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Freaking mke-65-31-179-139.wi.rr.com is sending the mail (I hid the rest of the addresses, which are most likely innocent), and I get the damn (well over 10,000) bounces. That's what I get for being publically against spam laws on slashdot, I guess. I wonder how hard it would be to subpeona the name and address of the original sender...
Here's a tip for those of you writing spambot traps... How about not blindly responding to the faked Return-Path address?
Now that should be illegal. You people whine about your 10 spams a day, try 10,000 from 2000 different email addresses. Idiot postmasters should be caught and jailed.
The problem is people don't have time to understand.
That's part of the problem, but even if that could be solved, I still think a pure democracy is a bad idea.
The real problem with a democracy isn't tyranny of the majority (because you replace the majority with a small minority. sometimes better, sometimes worse).
The U.S. system of government, while far from perfect, does better than merely replace the majority with a small minority. There is a constitution, and a whole system of checks and balances.
First off, congress can't even make laws which don't deal with powers they were specifically given. Those laws that do need not merely pass a simple majority of members of congress. First it must pass through a committee. Then it must pass both a majority in the house and a majority in the senate. Then the president has to agree with it. Then even after that the supreme court has to agree, not that the law is a good law, but that it is a constitutional law.
Yes, there are flaws in both the theory and the practice, and one big one is a result of the two-party system. When I stated that I would not vote for anyone who voted for the CBDTPA, someone asked me "Noble, but the problem with this is the other guy is anti-abortion. Now who do you vote for?"
The answer is that you most certainly do not vote for someone who has no respect for the constitution. Hollings fits that category. Mary Bono fits that category (I'll put the quote at the bottom). I'm sure many other representatives do. These people must be taken out of congress as soon as possible. The fate of our country rests upon it.
"Sonny wanted the term of copyright protection to last forever. I am informed by staff that such a change would violate the Constitution. I invite all of you to work with me to strengthen our copyright laws in all of the ways available to us. As you know, there is also Jack Valenti's proposal for a term to last forever less one day. Perhaps the Committee may look at that next Congress." - Mary Bono
Noble, but the problem with this is the other guy is anti-abortion. Now who do you vote for?
If the other guy (or gal) is pro-life to the point of ignoring the constitution, then I'd simply vote for a third candidate. Otherwise I'd have to consider the candidate's particular position. Hollings has zero respect for the constitution. He has zero respect for freedom. I would find a candidate and actively campaign against Hollings if he was in my voting district.
What do you do if the other guy changes his mind while in office?
No one who votes for that law will get my vote. No matter what. The CBDTPA is not nearly as evil as the SSSCA, but it is sufficiently harmful to our society that anyone who votes for it is either not intelligent enough or not loyal enough to be in congress.
If only true democracies were possible.
I won't accuse you of this, but most people with that viewpoint were simply brainwashed by their middle school and high school "social studies" teachers and texts. My own personal opinion is that democracy is the "tyranny of the majority", and should be avoided.
Yeah, you'd love to do that, but if this is handled the way the DMCA was, they'll pass it by voice vote
No way... This does not have the votes to pass.
Of course, if they do that, It'll just motivate me to get out and vote against every incumbent.
Yeah, I don't know what I'd do in that situation. What exactly are the rules about voice voting? I'd imagine there has to be some kind of electronic vote if there is a strong enough objection...
Sen. Leahy, chair of the Judiciary Committee, came down with an attack of good sense, and said that he won't let it out of committee.
Good for his fellow Democrats. I don't think I'm alone in that I will not vote for any member of congress who votes for the CBDTPA. Actually, I will go out to the polls specifically to vote for the opponent of anyone who votes for this bill. Plus, I will actively campaign against any sponsor or strong supporter of the bill who happens to be a representative of my state or district.
I wish Leahy had let it out of committee. It would make my job on election day that much simpler.
(i) to any emergency telephone line (including any ''911'' line and any emergency line of a hospital, medical physician or service office, health care facility, poison control center, or fire protection or law enforcement agency);
(ii) to the telephone line of any guest room or patient room of a hospital, health care facility, elderly home, or similar establishment; or
(iii) to any telephone number assigned to a paging service, cellular telephone service, specialized mobile radio service, or other radio common carrier service, or any service for which the called party is charged for the call;
I always use my cell phone number whenever I give out my number to anyone. In fact, since my non-cell phone belongs to my roomate, I don't really have any other number to give. In any case, while I used to get phone solicitations on a regular basis, I've gotten exactly 3 since I got the cell phone almost a year ago. Yes, I could have sued for $1500 (3x$500), and I may have won, but it wasn't worth it for me, because they stopped.
It's really nice getting zero telephone solicitations. Unfortunately, I can't sign up for USPS payment services (can't give them a cell phone number, has to be your home number), and had to fudge the truth when I signed up for Netbank (can't give them a cell phone number, so I gave them my efax voice-mail). I probably would have given the USPS my efax voice-mail number, but then they started asking for my SSN and my driver's license number, and I thought that was a little too ridiculous.
This includes automatical dialers (you know, the kind where you say 'hello' and it takes the salesperson several seconds to answer) along with recorded messages.
No it doesn't. The rule reads (in relevant part, emphasis mine) "It shall be unlawful for any person within the United States to initiate any telephone call to any residential telephone line using an artificial or prerecorded voice to deliver a message without the prior express consent of the called party, unless the call is initiated for emergency purposes or is exempted by rule or order by the Commission under paragraph (2)(B)"
When is the redundant Katz bashing bashing going to stop?
Katz bashing is fun. And at least Katz bashes tend to change each time. Whereas the mindless Katz defense tend to repeat the same argument over and over.
We read Katz because it's fun to make fun of him. Hell, that's the main reason I read slashdot any more - to make fun of the editors.
How can governments in places like Afghanistan embrace open software and an open society if they can't even bring electricity and telephones to most of their citizens?
How can JK embrace open software and an open society when he doesn't even license his harangues under an open content license?
in this case, spam is something people don't like. if a way could be provided to prevent spam without completely destroying e-mail as we know it, most people would stand behind it.
If a low-cost way could be provided to prevent spam without completely destroying e-mail as we know it, I would stand behind it... I don't believe making laws will do that.
That being said, there is a way to prevent spam without completely destroying e-mail as we know it. Simply not accepting e-mail which is not PGP-signed would pretty much accomplish that. You'd have to have a blacklist or a whitelist, but any person or corporation could spam about once before getting put on blacklists...
are you or have you ever been a spammer?
Once I sent an email about software I was writing to about 30 people I found on a usenet site. It was back in about 1993, and I was about 15. I was quickly flamed and never did it again.
out of curiosity, why are you taking up the spammers' cause?
I have a lot of reasons. One is that I used to run a free homepage site. Of course people would spam their site, and of course I would get blamed for it. I generally shut down the site of the spammer, even though I had no real proof that the person was spamming. For all I know the person was making up the accusation, but my ISP was pissy enough that it wasn't worth the fight. During this whole time I never sent spam. I never even was involved indirectly in the sending of spam. URLs that I hosted just happened to be in the body of the spam. Eventually the anti-spam zealots became annoying enough to my ISP that they dropped me. So that turned me off a lot from the anti-spam mob.
Another reason is that I am very wary of unenforcible laws. They tend to promote enhanced government power in areas the government need not be involved. One of my domain names (which you can probably guess from my email address) is somewhat frequently used as a fake domain from spammers. Again, not involved even indirectly in the sending of spam, I get the nonsense (including threats of lawsuits) from the zealots. All I need is to get dragged into court every time some idiot decides to sue me.
Another reason is that I don't think the government should be involved in regulating the internet at all. When I connect my computer to the internet, that's my problem. If I can't solve it, then I shouldn't connect at all.
That kind of goes along with another reason. Technical solutions to the problem of spam are cheaper than legal ones. Take MSN Messenger. I get no spam messages on that. In fact, it's technically impossible to spam me using MSN Messenger. If I don't explicitly add you to my buddy list, messages from you to me are dropped silently. If it weren't for all these companies that constantly send me things from different email addresses, I could easily set that up with email. But the way the standard is, I have no idea what email address my online banking statements are going to come from. That's a problem, and if spamming becomes illegal it is much less likely to be solved.
So basically my reasons include the practical, the moral, and the irrational. But I really don't consider myself to be taking up the spammer's cause. I don't do anything to actively promote spam. I don't even do anything to actively fight against anti-spam laws. But my feelings on the matter are that if anti-spam zealots would spend 1/100th the time they spend complaining and campaigning on implementing technical solutions, they would be getting virtually no spam right now.
I myself get very little spam. I'd get even less if I actually cared about it. On that note I think it's time to change my slashdot email address...
Isn't that the crux of the argument though? I don't know I'm downloading spam until I've already paid for it?
No. I don't know I'm downloading troll posts until I've already paid for them. Should that be illegal too? What if I don't like a slashdot article, should I sue slashdot for stealing my time and bandwidth?
For the "internet" to be greatly affected multiple root servers must be brought down.
Or just one has to be hacked into and have the IP addresses rerouted. Really, do you think people check to make sure they're using https when they connect to "www.chase.com"?
I'm not a lawyer. But, careful, that argument has actually lost (by 2-1) in the Appeals Decision
Well, I am under the impression that arguments which lost in the Appeals Decision are the only arguments which can be used in the Supreme Court anyway. The whole point of a Supreme Court Appeal is that the Appeals Court made a mistake.
Specifically, the Supreme Court is going to answer two questions (from the petition, the third question was denied appeal):
Did the D.C. Circuit err in holding that Congress has the power under the Copyright Clause to extend retrospectively the term of existing copyrights?
Is a law that extends the term of existing and future copy-rights "categorically immune from challenge[] under the First Amendment"?
Unfortunately, the second question alone I believe will at best get the case remanded back to the Appeals Court, with the ruling that the Appeals Court was "categorically wrong" in that regard.
It's all actually much more complicated than that. Apparently Eldred made a stipulation "that the preamble of the Copyright Clause is not a substantive limit on Congress' legislative power." This contradicted an amicus filed by Schnapper, on which much of the dissent was based. Due to a rule that an amicus "generally cannot expand the scope of an appeal to implicate
issues that have not been presented by the parties to the appeal", the majority opinion essentially threw out that amicus.
Hopefully this angle will be reopened in the Supreme Court case. It seems that there would be a new discovery (?) process, and that the government could not argue that it was unprepared to respond. Now the SC did reject hearing the question "May a circuit court consider arguments raised by amici, different from arguments raised by a party, on a claim properly raised by a party?", but I don't think that is tantamount to rejecting the amicus for its own use.
I'd love to hear from someone following this case more closely than I, if I've misconstrued any of it. I've read it a few times, and I have followed other supreme court cases, but I've never taken any formal classes in constitutional law, so I very well may be missing the point.
...should be a very interesting Supreme Court case. I think the best argument they have going for them is that extending the copyright of already created works cannot possibly meet the constitutional requirement that copyright law "promote the progress of science and useful arts". Over half of the supreme court members have directly signed rulings which state unequivically that this is a constitutional requirement.
Well, there's this [hr95.org], or this [ndsn.org], or this [marijuana.org], or this [mapinc.org], just from the first 10 Google results.
Your first result doesn't say if it is state or federal law, but it seems to imply that it is the state of Missouri, not federal law. In your second result, the defendent admits he was cultivating for distribution ("Attorney David Michael is representing McCormick who says he was cultivating the marijuana to give to cancer sufferers like himself to ease their pain"). In your third result, the case was local law, and was dropped. Your final link perhaps proves me wrong. Although the defendent claims he was only growing 300 plants for personal use, the prosecution claims he was growing over 6000 at four different growing sites. I'm too lazy to look up the trial though, so I'll concede.
Huh? I'm allowed to have it but I'm not allowed to grow it, buy it, import it, or do anything that might bring it into my possession?
I don't see why you can't buy it...
Also, if I cultivate marijuana and make a joint out of it, mighn't that count as manufacturing?
Cultivation is manufacturing. Rolling a joint for personal use isn't.
Moot point, since regardless of what the law is supposed to be, there are thousands of people arrested every year for nothing more than possession. Not selling it, not growing/synthesizing it, not using it, but simply having it on their person.
Again, you're thinking of state law, not federal law. State law differs from state to state. In some states simple possession of a small amount is punished no more harshly than a speeding ticket.
My point was that a lot of people will work a way around the DRM, and some of them will make it public, despite it being illegal to do so. Hollings and co. will look at that and say, "Guess we need to clamp down further" and try to limit even personal development of workarounds. And it's not unreasonable to think they'll try.
No, Hollings will definately try. The SSSCA had provisions against possession, for instance. Hollings is a moron, and if I happened to live in his state I would personally join the campaign of someone against him. That's how strongly I feel that he is utterly unfit for his job. However, I don't think the SSSCA had any chance of passing. And even if it did, it was so blatently unconstitutional that it would have been struck down immediately. And if not, well, I don't know what I would have done...
What a joke. I agree with you in that respect, but you and I know infinitely more about computers than any judge or politician is likely to. 'Security' is the new computer buzzword and they'll toss it around like it's a minor feature that you can add in your spare time.
I don't know. For the moment we have companies like Intel, Microsoft, and AMD on our side. But bribes and kickbacks tend to work both ways, so who knows what modifications and promises will be made to get them to complain less, if not actually support the proposal.
The other thing is that for all the "infinitely more" that many slashdotters know about technology than the members of congress, many members of congress know infinitely more about drafting bills. If you look at the SSSCA and compare it to the CBDTPA, you'll notice all the little tricks congress does to get a bill past those pesky supreme court members have been added. I'm not a congressman, I'm only a wannabe, so I can't even tell you all the other subtleties that went into the hopefully not yet final draft.
But my point is that it frustrates me to hear slashdotters throw around "unconstitutional" or "makes fair use illegal" or whatever. The law is much more complicated than that. I've read it several times now and I still find something new every time. Frankly I have no idea what impact it would have on anything, but that's more due to the fact that there is absolutely no specification of the "security standards" than anything else. Probably it was drafted that way intentionally, so as to allow for empty promises to be made.
In any case, I need to wrap up this discussion. The topic was "arguments to use". I guess my answer is "use what you know". If you're a constitutional scholar, by all means, ramble on about constitutionality. If you're an economist, talk about the economic impact. If you're related to Walt Disney, talk about how great it is:). But if you're a technologist, focus on what you know best, keep the rest short, and try to verify what you have to say before you say it.
And if you're a devil (or one of his advocates), post crap on slashdot trying to tear people down:).
Slashdot Mirror
And you thought WinModems were bad!
Unless of course they're made by GNU...
Freaking mke-65-31-179-139.wi.rr.com is sending the mail (I hid the rest of the addresses, which are most likely innocent), and I get the damn (well over 10,000) bounces. That's what I get for being publically against spam laws on slashdot, I guess. I wonder how hard it would be to subpeona the name and address of the original sender...
Here's a tip for those of you writing spambot traps... How about not blindly responding to the faked Return-Path address?
Now that should be illegal. You people whine about your 10 spams a day, try 10,000 from 2000 different email addresses. Idiot postmasters should be caught and jailed.
Gee, and now Google will log every search from your automated application.
And now you can create your own peer-to-peer google search which eliminates the logging altogether.
Now if they would only make a firewire (HD)TV tuner card...
overkill imho, if you want that many drives, scsi is the way to go.
Depends what you want that many drives for... Besides, firewire is just as good, as far as usefulness vs. price.
The problem is people don't have time to understand.
That's part of the problem, but even if that could be solved, I still think a pure democracy is a bad idea.
The real problem with a democracy isn't tyranny of the majority (because you replace the majority with a small minority. sometimes better, sometimes worse).
The U.S. system of government, while far from perfect, does better than merely replace the majority with a small minority. There is a constitution, and a whole system of checks and balances.
First off, congress can't even make laws which don't deal with powers they were specifically given. Those laws that do need not merely pass a simple majority of members of congress. First it must pass through a committee. Then it must pass both a majority in the house and a majority in the senate. Then the president has to agree with it. Then even after that the supreme court has to agree, not that the law is a good law, but that it is a constitutional law.
Yes, there are flaws in both the theory and the practice, and one big one is a result of the two-party system. When I stated that I would not vote for anyone who voted for the CBDTPA, someone asked me "Noble, but the problem with this is the other guy is anti-abortion. Now who do you vote for?"
The answer is that you most certainly do not vote for someone who has no respect for the constitution. Hollings fits that category. Mary Bono fits that category (I'll put the quote at the bottom). I'm sure many other representatives do. These people must be taken out of congress as soon as possible. The fate of our country rests upon it.
Noble, but the problem with this is the other guy is anti-abortion. Now who do you vote for?
If the other guy (or gal) is pro-life to the point of ignoring the constitution, then I'd simply vote for a third candidate. Otherwise I'd have to consider the candidate's particular position. Hollings has zero respect for the constitution. He has zero respect for freedom. I would find a candidate and actively campaign against Hollings if he was in my voting district.
What do you do if the other guy changes his mind while in office?
No one who votes for that law will get my vote. No matter what. The CBDTPA is not nearly as evil as the SSSCA, but it is sufficiently harmful to our society that anyone who votes for it is either not intelligent enough or not loyal enough to be in congress.
If only true democracies were possible.
I won't accuse you of this, but most people with that viewpoint were simply brainwashed by their middle school and high school "social studies" teachers and texts. My own personal opinion is that democracy is the "tyranny of the majority", and should be avoided.
Yeah, you'd love to do that, but if this is handled the way the DMCA was, they'll pass it by voice vote
No way... This does not have the votes to pass.
Of course, if they do that, It'll just motivate me to get out and vote against every incumbent.
Yeah, I don't know what I'd do in that situation. What exactly are the rules about voice voting? I'd imagine there has to be some kind of electronic vote if there is a strong enough objection...
Sen. Leahy, chair of the Judiciary Committee, came down with an attack of good sense, and said that he won't let it out of committee.
Good for his fellow Democrats. I don't think I'm alone in that I will not vote for any member of congress who votes for the CBDTPA. Actually, I will go out to the polls specifically to vote for the opponent of anyone who votes for this bill. Plus, I will actively campaign against any sponsor or strong supporter of the bill who happens to be a representative of my state or district.
I wish Leahy had let it out of committee. It would make my job on election day that much simpler.
Is Hollings up for reelection in November?
In November 2004...
You cut out the end of that sentence...
I always use my cell phone number whenever I give out my number to anyone. In fact, since my non-cell phone belongs to my roomate, I don't really have any other number to give. In any case, while I used to get phone solicitations on a regular basis, I've gotten exactly 3 since I got the cell phone almost a year ago. Yes, I could have sued for $1500 (3x$500), and I may have won, but it wasn't worth it for me, because they stopped.
It's really nice getting zero telephone solicitations. Unfortunately, I can't sign up for USPS payment services (can't give them a cell phone number, has to be your home number), and had to fudge the truth when I signed up for Netbank (can't give them a cell phone number, so I gave them my efax voice-mail). I probably would have given the USPS my efax voice-mail number, but then they started asking for my SSN and my driver's license number, and I thought that was a little too ridiculous.
This includes automatical dialers (you know, the kind where you say 'hello' and it takes the salesperson several seconds to answer) along with recorded messages.
No it doesn't. The rule reads (in relevant part, emphasis mine) "It shall be unlawful for any person within the United States to initiate any telephone call to any residential telephone line using an artificial or prerecorded voice to deliver a message without the prior express consent of the called party, unless the call is initiated for emergency purposes or is exempted by rule or order by the Commission under paragraph (2)(B)"
When is the JonKatz madness going to stop?!
When is the senseless Katz bashing going to stop?
When is the redundant Katz bashing bashing going to stop?
Katz bashing is fun. And at least Katz bashes tend to change each time. Whereas the mindless Katz defense tend to repeat the same argument over and over.
We read Katz because it's fun to make fun of him. Hell, that's the main reason I read slashdot any more - to make fun of the editors.
How can governments in places like Afghanistan embrace open software and an open society if they can't even bring electricity and telephones to most of their citizens?
How can JK embrace open software and an open society when he doesn't even license his harangues under an open content license?
in this case, spam is something people don't like. if a way could be provided to prevent spam without completely destroying e-mail as we know it, most people would stand behind it.
If a low-cost way could be provided to prevent spam without completely destroying e-mail as we know it, I would stand behind it... I don't believe making laws will do that.
That being said, there is a way to prevent spam without completely destroying e-mail as we know it. Simply not accepting e-mail which is not PGP-signed would pretty much accomplish that. You'd have to have a blacklist or a whitelist, but any person or corporation could spam about once before getting put on blacklists...
are you or have you ever been a spammer?
Once I sent an email about software I was writing to about 30 people I found on a usenet site. It was back in about 1993, and I was about 15. I was quickly flamed and never did it again.
out of curiosity, why are you taking up the spammers' cause?
I have a lot of reasons. One is that I used to run a free homepage site. Of course people would spam their site, and of course I would get blamed for it. I generally shut down the site of the spammer, even though I had no real proof that the person was spamming. For all I know the person was making up the accusation, but my ISP was pissy enough that it wasn't worth the fight. During this whole time I never sent spam. I never even was involved indirectly in the sending of spam. URLs that I hosted just happened to be in the body of the spam. Eventually the anti-spam zealots became annoying enough to my ISP that they dropped me. So that turned me off a lot from the anti-spam mob.
Another reason is that I am very wary of unenforcible laws. They tend to promote enhanced government power in areas the government need not be involved. One of my domain names (which you can probably guess from my email address) is somewhat frequently used as a fake domain from spammers. Again, not involved even indirectly in the sending of spam, I get the nonsense (including threats of lawsuits) from the zealots. All I need is to get dragged into court every time some idiot decides to sue me.
Another reason is that I don't think the government should be involved in regulating the internet at all. When I connect my computer to the internet, that's my problem. If I can't solve it, then I shouldn't connect at all.
That kind of goes along with another reason. Technical solutions to the problem of spam are cheaper than legal ones. Take MSN Messenger. I get no spam messages on that. In fact, it's technically impossible to spam me using MSN Messenger. If I don't explicitly add you to my buddy list, messages from you to me are dropped silently. If it weren't for all these companies that constantly send me things from different email addresses, I could easily set that up with email. But the way the standard is, I have no idea what email address my online banking statements are going to come from. That's a problem, and if spamming becomes illegal it is much less likely to be solved.
So basically my reasons include the practical, the moral, and the irrational. But I really don't consider myself to be taking up the spammer's cause. I don't do anything to actively promote spam. I don't even do anything to actively fight against anti-spam laws. But my feelings on the matter are that if anti-spam zealots would spend 1/100th the time they spend complaining and campaigning on implementing technical solutions, they would be getting virtually no spam right now.
I myself get very little spam. I'd get even less if I actually cared about it. On that note I think it's time to change my slashdot email address...
Isn't that the crux of the argument though? I don't know I'm downloading spam until I've already paid for it?
No. I don't know I'm downloading troll posts until I've already paid for them. Should that be illegal too? What if I don't like a slashdot article, should I sue slashdot for stealing my time and bandwidth?
No. You should stop downloading spam.
For the "internet" to be greatly affected multiple root servers must be brought down.
Or just one has to be hacked into and have the IP addresses rerouted. Really, do you think people check to make sure they're using https when they connect to "www.chase.com"?
Signed agreements in which there is consideration for both parties are not shrink wrapping, they are contracts.
I'm not a lawyer. But, careful, that argument has actually lost (by 2-1) in the Appeals Decision
Well, I am under the impression that arguments which lost in the Appeals Decision are the only arguments which can be used in the Supreme Court anyway. The whole point of a Supreme Court Appeal is that the Appeals Court made a mistake.
Specifically, the Supreme Court is going to answer two questions (from the petition, the third question was denied appeal):
Unfortunately, the second question alone I believe will at best get the case remanded back to the Appeals Court, with the ruling that the Appeals Court was "categorically wrong" in that regard.
It's all actually much more complicated than that. Apparently Eldred made a stipulation "that the preamble of the Copyright Clause is not a substantive limit on Congress' legislative power." This contradicted an amicus filed by Schnapper, on which much of the dissent was based. Due to a rule that an amicus "generally cannot expand the scope of an appeal to implicate issues that have not been presented by the parties to the appeal", the majority opinion essentially threw out that amicus.
Hopefully this angle will be reopened in the Supreme Court case. It seems that there would be a new discovery (?) process, and that the government could not argue that it was unprepared to respond. Now the SC did reject hearing the question "May a circuit court consider arguments raised by amici, different from arguments raised by a party, on a claim properly raised by a party?", but I don't think that is tantamount to rejecting the amicus for its own use.
I'd love to hear from someone following this case more closely than I, if I've misconstrued any of it. I've read it a few times, and I have followed other supreme court cases, but I've never taken any formal classes in constitutional law, so I very well may be missing the point.
...should be a very interesting Supreme Court case. I think the best argument they have going for them is that extending the copyright of already created works cannot possibly meet the constitutional requirement that copyright law "promote the progress of science and useful arts". Over half of the supreme court members have directly signed rulings which state unequivically that this is a constitutional requirement.
Well, there's this [hr95.org], or this [ndsn.org], or this [marijuana.org], or this [mapinc.org], just from the first 10 Google results.
Your first result doesn't say if it is state or federal law, but it seems to imply that it is the state of Missouri, not federal law. In your second result, the defendent admits he was cultivating for distribution ("Attorney David Michael is representing McCormick who says he was cultivating the marijuana to give to cancer sufferers like himself to ease their pain"). In your third result, the case was local law, and was dropped. Your final link perhaps proves me wrong. Although the defendent claims he was only growing 300 plants for personal use, the prosecution claims he was growing over 6000 at four different growing sites. I'm too lazy to look up the trial though, so I'll concede.
Huh? I'm allowed to have it but I'm not allowed to grow it, buy it, import it, or do anything that might bring it into my possession?
I don't see why you can't buy it...
Also, if I cultivate marijuana and make a joint out of it, mighn't that count as manufacturing?
Cultivation is manufacturing. Rolling a joint for personal use isn't.
Moot point, since regardless of what the law is supposed to be, there are thousands of people arrested every year for nothing more than possession. Not selling it, not growing/synthesizing it, not using it, but simply having it on their person.
Again, you're thinking of state law, not federal law. State law differs from state to state. In some states simple possession of a small amount is punished no more harshly than a speeding ticket.
My point was that a lot of people will work a way around the DRM, and some of them will make it public, despite it being illegal to do so. Hollings and co. will look at that and say, "Guess we need to clamp down further" and try to limit even personal development of workarounds. And it's not unreasonable to think they'll try.
No, Hollings will definately try. The SSSCA had provisions against possession, for instance. Hollings is a moron, and if I happened to live in his state I would personally join the campaign of someone against him. That's how strongly I feel that he is utterly unfit for his job. However, I don't think the SSSCA had any chance of passing. And even if it did, it was so blatently unconstitutional that it would have been struck down immediately. And if not, well, I don't know what I would have done...
What a joke. I agree with you in that respect, but you and I know infinitely more about computers than any judge or politician is likely to. 'Security' is the new computer buzzword and they'll toss it around like it's a minor feature that you can add in your spare time.
I don't know. For the moment we have companies like Intel, Microsoft, and AMD on our side. But bribes and kickbacks tend to work both ways, so who knows what modifications and promises will be made to get them to complain less, if not actually support the proposal.
The other thing is that for all the "infinitely more" that many slashdotters know about technology than the members of congress, many members of congress know infinitely more about drafting bills. If you look at the SSSCA and compare it to the CBDTPA, you'll notice all the little tricks congress does to get a bill past those pesky supreme court members have been added. I'm not a congressman, I'm only a wannabe, so I can't even tell you all the other subtleties that went into the hopefully not yet final draft.
But my point is that it frustrates me to hear slashdotters throw around "unconstitutional" or "makes fair use illegal" or whatever. The law is much more complicated than that. I've read it several times now and I still find something new every time. Frankly I have no idea what impact it would have on anything, but that's more due to the fact that there is absolutely no specification of the "security standards" than anything else. Probably it was drafted that way intentionally, so as to allow for empty promises to be made.
In any case, I need to wrap up this discussion. The topic was "arguments to use". I guess my answer is "use what you know". If you're a constitutional scholar, by all means, ramble on about constitutionality. If you're an economist, talk about the economic impact. If you're related to Walt Disney, talk about how great it is :). But if you're a technologist, focus on what you know best, keep the rest short, and try to verify what you have to say before you say it.
And if you're a devil (or one of his advocates), post crap on slashdot trying to tear people down :).
With email you will have to pay for disk space, bandwidth, etc if you "pick up the phone."
I don't pay for disk space or for bandwidth when I receive an email.