Well, lets examine what we know. The meteorite hit which planet? Yes, Earth. It looks like comet material, so the comet must have a trajectory that goes near which planet? Earth, very good. So, if the comet previously came in contact with a planet, which planet would that most likely be?
I don't believe in any basic principle by which a company is never allowed to call you just because you don't want them to.
Your straw man is aggrivating my sinuses.
You'll note that I only said "I believe" and didn't actually give any arguments for why. So, I'm not quite sure what you think you're arguing against. Perhaps it's the crack that's bothinging your sinuses.
The relevant principle is that I want telemarketers off the phone line I am paying for.
If you had bothered to read my post you would have noticed that I said telemarkers don't have the right to call you if it costs you money. So, the fact that you paid for your phone line isn't relavent to the cases where they cost you no money.
It's not the slightest little bit "tricky". The person who is paying for that phone number to remain in service gets to decide.
Again, if you had read to the end of my post you would have noticed that I suggested this. However, I do maintain that the situation is not as simple as it appears to you. Does purchasing something (like a phone line) give you total control over other people's use of it? Can you sue your friends for cursing on the phone with you or disagreeing with you? Can I ban people from knocking on the door to the house I paid for? Of course not. So we have to draw a line somewhere. It's a matter of degree, there is no cut and dried principle behind it.
This is a rather tricky issue for libertarians. Most libertarians believe in minimumal government regulation and an every-man-for-himself attitude. But, advertisers are the bad guys so it's difficult stand up for them.
As a libertarian I can give you my perspective, but I can't claim to represent most libertarians or that I hold the "purist" libertarian point of view.
Fundamentally I don't believe in anyone's right not to be hassled. If you live among or deal with society you run the risk of interacting with people. You always have the option to go be a hermit or disconnect your phone. There is no right which guarantees you that other people will not be assholes. I don't believe in any basic principle by which a company is never allowed to call you just because you don't want them to. If you make your number public (you have the option not to) you have to accept the consequences.
However, the rights of the company end when they start to invade yours. This is where it gets really tricky. When does a call trample on one of your rights?
Do you have a right not to be annoyed? I don't think so. But, I do believe you have a right every damn penny you own and if a company costs you money by calling then they have trampled on your rights. That's why I favor laws against calling cell phones for marketing purposes. Or, perhaps you receive a high volume of vital calls and sorting out the bogus ones would cost you money. Perhaps you have a line only for emergency purposes and every time it needs to be answered costs you time and money.
All of these seem like reasonable situations in which to enforce a "don't call this number" rule. But, who gets to decide which numbers qualify and when, etc? That's tricky. Perhaps it's best for everyone to evaluate their own situation. I don't know anyone who would say "yeah, it costs me nothing when I get called by a telemarketer", so by that method everyone would qualify for the "don't call" list. Is that fair? I don't know.
Ultimately, it depends on a very subjective judgement call. For now I'm perfectly happy to see a very loose interpretation of "that call cost me money/resources/time that I had the right to". But, perhaps it will need to be re-evaluated sometime in the future.
What's funny is that Slashdot is reporting this as a YRO article... I'm pretty sure industrial espionage isn't on anyone's list of rights...
The reason for putting it in YRO is not that espionage is one of our rights. It's because even those who violate the law have rights and this may be a violation of them.
The mistake that many posters are making is in siding with the government simply because this guy has clearly committed a crime. I don't think anyone doubts that he has. The problem is that the charges against him may be unfair.
The espionage act requires that he profit or steel the secrets for someone who does profit. He does neither. Sure, those who read the websites on which the secrets are posted may profit by gaining free DirecTV, but that's outside the scope of this law. The law would be more appropriately applied to the websites which distribute the secrets.
If Serebryany is convicted he faces at least 10 years in prison and a quarter million dollar fine. Murderers get lighter sentences than that. Is this the correct punishment for stealing some papers off a desk?
Why is it that everyone at slashdot feels like they have the rights to any information that is out there?
I think you misunderstand the slashdot crowd. It's not that everyone here thinks they have the right to everything. The slashdot crowd is concerned about vague, overly-strict laws being used inappropriately. This incident is a possible (not certain, bet definately possible) example of such an issue.
Serebryany was accused of violating a law which prohibits stealing economic secrets for profit, or for the profit of those to whom the secrets are provided. Serebryany, however, did not profit from them, does not appear to expect to profit, and the websites do not appear to be profiting. This would seem to be the misapplication of a very strong law for the purpose of busting someone who has greatly pissed off a very large corporation but may only be guilty of a minor crime.
The greater issue is that if the government can get away with applying laws recklessly and arbitrarily then people whose jobs/lives/hobbies involve information or activities which might one day be injustly prosecuted may be in danger. This is rather worrisome to the slashdot crowd for obvious reasons.
(3) Customers want to do the right thing, if they can;
The importance of this point cannot be overstated. Honestly, how many of us would burn far fewer CDs if they cost only $3 or $4? It's not even a matter having the CD cover or avoiding the trouble of downloading. I think most people feel more comfortable using the proper means. However, at $17 a CD and $25 a DVD many of us cannot afford the level of entertainment being thrown at us. So we pirate.
Publishers have the ability to reduce, perhaps eliminate, piracy by lowing the price to the point the majority of consumers are willing to pay. If Photoshop were $25 or could be used on a charge per time basis how many people would sit for hours trying to download it?
The prices are kept high for the obvious reason that publishers make more money with an expensive product and some pirating than they would with an affordable product and no pirating. Thus, since the publishers themselves choose to encourage piracy with overpriced products I have little sympathy for their whining.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again, Microsoft is heading back into a world of competition.
Not quite. The haven't actually lowered their prices. That would be competition. What they are doing is price discrimination. Not as helpful for competition.
I think the fine is more about the copyrighted material being shared.
Wrong. Read the article again: "Then the bills were in the post... landing on the mats of the unfortunate downloaders over the last few days."
The fines are for material downloaded, not material shared. It would be different if APG had asked them to pay and stop sharing. But, that's not what they asked for.
This is a civil case, not a criminal case. They do not have to prove beyond all reasonable doubt, just in all probability.
Even that seems difficult. If the defendants delete the files from their computers now (before any search warrants are granted) there will be no evidence the copyrighted material was on the machine. Anti Pirat Gruppen has only file names which do not necessary represent copyrighted material with the same or similar names.
But, this dosen't really matter. Clearly, Anti Pirat Gruppen is just trying to scare people out of using p2p software. And it will probably work.
Also all they have is a file name on the screen. Just because it's labeled Adobe Photoshop it is not necessarily that (the amount of mislabeled stuff on p2p is pretty signinficant).
Yeah, but it's normally called something like photoshop.exe.mpg.
The users are charged about $16 per CD and about $60 per full length movie. If they pay now - and delete the illegal content from their hard drives - then the amount is cut in half and they avoid going to court.
Hold on, they have to pay and delete the files from their harddrives? So, if you steal from a store you have to pay for the item and return it? That makes no sense. If they pay for the material, they should at least be able to keep it. Not that they should have to pay at all, but this seems even more rediculous.
The parent is a troll, folks. This same email list has been posted to multiple discussions, probably by the same loser. I'd really like to see moderators show a little bit judicious. A quick search on wired.com turns up nothing looking like the supposed article. This is completely fake and some of those names should look familiar (but not for spam). Will someone more reasonable please mod this one down?
With my bank, Washington Mutual.. It was kind of amusing. They have all these ads on the radio about their "No fee checking!". Yep, no fees on some things. Fees on absolutely everything else.
Not that I want to defend WM, (I have issues with them as well) but I do believe you may be unfairly criticizing them here. Could you be more specific as to what they have so unjustly charged you for?
Their ads simply claim to offer free checking, which they do. I've had an account there for many years and never been charged for checking. Yes I have to pay for a new box of checks or extra copies of my statement. But, these are optional and they won't charge you until you request it. I find it especially amusing that you pick on the only major bank not to charge extra fees at their ATMs.
And a bank charging for extra services is entirely different than your phone company or the rental agency adding on hidden fees and taxes that you are not able to opt out of.
If people are going to just copy and paste the original article into/., I think it should be practice to only mod up when it's posted anonymously. I just think that in general, it's not especially fair for people to get karma just for posting what someone else originally wrote.
Honestly I can't help but feel a bit dirty when I simply copy, paste, and post. You do make a good point.
I think the post was worthwhile because I was able to view the article when a number of people said they couldn't. Should I have posted anonymously? Perhaps, but an Anonymous Coward's post can take much longer to mod up and is ignored by more people. So, it might be less helpful. Besides, I have plenty of karma so I'm clearly not whoring.
But, I do see your point as well, I didn't do much to earn the good score. I'm always appreciative when someone posts content I can't view, but do they deserve karma for it? Is it better not to give them the karma and thereby leave it less visible? Hard to say. I guess I'm still in favor of modding up anyone who posts helpful content, but perhaps next time I'll try using the lowly AC.
Has anyone had this problem? I hope not . . . After the first rain of the year, the ants outside were restless (and homeless). My wife had left her ibook on the mantle charging overnight. The next morning we noticed a large number of ants milling around it. Upon inspection we discovered ants crawling in and out of every hole in the computer. I grabbed my can of compressed air and started blowing! To my horror hundreds of ants started pouring out carrying eggs! I knew this was bad. I took the computer out to the garage and completely disassembled the thing layer by layer . My stomach turned when I exposed the main circuit board and saw thousand of ant and eggs (and a queen or two), writhing across every inch! Argh! After several hours with a vacuum and a can of air I finally got the thing clean. I put it back together (only a few extra screws) and luckily it works fine. Any theories on why ants would decide to move an entire colony into an ibook? Warmth? Sweet circuit boards? I think they were attempting to colonize the ultimate frontier: cyberspace.
Can someone please explain how a poster who obviously didn't read a damn word of the article has been modded up +1 insightful four times?
Anyone who so much as glanced at the article would know that this has nothing to do with the Bill Wyman fan site. Why are we rewarding this, moderators?
Halderman reckons he has a solution for them. "Reduce the cost of new CDs; if discs cost only a few dollars each, buying them might be preferable to spending the time and effort to make copies or find them online."
This is one of the few intelligent suggestions I've heard for stopping music piracy. Production costs, printing costs, and royalties to the artist amount to less than $1.50 for most CDs. If the music industry was willing to cut some of the fat out of the middle man they might be dealing with more honest customers. But, clearly that's not their main concern.
free speech et al was written in a time when there wasn't true anonmity.... Even things like newpapers and pamphlets could be tracked back to you.
How exactly could pamphlets be tracked to you 200 years ago? The point of pamphlets was that you didn't need to give your name to the printer and you could take them far away to distribute and simply post or drop them. You didn't need to show your government issued ID. There were no credit cards to track down. They wouldn't even be able to track your fingerprints down.
What anonymity gives us is the ability to disagree even when we fear retaliation for our words. While this may not be a basic right listed in the Constitution it's certainly a valuable tool and worth fighting to keep.
The very first underground train in New York worked exactly like this, pneumatically. Everything old is new again, eh?
Yeah, just like the old pneumatic underground made by Alfred Ely Beach, except it's not pneumatic. And it uses two single directional tubes, recycles energy, travels at 300mph, is powered by an electric motor, and runs in a vacuum. But, other than that it's exactly the same.
If they really cared about the internet and such, we would have people like Bill Gates and Linus Torvalds (oh yeah, and CowboyNeal and CmdrTaco and...) as top Presidential/Senatorial/Congressional consultants
"Mr Gates, how do you propose we deal with Iraq?"
"Well, have you tried buying up the country and annexing it? Or if that doesn't work you could patent plutonium and sue the pants off of Saddam."
Slashdot Mirror
Well, lets examine what we know. The meteorite hit which planet? Yes, Earth. It looks like comet material, so the comet must have a trajectory that goes near which planet? Earth, very good. So, if the comet previously came in contact with a planet, which planet would that most likely be?
I think you see the point.
If you had bothered to read my post you would have noticed that I said telemarkers don't have the right to call you if it costs you money. So, the fact that you paid for your phone line isn't relavent to the cases where they cost you no money.
Again, if you had read to the end of my post you would have noticed that I suggested this. However, I do maintain that the situation is not as simple as it appears to you. Does purchasing something (like a phone line) give you total control over other people's use of it? Can you sue your friends for cursing on the phone with you or disagreeing with you? Can I ban people from knocking on the door to the house I paid for? Of course not. So we have to draw a line somewhere. It's a matter of degree, there is no cut and dried principle behind it.
This is a rather tricky issue for libertarians. Most libertarians believe in minimumal government regulation and an every-man-for-himself attitude. But, advertisers are the bad guys so it's difficult stand up for them.
As a libertarian I can give you my perspective, but I can't claim to represent most libertarians or that I hold the "purist" libertarian point of view.
Fundamentally I don't believe in anyone's right not to be hassled. If you live among or deal with society you run the risk of interacting with people. You always have the option to go be a hermit or disconnect your phone. There is no right which guarantees you that other people will not be assholes. I don't believe in any basic principle by which a company is never allowed to call you just because you don't want them to. If you make your number public (you have the option not to) you have to accept the consequences.
However, the rights of the company end when they start to invade yours. This is where it gets really tricky. When does a call trample on one of your rights?
Do you have a right not to be annoyed? I don't think so. But, I do believe you have a right every damn penny you own and if a company costs you money by calling then they have trampled on your rights. That's why I favor laws against calling cell phones for marketing purposes. Or, perhaps you receive a high volume of vital calls and sorting out the bogus ones would cost you money. Perhaps you have a line only for emergency purposes and every time it needs to be answered costs you time and money.
All of these seem like reasonable situations in which to enforce a "don't call this number" rule. But, who gets to decide which numbers qualify and when, etc? That's tricky. Perhaps it's best for everyone to evaluate their own situation. I don't know anyone who would say "yeah, it costs me nothing when I get called by a telemarketer", so by that method everyone would qualify for the "don't call" list. Is that fair? I don't know.
Ultimately, it depends on a very subjective judgement call. For now I'm perfectly happy to see a very loose interpretation of "that call cost me money/resources/time that I had the right to". But, perhaps it will need to be re-evaluated sometime in the future.
The reason for putting it in YRO is not that espionage is one of our rights. It's because even those who violate the law have rights and this may be a violation of them.
The mistake that many posters are making is in siding with the government simply because this guy has clearly committed a crime. I don't think anyone doubts that he has. The problem is that the charges against him may be unfair. The espionage act requires that he profit or steel the secrets for someone who does profit. He does neither. Sure, those who read the websites on which the secrets are posted may profit by gaining free DirecTV, but that's outside the scope of this law. The law would be more appropriately applied to the websites which distribute the secrets.
If Serebryany is convicted he faces at least 10 years in prison and a quarter million dollar fine. Murderers get lighter sentences than that. Is this the correct punishment for stealing some papers off a desk?
I think you misunderstand the slashdot crowd. It's not that everyone here thinks they have the right to everything. The slashdot crowd is concerned about vague, overly-strict laws being used inappropriately. This incident is a possible (not certain, bet definately possible) example of such an issue.
Serebryany was accused of violating a law which prohibits stealing economic secrets for profit, or for the profit of those to whom the secrets are provided. Serebryany, however, did not profit from them, does not appear to expect to profit, and the websites do not appear to be profiting. This would seem to be the misapplication of a very strong law for the purpose of busting someone who has greatly pissed off a very large corporation but may only be guilty of a minor crime.
The greater issue is that if the government can get away with applying laws recklessly and arbitrarily then people whose jobs/lives/hobbies involve information or activities which might one day be injustly prosecuted may be in danger. This is rather worrisome to the slashdot crowd for obvious reasons.
The importance of this point cannot be overstated. Honestly, how many of us would burn far fewer CDs if they cost only $3 or $4? It's not even a matter having the CD cover or avoiding the trouble of downloading. I think most people feel more comfortable using the proper means. However, at $17 a CD and $25 a DVD many of us cannot afford the level of entertainment being thrown at us. So we pirate.
Publishers have the ability to reduce, perhaps eliminate, piracy by lowing the price to the point the majority of consumers are willing to pay. If Photoshop were $25 or could be used on a charge per time basis how many people would sit for hours trying to download it?
The prices are kept high for the obvious reason that publishers make more money with an expensive product and some pirating than they would with an affordable product and no pirating. Thus, since the publishers themselves choose to encourage piracy with overpriced products I have little sympathy for their whining.
Could you list the names and sources a few of the most common tool with which handicapped users would be browsing?
Also, is there anything special that webmasters should keep in mind while testing out the accessibility of their sites?
Not quite. The haven't actually lowered their prices. That would be competition. What they are doing is price discrimination. Not as helpful for competition.
The fines are for material downloaded, not material shared. It would be different if APG had asked them to pay and stop sharing. But, that's not what they asked for.
But, this dosen't really matter. Clearly, Anti Pirat Gruppen is just trying to scare people out of using p2p software. And it will probably work.
Hold on, they have to pay and delete the files from their harddrives? So, if you steal from a store you have to pay for the item and return it? That makes no sense. If they pay for the material, they should at least be able to keep it. Not that they should have to pay at all, but this seems even more rediculous.
The parent is a troll, folks. This same email list has been posted to multiple discussions, probably by the same loser. I'd really like to see moderators show a little bit judicious. A quick search on wired.com turns up nothing looking like the supposed article. This is completely fake and some of those names should look familiar (but not for spam). Will someone more reasonable please mod this one down?
Not that I want to defend WM, (I have issues with them as well) but I do believe you may be unfairly criticizing them here. Could you be more specific as to what they have so unjustly charged you for?
Their ads simply claim to offer free checking, which they do. I've had an account there for many years and never been charged for checking. Yes I have to pay for a new box of checks or extra copies of my statement. But, these are optional and they won't charge you until you request it. I find it especially amusing that you pick on the only major bank not to charge extra fees at their ATMs.
And a bank charging for extra services is entirely different than your phone company or the rental agency adding on hidden fees and taxes that you are not able to opt out of.
Honestly I can't help but feel a bit dirty when I simply copy, paste, and post. You do make a good point.
I think the post was worthwhile because I was able to view the article when a number of people said they couldn't. Should I have posted anonymously? Perhaps, but an Anonymous Coward's post can take much longer to mod up and is ignored by more people. So, it might be less helpful. Besides, I have plenty of karma so I'm clearly not whoring.
But, I do see your point as well, I didn't do much to earn the good score. I'm always appreciative when someone posts content I can't view, but do they deserve karma for it? Is it better not to give them the karma and thereby leave it less visible? Hard to say. I guess I'm still in favor of modding up anyone who posts helpful content, but perhaps next time I'll try using the lowly AC.
Can someone please explain how a poster who obviously didn't read a damn word of the article has been modded up +1 insightful four times?
Anyone who so much as glanced at the article would know that this has nothing to do with the Bill Wyman fan site. Why are we rewarding this, moderators?
This is one of the few intelligent suggestions I've heard for stopping music piracy. Production costs, printing costs, and royalties to the artist amount to less than $1.50 for most CDs. If the music industry was willing to cut some of the fat out of the middle man they might be dealing with more honest customers. But, clearly that's not their main concern.
How exactly could pamphlets be tracked to you 200 years ago? The point of pamphlets was that you didn't need to give your name to the printer and you could take them far away to distribute and simply post or drop them. You didn't need to show your government issued ID. There were no credit cards to track down. They wouldn't even be able to track your fingerprints down.
What anonymity gives us is the ability to disagree even when we fear retaliation for our words. While this may not be a basic right listed in the Constitution it's certainly a valuable tool and worth fighting to keep.
Yeah, just like the old pneumatic underground made by Alfred Ely Beach, except it's not pneumatic. And it uses two single directional tubes, recycles energy, travels at 300mph, is powered by an electric motor, and runs in a vacuum. But, other than that it's exactly the same.
"Mr Gates, how do you propose we deal with Iraq?"
"Well, have you tried buying up the country and annexing it? Or if that doesn't work you could patent plutonium and sue the pants off of Saddam."
The Bjorn3D site has more pics of this guy's pumpkin pc. It also has pics of the first place winner, Pimpkin Mark 4.