I'm shocked to see it put so clearly and accurately. What are you doing here, didn't you realize this is a flame war? Facts and logic have no place here!
Amazon activity helps citizen commit tax evasion against the state.
Did you mean "Amazon takes action to help citizens with tax evasion" or did you mean "Activity like that done on Amazon makes it easier for citizens who are committing tax evasion?"
I'm pretty sure that Amazon doesn't take any actions to assist citizens with their choice to commit tax evasion. I'm pretty sure that it is easier to evade taxes if you purchase things from someone who doesn't report to your state (because they aren't there.)
Of course, if you mean the second, then you'd have to agree that it isn't the one doing the wrong that is being punished by this law.
No, no no! You have it all wrong, CA want's stores and they want taxes, they don't want their stores collecting states, they just want CA taxes to be collected by the citizens OTHER states for them too.
Yeah, I know, satire can be hard to recognize when it becomes official government policy, so to be clear, I agree with your point.
Anyone who was paying attention knew states would eventually come looking for sales tax on all these online purchases
Really? It's been illegal to avoid paying taxes on your purchases in many states all along. If you purchase something over the internet and it is taxable in your state, then either you or the seller has to pay tax. If the seller isn't subject to your state's tax laws, you're the one liable to pay the taxes, not the seller. It's been that way all along.
This is a change, in that states have realized that they aren't going to find success in getting their own citizens to pay the taxes they owe and prefer to try to get out of state sellers to collect the taxes for them.
The online sales tax law, AB 28 1x, would seek to force online retailers who have no physical presence in California, such as Amazon.com
That's what was signed. Compare this to the "use tax" laws CA already has.
It depends on the individual, sure, but it also depends on the task. When I'm reading at home, like now, I'm using one monitor. I've got the other up with a terminal in it, but it's just sitting there doing nothing. I do flip over to it to do things from time to time, but Alt+Tab in my WM is fine for that. It's good enough for the DVD from time to time and it's good enough for the rare game.
Work is a different story. When I'm working on a program, my communications apps go in my little monitor (19" I think) and my code goes in the 22" display. The thing is that the 22" display is a very tall (rotated 90 degrees) display and that is critical to my productivity. Nothing I can do there can't be done in a regular single display, but when I'm working on debugging code, being able to see a very large part of the code as I work on it is essential. I can go from procedure to procedure and back to the original call without having to find my place each time. For me personally, the time it takes to find my place again is a huge distraction, where in the tall display, I'm just flicking my eyes from A to B and back to A and then to C and then back to B again with a smooth train of thought. If I have to break up that train of thought to find my place each time, it really slows me down. Being able to keep my communications up in another monitor allows me to know when something is incoming that is important enough to break from the task at hand, and when it isn't, allow me to continue without reorienting myself on the project at hand.
I suspect that there is a correlation between complexity and retention that determines how useful a second display is to someone. Simple tasks take very little screen space for me because I can retain everything I need to know and respond accordingly. Complex tasks require more screen space and greater division of processes so that I can break the parts into manageable tasks without losing track of other parallel tasks. There is a diminishing return on screen space and divisibility depending on the task as well; some tasks do not get easier with multiple screens. It is almost never the case that responding to email is improved beyond two windows. Almost every email I respond to needs at most a couple paragraphs of response and a couple of original content in order to be as efficient as possible. If my primary job were to respond to technical questions, a single 19" monitor would be all I could reasonably take advantage of.
B) Eliminate all the stupid users. This is frowned upon by society.
Great line. I'm making that my sig.
Your sentiments are mirrored in large part by an article at codinghorror, it's a bit dated, but I keep referring back to it as I try to find ways to keep our work network safe from ourselves. The problem as simply as I can restate it is that users with the power to do what they want will also do bad things unintentionally even if they have to work at it. I wonder if there might be a third path however, besides the two you've outlined.
What if the UAC was not activated for tasks, but rather for activity along with the risk it exposes the user to. With ZoneAlarm (which I used to recommend) you get a learning phase and then an alarm for unusual network activity. The same thing could be applied to every file access and the parameters of normal interaction based on internet collected data. I imagine a whitelist sandbox OS where any application can be downloaded and installed, but the system would allow a sandboxed image of the installation and when completed, it would download information about the application, instances of immediate uninstall, instances of virus flagging and potential interactions. Something along the lines of
Snapshots currently use 3.5% of available diskspace.
You've downloaded and installed dancingbunnies.exe which has the following associated information: 85% of users who installed dancingbunnies.exe uninstalled it within 2 hours. It has been flagged by ClamAV, Symmantec and McAfee as a virus. Where dancingbunnies.exe has been installed 72% of users indicated it caused unwanted effects. dancingbunnies.exe has access to: delete any file, change the way your computer works, send email without your permission and download files that may be illegal to have on your computer. You may
[Discard these changes (63% popular)]
[Activate these changes for a limited time before being offered the option to remove them later (23% popular)]
[Activate these changes permanently (14% popular)]
Choosing to discard would remove and delete the system snapshot. Choosing to activate would result in the user running in an instance of the system which would be using a differencing snapshot image. Choosing to activate permanently would discard the differencing snapshot and make the changes permanent.
Two of the actions described are already basically available with varying methods, but I've never seen them brought together into a single system. Microsoft's virtual server seems to (I'm almost certain) do differencing snapshots as described here. Jotti uses multiple scanning tools to identify the AV systems that flag a file as a virus. The third major component, (tracking the usage, acceptance and rejection of software) would become available through the OS vendor tracking databases which mostly already exist if not in this exact form. Recognising what an application would be capable of would require a robust sandboxing system, which I realise is a challenge but don't think is insurmountable one.
Later prompts might include:
The program dancingbunnies.exe has accessed your address book and is trying to send emails on your behalf, would you like to:
[Stop this activity] Safest. (83% of users choose this action for dancingbunnies.exe)
[Remove this software but keep other changes] (9% of of users preferred this option)
[Remove this software and revert] (7% of users preferred this option)
[Allow just this once] (63% of users uninstalled dancingbunnies.exe within 2 hours after allowing this action.)
[Allow just this activity for ten minutes] (25% of users uninstalled within 2 hours of allowing this action)
Allow this activity:
[Permanently] (5% of users uninstalled dancingbunnies.exe within 72 hours of this choice)
[And all others by this program permanently] (0.3% of users uninstalled dancingbunnies.exe within 72 hours of this choice)
The playing field is level already, a state determines what its tax is on citizens of that state. There is a very basic principle here, the citizen is responsible for his own actions to his own government. If I sell something, I am responsible for my sales taxes. If I buy something, I am responsible for the use taxes. If this were passed, then I become responsible for collecting sales taxes owed to a government where I am not represented.
If I make a purchase from someone in another state and they are not subject to taxation by my state and the sale is still considered a taxable transaction by my state, it is called a use tax but must be paid by me. (This is often ignored, but NY, IL and CA are trying hard to make sure their citizens pay taxes on sales where the seller is not subject to their taxes.) I am represented in the government I pay the use tax to.
As a resident of IL*, when I purchase a delivery truck from someone in NH, I should pay IL the appropriate sales tax.
As a resident of NH, when I sell a delivery truck to someone in IL, why should I pay for the government of IL? I don't like the government of IL; I'm not represented by the government of IL; I choose not to live in IL. I certainly have no interest in collecting their taxes for them.
NH and AK don't seem to have many representatives suggesting that their citizens should have to collect taxes to pay to other states. My own (actual) state has a higher tax rate than IL but I don't think citizens of other states should help us collect our taxes. I'm not thrilled to pay my state's sales tax but I accept it without rancor. I far prefer it to paying my income taxes and can only imagine how much bile I would feel collecting taxes of IL, CA or NY where, as was said previously, they don't let me vote in their elections.
* (The parent referenced CA, but Dick Durbin is from IL and he is the one responsible for the bill, I choose NH as an example because NH does not have a sales or state income tax. AK is as good an example but is a bit distant geographically for the example.)
Sosa is currently drafting an apology to her teacher. At the same time though, she said her school principal, Jolene Morris, violated her privacy by ordering her to log into her Facebook account at a school library computer.
Where exactly is the line on this? If the students had made the statements verbally at a city park should they have been suspended after being ordered to repeat the conversation? If they'd emailed each other from home, should they have been ordered to show their emails by the principal?
What if they'd called the teacher "a very irritating person" on Facebook and the principal had ordered the child to log into her Facebook account. They probably wouldn't have been expelled or suspended, but wouldn't people have been up in arms over the invasion of the right to privacy?
On the other hand, if Sosa had "forgotten" her password at school and deleted the posts at home, would there have been any evidence of the libel? Should she have been suspended, if there was no evidence, for "forgetting" her password?
Did you realize that the protest was ended before the funeral started? Did you know that the father who took the issue to court didn't even realize that the protest had happened until he saw it on the news?
I don't think there is much room for arguing left when the Supreme Court decided it was an exercise of free speech in an eight to one decision. I think maybe you should read Alito's dissent though, he said very well what I think you're getting at.
Of course they could do this at George Bush's funeral or any celebrity funeral, haven't you heard of Cindy Sheehan? They protest near Bush's home now. I'm sure there will be protestors when he dies too, but if they respect the boundaries of the local police for distance and don't actually protest during the funeral I can't imagine it being prohibited.
From a summary of the case: "The members of Westboro picketed 1,000 feet away from the church where the funeral was held in accordance with law enforcement directives. The protest took place on public land."
Not much of anybody wants to defend the actions of Westboro, but many of us defend the rights. Freedom of speech is about the rights of people to do things that other people don't like, be it common citizens, the military, or the government.
Personally, I find their actions loathsome and despicable to an extreme. I sincerely hope that they do break the law and are held accountable when they do so. I am glad however, that even the worst of us have rights.
I did read the article, but I haven't read much more on the subject, still, I think there may be a misunderstanding here. If we're talking about open standards, we're not necessarily talking about training people to use different software, just different standards. You don't have to use Writer, just make sure that your people are saving their Word documents in ODT, XML, HTML or RTF. I know there is some argument over some forms of that and differing success rates, but when you move large numbers of people to an open standard, it makes the implementation tend to be better.
We have some of this in our own office, though without the government push, which I am grateful for even if it does make my job a little harder. We are currently allowing people to submit documentation only through the primary CMS system, but supporting files include HTML, XLS and PDF because it makes it easy to expect anybody in the future to be able to access them. It has been against the grain for some people but with the flood of emails being resent because they sent the first one with a DOCX attachment, the case has gotten easier with the passing of time. Nothing makes it easier to sell "use a format everyone can use" than Microsoft Word not being able to open something somebody else created with Microsoft Word.
I love my Linux distro's free software that I can use to do nearly anything, but I can sympathize with people who just want to keep doing the job they've been doing. It would simplify my life tremendously if Microsoft started offering an option to set the default file format to an open one, something that could come out of discussions like this.
doh! I was torn on whether to rate this as funny or not, but in the end, after admitting to myself that a snort did indeed escape, fresh and new or not, I admitted to myself that it was funny. Then I hit the wrong key. My apologies. But, worse, I hit troll and it certainly wasn't.
I don't know, but would like to think that someone with authority to determine if they did, does know. I question what expectation of privacy an unencrypted connection user has. However, if someone is using WEP, even though it is not reliable security, do they have a reasonable expectation of privacy, and a right to it?
I'm not trying to provoke an argument, I'm actually curious if Google decrypted WEP traffic. I wouldn't trust my own security to WEP, but I believe it creates a reasonable expectation of privacy. If Google did decrypt WEP traffic, shouldn't they have to defend their actions? If they don't disclose the information they gathered to anyone of greater authority, how can we know that they didn't?
As noted in my original post, I don't trust the likely authorities, but that doesn't mean that I trust Google either. I'm mostly confident that they didn't decrypt WPA, but I believe they could, and that would sincerely bother me even if I'm not in the group whose data is being discussed for this incident.
For any new or non-geeks:
Unencrypted - allows anyone to connect to a wireless connection without a password and potentially allows anyone to see what is being transmitted and received over the connection.
WEP - Wired Equivalency Privacy is an old way of encrypting wireless traffic, but it can be pretty easily decrypted.
WPA - Wi-Fi Protected Access has the same goal, it encrypts traffic, but it is newer and much harder to break. It comes in different versions, some being much harder than others to decrypt.
Google - One of the few companies that could spare the resources to decrypt significant amounts of WPA traffic without sweating.
There seems to be a misunderstanding. Since I'm not affected by this particular issue directly, I humbly submit that this was neither my fault, nor can I fix it. The broader issue however affects all of us, it is an issue of what should be private, what shouldn't have an expectation of privacy and what role the government should take in protecting privacy.
I can agree that it is my own responsibility to protect my own privacy, but I have trouble with the idea "Once you emit any electromagnetic radiation outside the bounds of your property, you have no expectation of privacy whatsoever." In particular, I have an expectation of privacy because my wi-fi is encrypted and I don't share the key. That security isn't good enough to prohibit someone with sufficient resources from decrypting it (WPA-TKIP) but it is a pretty high bar.
If Google did what I'd have expected them to, they just captured all the data that they could without bothering to filter it initially, then ran the analysis software later. At that point they probably realized they had captured personal emails, passwords, and potentially illegal or embarrassing traffic. In a just world, someone from the state would be shown the type of information gathered so that they could confirm that Google wasn't actively decrypting WEP, then Google would be instructed to document the erasing of the data.
In our world, I fear that a politician might see it as an opportunity to use the data to go after all those nefarious cyber-terrorists who download things with bittorrent and hang on to all the embarrassing or illegal bits that might be leveraged against their political rivals. When you're dealing with politicians who don't suggest encrypting your wireless connection, you're dealing with someone who isn't competent to understand the issue or someone who really doesn't want you to secure your data at all. Either way, I trust Google slightly more to do the ethical thing.
With my wi-fi using WPA-TKIP, I don't think it should be okay to decrypt my traffic even if you have the resources. I think it should probably be illegal, though I'm not clear on how that can be justly codified into law. Can you read your neighbor's monitor using sophisticated equipment? If you can, does that make it okay? I read an article about Van Eck phreaking some time back. It made me realize that taking every reasonable precaution that I could to protect my privacy isn't enough, there needs to be a legal protection at some level.
Government should be protecting privacy. It seemed reasonable for a state to want to know exactly how the privacy of its citizens was infringed on. I could see the other side, that knowing what was in the records wouldn't improve anyone's privacy and could actually harm them if their state government representatives turned out not to have the most pristine of ethics.
That "turn off your wireless network when you know you won't use it" comment sent me clear over to Google's side. The last thing I want is someone who believes that's the appropriate response to be poking through people's personals.
The article is not about ClamWin but it is a related product. It is mentioned in the summary, but I have some experience with it and can at least tentatively recommend it. ClamWin uses ClamAV resources but was designed to run on Windows and is somewhat mature. It can work with centralized updates, email notices upon virus detection and runs on any likely version of Windows. It has a plug-in for Outlook and is integrated into Explorer, though I'm not sure it does on-access scanning. (It didn't in the past, but it might now.) We most appreciate it on servers where we have little exposure to viruses but need something that can report if a potential virus is found. MS Security Essentials isn't for servers, so ClamWin comes in handy where we don't want to spend the money for other AV products. The reporting feature is handy for these machines because many of them don't have someone logging into them through the GUI more than once a month. Be wary of the option to remove viruses from the system rather than just from memory though, in the past it had a pretty high false positive rate. (They seem to have fixed that now, your mileage may vary.)
Problem In Chair Not In Computer - an acronym I prefer, it sounds like something people would already know so you can put it in places where it might be read by other techs or supervisors without too much worry that it will come back to haunt you.
The industrial revolution changed the amount of expertise an individual needed to produce a complex and reliable product to make end products generally less expensive and more reliable. It did so by moving specialization into ever smaller areas. The average user is tremendously unprepared to be an expert in every service they need their computer to provide. By pushing more and more of those services into the "cloud" the need for expertise by the end user is decreased. There are trade offs to be sure, but in the end most people are happy to relinquish control in favor of ease of use and reliability.
There has been a lot of speculation about what Apple is planning to do with its massive data centers and capital, so here's my guess:
Apple buys the "for dummies" rights
They set up a system to allow end user computer systems to be maintained in the "cloud"
They start selling Computers for Dummies (iComputers become known affectionately as Idiot's Computers)
Ubuntu, Chrome and Azure get pushed into or see the appeal in following the same business model
2020 sees the lowest rate of computer virus* infection since the 1990s as 90% of home users don't install software on their computers
People will still click dancing bunnies but the problems created by PICNIC errors will decrease as users are protected from themselves. The hearty few who still run local software will be the elite and the truly dangerous. The elite few will make wise system management decisions and the truly dangerous will reboot to a trusted system every couple months.
Yes, I keep putting quotes around "cloud" because I don't think the term is solid yet and I think most of the time it is marketing jargon for "somebody else's problem."
computer virus* - viruses, trojans, malware, worms etc
I'm not saying that this is a good path for the IT industry, computer users or society as a whole. I am saying that something along these lines is likely inevitable. iPods, smart phones, tablet computers and e-readers are all steps in this direction and I foresee the trend continuing and even accelerating. Azure, Chrome OS and Ubuntu One are already making headway into moving services to the cloud, really it is hard to imagine cloud services becoming less common.
Did you read the article you posted to? It points out that the numbers are wrong and wrongly used and then points out why the comparison to the US wouldn't make sense anyway.
I could see linking to the email as support of the idea of gun control. I could see to linking to a rebuttal of the email as support of gun ownership. I fail to understand the point of linking to an email analysis where it is pointed out as having no reliability.
I've read quite a few good articles on both sides of the argument over gun control vs. ownership rights. Try these instead:
Personally, my opinion is that freedom is more important than safety. Whatever the statistics, whatever the arguments are about crime rates, murder and preventative defense, I believe that an individual has a right to any reasonable self defense they choose. Freedom absolutely does cost lives, but I believe that even as tragic as they can be, preventing them by restricting legitimate freedoms is worse.
Re:I don't need privacy if I can record.
on
Recording the Police
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I was looking for a place to put this, just to make sure somebody records it as "prior art". Every vehicle and potentially non-vehicle items, should be capable of transmitting fail-safe video uploads to a public server. That server should receive video which is made public at any instance where, after a pre-set time, if a password is not entered, the site will automatically make it public.
As an example, many if not most cars would have at least four cameras which constantly record audio and video which are constantly uploaded to a internet server. That video remains private so long as a password is entered at an appropriate time, but becomes public if it is not. Non-public video is available with the password for download for a specific period of time then deleted by the host. If you forget your password, or deliberately pick an invisible password, your video becomes public without any interaction on your part. Every dangerous driving episode you witness is potentially evidence against the perpetrator, but so is every interaction you have with anybody, police included.
Here's how I imagine a hypothetical routine traffic stop proceeding in one of two ways, Scenario One:
Officer: License and registration please.
Driver: Here you are officer, and though it may be legal not to, as a courtesy, I would like to draw your attention to the "Ever Vigilant" stickers on my car. These stickers indicate the cameras which record all activity in the vicinity of my car. My interactions with law enforcement have always been good, and I expect this record to show the same.
Officer: This is not a public record and I'm giving you a lawful order to desist recording now.
Driver: I do not have the ability to cease recording and the legal rights to do so are defended by the "Ever Vigilant" corporation, but I will gladly comply with any lawful requests that I can. As you can see, I'm reading from the script provided on the sticker on my dashboard.
Officer: Thank you for making the situation clear. I am now ordering you to leave your vehicle and accompany me to my patrol car.
Driver: As advised by "Ever Vigilant" I will do so but must ask, is there a reason you cannot continue providing the public service you provide within the scope of the recording devices provided by "Ever Vigilant" equipment?
Officer: Leave your vehicle now. ...(time passes)
Jury: We find the officer guilty of the following offenses... Scenario two:
Officer: License and registration please.
Driver: Here you are officer, and though it may be legal not to, as a courtesy, I would like to draw your attention to the "Ever Vigilant" stickers on my car. These stickers indicate the cameras which record all activity in the vicinity of my car. My interactions with law enforcement have always been good, and I expect this record to show the same.
Officer: Thank you for saying so, but officers of Dallas County are trained to notice such things, and of course consent even if not legally required to recordings. Thank you for your license and registration, do you know why I pulled you over today?
Driver: You're welcome, but I don't know why you pulled me over.
Officer: Our radar equipment recorded you exceeding the speed limit, is there an emergency which would require you to exceed the speed limit today?
Driver: I wasn't aware that I was breaking any laws, but I hope that the "Ever Vigilant" software will show that I was following a reasonable application of the law. (You may note that I'm reading a sticker on my dashboad as recommended by "Ever Vigliant.")
Officer: I see that, please wait in your car. ...(time passes)
(non-contest plea, video public, and don't laugh, I personally appreciate obvious courtesy and training even if guilty of an offense)
Commanding officer:... and as shown by Ever Vigilant surveillance recordings presented by a stopped speeder, courtesy beco
...we would call that person a moron, and we would probably hope that their family walked out on them.
Still, that's basically what you're suggesting.
First please note, I'm not suggesting that. I'm contrasting the incentives of a dramatically shortened term to a very long one.
For the hypothetical, I would agree that lottery tickets would make a horrible investment. If you have the talent though, being the creator of the software to create a holodeck might be a good one. If you can show you have the talent for it, you can probably find investors. (I would really, really like a holodeck.)
You make an excellent point with ownership problems. We have that problem now and I don't see a way to resolve it short of changing the law to require copyright to be registered. I think it should have to be registered, but that's not the way it works now.
I think we agree that a copyright term extending to the grandchildren is too long, but I don't think it can be discounted as an incentive, which was the point I was making. The inventor of the holodeck might be influenced, and unless you are that inventor, you can't promise otherwise. I think that it would be foolish to say that nobody would be interested in passing copyright to their grandchildren, even if you or I might disapprove.
Thanks for the link, I'd love to use the term GOLEMs if I thought people would recognize the term. I think I understand Stallman's point, but I think that he actually might not disagree with mine, since the examples he cites are legally different, but would all fall in the definition I provided for copyright. (Are you there Stallman? It's me, ancientt.) Of course, my proposed definition isn't how copyright is defined now, nor how patents or trademarks are defined. Suggesting those things shouldn't be as they are legally now is kind of the point of suggesting I would do it that way if I were making the laws.
I really hate to seem to come down on this side of the issue, but you seem interested in reason and I think you might reconsider your stance if provided a logical alternative:
Copyright is about encouraging creation of valuable work. As the value of a work increases, so do associated incentives. If copyright can only protect your work from free copies for a year, many of your potential customers will wait until they can get a free or cheap copy and your financial incentive is limited to match what you can reasonably hope to sell in the first year. This may still be an attractive arrangement if you're talking about an investment of ten hours of programming, but even if you have the talent and expertise to build a holodeck with five years of work, you'll make more money doing less valuable projects.
In the other direction, if copyright of your work extends to three generations, and you have the opportunity and talent, you can invest twenty years of your life in the holodeck project with the incentive of being able to provide financially not only for your self, but also for your grandchildren. Your incentive is tremendously increased to work on the more valuable project.
I recognize that most of the work I do has little value, even the creative work, beyond ten years and increasing the copyright term beyond it would not give me personal incentive to work harder or invest more time. I also recognize that there may be things created that I would benefit from if the incentives are strong enough to innovate and create, which would benefit me if produced by others with greater vision, talent or opportunity.
Why should you benefit from work you did ten years ago when I don't? If you wouldn't create something that I hold valuable otherwise, then you should benefit from it so that I can in turn benefit from work you would otherwise not have done.
There is a trade off between the value to society of incentive and the cost to society of artificial scarcity. I believe that our copyright laws fail to strike a balance that is most beneficial to society, and I think we would agree that copyright terms as they stand now are too restrictive. I would propose that copyright should be limited to the substantial reproduction of a creative work and that the initial term should be for five years with automatic extensions up to twenty years granted if a copyright holder makes the request while the term is still in effect. Any term beyond twenty years should have to be supported by an elected governing body on a case by case basis and extensions by that body limited to twice the age of the oldest member. If I'm getting to make the laws, then I'd propose the consolidation of patents, trademarks, copyright and any similar intellectual innovation to a single bill.
When I take the kids to a movie lately it is invariably in 3D which makes me feel queasy. I've taken a left lens from one pair and reversed it to replace the right lens in another pair. Wearing those, I get 2D. It takes a little time up front, but has made the movies viewable.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm shocked to see it put so clearly and accurately. What are you doing here, didn't you realize this is a flame war? Facts and logic have no place here!
Did you mean "Amazon takes action to help citizens with tax evasion" or did you mean "Activity like that done on Amazon makes it easier for citizens who are committing tax evasion?"
I'm pretty sure that Amazon doesn't take any actions to assist citizens with their choice to commit tax evasion. I'm pretty sure that it is easier to evade taxes if you purchase things from someone who doesn't report to your state (because they aren't there.)
Of course, if you mean the second, then you'd have to agree that it isn't the one doing the wrong that is being punished by this law.
No, no no! You have it all wrong, CA want's stores and they want taxes, they don't want their stores collecting states, they just want CA taxes to be collected by the citizens OTHER states for them too.
Yeah, I know, satire can be hard to recognize when it becomes official government policy, so to be clear, I agree with your point.
Really? It's been illegal to avoid paying taxes on your purchases in many states all along. If you purchase something over the internet and it is taxable in your state, then either you or the seller has to pay tax. If the seller isn't subject to your state's tax laws, you're the one liable to pay the taxes, not the seller. It's been that way all along.
This is a change, in that states have realized that they aren't going to find success in getting their own citizens to pay the taxes they owe and prefer to try to get out of state sellers to collect the taxes for them.
That's what was signed. Compare this to the "use tax" laws CA already has.
It depends on the individual, sure, but it also depends on the task. When I'm reading at home, like now, I'm using one monitor. I've got the other up with a terminal in it, but it's just sitting there doing nothing. I do flip over to it to do things from time to time, but Alt+Tab in my WM is fine for that. It's good enough for the DVD from time to time and it's good enough for the rare game.
Work is a different story. When I'm working on a program, my communications apps go in my little monitor (19" I think) and my code goes in the 22" display. The thing is that the 22" display is a very tall (rotated 90 degrees) display and that is critical to my productivity. Nothing I can do there can't be done in a regular single display, but when I'm working on debugging code, being able to see a very large part of the code as I work on it is essential. I can go from procedure to procedure and back to the original call without having to find my place each time. For me personally, the time it takes to find my place again is a huge distraction, where in the tall display, I'm just flicking my eyes from A to B and back to A and then to C and then back to B again with a smooth train of thought. If I have to break up that train of thought to find my place each time, it really slows me down. Being able to keep my communications up in another monitor allows me to know when something is incoming that is important enough to break from the task at hand, and when it isn't, allow me to continue without reorienting myself on the project at hand.
I suspect that there is a correlation between complexity and retention that determines how useful a second display is to someone. Simple tasks take very little screen space for me because I can retain everything I need to know and respond accordingly. Complex tasks require more screen space and greater division of processes so that I can break the parts into manageable tasks without losing track of other parallel tasks. There is a diminishing return on screen space and divisibility depending on the task as well; some tasks do not get easier with multiple screens. It is almost never the case that responding to email is improved beyond two windows. Almost every email I respond to needs at most a couple paragraphs of response and a couple of original content in order to be as efficient as possible. If my primary job were to respond to technical questions, a single 19" monitor would be all I could reasonably take advantage of.
B) Eliminate all the stupid users. This is frowned upon by society.
Great line. I'm making that my sig.
Your sentiments are mirrored in large part by an article at codinghorror, it's a bit dated, but I keep referring back to it as I try to find ways to keep our work network safe from ourselves. The problem as simply as I can restate it is that users with the power to do what they want will also do bad things unintentionally even if they have to work at it. I wonder if there might be a third path however, besides the two you've outlined.
What if the UAC was not activated for tasks, but rather for activity along with the risk it exposes the user to. With ZoneAlarm (which I used to recommend) you get a learning phase and then an alarm for unusual network activity. The same thing could be applied to every file access and the parameters of normal interaction based on internet collected data. I imagine a whitelist sandbox OS where any application can be downloaded and installed, but the system would allow a sandboxed image of the installation and when completed, it would download information about the application, instances of immediate uninstall, instances of virus flagging and potential interactions. Something along the lines of
Choosing to discard would remove and delete the system snapshot. Choosing to activate would result in the user running in an instance of the system which would be using a differencing snapshot image. Choosing to activate permanently would discard the differencing snapshot and make the changes permanent.
Two of the actions described are already basically available with varying methods, but I've never seen them brought together into a single system. Microsoft's virtual server seems to (I'm almost certain) do differencing snapshots as described here. Jotti uses multiple scanning tools to identify the AV systems that flag a file as a virus. The third major component, (tracking the usage, acceptance and rejection of software) would become available through the OS vendor tracking databases which mostly already exist if not in this exact form. Recognising what an application would be capable of would require a robust sandboxing system, which I realise is a challenge but don't think is insurmountable one.
Later prompts might include:
Ref: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2005/07/the-dancing-bunnies-problem.html
The playing field is level already, a state determines what its tax is on citizens of that state. There is a very basic principle here, the citizen is responsible for his own actions to his own government. If I sell something, I am responsible for my sales taxes. If I buy something, I am responsible for the use taxes. If this were passed, then I become responsible for collecting sales taxes owed to a government where I am not represented.
If I make a purchase from someone in another state and they are not subject to taxation by my state and the sale is still considered a taxable transaction by my state, it is called a use tax but must be paid by me. (This is often ignored, but NY, IL and CA are trying hard to make sure their citizens pay taxes on sales where the seller is not subject to their taxes.) I am represented in the government I pay the use tax to.
As a resident of IL*, when I purchase a delivery truck from someone in NH, I should pay IL the appropriate sales tax.
As a resident of NH, when I sell a delivery truck to someone in IL, why should I pay for the government of IL? I don't like the government of IL; I'm not represented by the government of IL; I choose not to live in IL. I certainly have no interest in collecting their taxes for them.
NH and AK don't seem to have many representatives suggesting that their citizens should have to collect taxes to pay to other states. My own (actual) state has a higher tax rate than IL but I don't think citizens of other states should help us collect our taxes. I'm not thrilled to pay my state's sales tax but I accept it without rancor. I far prefer it to paying my income taxes and can only imagine how much bile I would feel collecting taxes of IL, CA or NY where, as was said previously, they don't let me vote in their elections.
* (The parent referenced CA, but Dick Durbin is from IL and he is the one responsible for the bill, I choose NH as an example because NH does not have a sales or state income tax. AK is as good an example but is a bit distant geographically for the example.)
Where exactly is the line on this? If the students had made the statements verbally at a city park should they have been suspended after being ordered to repeat the conversation? If they'd emailed each other from home, should they have been ordered to show their emails by the principal?
What if they'd called the teacher "a very irritating person" on Facebook and the principal had ordered the child to log into her Facebook account. They probably wouldn't have been expelled or suspended, but wouldn't people have been up in arms over the invasion of the right to privacy?
On the other hand, if Sosa had "forgotten" her password at school and deleted the posts at home, would there have been any evidence of the libel? Should she have been suspended, if there was no evidence, for "forgetting" her password?
Did you realize that the protest was ended before the funeral started? Did you know that the father who took the issue to court didn't even realize that the protest had happened until he saw it on the news?
I don't think there is much room for arguing left when the Supreme Court decided it was an exercise of free speech in an eight to one decision. I think maybe you should read Alito's dissent though, he said very well what I think you're getting at.
Of course they could do this at George Bush's funeral or any celebrity funeral, haven't you heard of Cindy Sheehan? They protest near Bush's home now. I'm sure there will be protestors when he dies too, but if they respect the boundaries of the local police for distance and don't actually protest during the funeral I can't imagine it being prohibited.
From a summary of the case: "The members of Westboro picketed 1,000 feet away from the church where the funeral was held in accordance with law enforcement directives. The protest took place on public land."
Not much of anybody wants to defend the actions of Westboro, but many of us defend the rights. Freedom of speech is about the rights of people to do things that other people don't like, be it common citizens, the military, or the government.
Personally, I find their actions loathsome and despicable to an extreme. I sincerely hope that they do break the law and are held accountable when they do so. I am glad however, that even the worst of us have rights.
I did read the article, but I haven't read much more on the subject, still, I think there may be a misunderstanding here. If we're talking about open standards, we're not necessarily talking about training people to use different software, just different standards. You don't have to use Writer, just make sure that your people are saving their Word documents in ODT, XML, HTML or RTF. I know there is some argument over some forms of that and differing success rates, but when you move large numbers of people to an open standard, it makes the implementation tend to be better.
We have some of this in our own office, though without the government push, which I am grateful for even if it does make my job a little harder. We are currently allowing people to submit documentation only through the primary CMS system, but supporting files include HTML, XLS and PDF because it makes it easy to expect anybody in the future to be able to access them. It has been against the grain for some people but with the flood of emails being resent because they sent the first one with a DOCX attachment, the case has gotten easier with the passing of time. Nothing makes it easier to sell "use a format everyone can use" than Microsoft Word not being able to open something somebody else created with Microsoft Word.
I love my Linux distro's free software that I can use to do nearly anything, but I can sympathize with people who just want to keep doing the job they've been doing. It would simplify my life tremendously if Microsoft started offering an option to set the default file format to an open one, something that could come out of discussions like this.
doh! I was torn on whether to rate this as funny or not, but in the end, after admitting to myself that a snort did indeed escape, fresh and new or not, I admitted to myself that it was funny. Then I hit the wrong key. My apologies. But, worse, I hit troll and it certainly wasn't.
I don't know, but would like to think that someone with authority to determine if they did, does know. I question what expectation of privacy an unencrypted connection user has. However, if someone is using WEP, even though it is not reliable security, do they have a reasonable expectation of privacy, and a right to it?
I'm not trying to provoke an argument, I'm actually curious if Google decrypted WEP traffic. I wouldn't trust my own security to WEP, but I believe it creates a reasonable expectation of privacy. If Google did decrypt WEP traffic, shouldn't they have to defend their actions? If they don't disclose the information they gathered to anyone of greater authority, how can we know that they didn't?
As noted in my original post, I don't trust the likely authorities, but that doesn't mean that I trust Google either. I'm mostly confident that they didn't decrypt WPA, but I believe they could, and that would sincerely bother me even if I'm not in the group whose data is being discussed for this incident.
For any new or non-geeks:
Unencrypted - allows anyone to connect to a wireless connection without a password and potentially allows anyone to see what is being transmitted and received over the connection.
WEP - Wired Equivalency Privacy is an old way of encrypting wireless traffic, but it can be pretty easily decrypted.
WPA - Wi-Fi Protected Access has the same goal, it encrypts traffic, but it is newer and much harder to break. It comes in different versions, some being much harder than others to decrypt.
Google - One of the few companies that could spare the resources to decrypt significant amounts of WPA traffic without sweating.
There seems to be a misunderstanding. Since I'm not affected by this particular issue directly, I humbly submit that this was neither my fault, nor can I fix it. The broader issue however affects all of us, it is an issue of what should be private, what shouldn't have an expectation of privacy and what role the government should take in protecting privacy.
I can agree that it is my own responsibility to protect my own privacy, but I have trouble with the idea "Once you emit any electromagnetic radiation outside the bounds of your property, you have no expectation of privacy whatsoever." In particular, I have an expectation of privacy because my wi-fi is encrypted and I don't share the key. That security isn't good enough to prohibit someone with sufficient resources from decrypting it (WPA-TKIP) but it is a pretty high bar.
If Google did what I'd have expected them to, they just captured all the data that they could without bothering to filter it initially, then ran the analysis software later. At that point they probably realized they had captured personal emails, passwords, and potentially illegal or embarrassing traffic. In a just world, someone from the state would be shown the type of information gathered so that they could confirm that Google wasn't actively decrypting WEP, then Google would be instructed to document the erasing of the data.
In our world, I fear that a politician might see it as an opportunity to use the data to go after all those nefarious cyber-terrorists who download things with bittorrent and hang on to all the embarrassing or illegal bits that might be leveraged against their political rivals. When you're dealing with politicians who don't suggest encrypting your wireless connection, you're dealing with someone who isn't competent to understand the issue or someone who really doesn't want you to secure your data at all. Either way, I trust Google slightly more to do the ethical thing.
With my wi-fi using WPA-TKIP, I don't think it should be okay to decrypt my traffic even if you have the resources. I think it should probably be illegal, though I'm not clear on how that can be justly codified into law. Can you read your neighbor's monitor using sophisticated equipment? If you can, does that make it okay? I read an article about Van Eck phreaking some time back. It made me realize that taking every reasonable precaution that I could to protect my privacy isn't enough, there needs to be a legal protection at some level.
Government should be protecting privacy. It seemed reasonable for a state to want to know exactly how the privacy of its citizens was infringed on. I could see the other side, that knowing what was in the records wouldn't improve anyone's privacy and could actually harm them if their state government representatives turned out not to have the most pristine of ethics.
That "turn off your wireless network when you know you won't use it" comment sent me clear over to Google's side. The last thing I want is someone who believes that's the appropriate response to be poking through people's personals.
The article is not about ClamWin but it is a related product. It is mentioned in the summary, but I have some experience with it and can at least tentatively recommend it. ClamWin uses ClamAV resources but was designed to run on Windows and is somewhat mature. It can work with centralized updates, email notices upon virus detection and runs on any likely version of Windows. It has a plug-in for Outlook and is integrated into Explorer, though I'm not sure it does on-access scanning. (It didn't in the past, but it might now.) We most appreciate it on servers where we have little exposure to viruses but need something that can report if a potential virus is found. MS Security Essentials isn't for servers, so ClamWin comes in handy where we don't want to spend the money for other AV products. The reporting feature is handy for these machines because many of them don't have someone logging into them through the GUI more than once a month. Be wary of the option to remove viruses from the system rather than just from memory though, in the past it had a pretty high false positive rate. (They seem to have fixed that now, your mileage may vary.)
Bravo. (long pause) Bravo.
Fog, that is brilliant, maybe even tragically insightful. Thank you, I shall use that.
Problem In Chair Not In Computer - an acronym I prefer, it sounds like something people would already know so you can put it in places where it might be read by other techs or supervisors without too much worry that it will come back to haunt you.
The industrial revolution changed the amount of expertise an individual needed to produce a complex and reliable product to make end products generally less expensive and more reliable. It did so by moving specialization into ever smaller areas. The average user is tremendously unprepared to be an expert in every service they need their computer to provide. By pushing more and more of those services into the "cloud" the need for expertise by the end user is decreased. There are trade offs to be sure, but in the end most people are happy to relinquish control in favor of ease of use and reliability.
There has been a lot of speculation about what Apple is planning to do with its massive data centers and capital, so here's my guess:
People will still click dancing bunnies but the problems created by PICNIC errors will decrease as users are protected from themselves. The hearty few who still run local software will be the elite and the truly dangerous. The elite few will make wise system management decisions and the truly dangerous will reboot to a trusted system every couple months.
Yes, I keep putting quotes around "cloud" because I don't think the term is solid yet and I think most of the time it is marketing jargon for "somebody else's problem."
computer virus* - viruses, trojans, malware, worms etc
I'm not saying that this is a good path for the IT industry, computer users or society as a whole. I am saying that something along these lines is likely inevitable. iPods, smart phones, tablet computers and e-readers are all steps in this direction and I foresee the trend continuing and even accelerating. Azure, Chrome OS and Ubuntu One are already making headway into moving services to the cloud, really it is hard to imagine cloud services becoming less common.
Did you read the article you posted to? It points out that the numbers are wrong and wrongly used and then points out why the comparison to the US wouldn't make sense anyway.
I could see linking to the email as support of the idea of gun control. I could see to linking to a rebuttal of the email as support of gun ownership. I fail to understand the point of linking to an email analysis where it is pointed out as having no reliability.
I've read quite a few good articles on both sides of the argument over gun control vs. ownership rights. Try these instead:
If you really wanted a link using the numbers snopes points out as unreliable, you should have used: http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0210e.asp
Personally, my opinion is that freedom is more important than safety. Whatever the statistics, whatever the arguments are about crime rates, murder and preventative defense, I believe that an individual has a right to any reasonable self defense they choose. Freedom absolutely does cost lives, but I believe that even as tragic as they can be, preventing them by restricting legitimate freedoms is worse.
I was looking for a place to put this, just to make sure somebody records it as "prior art". Every vehicle and potentially non-vehicle items, should be capable of transmitting fail-safe video uploads to a public server. That server should receive video which is made public at any instance where, after a pre-set time, if a password is not entered, the site will automatically make it public.
As an example, many if not most cars would have at least four cameras which constantly record audio and video which are constantly uploaded to a internet server. That video remains private so long as a password is entered at an appropriate time, but becomes public if it is not. Non-public video is available with the password for download for a specific period of time then deleted by the host. If you forget your password, or deliberately pick an invisible password, your video becomes public without any interaction on your part. Every dangerous driving episode you witness is potentially evidence against the perpetrator, but so is every interaction you have with anybody, police included.
Here's how I imagine a hypothetical routine traffic stop proceeding in one of two ways, Scenario One:
...(time passes)
...(time passes) ... and as shown by Ever Vigilant surveillance recordings presented by a stopped speeder, courtesy beco
Officer: License and registration please.
Driver: Here you are officer, and though it may be legal not to, as a courtesy, I would like to draw your attention to the "Ever Vigilant" stickers on my car. These stickers indicate the cameras which record all activity in the vicinity of my car. My interactions with law enforcement have always been good, and I expect this record to show the same.
Officer: This is not a public record and I'm giving you a lawful order to desist recording now.
Driver: I do not have the ability to cease recording and the legal rights to do so are defended by the "Ever Vigilant" corporation, but I will gladly comply with any lawful requests that I can. As you can see, I'm reading from the script provided on the sticker on my dashboard.
Officer: Thank you for making the situation clear. I am now ordering you to leave your vehicle and accompany me to my patrol car.
Driver: As advised by "Ever Vigilant" I will do so but must ask, is there a reason you cannot continue providing the public service you provide within the scope of the recording devices provided by "Ever Vigilant" equipment?
Officer: Leave your vehicle now.
Jury: We find the officer guilty of the following offenses...
Scenario two:
Officer: License and registration please.
Driver: Here you are officer, and though it may be legal not to, as a courtesy, I would like to draw your attention to the "Ever Vigilant" stickers on my car. These stickers indicate the cameras which record all activity in the vicinity of my car. My interactions with law enforcement have always been good, and I expect this record to show the same.
Officer: Thank you for saying so, but officers of Dallas County are trained to notice such things, and of course consent even if not legally required to recordings. Thank you for your license and registration, do you know why I pulled you over today?
Driver: You're welcome, but I don't know why you pulled me over.
Officer: Our radar equipment recorded you exceeding the speed limit, is there an emergency which would require you to exceed the speed limit today?
Driver: I wasn't aware that I was breaking any laws, but I hope that the "Ever Vigilant" software will show that I was following a reasonable application of the law. (You may note that I'm reading a sticker on my dashboad as recommended by "Ever Vigliant.")
Officer: I see that, please wait in your car.
(non-contest plea, video public, and don't laugh, I personally appreciate obvious courtesy and training even if guilty of an offense)
Commanding officer:
...we would call that person a moron, and we would probably hope that their family walked out on them.
Still, that's basically what you're suggesting.
First please note, I'm not suggesting that. I'm contrasting the incentives of a dramatically shortened term to a very long one.
For the hypothetical, I would agree that lottery tickets would make a horrible investment. If you have the talent though, being the creator of the software to create a holodeck might be a good one. If you can show you have the talent for it, you can probably find investors. (I would really, really like a holodeck.)
You make an excellent point with ownership problems. We have that problem now and I don't see a way to resolve it short of changing the law to require copyright to be registered. I think it should have to be registered, but that's not the way it works now.
I think we agree that a copyright term extending to the grandchildren is too long, but I don't think it can be discounted as an incentive, which was the point I was making. The inventor of the holodeck might be influenced, and unless you are that inventor, you can't promise otherwise. I think that it would be foolish to say that nobody would be interested in passing copyright to their grandchildren, even if you or I might disapprove.
Thanks for the link, I'd love to use the term GOLEMs if I thought people would recognize the term. I think I understand Stallman's point, but I think that he actually might not disagree with mine, since the examples he cites are legally different, but would all fall in the definition I provided for copyright. (Are you there Stallman? It's me, ancientt.) Of course, my proposed definition isn't how copyright is defined now, nor how patents or trademarks are defined. Suggesting those things shouldn't be as they are legally now is kind of the point of suggesting I would do it that way if I were making the laws.
I really hate to seem to come down on this side of the issue, but you seem interested in reason and I think you might reconsider your stance if provided a logical alternative:
Copyright is about encouraging creation of valuable work. As the value of a work increases, so do associated incentives. If copyright can only protect your work from free copies for a year, many of your potential customers will wait until they can get a free or cheap copy and your financial incentive is limited to match what you can reasonably hope to sell in the first year. This may still be an attractive arrangement if you're talking about an investment of ten hours of programming, but even if you have the talent and expertise to build a holodeck with five years of work, you'll make more money doing less valuable projects.
In the other direction, if copyright of your work extends to three generations, and you have the opportunity and talent, you can invest twenty years of your life in the holodeck project with the incentive of being able to provide financially not only for your self, but also for your grandchildren. Your incentive is tremendously increased to work on the more valuable project.
I recognize that most of the work I do has little value, even the creative work, beyond ten years and increasing the copyright term beyond it would not give me personal incentive to work harder or invest more time. I also recognize that there may be things created that I would benefit from if the incentives are strong enough to innovate and create, which would benefit me if produced by others with greater vision, talent or opportunity.
Why should you benefit from work you did ten years ago when I don't? If you wouldn't create something that I hold valuable otherwise, then you should benefit from it so that I can in turn benefit from work you would otherwise not have done.
There is a trade off between the value to society of incentive and the cost to society of artificial scarcity. I believe that our copyright laws fail to strike a balance that is most beneficial to society, and I think we would agree that copyright terms as they stand now are too restrictive. I would propose that copyright should be limited to the substantial reproduction of a creative work and that the initial term should be for five years with automatic extensions up to twenty years granted if a copyright holder makes the request while the term is still in effect. Any term beyond twenty years should have to be supported by an elected governing body on a case by case basis and extensions by that body limited to twice the age of the oldest member. If I'm getting to make the laws, then I'd propose the consolidation of patents, trademarks, copyright and any similar intellectual innovation to a single bill.
When I take the kids to a movie lately it is invariably in 3D which makes me feel queasy. I've taken a left lens from one pair and reversed it to replace the right lens in another pair. Wearing those, I get 2D. It takes a little time up front, but has made the movies viewable.
Well said sir.
You also bring up a good reason to avoid criticizing someone's writing. As soon as I criticize, I find my own indelible errors glaring back at me.