They crossed the line when they gave names and addresses of his family.
The name of his wife is not private information. And they didn't give the addresses of his family. They linked to a site that had what was allegedly his address.
Legitimate reasons include trying to get a phone number for an old friend (in a world where Google's founder is a friend of mine); illegitimate reasons include gratuitously drawing the attention of thousands of people to information that reasonably should be considered private, whether it happens to be publically available or not. If CNet had a story about how Google's founder was fighting an attempt to build a mall near his home, it might have been reasonable to include the name of the street he lives upon, because that's relevent too. But this?
I think you could argue that directly linking to the site went slightly over the line. But there was a legitimate reason, which was to point out that such personal information was available through a google search. I suppose the same point could have been illustrated, arguably better, by telling people the search term and letting them look it up for themselves. Of course, no additional harm was done by linking directly.
On the other hand, Google shouldn't be using shareholder time and resources to jealously protect its CEO and founder.
Since the shares owned by Google's CEO are worth ten times as many votes as the shares owned by us regular folk, it's no wonder, though. Or, as Page puts it, "We have a dual class structure that is biased toward stability and independence and that requires investors to bet on the team, especially Sergey and me."
What would they have to have posted - his cock length, inside-leg measurement and a photoshoot showing him in a compromising position with a tub of butter and an aardvark?
Something that wasn't already public knowledge would have been a start. And they didn't post his address. They linked to a page which had it.
Just because the information can be discovered by anyone skilled and motivated enough, doesn't make it alright to collate and publicly broadcast it. How would you feel if someone did the same to you?
I'd be pissed, but I'd be much more pissed at the congresscritters who passed the campaign finance laws which required me to make my address public than at the news agency that pointed it out.
To take an extreme case, "public" light is bouncing off your body all the time, but that doesn't give someone the right to use it to take photos of you and use it however they like, does it?
Not however they like, but for news purposes certainly, especially for a "public figure" such as the CEO of Google.
We already have the concept of "image rights" in visual media - with the increasing transparency of the information age do we need something similar for other "personal" information?
Image rights don't apply to public figures nor to use in newsworthy purposes. And there already are similar privacy laws for other "personal" information. None of them apply to the story by CNET, the First Amendment forbids such a law.
The more wired we are the more they can find out, and the more harm they can potentially cause someone.
If Google hadn't made such a big stink about it, most of the people who now have read the story wouldn't have ever noticed it. I don't see what harm was caused by CNET. You think someone is going to go out and kill the CEO of Google because of the story? Or do you think that such a crazy person couldn't have just done the Google search herself?
The above information is correct - but you're missing the mention of his exact home address.
CNET didn't disclose "his exact home address." They mentioned the city he lives in, and linked to a page of public information which contained his address.
And as a shareholder I'm appalled that Google would engage in such petty behavior just because Cnet offended the CEO. Of course, I only found out yesterday why he gets away with this. As it turns out, each share of Google that is owned by Schmidt gets 10 votes, while each share that I own only gets 1. Together with Page and Brin, those three can do pretty much whatever they want with my money and get away with it. And since they don't foresee ever distributing their profits in the form of a dividend, it turns out what I actually own with my google shares is virtually nothing.
I'm seriously considering selling. But I'm not sure, there's always the greater fool theory of stock valuation...
I second pretty much all that you have written here: Linux is ready for the corporate desktop (we have had several Linux desktops in my corporate area for a few years now); Linux is ready for the home user.
That's not what he said, though. He said "Linux is ready now for the enterprise desktop, as long as you can run your mission critical apps." That's a big "if", and it negates my company, which needs a ledger system which is available only for Windows, and Quickbooks Accountant Edition. Quickbooks might be replacable, I don't know how easy it is to convert Quickbooks data to something that runs on Linux, and don't know if there's anything on Linux that has all the features we use. But as for the ledger system, I highly doubt there's a solution for Linux. We need something which supports electronic submission of W-2, W-3, and 1099 information. This is besides the fact that we'd have to retrain everyone to use different software. It's not at all feasible.
As for the home user, he said "Linux is ready for the home desktop IF it supports your hardware AND you don't mind having to go to the command line to install apps that are not supplied by your distro." Even then, I'd add in that Linux doesn't support most games. There are other applications, too. For instance, I highly doubt there will ever be a version of Party Poker's software which runs on Linux.
I'm still considering trying the switch, again. I'm sick of Windows security. But the installation is going to be a pain in the ass, since I've only got a small hard drive on my laptop and AFAIK I don't have a working CD of Windows in case I want to switch back. Maybe I'll look into running Linux off a CD for a while. I think my girlfriend's computer has a CD burner on it.
I dont think there is any legal way to watch you DVDs in Linux
Sure there is, it's called fair use. Now selling someone a way to watch DVDs in Linux, maybe that's illegal, but actually watching a DVD you legally bought isn't.
By your logic the radar gun is the accuser in other cases.
In many states the proper testimony of a cop is "I observed the defendent travelling at a high rate of speed, which I estimated as X mph. I then looked down at my radar gun to confirm that estimate."
Problem with the US is that nobody wants to pay taxes.
Problem? Not paying taxes is literally the purpose of the United States.
Nobody wants to be killed by a speeder, but nobody wants to pay to stop that from happening.
I don't know about you, but I don't want to be killed by anyone, and I am willing to pay to stop that from happening.
Here's the catch, though. If you reduce the size of the Civil Service and reduce the money they can spend, how are they going to get all these police they'd need to monitor the streets to any reasonable level?
Why do we need police to monitor the streets at all? Sounds like you're advocating a Big Brother that watches everything.
Personally, I think they should shift a few billion off the military and put it into domestic programs. A few billion into social security, five or six billion into education, maybe the same into emergency services, perhaps another ten or fifteen billion into science programs.
So instead of the government spending money protecting everyone, they should spend it giving away handouts? The social security system is bullshit and should be disbanded. The government shouldn't spend any money on education at all - they should give loan guarantees to the poor, and collect interest on those loans to pay for the defaults. As for emergency services, that's something that should be determined on a local basis, and paid for by property taxes and/or homeowners association fees (and of course donations, many communities will fund a significant portion of their local fire/rescue service through them).
In the end, though, we're all wanting something out but not willing to put what it takes in.
I don't want the vast majority of the services the government provides. For some of them I'm willing to take them, since I've gotta pay for it anyway. But you're making it out like I'm asking for the services and then complaining when it comes time to pay for it. There's very little the government needs to spend money on.
A speed camera doesn't care whether you're speeding on an empty cross-country trunk road at 3am with no other traffic nor pedestrians, or speeding on a residential road outside a school at going-home time.
Well, you're right that the camera doesn't care, but someone chose where to put the camera, and when to run it. And the officer that decides whether or not to write the ticket also knows this information at the time of writing it.
Being captured on camera is considered proof of speeding. Additionally, the picture usually doesn't have enough extra detail to independently verify if you were speeding or not. A single image can't be judged for speed.
That's fine if you want to argue that the evidence isn't sufficient, and in the case of many implementations you're probably correct. The biggest problem I can see is the potential for interference. Even if you're using laser, there's always a possibility that something interfered with an accurate reading. But the implication above is that the camera is the one making the accusation, and I just don't see how that's true.
So in the case of an automatic speeding camera, the camera is the one deciding to accuse you (by taking the picture) and the police officer pretty much has to take the "word" of the camera.
That assumes an awful lot about the process, and I highly doubt that's the way it works anywhere. What the process should be is that an officer looks at the picture(s), and looks at the readings, and then determines whether or not there is probable cause to write a ticket. From what I understand, this is the way it's done in at least some areas, and as many as half of the photos taken are thrown out.
Also, as one of the replies to your post has pointed out, the most popular system in the UK takes two pictures at two different locations and determines the average speed by dividing distance by time. Of course this has its own set of possible flaws, as you need well synchronized clocks, but depending on the distance between the cameras and the leeway given to people driving only slightly over the speed limit the clocks don't need to be that highly synchronized.
Speeding up is not yielding, and I really don't see a situation where this would be necessary anyway. When the ambulance comes everyone should slow down, pull to the right, and stop. Sure, maybe you'll have a few assholes that keep driving, but I doubt it's going to be often that you have an entire lane full of them.
Finally, an amulance shouldn't be speeding in this type of situation in the first place. If you're driving an ambulance in bumper to bumper traffic, to the point where there is no room to change lanes, going the speed limit is going too fast.
There have been studies done which have shown that speeding in an ambulance rarely saves lives, and probably is more dangerous than it's worth. Of course, if someone is in cardiac arrest and you are on your way to them, then every second counts, but in that case the police are usually going to get there first, and an ambulance which is stuck in bumper to bumper traffic almost certainly isn't going to get there first.
That's not how it works in the U.S. - in general, traffic cases won't be pursued unless the ticketing/arresting officer actually witnesses the infraction.
In most US states drunk driving isn't an infraction though, it's a misdemeaner. I don't think you can get arrested for most misdemeaners unless the arresting officer witnesses the crime, but you can still be charged with it in court (I also think there are exceptions in the law for certain misdemeaners like domestic violence).
I'd guess there are a lot more people that speed than steal. Unless you're going to count copyright infringement as stealing, in which case, they should make it legal.
If so many people are speeding why don't they just increase the speed limit?
They'd be able to write fewer tickets, and probably more importantly, they wouldn't be able to pull over just about anyone at any time for just about any (real) reason.
Many studies show that the roads are the safest if everybody is travelling at the same speed.
Would raising the speed limit really change this problem, though? I doubt it. If you raise the speed limit, then you're probably going to have quite a lot of people going slower than the speed limit. The best way to get everyone to go the same speed is to pick the slowest speed someone is likely to go and then enforce that as the speed limit.
In all seriousness, that linked article was pretty light on facts. I mean, was the defendant saying that the police had gone to the trouble to figure out how to doctor the image in such a way that the MD5 checksum was preserved? That must take some effort, surely? Or was it claimed that both the image and the checksum had been altered?
The way I understand it, the prosecution and the judge weren't knowledgable enough to even ask such question.
The police officer is your accuser, and circumstantial evidence is not necessarily hearsay. Would you call DNA evidence hearsay? When someone robs a bank and gets caught on the security camera would you suggest we throw that evidence out as hearsay?
To my mind it's no different than a lawyer trying to get their client off because of a slight, remote chance that someone else in the known universe there might have the exact same DNA or fingerprint as the suspect.
Agreed, as long as you're talking about the prosecution using DNA or fingerprints in a traffic case!
American traffic magistrates (at least in WA) would not even understand what an "algorithm" is.
Obviously this Australian judge didn't understand the MD5 algorithm, because s/he threw out the ticket. I don't see how the judge not understanding things hurts you. If the judge doesn't understand MD5, then the judge has to throw out the MD5 evidence.
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They crossed the line when they gave names and addresses of his family.
The name of his wife is not private information. And they didn't give the addresses of his family. They linked to a site that had what was allegedly his address.
Legitimate reasons include trying to get a phone number for an old friend (in a world where Google's founder is a friend of mine); illegitimate reasons include gratuitously drawing the attention of thousands of people to information that reasonably should be considered private, whether it happens to be publically available or not. If CNet had a story about how Google's founder was fighting an attempt to build a mall near his home, it might have been reasonable to include the name of the street he lives upon, because that's relevent too. But this?
I think you could argue that directly linking to the site went slightly over the line. But there was a legitimate reason, which was to point out that such personal information was available through a google search. I suppose the same point could have been illustrated, arguably better, by telling people the search term and letting them look it up for themselves. Of course, no additional harm was done by linking directly.
Now, exactly what did Ms. Mills do for Mr. Schmidt?
Pointed out his hypocrisy.
Did she further exose his family to danger?
No. Anyone who actually wanted to do harm to Schmidt's family could have easily found out his address...by doing a google search, for instance.
On the other hand, Google shouldn't be using shareholder time and resources to jealously protect its CEO and founder.
Since the shares owned by Google's CEO are worth ten times as many votes as the shares owned by us regular folk, it's no wonder, though. Or, as Page puts it, "We have a dual class structure that is biased toward stability and independence and that requires investors to bet on the team, especially Sergey and me."
It's not like it gave the guy's SSN or home phone number.
Yeah, it's not like what Google will give you if you search for "Bill Gates' social security number", which, incidently, is 539-60-5125.
What would they have to have posted - his cock length, inside-leg measurement and a photoshoot showing him in a compromising position with a tub of butter and an aardvark?
Something that wasn't already public knowledge would have been a start. And they didn't post his address. They linked to a page which had it.
Just because the information can be discovered by anyone skilled and motivated enough, doesn't make it alright to collate and publicly broadcast it. How would you feel if someone did the same to you?
I'd be pissed, but I'd be much more pissed at the congresscritters who passed the campaign finance laws which required me to make my address public than at the news agency that pointed it out.
To take an extreme case, "public" light is bouncing off your body all the time, but that doesn't give someone the right to use it to take photos of you and use it however they like, does it?
Not however they like, but for news purposes certainly, especially for a "public figure" such as the CEO of Google.
We already have the concept of "image rights" in visual media - with the increasing transparency of the information age do we need something similar for other "personal" information?
Image rights don't apply to public figures nor to use in newsworthy purposes. And there already are similar privacy laws for other "personal" information. None of them apply to the story by CNET, the First Amendment forbids such a law.
The more wired we are the more they can find out, and the more harm they can potentially cause someone.
If Google hadn't made such a big stink about it, most of the people who now have read the story wouldn't have ever noticed it. I don't see what harm was caused by CNET. You think someone is going to go out and kill the CEO of Google because of the story? Or do you think that such a crazy person couldn't have just done the Google search herself?
The above information is correct - but you're missing the mention of his exact home address.
CNET didn't disclose "his exact home address." They mentioned the city he lives in, and linked to a page of public information which contained his address.
Google is completely retarded on this one.
And as a shareholder I'm appalled that Google would engage in such petty behavior just because Cnet offended the CEO. Of course, I only found out yesterday why he gets away with this. As it turns out, each share of Google that is owned by Schmidt gets 10 votes, while each share that I own only gets 1. Together with Page and Brin, those three can do pretty much whatever they want with my money and get away with it. And since they don't foresee ever distributing their profits in the form of a dividend, it turns out what I actually own with my google shares is virtually nothing.
I'm seriously considering selling. But I'm not sure, there's always the greater fool theory of stock valuation...
Just for the record, please spell out the double-standard you wish us to apply to Google vs. the rest of the world.
They've already spelled out that double-standard pretty well: http://www.google.com/robots.txt
I second pretty much all that you have written here: Linux is ready for the corporate desktop (we have had several Linux desktops in my corporate area for a few years now); Linux is ready for the home user.
That's not what he said, though. He said "Linux is ready now for the enterprise desktop, as long as you can run your mission critical apps." That's a big "if", and it negates my company, which needs a ledger system which is available only for Windows, and Quickbooks Accountant Edition. Quickbooks might be replacable, I don't know how easy it is to convert Quickbooks data to something that runs on Linux, and don't know if there's anything on Linux that has all the features we use. But as for the ledger system, I highly doubt there's a solution for Linux. We need something which supports electronic submission of W-2, W-3, and 1099 information. This is besides the fact that we'd have to retrain everyone to use different software. It's not at all feasible.
As for the home user, he said "Linux is ready for the home desktop IF it supports your hardware AND you don't mind having to go to the command line to install apps that are not supplied by your distro." Even then, I'd add in that Linux doesn't support most games. There are other applications, too. For instance, I highly doubt there will ever be a version of Party Poker's software which runs on Linux.
I'm still considering trying the switch, again. I'm sick of Windows security. But the installation is going to be a pain in the ass, since I've only got a small hard drive on my laptop and AFAIK I don't have a working CD of Windows in case I want to switch back. Maybe I'll look into running Linux off a CD for a while. I think my girlfriend's computer has a CD burner on it.
I dont think there is any legal way to watch you DVDs in Linux
Sure there is, it's called fair use. Now selling someone a way to watch DVDs in Linux, maybe that's illegal, but actually watching a DVD you legally bought isn't.
By your logic the radar gun is the accuser in other cases.
In many states the proper testimony of a cop is "I observed the defendent travelling at a high rate of speed, which I estimated as X mph. I then looked down at my radar gun to confirm that estimate."
Problem with the US is that nobody wants to pay taxes.
Problem? Not paying taxes is literally the purpose of the United States.
Nobody wants to be killed by a speeder, but nobody wants to pay to stop that from happening.
I don't know about you, but I don't want to be killed by anyone, and I am willing to pay to stop that from happening.
Here's the catch, though. If you reduce the size of the Civil Service and reduce the money they can spend, how are they going to get all these police they'd need to monitor the streets to any reasonable level?
Why do we need police to monitor the streets at all? Sounds like you're advocating a Big Brother that watches everything.
Personally, I think they should shift a few billion off the military and put it into domestic programs. A few billion into social security, five or six billion into education, maybe the same into emergency services, perhaps another ten or fifteen billion into science programs.
So instead of the government spending money protecting everyone, they should spend it giving away handouts? The social security system is bullshit and should be disbanded. The government shouldn't spend any money on education at all - they should give loan guarantees to the poor, and collect interest on those loans to pay for the defaults. As for emergency services, that's something that should be determined on a local basis, and paid for by property taxes and/or homeowners association fees (and of course donations, many communities will fund a significant portion of their local fire/rescue service through them).
In the end, though, we're all wanting something out but not willing to put what it takes in.
I don't want the vast majority of the services the government provides. For some of them I'm willing to take them, since I've gotta pay for it anyway. But you're making it out like I'm asking for the services and then complaining when it comes time to pay for it. There's very little the government needs to spend money on.
A speed camera doesn't care whether you're speeding on an empty cross-country trunk road at 3am with no other traffic nor pedestrians, or speeding on a residential road outside a school at going-home time.
Well, you're right that the camera doesn't care, but someone chose where to put the camera, and when to run it. And the officer that decides whether or not to write the ticket also knows this information at the time of writing it.
Being captured on camera is considered proof of speeding. Additionally, the picture usually doesn't have enough extra detail to independently verify if you were speeding or not. A single image can't be judged for speed.
That's fine if you want to argue that the evidence isn't sufficient, and in the case of many implementations you're probably correct. The biggest problem I can see is the potential for interference. Even if you're using laser, there's always a possibility that something interfered with an accurate reading. But the implication above is that the camera is the one making the accusation, and I just don't see how that's true.
So in the case of an automatic speeding camera, the camera is the one deciding to accuse you (by taking the picture) and the police officer pretty much has to take the "word" of the camera.
That assumes an awful lot about the process, and I highly doubt that's the way it works anywhere. What the process should be is that an officer looks at the picture(s), and looks at the readings, and then determines whether or not there is probable cause to write a ticket. From what I understand, this is the way it's done in at least some areas, and as many as half of the photos taken are thrown out.
Also, as one of the replies to your post has pointed out, the most popular system in the UK takes two pictures at two different locations and determines the average speed by dividing distance by time. Of course this has its own set of possible flaws, as you need well synchronized clocks, but depending on the distance between the cameras and the leeway given to people driving only slightly over the speed limit the clocks don't need to be that highly synchronized.
Speeding up is not yielding, and I really don't see a situation where this would be necessary anyway. When the ambulance comes everyone should slow down, pull to the right, and stop. Sure, maybe you'll have a few assholes that keep driving, but I doubt it's going to be often that you have an entire lane full of them.
Finally, an amulance shouldn't be speeding in this type of situation in the first place. If you're driving an ambulance in bumper to bumper traffic, to the point where there is no room to change lanes, going the speed limit is going too fast.
There have been studies done which have shown that speeding in an ambulance rarely saves lives, and probably is more dangerous than it's worth. Of course, if someone is in cardiac arrest and you are on your way to them, then every second counts, but in that case the police are usually going to get there first, and an ambulance which is stuck in bumper to bumper traffic almost certainly isn't going to get there first.
That's not how it works in the U.S. - in general, traffic cases won't be pursued unless the ticketing/arresting officer actually witnesses the infraction.
In most US states drunk driving isn't an infraction though, it's a misdemeaner. I don't think you can get arrested for most misdemeaners unless the arresting officer witnesses the crime, but you can still be charged with it in court (I also think there are exceptions in the law for certain misdemeaners like domestic violence).
I'd guess there are a lot more people that speed than steal. Unless you're going to count copyright infringement as stealing, in which case, they should make it legal.
If so many people are speeding why don't they just increase the speed limit?
They'd be able to write fewer tickets, and probably more importantly, they wouldn't be able to pull over just about anyone at any time for just about any (real) reason.
Many studies show that the roads are the safest if everybody is travelling at the same speed.
Would raising the speed limit really change this problem, though? I doubt it. If you raise the speed limit, then you're probably going to have quite a lot of people going slower than the speed limit. The best way to get everyone to go the same speed is to pick the slowest speed someone is likely to go and then enforce that as the speed limit.
In all seriousness, that linked article was pretty light on facts. I mean, was the defendant saying that the police had gone to the trouble to figure out how to doctor the image in such a way that the MD5 checksum was preserved? That must take some effort, surely? Or was it claimed that both the image and the checksum had been altered?
The way I understand it, the prosecution and the judge weren't knowledgable enough to even ask such question.
The police officer is your accuser, and circumstantial evidence is not necessarily hearsay. Would you call DNA evidence hearsay? When someone robs a bank and gets caught on the security camera would you suggest we throw that evidence out as hearsay?
To my mind it's no different than a lawyer trying to get their client off because of a slight, remote chance that someone else in the known universe there might have the exact same DNA or fingerprint as the suspect.
Agreed, as long as you're talking about the prosecution using DNA or fingerprints in a traffic case!
American traffic magistrates (at least in WA) would not even understand what an "algorithm" is.
Obviously this Australian judge didn't understand the MD5 algorithm, because s/he threw out the ticket. I don't see how the judge not understanding things hurts you. If the judge doesn't understand MD5, then the judge has to throw out the MD5 evidence.
I wanted strong emphasis, not just emphasis.
Finally, a Slashdotting that's a good thing.