You might be adaptable, but - depending on your current age - how employable would you be? How long would it take to once again become a productive member of society?
Besides, what kind of "evidence" could you trust in a machine that's been well and truly owned, especially if it's playing puppet to a criminal botnet?
Having worked somewhere where a server (not one of mine, but one setup by a contractor) was owned in short order, I can attest to the fact that once that happens you have very little ownership or control of the content on that box. That particular one (a WinNT box) couldn't even *delete* the files that had been uploaded due to issues with the character-set used in filenames, and some of the filenames were very disturbing as to what content they might have had...
I'd say that arresting somebody based on files on a box they *know* somebody else likely had control of is a pretty weak case.
Question: While they're still dominant, would the rapidly decreasing market-share mean that MS will have a better chance of avoiding any monopoly-related issues/charges (or would this only be applicable if their marketshare dropped below XX%)?
What she did seems to be illegal under existing laws, but ones that apply a whole lot more than this cyber-crime BS. There *are* rules for criminal harassment (I believe specific ones for minors), and other such things. As many have mentioned, if this were the case of a grown man and young woman, a number of anti-predator laws would also likely have been applied.
Now I have nothing against drafting a law to better address issues of this nature (personation in order to delude and cause damage to an unstable individual), but why were the crappiest laws possible used in this case?
Indeed. Having one's ass kicked tends to only hurt for as long as the bruises are around. It can also lead to you becoming a bit more resilient to pain. Obviously if you're suffering broken bones or major injuries, it's a whole lot easier to make a court/criminal argument against the aggressor too.
Being a social outcast tends to have a lot more long-term results. For one thing, it's a self-perpetuating cycle (no friends = no social skills development = no friends), and the callouses you grow from that tend to make one rather bitter toward one's fellow humans (again, self-perpetuating).
And yes, this is something I would know about. I was pretty much also a dork through to near the end of high-school as well. If I'd not been cut out-of-the-loop earlier on, I wonder if my HS social skills would have developed a little better. Luckily for me at the time, one of my outlets was long-distance biking. A good tan and a decent physique helped me meet a girl outside of my area who didn't know about my geekish reputation, and from there on things got better (IMHO, once you hit college it's a whole lot nicer than HS as well, especially if you're in a course with like-minded people).
Unfortunately - due to what is likely a lot of contributing factors, Lori Drew being one - this young lady will never get the chance to change her life for the better.
Several large software companies have left easter-eggs in "Professional" products. Microsoft office had pinball and a flight simulator, I seem to remember.
However, as the rootkit is armed with an algorithm that periodically generates new domain names where the malware then looks for new instructions, it is only a matter of time before a new set of control servers is created and used to manipulate one of the biggest spam botnets in the world."
If so, perhaps we could try pre-registering the domains that will be used to control the bot-net, or seizing them if need be. Then perhaps we could tell the damn thing to shut itself down, or at least notify the owners of infection and then ignore instructions from any future botnet controllers...
Actually, I think the original argument around this wasn't that they *should* commit suicide, but rather that if those with Down's Syndrome etc were extremely unhappy with life then the stats for suicides/attempts among that group would be rather high. As it's not, perhaps they don't find life all that bad...
Where exactly do they get the numbers on who's buying the games anyhow? From the credit-card companies? From the little cards or surveys that almost nobody ever files in?
And who's to say that a lot of games bought by adults aren't for teens (especially around Christmas, etc)?
Actually, this might work out fairly well for the consumer, if they allow for laptops of up to 110% of the current price. My last laptop was around the $2000+ mark. In its time it was a real workhorse, and even today it's fairly solid and usable but the technology is unfortunately just plain outdated.
My current laptop cost around $1000. The physical design seems to be a bit less resilient, but the CPU (dual-core), video-card, and other features vastly exceed my previous machine.
Laptops are one of those things that have come down in price over time, so it may be a decent deal if you get to pick by price and not from pre-selected models, etc.
What stops me from running my notebook with third-party RAM for 3 years and swapping the original RAM back in only on the day that I return the lappy for upgrade?
Hmm, it wouldn't be all that hard to code something into the BIOS that would log hardware changes in a special place.
Alternately perhaps they could just have it reject non-permitted RAM. My last HP refused to boot when I replaced the cruddy broadcomm 802.11b miniPCI card with an Intel, but it didn't mind when I used a slightly-less cruddy HP broadcomm 802.11g card...
My GF has a close friend who's been bitten by this. Not personally, but apparently her boyfriend - despite having rather hefty debts - decided to quit his high-paying job and enroll in a "golf school" in order to learn how to become a golf pro. Prior to that he was taking every opportunity to cut out and hit the range.
Seems like a hobby that did indeed become an addiction.
But if there wasn't a sense of accomplishment, would anyone play them? Part of any engaging activity is a challenge/reward system. Video games tend to pull from a lot of different areas, including various skills (mental, dexterity, etc) and often random chance, etc.
Another point to ponder is what Microsoft was leading people to see as "Vista" at that time. Pretty much all the advertisements and hype of Vista featured Aero (obviously it would sell better that way). Thus, the image that MS created was a Vista with Aero, which is not what people ended up getting or being able to run in the end.
Why should government enforce the rights of creators
Here's one big reason: Because in many of the countries in-question, they've buggered things up so badly that the majority of their exports are now "virtual" goods. All the physical stuff is for the most part produced in places such as China, India, etc.
The domestic markets that *do* product goods, such as the auto-industry and others, have driven into the ground by piss-poor management.
So really, these collective governments have about two choices:
(b) Push idiotic laws upon your own citizens, and through foreign citizens through treaties, to prop up a model which treats virtual goods the same as physical.
What does "functionally disabled" mean? If it means an actual medical condition, then GREAT, because in that case all you should need is a doctor's note indicating that your morbid obesity is due to a medical condition. For those that are just fat lazy SOB's who can't bother to exercise or eat healthy, lose some pounds or pay the piper.
The only *good* I can see from this is that if they're divvying out two actual seats to some 300lb tub-of-lard, it's saving some poor smuck from being saddled with the seat beside him/her and being half sat-upon the whole journey.
One of the common assumptions about life (even intelligent life) anywhere else in the universe is that it would have to meet earth-like characteristics or conditions.
Hell, on earth we continually find species in odd places that *astound* scientists. Didn't they find some aquatic life in a superheated area near some oceanic vents (basically almost an undersea volcano temperature-wise).
So, we might not find "earth-like" life out there, but that still doesn't rule out something unexpected.
Not necessarily in the sense of "little green men" so much that there is still some possibility of hostile native bacteria, and definitely of unknown hostile environmental conditions.
astronauts are also not at risk of getting lost due to a lack of modern navigation technology. in fact, any trip to mars will likely be backed by billions of dollars of science/research.
One of the common memes I've read of in various books (but futuristic and historical-fictive) is the tendency of local populations to wax and wane in their attention to "remote" colonies depending on local issues. Yes, the initial program might gain a lot of funding and attention, but what happens 5-10 years in when the government has changed, local issues have arisen, and the people are no long so interested in the program...
Slashdot Mirror
Comparatively, yes. It still takes a large time for an overfed elephant to lose significant weight though.
You might be adaptable, but - depending on your current age - how employable would you be? How long would it take to once again become a productive member of society?
Besides, what kind of "evidence" could you trust in a machine that's been well and truly owned, especially if it's playing puppet to a criminal botnet?
Having worked somewhere where a server (not one of mine, but one setup by a contractor) was owned in short order, I can attest to the fact that once that happens you have very little ownership or control of the content on that box. That particular one (a WinNT box) couldn't even *delete* the files that had been uploaded due to issues with the character-set used in filenames, and some of the filenames were very disturbing as to what content they might have had...
I'd say that arresting somebody based on files on a box they *know* somebody else likely had control of is a pretty weak case.
Question: While they're still dominant, would the rapidly decreasing market-share mean that MS will have a better chance of avoiding any monopoly-related issues/charges (or would this only be applicable if their marketshare dropped below XX%)?
What she did seems to be illegal under existing laws, but ones that apply a whole lot more than this cyber-crime BS. There *are* rules for criminal harassment (I believe specific ones for minors), and other such things. As many have mentioned, if this were the case of a grown man and young woman, a number of anti-predator laws would also likely have been applied.
Now I have nothing against drafting a law to better address issues of this nature (personation in order to delude and cause damage to an unstable individual), but why were the crappiest laws possible used in this case?
Doesn't the US have an equivalent to Criminal harassment?
Indeed. Having one's ass kicked tends to only hurt for as long as the bruises are around. It can also lead to you becoming a bit more resilient to pain. Obviously if you're suffering broken bones or major injuries, it's a whole lot easier to make a court/criminal argument against the aggressor too.
Being a social outcast tends to have a lot more long-term results. For one thing, it's a self-perpetuating cycle (no friends = no social skills development = no friends), and the callouses you grow from that tend to make one rather bitter toward one's fellow humans (again, self-perpetuating).
And yes, this is something I would know about. I was pretty much also a dork through to near the end of high-school as well. If I'd not been cut out-of-the-loop earlier on, I wonder if my HS social skills would have developed a little better. Luckily for me at the time, one of my outlets was long-distance biking. A good tan and a decent physique helped me meet a girl outside of my area who didn't know about my geekish reputation, and from there on things got better (IMHO, once you hit college it's a whole lot nicer than HS as well, especially if you're in a course with like-minded people).
Unfortunately - due to what is likely a lot of contributing factors, Lori Drew being one - this young lady will never get the chance to change her life for the better.
Has Rockstar gotten a better balance between draconian DRM and fair copy protection here?
Not unless they have a version of SecuRom that doesn't screw up one's legitimate apps/activities like the current versions do...
Several large software companies have left easter-eggs in "Professional" products. Microsoft office had pinball and a flight simulator, I seem to remember.
Well, if both the whitehats and the blackhats know it, then there's a 50/50 chance there.
However, as the rootkit is armed with an algorithm that periodically generates new domain names where the malware then looks for new instructions, it is only a matter of time before a new set of control servers is created and used to manipulate one of the biggest spam botnets in the world."
If so, perhaps we could try pre-registering the domains that will be used to control the bot-net, or seizing them if need be. Then perhaps we could tell the damn thing to shut itself down, or at least notify the owners of infection and then ignore instructions from any future botnet controllers...
Actually, I think the original argument around this wasn't that they *should* commit suicide, but rather that if those with Down's Syndrome etc were extremely unhappy with life then the stats for suicides/attempts among that group would be rather high. As it's not, perhaps they don't find life all that bad...
Where exactly do they get the numbers on who's buying the games anyhow? From the credit-card companies? From the little cards or surveys that almost nobody ever files in?
And who's to say that a lot of games bought by adults aren't for teens (especially around Christmas, etc)?
Actually, this might work out fairly well for the consumer, if they allow for laptops of up to 110% of the current price. My last laptop was around the $2000+ mark. In its time it was a real workhorse, and even today it's fairly solid and usable but the technology is unfortunately just plain outdated.
My current laptop cost around $1000. The physical design seems to be a bit less resilient, but the CPU (dual-core), video-card, and other features vastly exceed my previous machine.
Laptops are one of those things that have come down in price over time, so it may be a decent deal if you get to pick by price and not from pre-selected models, etc.
What stops me from running my notebook with third-party RAM for 3 years and swapping the original RAM back in only on the day that I return the lappy for upgrade?
Hmm, it wouldn't be all that hard to code something into the BIOS that would log hardware changes in a special place.
Alternately perhaps they could just have it reject non-permitted RAM. My last HP refused to boot when I replaced the cruddy broadcomm 802.11b miniPCI card with an Intel, but it didn't mind when I used a slightly-less cruddy HP broadcomm 802.11g card...
My GF has a close friend who's been bitten by this. Not personally, but apparently her boyfriend - despite having rather hefty debts - decided to quit his high-paying job and enroll in a "golf school" in order to learn how to become a golf pro. Prior to that he was taking every opportunity to cut out and hit the range.
Seems like a hobby that did indeed become an addiction.
But if there wasn't a sense of accomplishment, would anyone play them? Part of any engaging activity is a challenge/reward system. Video games tend to pull from a lot of different areas, including various skills (mental, dexterity, etc) and often random chance, etc.
How many non-nerds would regularly play WOW for 20-40 hours a week?
Seems that - whatever the cause - it's somewhat of a geek disorder.
Another point to ponder is what Microsoft was leading people to see as "Vista" at that time. Pretty much all the advertisements and hype of Vista featured Aero (obviously it would sell better that way). Thus, the image that MS created was a Vista with Aero, which is not what people ended up getting or being able to run in the end.
Why should government enforce the rights of creators
Here's one big reason: Because in many of the countries in-question, they've buggered things up so badly that the majority of their exports are now "virtual" goods. All the physical stuff is for the most part produced in places such as China, India, etc.
The domestic markets that *do* product goods, such as the auto-industry and others, have driven into the ground by piss-poor management.
So really, these collective governments have about two choices:
(a) Start pushing to start *producing* quality physical products domestically again.
(b) Push idiotic laws upon your own citizens, and through foreign citizens through treaties, to prop up a model which treats virtual goods the same as physical.
What does "functionally disabled" mean? If it means an actual medical condition, then GREAT, because in that case all you should need is a doctor's note indicating that your morbid obesity is due to a medical condition. For those that are just fat lazy SOB's who can't bother to exercise or eat healthy, lose some pounds or pay the piper.
The only *good* I can see from this is that if they're divvying out two actual seats to some 300lb tub-of-lard, it's saving some poor smuck from being saddled with the seat beside him/her and being half sat-upon the whole journey.
Too cold for one thing, and too dry
One of the common assumptions about life (even intelligent life) anywhere else in the universe is that it would have to meet earth-like characteristics or conditions.
Hell, on earth we continually find species in odd places that *astound* scientists. Didn't they find some aquatic life in a superheated area near some oceanic vents (basically almost an undersea volcano temperature-wise).
So, we might not find "earth-like" life out there, but that still doesn't rule out something unexpected.
Not necessarily in the sense of "little green men" so much that there is still some possibility of hostile native bacteria, and definitely of unknown hostile environmental conditions.
astronauts are also not at risk of getting lost due to a lack of modern navigation technology. in fact, any trip to mars will likely be backed by billions of dollars of science/research.
One of the common memes I've read of in various books (but futuristic and historical-fictive) is the tendency of local populations to wax and wane in their attention to "remote" colonies depending on local issues. Yes, the initial program might gain a lot of funding and attention, but what happens 5-10 years in when the government has changed, local issues have arisen, and the people are no long so interested in the program...
Figures. I'm on a 3rd-party ISP but no Bell phone line... so I pay Bell the dry-loop.
In Ontario is well, but you're still paying Bell $6.95/mo for having a dry-loop in place...