Is there any reason why relaying spam or running a spam engine from offshore would be legal for a US resident?
I don't think the issue is whether it is legal or not, but whether there is any way to catch the spammer. If the spammer's connection to the offshore server is encrypted, there won't be any way to trace the e-mail back to him. As you point out, using offshore bank accounts to launder money is illegal, but it happens every day, because if the countries in question have good banking privacy laws, it is near impossible to catch people at it.
Excellent choice! Both a great film and underappreciated.
I have special fond memories of this film, since it is the first film I ever watched on a HiFi stereo VCR hooked up to a decent stereo system at my cousin's house. Yes, I know that's old technology now, but at the time, I was blown away by the awesome sound, which was a VAST improvement over conventional VCRs. He also had a decent-size TV as well. The movie was terrific. Great music too. I always liked this movie better than E.T. which won much greater critical acclaim.
I just read the QPL license, and it seems to me to be in some ways less restrictive than GPL, but in other ways much more so. Certainly not nearly as open as LGPL.
It appears to have something of a viral nature (unlike BSD) in that if you develop code which links to their libraries, there are restrictions on how you license that code. Whether this is compatible with BSD or not isn't clear to me.
But most shocking is item 6c: "If the items are not available to the general public, and the initial developer of the Software requests a copy of the items, then you must supply one." If I understand correctly, that means that even if I develop my own personal application which links to the Qt libraries, even if I never intend to distribute it to anyone, I might still be required to send a copy of the source to Trolltech! This is shocking! The GPL has no such requirement. Fans of the GPL love to remind us that the GPL limits only redistribution of code. You are free to keep your own code to yourself. Not so with the QPL!
IANAL, so if I am misunderstanding something important, please let me know.
I agree 100%! I hate the GPL when applied to libraries. Not so much because GPL'd code can't be used in commercial apps, but because not all open source developers want to release their code under the GPL.
There are many, including myself, who never release GPL code, and prefer to release open source code under a BSD-style license. (You are free to disagree and use your own choice of license for your own projects; there are merits to both types of license.)
The GPL/QPL license of Qt, completely shuts out developers of open-source software who choose to use a different type of open-source license. If it is free software, the developer generally can't afford to license the commercial version of Qt, and if you use the free version, you must release all your code under the GPL!
That's why the LGPL was invented. That way, the author of the library can still benefit from GPL-type protection for his/her work, but it doesn't coerce other open-source developers to adopt the same license.
The Qt license allows for GPL open-source developers, as well as commercial developers, but completely shuts out everyone else! That's why I hope Gnome improves and becomes the desktop of choice, even though there are many ways I prefer KDE to Gnome.
That still ignores the possibility that the person reading the message can write the text out on a notepad, and then type it into a Word document and email that to everyone.
True, but if you retype it, how is anyone going to be convinced it's real. You could have made the whole thing up. Any digital signature or other authentication would be lost.
The problem is that _nothing_ is secure once it's decrypted. Even if the e-mail had been sent encrypted and with "DO NOT PUBLISH" written on every other line, some random friend might still have sent the body of the e-mail (after decrypting it to read it) to a friend of theirs,
Basically, you seem to be making an argument in favor of Palladium which many on Slashdot seem to detest, since that is one of the stated goals of the trusted computing/Palladium framework: the ability to send files (such as e-mail) in such a way that they can't be forwarded to third parties. It will be interesting to see what kind of effect Palladium will have on these embarrassing leaks.
A Maclaurin series is the Taylor expansion of a function about 0. A Laurent series is like a Taylor series, but with the range of exponents going from -infinity to infinity instead of 0 to infinity.
Right, so a McLaurent series is like a Taylor series, expanded about x=0, with exponents ranging from -infinity..+infinity.
The only problem with your argument is that Amazon.com wasn't the first e-tailer. Years before Amazon.com existed, I used to buy compact discs through the internet from a company called compact disc connection (still existing as www.cdconnection.com). Way back when I used to order stuff from them, there was no web, you had to telnet to their system. They also had a customer review system in which you rate your recent purchases from 1 to 10, and averages are made available in their catalog, similar to Amazon.com's 5 star rating system. I'm sure they knew that as the Internet became more popular, more e-tailers would get online, but you didn't see them racing out to patent the concept of selling stuff over the Internet!
It's not a felony to use a pencil to alter your grade in the paper gradebook. Why is it a felony to do it on the computer?
Because it is much harder to catch people doing it on a computer. If the student altered the grade in a grade book the teacher might notice the different handwriting or erasure marks, but if no one had walked in on the student while he was at the computer, he would have gotten away with it.
It is not at all uncommon to give much more severe penalties for crimes in which there is a greater chance of getting away with it, than other crimes which cause the same damage. The reason? A greater deterrence is needed to offset the lower probability of capture.
If you want to make analogies, we would probably all agree that if he had hacked in to the school computer from home and changed his grade, he should be charged, so why should he receive a lesser penalty because he used the teacher's computer?
The point the lawyers are making is that the penalty should be in relation to the harm caused, not multiplied merely because it somehow involved a computer. Whether you defraud using a fountain pen or a PC, the penalty should be the same.
Actually, it is quite common in law to punish crimes for which it is more difficult to catch the criminal more harshly than crimes in which it is easier, even if the damage/injury is the same. The reason for this is there is a greater need for deterence, when the likelihood of detection/capture is lower.
For instance, in most states there is a much greater penalty for breaking into a home with a lockpick than there is for breaking a window: a neighbor is more likely to hear or see you breaking a window. Likewise, smuggling items into the country to avoid taxes incurs a penalty greater than the taxes themselves, simply because most people don't get caught. A greater deterrence is needed to make it not worth the risk.
The problem with computer hacking crimes is that you can do them from the comfort of your own home, sometimes protected by anonymizers, proxies, and the like making it difficult if not impossible in some cases to catch the criminal, so the penalties need to be more severe to create a greater deterrence. This kind of reasoning has been applied long before computers. It is really nothing new and makes a lot of sense.
So, does this mean I will no longer have to use soap and shampoo when I shower? I can simply use specially prepared water with the dissolved gases removed, and all the oily, smelly dirt on my skin and in my hair will dissolve and wash right off.
We've got a use tax here in Michigan, but I've never paid it, simply because I think it's unenforceable.
Most states enforce it only for large ticket items, like expensive jewelry, boats, and other items. They know you've made the purchase by looking at credit card records, but it is only worthwhile for them to go after the big purchases.
Cars, of course, are easiest to enforce sales tax on since in general they have to be registered in the state in which you live.
Most people connect to the Internet through a phone line or cable modem in the first place, both services of which are already taxed. So taxing voIP in addition would be a form of double taxation. Your modem makes a phone call to your ISP, and then you use the Net to call someone by voIP. Do both calls get taxed?
Even without the DMCA, you are guilty of contributory copyright infringement...
One minor problem here. Unless the users are taping the shows their receiving, there is no copying going on here at all, so conventional copyright law doesn't apply. This is a DMCA violation, not copyright infringement, direct or contributory.
That said, I do think this is actually the kind of behavior the DMCA was designed to stop, and I don't feel too sorry for those that got arrested. They weren't enabling blind people to read e-books, or Linux users to watch their DVDs. Their boxes had only one purpose: to pirate satellite signals. So I don't feel too sorry for them.
I think we shouldn't ask "how can we force these guys to lower prices" but "why isn't there an affordable public database of this material".
If Lexis and Westlaw didn't already exist, I'd agree with you. The problem is they do and they have invested a huge amount of money in creating their databases. It would be most unfair for the government using public tax dollars (which Lexis and Westlaw pay) to compete with private businesses.
Why doesn't the government use part of its multi-trillion dollar budget to write an operating system and office suite to give away for free? Because they would be using tax dollars to put Microsoft (a taxpaying corporation) out of business.
The government really does have to be careful about what it spends public money on. They shouldn't be competing with their taxpayers.
Now, of course, if an incredibly wealthy individual or group decided to create such a database and give it away for free, that would be fine, although it isn't likely to happen.
You can only apply for a patent on things that have been kept secret before you applied.
Actually, in the US, you have up to 1 year after publishing an invention to apply for a patent. That's why RSA was patented in the US but not Europe: they applied for a patent after presenting the results at a conference, and European patent law doesn't give the one year grace period that American law does.
I can't wait to visit Nevada. I consider it the GNU/Linux equivalent for a state in the US.
More BSD-like than GNU-like, as you aren't required to carry Nevada's policies to other states that you subsequently visit after doing business in Nevada.
this chip is not designed to facilitate DRM. In their "why TCPA" article, they explain why it's not even particularly well suited for such systems.
Whenever anyone claims this always ask the following question: does the owner of the chip (i.e. the owner of the computer in which the chip resides) have full access to all keys embedded within the chip? If not, why not, if not to facilitate DRM?
As long as there is no hardware base DRM involved, the "hackers" will always catch up within days.
And that's the key phrase. What makes you think there won't be hardware based DRM in your no-copyright world? Even if you don't choose to buy a Palladium equipped PC, that doesn't mean that the entertainment industry won't release their content for Palladium-only hardware. The Slashdot crowd may shun and boycott the technology, but the general public will buy whatever they need to, in order to watch the latest movies in high-definition digital television.
The issue is *NOT* Patents. It's all about copyright and licensing. Unix dates back to 1969 (see http://www.levenez.com/unix ), and software patents only go back to 1981.
Not true. As was pointed out in a previous post, patents expire 20 years after application or 17 years after issuance of the patent, whichever comes last.
So you can have applied for a patent way back in 1969, but if you delay issuance of the patent until, say 2000, you can hold the patent until 2017.
It is not uncommon to apply for a patent, and hold up the issuance by deliberately slowing down the process (lots of legal wrangling, etc.) until your methods become widely adopted, and then suddenly move to get your patent issued. This is called a "submarine patent", because the application is hidden from the general public until issuance, so your methods can become a standard since people don't know they are patented!
One of the many problems with current U.S. patent law.
(IANAL, but submarine patents have been discussed extensively on Slashdot before.)
Me too, but cooperation between the entertainment and tech. industries is less worrying than legislative mandates. The reason? Without legislation, there will always be room for "rogue" companies who produce hardware that doesn't play by the same rules. (Remember the old Apex DVD players with the "You're not supposed to be here" menu?)
These "rogue" devices will capture a lot of the market share, and perhaps force other manufacturers to be less "cooperative" with the entertainment industry.
The potential risk, of course, is that if these "cooperating" devices become the norm, legislation might quickly and quietly follow whose purpose is to stamp out the "rogue" devices, so your point is not without merit.
I wasn't aware the music industry was supposed to be competing with the technology industry.
In any event, although I'm glad to see that one thing they agree on is that government intervention is bad. I wish the movie industry had signed on, as they are a potentially more powerful lobby group.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think the issue is whether it is legal or not, but whether there is any way to catch the spammer. If the spammer's connection to the offshore server is encrypted, there won't be any way to trace the e-mail back to him. As you point out, using offshore bank accounts to launder money is illegal, but it happens every day, because if the countries in question have good banking privacy laws, it is near impossible to catch people at it.
I have special fond memories of this film, since it is the first film I ever watched on a HiFi stereo VCR hooked up to a decent stereo system at my cousin's house. Yes, I know that's old technology now, but at the time, I was blown away by the awesome sound, which was a VAST improvement over conventional VCRs. He also had a decent-size TV as well. The movie was terrific. Great music too. I always liked this movie better than E.T. which won much greater critical acclaim.
Do you have to register your beer to prove you paid your sales tax on it?
It appears to have something of a viral nature (unlike BSD) in that if you develop code which links to their libraries, there are restrictions on how you license that code. Whether this is compatible with BSD or not isn't clear to me.
But most shocking is item 6c: "If the items are not available to the general public, and the initial developer of the Software requests a copy of the items, then you must supply one." If I understand correctly, that means that even if I develop my own personal application which links to the Qt libraries, even if I never intend to distribute it to anyone, I might still be required to send a copy of the source to Trolltech! This is shocking! The GPL has no such requirement. Fans of the GPL love to remind us that the GPL limits only redistribution of code. You are free to keep your own code to yourself. Not so with the QPL!
IANAL, so if I am misunderstanding something important, please let me know.
There are many, including myself, who never release GPL code, and prefer to release open source code under a BSD-style license. (You are free to disagree and use your own choice of license for your own projects; there are merits to both types of license.)
The GPL/QPL license of Qt, completely shuts out developers of open-source software who choose to use a different type of open-source license. If it is free software, the developer generally can't afford to license the commercial version of Qt, and if you use the free version, you must release all your code under the GPL!
That's why the LGPL was invented. That way, the author of the library can still benefit from GPL-type protection for his/her work, but it doesn't coerce other open-source developers to adopt the same license.
The Qt license allows for GPL open-source developers, as well as commercial developers, but completely shuts out everyone else! That's why I hope Gnome improves and becomes the desktop of choice, even though there are many ways I prefer KDE to Gnome.
True, but if you retype it, how is anyone going to be convinced it's real. You could have made the whole thing up. Any digital signature or other authentication would be lost.
Basically, you seem to be making an argument in favor of Palladium which many on Slashdot seem to detest, since that is one of the stated goals of the trusted computing/Palladium framework: the ability to send files (such as e-mail) in such a way that they can't be forwarded to third parties. It will be interesting to see what kind of effect Palladium will have on these embarrassing leaks.
Which states?
Right, so a McLaurent series is like a Taylor series, expanded about x=0, with exponents ranging from -infinity..+infinity.
Because it is much harder to catch people doing it on a computer. If the student altered the grade in a grade book the teacher might notice the different handwriting or erasure marks, but if no one had walked in on the student while he was at the computer, he would have gotten away with it.
It is not at all uncommon to give much more severe penalties for crimes in which there is a greater chance of getting away with it, than other crimes which cause the same damage. The reason? A greater deterrence is needed to offset the lower probability of capture.
If you want to make analogies, we would probably all agree that if he had hacked in to the school computer from home and changed his grade, he should be charged, so why should he receive a lesser penalty because he used the teacher's computer?
Actually, it is quite common in law to punish crimes for which it is more difficult to catch the criminal more harshly than crimes in which it is easier, even if the damage/injury is the same. The reason for this is there is a greater need for deterence, when the likelihood of detection/capture is lower.
For instance, in most states there is a much greater penalty for breaking into a home with a lockpick than there is for breaking a window: a neighbor is more likely to hear or see you breaking a window. Likewise, smuggling items into the country to avoid taxes incurs a penalty greater than the taxes themselves, simply because most people don't get caught. A greater deterrence is needed to make it not worth the risk.
The problem with computer hacking crimes is that you can do them from the comfort of your own home, sometimes protected by anonymizers, proxies, and the like making it difficult if not impossible in some cases to catch the criminal, so the penalties need to be more severe to create a greater deterrence. This kind of reasoning has been applied long before computers. It is really nothing new and makes a lot of sense.
Most states enforce it only for large ticket items, like expensive jewelry, boats, and other items. They know you've made the purchase by looking at credit card records, but it is only worthwhile for them to go after the big purchases.
Cars, of course, are easiest to enforce sales tax on since in general they have to be registered in the state in which you live.
One minor problem here. Unless the users are taping the shows their receiving, there is no copying going on here at all, so conventional copyright law doesn't apply. This is a DMCA violation, not copyright infringement, direct or contributory.
That said, I do think this is actually the kind of behavior the DMCA was designed to stop, and I don't feel too sorry for those that got arrested. They weren't enabling blind people to read e-books, or Linux users to watch their DVDs. Their boxes had only one purpose: to pirate satellite signals. So I don't feel too sorry for them.
If Lexis and Westlaw didn't already exist, I'd agree with you. The problem is they do and they have invested a huge amount of money in creating their databases. It would be most unfair for the government using public tax dollars (which Lexis and Westlaw pay) to compete with private businesses.
Why doesn't the government use part of its multi-trillion dollar budget to write an operating system and office suite to give away for free? Because they would be using tax dollars to put Microsoft (a taxpaying corporation) out of business.
The government really does have to be careful about what it spends public money on. They shouldn't be competing with their taxpayers.
Now, of course, if an incredibly wealthy individual or group decided to create such a database and give it away for free, that would be fine, although it isn't likely to happen.
Actually, in the US, you have up to 1 year after publishing an invention to apply for a patent. That's why RSA was patented in the US but not Europe: they applied for a patent after presenting the results at a conference, and European patent law doesn't give the one year grace period that American law does.
More BSD-like than GNU-like, as you aren't required to carry Nevada's policies to other states that you subsequently visit after doing business in Nevada.
Whenever anyone claims this always ask the following question: does the owner of the chip (i.e. the owner of the computer in which the chip resides) have full access to all keys embedded within the chip? If not, why not, if not to facilitate DRM?
And that's the key phrase. What makes you think there won't be hardware based DRM in your no-copyright world? Even if you don't choose to buy a Palladium equipped PC, that doesn't mean that the entertainment industry won't release their content for Palladium-only hardware. The Slashdot crowd may shun and boycott the technology, but the general public will buy whatever they need to, in order to watch the latest movies in high-definition digital television.
Not true. As was pointed out in a previous post, patents expire 20 years after application or 17 years after issuance of the patent, whichever comes last.
So you can have applied for a patent way back in 1969, but if you delay issuance of the patent until, say 2000, you can hold the patent until 2017.
It is not uncommon to apply for a patent, and hold up the issuance by deliberately slowing down the process (lots of legal wrangling, etc.) until your methods become widely adopted, and then suddenly move to get your patent issued. This is called a "submarine patent", because the application is hidden from the general public until issuance, so your methods can become a standard since people don't know they are patented!
One of the many problems with current U.S. patent law.
(IANAL, but submarine patents have been discussed extensively on Slashdot before.)
Me too, but cooperation between the entertainment and tech. industries is less worrying than legislative mandates. The reason? Without legislation, there will always be room for "rogue" companies who produce hardware that doesn't play by the same rules. (Remember the old Apex DVD players with the "You're not supposed to be here" menu?)
These "rogue" devices will capture a lot of the market share, and perhaps force other manufacturers to be less "cooperative" with the entertainment industry.
The potential risk, of course, is that if these "cooperating" devices become the norm, legislation might quickly and quietly follow whose purpose is to stamp out the "rogue" devices, so your point is not without merit.
In any event, although I'm glad to see that one thing they agree on is that government intervention is bad. I wish the movie industry had signed on, as they are a potentially more powerful lobby group.