I can understand this viewpoint to an extent. However, this doesn't take int account when the antitheft system "misfires" and causes problems for legit users. In my opinion, spyware that acts so intrusively should be allowed under the condition that there are real consequences for false alarms. In this case, if it's not a legit alarm, I would think the company should be prosecuted like a vendor that exercised a backdoor into one of your systems.
In other words: you better be damn certain that you're tracking a pirate before you start sucking data off his machine.
However, if the alarm is legit- you really don't have a leg to stand on. Kind of like stealing a design for a new widget and having your prototype explode halfway through construction.
When you take a step into the illegal side of things, don't look to the law for help.
Something else to consider, since so many/.'ers are into the whole privacy thing: Brodcast signals are the only way you can watch TV without someone somewhere keeping track of what you watch.
In my opinion, a course in technology related ethics would not be complete without coverage of the following topics:
1.) General ethics how to define right/wrong, categorical imperative, etc.
2.) Discussion on ethics -vs- law. There IS a difference- no matter what the politicians say.
3.) Technology is synonomous with power. Power doesn't decide what is ethical.
4.) "Just because you can doesn't mean you should."
You don't need a pay-per-use system to keep spam off the net. All you need is an authentication system that tells you whether or not an email came from an authentic person. This could be accomplised using weak public key encryption. Keep a bank of public keys (in a database similar in function to a DNS) and make certain that these came from real people. Then have mail clients automatically try to decrypt messages as they are received. If they're not encrypted or if they don't decrypt to the public key from the public database, trash the email.
Making certain that all the public keys came from real people would be critical to the credibility of the system. Charge a per-year or per-month fee to have your key on this system. Make it billable to a credit card, and if any key is found to be spamming, the credit card that it is billed to should no longer be accepted by the system. At least this way, spammers have to mess with their credit to keep spamming. If they use someone else's card to spam, then you have a crime to be reported to autorities.
Anyone who wants to implement this idea- please cut me in.
I've always wanted the ability to set a conditional breakpoint on a variable. Let me explain: Have you ever had an issue where a variable was changing and you didn't know what line of code was changing it? Well, that's the kind of breakpoint I would want. Set a breakpoint on: myvariable whenever it changes, and zip to the line of code that changed it. Take this one step further and you could set a breakpoint to go off whenever the variable in question reaches a certain value.
What exactly do you want SGI to do with IRIX? Put it in a box, shrinkwrap it, and make it run your overclocked AMD chip-of-the-week? Probably won't happen.
If SGI wants to be around in 5 years, that's exactly what they'll do. Word has it that SGI is going down the tubes. Graphics people have figured out that a PC based machine with a hot gaming graphics card de jour, a ton of ram and linux on it will do anything an SGI will do except one thing: crash your budget. SGI needs to re-evaluate its business model and realize who its competitors are.
My suggestion: take all the unique functions of Irix, port them into an SGI distro of Linux and throw the rest away. Make distros that will run on SGI, PC and Mac. Make PC-based machines (running the SGI distro of Linux) the bread and butter of SGI while keeping their house hardware for the niche markets. (a high-end SGI graphics card for PC's wouldn't hurt either)
Another reason people aren't signing up for broadband is where it's available. Hey, great- the whole city is wired for broadband, but what's the population density of computer literate people, much less the power users that need broadband. If you're targeting telecommuters, you ain't gonna find them 2 blocks from work. More attention needs to be paid to the 'burbs- especially the nicer apartment complexes where computing professionals are likely to live.
The problem is that the broadband providers targeted a mass of people (cities) instead of considering who in that group would actually want their product and developing a strategy to get it to them. This product will not be profitable if the keep with the philosophy that everyone needs to have it.
Disclaimer: this post was not checked for speling and grammar- any complaints will result in the complainer being labeled a whiner and a ninny.
I always understood that people don't do much more than about 8 hours worth of work per day regardless of how long they're at work. 8 hours was defined as a work day for a reason- it's the point of diminishing returns.
Also - driving your employees like sled dogs will cause them to look for employment elsewhere, and if you don't think that will effect your code quality, you shouldn't be leading a pack of cub scouts, much less a project with a real product.
The biggest problem with management is that they make decisions they aren't qualified to make. I see it time and time again- it only takes one PHB shooting his mouth off to get the whole development team 6 months behind before the project even starts.
Sorry- managers are like alcoholics- you can't tell them they have a problem because they think you're out to get them. This is particularly bad in technical jobs because managers that were promoted from within have poor social skills which are necessary to be a successful manager.
This attitude is probably one of the most dangerous things out there. The assumption that your being sufficiently uninteresting will keep you from being put under the microscope is short sighted at best. Privacy is not something to be taken lightly. Lots of people have things they would like to hide from prying eyes- especially when those eyes have no legitimate business with them. Would you like things like that nasty, embarassing problem you saw the doctor for last week to be known by anyone that didn't have a need-to-know? What about your screwed up family, and that incident when you were 5 that you still see a counselor for? What about that nasty little habit you have -yes, that one- does the frequency of that need to be known to anyone who thinks they have a need? What about your non-pc views (no, not the ones you talk about - the other ones) that could really cost you in the wrong situation?
Keep in mind that everyone either does things, or has characteristics that others might consider "deviant", and you probably don't know what those things are because they seem normal to you because you take your privacy for granted. Also keep in mind that things that are "normal" now might be "deviant" in the future.
People aren't afraid of the legitimate use of their information. They are afraid of the abuse of priveledged information- and the only way to keep that from happening is to keep it hidden.
I would say that you are delusional to think that you have nothing that could be used against you in the right context.
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I can understand this viewpoint to an extent. However, this doesn't take int account when the antitheft system "misfires" and causes problems for legit users. In my opinion, spyware that acts so intrusively should be allowed under the condition that there are real consequences for false alarms. In this case, if it's not a legit alarm, I would think the company should be prosecuted like a vendor that exercised a backdoor into one of your systems.
In other words: you better be damn certain that you're tracking a pirate before you start sucking data off his machine.
However, if the alarm is legit- you really don't have a leg to stand on. Kind of like stealing a design for a new widget and having your prototype explode halfway through construction.
When you take a step into the illegal side of things, don't look to the law for help.
Something else to consider, since so many /.'ers are into the whole privacy thing: Brodcast signals are the only way you can watch TV without someone somewhere keeping track of what you watch.
Just some food for thought.
In my opinion, a course in technology related ethics would not be complete without coverage of the following topics:
1.) General ethics how to define right/wrong, categorical imperative, etc.
2.) Discussion on ethics -vs- law. There IS a difference- no matter what the politicians say.
3.) Technology is synonomous with power. Power doesn't decide what is ethical.
4.) "Just because you can doesn't mean you should."
You don't need a pay-per-use system to keep spam off the net. All you need is an authentication system that tells you whether or not an email came from an authentic person. This could be accomplised using weak public key encryption. Keep a bank of public keys (in a database similar in function to a DNS) and make certain that these came from real people. Then have mail clients automatically try to decrypt messages as they are received. If they're not encrypted or if they don't decrypt to the public key from the public database, trash the email.
Making certain that all the public keys came from real people would be critical to the credibility of the system. Charge a per-year or per-month fee to have your key on this system. Make it billable to a credit card, and if any key is found to be spamming, the credit card that it is billed to should no longer be accepted by the system. At least this way, spammers have to mess with their credit to keep spamming. If they use someone else's card to spam, then you have a crime to be reported to autorities.
Anyone who wants to implement this idea- please cut me in.
I've always wanted the ability to set a conditional breakpoint on a variable. Let me explain: Have you ever had an issue where a variable was changing and you didn't know what line of code was changing it? Well, that's the kind of breakpoint I would want. Set a breakpoint on: myvariable whenever it changes, and zip to the line of code that changed it. Take this one step further and you could set a breakpoint to go off whenever the variable in question reaches a certain value.
What exactly do you want SGI to do with IRIX? Put it in a box, shrinkwrap it, and make it run your overclocked AMD chip-of-the-week? Probably won't happen.
If SGI wants to be around in 5 years, that's exactly what they'll do. Word has it that SGI is going down the tubes. Graphics people have figured out that a PC based machine with a hot gaming graphics card de jour, a ton of ram and linux on it will do anything an SGI will do except one thing: crash your budget. SGI needs to re-evaluate its business model and realize who its competitors are.
My suggestion: take all the unique functions of Irix, port them into an SGI distro of Linux and throw the rest away. Make distros that will run on SGI, PC and Mac. Make PC-based machines (running the SGI distro of Linux) the bread and butter of SGI while keeping their house hardware for the niche markets. (a high-end SGI graphics card for PC's wouldn't hurt either)
whew- felt good to get that off my chest
Another reason people aren't signing up for broadband is where it's available. Hey, great- the whole city is wired for broadband, but what's the population density of computer literate people, much less the power users that need broadband. If you're targeting telecommuters, you ain't gonna find them 2 blocks from work. More attention needs to be paid to the 'burbs- especially the nicer apartment complexes where computing professionals are likely to live.
The problem is that the broadband providers targeted a mass of people (cities) instead of considering who in that group would actually want their product and developing a strategy to get it to them. This product will not be profitable if the keep with the philosophy that everyone needs to have it.
Disclaimer: this post was not checked for speling and grammar- any complaints will result in the complainer being labeled a whiner and a ninny.
I always understood that people don't do much more than about 8 hours worth of work per day regardless of how long they're at work. 8 hours was defined as a work day for a reason- it's the point of diminishing returns.
Also - driving your employees like sled dogs will cause them to look for employment elsewhere, and if you don't think that will effect your code quality, you shouldn't be leading a pack of cub scouts, much less a project with a real product.
The biggest problem with management is that they make decisions they aren't qualified to make. I see it time and time again- it only takes one PHB shooting his mouth off to get the whole development team 6 months behind before the project even starts.
Sorry- managers are like alcoholics- you can't tell them they have a problem because they think you're out to get them. This is particularly bad in technical jobs because managers that were promoted from within have poor social skills which are necessary to be a successful manager.
coutermeasure.dispense_chaff() has made an illegal function call - your system will now reboot.
OR
enemy_lock_on.warning() has caused a sementation fault - your system will now reboot
This attitude is probably one of the most dangerous things out there. The assumption that your being sufficiently uninteresting will keep you from being put under the microscope is short sighted at best. Privacy is not something to be taken lightly. Lots of people have things they would like to hide from prying eyes- especially when those eyes have no legitimate business with them. Would you like things like that nasty, embarassing problem you saw the doctor for last week to be known by anyone that didn't have a need-to-know? What about your screwed up family, and that incident when you were 5 that you still see a counselor for? What about that nasty little habit you have -yes, that one- does the frequency of that need to be known to anyone who thinks they have a need? What about your non-pc views (no, not the ones you talk about - the other ones) that could really cost you in the wrong situation?
Keep in mind that everyone either does things, or has characteristics that others might consider "deviant", and you probably don't know what those things are because they seem normal to you because you take your privacy for granted. Also keep in mind that things that are "normal" now might be "deviant" in the future.
People aren't afraid of the legitimate use of their information. They are afraid of the abuse of priveledged information- and the only way to keep that from happening is to keep it hidden.
I would say that you are delusional to think that you have nothing that could be used against you in the right context.