But... if on the off chance that it really works and could be used in commercial projects and could bring billions (trillions?) in sales and licensing royalties...
Seems like a worthwhile risk to me.
Exactly! Remember the alchemists of the 16-19th century kept on bonking their heads against the wall trying to find the Philosopher's Stone, and incidentally invented modern chemistry as a by-product. Nice little windfall, that!
It is to be hoped that some great science will be spun out of this (probably doomed) effort for anti-gravity.
And don't forget the Mad Scientist's Motto: It... just... might... work!
1) software is like fire. You can copy without really 'loosing'. I don't really agree with the term 'stealing', because they don't really 'loose'. You wouldn't have bought it anyway, because you can't afford it.
Where do you think software comes from? It takes lots of money and effort to develop it. Lots of people seem to think that since pirating software doesn't lessen the supply it's okay. What happened to old fashioned morality, where the point of not stealing things was not how much do you hurt the victim, but not taking things that don't belong to you?
So... according to you, who decides whether you can't afford it or not? What percentage of your income does the software have to cost before you can take it without paying?
And most importantly, and this is a serious question... what makes you think you're entitled to this software anyway? The software is a private product of some corporation, and it is theirs to do with as they list. If you don't like that, develop your own software and release it under GPL.
Sure, it will help you out if you have this pirated software, and give you a leg up in your chosen field, but that's why they charge for it!
You "information wants to be free" kids are worse than the MPIAA -- at least they throw some scraps to the poor artists/developers.
Puffer first noticed the problem while scanning for insecure 802.11 networks throughout Houston earlier that month, around the time that the alleged offence took place.
Just how white-hat is this guy, anyway? Looks like he was actively searching for hackable networks, for reasons which the article leaves unclear.
This is why in the movies, the anonymous tipster remains anonymous, instead of calling a #@$@%@ press conference. Sheesh!
Someone earlier said something about basic economics. Well, that's about as basic as it gets. A company MUST PAY their employees enough to afford to buy their product or THEY WILL GO OUT OF BUSINESS. PERIOD. It's like gravity, fellas. Can't get around it no matter how many accountants and lawyers you hire.
That's just silly.
I used to work for Siemens Rolm down in Santa Clara, at a wage where I couldn't afford the least of their PBX products (unless you count a solitary Rolmphone, which I'm not sure you could order). How does that make them automatically go out of business?
Nike makes their shoes in Indonesia, paying workers (scandalously) tiny wages to make $100 shoes. The workers can't afford the shoes. Yet Nike somehow doesn't automatically go bankrupt.
A company's customer base is not the same as its worker base, especially for high-end or niche products.
Like it or not, when someone experiences working in the stability and prosperity of America, they effectively become Americans in that they are now able to appreciate life in a developed society. Sending them back would amount to cruel and unusual punishment without due process (protected by the Fifth Amendment).
1. It's not unusual if you do it often enough. 2. There is due process. Your visa expires, you go home. 3. It is not cruel. You seem to have the mistaken belief that our society is so wonderful that once the poor little wogs experience it they will hate their pathetic homelands. How patronizing. Guess what? It doesn't work that way. Don't you think our guest workers have any pride of their own? Could you possibly be any more ethnocentric? Give it a rest. 4. Final hint: H1B visa workers tend to be college educated -- the elite of their nations, that's why we want them. These are not the guys who need help. It's the guys who stay back home in Povertistan who could use a hand.
While this is true on the individual level (*I* don't even know what I'm going to do next), it is far from true in the aggregate. Check out a wonderful little book (almost a pamphlet) called "One Human Minute", by Stanislaw Lem.
Fiction, but dead-on, if you ask me.
While you're at it, read everything else Lem ever read.
Except "Solaris". That's a book about a huge planet-sized bloated mass that thinks in incomprehensible inhuman terms and drives insane anyone who has to deal with it.
I suppose I didn't have to warn the Slashdot crowd about that, now did I?
That's what tears me apart about this whole open source issue. Being a follower of Ayn Rand's philosophy, I can't seem to rationalize how devoting one's time and energy and not recieving any kind of monetary compensation is good.
[...] am a staunch supporter of all things Linux, Apache, FreeBSD, etc. Yet, especially after reading this article, the whole things just seems to reek of socialism...
With all respect, I think you have missed a point of Rand's philosophy. Objectivists don't have to make a profit on everything they do. They can give to charity all they want. They key point is that a Randist doesn't want to be compelled to give to a certain charity; that's why they hate anything that smacks of governmental income redistribution.
There really isn't any disconnect between O'ism and open source. If you want to get all textual, consider "Atlas Shrugged"; Ragnar Danneskjold (*cough*) donates (*cough*) his extremely hard-won gold to the people of Galt's Gulch, because in his opinion it will have a beneficial effect. If anything, the OS development model is very Randian... everyone contributes as he listeth; if he doesn't like the way things are run, he forks and founds his own valley-- er, project.
Something you may want to worry about is if OS ever really takes off it could take a lot of money out of commercial software development.
As a technology professional myself, I appreciate having lots of free tools et al., but I worry seriously about an open-source project undercutting my product.
So... it should be legal to descramble satellite TV whether or not you pay for it?
What are you saying? That it is morally wrong to do that? No, I don't think it is. In fact if you built your own dish and modded your toaster to descramble, and it worked, then good for you. You haven't stolen or broken (broken taken in the loosest sense) anything that wasn't yours (you could say you've broken your toaster, because it probably doesn't make toast anymore:).
(I mentioned satellite transmissions as a counter to your point that the signal is coming into your home so you can use it as you will; satellite broadcasts are always coming to your house.) What I'm really trying to say is that there is a large qualitative difference between digging your own well and descrambling satellite/cable. That difference is that satellite programming is a product for sale, which took time, energy, and cash to produce, and the satellite companies' business is selling permission to watch it. It is not right to get the benefit of all their hard work without compensating them somehow.
Water is altogether different; if you have somewhere to dig, you can exploit that natural resource. Eventually, you and your neighbors will run into a tragedy of the commons situation w.r.t. that water, but that's another story.
But it's not really like leaving your door open and someone walking in and taking things. It's much more like you taking all your stuff and leaving it in a spare room in my house. And then me using your DVD player because I didn't have one.
I see what you're getting at (and it's a great image!), but isn't the wire being in your house more for your benefit than the cable company's? I mean, they could take the wire away when the previous owner/subscriber cancelled service, but then when you wanted to get the service yourself you'd have to take a day off from work to deal with the install issues yourself. I was always happy when I moved into an apt. which was cable-ready.
The wire being there certainly isn't an invitation to descramble the signal. Question: can you obligate your cable company to remove the wire? Hmm...
The signals come to your property you should be able to do what you want with them, obviously if you've spliced your netdoor neibours wire then that is much more suspect.
So... it should be legal to descramble satellite TV whether or not you pay for it? I'm not convinced that modding your toaster to descramble cable is ethically above splicing the line. It's all about permission (gotten via payment); if you have it, you can watch the shows. If not, well, not.
Another problem here is that the american educational system in general does not turn out critical thinkers. Lets hear it for the standardized test (props to Bush!) Kids are being force fed rote knowlege under the guise of being education. Then they are tested for said knowlege and the system is declared to be broken. The cure, more tests...
Gee, I know, let's remove standardized testing so we won't even know whether the system is broken or not? Why are people so damn scared of standardized testing? Are you afraid to find out that children in Finland, Uganda, and Japan know more math than you? For fucking shame! I say, more standardized testing!
...to break unjust laws as often as possible, regardless of the consequences, until those laws become unenforceable and are repealed.
What this is really about is trying to get content, which costs money to produce, for free. Not a great poster child for civil disobedience.
I find it hard to imagine freedom of speech covers training people to pirate copyrighted content.
If you want a cause, forget this namby-pamby DMCA stuff. The real shuddering horror going on is the potential erosion of the 4th amendment, and due process in the war on terror. How many people are in jail and not even charged, much less convicted?
Plump geeks agonizing over their right to warez and MP3GZ in the face of this makes me sad.
In scenario #1, you're asking about a *purchased* cable box. Why yes, if the owner of said box wishes to make some modifications to the electronics inside of it that allow it to decrypt all incoming signals - I think that's perfectly ok and legal. If the owner proceeds to actually *use* the box to watch cable he/she isn't paying for, then that's a seperate issue and more of a "grey area".
There is no gray area at all with respect to watching the cable content.
It is clearly illegal, as you didn't pay for it. People get fined and/or
jailed all the time for theft of service. Actually making the
box probably violates A Certain Recent Law Which Shall Remain Nameless.
Whether you approve of said law or not, or whether you choose to
(ahem) "civilly disobey" is another matter. Though if you are
nailing your theses to the door and declaring "Here I stand; I can do
no other", don't you think you can find a better cause than the
right to see unscrambled boobs on channel 33?
(Incidently, back to scenario #1, the real problem, in my opinion,
is that cable companies made poor decisions in the design of their
systems. They pipe *all* of the channels in to the homes of their
customers.... in many cases - to homes of people who are no longer
even customers at all, simply because they didn't bother to disconnect
the physical cable when the previous home-owner moved. By doing this,
they've created a "grey area" for themselves. Is it morally ok and/or
legally ok to use one's own equipment to descramble these signals that
are already coming into his/her home? Perhaps so. If the cable company
didn't want this to happen, they shouldn't put the signals out there
to begin with.) It's sort of like me signing all of the checks in my
checkbook in advance, leaving the book in a public place, and
walking off. Then I scream about the illegal activities being done
against me when people start using those checks without my approval.
Hey, why was I stupid enough to sign them all ahead of time? Do I even
have a strong legal case against the users of said checks?
Y'know, I think we've stumbled onto something important here. There seems
to be a subvocalized argument that it's okay to copy/steal/share digital
content because it is so easy and convenient. Sort of a "they have it
coming for having lousy security/broken business model" argument.
I fail to see how that stands up, either practically or ethically.
You don't steal things, not because it's too hard, but because it's wrong
to steal things. If you leave your door unlocked it is still wrong for
someone to come into your house.
Note also that in this case, the cable
companies are scrambling the signal, and it takes a significant hardware
mod to access it. Hardly comparable to leaving signed checks around. What's next... "Your Honor, I just did an itty bitty splice into my neighbor's cable line. It's Comcast's fault for having such a lousy security model".
I fail to see how it is theft, particularly if it helps sales.
I shoplifted some stuff the other day. I liked it so much that I later bought a whole bunch more merchandise from the same store. I guess that first theft didn't really "count" as theft, because the store ended up making a profit, eh?
One Linux exposed the sham behind their strategy, they were stumped. They had gotten so used to price-dumping rivals out of business that they coudn't imagine a product without a company
<looks-like-flamebait>
This is really, really going to sound like flamebait, but it is actually a serious question.
Is there really a difference between distributing free GPL'ed Linux and dumping? Could MicroSoft or someone take you to court for distributing an OS for free?
It gets murkier if you take MS out of the picture... Say you have Company A and Company B. They produce (say) competing recipe management tools. Company A also sells advanced CAD/CAM software. If Company A GPLs their recipe management program and distributes it for free in an attempt to destroy Company B while A lives off CAD/CAM revenue, can B cry foul?
Recall that such innovators as Henry Ford and Eli Whitney had worldviews that we would call racist and fascist today
Ford might not be the best example, because his attitude was a little creepy even by the standards of the time, but I'll press on anyway and devil take the hindmost!
One must be very careful about heaping scorn on one's ancestors for not having the same standards that we do today. We believe the way we do today because we were raised that way, in our time-specific cultural context. (Not to mention we have a better grasp on the sciences, and have disproven a lot of the old-wives' tales that used to pass for pop wisdom)
As we deride our ancestors for being savage, they're probably moaning in their graves that we are weak and sentimental, and our time-travelling descendants think we are hopelessly gauche.
The most enlightened citizens of the Rennaisance or Sung China would seem barbarous fools to us today. Not because we've gotten any smarter as a species -- we haven't -- but because we are culturally programmed with different values. (Of course said worthies wouldn't stop to consider my side of it and would probably slay me on sight, thus posthumously making my point for me.)
What we don't know for sure is whether those impacts/upheavals were enough to sterilize the planet or left a few isolated pockets of life from which it re-emerged.
I'm not so sure that it matters whether or not there have been total extinctions early on in Earth's history. If conditions were right that life would self-assemble once, life would come right back.
The barrier to life here is that other planets may not have the right conditions at all, meteors nonwithstanding.
Just between you and me, I do hope life is common.
Where the *&#@$^ are they?
I agree 100%! One of the biggest things that bothers me also about Walmart, is that the whole damned Walmart family are the most richest in America, but only because of the one guy, the founder Sam. The rest are just leeches doomed to a life of never having to sweat or actually work for a living. Those are the people I hate the most!!
What's to hate about the Walton heirs? Either they are
smart, in which case they will use their money wisely, or
stupid, in which case they will (ahem) free the money back into general circulation
This 'America is the shit and everyone needs to be like us' attitude is just one of the many reasons foreign nations dislike us so.
Like it or not, China has their rules and regulations and if you want to survive in their market, then drop your ego for a moment and realize that OUR democratic government(loosely put) is NOT "The only way a country can be run effectively"
Thought I'd just drop this into the mix... cultural/political relativism has its moments, but it seems today that people use it as a reason not to disapprove of *anything*... "oh, it's okay, it's their culture".
Face it folks, some people's culture just plain sucks. People sure criticize Western culture, yes? Why is it not allowed to criticize other peoples' systems, then?
Certainly there are good things to be found in any successful society or system, but don't let it blind you to the problems.
Slashdot Mirror
I just turned on a program called "Internet Information Server" and plugged in my DSL cable.
It is to be hoped that some great science will be spun out of this (probably doomed) effort for anti-gravity.
And don't forget the Mad Scientist's Motto: It
So
And most importantly, and this is a serious question
Sure, it will help you out if you have this pirated software, and give you a leg up in your chosen field, but that's why they charge for it!
You "information wants to be free" kids are worse than the MPIAA -- at least they throw some scraps to the poor artists/developers.
Yeah, but wouldn't it be sweet to tell your buddies, "Dude, J00'r3 50 W33k, I can smash you using an Atari 2600!"
The look on their face when you actually do it: Priceless.
Just how white-hat is this guy, anyway? Looks like he was actively searching for hackable networks, for reasons which the article leaves unclear.
This is why in the movies, the anonymous tipster remains anonymous, instead of calling a #@$@%@ press conference. Sheesh!
I used to work for Siemens Rolm down in Santa Clara, at a wage where I couldn't afford the least of their PBX products (unless you count a solitary Rolmphone, which I'm not sure you could order). How does that make them automatically go out of business?
Nike makes their shoes in Indonesia, paying workers (scandalously) tiny wages to make $100 shoes. The workers can't afford the shoes. Yet Nike somehow doesn't automatically go bankrupt.
A company's customer base is not the same as its worker base, especially for high-end or niche products.
Have I misunderstood your point completely?
2. There is due process. Your visa expires, you go home.
3. It is not cruel. You seem to have the mistaken belief that our society is so wonderful that once the poor little wogs experience it they will hate their pathetic homelands. How patronizing. Guess what? It doesn't work that way. Don't you think our guest workers have any pride of their own? Could you possibly be any more ethnocentric? Give it a rest.
4. Final hint: H1B visa workers tend to be college educated -- the elite of their nations, that's why we want them. These are not the guys who need help. It's the guys who stay back home in Povertistan who could use a hand.
Fiction, but dead-on, if you ask me.
While you're at it, read everything else Lem ever read.
Except "Solaris". That's a book about a huge planet-sized bloated mass that thinks in incomprehensible inhuman terms and drives insane anyone who has to deal with it.
I suppose I didn't have to warn the Slashdot crowd about that, now did I?
There really isn't any disconnect between O'ism and open source. If you want to get all textual, consider "Atlas Shrugged"; Ragnar Danneskjold (*cough*) donates (*cough*) his extremely hard-won gold to the people of Galt's Gulch, because in his opinion it will have a beneficial effect. If anything, the OS development model is very Randian... everyone contributes as he listeth; if he doesn't like the way things are run, he forks and founds his own valley-- er, project.
Something you may want to worry about is if OS ever really takes off it could take a lot of money out of commercial software development.
As a technology professional myself, I appreciate having lots of free tools et al., but I worry seriously about an open-source project undercutting my product.
Water is altogether different; if you have somewhere to dig, you can exploit that natural resource. Eventually, you and your neighbors will run into a tragedy of the commons situation w.r.t. that water, but that's another story.
The wire being there certainly isn't an invitation to descramble the signal. Question: can you obligate your cable company to remove the wire? Hmm... So
If you want a cause, forget this namby-pamby DMCA stuff. The real shuddering horror going on is the potential erosion of the 4th amendment, and due process in the war on terror. How many people are in jail and not even charged, much less convicted?
Plump geeks agonizing over their right to warez and MP3GZ in the face of this makes me sad.
Whether you approve of said law or not, or whether you choose to (ahem) "civilly disobey" is another matter. Though if you are nailing your theses to the door and declaring "Here I stand; I can do no other", don't you think you can find a better cause than the right to see unscrambled boobs on channel 33? Y'know, I think we've stumbled onto something important here. There seems to be a subvocalized argument that it's okay to copy/steal/share digital content because it is so easy and convenient. Sort of a "they have it coming for having lousy security/broken business model" argument.
I fail to see how that stands up, either practically or ethically. You don't steal things, not because it's too hard, but because it's wrong to steal things. If you leave your door unlocked it is still wrong for someone to come into your house.
Note also that in this case, the cable companies are scrambling the signal, and it takes a significant hardware mod to access it. Hardly comparable to leaving signed checks around. What's next
Unless you're into the really wacky stuff, are you sure that "bleeding edge" is the term you want to use here?
Just a thought.
How about a return to honor, self-respect, and not taking stuff that doesn't belong to you?
Please excuse me while I go weep. Thank you for the excellent post; if I had moderation mojo, I'd gladly use it on your behalf.
I shoplifted some stuff the other day. I liked it so much that I later bought a whole bunch more merchandise from the same store. I guess that first theft didn't really "count" as theft, because the store ended up making a profit, eh?
Yeah, because they get a value from the artists without giving anything in ret-- oh, wait. Um. I guess we're the pirates, too.
Whoops.
<looks-like-flamebait>
This is really, really going to sound like flamebait, but it is actually a serious question.
Is there really a difference between distributing free GPL'ed Linux and dumping? Could MicroSoft or someone take you to court for distributing an OS for free?
It gets murkier if you take MS out of the picture... Say you have Company A and Company B. They produce (say) competing recipe management tools. Company A also sells advanced CAD/CAM software. If Company A GPLs their recipe management program and distributes it for free in an attempt to destroy Company B while A lives off CAD/CAM revenue, can B cry foul?
</looks-like-flamebait>
Ford might not be the best example, because his attitude was a little creepy even by the standards of the time, but I'll press on anyway and devil take the hindmost!
One must be very careful about heaping scorn on one's ancestors for not having the same standards that we do today. We believe the way we do today because we were raised that way, in our time-specific cultural context. (Not to mention we have a better grasp on the sciences, and have disproven a lot of the old-wives' tales that used to pass for pop wisdom)
As we deride our ancestors for being savage, they're probably moaning in their graves that we are weak and sentimental, and our time-travelling descendants think we are hopelessly gauche.
The most enlightened citizens of the Rennaisance or Sung China would seem barbarous fools to us today. Not because we've gotten any smarter as a species -- we haven't -- but because we are culturally programmed with different values. (Of course said worthies wouldn't stop to consider my side of it and would probably slay me on sight, thus posthumously making my point for me.)
Just something to consider.
Yes, and that makes me want to use a decidedly irregular expression:
#@*$^&@#$&#!!!
I'm not so sure that it matters whether or not there have been total extinctions early on in Earth's history. If conditions were right that life would self-assemble once, life would come right back.
The barrier to life here is that other planets may not have the right conditions at all, meteors nonwithstanding.
Just between you and me, I do hope life is common. Where the *&#@$^ are they?
What's to hate about the Walton heirs? Either they are
- smart, in which case they will use their money wisely, or
- stupid, in which case they will (ahem) free the money back into general circulation
What's the problem?Thought I'd just drop this into the mix... cultural/political relativism has its moments, but it seems today that people use it as a reason not to disapprove of *anything*
Face it folks, some people's culture just plain sucks. People sure criticize Western culture, yes? Why is it not allowed to criticize other peoples' systems, then?
Certainly there are good things to be found in any successful society or system, but don't let it blind you to the problems.