This isn't an issue of privilege, it's an issue of privacy laws. The university is required *BY LAW* to keep your information secret under state privacy laws. They cannot divulge stuff like
Your SIN
Your Student #
Your DOB
Your class schedule
Your phone #
Your address
.Now along comes the RIAA saying "Please give us this private info on one (or two) of your students, because we think they've done bad things." What's the University to do? According to justice Eliason, not a damn thing!
This is how it's *supposed* to work in our society:
The RIAA or one of its members suspects someone has infringed on their IP
They contact law enforcement personnel and inform them that a crime has taken place
The state-recognized enforcement officers investigate
They present their findings to a judge, who issues a warrant to collect private information on the suspects
The warrant is presented to the University in question
The University complies with the warrant and provides all your...errr...their info
The D.A. decides whether or not to file charges against you...errr...them
The RIAA have short-circuited this due process through their lobbying efforts, and now the judiciary appears to be saying "Wait a minute!"
it boggles me that tech savvy Slashdot users have so much problems as often described here.
The key there is that you indicate that tech savvy Slashdot users are having a problem keeping XP trouble-free. The problem isn't the techies keeping XP trouble-free, it's the non-techies monopolizing our time because THEY can't keep XP trouble-free. Plus, throw in a few trojans/malware/zombies, and all of a sudden your pristine XP box is being bombarded by your neighbours. Sure, your firewall is preventing them from corrupting you, but your pipe is still being cluttered by them. And your apache webserver is still feeding up 404s to the code red & nimda worms still going strong out there.
Why do we care? Because we're good neighbours. We also have a vested interest in seeing these alternative technologies flourish. Personally, I'm also tired of hearing my non-techie peers resolutely accepting of the concept of needing to reboot daily to keep their systems healthy. When they hear that I have a multi-user system that hasn't been rebooted in over a year and hasn't slowed down an iota, they're a little skeptical, at first. Then I show them the uptime report... I can't do _THAT_ on even the cleanest XP box out there.
Actually, there is a difference in the interpretation of the meaning of "copyright" between GPL authors and RIAA. By definition, the term copyright means to provide the rights to copy a creative work.
The RIAA interprets this as they have exclusive ownership and said works and will restrict access to those works except to terms under which they are satisfied. The GPL authors interpret this to be the terms under which users may copy and distribute their work (as originally intended by the establishment of copyright). The biggest distinguishment is the resulting distribution of the work. GPL enforcement == larger dissemination of creative works, RIAA enforcement == more restricted dissemination.
The point of copyright is not to lock a work in a vault that everyone must pay to open. The point of copyright is to promote distribution of works in a way that is both fair to the author and to the general public. Ironically, the original application of copyright was to prevent corporate masters from abusing content producers by hording all the profits and unfairly restricting access to works. My, how far we've come in a few hundred years!
OK, but he himself is still not distributing copyrighted material. As you said yourself, his source may be distributing copyrighted content without permission. So shouldn't they be going after his source, rather than him?
Oh I'm sorry. They said that they didn't break the law. That's good enough for me.
Oh wait a minute, I don't remember seeing the RIAA listed as a corporate sponsor, association or affiliate. And last time I checked, the University of RIAA hadn't opened their doors yet.
My "evidence" is that they gained access to the network in the first place. There's a latin term used in law circles that describes the situation where the mere fact of the event is evidence of wrongdoing, but I forget what it is. Maybe a lawyer in the crowd can help me out.
They (the RIAA) gained access to a network to which they did not have membership. Nobody knows how they did it because they're not saying. But when an entity or individual gains access to a private network to which they are not a member and do not have permission to use, I will assume that said access was illicit until proven otherwise. Call me weird.
When you come home tomorrow and find your neighbour sitting on your couch, watching your TV and wearing your slippers, you can hold your conclusions as to how he got there.
The RIAA is an industry group, of which Warner Bros is a member. If I am a Shriner, and I am a member at a gym, that does not make every Shriner a member at the gym.
Except that he's not distributing copyrighted material. He's time shifting publicly broadcasted material, which is a right explicitly granted under copyright.
No, they (the RIAA) were most definitely NOT in the right. What they (the RIAA) did was gain illicit access to a network that they (the RIAA) were not authorized to use in order to monitor for activity that they (the RIAA) believed to be infringing on copyright.
The fact that they (the students) were allegedly infringing does not condone what they (the RIAA) did. Two wrongs do not a right make.
That would amount to just under 4.5 years (based on 10M spam/day for 2 weeks). I think that since it takes about 2 seconds to DEL the spam, he should be sentenced to those 2 secs for actual damages + 1 sec punitive = 3 seconds per spam, or roughly 13 yrs. All in favour?
Only failed confidence votes bring down the government (e.g. the budget). Free votes fail all the time, it just means that the piece of legislation dies.
I really do think that it is reasonable for the government to perform random ID checks on public highways. I guess I didn't realize how extreme this position was compared to Slashdot mainstream.
I don't mind if it's just random checks against plates to search for things like outstanding warrants or stolen vehicles. Indeed, that's part of their jobs. Hypocritically, I even support checkstops for DUIs, because I honestly believe that drinking & driving is a threat to our society. I guess it boils down to a cost/benefit analysis, where the costs are in terms of loss of privacy and the benefits are in terms of that intangible known as "good to society".
But I am deeply bothered when cops begin pulling people over and interrogating them for no reason. When I have to JUSTIFY my presence to a peace officer, it goes beyond simply identifying myself. I also believe it is beyond any measure of "reasonable" in our society. That whole "only the guilty have something to hide" argument just doesn't hold a lot of weight with me.
It really does have nothing to do with accountability. The law states that I have the right to enjoy public roads unmolested so long as I abide by the law. For some reason now, the rules have changed.
It seems to me, that people tend to read all kinds of slogans and ideologies into the words they are reading, and then respond half-cocked without thinking.
HOW DARE YOU MAKE SUCH BROAD GENERALIZATIONS! You obviously be some kind of pot-smoking, gun-toting, kitten killing, Bible-thumping, ne'er-do-well with a God complex! Why if I had half a mind I'd...oh wait...I get it:)
From the northern side of the border, I've always found it to be the reverse. For some reason Canadian customs always gave me a tougher time on my way back than US customs did on my way in. Must be that whole money drain thing...
Whatever happened to the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure? If I'm abiding by the law and exhibiting no suspicious behaviour, it's arguable that stopping me just to take a look-see at my ID is unreasonable.
You're absolutely right! There's absolutely nothing wrong with treating your two largest customers like common criminals. After all, if the RIAA can do it, why not the government, too?
Typically this only happens when you lease long-term capital items (like a building) that last > 30 years. Computers would rarely fall under this category. GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) rules also vary based on your jurisdiction. Plus remember folks, IANAA.
I will (grudgingly) concede the point, but my counter point is that these are all examples of things you can't say in most countries. Uttering death threats, at a personal level or aimed towards a group, is typically illegal, regardless of what country you are in. The PP was suggesting that there are things that can't be said in Canada that can be said in other countries. I would argue that the restrictions on speech in Canada are in line with other democratic nations, with the whole "you can't yell 'Fire!' in a crowded theatre" argument not withstanding.
It's a constantly moving target (no pun intended). As soon as BMD systems start knocking down missiles, missile developers start developing missiles that defeat BMD systems. Repeat ad neauseum.
Please provide an example of "things you can't say there now." There's a big difference between not being able to say something a la Orwell, and not being able to globally publish details on a criminal matter that has not yet been heard in court for fear of tainting a jury pool.
This case is being covered on TV extensively, especially in Quebec where the pending criminal trials will be held. The only reason for the publication ban was one of timing. Justice Gomery did not want to delay the inquiry until after the criminal trial, and yet had to take into account that if millions of potential jurors were watching the details unfold live, the ability to find unbiased jurors will be severely impacted.
Contrary to popular belief here, the publication ban has not failed. It was never intended to prevent details from getting into the wild, it was designed to prevent a tainted jury pool. I would argue that despite the content being available on the net, the tainting of the potential jury pool is still relatively contained. The test has to be how many potential jurors have seen the facts, not how many slashdotters have.
I remember when one of my friends (who lives 1000 kms away) was complaining to me about all the MSN Messenger spam she was getting and about how slow her pc was becoming. I had her instsall VNC & started tinkering remotely to see what I could see. I was amazed.
She had a direct cable connection with no firewall. She didn't even know what a firewall was.
She had IIS running on her box for no reason.
She had SMTP server running for no reason (at least it wasn't an open relay)
She hadn't run Windows Update in over a year.
She had no A/V software running.
It took about an hour of remote work to set her up in a far more secure way, another few hours to scan & clean all the spyware from her box and she hasn't had a problem since.
I figured it was my good deed of the month and banked the karma, but it goes to show how little the non-IT world cares about security. All they want is:
for the system to work,
for the system to protect them,
to stay up to date, and
to not have to know anything about it.
I could have thrown on 5. Profit! for me, but I didn't want to take advantage of a very close friend who has been there for me for the past 20+ yrs.
Slashdot Mirror
- Your SIN
- Your Student #
- Your DOB
- Your class schedule
- Your phone #
- Your address
.Now along comes the RIAA saying "Please give us this private info on one (or two) of your students, because we think they've done bad things." What's the University to do? According to justice Eliason, not a damn thing!This is how it's *supposed* to work in our society:
- The RIAA or one of its members suspects someone has infringed on their IP
- They contact law enforcement personnel and inform them that a crime has taken place
- The state-recognized enforcement officers investigate
- They present their findings to a judge, who issues a warrant to collect private information on the suspects
- The warrant is presented to the University in question
- The University complies with the warrant and provides all your...errr...their info
- The D.A. decides whether or not to file charges against you...errr...them
The RIAA have short-circuited this due process through their lobbying efforts, and now the judiciary appears to be saying "Wait a minute!"At least, that's my take on it.
The key there is that you indicate that tech savvy Slashdot users are having a problem keeping XP trouble-free. The problem isn't the techies keeping XP trouble-free, it's the non-techies monopolizing our time because THEY can't keep XP trouble-free. Plus, throw in a few trojans/malware/zombies, and all of a sudden your pristine XP box is being bombarded by your neighbours. Sure, your firewall is preventing them from corrupting you, but your pipe is still being cluttered by them. And your apache webserver is still feeding up 404s to the code red & nimda worms still going strong out there.
Why do we care? Because we're good neighbours. We also have a vested interest in seeing these alternative technologies flourish. Personally, I'm also tired of hearing my non-techie peers resolutely accepting of the concept of needing to reboot daily to keep their systems healthy. When they hear that I have a multi-user system that hasn't been rebooted in over a year and hasn't slowed down an iota, they're a little skeptical, at first. Then I show them the uptime report... I can't do _THAT_ on even the cleanest XP box out there.
I think he meant to refer to the eBook claims, not PDF. Google sklyralov for more background.
What's a tape deck?
The RIAA interprets this as they have exclusive ownership and said works and will restrict access to those works except to terms under which they are satisfied. The GPL authors interpret this to be the terms under which users may copy and distribute their work (as originally intended by the establishment of copyright). The biggest distinguishment is the resulting distribution of the work. GPL enforcement == larger dissemination of creative works, RIAA enforcement == more restricted dissemination.
The point of copyright is not to lock a work in a vault that everyone must pay to open. The point of copyright is to promote distribution of works in a way that is both fair to the author and to the general public. Ironically, the original application of copyright was to prevent corporate masters from abusing content producers by hording all the profits and unfairly restricting access to works. My, how far we've come in a few hundred years!
OK, but he himself is still not distributing copyrighted material. As you said yourself, his source may be distributing copyrighted content without permission. So shouldn't they be going after his source, rather than him?
Oh wait a minute, I don't remember seeing the RIAA listed as a corporate sponsor, association or affiliate. And last time I checked, the University of RIAA hadn't opened their doors yet.
My "evidence" is that they gained access to the network in the first place. There's a latin term used in law circles that describes the situation where the mere fact of the event is evidence of wrongdoing, but I forget what it is. Maybe a lawyer in the crowd can help me out.
They (the RIAA) gained access to a network to which they did not have membership. Nobody knows how they did it because they're not saying. But when an entity or individual gains access to a private network to which they are not a member and do not have permission to use, I will assume that said access was illicit until proven otherwise. Call me weird.
When you come home tomorrow and find your neighbour sitting on your couch, watching your TV and wearing your slippers, you can hold your conclusions as to how he got there.
The RIAA is an industry group, of which Warner Bros is a member. If I am a Shriner, and I am a member at a gym, that does not make every Shriner a member at the gym.
Except that he's not distributing copyrighted material. He's time shifting publicly broadcasted material, which is a right explicitly granted under copyright.
The fact that they (the students) were allegedly infringing does not condone what they (the RIAA) did. Two wrongs do not a right make.
That's why I'm changing my name to John Smith. Google THAT, Baby!
That would amount to just under 4.5 years (based on 10M spam/day for 2 weeks). I think that since it takes about 2 seconds to DEL the spam, he should be sentenced to those 2 secs for actual damages + 1 sec punitive = 3 seconds per spam, or roughly 13 yrs. All in favour?
Only failed confidence votes bring down the government (e.g. the budget). Free votes fail all the time, it just means that the piece of legislation dies.
I don't mind if it's just random checks against plates to search for things like outstanding warrants or stolen vehicles. Indeed, that's part of their jobs. Hypocritically, I even support checkstops for DUIs, because I honestly believe that drinking & driving is a threat to our society. I guess it boils down to a cost/benefit analysis, where the costs are in terms of loss of privacy and the benefits are in terms of that intangible known as "good to society".
But I am deeply bothered when cops begin pulling people over and interrogating them for no reason. When I have to JUSTIFY my presence to a peace officer, it goes beyond simply identifying myself. I also believe it is beyond any measure of "reasonable" in our society. That whole "only the guilty have something to hide" argument just doesn't hold a lot of weight with me.
It really does have nothing to do with accountability. The law states that I have the right to enjoy public roads unmolested so long as I abide by the law. For some reason now, the rules have changed.
HOW DARE YOU MAKE SUCH BROAD GENERALIZATIONS! You obviously be some kind of pot-smoking, gun-toting, kitten killing, Bible-thumping, ne'er-do-well with a God complex! Why if I had half a mind I'd...oh wait...I get it :)
One word: caching.
From the northern side of the border, I've always found it to be the reverse. For some reason Canadian customs always gave me a tougher time on my way back than US customs did on my way in. Must be that whole money drain thing...
Whatever happened to the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure? If I'm abiding by the law and exhibiting no suspicious behaviour, it's arguable that stopping me just to take a look-see at my ID is unreasonable.
Supporting stats: http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/top/dst/2004/1 2/balance.html
Typically this only happens when you lease long-term capital items (like a building) that last > 30 years. Computers would rarely fall under this category. GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) rules also vary based on your jurisdiction. Plus remember folks, IANAA.
I will (grudgingly) concede the point, but my counter point is that these are all examples of things you can't say in most countries. Uttering death threats, at a personal level or aimed towards a group, is typically illegal, regardless of what country you are in. The PP was suggesting that there are things that can't be said in Canada that can be said in other countries. I would argue that the restrictions on speech in Canada are in line with other democratic nations, with the whole "you can't yell 'Fire!' in a crowded theatre" argument not withstanding.
It's a constantly moving target (no pun intended). As soon as BMD systems start knocking down missiles, missile developers start developing missiles that defeat BMD systems. Repeat ad neauseum.
This case is being covered on TV extensively, especially in Quebec where the pending criminal trials will be held. The only reason for the publication ban was one of timing. Justice Gomery did not want to delay the inquiry until after the criminal trial, and yet had to take into account that if millions of potential jurors were watching the details unfold live, the ability to find unbiased jurors will be severely impacted.
Contrary to popular belief here, the publication ban has not failed. It was never intended to prevent details from getting into the wild, it was designed to prevent a tainted jury pool. I would argue that despite the content being available on the net, the tainting of the potential jury pool is still relatively contained. The test has to be how many potential jurors have seen the facts, not how many slashdotters have.
I remember when one of my friends (who lives 1000 kms away) was complaining to me about all the MSN Messenger spam she was getting and about how slow her pc was becoming. I had her instsall VNC & started tinkering remotely to see what I could see. I was amazed.
It took about an hour of remote work to set her up in a far more secure way, another few hours to scan & clean all the spyware from her box and she hasn't had a problem since.
I figured it was my good deed of the month and banked the karma, but it goes to show how little the non-IT world cares about security. All they want is:
I could have thrown on 5. Profit! for me, but I didn't want to take advantage of a very close friend who has been there for me for the past 20+ yrs.