This country's justice system was founded on the principle that "it is better to let 100 guilty men go free than to punish one innocent man." So let's do the math here. Some of us seem to want to punish literally millions of americans (by taking away their priviledge/right to privacy) in order to catch and punish a few hundred men. Good lord, these are sad times we live in. Disagree with me, argue all you want, but those are the facts.
If they have the consent of the owner of the computer being hacked, then they have comitted no crime. This would be only a little bit of circumstantial evidence against any given hacker. I, for instance, may someday take up hacking because it sounds like a fun challenge. However, I would have no intention of hacking a computer without the owner's express written permission. Ergo, I would never have comitted any crimes, and the contest would not have lured me into doing anything.
I don't like it. Examine various responses other than mine for reasons why.
I have a suggestion for the RIAA: Make cheap, easy to download, copy, and burn to CD music available to the public at large. I know I'm not saying anything new, but the message seems to keep getting lost. Here's why it will work:
1. I, like many people, have an innate sense of honesty and do recognize the rights of people to have and profit from intellectual property. I want to pay for music that I own.
2. Music is very expensive these days. At $17 a pop, I don't buy CD's that I don't know contain music I like. And all the pop stations I can get are wholly owned by Clear Channel, and don't play anything I like. However, if I could sample music at some relatively cheap (or even free) price, I would be able to find stuff I like. And then they'd be making a lot more money off of me.
3. This solution won't make every geek in the world mad at them. And they won't have to buy nearly as many congressmen.
My suggestion to/. readers is this: Write to your congressmen expressing your views about the issue of making laws to protect the profits of a few large companies in the music industry. In addition, write to the heads of those same companies expressing your anger at their actions, and suggest your own solutions. Threaten to boycott them if they don't do something workable, and really do it. I know it may seem that the recording industry doesn't give a damn about consumers, but if they get pelted with enough "we'll boycott or else" letters, I'm sure they can do enough math to figure out just how many profit dollars that works out to. And we all know they DO care about their profits.
It's much more likely to have been a diversionary tactic to make the Hollings Bill look more reasonable if they were trying to get significant media attention (hell-- just telling the media they own to report on it... scary). As it is, they seem to be actually just trying to sneak it under the table (according to the/. header and the article, there hasn't been much media attention focused on it). Maybe they think they're being reasonable... I'll bet 99% of the "policy makers" in the MPAA (and a similar percentage of lawmakers) can't stop their VCR's from blinking 12:00. There's a good chance they don't realize how utterly impractical and scary the things they're proposing are.
I got a similar letter from Ben Campell (a senator from Colorado). Standard practise in congress is to have an assistant write a form letter which says about what you got. Then they count up all the letters on the issue for/against and give the busy congressman some numbers. Not exactly an ideal solution, but then again, we pay for the people reading our letters and sending us responses. I'd rather not pay for a personalized response to every letter. As for not saying anything about a position, that's pretty standard politicking. Don't commit yourself to something if there's any potential you might change your position later. I'd be a lot angrier if I got a letter saying "I agree with you" and then he voted against what I had advocated than if he sent me something non-comittal and then voted against me.
Is that we're convinced that money is the solution to everything. So, if we want M$ to stop doing something, we try to fine it a significant portion of its assets. On the other hand, in some countries (such as, I think, France), the way to get a country to change is not to hit it in the pocketbook, but to hit it where it might really have an effect -- in PR. (Although, I will admit, they're not doing a very good job of publicising this case.) Anyway, if done properly, either case will result in fewer sales of M$ products, so how much money the court charges in fines won't matter (or so we can hope).
There is an objection to preventing minors from buying certain games, or saying that some games are not speech: who decides what has content and what doesn't? Assume the worst, and you still have 99% of the games on the market today with the potential to be censored and banned by the government. For instance, they could say that B & W is violent (you can kill people, after all) or blasphemous and therefore not speech. You could then be PUT IN JAIL for not turning in your copy. Do you want to give the gov't that power?
Just FYI, the movie ratings system is one in which theatres voluntarily cooperate. There is no law saying that minors cannot go see an 'R'-rated movie, assuming they can find a theatre that will let them in. And there is already a rating system for games that allows stores to voluntarily participate in not selling violent or sexually explicit games. They just don't care, at the moment. For anyone who wants to see that change, make it worth their $, which is how parents got theatres to mind the MPAA (mostly). I'll be happy to put my voice and moola on the other side of the line, but you have the (free speech) right to protest how any given store does business.
As far as I am aware, there is exactly 1 right which the constitution does not explicitly grant to minors. That is the right to vote. ALL OTHER CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS have been upheld (or never challenged) by the courts. Minors have the right to free speech. People do not suddenly gain the right to speak their minds on their 18th birthday.
Of interest to you migh be the vast number of court decisions upholding that minors can say anything they want in school, as long as it "does not disrupt the classroom environment." And teachers often are prevented from joining them in their statements in order to keep their jobs (which is legal). So, in such a case, minors actually have MORE rights than adults in the same place.
Making IDs harder to forge might be a good thing. But: 1. The Sept. 11th hijackers who had easily gotten IDs DID NOT forge them. They got them from (I think) Vermont or West Virginia, where you only need a friend with a license and a notary to sign for you to get a license. 2. A retinal scan or a fingerprint DOES NOT necessarily make an ID harder to forge. All one has to do is add the capability to do the scan to the forging equipment and encode false data. If I wanted to, and I had the equipment, I could get some information about random person A and encode their SS number and name, but my height, weight and photo into a license. If I needed biometric info too, I see no reason why I shouldn't be able to encode that false information too. So: Is making IDs harder to forge a good thing? Probably. Is this the right way to do it? Absolutely not.
Define child. While I would agree that especially young children should be required to have parental supervision, what about kids in high school? I used to use the 'net at the library for high school research projects. I had to get myself there and back, because my parents said they didn't have time to drive me there. I wouldn't have been able to do research at all under your solution, since I was still a child (a relatively mature 14 at the time) and my parents didn't have time to supervise my 'net usage.
Requiring parental supervision might also forbid children from looking up non-approved (by parents) information that they desparetly need -- two obvious cases, how to contact social services if your parents are abusive, and information about the Gay/Lesbian community. While I would agree that parental supervision is a good solution to the problem of kids looking at porn, it creates a lot of other problems that a library is there to solve -- free and anonymous access to information. If your parents know you're looking at it, that may defeat the purpose of the information.
Well, off-topic as it may be...
You'd be surprised at how tiny an accomplishment "citizen of the month" is. At my elementary school, there was a concerted effort to make sure that each student got a ver similar award at least once... even the ones who bit and pulled hair...
"The dark ages of christianity and islam have been marked by strong domination by fundamentalism."
Precisely. But you seem to have missed the point that you yourself have made. There is a HUGE difference between a person who practices their religion with their brain on, considering the tenets of the religion and potentially discarding or modifying them when necessary, and a fundamentalist, who believes that their religion should be practiced TO THE LETTER, even in cases where the text was obviously meant in allegory or metaphor. Now, having said that, I think I can point out a major difference between Christianity and Scientology: all Scientologists are conditioned from conversion to be fundies. Not all Christians are fundies. Many of them are very nice, thoughtful people. Major difference #2: Christianity encourages love for your fellow man, regardless of his religion. Scientology literally preaches hate for anyone not a Scientologist. While there are some serious problems in the history of the Christian faith, the tenets of the religion are a lot nicer than those of Scientology, and that does make a real difference. Chances are that 90% of the people you know are Christian, and only about 5% of them (at least in my experience) will try in any unpleasant way (threats, bashing, etc.) to convert you. Scientologists try to convert everyone (again, in my experience) in nasty ways, and won't stop when you ask them to. Even the nasty Christians will shut up when asked politely.
I haven't seen these yet.
1. Is this legal? Does Netscape include this info (that they will collect your search data) in their liscence agreement? I don't remember seeing it, but that could be me...
2. I spent about an hour googlewhacking on Netscape once. I wonder what that does to their results?
The problem expressed in the story has very little to do with the religious bent of many filtration software. This is incidental to the main issue involved, which is the fact that software filtering on a religious bias is being used in schools. This then restricts the access of students to information not approved of by a religious, rather than a cultural authority. Therefore, students are being subjected to religion (allowed access to only one religion) in school, which is unconstitutional. That's why the story is an issue.
In reading the article, for instance, I noticed that one of the filters has an "occult" topic. If I were in a high school library, and tried to look up information on Wicca/Witchcraft, I would not be permitted to view at least some sites. On the other hand, if I were to look for a myriad of pro-Christian sites, I would find no trouble viewing those. While this would be fine (or at least legal) if it were on my or my parents' home computer, it is not okay in a school environment. It would imply (especially to younger children) that there is something inherently wrong with Wicca which does not apply to Christianity... the school would be then supporting one religion over another, which is unconstitutional.
Now, the other issue discussed in the article is one that seems to have escaped you notice entirely, which is that some of the filters are also preventing access to Gay/Lesbian educational sites,/in the same category as sites on 'how to' sex sites./ Now, how much of a non-issue is that?
Music I already Own...
on
SSSCA Hearing
·
· Score: 1
What happens to my favorite (very obscure) music? Do I have to buy new copies of CD's that took me several months to find the first time? I get the impression that that's what this particular law is effectively designed to do...
Do we really need to start an official boycott just to get people to avoid going to see new movies or renting new movies? What I mean to say is that Hollywood has a VERY hard time putting out movies that are worth my time in the first place. Personally, I've been boycotting most of Hollywood for years-- and as a result have more free time, a better imagination, and (miracle of miracles) a better social life. I also feel smarter, but that may just be my own ego speaking. The point is, Hollywood is trying to make an inferior product EVEN HARDER to access and enjoy. Now, does that make good business sense to anyone else?
Slashdot Mirror
This country's justice system was founded on the principle that "it is better to let 100 guilty men go free than to punish one innocent man." So let's do the math here. Some of us seem to want to punish literally millions of americans (by taking away their priviledge/right to privacy) in order to catch and punish a few hundred men. Good lord, these are sad times we live in.
Disagree with me, argue all you want, but those are the facts.
If they have the consent of the owner of the computer being hacked, then they have comitted no crime. This would be only a little bit of circumstantial evidence against any given hacker. I, for instance, may someday take up hacking because it sounds like a fun challenge. However, I would have no intention of hacking a computer without the owner's express written permission. Ergo, I would never have comitted any crimes, and the contest would not have lured me into doing anything.
I don't like it. Examine various responses other than mine for reasons why.
/. readers is this: Write to your congressmen expressing your views about the issue of making laws to protect the profits of a few large companies in the music industry. In addition, write to the heads of those same companies expressing your anger at their actions, and suggest your own solutions. Threaten to boycott them if they don't do something workable, and really do it. I know it may seem that the recording industry doesn't give a damn about consumers, but if they get pelted with enough "we'll boycott or else" letters, I'm sure they can do enough math to figure out just how many profit dollars that works out to. And we all know they DO care about their profits.
I have a suggestion for the RIAA: Make cheap, easy to download, copy, and burn to CD music available to the public at large. I know I'm not saying anything new, but the message seems to keep getting lost. Here's why it will work:
1. I, like many people, have an innate sense of honesty and do recognize the rights of people to have and profit from intellectual property. I want to pay for music that I own.
2. Music is very expensive these days. At $17 a pop, I don't buy CD's that I don't know contain music I like. And all the pop stations I can get are wholly owned by Clear Channel, and don't play anything I like. However, if I could sample music at some relatively cheap (or even free) price, I would be able to find stuff I like. And then they'd be making a lot more money off of me.
3. This solution won't make every geek in the world mad at them. And they won't have to buy nearly as many congressmen.
My suggestion to
It's much more likely to have been a diversionary tactic to make the Hollings Bill look more reasonable if they were trying to get significant media attention (hell-- just telling the media they own to report on it... scary). As it is, they seem to be actually just trying to sneak it under the table (according to the /. header and the article, there hasn't been much media attention focused on it).
Maybe they think they're being reasonable... I'll bet 99% of the "policy makers" in the MPAA (and a similar percentage of lawmakers) can't stop their VCR's from blinking 12:00. There's a good chance they don't realize how utterly impractical and scary the things they're proposing are.
'cept you can't prosecute a corporation for murder. And they can't vote (yet), thank God.
I got a similar letter from Ben Campell (a senator from Colorado). Standard practise in congress is to have an assistant write a form letter which says about what you got. Then they count up all the letters on the issue for/against and give the busy congressman some numbers. Not exactly an ideal solution, but then again, we pay for the people reading our letters and sending us responses. I'd rather not pay for a personalized response to every letter. As for not saying anything about a position, that's pretty standard politicking. Don't commit yourself to something if there's any potential you might change your position later. I'd be a lot angrier if I got a letter saying "I agree with you" and then he voted against what I had advocated than if he sent me something non-comittal and then voted against me.
Is that we're convinced that money is the solution to everything. So, if we want M$ to stop doing something, we try to fine it a significant portion of its assets. On the other hand, in some countries (such as, I think, France), the way to get a country to change is not to hit it in the pocketbook, but to hit it where it might really have an effect -- in PR. (Although, I will admit, they're not doing a very good job of publicising this case.) Anyway, if done properly, either case will result in fewer sales of M$ products, so how much money the court charges in fines won't matter (or so we can hope).
There is an objection to preventing minors from buying certain games, or saying that some games are not speech: who decides what has content and what doesn't? Assume the worst, and you still have 99% of the games on the market today with the potential to be censored and banned by the government. For instance, they could say that B & W is violent (you can kill people, after all) or blasphemous and therefore not speech. You could then be PUT IN JAIL for not turning in your copy. Do you want to give the gov't that power? Just FYI, the movie ratings system is one in which theatres voluntarily cooperate. There is no law saying that minors cannot go see an 'R'-rated movie, assuming they can find a theatre that will let them in. And there is already a rating system for games that allows stores to voluntarily participate in not selling violent or sexually explicit games. They just don't care, at the moment. For anyone who wants to see that change, make it worth their $, which is how parents got theatres to mind the MPAA (mostly). I'll be happy to put my voice and moola on the other side of the line, but you have the (free speech) right to protest how any given store does business.
As far as I am aware, there is exactly 1 right which the constitution does not explicitly grant to minors. That is the right to vote. ALL OTHER CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS have been upheld (or never challenged) by the courts. Minors have the right to free speech. People do not suddenly gain the right to speak their minds on their 18th birthday.
Of interest to you migh be the vast number of court decisions upholding that minors can say anything they want in school, as long as it "does not disrupt the classroom environment." And teachers often are prevented from joining them in their statements in order to keep their jobs (which is legal). So, in such a case, minors actually have MORE rights than adults in the same place.
Making IDs harder to forge might be a good thing. But:
1. The Sept. 11th hijackers who had easily gotten IDs DID NOT forge them. They got them from (I think) Vermont or West Virginia, where you only need a friend with a license and a notary to sign for you to get a license.
2. A retinal scan or a fingerprint DOES NOT necessarily make an ID harder to forge. All one has to do is add the capability to do the scan to the forging equipment and encode false data. If I wanted to, and I had the equipment, I could get some information about random person A and encode their SS number and name, but my height, weight and photo into a license. If I needed biometric info too, I see no reason why I shouldn't be able to encode that false information too.
So: Is making IDs harder to forge a good thing? Probably. Is this the right way to do it? Absolutely not.
Define child. While I would agree that especially young children should be required to have parental supervision, what about kids in high school? I used to use the 'net at the library for high school research projects. I had to get myself there and back, because my parents said they didn't have time to drive me there. I wouldn't have been able to do research at all under your solution, since I was still a child (a relatively mature 14 at the time) and my parents didn't have time to supervise my 'net usage. Requiring parental supervision might also forbid children from looking up non-approved (by parents) information that they desparetly need -- two obvious cases, how to contact social services if your parents are abusive, and information about the Gay/Lesbian community. While I would agree that parental supervision is a good solution to the problem of kids looking at porn, it creates a lot of other problems that a library is there to solve -- free and anonymous access to information. If your parents know you're looking at it, that may defeat the purpose of the information.
Well, off-topic as it may be... You'd be surprised at how tiny an accomplishment "citizen of the month" is. At my elementary school, there was a concerted effort to make sure that each student got a ver similar award at least once... even the ones who bit and pulled hair...
but only if you're careful...
Hey! Some nerds have lots of sex! (I do... My boyfriend does...)
"The dark ages of christianity and islam have been marked by strong domination by fundamentalism." Precisely. But you seem to have missed the point that you yourself have made. There is a HUGE difference between a person who practices their religion with their brain on, considering the tenets of the religion and potentially discarding or modifying them when necessary, and a fundamentalist, who believes that their religion should be practiced TO THE LETTER, even in cases where the text was obviously meant in allegory or metaphor. Now, having said that, I think I can point out a major difference between Christianity and Scientology: all Scientologists are conditioned from conversion to be fundies. Not all Christians are fundies. Many of them are very nice, thoughtful people. Major difference #2: Christianity encourages love for your fellow man, regardless of his religion. Scientology literally preaches hate for anyone not a Scientologist. While there are some serious problems in the history of the Christian faith, the tenets of the religion are a lot nicer than those of Scientology, and that does make a real difference. Chances are that 90% of the people you know are Christian, and only about 5% of them (at least in my experience) will try in any unpleasant way (threats, bashing, etc.) to convert you. Scientologists try to convert everyone (again, in my experience) in nasty ways, and won't stop when you ask them to. Even the nasty Christians will shut up when asked politely.
I haven't seen these yet. 1. Is this legal? Does Netscape include this info (that they will collect your search data) in their liscence agreement? I don't remember seeing it, but that could be me... 2. I spent about an hour googlewhacking on Netscape once. I wonder what that does to their results?
The problem expressed in the story has very little to do with the religious bent of many filtration software. This is incidental to the main issue involved, which is the fact that software filtering on a religious bias is being used in schools. This then restricts the access of students to information not approved of by a religious, rather than a cultural authority. Therefore, students are being subjected to religion (allowed access to only one religion) in school, which is unconstitutional. That's why the story is an issue. In reading the article, for instance, I noticed that one of the filters has an "occult" topic. If I were in a high school library, and tried to look up information on Wicca/Witchcraft, I would not be permitted to view at least some sites. On the other hand, if I were to look for a myriad of pro-Christian sites, I would find no trouble viewing those. While this would be fine (or at least legal) if it were on my or my parents' home computer, it is not okay in a school environment. It would imply (especially to younger children) that there is something inherently wrong with Wicca which does not apply to Christianity... the school would be then supporting one religion over another, which is unconstitutional. Now, the other issue discussed in the article is one that seems to have escaped you notice entirely, which is that some of the filters are also preventing access to Gay/Lesbian educational sites, /in the same category as sites on 'how to' sex sites./ Now, how much of a non-issue is that?
What happens to my favorite (very obscure) music? Do I have to buy new copies of CD's that took me several months to find the first time? I get the impression that that's what this particular law is effectively designed to do...
Do we really need to start an official boycott just to get people to avoid going to see new movies or renting new movies? What I mean to say is that Hollywood has a VERY hard time putting out movies that are worth my time in the first place. Personally, I've been boycotting most of Hollywood for years-- and as a result have more free time, a better imagination, and (miracle of miracles) a better social life. I also feel smarter, but that may just be my own ego speaking. The point is, Hollywood is trying to make an inferior product EVEN HARDER to access and enjoy. Now, does that make good business sense to anyone else?