As far as I can see, it'd be possible to reduce the risks for all concerned, but since this would cost the CC companies money, I don't see it happening until someone legislates it, or someone big enough (Amazon?) starts demanding they do it.
Citibank is already doing it. The cost to the credit card companies is minor. The benefit to the merchants is pretty significant. The problem is you need to give consumers an incentive to use it, and the cost of that incentive should likely be borne by the merchant.
I think they're retaliating over PayPal's trying to cut credit cards out of the online transaction loop.
Perhaps, but you should also remember that using paypal you can easily get a cash advance without paying the cash advance interest rates. Just "buy" something from a friend, and have the friend give you the cash. You save the cash advance fee (but pay the paypal fee), get your 1% cash back bonus (if you have one), get the increased credit line, get the 30 day grace period, and get the lower interest rate. Sure, it's illegal, but what are the chances you're going to actually get caught?
Just to be clear, I haven't accused the bill of being anything, since I haven't yet seen it.
The question is one of ownership. Who owns my personal information?
No one owns information.
Now, what right do these companies have to use or to sell my property without my express consent?
Now you're going even further than the law proposes. I have every right to use "your" information. Let's take financial information, since that's named as "sensitive". If I find out that you're broke, I have every right to use that information to deny you a loan.
Now do I have a right to sell that information? Well, maybe, but if I'm selling it to someone in my own state, the federal government doesn't have any business getting involved. Now that's not blatant, it's not like the SSSCA which purported to restrict personal home manufacturing and possession, but it is unconstitutional imho.
But if the law deals only with commerce over the internet, chances are it won't be deemed unconstitutional, at least not due to the tenth ammendment.
Given that the Internet is fundamentally interstate (international, actually, which really removes it from state jurisdiction), the commerce clause should give Congress the right to pass a bill preventing corporations from abusing the property of others.
I deny your assertion that this is about property, but as long as the law is geared solely toward information collected for commercial purposes, you're right that it will probably fall under the interstate commerce clause. If it goes too far outside of that, there might be problems. Again, I really can't say my opinion without seeing the law.
So no, unlike the CPTDABCWTFA, I don't think this would fall afoul of the 10th Amendment.
Actually I was referring to the SSSCA. As far as I can see, the CBTPDA is perfectly constitutional wrt the tenth ammendment. In fact, I don't really see how it's unconstitutional at all (just really really really really dumb). Actually it's also very vague, so maybe for that reason it could be challenged. I don't know, and presumably it doesn't matter because it isn't going to pass anyway.
You really don't understand politics, do you? Every long-term Congressman has, at one time or another, proposed a bill that was bad.
There's bad and then there's catestrophic and blatently unconstitutional. I wouldn't feel this way if Hollings had proposed only the CBDTPA. But take a look at the SSSCA some time.
If this privacy bill is a good one, then perhaps we can count Hollings as a future ally.
Personally I don't think the government should be getting involved in regulating the internet, so I'm not going to think this privacy bill is a good one no matter what.
But that's beside the point. The point is that whoever wrote the SSSCA is either a complete idiot or is proposing laws which they know are not just. Either way, that person doesn't deserve to be in office.
He's not very knowledgeable about technology, just like you know little about politics.
The idiocy of the SSSCA goes far beyond knowledge of technology. And how do you know what I know about politics? You don't, you have absolutely no basis to make that statement.
Two years ago, Hollings sponsored a bill that would have required Web sites to get permission before collecting or disclosing personal information, a process known as opt-in.
This bill has nothing to do with Hollings trying to get on the good side of techies. He appears to sincerely hold these beliefs. That said, this bill probably has as much respect for the tenth ammendment as the SSSCA. I haven't seen the details, so I can't say for sure.
Listen, if Hollings is sponsering this bill because he wants to "make-up" with the tech-community, then the worst thing the tech-community can do is continue to boycott him.
If he wants to make up with me he needs to denounce the SSSCA as blatently unconstitutional and vow to never sponsor a bill remotely like it again. Then he'll graduate into my "I won't vote for you but I won't do everything in my power to stop you" category.
Don't make it personal, it's simply politics. We just have to play the game.
And the rules of the game say that once you sponsor nonsense like the SSSCA you're ejected. And you can't get back in no matter how much you apologize. It's too late. You lose. If you want a place in politics, apologize for your misdeeds and go work for someone else's campaign. If you apologize I'll consider voting for someone you support.
After this instance I began using 'trivial' obfuscation (my name is Max, but the last name ain't Public) to keep the loons from having an easy time of it.
Yeah, I started out that way, but then I was unable to post links to my webpage, or talk about where I worked, etc. without being an anonymous coward (and with a 0 score). I wish slashdot offered an anonymous coward mode which still gave the bonus, and still counted for karma, and still allowed you to see replies.
But anyway, your solution probably works just as well, unless the second letter of your first name is an O, in which case I found your name quite easily. But that was most likely just an alias:).
Laws and Encryption can complement each other to provide more security/privacy than either could alone.
Perhaps, but I tend to believe that they are more likely to cause the rogue ones to hide what they are doing. I'd rather have a system like the credit system: a few loose laws regarding obtaining information; accountability (I can see who is obtaining information); and openness (I can see exactly what information is being tracked). Obviosuly the few loose laws regarding obtaining information would be a bit more strict than the credit system laws. My landlord can't see a list of every phone call I've made. But the police can, and I can, and I can see when the police have. Other things like actual tapping and seizing of emails would remain under the current warrant system, with the additional accountability.
It's not going to happen, because it gives too much information to criminals for most people's comfort. I'd even be willing to give the police say a 24-hour grace period before the information is revealed to the person being searched. That should be enough time to give the police a chance to collect enough evidence to decide whether or not to make an arrest.
what prevents the government from banning encryption unless the encryption uses keys from big corporations.
The first ammendment, the second ammendment, the ninth ammendment, the tenth ammendment, the fourteenth ammendment...
But in any case, as far as I'm concerned I've always assumed that everyone was reading all my e-mails and listening in on all my phone conversations anyway. And I always will, no matter what laws are passed to try to stop people from doing it. That's actually one of the reasons why I post on slashdot with my real name. To remind myself that I am not really anonymous. Slashdot knows who is making the posts, and as far as any real security, that means everyone knows.
Laws are the "hack" solution. Strong encryption is the real solution.
But these "contracts" are almost never written. They are decrees delivered from the raised dais of management, usually in the form of a memo.
True, but most people don't have real employment contracts at all. Usually employers can fire employees for any non-discriminatory reason, and at most all they get is two weeks severance pay. If you want to be able to speak freely and still keep your job, you need to get that put into your employment contract.
To expect to isolate someone from all "personal" conversations during the work day is an unjust exercise of control, basically for the sake of control. It really has next to nothing to do with the company or the work.
Possibly, although there are certainly some circumstances where allowing any unaudited outside communication is dangerous. But the point is that you chose that job. No one is forcing you to work there.
It certainly doesn't give the employer the right to the contents of that conversation.
Unless your employment contract that you signed says that the company reserves to right to record any communication you send over their network (or some lawyerly version of that).
For most of the people in this country, a job is a necessity.
Sure, but a job in a particular industry, let alone a particular company, is not a necessity. If you and your coworkers aren't good at negotiating employment contracts, maybe you should think about hiring someone else to negotiate your employment contracts for you.
No person, employer or otherwise, should be empowered, either by necessity or choice, to deny the basic rights of another person.
What are these basic rights exactly? It seems to me like you've made just about every contract illegal.
If you want to have rights in this society, you have to stand up for them. There are still good places to work here in the United States. They may not pay as well as selling your soul to the company (who are waiting there to sell plasticware), but for some people it's well worth the cut in pay to gain the increase in personal freedom.
Why aren't they fighting what? The DMCA? Probably because they are an organization representing primarily for-profit engineers, and the DMCA helps for-profit engineers (at least if you believe that copyright law helps for-profit engineers).
If you don't think there should be laws to enforce copyright, you should seriously consider cancelling your membership.
Companys pay employees to work and provide a certain function, they *DO NOT* own them. This was discussed on Slashdot a few weeks back.
The discussion a few weeks back was about work created outside the office. If it's related to your job, or it's done on company time, chances are it's owned by your company.
If I hire you to paint my house, and you instead work on a product that ends up selling millions, I would have no claim to that product.
That's not an employer-employee relationship, thus it's subject to different rules.
Contractors by default have their works owned by them. Employees by default have their works owned by their employer.
When you start work with us you sign an agreement which clearly states what is and isn't allowed - the shock comes about for most people when we enforce that agreement - and we do.
I respect that. I'd much rather have my company spell out what is and isn't allowed rather than just disallow everything and then enforce at their leisure.
That said, I probably wouldn't work for your company. I'm paid to do a job, not to sit a desk for X hours. If you're going to force me to do that job for a certain amount of time, in a certain place, in a certain way, I'm not an exempt employee, and you are required by law to pay me hourly, and pay 150% for every hour over 40 a week.
Because you're a human being with human rights. One of those rights is freedom of speech, and part of that freedom is the ability to control when, where and to whom to speak.
Another is the right to enter into contracts where you agree to limit your speech. If that contract is excessive (never talk again), or illegal (don't tell them about the ammonia we put in cigarettes), you might get out of it. But if that contract is simply "don't use our network for personal conversations", then it's a whole different story.
If you want to speak freely, don't sign contracts agreeing not to. If you want job security, make sure you sign a contract giving it to you. If you want privacy, make sure that a) your company signs an agreement to give it to you, and b) you have the sole administrator password to your machine.
If you want a job, ignore all the things I said above. Or be prepared to not have many choices.
Correct. So, finally, you agree that the FSF is not taking any rights away from you contrary to your previous claim?
The FSF is acting in concert with congress to take away my right to infringe copyright. Congress provided the gun and the bullet, but the FSF pulled the trigger.
The only benefit to the consumer would be a slightly reduced cost.
And upgradability, the ability to receive multiple channels simultaneously, the ability to see the source code to your encryption...
This proves that microsoft cares about us.
That statement proves that you care about microsoft.
Personally, I like my hardware to be OS specific, because it prevents me from doing foolish things such as installing so called "free" software (which is un-American, btw).
Yeah, so unamerican that a whole 3 people in congress support the bill that 5 people on slashdot decided would hurt linux. This doesn't hurt linux at all. First of all, no one is proposing a ban on hardware radios (if anything they would ban software radios). Some people have decided that they want to make a product for windows. Microsoft isn't required to do the work to port every product it makes to Linux. Even the GPL doesn't require nonsense like that.
Ever try using a winmodem in linux? LOL, or in windows for that matter?
Slashdot Mirror
As far as I can see, it'd be possible to reduce the risks for all concerned, but since this would cost the CC companies money, I don't see it happening until someone legislates it, or someone big enough (Amazon?) starts demanding they do it.
Citibank is already doing it. The cost to the credit card companies is minor. The benefit to the merchants is pretty significant. The problem is you need to give consumers an incentive to use it, and the cost of that incentive should likely be borne by the merchant.
I think they're retaliating over PayPal's trying to cut credit cards out of the online transaction loop.
Perhaps, but you should also remember that using paypal you can easily get a cash advance without paying the cash advance interest rates. Just "buy" something from a friend, and have the friend give you the cash. You save the cash advance fee (but pay the paypal fee), get your 1% cash back bonus (if you have one), get the increased credit line, get the 30 day grace period, and get the lower interest rate. Sure, it's illegal, but what are the chances you're going to actually get caught?
Common complaint, but I disagree in this case.
Just to be clear, I haven't accused the bill of being anything, since I haven't yet seen it.
The question is one of ownership. Who owns my personal information?
No one owns information.
Now, what right do these companies have to use or to sell my property without my express consent?
Now you're going even further than the law proposes. I have every right to use "your" information. Let's take financial information, since that's named as "sensitive". If I find out that you're broke, I have every right to use that information to deny you a loan.
Now do I have a right to sell that information? Well, maybe, but if I'm selling it to someone in my own state, the federal government doesn't have any business getting involved. Now that's not blatant, it's not like the SSSCA which purported to restrict personal home manufacturing and possession, but it is unconstitutional imho.
But if the law deals only with commerce over the internet, chances are it won't be deemed unconstitutional, at least not due to the tenth ammendment.
Given that the Internet is fundamentally interstate (international, actually, which really removes it from state jurisdiction), the commerce clause should give Congress the right to pass a bill preventing corporations from abusing the property of others.
I deny your assertion that this is about property, but as long as the law is geared solely toward information collected for commercial purposes, you're right that it will probably fall under the interstate commerce clause. If it goes too far outside of that, there might be problems. Again, I really can't say my opinion without seeing the law.
So no, unlike the CPTDABCWTFA, I don't think this would fall afoul of the 10th Amendment.
Actually I was referring to the SSSCA. As far as I can see, the CBTPDA is perfectly constitutional wrt the tenth ammendment. In fact, I don't really see how it's unconstitutional at all (just really really really really dumb). Actually it's also very vague, so maybe for that reason it could be challenged. I don't know, and presumably it doesn't matter because it isn't going to pass anyway.
You really don't understand politics, do you? Every long-term Congressman has, at one time or another, proposed a bill that was bad.
There's bad and then there's catestrophic and blatently unconstitutional. I wouldn't feel this way if Hollings had proposed only the CBDTPA. But take a look at the SSSCA some time.
If this privacy bill is a good one, then perhaps we can count Hollings as a future ally.
Personally I don't think the government should be getting involved in regulating the internet, so I'm not going to think this privacy bill is a good one no matter what.
But that's beside the point. The point is that whoever wrote the SSSCA is either a complete idiot or is proposing laws which they know are not just. Either way, that person doesn't deserve to be in office.
He's not very knowledgeable about technology, just like you know little about politics.
The idiocy of the SSSCA goes far beyond knowledge of technology. And how do you know what I know about politics? You don't, you have absolutely no basis to make that statement.
Here is an older version of a similar bill which was sponsored by Hollings in 2000.
Listen, if Hollings is sponsering this bill because he wants to "make-up" with the tech-community, then the worst thing the tech-community can do is continue to boycott him.
If he wants to make up with me he needs to denounce the SSSCA as blatently unconstitutional and vow to never sponsor a bill remotely like it again. Then he'll graduate into my "I won't vote for you but I won't do everything in my power to stop you" category.
Don't make it personal, it's simply politics. We just have to play the game.
And the rules of the game say that once you sponsor nonsense like the SSSCA you're ejected. And you can't get back in no matter how much you apologize. It's too late. You lose. If you want a place in politics, apologize for your misdeeds and go work for someone else's campaign. If you apologize I'll consider voting for someone you support.
After this instance I began using 'trivial' obfuscation (my name is Max, but the last name ain't Public) to keep the loons from having an easy time of it.
Yeah, I started out that way, but then I was unable to post links to my webpage, or talk about where I worked, etc. without being an anonymous coward (and with a 0 score). I wish slashdot offered an anonymous coward mode which still gave the bonus, and still counted for karma, and still allowed you to see replies.
But anyway, your solution probably works just as well, unless the second letter of your first name is an O, in which case I found your name quite easily. But that was most likely just an alias :).
Laws and Encryption can complement each other to provide more security/privacy than either could alone.
Perhaps, but I tend to believe that they are more likely to cause the rogue ones to hide what they are doing. I'd rather have a system like the credit system: a few loose laws regarding obtaining information; accountability (I can see who is obtaining information); and openness (I can see exactly what information is being tracked). Obviosuly the few loose laws regarding obtaining information would be a bit more strict than the credit system laws. My landlord can't see a list of every phone call I've made. But the police can, and I can, and I can see when the police have. Other things like actual tapping and seizing of emails would remain under the current warrant system, with the additional accountability.
It's not going to happen, because it gives too much information to criminals for most people's comfort. I'd even be willing to give the police say a 24-hour grace period before the information is revealed to the person being searched. That should be enough time to give the police a chance to collect enough evidence to decide whether or not to make an arrest.
what prevents the government from banning encryption unless the encryption uses keys from big corporations.
The first ammendment, the second ammendment, the ninth ammendment, the tenth ammendment, the fourteenth ammendment...
But in any case, as far as I'm concerned I've always assumed that everyone was reading all my e-mails and listening in on all my phone conversations anyway. And I always will, no matter what laws are passed to try to stop people from doing it. That's actually one of the reasons why I post on slashdot with my real name. To remind myself that I am not really anonymous. Slashdot knows who is making the posts, and as far as any real security, that means everyone knows.
Laws are the "hack" solution. Strong encryption is the real solution.
Hehe, I don't have one... But I used to, and it's not like anyone ever used it anyway :)
I just wish I could convince my friends to use PGP when sending me email. That would solve most of the problems.
MURS is license-free and content unrestricted. You can even use encryption.
Why might you stop short of actually downloading the software?
Why do you think the people gave you their real email address in the first place?
I'd say most of the non-downloaders simply didn't give you their real email address.
Cool things like Lindows will be 100% legal then
How will Microsoft opening up their APIs cause Lindows to stop breaking the terms of the GPL?
Am I one of the only people that contend that THIS is what the whole 'web services' thing is all about?
Nope, Google is just one of the few companies that actually has the guts to try it.
This is great news, but what am I going to do with the extra hour or so a day?
Find a better operating system.
But these "contracts" are almost never written. They are decrees delivered from the raised dais of management, usually in the form of a memo.
True, but most people don't have real employment contracts at all. Usually employers can fire employees for any non-discriminatory reason, and at most all they get is two weeks severance pay. If you want to be able to speak freely and still keep your job, you need to get that put into your employment contract.
To expect to isolate someone from all "personal" conversations during the work day is an unjust exercise of control, basically for the sake of control. It really has next to nothing to do with the company or the work.
Possibly, although there are certainly some circumstances where allowing any unaudited outside communication is dangerous. But the point is that you chose that job. No one is forcing you to work there.
It certainly doesn't give the employer the right to the contents of that conversation.
Unless your employment contract that you signed says that the company reserves to right to record any communication you send over their network (or some lawyerly version of that).
For most of the people in this country, a job is a necessity.
Sure, but a job in a particular industry, let alone a particular company, is not a necessity. If you and your coworkers aren't good at negotiating employment contracts, maybe you should think about hiring someone else to negotiate your employment contracts for you.
No person, employer or otherwise, should be empowered, either by necessity or choice, to deny the basic rights of another person.
What are these basic rights exactly? It seems to me like you've made just about every contract illegal.
If you want to have rights in this society, you have to stand up for them. There are still good places to work here in the United States. They may not pay as well as selling your soul to the company (who are waiting there to sell plasticware), but for some people it's well worth the cut in pay to gain the increase in personal freedom.
Why aren't they fighting what? The DMCA? Probably because they are an organization representing primarily for-profit engineers, and the DMCA helps for-profit engineers (at least if you believe that copyright law helps for-profit engineers).
If you don't think there should be laws to enforce copyright, you should seriously consider cancelling your membership.
Companys pay employees to work and provide a certain function, they *DO NOT* own them. This was discussed on Slashdot a few weeks back.
The discussion a few weeks back was about work created outside the office. If it's related to your job, or it's done on company time, chances are it's owned by your company.
If I hire you to paint my house, and you instead work on a product that ends up selling millions, I would have no claim to that product.
That's not an employer-employee relationship, thus it's subject to different rules.
Contractors by default have their works owned by them. Employees by default have their works owned by their employer.
When you start work with us you sign an agreement which clearly states what is and isn't allowed - the shock comes about for most people when we enforce that agreement - and we do.
I respect that. I'd much rather have my company spell out what is and isn't allowed rather than just disallow everything and then enforce at their leisure.
That said, I probably wouldn't work for your company. I'm paid to do a job, not to sit a desk for X hours. If you're going to force me to do that job for a certain amount of time, in a certain place, in a certain way, I'm not an exempt employee, and you are required by law to pay me hourly, and pay 150% for every hour over 40 a week.
Because you're a human being with human rights. One of those rights is freedom of speech, and part of that freedom is the ability to control when, where and to whom to speak.
Another is the right to enter into contracts where you agree to limit your speech. If that contract is excessive (never talk again), or illegal (don't tell them about the ammonia we put in cigarettes), you might get out of it. But if that contract is simply "don't use our network for personal conversations", then it's a whole different story.
If you want to speak freely, don't sign contracts agreeing not to. If you want job security, make sure you sign a contract giving it to you. If you want privacy, make sure that a) your company signs an agreement to give it to you, and b) you have the sole administrator password to your machine.
If you want a job, ignore all the things I said above. Or be prepared to not have many choices.
Correct. So, finally, you agree that the FSF is not taking any rights away from you contrary to your previous claim?
The FSF is acting in concert with congress to take away my right to infringe copyright. Congress provided the gun and the bullet, but the FSF pulled the trigger.
In the nearby town of Madison, from the parking lot of a Staples store, workers could be observed behind the cash register.
I doubt it, but I wonder if the resolution was good enough to read the credit card numbers of the customers, when they put it on the counter.
The only benefit to the consumer would be a slightly reduced cost.
And upgradability, the ability to receive multiple channels simultaneously, the ability to see the source code to your encryption...
This proves that microsoft cares about us.
That statement proves that you care about microsoft.
Personally, I like my hardware to be OS specific, because it prevents me from doing foolish things such as installing so called "free" software (which is un-American, btw).
Yeah, so unamerican that a whole 3 people in congress support the bill that 5 people on slashdot decided would hurt linux. This doesn't hurt linux at all. First of all, no one is proposing a ban on hardware radios (if anything they would ban software radios). Some people have decided that they want to make a product for windows. Microsoft isn't required to do the work to port every product it makes to Linux. Even the GPL doesn't require nonsense like that.
Ever try using a winmodem in linux? LOL, or in windows for that matter?
Sure, it's a horrible idea... Unless RMS is doing it.