Well, aside from having no sense of humor, you don't really seem to have any sense. I wouldn't have made the comment if I hadn't read the innumerable screeds written by people like yourself on this very topic.
I am one of those people with no sense, clearly. But let me put it this way -- the "hot cofee" lawsuit was not based on any dubious laws (such as DMCA). The *judge* decided that McDonalds was negligent and has to pay. And all things being equal a judge is a guy who makes a living doing exactly that: judging. Thus regardless of how compentent he is, he is more competent than you or me.
Oh, yeah, and if you were to start a lawsuit that knifes are sharp or heights are high or that your mood is bad, it would get tossed out... don't believe me? try it.
... the family used to use SMS for text conversations all the time, my sisters and parents
still do. It seems to be a cheap effective way to communicate.
I take it you're not being charged 10c per message? Not to mention that it seems some carriers in US charge on arriving messages as well! I used email/messages *very* infrequently and I am not charged on arriving messages but still there is that couple extra dollars on my monthly statement...
1. The amount of theft greatly outweighs the amount of legitimate copying. Don't believe me? How many people do you know that download illegal mp3's or warez off the Internet. And don't lie to yourself about it, either, be honest -- practically everybody.
Some people download mp3 that they own on CDs, but I would agree with you. more than half downloads are illegal. Yet we are not going by majority in all cases. If you were to jail 100 people and guarantee that at least 70 of them clearly deserve it, that would be wrong, right?
2. OK, so if the 7-Eleven is selling soda, and you take the soda without paying for it, you are depriving 7-Eleven of POTENTIAL profits, but not ACTUAL profits. What is your point?
No, no no. That would be a wrong example. If I had the option of copying the soda (leaving the original can to stand in 7-Eleven) would that be the same theft? In your example I am depriving the 7-Eleven of the money they PAID for the soda and for building rent and soda transportation. But when I download someone's mp3, the mp3 owner did not pay for the copy of mp3 nor for the bandwidth I used...
And, legislation should ABSOLUTELY be dictated by morality
I don't think so. Stealing might be wrong morally, but that is not why it's illegal. As I've said there are plenty of immoral things that are illegal (and vice-versa). Adultery is very immoral. Yet I doubt we want to make this a criminal offence, right?
By copying the contents of the CD which you did not pay for, you are depriving the rightful owner of the due payment
I am not supporting copyright violation. But your argument is nevertheless flawed. There are two problems:
1. DRM rarely concerns itself too much with allowing you to conviniently copy a CD for which you DID PAY for. That is the foremost problem of people opposing it
2. You only deprive the owner of due payment if you WOULD HAVE bought the CD, if it were unavailable to download. POTENTIAL profits and damages are by no means the same as ACTUAL profits and damages.
And, no matter how you look at it, it's immoral.
That is besides the point. Plenty of things are immoral yet legal. The legislation should not attempt to control morality.
Please mod the parent up. As paranoid as it sounds, the point is interesting. The agreement was made with RIAA only, but effectively will apply to ALL other parties (such as MPAA)...
weird...
Ok, this was mis-phrased, I admit it. Multinational companies.
Your analogy is somewhat flawed, however. EU sued Microsoft for monopolistic practices *in Europe*. Not in US. I would be surprised in EU were to sue MS for monopolistic practices in US...
I am not anti-American, but I think US is the only country that tends to think its jurisdiction reaches anywhere in the world (Name Sklyarov comes to mind)
Umm, isn't this the basis of the legal system (as seen from big corporations)? Nothing new here, move along.
Yes and No. The strategy isn't new, bullying is the norm. However, when they do it in US, they actually do have jurisdiction to sue (and perhaps win, even the person threatened has enough resources to fight). In this case they should have NO jurisdiction whatsoever... it is a different country...
I am confused. This was a pretty convoluted post. You mind telling me where exactly have I suggested that "sales tax is trivial"? I am pretty sure that I have said the just the opposite.
Some ISPs advocated warning or disconnecting users, while others were seeking legal advice to confirm their view that US companies had no jurisdiction in Australian law.
Did any one catch that? First of all, it is unfortunate that they are considering to abide... but that is not the scary part. The scary part is that Australian ISPs are seeking legal advice to check whether US companies have any jurisdiction in Australia!!!!!. Naturally, there are few lawyers here, but isn't it obvious that regardless of how big or scary a company is, it has no jurisdiction outside of US. Nothing in US has jurisdiction outside of US (besides the army maybe...)
Look, nobody doubts that tax filing in multiple states wouldn't be a bit of a cluster fuck for Mr. Joe Luser selling crap on Ebay. I can't fill mine out right either
Actually, all I had to do was to work in two states and be a resident of the third:)
But the majority of businesses are likely big enough and sophisticated enough (wire transfers for the payments, electronic filing for the forms) that they and the professional money people they hire can handle it.
Well, I've seen some mentions of each city/countly potentially having different rules.
And most importantly, busnesses that are big enough (BestBuy, Staples, etc.) already tax everybody due to their "presence" in all US states. But do you really want another advantage given to large chains over small shops? That's how evil corporations are formed.
I understand that they have a new device that all the kids are talking about called a "com-pu-ter" that is pretty amazing at keeping track of stuff like this. You match up something like the state's abbreviation and it returns the percentage sales tax. I guess it's pretty useful.
Ah... so many trolls, so little time...
I suspect that there is also some sort of filing (exemptions and what not) similar to tax return filing. And having had the pleasure of filing tax return in three states simultaneously (a very simple tax return, mind you) I can tell you -- it ain't pretty...
I'm sure you are already aware of this, but I feel the need to remind you:
There are more than 50 states on planet Earth.
Are you trolling? I was refering to US states. I am pretty sure there are 50 (just passed the citizenship test:).
Taxing other countries is beyond impossible. At any rate, I was under the impression that customs tax exists at the border, so anything that comes from abroad is somehow taxed already.
Uh, so what. Why shouldn't we be charged sales tax on internet purchases?
We probably should be. The taxes are not charged not because someone feels that you should be exempt from taxes, but rather because it is extremely difficult (i.e. impossible) to figure out the taxes. It is unreasonable to require each retaler to file and keep track of all 50 states rules/laws/tax amounts.
Some users will trust the wrong programs, its inevitable. On the other hand, I think a lot of people wouldn't. To them, it would actually be useful.
Do you really feel that there exists a group of people who are can chose which programs to trust and suffer only because they are not deciding who to trust? I don't understand how any BIOS support is different from simply signing the code... I thought only issues are that there are bugs in software or that people click yes without thinking.
What we don't have today is a "Run in sandbox" option.
We have all seen the "run in sandbox" option. It is called Java... I guess java applets to not present a serious threat to security, but they are so crippled as a result...
No more viruses for grandma. Then when sites are verified, no more (or a lot less) porn for children.
If you are talking about setting up a local certification server, that actually sounds like a cool idea;). But you gotta be kidding about website verification... Website whitelisting is doomed. You would have to precertify each website your grandma wants to see?
I actually like the concept of trusted computing quite a bit.
You clearly don't understand the use of word "trusted" here. read this. If you want to make it short, start from question #24.
So long as the user selects which code will be trusted, it has great potential for good.
We already have code signing and confirmation before installs. The problem is that users trust the WRONG programs. Either this will increase the number of "are you sure you want this" (not removing the problem of people making mistakes). Or, more likely, the selection of which code to trust will be relegated to BIOS/MS/etc... that would also be bad...
Will the BIOS code contain some sort of monitoring code?
Only to catch terrorists...
Will the BIOS contain spyware?
Never! It will contain some select offers from our partners and collect some information to customize and improve your booting experience
Can we really take the word of a conglomerate? Will you be able to ensure that what you are saying is accurate?
No.
Our EULA will take care of that.
Modern conglomerates usually misrepresent their products if they think it will generate more customers. How can we be sure that you wouldn't be doing this to us?
As the courts become less and less of a threat for a corporation (and already a 0-threat to a corporation from an individual). There is NO way to be sure. Unless all the non-entry level employees in the company will be made to sign all these statements...
I might be misunderstanding the issue, but... isn't this lock-out the purpose of TCPA?
Let me rephrase my question: provided that TCPA does not discriminate against any services, and does not distinguish between those that own some paid licences and those that don't... what ELSE can it be used for?
Can you assure us that linux, bsd, and all other "alternative" operating systems will be treated as _equals_ of microsoft products? Can you assure us that there will be no preferential treatment for any os, and that there won't be any "are you really sure?" messages?
I think you're asking the wrong questions. I am just paranoid of course, but there *will be* preferential treatment. There *will be* "are you really sure?" messages. There is no doubt in my mind (and that is why this technology should never see the light of the day)
It is a question of how many (1 or 20) "are you sure messages" you will see and whether you will ultimately be able to run your OS at all...
Isn't this the exact opposite of "trust"
as that word is normally used -
YES!
And here is the explanation that must be quoted again and again until we all know it (quoted from
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html)
24. So why is this called `Trusted Computing'? I don't see why I should trust it at all!
It's almost an in-joke. In the US Department of Defense, a `trusted system or component' is defined as `one which can break the security policy'. This might seem counter-intuitive at first, but just stop to think about it. The mail guard or firewall that stands between a Secret and a Top Secret system can - if it fails - break the security policy that mail should only ever flow from Secret to Top Secret, but never in the other direction. It is therefore trusted to enforce the information flow policy.
Or take a civilian example: suppose you trust your doctor to keep your medical records private. This means that he has access to your records, so he could leak them to the press if he were careless or malicious. You don't trust me to keep your medical records, because I don't have them; regardless of whether I like you or hate you, I can't do anything to affect your policy that your medical records should be confidential. Your doctor can, though; and the fact that he is in a position to harm you is really what is meant (at a system level) when you say that you trust him. You may have a warm feeling about him, or you may just have to trust him because he is the only doctor on the island where you live; no matter, the DoD definition strips away these fuzzy, emotional aspects of `trust' (that can confuse people).
Remember during the late 1990s, as people debated government control over cryptography, Al Gore proposed a `Trusted Third Party' - a service that would keep a copy of your decryption key safe, just in case you (or the FBI, or the NSA) ever needed it. The name was derided as the sort of marketing exercise that saw the Russian colony of East Germany called a `Democratic Republic'. But it really does chime with DoD thinking. A Trusted Third Party is a third party that can break your security policy.
25. So a `Trusted Computer' is one that can break my security?
It's been tested twice. The case against 2600, where it won, and the case against Elcomsoft, where it failed.
Why is it that even on slashdot, only few people bother to READ THINGS? I will repeat this until at least most of readers here will know what is going on... afterwards we can go on educating the remaining world
DMCA has NOT FAILED to win against Elcomsoft. DMCA has won, Elcomsoft's product is pulled off the market, Dmitryi will now ask his lawyer before programming anything. Elcomsoft was ACQUITTED since they did NOT INTEND to break DMCA.
Yeah think mice. And while you're at it, think buying another computer (or a cable if you're lucky). Notice the disclaimer that starts in red "Please Note", about buying extra hardware with MS products on the link...
Magnetic ram, due to appear in '06 or so, will be nonvolatile and at least as fast as dram.
The thing is, I doubt anyone needs non-volatile memory that much:) I reboot to fix things more often than to change the OS (more so in Windows, but in Linux as well).
How giving metamoderation privileges to latecomers?:) at least the ones with non-negative carma??
It seems that it is going to be a long while till I am eligible... it's been more than a few months since I opened my account.
Slashdot Mirror
I am one of those people with no sense, clearly. But let me put it this way -- the "hot cofee" lawsuit was not based on any dubious laws (such as DMCA). The *judge* decided that McDonalds was negligent and has to pay. And all things being equal a judge is a guy who makes a living doing exactly that: judging. Thus regardless of how compentent he is, he is more competent than you or me.
Oh, yeah, and if you were to start a lawsuit that knifes are sharp or heights are high or that your mood is bad, it would get tossed out... don't believe me? try it.
I take it you're not being charged 10c per message? Not to mention that it seems some carriers in US charge on arriving messages as well! I used email/messages *very* infrequently and I am not charged on arriving messages but still there is that couple extra dollars on my monthly statement...
Afterall copyright extensions are retroactive for all, right? Maybe that's the path Lessig should take :)
Some people download mp3 that they own on CDs, but I would agree with you. more than half downloads are illegal. Yet we are not going by majority in all cases. If you were to jail 100 people and guarantee that at least 70 of them clearly deserve it, that would be wrong, right?
2. OK, so if the 7-Eleven is selling soda, and you take the soda without paying for it, you are depriving 7-Eleven of POTENTIAL profits, but not ACTUAL profits. What is your point?
No, no no. That would be a wrong example. If I had the option of copying the soda (leaving the original can to stand in 7-Eleven) would that be the same theft? In your example I am depriving the 7-Eleven of the money they PAID for the soda and for building rent and soda transportation. But when I download someone's mp3, the mp3 owner did not pay for the copy of mp3 nor for the bandwidth I used...
And, legislation should ABSOLUTELY be dictated by morality
I don't think so. Stealing might be wrong morally, but that is not why it's illegal. As I've said there are plenty of immoral things that are illegal (and vice-versa). Adultery is very immoral. Yet I doubt we want to make this a criminal offence, right?
I am not supporting copyright violation. But your argument is nevertheless flawed. There are two problems:
1. DRM rarely concerns itself too much with allowing you to conviniently copy a CD for which you DID PAY for. That is the foremost problem of people opposing it
2. You only deprive the owner of due payment if you WOULD HAVE bought the CD, if it were unavailable to download. POTENTIAL profits and damages are by no means the same as ACTUAL profits and damages.
And, no matter how you look at it, it's immoral.
That is besides the point. Plenty of things are immoral yet legal. The legislation should not attempt to control morality.
This should have +5 insigtful AND +5 funny :)
Please mod the parent up. As paranoid as it sounds, the point is interesting. The agreement was made with RIAA only, but effectively will apply to ALL other parties (such as MPAA)...
weird...
Your analogy is somewhat flawed, however. EU sued Microsoft for monopolistic practices *in Europe*. Not in US. I would be surprised in EU were to sue MS for monopolistic practices in US...
I am not anti-American, but I think US is the only country that tends to think its jurisdiction reaches anywhere in the world (Name Sklyarov comes to mind)
Yes and No. The strategy isn't new, bullying is the norm. However, when they do it in US, they actually do have jurisdiction to sue (and perhaps win, even the person threatened has enough resources to fight). In this case they should have NO jurisdiction whatsoever... it is a different country...
but thanks for your nomination anyways.
Did any one catch that? First of all, it is unfortunate that they are considering to abide... but that is not the scary part. The scary part is that Australian ISPs are seeking legal advice to check whether US companies have any jurisdiction in Australia!!!!!. Naturally, there are few lawyers here, but isn't it obvious that regardless of how big or scary a company is, it has no jurisdiction outside of US. Nothing in US has jurisdiction outside of US (besides the army maybe...)
Actually, all I had to do was to work in two states and be a resident of the third :)
But the majority of businesses are likely big enough and sophisticated enough (wire transfers for the payments, electronic filing for the forms) that they and the professional money people they hire can handle it.
Well, I've seen some mentions of each city/countly potentially having different rules.
And most importantly, busnesses that are big enough (BestBuy, Staples, etc.) already tax everybody due to their "presence" in all US states. But do you really want another advantage given to large chains over small shops? That's how evil corporations are formed.
Ah... so many trolls, so little time...
I suspect that there is also some sort of filing (exemptions and what not) similar to tax return filing. And having had the pleasure of filing tax return in three states simultaneously (a very simple tax return, mind you) I can tell you -- it ain't pretty...
Are you trolling? I was refering to US states. I am pretty sure there are 50 (just passed the citizenship test :).
Taxing other countries is beyond impossible. At any rate, I was under the impression that customs tax exists at the border, so anything that comes from abroad is somehow taxed already.
We probably should be. The taxes are not charged not because someone feels that you should be exempt from taxes, but rather because it is extremely difficult (i.e. impossible) to figure out the taxes. It is unreasonable to require each retaler to file and keep track of all 50 states rules/laws/tax amounts.
Do you really feel that there exists a group of people who are can chose which programs to trust and suffer only because they are not deciding who to trust? I don't understand how any BIOS support is different from simply signing the code... I thought only issues are that there are bugs in software or that people click yes without thinking.
What we don't have today is a "Run in sandbox" option.
We have all seen the "run in sandbox" option. It is called Java... I guess java applets to not present a serious threat to security, but they are so crippled as a result...
No more viruses for grandma. Then when sites are verified, no more (or a lot less) porn for children.
If you are talking about setting up a local certification server, that actually sounds like a cool idea ;). But you gotta be kidding about website verification... Website whitelisting is doomed. You would have to precertify each website your grandma wants to see?
You clearly don't understand the use of word "trusted" here. read this. If you want to make it short, start from question #24.
So long as the user selects which code will be trusted, it has great potential for good.
We already have code signing and confirmation before installs. The problem is that users trust the WRONG programs. Either this will increase the number of "are you sure you want this" (not removing the problem of people making mistakes). Or, more likely, the selection of which code to trust will be relegated to BIOS/MS/etc... that would also be bad...
Only to catch terrorists...
Will the BIOS contain spyware?
Never! It will contain some select offers from our partners and collect some information to customize and improve your booting experience
Can we really take the word of a conglomerate?
Will you be able to ensure that what you are saying is accurate?
No.
Our EULA will take care of that.
Modern conglomerates usually misrepresent their products if they think it will generate more customers. How can we be sure that you wouldn't be doing this to us?
As the courts become less and less of a threat for a corporation (and already a 0-threat to a corporation from an individual). There is NO way to be sure. Unless all the non-entry level employees in the company will be made to sign all these statements...
I might be misunderstanding the issue, but... isn't this lock-out the purpose of TCPA?
Let me rephrase my question: provided that TCPA does not discriminate against any services, and does not distinguish between those that own some paid licences and those that don't... what ELSE can it be used for?
I think you're asking the wrong questions. I am just paranoid of course, but there *will be* preferential treatment. There *will be* "are you really sure?" messages. There is no doubt in my mind (and that is why this technology should never see the light of the day)
It is a question of how many (1 or 20) "are you sure messages" you will see and whether you will ultimately be able to run your OS at all...
YES!
And here is the explanation that must be quoted again and again until we all know it (quoted from http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html)
24. So why is this called `Trusted Computing'? I don't see why I should trust it at all!
It's almost an in-joke. In the US Department of Defense, a `trusted system or component' is defined as `one which can break the security policy'. This might seem counter-intuitive at first, but just stop to think about it. The mail guard or firewall that stands between a Secret and a Top Secret system can - if it fails - break the security policy that mail should only ever flow from Secret to Top Secret, but never in the other direction. It is therefore trusted to enforce the information flow policy.
Or take a civilian example: suppose you trust your doctor to keep your medical records private. This means that he has access to your records, so he could leak them to the press if he were careless or malicious. You don't trust me to keep your medical records, because I don't have them; regardless of whether I like you or hate you, I can't do anything to affect your policy that your medical records should be confidential. Your doctor can, though; and the fact that he is in a position to harm you is really what is meant (at a system level) when you say that you trust him. You may have a warm feeling about him, or you may just have to trust him because he is the only doctor on the island where you live; no matter, the DoD definition strips away these fuzzy, emotional aspects of `trust' (that can confuse people).
Remember during the late 1990s, as people debated government control over cryptography, Al Gore proposed a `Trusted Third Party' - a service that would keep a copy of your decryption key safe, just in case you (or the FBI, or the NSA) ever needed it. The name was derided as the sort of marketing exercise that saw the Russian colony of East Germany called a `Democratic Republic'. But it really does chime with DoD thinking. A Trusted Third Party is a third party that can break your security policy.
25. So a `Trusted Computer' is one that can break my security?
Now you've got it.
Why is it that even on slashdot, only few people bother to READ THINGS? I will repeat this until at least most of readers here will know what is going on... afterwards we can go on educating the remaining world
DMCA has NOT FAILED to win against Elcomsoft. DMCA has won, Elcomsoft's product is pulled off the market, Dmitryi will now ask his lawyer before programming anything. Elcomsoft was ACQUITTED since they did NOT INTEND to break DMCA.
Yeah think mice. And while you're at it, think buying another computer (or a cable if you're lucky). Notice the disclaimer that starts in red "Please Note", about buying extra hardware with MS products on the link...
The thing is, I doubt anyone needs non-volatile memory that much :) I reboot to fix things more often than to change the OS (more so in Windows, but in Linux as well).
How giving metamoderation privileges to latecomers? :) at least the ones with non-negative carma??
It seems that it is going to be a long while till I am eligible... it's been more than a few months since I opened my account.