I would replace Jordan with Martin (maybe). The quality of work is so much better IMO. I think he is really cutting edge, not the typical "farm boy saves the world", his writing seems to incorporate more realistic depictions of human relationships and uncertainty of life. Characters are deeper, some who you might detest at one point you later sympathize with and "almost" consider to be good, deep down.
The material of Martin's books is pretty mature. Incest, rape (and rape of what we would consider children), some other pretty violent stuff...so from that aspect it may not be appropriate for high school...
What's even worse in an academic environment is all the PhD's that seem to think just because they have a PhD in one subject any opinion they express about any topic is an "expert opinion."
Yeah, you can blame SBC for taking maximal advantage of a market, but that's what they do. Everyone knows that. The government there let the fox into the hen house. The hen house didn't get left open by accident, rather the government invited the foxes in.
Now, one can get all pissed that the fox ate the hens, but the government has the responsibility to look after the best interests of whatever its supposed to be looking after. Not only did the government fail in this case, they failed to such a degree it seems intentional.
"Frankly, sometimes private citizens having information can be worse."
It may be that sometimes private citizens actually act worse than government, but to say it "can be" worse I think is misleading. Government clearly has the resources and scope to commit much more mayhem than any single individual, as a matter of maximum potential.
I think what the OP would object to, and I would agree, is the idea that you or anybody else has some sort of a right to have that information about a person without that person's permission.
I would maybe kind of agree, depending on further conversation. The thing that I think most people do wrong, is to not keep private information private. I don't think I should have to have express permission by you to act on public information. If you fail to keep private information private, I am not obligated to abide by some sense of de facto privacy just because you were too lazy, drunk or whatever to keep your private info to yourself.
Where I think this should differ with regard to our government, is that I don't think our government should be able to treat you differently (prison, higher taxes, whatever) because of the midget porn thing. They simply, as an institution, should not be allowed to accrue, consider or act on that information.
I get your point, private information, above and beyond the issue of legal/ethical can be sensitive. However, my comment was focusing on government. Generally, any behavior government doesn't like they outlaw. So "illegal" is a metaphore for "things my government doesn't like and for which they may take action against me." There is no metaphore for "things my employer doesn't like and for which they may take action against me." The problem still exists with regard to the employer, but I think it's important to hold seperate the dealings of private entities (and employers should be considered "private") and public. Government has much more capacity to do harm and no rational or constitutional (I'm also biased toward U.S. government in this discussion) justification to act differnetly between two individuals on the basis of "size of dildo" or some such.
On the other hand, if I choose not to associate with you because of your affinity for midget porn, that's my perogative and I should certainly be allowed to persue that.
I find it interesting in your response that you only use the Government as your example.
The focus of the article was government surveillance. I was responding to spirit of the article I think.
Do you agree that the same could be said for Google? Do you believe Google is worried about threats to their continuing operation by spying on old women in their apartments or cats peeking out from behind a set of blinds?
Or what level of "watching" do you define as illegal/unethical. What about any number of the satellite sites that I can zoom in to view a relatively detailed view of my property. Should I now begin to contemplate the overthrow of said company? Or even the fact that my satellite tv company sells my viewing habits to the highest bidder. Sure thats all right there in the contract when I sign up with them, but is that not also an necessary assumption formed from where you live? London for example, isn't it assumed you are most likely being videotaped if you are on a public street in London, and if thats the case whats the difference between that and the contract I signed with my satellite company?
Government surveillance is more problematic than surveillance done by most other types of institutions because government has the power to do just about anything. I can watch your house, I can even watch a couple houses. To the extent that I might try to do bad things, since I am an individual, my resources are limited. To the extent that surveillance is necessary for me to do bad things (because I need the intel first, either to determine my mark or for tactical reasons) I am limited in the amount of surveillance I can do.
Google clearly has more resources than I do. Obviously, they are capable of doing much more surveillance.
Government has many more resources than that. The amount of surveillance possible in that environment is virtually unlimited (with regard to resources; hopefully they are limited for political/social reasons, which they are). Because they are capable of doing more surveillance, there is reason to become more concerned about such surveillance by them than by others. You probably don't need to be very concerned about surveillance done by me. Even if I'm doing it, I'm probably not doing it efficiently enough to warrant a great deal of social concern.
The other thing that makes government surveillance more interesting than google surveillance, is the possibilities of what can come of that surveillance. Lets hold other factors equal and assume that google, me and government are all capable of doing the same amount of surveillance. Clearly I am the least capable (from a measurment of resources) of causing mass damage. Sure, an individual could make a living hell for another single person, or a few people (e.g. serial killers). But in terms of large scale impact, acting on surveillance to cause mayhem is obviously more difficult for me than for Google.
To continue the logic, then Google is more capable of causing mayhem and government the most capable. Not only does government have unimaginable resources, they can even change the laws, thereby in many cases taking action that would have previously been considered unacceptable, and in the minds of many making it now acceptable. They have vast resources for propaganda to the extent that just changing a law doesn't pursuade enough people, they can advertise. This puts government in a position to cause a tramendous amount of harm, while still having support of many people. How far would government have to go for everyone (or virtually everyone) to quit supporting them I wonder? It's not hard to find atrocities in history (both recent and ancient) committed by governments that were still widely supported.
On the other hand, how long would it take of Google doing plainly bad things before everyone was against them? How many villages do you think Google could bomb before everyone agreed we should do something about Google? Or, perhaps I should
Off-hand, the main problem with that argument is that it assumes that legal behavior and ethical/moral behavior are exactly the same.
If the government is watching, they are obviously looking for anything they don't like. This could be generally illegal behavior, or behavior that is threatening to the continued operation of that institution.
In either case, if you accept monitoring because "you have nothing to hide" you assume that the standards of what should be allowed and whether the institution should continue to exist should rest with the government. To put it another way, you assume they have perfect judgement in regard to what should be happening in regard to monitored behavior of citizens.
So (for example), maybe the government should be overthrown (because it does some badness such that it deserves to be disolved). Obviously any existing government that needs to be overthrown isn't going to support that notion. By targeting the government's ability to monitor, we better allow for the possibility that a government that is no longer serving the needs of its people might get overthrown (I'm assuming, for the purposes of this example, that "being overthrown" is probably necessary on some regular basis).
This countries reputation is being bought and sold by these companies everyday.
I'd like to point out that while power/influence/reputation may be bought by corporations every day, it is most certainly SOLD by your elected politicians. Instead of trying to hold a company to some ethical standard for which the very act of doing business often conflicts, we should instead remove from politicians the brokered power/influence/reputation of which being human often conflicts with being a good steward.
I think the point is, that they didn't knowingly break the law. In fact, they thought they were acting lawfully. It should at least be a mitigating factor, and considering the whole circumstance, the SEC's response seems appropriate.
From reading the two links, (IANAL and I haven't read the specific rule) it seems that this was a grey area for the rule. The rule is that if a board member quits because he disagrees with the companys operations/policies/practices, the company must explain the reason for the board member quitting. That makes sense, as it would help reveal cases where the company is operating in a way that stockholders might like to know about.
In this case, the board member didn't quit because of some operational disagreement, but rather he quit because HP didn't bring this to the accused board member's (a different board member) attention privately. It wasn't a difference about how the company operates, but rather a difference in how the company interacts with the board. Since "interaction with the board" isn't part of HP's ongoing operations, rather it's a legal "meta" type interaction, I can see where this could be excluded from the above rule, since the intent of the above rule is likely to expose when board members disagree with the operations of the business. (e.g. if the company has poor labor practices/policies, or the company is operating illegally, perhaps sweatshops, or unethically)
And apparently more than one lawyer thought the same thing, as HP was advised by both internal and external counsel to the same effect.
You create a video recorder. Your recorder isn't like a VCR that gets tripped up by it in a technical manner; it's a digital recorder. It can record Macrovision-protected content without difficulty. You are forced to either add recognition of the protection and prevent recording (ReplayTV) or re-add Macrovision protection on playback (TiVo) so further copying by VCRs is prevented. And now that they have their foot in the door, you can be expected to comply to future enhancements that limit how long you're permitted to keep the recordings (TiVo again).
Surely there is pleny of law that violates reason, and I don't claim to under stand DRM case law by any stretch. Also, I'm not familiar with the technical details of what you describe above, so I'm just taking it on it's face.
In the above case, it seems to me that the protection is incomplete. In that case, the "Macrovision-protected content" is not protected sufficiently if my video recorder can read it (you have to be able to read something before you can copy it). If a broadcaster wants better protection, then they should protect it in a way that it is not openly readable.
Really, this is much like encryption, if party A sends a signal, and they declare that it is "encryptable", but rely on Party B to encrypt, I don't think it's fair to say that Party B has "circumvented" the encryption because Party B chose not to implement the encryption to begin with.
What we have here (it seems to me), is a situation where the distributors of the content are not sufficiently protecting their information and want to force other (e.g. people who make recorders) to "encrypt" that data on behalf of the distributors.
You create a video recorder. Your recorder isn't like a VCR that gets tripped up by it in a technical manner; it's a digital recorder. It can record Macrovision-protected content without difficulty. You are forced to either add recognition of the protection and prevent recording (ReplayTV) or re-add Macrovision protection on playback (TiVo) so further copying by VCRs is prevented. And now that they have their foot in the door, you can be expected to comply to future enhancements that limit how long you're permitted to keep the recordings (TiVo again).
Surely there is pleny of law that violates reason, and I don't claim to under stand DRM case law by any stretch. Also, I'm not familiar with the technical details of what you describe above, so I'm just taking it on it's face.
In the above case, it seems to me that the protection is incomplete. In that case, the "Macrovision-protected content" is not protected sufficiently if my video recorder can read it (you have to be able to read something before you can copy it). If a broadcaster wants better protection, then they should protect it in a way that it is not openly readable.
Really, this is much like encryption, if party A sends a signal, and they declare that it is "encryptable", but rely on Party B to encrypt, I don't think it's fair to say that Party B has "circumvented" the encryption because Party B chose not to implement the encryption to begin with.
What we have here (it seems to me), is a situation where the distributors of the content are not sufficiently protecting their information and want to force other (e.g. people who make recorders) to "encrypt" that data on behalf of the distributors.
I agree. Lack of implementation can't possibly (can it?) be the same as circumvention. In order to circumvent something, it has to be there to begin with.
I haven't been in IT for 20 years, but more like 7. I just started back to school to get a masters in accountancy. I've been in IT security now for almost 2 years, by the time I finish school I'll have a good 5 years under my belt and hopefully my CISSP by then.
At that point, information assurance/auditing seem like they may be a good fits with that background plus the accounting education. In general, my attitude was to do something that enhanced my current experience, combined with something I have an interest in anyway (I've frequently thought of being an accountant, including majoring for a time back in college before I got the CS degree). That way, instead of changing what I'm doing, I just look at it like I'm taking my current career to a logical next step.
Re:Publicly traded companies and their spam
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Look at it like this, if slander were not illegal, it would be harder to effectively slander a person. Because it is illegal, people generally have a tendency to believe what they hear more, since it is less likely that a person is simply slandering another person.
If it was widely known that slander was legal, then anytime a person said something negative about another person, listeners would have a tendency to scrutinize the thing being said, since it is possibly slander. As it currently is, a statement is less likely to be slander because of it being illegal thereby giving increased credibility to statements in general (be they true or not).
The issue of pumping stocks is similar. The people hearing or reading the false statements are less likely to believe the thing to be false, since it is currently illegal to make false statements for the sole purpose of trying to inflate the stock price. Because that act is illegal, any statement made on a message board gains increased credibility, thereby giving more credibility to the ones making false statements than they would otherwise have.
Re:Publicly traded companies and their spam
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By making this activity illegal, you validate people who go on message boards and tout a particular stock. Due to the fact that it is illegal to "pump and dump", people then are more likely to believe stuff they read on a message board.
On the other hand, if it were legal, and everyone knew that, then people would be less likely to believe some crap about a stock on a message board. So, while there might be more people doing it, by making it illegal you have empowered those who are willing to break the law.
Follow the money.
There isn't any money in solving such crimes. They are too busy generating profits via traffic and parking tickets and such. Why bother with an actual crime that will use resources when they can target basically good people for cash?
He's one of the judges from that show American Inventor. His website is here. At the bottom of the page, is a link to a company he recommends called Evergreen IP, who can supposedly help with this kind of thing. I have no personal experience with any of this, just happen to know about this guy.
I think the point is that he could have better mitigated his risks (primarily, the risk of being out of a job) by better negotiating his contract. Capitalism doesn't dictate any particular method of contract negotiation.
Read this book. What he did falls right into one of the topics discussed in the about pursuading people. When you give someone a reason to do something you want them to do, it dramatically increases the chance that they will comply. Just saying "Give me money" or "Can I use the copier first" doesn't cut it. But something like "Give me a raise, because I want to buy a house in a better neighborhood" or "Can I use the copier first because I'm in a hurry" is much more effectual.
This has the be the most ignorant comment I've seen on Slashdot since the last thread.
If you live in nearly any country in the world you benefit from the government that you pay your taxes to. How you ask? Medical care so you don't catch TB walking down the street. Police services so you don't get shot by someone taking the law into their own hands. Emergency services like the fire department so your house doesn't burn down when your idiot neighbor falls asleep smoking and starts his house on fire. Government isn't perfect, just like any other large organizations, but it's better than not having any government. Vigilantism is rule by the mob, not by justice.
And here I was talking about taxes being used to pay for public education. To be honest, I'm not sure what all property taxes pays for, but my understanding is that most if not all of it goes to the local school (I could be wrong, but based on the overall sense of your post I'm at least as educated on the subject as you are likely to be).
Public education assists you if you own anything, even if you don't have any children yourself.
It's been said before. Get some new material, or at least try and support the material you have. You know, use that great public education you received to, like, back up your argument.
In addition, because most governments regulate commerce, individual members of society are protected from unethical and hazardous business practices.
Again, here I'm not sure where this intersects with the issue of taxing people to pay for all kids. Perhaps my public education has failed me in this respect. Perhaps your public education failed to make you understand conversation and argument.
From the sound of your post either you understand this and you were just trying to yank someone's chain or you are some kind of anti-government zealot that belive governments are the root of all evil in society. If the former, nice troll. If the latter, get educated and stop spouting nonsense.
I am neither. It may be hard for you to believe, but for any scale, there is almost always more than two positions. Maybe if you had received a public education you would understand that.
My comment was a little too subjective to be ignorant. I don't think education should be publicly funded, there are a number of good reasons for that (in my opinion). More to the point however, is that the post I was responding to claimed that because the land "belongs to society", that we individually should have to pay taxes for "society". I find it amusing that, at times when people want the check book open, it "belongs to society", but when the yard needs to be mowed, or there is some toxic waste needing cleaned up, the land belongs to "not me!". How about some consistancy? If I am responsible for the land, then don't tell me it belongs to "society" and therefore I have to pay homage to society to continue to live here. If, on the other hand, it belongs to society, then why don't you get your fat ass over here and mow once in a while?
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I would replace Jordan with Martin (maybe). The quality of work is so much better IMO. I think he is really cutting edge, not the typical "farm boy saves the world", his writing seems to incorporate more realistic depictions of human relationships and uncertainty of life. Characters are deeper, some who you might detest at one point you later sympathize with and "almost" consider to be good, deep down. The material of Martin's books is pretty mature. Incest, rape (and rape of what we would consider children), some other pretty violent stuff...so from that aspect it may not be appropriate for high school...
What's even worse in an academic environment is all the PhD's that seem to think just because they have a PhD in one subject any opinion they express about any topic is an "expert opinion."
Yeah, you can blame SBC for taking maximal advantage of a market, but that's what they do. Everyone knows that. The government there let the fox into the hen house. The hen house didn't get left open by accident, rather the government invited the foxes in.
Now, one can get all pissed that the fox ate the hens, but the government has the responsibility to look after the best interests of whatever its supposed to be looking after. Not only did the government fail in this case, they failed to such a degree it seems intentional.
Switching the US dollar to be officially backed by rotted poached eggs.
In fairness, both parties have been complicit with regard to this one (probably the others also, but that's a more heated/complex discussion).
Sorry, but a Republican vote isn't an "almost as good as" vote for a libertarian.
there's often a tendency to remain silent unless you think you have something really remarkable to say.
That's a quality I think more people should aspire to.
"Frankly, sometimes private citizens having information can be worse."
It may be that sometimes private citizens actually act worse than government, but to say it "can be" worse I think is misleading. Government clearly has the resources and scope to commit much more mayhem than any single individual, as a matter of maximum potential.
I think what the OP would object to, and I would agree, is the idea that you or anybody else has some sort of a right to have that information about a person without that person's permission.
I would maybe kind of agree, depending on further conversation. The thing that I think most people do wrong, is to not keep private information private. I don't think I should have to have express permission by you to act on public information. If you fail to keep private information private, I am not obligated to abide by some sense of de facto privacy just because you were too lazy, drunk or whatever to keep your private info to yourself.
Where I think this should differ with regard to our government, is that I don't think our government should be able to treat you differently (prison, higher taxes, whatever) because of the midget porn thing. They simply, as an institution, should not be allowed to accrue, consider or act on that information.
I get your point, private information, above and beyond the issue of legal/ethical can be sensitive. However, my comment was focusing on government. Generally, any behavior government doesn't like they outlaw. So "illegal" is a metaphore for "things my government doesn't like and for which they may take action against me." There is no metaphore for "things my employer doesn't like and for which they may take action against me." The problem still exists with regard to the employer, but I think it's important to hold seperate the dealings of private entities (and employers should be considered "private") and public. Government has much more capacity to do harm and no rational or constitutional (I'm also biased toward U.S. government in this discussion) justification to act differnetly between two individuals on the basis of "size of dildo" or some such.
On the other hand, if I choose not to associate with you because of your affinity for midget porn, that's my perogative and I should certainly be allowed to persue that.
I find it interesting in your response that you only use the Government as your example.
The focus of the article was government surveillance. I was responding to spirit of the article I think.
Do you agree that the same could be said for Google? Do you believe Google is worried about threats to their continuing operation by spying on old women in their apartments or cats peeking out from behind a set of blinds?
Or what level of "watching" do you define as illegal/unethical. What about any number of the satellite sites that I can zoom in to view a relatively detailed view of my property. Should I now begin to contemplate the overthrow of said company? Or even the fact that my satellite tv company sells my viewing habits to the highest bidder. Sure thats all right there in the contract when I sign up with them, but is that not also an necessary assumption formed from where you live? London for example, isn't it assumed you are most likely being videotaped if you are on a public street in London, and if thats the case whats the difference between that and the contract I signed with my satellite company?
Government surveillance is more problematic than surveillance done by most other types of institutions because government has the power to do just about anything. I can watch your house, I can even watch a couple houses. To the extent that I might try to do bad things, since I am an individual, my resources are limited. To the extent that surveillance is necessary for me to do bad things (because I need the intel first, either to determine my mark or for tactical reasons) I am limited in the amount of surveillance I can do.
Google clearly has more resources than I do. Obviously, they are capable of doing much more surveillance.
Government has many more resources than that. The amount of surveillance possible in that environment is virtually unlimited (with regard to resources; hopefully they are limited for political/social reasons, which they are). Because they are capable of doing more surveillance, there is reason to become more concerned about such surveillance by them than by others. You probably don't need to be very concerned about surveillance done by me. Even if I'm doing it, I'm probably not doing it efficiently enough to warrant a great deal of social concern.
The other thing that makes government surveillance more interesting than google surveillance, is the possibilities of what can come of that surveillance. Lets hold other factors equal and assume that google, me and government are all capable of doing the same amount of surveillance. Clearly I am the least capable (from a measurment of resources) of causing mass damage. Sure, an individual could make a living hell for another single person, or a few people (e.g. serial killers). But in terms of large scale impact, acting on surveillance to cause mayhem is obviously more difficult for me than for Google.
To continue the logic, then Google is more capable of causing mayhem and government the most capable. Not only does government have unimaginable resources, they can even change the laws, thereby in many cases taking action that would have previously been considered unacceptable, and in the minds of many making it now acceptable. They have vast resources for propaganda to the extent that just changing a law doesn't pursuade enough people, they can advertise. This puts government in a position to cause a tramendous amount of harm, while still having support of many people. How far would government have to go for everyone (or virtually everyone) to quit supporting them I wonder? It's not hard to find atrocities in history (both recent and ancient) committed by governments that were still widely supported.
On the other hand, how long would it take of Google doing plainly bad things before everyone was against them? How many villages do you think Google could bomb before everyone agreed we should do something about Google? Or, perhaps I should
Off-hand, the main problem with that argument is that it assumes that legal behavior and ethical/moral behavior are exactly the same.
If the government is watching, they are obviously looking for anything they don't like. This could be generally illegal behavior, or behavior that is threatening to the continued operation of that institution.
In either case, if you accept monitoring because "you have nothing to hide" you assume that the standards of what should be allowed and whether the institution should continue to exist should rest with the government. To put it another way, you assume they have perfect judgement in regard to what should be happening in regard to monitored behavior of citizens.
So (for example), maybe the government should be overthrown (because it does some badness such that it deserves to be disolved). Obviously any existing government that needs to be overthrown isn't going to support that notion. By targeting the government's ability to monitor, we better allow for the possibility that a government that is no longer serving the needs of its people might get overthrown (I'm assuming, for the purposes of this example, that "being overthrown" is probably necessary on some regular basis).
to see that the spirit of independence, innovation and entrepreneurship still runs strong in the heart of this great country.
This countries reputation is being bought and sold by these companies everyday.
I'd like to point out that while power/influence/reputation may be bought by corporations every day, it is most certainly SOLD by your elected politicians. Instead of trying to hold a company to some ethical standard for which the very act of doing business often conflicts, we should instead remove from politicians the brokered power/influence/reputation of which being human often conflicts with being a good steward.
I think the point is, that they didn't knowingly break the law. In fact, they thought they were acting lawfully. It should at least be a mitigating factor, and considering the whole circumstance, the SEC's response seems appropriate.
From reading the two links, (IANAL and I haven't read the specific rule) it seems that this was a grey area for the rule. The rule is that if a board member quits because he disagrees with the companys operations/policies/practices, the company must explain the reason for the board member quitting. That makes sense, as it would help reveal cases where the company is operating in a way that stockholders might like to know about.
In this case, the board member didn't quit because of some operational disagreement, but rather he quit because HP didn't bring this to the accused board member's (a different board member) attention privately. It wasn't a difference about how the company operates, but rather a difference in how the company interacts with the board. Since "interaction with the board" isn't part of HP's ongoing operations, rather it's a legal "meta" type interaction, I can see where this could be excluded from the above rule, since the intent of the above rule is likely to expose when board members disagree with the operations of the business. (e.g. if the company has poor labor practices/policies, or the company is operating illegally, perhaps sweatshops, or unethically)
And apparently more than one lawyer thought the same thing, as HP was advised by both internal and external counsel to the same effect.
You create a video recorder. Your recorder isn't like a VCR that gets tripped up by it in a technical manner; it's a digital recorder. It can record Macrovision-protected content without difficulty. You are forced to either add recognition of the protection and prevent recording (ReplayTV) or re-add Macrovision protection on playback (TiVo) so further copying by VCRs is prevented. And now that they have their foot in the door, you can be expected to comply to future enhancements that limit how long you're permitted to keep the recordings (TiVo again).
Surely there is pleny of law that violates reason, and I don't claim to under stand DRM case law by any stretch. Also, I'm not familiar with the technical details of what you describe above, so I'm just taking it on it's face.
In the above case, it seems to me that the protection is incomplete. In that case, the "Macrovision-protected content" is not protected sufficiently if my video recorder can read it (you have to be able to read something before you can copy it). If a broadcaster wants better protection, then they should protect it in a way that it is not openly readable.
Really, this is much like encryption, if party A sends a signal, and they declare that it is "encryptable", but rely on Party B to encrypt, I don't think it's fair to say that Party B has "circumvented" the encryption because Party B chose not to implement the encryption to begin with.
What we have here (it seems to me), is a situation where the distributors of the content are not sufficiently protecting their information and want to force other (e.g. people who make recorders) to "encrypt" that data on behalf of the distributors.
You create a video recorder. Your recorder isn't like a VCR that gets tripped up by it in a technical manner; it's a digital recorder. It can record Macrovision-protected content without difficulty. You are forced to either add recognition of the protection and prevent recording (ReplayTV) or re-add Macrovision protection on playback (TiVo) so further copying by VCRs is prevented. And now that they have their foot in the door, you can be expected to comply to future enhancements that limit how long you're permitted to keep the recordings (TiVo again). Surely there is pleny of law that violates reason, and I don't claim to under stand DRM case law by any stretch. Also, I'm not familiar with the technical details of what you describe above, so I'm just taking it on it's face. In the above case, it seems to me that the protection is incomplete. In that case, the "Macrovision-protected content" is not protected sufficiently if my video recorder can read it (you have to be able to read something before you can copy it). If a broadcaster wants better protection, then they should protect it in a way that it is not openly readable. Really, this is much like encryption, if party A sends a signal, and they declare that it is "encryptable", but rely on Party B to encrypt, I don't think it's fair to say that Party B has "circumvented" the encryption because Party B chose not to implement the encryption to begin with. What we have here (it seems to me), is a situation where the distributors of the content are not sufficiently protecting their information and want to force other (e.g. people who make recorders) to "encrypt" that data on behalf of the distributors.
I agree. Lack of implementation can't possibly (can it?) be the same as circumvention. In order to circumvent something, it has to be there to begin with.
I haven't been in IT for 20 years, but more like 7. I just started back to school to get a masters in accountancy. I've been in IT security now for almost 2 years, by the time I finish school I'll have a good 5 years under my belt and hopefully my CISSP by then.
At that point, information assurance/auditing seem like they may be a good fits with that background plus the accounting education. In general, my attitude was to do something that enhanced my current experience, combined with something I have an interest in anyway (I've frequently thought of being an accountant, including majoring for a time back in college before I got the CS degree). That way, instead of changing what I'm doing, I just look at it like I'm taking my current career to a logical next step.
Look at it like this, if slander were not illegal, it would be harder to effectively slander a person. Because it is illegal, people generally have a tendency to believe what they hear more, since it is less likely that a person is simply slandering another person.
If it was widely known that slander was legal, then anytime a person said something negative about another person, listeners would have a tendency to scrutinize the thing being said, since it is possibly slander. As it currently is, a statement is less likely to be slander because of it being illegal thereby giving increased credibility to statements in general (be they true or not).
The issue of pumping stocks is similar. The people hearing or reading the false statements are less likely to believe the thing to be false, since it is currently illegal to make false statements for the sole purpose of trying to inflate the stock price. Because that act is illegal, any statement made on a message board gains increased credibility, thereby giving more credibility to the ones making false statements than they would otherwise have.
By making this activity illegal, you validate people who go on message boards and tout a particular stock. Due to the fact that it is illegal to "pump and dump", people then are more likely to believe stuff they read on a message board. On the other hand, if it were legal, and everyone knew that, then people would be less likely to believe some crap about a stock on a message board. So, while there might be more people doing it, by making it illegal you have empowered those who are willing to break the law.
Follow the money. There isn't any money in solving such crimes. They are too busy generating profits via traffic and parking tickets and such. Why bother with an actual crime that will use resources when they can target basically good people for cash?
but the fact that the science is imperfect does not warrant discounting these observations altogether.
But to the parent's point, it may indeed warrant discounting predictions.
He's one of the judges from that show American Inventor. His website is here. At the bottom of the page, is a link to a company he recommends called Evergreen IP, who can supposedly help with this kind of thing. I have no personal experience with any of this, just happen to know about this guy.
I think the point is that he could have better mitigated his risks (primarily, the risk of being out of a job) by better negotiating his contract. Capitalism doesn't dictate any particular method of contract negotiation.
Read this book. What he did falls right into one of the topics discussed in the about pursuading people. When you give someone a reason to do something you want them to do, it dramatically increases the chance that they will comply. Just saying "Give me money" or "Can I use the copier first" doesn't cut it. But something like "Give me a raise, because I want to buy a house in a better neighborhood" or "Can I use the copier first because I'm in a hurry" is much more effectual.
This has the be the most ignorant comment I've seen on Slashdot since the last thread. If you live in nearly any country in the world you benefit from the government that you pay your taxes to. How you ask? Medical care so you don't catch TB walking down the street. Police services so you don't get shot by someone taking the law into their own hands. Emergency services like the fire department so your house doesn't burn down when your idiot neighbor falls asleep smoking and starts his house on fire. Government isn't perfect, just like any other large organizations, but it's better than not having any government. Vigilantism is rule by the mob, not by justice.
And here I was talking about taxes being used to pay for public education. To be honest, I'm not sure what all property taxes pays for, but my understanding is that most if not all of it goes to the local school (I could be wrong, but based on the overall sense of your post I'm at least as educated on the subject as you are likely to be).
Public education assists you if you own anything, even if you don't have any children yourself.
It's been said before. Get some new material, or at least try and support the material you have. You know, use that great public education you received to, like, back up your argument.
In addition, because most governments regulate commerce, individual members of society are protected from unethical and hazardous business practices.
Again, here I'm not sure where this intersects with the issue of taxing people to pay for all kids. Perhaps my public education has failed me in this respect. Perhaps your public education failed to make you understand conversation and argument.
From the sound of your post either you understand this and you were just trying to yank someone's chain or you are some kind of anti-government zealot that belive governments are the root of all evil in society. If the former, nice troll. If the latter, get educated and stop spouting nonsense.
I am neither. It may be hard for you to believe, but for any scale, there is almost always more than two positions. Maybe if you had received a public education you would understand that.
My comment was a little too subjective to be ignorant. I don't think education should be publicly funded, there are a number of good reasons for that (in my opinion). More to the point however, is that the post I was responding to claimed that because the land "belongs to society", that we individually should have to pay taxes for "society". I find it amusing that, at times when people want the check book open, it "belongs to society", but when the yard needs to be mowed, or there is some toxic waste needing cleaned up, the land belongs to "not me!". How about some consistancy? If I am responsible for the land, then don't tell me it belongs to "society" and therefore I have to pay homage to society to continue to live here. If, on the other hand, it belongs to society, then why don't you get your fat ass over here and mow once in a while?