And what's more important, does the manual explain how to turn the system off? And is the system tied in with some critical safety system such as airbags, so that turning off the system will possibly be illegal or at the very least unsafe? I'd like to see the law say that drivers have the option to turn this unit off without compromising vehicle safety features.
some MEPs even claiming to feel harassed because they are suddenly also being lobbied by numerous concerned citizens, rather than solely by industry representatives as usual.
Interesting. So now when citizens try to express their views on upcoming legislation to elected officials, it's "harassment". Only industry reps should be allowed this privilege?
Yes, but you can protest peacefully against this orwellian state and declare yourself in civil desobedience by putting a brick in your toilet tank.
Actually, I'm afraid you have it backwards. The federal law mandates a maximum size for toilet tanks. Putting a brick in your tank effectively makes the tank smaller, not larger.
I seem to remember a Saturday Night Live Weekend Update joke where Jimmy Fallon reported that scientists had developed an engine that ran on hazelnuts. After commenting on the price of hazelnuts, he added that the same scientists were working on an even better engine that ran on bald eagle heads and Faberge eggs.
The reason why I say forcing the RIAA to first file "John Doe" lawsuits may only be "initially" more expensive is that in many cases the RIAA would have to file a lawsuit anyway -- i.e., in every case where pre-lawsuit subpoena to idenfity the downloader did not lead to a pre-lawsuit settlement.
Ahh, but that's the whole point! The RIAA is hoping for pre-lawsuit settlements from the vast majority of subpoenaed people. It isn't even clear if they would follow up with a real lawsuit if the defendant doesn't settle.
if someone has already filed a subpoena for your logs, you'd better be able to produce them, or produce compelling evidence to show that logs older than, say, 5 minutes are deleted.
I'm not a lawyer, but I think the rule is innocent until proven guilty.
However, the legal problems for an ISP unable to produce logs would probably not be a destruction of evidence problem, but rather they would lose the "safe harbor" provided by the DMCA for service providers whose users break copyright law. Carriers are exempt from prosecution under the law if they provide details about the end users who use use their system to violate copyright. They lose that exemption if they can't.
You can indirectly "brute force" break a one-time pad, however. It works like this:
1) Intercept the message.
2) Go to the person who sent the message.
3) Beat him repeatedly in pain-sensitive areas until he agrees to give you the one-time pad.
4) Profit?
Voila! One-time pad.... broken!
No. You can't actually crack a one-time pad that way! Why? Because it is possible to create a key which will cause the ciphertext to decrypt to any plaintext you wish! So if you are being tortured you simply hand over a fake key which causes the ciphertext to decrypt to some other plausible message. That is one of the great strengths of the true one-time pad. In jurisdictions such as the UK, where you might be required to turn over keys to law enforcement officers, they have NO WAY of knowing whether or not the key is correct
Being sued is nothing at all like suffering criminal penalties
It can be worse. In a criminal trial, the prosecution has to offer proof beyond a reasonable doubt. In a lawsuit, it's only proof by a preponderance of the evidence. Not a very high standard. One line in an ISP's log file should do it.
Also, if you're charged criminally, you get access to a public defender if you can't afford a lawyer. No such luck if you're sued. If you can't afford a lawyer, you have to settle. There's no choice.
This is why tort reform is so badly needed in this country. If a loser pays system were adopted then lawyers would defend frivolous lawsuits on a contingency basis, just as plaintiff's lawyers often do. But under our system, there is nothing in it for a lawyer to defend a client with no money in even a frivolous lawsuit.
Besides loss of tax revenues and control, there is a good reason for regulatory agencies to be concerned about VOIP. What if VOIP severely damages the market for conventional telephone service? That could result in the loss of universal and reliable, even if somewhat overpriced, telephone service in this country.
What if those newfangled automobiles damage the market for horse-drawn carriages? I'm concerned that if cars become a prevelent technology then I might have trouble finding a blacksmith to shoe my horses! Perhaps we should have some regulation to throttle the industry back!
But don't mail clients use port 25 to connect to the ISP's mail server when sending mail?
I suppose that could be changed, but it would require users to reconfigure their mail clients to a rather non-standard setting which could cause some confusion to non-technical types, and it would be a nightmare for ISPs who would have to help people with a potentially huge number of different mail clients. Also, personal firewall software might fuss about the fact that mail clients are making outgoing connections on peculiar ports.
Given that most Slashdot posters tend to be very pro-privacy, I'm very surprised that the majority here seem to be against this bill which looks like something to promote privacy.
Do you want companies to be able to copy and sell your kids' student records? Do you want your medical records to be traded among potential insurance companies? Do you want your income tax records bought and sold all over the place?
So, I'm confused. Why don't people think this bill is a good thing?
power plants worked long before the internet was created. no important computer controlling very important things should ever be put on the internet.
That's like saying that people lived just fine without electricity 200 years ago, so we should all stop using it now so we don't have to worry about blackouts.
Isn't one required to respond to a subpoena?
on
Hacking By Subpoena
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I am not a lawyer, so I'm asking. Aren't you immune lawsuits if your actions are required by a court order? It sounds to me like you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. If a judge orders you to do something, and another judge orders you to pay up for doing just that thing, it seems impossible to comply with the law. Doesn't the constitution have something to say about that? Otherwise, when a judge gives an order, what's to stop a defendent from saying "I'd like to comply with your order judge, but I'm afraid I might get sued!"
isnt this usually in violation of the bookstore contract with the university?
Contract law 101: A contract between two parties is binding only on those two parties (or their agents, etc.). If you are neither the University nor the Bookstore, such a contract can't be binding on you if you run your bookstore off campus. Running it on campus (or using University computers), however, might be problematic if such an exclusivity agreement exists. You'd need university permission to open up a bookstore on campus property anyway, and if such a contract existed they couldn't give it to you.
Is there a lower risk of a BSA audit if you run Linux? Wouldn't the fact that you are buying a bunch of Windowless PCs be more likely to attract the BSA's attention?
I'm not saying that's a reason to stay with Windows, but how do you figure you are immune from audits by running Linux?
Look it up, amigo. If you know about a felony and you don't report it, you are guilty of cover-up and can serve time for your avoidance of doing the right thing.
Look it up where? I'm not aware of any such law in the United States Code. Can you provide an exact reference?
They also have no right to tell AOL what it does and does not have to accept on it's servers.
But this isn't e-mail destined for AOL itself, but rather its customers. No one is saying private individuals can't filter this e-mail if they wish.
Next spyware companies will be trying to sue for firewalling off the ports they use to phone home!
But these firewalls generally are run by the end user. If AOL started firewalling off ports preventing businesses from reaching customers, I think they would have a cause to complain!
The service provider decides what services you get. It you do not like it, you are free to find another company.
I'm afraid it doesn't work that way. The person suing here is not an AOL customer, but rather someone whose clients had a need to send mail to some AOL subscribers. So, they aren't free to simply choose another company; they never chose AOL in the first place!
No, nothing nearly so esoteric. It's simply a conceptual thing. Basically the state of a point particle (classically) is described by its position and momentum. There are three coordinates required to fix its position, and 3 to describe its momentum (a vector quantity). Thus the state can be described by a point in an abstract 6 dimensional space (or 6n dimensions for a system of n particles). Hamilton's equations describe the trajectory of the system through this phase space. It's not a physically real space, but an abstract conceptual tool.
Much of the attention this paper has received is ostensibly due to the fact the Wheeler allegedly referred to the paper as "bold". Has this quote been confirmed? It seems doubtful to me, as I read the paper and it says nothing.
Some have remarked that those who criticize the paper due to the age or lack of training of the author ignore the fact that Einstein was young and out of the mainstream when he published his special relativity paper. However, the differences between the two works are striking. Not only did Einstein propose a completely new concept of time, he made very bold predictions which were at odds with accepted theories of the time. For instance, if two clocks are synchronized, and one is sent in a space ship and travels near the speed of light and returns, Einstein predicted they would be out of sync, whereas classical physics predicted they would still be in sync. Also, the famous E=mc^2 equation predicts not only that matter can be converted to energy and vice versa, but also tells quantitativly the conversion factor (c^2). Classical physics predicted that matter and energy were separetly conserved. Both have been experimentally verified in favor of Einstein.
Lynds' paper, on the other hand, makes no predictions at all and doesn't even make any statements about the nature of time at odds with currently accepted views.
As far as Zeno's "paradox" is concerned, it had been solved long ago. The "paradox" simply arises from the fact that a bad cooridate system for the time axis is chosen. Any physical problem can be made impossible by a poor choice of coordinates. The time coordinate in the Achilles and Tortoise problem simply runs out at the point where they meet. In such a system the problem can be solved up to the point where they meet (but not beyond) by summing an infinite series, but with a more reasonable choice of time coordinate, the problem is trivial to solve and extend beyond the time where Achilles passes the tortoise.
Motion can also be understood, even pre-relativity, by imagining object not in a 3 dimensional space, but a 6 dimensional phase space, which has both position and momentum coordinates. Nothing to see here folks, just move along.
"The upcoming boom in automobiles is likely to fail unless we install ignition and door locks on all cars to inhibit theft."
The flaw in your analogy is this: you are given the keys to the ignition and door locks when you buy your car. A DRM system is set up to prevent the owner from performing functions that the seller does not wish to allow.
I live in the UK: only knives (blades under 2 inches) and e-mail on that list are used without a license.
We in the uncivilized rest of the world look with great envy at a country that requires people to have a license to operate a television in the privacy [sic] of your own home.
Wouldn't it be funny, then, if a child predator stored pictures of your own children having sex on your own computer!
But the whole point is that the information is encrypted, so neither you, nor the "predator" would know that the images were stored on your computer. You might as well say "wouldn't it be ironic if a drunk driver someday used a car I sold to a used car dealer years ago to run my children down?"
From the article, all of the data he compiled was obtained from public sources. If anybody else wanted to replicate the work, it would only take their time.
As I understand it, a lot of the work was done before September 11. Since then, a lot of information has been removed from government websites, particularly pertaining to the national infrastructure. So, it may not be possible to replicate his work today.
Slashdot Mirror
And what's more important, does the manual explain how to turn the system off? And is the system tied in with some critical safety system such as airbags, so that turning off the system will possibly be illegal or at the very least unsafe? I'd like to see the law say that drivers have the option to turn this unit off without compromising vehicle safety features.
Interesting. So now when citizens try to express their views on upcoming legislation to elected officials, it's "harassment". Only industry reps should be allowed this privilege?
Actually, I'm afraid you have it backwards. The federal law mandates a maximum size for toilet tanks. Putting a brick in your tank effectively makes the tank smaller, not larger.
Ahh, but that's the whole point! The RIAA is hoping for pre-lawsuit settlements from the vast majority of subpoenaed people. It isn't even clear if they would follow up with a real lawsuit if the defendant doesn't settle.
I'm not a lawyer, but I think the rule is innocent until proven guilty.
However, the legal problems for an ISP unable to produce logs would probably not be a destruction of evidence problem, but rather they would lose the "safe harbor" provided by the DMCA for service providers whose users break copyright law. Carriers are exempt from prosecution under the law if they provide details about the end users who use use their system to violate copyright. They lose that exemption if they can't.
No. You can't actually crack a one-time pad that way! Why? Because it is possible to create a key which will cause the ciphertext to decrypt to any plaintext you wish! So if you are being tortured you simply hand over a fake key which causes the ciphertext to decrypt to some other plausible message. That is one of the great strengths of the true one-time pad. In jurisdictions such as the UK, where you might be required to turn over keys to law enforcement officers, they have NO WAY of knowing whether or not the key is correct
It can be worse. In a criminal trial, the prosecution has to offer proof beyond a reasonable doubt. In a lawsuit, it's only proof by a preponderance of the evidence. Not a very high standard. One line in an ISP's log file should do it.
Also, if you're charged criminally, you get access to a public defender if you can't afford a lawyer. No such luck if you're sued. If you can't afford a lawyer, you have to settle. There's no choice.
This is why tort reform is so badly needed in this country. If a loser pays system were adopted then lawyers would defend frivolous lawsuits on a contingency basis, just as plaintiff's lawyers often do. But under our system, there is nothing in it for a lawyer to defend a client with no money in even a frivolous lawsuit.
What if those newfangled automobiles damage the market for horse-drawn carriages? I'm concerned that if cars become a prevelent technology then I might have trouble finding a blacksmith to shoe my horses! Perhaps we should have some regulation to throttle the industry back!
I suppose that could be changed, but it would require users to reconfigure their mail clients to a rather non-standard setting which could cause some confusion to non-technical types, and it would be a nightmare for ISPs who would have to help people with a potentially huge number of different mail clients. Also, personal firewall software might fuss about the fact that mail clients are making outgoing connections on peculiar ports.
Do you want companies to be able to copy and sell your kids' student records? Do you want your medical records to be traded among potential insurance companies? Do you want your income tax records bought and sold all over the place?
So, I'm confused. Why don't people think this bill is a good thing?
That's like saying that people lived just fine without electricity 200 years ago, so we should all stop using it now so we don't have to worry about blackouts.
Any lawyers care to comment?
Contract law 101: A contract between two parties is binding only on those two parties (or their agents, etc.). If you are neither the University nor the Bookstore, such a contract can't be binding on you if you run your bookstore off campus. Running it on campus (or using University computers), however, might be problematic if such an exclusivity agreement exists. You'd need university permission to open up a bookstore on campus property anyway, and if such a contract existed they couldn't give it to you.
I'm not saying that's a reason to stay with Windows, but how do you figure you are immune from audits by running Linux?
Look it up where? I'm not aware of any such law in the United States Code. Can you provide an exact reference?
But this isn't e-mail destined for AOL itself, but rather its customers. No one is saying private individuals can't filter this e-mail if they wish.
Next spyware companies will be trying to sue for firewalling off the ports they use to phone home!
But these firewalls generally are run by the end user. If AOL started firewalling off ports preventing businesses from reaching customers, I think they would have a cause to complain!
I'm afraid it doesn't work that way. The person suing here is not an AOL customer, but rather someone whose clients had a need to send mail to some AOL subscribers. So, they aren't free to simply choose another company; they never chose AOL in the first place!
To paraphrase Homer Simpson: "Cool! They have C++ on computers now!
Does that imply 3 time dimensions?
No, nothing nearly so esoteric. It's simply a conceptual thing. Basically the state of a point particle (classically) is described by its position and momentum. There are three coordinates required to fix its position, and 3 to describe its momentum (a vector quantity). Thus the state can be described by a point in an abstract 6 dimensional space (or 6n dimensions for a system of n particles). Hamilton's equations describe the trajectory of the system through this phase space. It's not a physically real space, but an abstract conceptual tool.
Some have remarked that those who criticize the paper due to the age or lack of training of the author ignore the fact that Einstein was young and out of the mainstream when he published his special relativity paper. However, the differences between the two works are striking. Not only did Einstein propose a completely new concept of time, he made very bold predictions which were at odds with accepted theories of the time. For instance, if two clocks are synchronized, and one is sent in a space ship and travels near the speed of light and returns, Einstein predicted they would be out of sync, whereas classical physics predicted they would still be in sync. Also, the famous E=mc^2 equation predicts not only that matter can be converted to energy and vice versa, but also tells quantitativly the conversion factor (c^2). Classical physics predicted that matter and energy were separetly conserved. Both have been experimentally verified in favor of Einstein.
Lynds' paper, on the other hand, makes no predictions at all and doesn't even make any statements about the nature of time at odds with currently accepted views.
As far as Zeno's "paradox" is concerned, it had been solved long ago. The "paradox" simply arises from the fact that a bad cooridate system for the time axis is chosen. Any physical problem can be made impossible by a poor choice of coordinates. The time coordinate in the Achilles and Tortoise problem simply runs out at the point where they meet. In such a system the problem can be solved up to the point where they meet (but not beyond) by summing an infinite series, but with a more reasonable choice of time coordinate, the problem is trivial to solve and extend beyond the time where Achilles passes the tortoise.
Motion can also be understood, even pre-relativity, by imagining object not in a 3 dimensional space, but a 6 dimensional phase space, which has both position and momentum coordinates. Nothing to see here folks, just move along.
The flaw in your analogy is this: you are given the keys to the ignition and door locks when you buy your car. A DRM system is set up to prevent the owner from performing functions that the seller does not wish to allow.
We in the uncivilized rest of the world look with great envy at a country that requires people to have a license to operate a television in the privacy [sic] of your own home.
But the whole point is that the information is encrypted, so neither you, nor the "predator" would know that the images were stored on your computer. You might as well say "wouldn't it be ironic if a drunk driver someday used a car I sold to a used car dealer years ago to run my children down?"
As I understand it, a lot of the work was done before September 11. Since then, a lot of information has been removed from government websites, particularly pertaining to the national infrastructure. So, it may not be possible to replicate his work today.