conspiracy crime and a thought crime.
Problem is, we're doing a really bad job separating the folks that "just want to have fun" with the folks that want to rape and murder children.
And the key word here is want. We are now putting people away for what they might want to do, instead of what they actually have done.
Since when did we start prosecuting people for thought crimes?
Since it became unconfortable telling parents that their child was killed by someone that it was known would re-offend since very nearly 100% do so.
And the key word there is re-offend. In order to re-offend, you must have offended in the first place. What bothers me as that thought crimes are now an offense.