I used to work for a company that did this. It was a great place to work and socialize. We'd go out after hours to relax together - all 30 to 40 of us.
We all got our work done before deadlines.
Then the 'management' instituted this internet/mail watch. One video clip e-mailed *to* me later wound up hurting 15 guys on the cc list. The guy who sent it was banned from the net. The rest of us were all banned from the net for 30 days and we didn't even have to have seen it. I hadn't even checked my mail before they summoned us into one room to chew us all out.
I left the company three weeks later over this as did several others. Now, for the people that still work there, they say the company morale sucks and morale was never like it was from 1998 to 2000. Too bad, too. Really great bunch of people they were.
Now, the company has gone through four layoffs and is working with a skeleton crew.
...but isn't it their responsibility to prove that you _dont_ own the software - not the other way around?
Exactly! It is the BSA's responsibility to prove that you do not own the software. Since they are on the outside looking in, they don't know if you do not own a license. If a company lets them in to investigate, they'll have the info they'll need to make allegations against you. If they make allegations without proof they could be held for libel; and, until they have their proof they can't do a thing - the BSA has no authority what-so-ever *until* a company has signed off to allow the BSA in to "investigate."
It seems to me that the big winners, once again, are the lawyers that represent the small companies and non-profits alike. Even if a company does disregard the letter, it would seem a prudent move to investigate the matter more closely by bringing such material to your company's lawyer.
While the BSA does not directly say that you will be sued, you *could* be sued by the company whose software they are looking for. IANAL, but to say that the BSA is going to sue you is a threat that is illegal in the US if the entity does not have legal grounds on which to sue - in your company's sake, proof of no licenses. Entities, whether corporate or personal, can not go around saying they're going to sue and not sue, either; that's a method of blackmail, I would think.
I think that the BSA just tries to use FUD to make money. They scare some company into letting them in their doors and then its game-time! They've got you.
Keep them outdoors and tell them to pack sand - or toss the letter out.
In the mean time, I'd do some damage control and find those licenses, just in case.
The cattle industry practiced this for some time, too. They found, though, like breast implant materials, that the RFID chip wasn't where it was supposed to be in the body when they went to read the chip several days or weeks later. It migrated from area of the body to another - and it could be anywhere.
So, a practice meant to speed cattle inventory only slowed things down to a crawl. I imagine that handheld RFID wands were used and that the large RFID readers that surround garage bay doors weren't used in this project. (The large garage door bay RFID readers surround the outer edge of the door and receive & transmit signals from RFID chips that pass through the door. This allows entire crates, or pallettes, of goods to be moved around a complex and still be accounted for.)
Privacy worries also depend on the size of the tags. Matrics of Columbia, Md., said it has claimed the record for the smallest RFID tag, a flat square measuring 550 microns a side with an antenna that varies between half an inch long to four inches by four inches, depending on the application. Without an antenna, the RFID tag is about the size of a flake of pepper.
I'm currently programming a chip that has an antenna that is 6mm in diameter. That chip itself is 3mm x 3mm.
This is a really interesting field (not pun intended) to work in, too.
One thing I disagree with is the ability to read and get a response from the chip. There is a certain focus point that must be achieved before the chip becomes active. Using a larger transceiver wouldn't exactly be practical because of the size of the contraption one would have to create in order to receive a signal from the RFID chip. Unless, of course, frying a few humans and family pets doesn't concern them - which, as everyone already knows, criminals hardly seem concerned with anyone other than themselves.
What are we actually learning, as a society, from the usage and collision from motor vehicle accidents? How to crash better?
I'm all for improving safety and taking every measure possible to sustain life when there is an accident; however, we should all be mindful that no matter how many safety devices are incorporated into a device, one should still be mindful of their surroundings and take appropriate action *before* the situation degrades into an accident. Drivers need to be far more aware of the world, not just outside their front windshield, but from the viewpoint of all their windows. I've seen too many drivers cut off other vehicles, motorcycles more-so, than I care to recount.
Fortunately, here in the states, motorcycle drivers are required to take a safety course teaching the proper handling of a motorcycle in difficult situations. Unfortunately, drivers of SUVs aren't required to take these safety courses and end up killing a fair amount of their own citizens in smaller vehicles and motorcycles.
Point being: proper training improves everyones chances of returning home safely.
While I think it's a Utopian Idea, there are many companies that could really abuse the domain.kids.us. How? Advertising.
First, those annoying pop-ups and "In-Your-Face" green blobs that children so desire.
Parents are going to feel more at ease that their kids are restricted (on their home and school computers) to sites that are 'kid-safe.' While the content may be kid-safe, what about the advertisements that are now pointed *directly* at children with very sponge-like, malleable minds. When large corporations start to target this audience, mom and pop are going to start wondering why little Johnny pushes for company A's brand of cheeseburger vs. company B's(which, admittedly, already happens; but, parents won't be monitoring the content of the domains they visit because they "know" their kids are safe from adult content).
Start pushing political views on children and suddenly little Sally has a strong political leaning that's directly opposite of their own parents view of the world around them(Which is not to say that that is, totally, a bad thing).
IMHO, I also believe that this will give parents a false sense of security. Inevitably, children's' chat software will turn up so little kids can have 'pen pals.' What if one of Mary's little chat buddies turns out to be an ex-parolee. Are there ex-parolees doing this on the Internet now? Hell Yeah. But they also don't have a direct audience of children to prey upon as they would if they used "Kiddy Chat 2.0."
And then there's the whole AOL Thing...Don't get me started.
Still, when all is said and done, parents need to raise their children - not Net Nanny or Kids.US.
Who ever made the distinction that popup ads were any less instrusive than tv ads - they're a thousand times more instrusive!
Just because some idiotic tv announcer says, "Don't touch that channel" doesn't mean I'm legally liable to leave the channel where it is during that stations commercial break. It's the same thing with popup ads. I don't HAVE to look at anything I don't feel like. If it grabs my attention, I'll watch.
The things that advertisers have seem to forgotten , these days, is that ads needs to be important toward their audience. You don't see too many Dolly Parton record advertisements on BET, do you? NO!
Stop pushing items on me that don't fit the audience and popup ads might just work - even if only a little.
However, popup ads will never be successful because they're instrusive. When I'm interacting at web-browser window 'A' and all of a sudden web-broswer window 'B' steals focus, it's annoying as hell and turns a prospective audiences' buying power/attention off.
Stalking someone without their knowledge is evil, too. That is what these companies are doing and that is why the/. community is all up in arms about it. I ran a log on my system to monitor all outgoing activity from my PC overnight a few days after one of these so-called 'technicians' dropped off my cable modem and a CD with garbage on it. Being ever curious, I installed the CD's software, ran the logger via a firewall that prevented the escape of information, and went to bed.
When I awoke the next morning I found that three particular programs were quite incistant about getting to the net to report their secret results about my activity (or lack thereof) on-line.
There were 156 attempts in 14 hours (usually spaced a few minutes apart) to report to one IP address from three different programs. They are: 1) Client Foundation 2) Support.com Scheduler and Command Dispatcher and 3) CorrectConnect MFC Application
The largest complaint I have toward people promoting space travel to the ISS to the highest bidder is that the ISS wans't designed for space tourism. It was designed for scientific work. If it were designed for tourism then I, an American, would be all out of excuses for 'whining' about something that is being used for something it wasn't designed for.
If Russia wants a space tourism industry to support its space efforts than let them fund it. If any other nations agree to help out in the effort, great!
The US didn't sign on for country A to try and convert, and make a mockery of, a project that is supposed to have serious scientific work being done on/in it.
Tourists, however well pre-flight trained, can still cause havok and wreak destruction of sensitive scientific experiments that NASA (and other orgs) have spent decades researching and equiping.
The DNS is built so that eight (8) or more of the world's 13 root servers must fail before ordinary Internet users start to see slowdowns.
Well, if '4 or 5' of the servers weren't effected doesn't that mean that 9 or 8 of the servers were effected; therefore, the attack, it could be argued, was a success.
I concede to your point; however, in my selfish situation, I reserved a copy of FotR only to find a few weeks later that there is another version to be released with more content.
Which version would you have chose had you known of it's existance?
I'd really like to get my money back and only purchase one video but now I'm 'forced' to purchase the other edition because the publishing company withheld information about another 'removed-scenes-added' version being released at a later date.
I translated the link in Babelfish and came up with this interesting translation:
"The DVD+RW alliance which consists of the enterprise which promotes DVD+RW standard on the 10th, held " 3rd DVD+RW Asian Pacific seminar " inside capital. The among those, the reporting authorized personnel was dealt with, press seminar was executed. "
Needless to say there are many openings in Japan for reporters but few takers.
I bought one of the 15" varieties @1.6GHz in April - a PCG-GRX550. If I could have afforded the $2200 price tag, I would have bought the 16.1" screen from Best Buy.
I didn't know it at the time but mine came with Win XP Home and not Professional. (I lost myself gazing into such a large screen and had to buy it - no matter what, dammit!) Models with a 'P' tacked onto the end of the model have Win XP Pro installed (IE: PCG-GRX550P.)
The one thing I'm not too keen on is some of the software that came bundled on mine. There's one program that is supposed to be some sort of graphical browser for viewing pictures with all the other pictures 'floating' behind the currently viewed picture. It was very straining to look at and very odd to use. I removed it quickly.
One of the good things about this unit is that it comes with a Sony MemoryStick port - making it very useful for people who have Sony digital cameras or a Sony Clie. Just pop in a cartridge and it can immediately access the card making sharing pictures between LT & Camera/Clie a snap.
The screen on the 15" model is very crisp but the 16.1" display is orgasmic! On a 15" model you can adjust the Radeon to 1600x1200 but it is 'windowed' and unweildy so I stay in 1024x768.
Some poeple are so far from removed from society that they don't know society works but know how everything else works. Therefore, in their mind, they arn't acting foolish or crazy. They're 'winging it' again. Learning, if you will. Albeit the hard way!
Slashdot Mirror
Geez, what was I thinking! While I was riding boats my friends set sail in ships to Silicon Valley.
I guess I'm programming now so I can't complain too much.
I used to work for a company that did this. It was a great place to work and socialize. We'd go out after hours to relax together - all 30 to 40 of us.
We all got our work done before deadlines.
Then the 'management' instituted this internet/mail watch. One video clip e-mailed *to* me later wound up hurting 15 guys on the cc list. The guy who sent it was banned from the net. The rest of us were all banned from the net for 30 days and we didn't even have to have seen it. I hadn't even checked my mail before they summoned us into one room to chew us all out.
I left the company three weeks later over this as did several others. Now, for the people that still work there, they say the company morale sucks and morale was never like it was from 1998 to 2000. Too bad, too. Really great bunch of people they were.
Now, the company has gone through four layoffs and is working with a skeleton crew.
...but isn't it their responsibility to prove that you _dont_ own the software - not the other way around?
Exactly! It is the BSA's responsibility to prove that you do not own the software. Since they are on the outside looking in, they don't know if you do not own a license. If a company lets them in to investigate, they'll have the info they'll need to make allegations against you. If they make allegations without proof they could be held for libel; and, until they have their proof they can't do a thing - the BSA has no authority what-so-ever *until* a company has signed off to allow the BSA in to "investigate."
Tricky business, law.
It seems to me that the big winners, once again, are the lawyers that represent the small companies and non-profits alike. Even if a company does disregard the letter, it would seem a prudent move to investigate the matter more closely by bringing such material to your company's lawyer.
While the BSA does not directly say that you will be sued, you *could* be sued by the company whose software they are looking for. IANAL, but to say that the BSA is going to sue you is a threat that is illegal in the US if the entity does not have legal grounds on which to sue - in your company's sake, proof of no licenses. Entities, whether corporate or personal, can not go around saying they're going to sue and not sue, either; that's a method of blackmail, I would think.
I think that the BSA just tries to use FUD to make money. They scare some company into letting them in their doors and then its game-time! They've got you.
Keep them outdoors and tell them to pack sand - or toss the letter out.
In the mean time, I'd do some damage control and find those licenses, just in case.
The cattle industry practiced this for some time, too. They found, though, like breast implant materials, that the RFID chip wasn't where it was supposed to be in the body when they went to read the chip several days or weeks later. It migrated from area of the body to another - and it could be anywhere.
So, a practice meant to speed cattle inventory only slowed things down to a crawl. I imagine that handheld RFID wands were used and that the large RFID readers that surround garage bay doors weren't used in this project. (The large garage door bay RFID readers surround the outer edge of the door and receive & transmit signals from RFID chips that pass through the door. This allows entire crates, or pallettes, of goods to be moved around a complex and still be accounted for.)
From the article:
Privacy worries also depend on the size of the tags. Matrics of Columbia, Md., said it has claimed the record for the smallest RFID tag, a flat square measuring 550 microns a side with an antenna that varies between half an inch long to four inches by four inches, depending on the application. Without an antenna, the RFID tag is about the size of a flake of pepper.
I'm currently programming a chip that has an antenna that is 6mm in diameter. That chip itself is 3mm x 3mm.
This is a really interesting field (not pun intended) to work in, too.
One thing I disagree with is the ability to read and get a response from the chip. There is a certain focus point that must be achieved before the chip becomes active. Using a larger transceiver wouldn't exactly be practical because of the size of the contraption one would have to create in order to receive a signal from the RFID chip. Unless, of course, frying a few humans and family pets doesn't concern them - which, as everyone already knows, criminals hardly seem concerned with anyone other than themselves.
What are we actually learning, as a society, from the usage and collision from motor vehicle accidents? How to crash better?
I'm all for improving safety and taking every measure possible to sustain life when there is an accident; however, we should all be mindful that no matter how many safety devices are incorporated into a device, one should still be mindful of their surroundings and take appropriate action *before* the situation degrades into an accident. Drivers need to be far more aware of the world, not just outside their front windshield, but from the viewpoint of all their windows. I've seen too many drivers cut off other vehicles, motorcycles more-so, than I care to recount.
Fortunately, here in the states, motorcycle drivers are required to take a safety course teaching the proper handling of a motorcycle in difficult situations. Unfortunately, drivers of SUVs aren't required to take these safety courses and end up killing a fair amount of their own citizens in smaller vehicles and motorcycles.
Point being: proper training improves everyones chances of returning home safely.
While I think it's a Utopian Idea, there are many companies that could really abuse the domain .kids.us. How? Advertising.
First, those annoying pop-ups and "In-Your-Face" green blobs that children so desire.
Parents are going to feel more at ease that their kids are restricted (on their home and school computers) to sites that are 'kid-safe.' While the content may be kid-safe, what about the advertisements that are now pointed *directly* at children with very sponge-like, malleable minds. When large corporations start to target this audience, mom and pop are going to start wondering why little Johnny pushes for company A's brand of cheeseburger vs. company B's(which, admittedly, already happens; but, parents won't be monitoring the content of the domains they visit because they "know" their kids are safe from adult content).
Start pushing political views on children and suddenly little Sally has a strong political leaning that's directly opposite of their own parents view of the world around them(Which is not to say that that is, totally, a bad thing).
IMHO, I also believe that this will give parents a false sense of security. Inevitably, children's' chat software will turn up so little kids can have 'pen pals.' What if one of Mary's little chat buddies turns out to be an ex-parolee. Are there ex-parolees doing this on the Internet now? Hell Yeah. But they also don't have a direct audience of children to prey upon as they would if they used "Kiddy Chat 2.0."
And then there's the whole AOL Thing...Don't get me started.
Still, when all is said and done, parents need to raise their children - not Net Nanny or Kids.US.
Who ever made the distinction that popup ads were any less instrusive than tv ads - they're a thousand times more instrusive!
Just because some idiotic tv announcer says, "Don't touch that channel" doesn't mean I'm legally liable to leave the channel where it is during that stations commercial break. It's the same thing with popup ads. I don't HAVE to look at anything I don't feel like. If it grabs my attention, I'll watch.
The things that advertisers have seem to forgotten , these days, is that ads needs to be important toward their audience. You don't see too many Dolly Parton record advertisements on BET, do you? NO!
Stop pushing items on me that don't fit the audience and popup ads might just work - even if only a little.
However, popup ads will never be successful because they're instrusive. When I'm interacting at web-browser window 'A' and all of a sudden web-broswer window 'B' steals focus, it's annoying as hell and turns a prospective audiences' buying power/attention off.
DONT DO IT!
Stalking someone without their knowledge is evil, too. That is what these companies are doing and that is why the /. community is all up in arms about it. I ran a log on my system to monitor all outgoing activity from my PC overnight a few days after one of these so-called 'technicians' dropped off my cable modem and a CD with garbage on it. Being ever curious, I installed the CD's software, ran the logger via a firewall that prevented the escape of information, and went to bed.
When I awoke the next morning I found that three particular programs were quite incistant about getting to the net to report their secret results about my activity (or lack thereof) on-line.
There were 156 attempts in 14 hours (usually spaced a few minutes apart) to report to one IP address from three different programs. They are:
1) Client Foundation
2) Support.com Scheduler and Command Dispatcher
and
3) CorrectConnect MFC Application
I ask you, how is this not evil?
The largest complaint I have toward people promoting space travel to the ISS to the highest bidder is that the ISS wans't designed for space tourism. It was designed for scientific work. If it were designed for tourism then I, an American, would be all out of excuses for 'whining' about something that is being used for something it wasn't designed for.
If Russia wants a space tourism industry to support its space efforts than let them fund it. If any other nations agree to help out in the effort, great!
The US didn't sign on for country A to try and convert, and make a mockery of, a project that is supposed to have serious scientific work being done on/in it.
Tourists, however well pre-flight trained, can still cause havok and wreak destruction of sensitive scientific experiments that NASA (and other orgs) have spent decades researching and equiping.
The DNS is built so that eight (8) or more of the world's 13 root servers must fail before ordinary Internet users start to see slowdowns.
Well, if '4 or 5' of the servers weren't effected doesn't that mean that 9 or 8 of the servers were effected; therefore, the attack, it could be argued, was a success.
I'll let the reader do their own math.
with any OS, also. Check it out here. Of course, you could also get Lindows, Mandrake and windoze PCs.
Phase 1: AT-ST Phase 2: Phase 3: Profit
I concede to your point; however, in my selfish situation, I reserved a copy of FotR only to find a few weeks later that there is another version to be released with more content.
Which version would you have chose had you known of it's existance?
I'd really like to get my money back and only purchase one video but now I'm 'forced' to purchase the other edition because the publishing company withheld information about another 'removed-scenes-added' version being released at a later date.
I translated the link in Babelfish and came up with this interesting translation:
"The DVD+RW alliance which consists of the enterprise which promotes DVD+RW standard on the 10th, held " 3rd DVD+RW Asian Pacific seminar " inside capital. The among those, the reporting authorized personnel was dealt with, press seminar was executed. "
Needless to say there are many openings in Japan for reporters but few takers.
I bought one of the 15" varieties @1.6GHz in April - a PCG-GRX550. If I could have afforded the $2200 price tag, I would have bought the 16.1" screen from Best Buy.
I didn't know it at the time but mine came with Win XP Home and not Professional. (I lost myself gazing into such a large screen and had to buy it - no matter what, dammit!) Models with a 'P' tacked onto the end of the model have Win XP Pro installed (IE: PCG-GRX550P.)
The one thing I'm not too keen on is some of the software that came bundled on mine. There's one program that is supposed to be some sort of graphical browser for viewing pictures with all the other pictures 'floating' behind the currently viewed picture. It was very straining to look at and very odd to use. I removed it quickly.
One of the good things about this unit is that it comes with a Sony MemoryStick port - making it very useful for people who have Sony digital cameras or a Sony Clie. Just pop in a cartridge and it can immediately access the card making sharing pictures between LT & Camera/Clie a snap.
The screen on the 15" model is very crisp but the 16.1" display is orgasmic! On a 15" model you can adjust the Radeon to 1600x1200 but it is 'windowed' and unweildy so I stay in 1024x768.
If you think the Sicilian Bridge will bridge the gap in clutures, check out this Discovery Article.
From what I know, Time is the most deadly invention man ever conceived!! ;o)
While I was working on a certain touch pad using a stylus, the SDK provided, of course, the available functions.
One of the functions was aptly named:
BOOL PenIsTouching(); Look closely.
Interpretation! Interpretation! Interpretation!
We had two Indians working for us.
They never did any error checking and where English translation was needed it got quite comical.
For instance:
"Required" became "This is must."
Now, I ask you: Huh!?
I already *GOT* one! It'sa very nice.
join 'em!
Some poeple are so far from removed from society that they don't know society works but know how everything else works. Therefore, in their mind, they arn't acting foolish or crazy. They're 'winging it' again. Learning, if you will. Albeit the hard way!
Here's your GED .
Apparently, I was mistaken about pheromones. It's actually species-specific cuticular hydrocarbons.
I'm SOO clueless.