"I would ask Ann Coulter, "Have you no shame, Madame?""
I would ask her if she realizes that such a hardcore conservative as herself ought to idealize the societies of 1000 years ago. At which point I would point out that such an outspoken woman as her would likely be beaten, tortured, and murdered, assuming the man who owned her allowed it.
The fact is, she doesn't even understand that she's far more liberal than she thinks, depending on your perspective; time-wise.
I would love to see her try and bring her positions about in Jefferson's time. He'd probably wonder silently if she's possessed by the devil, or perhaps simply mad (insane).
Re:The organization has an obvious slant
on
Joining the ACLU?
·
· Score: 1
" The ACLU believes that the first amendment protects the rights of child pornographers"
The ACLU believes that every citizen is equally entitled to their rights. The only question here is where those rights end. In the case of child pornographers, I believe the ACLU would support the existence and literature of a group such as NAMBLA (Group of male paedophiles) while not supporting the production or distribution of child pornography as a protected right. Why is that? Because while NAMBLA has the right to hold a highly unpopular position (that it's ok for men and boys to engage in sex acts), the production of the pornography requires that the rights of the child (as covered under numerous UN conventions and such) be violated. The ACLU has always held that the rights of an individual should always extend as far as possible, limited only in such a way that they do not interfere with the rights of anyone else. If you look back, you'll also note that they've defended the KKK, cross-burners, flag-burners, and plenty more unpopular groups of people. It's not because they like those people; it's because they like the rights to which they, like those people, are entitled.
"The ACLU believes... that the second amendment has nothing to do with the right to bear arms."
This is an unfortunate misconception. The ACLU does believe that an individual has the right to bear arms to protect himself, his family, and his posessions from agression. The ACLU does not ignore the 2nd amendment, nor does it ignore such things as gun control and the like. The ACLU's position is much the same as the NRA's, in that each citizen has the limited right to hold and possess weapons. The ACLU is not in favor of the government coming to snatch your handguns, much like the NRA is not in favor of the government allowing individuals to have nuclear weapon stockpiles in their basements. The difference between the two is their activity on the issue. The NRA has a powerful lobby, plenty of support, and a single major issue on which to focus. The ACLU has a wide array of issues which drain their resources, and simply doesn't see a need at this time to get involved either way. That may seem hypocritical, but the basic position of the ACLU is that Congress and the Courts have taken reasonable stances on the issues surrounding the 2nd amendment, and that there exists significant protections in the form of groups like the NRA to protect it.
Show me the law passed by Congress and signed by the President which bans all guns, and I'll show you the lawsuit filed by the ACLU before the ink of the President's signature is dry. If I didn't honestly believe the ACLU was keeping a close eye on the issue, I would never have joined, and certainly would not renew. I don't believe our Founding Fathers would have stood for unfettered legal access to the heavy artillery available to the common man today if they'd had even the slightest idea of the kind of firepower we see all the time in modern times.
" the "magic" smoke that makes all electrical and electronic devices work"
Now, I don't want to get off on a rant here, but I must be the only person (judging from the mods) who is so tired of hearing that horrible joke. It wasn't mildly funny the first time I heard it. It was intensely annoying the second time I heard it. It goes around like the drunk guy at the company Christmas party telling the same bad joke over and over again to the same people going, "get it?? get it?!" afterwards each time when no one else laughs. The "magic smoke"? It sounds like a title for a Disney film starring Bob Marley. Can we bury this joke in the shallow, unmarked grave it deserves and get on with our lives? Please?
"My Co-Worker and I manage about 375 PCs at a University which has no firewall," "the Sysadmins need to be... fired."
"You should have had auto-updates turned on for your boxes" "the Sysadmins need to be... fired."
"We had autoupdates on," "the Sysadmins need to be... fired."
Reasonable boarder security, strict firewall rules, roll-over security, implementing patchs and updates after they've been tested within a "sandbox" or other non-production machine, and constant security/threat analysis - these are the building blocks to a secure and operational infrastructure; not turning on "auto-update" for all your windows boxes. That's absolutely ridiculous. Next time a faulty patch comes down the line, it's going to take down some, most, or even all of your machines. I can remember Microsoft security patches causing anything from network connection problems to out-right system corruption requiring repair/reinstallation of the OS. Be very careful throwing stones at other admins when your own procedures are just plain laughable.
"So, uh, what were you other Windows admins doing when you should have been doing your job?"
Where was I? Reviewing the procedures I have in place to ensure that this type of vulnerablity never touches anything that would be vulnerable to it, and ensuring that all critical systems are buffered in case of internal infection through user stupidity. Where was I? Doing my job, correctly.
" The back of my old Linux Hardware Solutions t-shirt has the following quote from Ghandi next to the penguin: First they ignore you, Then they laugh at you, Then they fight you, Then you win. I'd say Microsoft has now reached the third line regarding Linux. This is a good sign."
The same could be (and has been) said about SCO vs Linux.
"SCO? I thought they'd gone under already." "SCO... company full of ambulance-chasers!" "That's it, everyone sue SCO now! RH, you're first!"
Then again, the same could also be said for U.S. vs Germany, WWII.
"Germans invading again? Wake me up when this is done and over with." "Ha! Stupid krauts will be dead in no time!" "Ok, boys... Time to kill the filthy Nazis!"
So I suppose it's all a matter of perspective. Or as my mentor put it, it's all relative.
" And yet you can't scream "fire" in a packed movie theater."
Yes, and why is this? How is this different from posting to a web site? Read my above comment for details, but suffice it to say that yelling "Fire" is quite different from what this guy did, from a legal/Constitutional perspective.
"Inciting others to riot is an offense any way you look at it."
Actually, this is not so. The phrase necessary to dissect the possible illegality of speech is, Clear and Present Danger. In other words, is it reasonable to expect that his speech would create an imminent danger to life and limb. The answer, in this case, is no. By shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theatre, you've directly caused a panic which is very likely to result in immediate injury or death within the theatre. By printing words calling for violent actions, he has commited no crime. Now, assuming this person marched a crowd of loyal supporters down to Capital Hill and started calling for them to burn the city to the ground, he could and should be arrested on the spot for inciting a riot. Why? Because his words and/or actions can be construed by a reasonable person to create a situation in which injury and/or death is imminent. There's nothing imminent at all about words posted to a web site.
"The punishment is based on what he plead guilty to, not the legitimacy of the charges. What did you expect the judge to do, force him in to a trial?"
How about, "take the deal or we'll declare you an enemy combatant, and you'll spend the rest of your life in jail."
In today's justice system, the possibility of being labled a terrorist is sufficiently "terrifying" (pardon the pun) to bring just about anyone around on the idea of a deal. Whether directly or indirectly threatened makes no difference; the result remains the same. From this person's perspective, he could be looking at anything from a few years to 20+ years to enemy combatant (read: 'til the end of time) in prison. Suddenly, a deal for a year looks a whole lot tastier.
The point is that it doesn't matter if you're innocent or guilty - right or wrong. It only matters what the accused believes will happen to them if they don't take the deal. If you lose, perhaps you'll spend 20 years in prison. If you start looking like you might win, then maybe the military comes to get you instead. In essence, once you're convinced there's no way to win, you start looking for any way at all to cut your losses.
" Is not this terrible that 30 years old, not very good architecture now gained a pass into the 21'st century? Was it not enough to extend the 8085 first to 8086, than to 80286, than to 80386 and now to x86-64? When will this end?"
When you design a better architecture which can run almost every application made over the past 20 years, and which can be implemented in such a way as to fit the average consumer's computer budget of about $1000 for a complete system while still leaving room for profit.
" yea and why did they skip munkeyspanker1-20 and go right to 21?"
Because munkeyspankers 1 - 20 restricted their copyright infringement activities to pornography, obviously. Jesus, did you even look at the name?!:)
"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you will hear testimony during this trial regarding the complete disregard for the law shown by Mr Munkeyspanker. His total disrespect for the rule of law is shown further by his attempts to hide his identity; but I assure you, this law-breaker, this... Munkey spanker, will face justice at your hands! Ladies and gentlemen, we intend to prove hands-down, that Mr Munkeyspanker is indeed guilty of far more than self-gratification. We have substantial evidence that this spanker of monkies is in fact a serial violator, far beyond what any decent person could even imagine!"
" What we really need is a renound LAW school to stand up to them. That will provide results."
It's been my experience that no lawyer ever focuses on producing results. Rather, they seem to focus very heavily on the process - that process being the swift and steady draining of my wallet.
" But your question is moot, because you've made up those numbers."
Making up the numbers only means that the question is hypothetical.:)
"If those numbers can be proven then you try to save the most lives possible. If not you do what seems morally reasonable and most likely to have the best outcome,"
So then it sounds like you're saying 'go with whatever gives the lowest number of abuse cases'? Would that apply to any situation, would you say? How about if I said we could reduce the total number of cases of child abuse by another 10,000 per year by legalizing the abuse itself? (Obviously I think this is as ridiculous as you do, but I'm still posing the question:P ) I suppose the overriding question before us is, what is the point of law? Is it to give us a moral compass to follow? Or is it to produce as close to an ideal society as possible? Or is the purpose of law something entirely different?
"All you criminals sitting here just better remember not to pirate the movie you are about to see when you get home!"
Or perhaps, "Don't forget folks, connecting to irc.dal.net, channel #movies, and downloading this feature film for free is against the law! Now enjoy this overpriced content-lacking two hour eyecandy festival while munching on your $9 popcorn and pissing yourself after consuming the 92oz 'Matrix size' Coke we charged you 8 bucks for."
I'm sorry, I'm from the US. What is this "competition" you speak of? Is that a new service offered by Verizon? Something from Comcast perhaps? How much does it cost on top of all the other charges that make my monthly billing statement thicker than the King James Bible?
" If it really is about profit then people who have payed for child porn are creating a market for the abusers, encouraging their behaviour with monetary rewards."
Here's a moral question for you though: if you can prevent more child abuse than is caused by decriminalizing child pornography, would you decriminalize possession while keeping the production illegal?
This works under a few basic assumptions. One, that there are pedophiles who do not wish to harm children (either physically or psychologically), who will abuse without porn, but will not abuse if they are allowed access to it to relieve sexual urges directed towards children. Two, this assumes that by opening up a market of people who will pay for this content (no longer fearing legal repurcussions), there will be a certain number of people who abuse, or pay others to abuse children in the name of profit.
And, so I restate the question. If you prevent 10,000 cases of child abuse and create 5,000 new cases of child abuse (a net decrease of 5,000 cases of child abuse) by decriminalizing possession, what do you do? It's a bit of a trick question, as you couldn't possibly look the people who care about the 10,000 children in the eyes and explain why you won't save them by decriminalizing possession, and you can't look the people who care about the children in the 5,000 new cases in the eyes and explain to them why their children must be abused.
Obviously, if we could end the abuse altogether, the world would be a better place. But this is reality, and I want to see who wants to step up to the plate to tackle this moral quagmire. Canada has toyed with this question within its legal system, and I'm curious to see how the slashdot folks will handle it. By the way, the best part about this question? There's no reliable data to support any numbers in this case, so you'll have to work off of my blind-guess figures. Have fun. (sarcasm, obviously)
"The liberties of the child rapist in particular absolutely contravene the liberties of the child he rapes."
Actually, it's the freedom to rape which contravenes the freedom to consent (granted a child lacks the capacity to consent). Therefore, the rapist cannot count rape as a liberty to which he or she is entitled. What I spoke of referred to the "equal protection" clause under the law, which states simply that liberty amoung citizens is universal. Freedom, however, is not and cannot possibly be absolute without self-contradiction.
"Conversely, the protection of that child necessarily entails the curtailment of the rapist's liberties, including the liberty to advertise, legitimise and profit by his actions."
I disagree completely. The rapist has the right to advertise, though by doing so he or she openly incriminates themself, and therefore may face punishment for the perpetation of the actual crime. The advertisement itself is a liberty the rapist may choose to exercise at the expense of their freedom of movement. As for their liberty to legitimise their actions, they may feel free to do this as well. They are perfectly free to stand up in court and explain to the judge and jury why raping a child seems perfectly ok to them, although this will most likely guarantee as severe a punishment as the law allows. As for profiting from their actions, having advertised their sickening and illegal rape, and further going forth with a defense that what they did was morally acceptable, I should think that a book deal would be quite easily secured based on their story. Thus, profit ensues from their actions. There is no law against any of this.
" Like every idealism, it is incoherent precisely because it fails to recognise the incoherencies inherent in the domain it idealises. There can be no consistent and coherent all-embracing model of liberty, either in speech or in conduct."
What Freenet says to this is that speech itself ought never be regulated. Further, it puts forth the idea of no-holds-barred freedom of expression through freesites. I believe strongly in self-responsibility, and I think something like Freenet is perfect for that. It could quite easily turn into a forum for folks slandering one another, yet by refusing any and all restrictions, it inherently calls us to a higher state or morality. It says to all who use it, "no one is watching you, no one is going to punish you, and no one will stop you from saying anything you please", and thus it demands a greater responsibility from us. What most do not understand about the anarchy movement is that it calls for individuals to regulate themselves, believing that the laws, regulations, and punishments handed down by governments do nothing but hold back the human spirit, which is quite capable and willing to regulate its own actions.
Freenet is the ultimate in free speech anarchy, and I think it is often used very wisely for its stated intent. It enables speech in both litiguous societies like the US, and repressive regimes like China. While some do abuse this freedom, my personal observations are such that most use this opportunity to bring up things they would be afraid to bring up in public. From detailing the abuse of companies on their workers to detailing the abuse of governments on their citizens, Freenet has opened the doors to a world of free expression without limits, where no one is physically harmed in any way.
As for idealism being "incoherent", I again beg to differ. In this particular case, I urge you to look at the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights - for which I have the utmost respect and admiration. Never before have I seen such extraordinary idealism in government, and the fact that our Constitution still stands today shows that it is neither incoherent, nor impossible at all. I personally consider myself an idealist realist; I see things for how they are, yet can imagine and hope they become the stuff that dreams are made of.:)
"They're waaaaay past the point of just talking, that's why they aren't protected."
"Free speech" covers a number of things that are not spoken. Free speech is better described as free expression - the freedom to express one's thoughts. Secondly, pictures of child porn are not illegal in every part of the world. As for whether they should be or not, I'm reserving judgement until such time as I see what effect the exceptions placed into Canada's laws by their Supreme Court have. If it reduces actual abuse of children, then I'm all for those specific exceptions. Thirdly, and more to the point, I never claimed it was free speech. What I did claim is that Freenet, as a whole and like the internet, is a method of free speech (or expression, if you will). It is not child pornography which I seek to protect and defend; only Freenet. If you attack Freenet on the grounds that it facilitates distribution of child pornography, then you must also attack the internet at a whole, which is equally, if not moreso responsible for the distribution of such obscene material. So now go ahead and please argue for the dismantling of the internet - that at least would entertain me.
"As an earlier poster pointed out, the problem with this is that a user's home computer could be providing kiddie porn. It's one thing to steal songs and software, but it's another thing to host pictures of some 7 year old getting raped. I don't want to even have the possibility of that happening, "
Then why do you continue to pay your ISP? The internet houses and makes possible the mass distribution of such material. You claim such a moral high ground, yet you fail to see that it is the internet itself which facilitates providing child pornography. If you truly believe in this so strongly, why don't you cancel your ISP account, encourage others to do the same, and lobby government for laws outlawing the internet? What you've displayed is simply an extension of NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard). People want more prisons, but not near their homes. People want more homeless shelters, but not near their homes. You don't mind the global information network that carries child pornography, but as soon as it hits a bit too close for home in the form of Freenet, you're all up in arms. I won't even get into the argument about going after the actual abusers, rather than the mentally ill folks who seek this type of material. But I will say that if hosting something which sickens me is the price for allowing a Chinese dissident to say what they think without being shot, then so be it.
"Are people hosting files or parts of files like the phone company in the eyes of the law?"
Which files are you hosting? Which parts of which files are you hosting? Chances are, unless you know a whole lot about computers and a decent bit about the design of Freenet and how to tweak it, you probably couldn't figure it out if I held a gun to your head. Even so, that's looking far too far ahead. Finding which files or parts of files are actually hosted on your computer is hard enough, but finding them on someone else's computer is impossible according to the intended design of Freenet. Assuming you had a complete setup of packet sniffers and such, you might be able to see which nodes have specific files or parts of files passing through them, but you would still have no evidence that the files are actually hosted on those computers. That's the beauty of Freenet; it's a double-blind system where no one knows where the files came from and no one knows where they went. Providing any evidence for even a search warrant would seem virtually impossible to me. Putting someone in jail over it appears, on its face, completely impossible. Quite frankly, the prosecution's case would be built from supposition, statistical probabilities, and highly technical data that even most/.'ers wouldn't understand. How anyone can claim proof beyond a reasonable doubt of wrongdoing or intent in such a situation is quite far beyond me. I certainly couldn't put someone in jail based on a bunch of statistics. What would that look like? "Well, there is a 72.8% chance that 10% or more from files A, D, F, and L came from the defendant's computer."
"they don't bust AOL for providing chat rooms for 35 year olds to pick up 12 year old English girls."
No, they don't; but maybe they should have a word with the parents of a 12 year old girl who are so disinterested in her that she can chat with, email, and exchange postal letters with an older man for an entire year without them noticing. With her spending 11 hours a day on the computer, which was in the kitchen, you just have to wonder how in the hell they had no clue what was going on. Somehow, I doubt you'll find too many 12 year olds spending 11 hours a day checking out beanie babies on eBay, or even reading/. Another thing is the accusation you leveled. Whether you realized it or not, you pretty much accused him of purposely seeking and "grooming" a 12 year old girl in chat rooms and then kidnapping her from her home. It must be nice to be omniscient, but those of us who aren't are stuck with confl
"But someone from the RIAA uses it to download a copyrighted song, wouldn't they then be able to sue all users of Freenet as accessories to the crime? (Assuming each node handles traffic from transactions it may or may not be involved in - that's the way I remember it working.) And then get a court order for Freenet to give up IP addresses of users who have downloaded the client?"
Considering the fact that you can't narrow down what any single node has or has not done to aid in the download, you would pretty much have to launch a lawsuit against each user. Problem with that? Well, first of all, you'd have to find all the users of Freenet, and many are not in the US. You could start doing interner-wide port scans, but you're still going to run into a lot of walls, what with proxy servers, non-standard ports, etc. Assuming they managed to get a court order for the people who run the Freenet project to turn over the ips of those who have downloaded the software, they still will have only the records that the folks who run the Freenet project have. Who here keeps server logs for every single download of every single file, and maps all those downloads to individual ip addresses for any significant length of time?
Then you'd have to go about suing all of these people. Assuming we're only talking about say around 20,000 US-based users whose ip addresses can be identified as Freenet nodes, you're still looking at thousands of lawsuits. Thousands of lawsuits means thousands of lawyers, and tens of thousands of paralegals. If someone would like to try doing the math on this one, feel free, but I'd venture to guess that the amount of money invested in this kind of thing would run into the billions. The trick is, you can't selectively sue a few Freenet users, as you can't prove they had anything to do with the infringement you're claiming took place. We get up there in court and they start babbling off about piracy, my response is simply, "what proof do you have that I, specifically, infringed your copyrights?" The simple answer is, "we have none"; that's the way the network works. So they can either sue every single Freenet user en masse, knowing that they cannot prove a single case of infringement against any given individual, or they can pick off a few individuals and hope that they judges they get are so technically inept as to ignore the law and assume guilt without evidence.
That's the trick of it, really. Can you really win a lawsuit against someone without a single shred of evidence? If the RIAA can, it may hurt them far more than Freenet ever could, as they would be seen as an out-of-control lobby group which has managed to penetrate deep into the judicial system; completely disregarding the rule of law and forcing judges to do the same. It would prove once, and for all, that the RIAA is a ferocious beast which abuses copyright laws and manipulates the legal system to its own ends, and that it does so quite successfully.
"Government abuse of power over speech is far more dangerous than individual abuse of free speech."
Beautifully stated. What many people fail to grasp is the simple fact that liberty is hard. Your own liberty is not what makes it hard; it's the respect for the liberty of others which makes things nearly unbearable at times. In order to ensure that some poor soul has the ability to speak out against a repressive regime without being shot for it, I must in turn allow some sick bastard to get his kicks? This is difficult, but it's outright dangerous to start picking and choosing who should have which liberties.
They wanted to use a stable, reliable, and secure operating system to ensure that all American voters have equal and unhindered access to their right to vote.
Unfortunately, they couldn't think of anything, so they just chose Windows.
" So should we just resort to random police raids?"
But why stop there? Such a half-ass effort will surely miss far too much illegality. The only good solution is to have daily (or even more often) police inspections of every home, office, person, vehicle, etc. And just as an added precaution, we should install video cameras on every street, in every ally, and in every room of every home, office, or other such structure. From there, all the visual information could be fed into a lovely Oracle database, having been sorted by an advanced AI system. That way, any and all illegal acts are caught on tape, and the law-breaker can simply be put in jail, or perhaps even more simply, to death. Since we have it right on tape, there's obviously no need for a trial. And since those who break the law deserve to be caught and punished, no one should have any problem with this. After all, you're not doing anything illegal, immoral, or undesirable, right?
Slashdot Mirror
" If you are a person who's handing out drugs to 12-year-olds..."
Jesus, that's illegal now?! Oh, the tyranny; the tyranny!
"Christ, Linux is not improving my odds with the ladies. Maybe I should get a mac now."
Giving up on women altogether?
*rimshot*
"I would ask Ann Coulter, "Have you no shame, Madame?""
I would ask her if she realizes that such a hardcore conservative as herself ought to idealize the societies of 1000 years ago. At which point I would point out that such an outspoken woman as her would likely be beaten, tortured, and murdered, assuming the man who owned her allowed it.
The fact is, she doesn't even understand that she's far more liberal than she thinks, depending on your perspective; time-wise.
I would love to see her try and bring her positions about in Jefferson's time. He'd probably wonder silently if she's possessed by the devil, or perhaps simply mad (insane).
" The ACLU believes that the first amendment protects the rights of child pornographers"
The ACLU believes that every citizen is equally entitled to their rights. The only question here is where those rights end. In the case of child pornographers, I believe the ACLU would support the existence and literature of a group such as NAMBLA (Group of male paedophiles) while not supporting the production or distribution of child pornography as a protected right. Why is that? Because while NAMBLA has the right to hold a highly unpopular position (that it's ok for men and boys to engage in sex acts), the production of the pornography requires that the rights of the child (as covered under numerous UN conventions and such) be violated. The ACLU has always held that the rights of an individual should always extend as far as possible, limited only in such a way that they do not interfere with the rights of anyone else. If you look back, you'll also note that they've defended the KKK, cross-burners, flag-burners, and plenty more unpopular groups of people. It's not because they like those people; it's because they like the rights to which they, like those people, are entitled.
"The ACLU believes... that the second amendment has nothing to do with the right to bear arms."
This is an unfortunate misconception. The ACLU does believe that an individual has the right to bear arms to protect himself, his family, and his posessions from agression. The ACLU does not ignore the 2nd amendment, nor does it ignore such things as gun control and the like. The ACLU's position is much the same as the NRA's, in that each citizen has the limited right to hold and possess weapons. The ACLU is not in favor of the government coming to snatch your handguns, much like the NRA is not in favor of the government allowing individuals to have nuclear weapon stockpiles in their basements. The difference between the two is their activity on the issue. The NRA has a powerful lobby, plenty of support, and a single major issue on which to focus. The ACLU has a wide array of issues which drain their resources, and simply doesn't see a need at this time to get involved either way. That may seem hypocritical, but the basic position of the ACLU is that Congress and the Courts have taken reasonable stances on the issues surrounding the 2nd amendment, and that there exists significant protections in the form of groups like the NRA to protect it.
Show me the law passed by Congress and signed by the President which bans all guns, and I'll show you the lawsuit filed by the ACLU before the ink of the President's signature is dry. If I didn't honestly believe the ACLU was keeping a close eye on the issue, I would never have joined, and certainly would not renew. I don't believe our Founding Fathers would have stood for unfettered legal access to the heavy artillery available to the common man today if they'd had even the slightest idea of the kind of firepower we see all the time in modern times.
" the "magic" smoke that makes all electrical and electronic devices work"
Now, I don't want to get off on a rant here, but I must be the only person (judging from the mods) who is so tired of hearing that horrible joke. It wasn't mildly funny the first time I heard it. It was intensely annoying the second time I heard it. It goes around like the drunk guy at the company Christmas party telling the same bad joke over and over again to the same people going, "get it?? get it?!" afterwards each time when no one else laughs. The "magic smoke"? It sounds like a title for a Disney film starring Bob Marley. Can we bury this joke in the shallow, unmarked grave it deserves and get on with our lives? Please?
"My Co-Worker and I manage about 375 PCs at a University which has no firewall," ... fired."
... fired."
... fired."
"the Sysadmins need to be
"You should have had auto-updates turned on for your boxes"
"the Sysadmins need to be
"We had autoupdates on,"
"the Sysadmins need to be
Reasonable boarder security, strict firewall rules, roll-over security, implementing patchs and updates after they've been tested within a "sandbox" or other non-production machine, and constant security/threat analysis - these are the building blocks to a secure and operational infrastructure; not turning on "auto-update" for all your windows boxes. That's absolutely ridiculous. Next time a faulty patch comes down the line, it's going to take down some, most, or even all of your machines. I can remember Microsoft security patches causing anything from network connection problems to out-right system corruption requiring repair/reinstallation of the OS. Be very careful throwing stones at other admins when your own procedures are just plain laughable.
"So, uh, what were you other Windows admins doing when you should have been doing your job?"
Where was I? Reviewing the procedures I have in place to ensure that this type of vulnerablity never touches anything that would be vulnerable to it, and ensuring that all critical systems are buffered in case of internal infection through user stupidity. Where was I? Doing my job, correctly.
" The back of my old Linux Hardware Solutions t-shirt has the following quote from Ghandi next to the penguin:
First they ignore you,
Then they laugh at you,
Then they fight you,
Then you win.
I'd say Microsoft has now reached the third line regarding Linux. This is a good sign."
The same could be (and has been) said about SCO vs Linux.
"SCO? I thought they'd gone under already."
"SCO... company full of ambulance-chasers!"
"That's it, everyone sue SCO now! RH, you're first!"
Then again, the same could also be said for U.S. vs Germany, WWII.
"Germans invading again? Wake me up when this is done and over with."
"Ha! Stupid krauts will be dead in no time!"
"Ok, boys... Time to kill the filthy Nazis!"
So I suppose it's all a matter of perspective. Or as my mentor put it, it's all relative.
" And yet you can't scream "fire" in a packed movie theater."
Yes, and why is this? How is this different from posting to a web site? Read my above comment for details, but suffice it to say that yelling "Fire" is quite different from what this guy did, from a legal/Constitutional perspective.
"Inciting others to riot is an offense any way you look at it."
Actually, this is not so. The phrase necessary to dissect the possible illegality of speech is, Clear and Present Danger. In other words, is it reasonable to expect that his speech would create an imminent danger to life and limb. The answer, in this case, is no. By shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theatre, you've directly caused a panic which is very likely to result in immediate injury or death within the theatre. By printing words calling for violent actions, he has commited no crime. Now, assuming this person marched a crowd of loyal supporters down to Capital Hill and started calling for them to burn the city to the ground, he could and should be arrested on the spot for inciting a riot. Why? Because his words and/or actions can be construed by a reasonable person to create a situation in which injury and/or death is imminent. There's nothing imminent at all about words posted to a web site.
"The punishment is based on what he plead guilty to, not the legitimacy of the charges. What did you expect the judge to do, force him in to a trial?"
How about, "take the deal or we'll declare you an enemy combatant, and you'll spend the rest of your life in jail."
In today's justice system, the possibility of being labled a terrorist is sufficiently "terrifying" (pardon the pun) to bring just about anyone around on the idea of a deal. Whether directly or indirectly threatened makes no difference; the result remains the same. From this person's perspective, he could be looking at anything from a few years to 20+ years to enemy combatant (read: 'til the end of time) in prison. Suddenly, a deal for a year looks a whole lot tastier.
The point is that it doesn't matter if you're innocent or guilty - right or wrong. It only matters what the accused believes will happen to them if they don't take the deal. If you lose, perhaps you'll spend 20 years in prison. If you start looking like you might win, then maybe the military comes to get you instead. In essence, once you're convinced there's no way to win, you start looking for any way at all to cut your losses.
That's not "voluntary" in my book.
" Is not this terrible that 30 years old, not very good architecture now gained a pass into the 21'st century? Was it not enough to extend the 8085 first to 8086, than to 80286, than to 80386 and now to x86-64? When will this end?"
When you design a better architecture which can run almost every application made over the past 20 years, and which can be implemented in such a way as to fit the average consumer's computer budget of about $1000 for a complete system while still leaving room for profit.
Good luck, let us know when you're done.
" yea and why did they skip munkeyspanker1-20 and go right to 21?"
:)
... Munkey spanker, will face justice at your hands! Ladies and gentlemen, we intend to prove hands-down, that Mr Munkeyspanker is indeed guilty of far more than self-gratification. We have substantial evidence that this spanker of monkies is in fact a serial violator, far beyond what any decent person could even imagine!"
Because munkeyspankers 1 - 20 restricted their copyright infringement activities to pornography, obviously. Jesus, did you even look at the name?!
"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you will hear testimony during this trial regarding the complete disregard for the law shown by Mr Munkeyspanker. His total disrespect for the rule of law is shown further by his attempts to hide his identity; but I assure you, this law-breaker, this
" What we really need is a renound LAW school to stand up to them.
That will provide results."
It's been my experience that no lawyer ever focuses on producing results. Rather, they seem to focus very heavily on the process - that process being the swift and steady draining of my wallet.
" But your question is moot, because you've made up those numbers."
:)
:P ) I suppose the overriding question before us is, what is the point of law? Is it to give us a moral compass to follow? Or is it to produce as close to an ideal society as possible? Or is the purpose of law something entirely different?
Making up the numbers only means that the question is hypothetical.
"If those numbers can be proven then you try to save the most lives possible. If not you do what seems morally reasonable and most likely to have the best outcome,"
So then it sounds like you're saying 'go with whatever gives the lowest number of abuse cases'? Would that apply to any situation, would you say? How about if I said we could reduce the total number of cases of child abuse by another 10,000 per year by legalizing the abuse itself? (Obviously I think this is as ridiculous as you do, but I'm still posing the question
"All you criminals sitting here just better remember not to pirate the movie you are about to see when you get home!"
Or perhaps, "Don't forget folks, connecting to irc.dal.net, channel #movies, and downloading this feature film for free is against the law! Now enjoy this overpriced content-lacking two hour eyecandy festival while munching on your $9 popcorn and pissing yourself after consuming the 92oz 'Matrix size' Coke we charged you 8 bucks for."
...declare Chapter 7 Bankruptcy.
Trust me!
Ahh, but you avoid my central question. :)
Do you create 5,000 new cases of abuse to prevent 10,000?
And however you decide, how do you explain your decision to the loved ones of each group?
I'm sorry, I'm from the US. What is this "competition" you speak of? Is that a new service offered by Verizon? Something from Comcast perhaps? How much does it cost on top of all the other charges that make my monthly billing statement thicker than the King James Bible?
" If it really is about profit then people who have payed for child porn are creating a market for the abusers, encouraging their behaviour with monetary rewards."
Here's a moral question for you though: if you can prevent more child abuse than is caused by decriminalizing child pornography, would you decriminalize possession while keeping the production illegal?
This works under a few basic assumptions. One, that there are pedophiles who do not wish to harm children (either physically or psychologically), who will abuse without porn, but will not abuse if they are allowed access to it to relieve sexual urges directed towards children. Two, this assumes that by opening up a market of people who will pay for this content (no longer fearing legal repurcussions), there will be a certain number of people who abuse, or pay others to abuse children in the name of profit.
And, so I restate the question. If you prevent 10,000 cases of child abuse and create 5,000 new cases of child abuse (a net decrease of 5,000 cases of child abuse) by decriminalizing possession, what do you do? It's a bit of a trick question, as you couldn't possibly look the people who care about the 10,000 children in the eyes and explain why you won't save them by decriminalizing possession, and you can't look the people who care about the children in the 5,000 new cases in the eyes and explain to them why their children must be abused.
Obviously, if we could end the abuse altogether, the world would be a better place. But this is reality, and I want to see who wants to step up to the plate to tackle this moral quagmire. Canada has toyed with this question within its legal system, and I'm curious to see how the slashdot folks will handle it. By the way, the best part about this question? There's no reliable data to support any numbers in this case, so you'll have to work off of my blind-guess figures. Have fun. (sarcasm, obviously)
Liberty is freedom within the social context.
:)
"The liberties of the child rapist in particular absolutely contravene the liberties of the child he rapes."
Actually, it's the freedom to rape which contravenes the freedom to consent (granted a child lacks the capacity to consent). Therefore, the rapist cannot count rape as a liberty to which he or she is entitled. What I spoke of referred to the "equal protection" clause under the law, which states simply that liberty amoung citizens is universal. Freedom, however, is not and cannot possibly be absolute without self-contradiction.
"Conversely, the protection of that child necessarily entails the curtailment of the rapist's liberties, including the liberty to advertise, legitimise and profit by his actions."
I disagree completely. The rapist has the right to advertise, though by doing so he or she openly incriminates themself, and therefore may face punishment for the perpetation of the actual crime. The advertisement itself is a liberty the rapist may choose to exercise at the expense of their freedom of movement. As for their liberty to legitimise their actions, they may feel free to do this as well. They are perfectly free to stand up in court and explain to the judge and jury why raping a child seems perfectly ok to them, although this will most likely guarantee as severe a punishment as the law allows. As for profiting from their actions, having advertised their sickening and illegal rape, and further going forth with a defense that what they did was morally acceptable, I should think that a book deal would be quite easily secured based on their story. Thus, profit ensues from their actions. There is no law against any of this.
" Like every idealism, it is incoherent precisely because it fails to recognise the incoherencies inherent in the domain it idealises. There can be no consistent and coherent all-embracing model of liberty, either in speech or in conduct."
What Freenet says to this is that speech itself ought never be regulated. Further, it puts forth the idea of no-holds-barred freedom of expression through freesites. I believe strongly in self-responsibility, and I think something like Freenet is perfect for that. It could quite easily turn into a forum for folks slandering one another, yet by refusing any and all restrictions, it inherently calls us to a higher state or morality. It says to all who use it, "no one is watching you, no one is going to punish you, and no one will stop you from saying anything you please", and thus it demands a greater responsibility from us. What most do not understand about the anarchy movement is that it calls for individuals to regulate themselves, believing that the laws, regulations, and punishments handed down by governments do nothing but hold back the human spirit, which is quite capable and willing to regulate its own actions.
Freenet is the ultimate in free speech anarchy, and I think it is often used very wisely for its stated intent. It enables speech in both litiguous societies like the US, and repressive regimes like China. While some do abuse this freedom, my personal observations are such that most use this opportunity to bring up things they would be afraid to bring up in public. From detailing the abuse of companies on their workers to detailing the abuse of governments on their citizens, Freenet has opened the doors to a world of free expression without limits, where no one is physically harmed in any way.
As for idealism being "incoherent", I again beg to differ. In this particular case, I urge you to look at the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights - for which I have the utmost respect and admiration. Never before have I seen such extraordinary idealism in government, and the fact that our Constitution still stands today shows that it is neither incoherent, nor impossible at all. I personally consider myself an idealist realist; I see things for how they are, yet can imagine and hope they become the stuff that dreams are made of.
"They're waaaaay past the point of just talking, that's why they aren't protected."
"Free speech" covers a number of things that are not spoken. Free speech is better described as free expression - the freedom to express one's thoughts. Secondly, pictures of child porn are not illegal in every part of the world. As for whether they should be or not, I'm reserving judgement until such time as I see what effect the exceptions placed into Canada's laws by their Supreme Court have. If it reduces actual abuse of children, then I'm all for those specific exceptions. Thirdly, and more to the point, I never claimed it was free speech. What I did claim is that Freenet, as a whole and like the internet, is a method of free speech (or expression, if you will). It is not child pornography which I seek to protect and defend; only Freenet. If you attack Freenet on the grounds that it facilitates distribution of child pornography, then you must also attack the internet at a whole, which is equally, if not moreso responsible for the distribution of such obscene material. So now go ahead and please argue for the dismantling of the internet - that at least would entertain me.
"As an earlier poster pointed out, the problem with this is that a user's home computer could be providing kiddie porn. It's one thing to steal songs and software, but it's another thing to host pictures of some 7 year old getting raped. I don't want to even have the possibility of that happening, "
/.'ers wouldn't understand. How anyone can claim proof beyond a reasonable doubt of wrongdoing or intent in such a situation is quite far beyond me. I certainly couldn't put someone in jail based on a bunch of statistics. What would that look like? "Well, there is a 72.8% chance that 10% or more from files A, D, F, and L came from the defendant's computer."
/. Another thing is the accusation you leveled. Whether you realized it or not, you pretty much accused him of purposely seeking and "grooming" a 12 year old girl in chat rooms and then kidnapping her from her home. It must be nice to be omniscient, but those of us who aren't are stuck with confl
Then why do you continue to pay your ISP? The internet houses and makes possible the mass distribution of such material. You claim such a moral high ground, yet you fail to see that it is the internet itself which facilitates providing child pornography. If you truly believe in this so strongly, why don't you cancel your ISP account, encourage others to do the same, and lobby government for laws outlawing the internet? What you've displayed is simply an extension of NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard). People want more prisons, but not near their homes. People want more homeless shelters, but not near their homes. You don't mind the global information network that carries child pornography, but as soon as it hits a bit too close for home in the form of Freenet, you're all up in arms. I won't even get into the argument about going after the actual abusers, rather than the mentally ill folks who seek this type of material. But I will say that if hosting something which sickens me is the price for allowing a Chinese dissident to say what they think without being shot, then so be it.
"Are people hosting files or parts of files like the phone company in the eyes of the law?"
Which files are you hosting? Which parts of which files are you hosting? Chances are, unless you know a whole lot about computers and a decent bit about the design of Freenet and how to tweak it, you probably couldn't figure it out if I held a gun to your head. Even so, that's looking far too far ahead. Finding which files or parts of files are actually hosted on your computer is hard enough, but finding them on someone else's computer is impossible according to the intended design of Freenet. Assuming you had a complete setup of packet sniffers and such, you might be able to see which nodes have specific files or parts of files passing through them, but you would still have no evidence that the files are actually hosted on those computers. That's the beauty of Freenet; it's a double-blind system where no one knows where the files came from and no one knows where they went. Providing any evidence for even a search warrant would seem virtually impossible to me. Putting someone in jail over it appears, on its face, completely impossible. Quite frankly, the prosecution's case would be built from supposition, statistical probabilities, and highly technical data that even most
"they don't bust AOL for providing chat rooms for 35 year olds to pick up 12 year old English girls."
No, they don't; but maybe they should have a word with the parents of a 12 year old girl who are so disinterested in her that she can chat with, email, and exchange postal letters with an older man for an entire year without them noticing. With her spending 11 hours a day on the computer, which was in the kitchen, you just have to wonder how in the hell they had no clue what was going on. Somehow, I doubt you'll find too many 12 year olds spending 11 hours a day checking out beanie babies on eBay, or even reading
"But someone from the RIAA uses it to download a copyrighted song, wouldn't they then be able to sue all users of Freenet as accessories to the crime? (Assuming each node handles traffic from transactions it may or may not be involved in - that's the way I remember it working.) And then get a court order for Freenet to give up IP addresses of users who have downloaded the client?"
Considering the fact that you can't narrow down what any single node has or has not done to aid in the download, you would pretty much have to launch a lawsuit against each user. Problem with that? Well, first of all, you'd have to find all the users of Freenet, and many are not in the US. You could start doing interner-wide port scans, but you're still going to run into a lot of walls, what with proxy servers, non-standard ports, etc. Assuming they managed to get a court order for the people who run the Freenet project to turn over the ips of those who have downloaded the software, they still will have only the records that the folks who run the Freenet project have. Who here keeps server logs for every single download of every single file, and maps all those downloads to individual ip addresses for any significant length of time?
Then you'd have to go about suing all of these people. Assuming we're only talking about say around 20,000 US-based users whose ip addresses can be identified as Freenet nodes, you're still looking at thousands of lawsuits. Thousands of lawsuits means thousands of lawyers, and tens of thousands of paralegals. If someone would like to try doing the math on this one, feel free, but I'd venture to guess that the amount of money invested in this kind of thing would run into the billions. The trick is, you can't selectively sue a few Freenet users, as you can't prove they had anything to do with the infringement you're claiming took place. We get up there in court and they start babbling off about piracy, my response is simply, "what proof do you have that I, specifically, infringed your copyrights?" The simple answer is, "we have none"; that's the way the network works. So they can either sue every single Freenet user en masse, knowing that they cannot prove a single case of infringement against any given individual, or they can pick off a few individuals and hope that they judges they get are so technically inept as to ignore the law and assume guilt without evidence.
That's the trick of it, really. Can you really win a lawsuit against someone without a single shred of evidence? If the RIAA can, it may hurt them far more than Freenet ever could, as they would be seen as an out-of-control lobby group which has managed to penetrate deep into the judicial system; completely disregarding the rule of law and forcing judges to do the same. It would prove once, and for all, that the RIAA is a ferocious beast which abuses copyright laws and manipulates the legal system to its own ends, and that it does so quite successfully.
"Government abuse of power over speech is far more dangerous than individual abuse of free speech."
Beautifully stated. What many people fail to grasp is the simple fact that liberty is hard. Your own liberty is not what makes it hard; it's the respect for the liberty of others which makes things nearly unbearable at times. In order to ensure that some poor soul has the ability to speak out against a repressive regime without being shot for it, I must in turn allow some sick bastard to get his kicks? This is difficult, but it's outright dangerous to start picking and choosing who should have which liberties.
"Why the Windows requirement?
They wanted to use a stable, reliable, and secure operating system to ensure that all American voters have equal and unhindered access to their right to vote.
Unfortunately, they couldn't think of anything, so they just chose Windows.
" So should we just resort to random police raids?"
But why stop there? Such a half-ass effort will surely miss far too much illegality. The only good solution is to have daily (or even more often) police inspections of every home, office, person, vehicle, etc. And just as an added precaution, we should install video cameras on every street, in every ally, and in every room of every home, office, or other such structure. From there, all the visual information could be fed into a lovely Oracle database, having been sorted by an advanced AI system. That way, any and all illegal acts are caught on tape, and the law-breaker can simply be put in jail, or perhaps even more simply, to death. Since we have it right on tape, there's obviously no need for a trial. And since those who break the law deserve to be caught and punished, no one should have any problem with this. After all, you're not doing anything illegal, immoral, or undesirable, right?