Rarely am I asked to do something that's truly impossible. I've always taken the position that it's not my job to say "no" to my manager. Rather, it's my job to say, "Yes, and this is what it will cost you."
Let me make a suggestion: If you produce a closed source product where you release only the executables then you should be held liable for any damage the product causes. If, on the other hand, you release the complete source code for your product then caveat emptor. In the later case the user/purchaser has all the information necessary to (a) evaluate the safety and security of the product and (b) make any modifications necessary to bring the product up to their standards. If they don't have the wit or the will to do so then they're on their own.
A friend of mine did this for me several years ago. I don't know if it's the same company but the name sounds familiar. In my case they were very clear about the designation being an unofficial novelty item - an unusual gift for someone who's hard to buy for.
a good company lawyer could say that a reasonable parent would monitor the programs that a child installs on your computers
The lawyer would be wrong, I think clearly enough that a jury could be convinced. My fifteen year old has his own computer and is perfectly capable of installing software on it without my supervision. He is not, however, able to enter into a binding contract.
You can't ignore the problem simply because the percentage of child molesters in society is below a certain percent!
Actually we make this kind of statistical judgement call all the time. Speed limits, for example, are set not because a certain speed is safe but because it's safe enough. All sorts of life-threatening diseases go without any kind of research into a treatment because they're so rare the drug companies will never turn a profit from a cure. Police allocate extra resources to high-crime areas even though this means pulling resources away from low-crime areas were crimes still occur.
I'm confused by this. How can an agreement between MS and the DOJ impose a requirement on an unrelated party? Or does it say something like "MS doesn't have to do business with an OEM that distrubutes OS-less PC's"?
A school board of any size, much less the largest ones in the northwest, will have a full time legal department or a large law firm with experience in education law on retainer.
IANAL either but I think they could make a case to get a court's support. If the schools refused to conduct the audit the situation would boil down to a contract dispute. Since this would be a civil rather than a criminal matter Microsoft would have to foot the bill for investigators/auditors rather than having a law enforcement agency do it for them but I would bet that during the course of whatever discovery a civil action allows they would essentially get the audit that they wanted.
"Innocent until proven guilty" is a criminal concept that applies only in the context of the criminal justice system. I don't believe any law enforcement agency has accused the schools of anything so this standard isn't relevant.
This situation, rather, is a matter of contract law. The schools entered into a contract with Microsoft and have now come to regret the terms. The enforcability of that contract is a whole seprate issue that again has nothing to do with criminal law.
Maybe this should be part of the school boards's solution - throw lawyers at the problem while they either perform the audit quietly in the background or look for other solutions.
The second to the last paragraph of the article states that the law applies to recordings made for lewd and lascivious purposes. I think that secretly videotaping babysitters for the purpose of monitoring their performance doesn't fall into that category.
An exclusion for public places would seem to permit workplace monitoring.
Notes from ECO 101: If something costs more fewer people will buy it. If sufficiently fewer people buy it your marginal profit becomes negative. Pair this with the impression that the product is somehow defective and the risk of a negative marginal profit becomes significant.
The key here is that a traditional classroom has advantages that an online setting cannot begin to eumulate.
And the online setting has advantages that the traditional classroom can't emulate. I have two graduate degrees: one from a large traditional school, the other from an accredited online school. I can honestly say that I learned just as much from the online program as the traditional one. The online degree was both more convenient and more efficient. In the online program I spent much less time sitting around daydreaming while a professor droned on at the front of the room.
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Rarely am I asked to do something that's truly impossible. I've always taken the position that it's not my job to say "no" to my manager. Rather, it's my job to say, "Yes, and this is what it will cost you."
Let me make a suggestion: If you produce a closed source product where you release only the executables then you should be held liable for any damage the product causes. If, on the other hand, you release the complete source code for your product then caveat emptor. In the later case the user/purchaser has all the information necessary to (a) evaluate the safety and security of the product and (b) make any modifications necessary to bring the product up to their standards. If they don't have the wit or the will to do so then they're on their own.
A friend of mine did this for me several years ago. I don't know if it's the same company but the name sounds familiar. In my case they were very clear about the designation being an unofficial novelty item - an unusual gift for someone who's hard to buy for.
a good company lawyer could say that a reasonable parent would monitor the programs that a child installs on your computers
The lawyer would be wrong, I think clearly enough that a jury could be convinced. My fifteen year old has his own computer and is perfectly capable of installing software on it without my supervision. He is not, however, able to enter into a binding contract.
You can't ignore the problem simply because the percentage of child molesters in society is below a certain percent!
Actually we make this kind of statistical judgement call all the time. Speed limits, for example, are set not because a certain speed is safe but because it's safe enough. All sorts of life-threatening diseases go without any kind of research into a treatment because they're so rare the drug companies will never turn a profit from a cure. Police allocate extra resources to high-crime areas even though this means pulling resources away from low-crime areas were crimes still occur.
I'm confused by this. How can an agreement between MS and the DOJ impose a requirement on an unrelated party? Or does it say something like "MS doesn't have to do business with an OEM that distrubutes OS-less PC's"?
A school board of any size, much less the largest ones in the northwest, will have a full time legal department or a large law firm with experience in education law on retainer.
IANAL either but I think they could make a case to get a court's support. If the schools refused to conduct the audit the situation would boil down to a contract dispute. Since this would be a civil rather than a criminal matter Microsoft would have to foot the bill for investigators/auditors rather than having a law enforcement agency do it for them but I would bet that during the course of whatever discovery a civil action allows they would essentially get the audit that they wanted.
"Innocent until proven guilty" is a criminal concept that applies only in the context of the criminal justice system. I don't believe any law enforcement agency has accused the schools of anything so this standard isn't relevant.
This situation, rather, is a matter of contract law. The schools entered into a contract with Microsoft and have now come to regret the terms. The enforcability of that contract is a whole seprate issue that again has nothing to do with criminal law.
Maybe this should be part of the school boards's solution - throw lawyers at the problem while they either perform the audit quietly in the background or look for other solutions.
Um, no. A workplace is still private property.
In that case the 'lewd and lascivious' clause applies. As long as the videotaping isn't done for a prurient purpose it seems the bill would allow it.
The second to the last paragraph of the article states that the law applies to recordings made for lewd and lascivious purposes. I think that secretly videotaping babysitters for the purpose of monitoring their performance doesn't fall into that category.
An exclusion for public places would seem to permit workplace monitoring.
(Costs more) != (Greater profit)
Notes from ECO 101: If something costs more fewer people will buy it. If sufficiently fewer people buy it your marginal profit becomes negative. Pair this with the impression that the product is somehow defective and the risk of a negative marginal profit becomes significant.
The key here is that a traditional classroom has advantages that an online setting cannot begin to eumulate.
And the online setting has advantages that the traditional classroom can't emulate. I have two graduate degrees: one from a large traditional school, the other from an accredited online school. I can honestly say that I learned just as much from the online program as the traditional one. The online degree was both more convenient and more efficient. In the online program I spent much less time sitting around daydreaming while a professor droned on at the front of the room.