So, when you see a gal kick someone across the room, technically, the kicker (or holder of a gun) must fly across the room in the opposite direction - unless she has a back against the wall.
Not only that, but it fails to take into effect the masses of the two individuals. Just like I could push, kick, or punch a ball away from me, a person with enough mass can in fact repel a person of smaller mass over a certain distance. Perhaps not across the room and partway through a wall, but most people could already figure that part out.
Still, whether it's a person or any other object, it all comes down to friction, angle, and mass. I semi travelling at decent speed can send a small car flying, especially if it manages to "scoop" it with a certain angle. A mid-sized person braces right can propel another person away, and a larger person (well, more massive) can do so to a greater extent.
As to the shotgun blasts blowing someone across the room, I've never shot anyone or anything at close range with a shotgun, but it might work against a smaller person/animal. With a really big gun held by a really massive person (properly braced) it would possibly stagger the shooter while propelling the shootee...
Bank: End-user receipts are allowed and in fact welcomed. When you make a transaction it spits out a little piece of paper that shows your balance and/or banking history
Voting Machine: End user is not to receive a paper receipt, mainly on the basis that doing so could further vote-buying/pressuring/forcing/etc (i.e. a given group threatening dire consequences if voted Y doesn't come out with a slip saying he/she voted for "X")
Ok, but what happens to your precious application when your company's Windows users are screaming for a functional version?
Ummmm, standardize on a cross-platform compatible browser? Firefox, Mozilla, and I believe netscape/opera are available on most if not all major platforms.
Just because they're windows users doesn't mean they're tied to a particular browser. We have plenty of both windows and linux machines at work, and they both get firefox, and generally both behave the same in firefox in regards to loading/displaying pages.
You've got one card allowing you to set or clone (copy from the connecting machine) a MAC address, another allow to type in the MAC segments, and then a bunch of google results in general for the interfaces to this.
And this is just for routers, mind. It's also quite easy to spoof MAC using windows, easy on linux/BSD using ifconfig, or see here for info on all the common OS's.
So what can you do with this?
Well with a router it makes it easy (as mentioned in the parent) to configure so that the ISP thinks a given PC is connected... thus skipping the issues when you have either the computer or the router plugged directly to the DSL/cable modem.
With a PC you can test various DHCP settings, pretend to be somebody else and nab their IP (the dhcp serving machine will generally assume you are whomever your MAC states you are), get onto MAC-secured wireless, and many other things. There are plenty of legit uses, but certainly many other cases where one an online "identity" could be easily misrepresented.
Of course, I somewhat figured on that assumption. However, how is it comparable to other similarly used materials. For example, at the thickness of a window pane, how does it compared in transparency and strength? Ditto for other useful applications.
How strong is this stuff at greater thicknesses? Could it be used for better windows (less breakable, more transparent)?
There are plenty of applications for high-strength high-transparency (which I'm assuming is a product of lower reflectivity) materials. Heck, if they're strong enough then depending on the cost there's a decent market for them just in the vehicle-window market (especially planes, jets, submarines, ships, etc).
Hell, nowadays I wouldn't rely on one single drive before it reaches warranty. Usually by the time of the smaller warranty's (1yr) you've accumulated enough important stuff to make the data-loss much more painful than the cost of the replacement drive.
Now in some cases manufacturers with longer warranties are stating that they have more faith in their product, and certainly the sudden drop in warranty length (from 2-3 years down to one for many) indicates a lack of faith in their products.
Basically, a warranty isn't so much your guarantee on a product so much it says:
This warranty length gives us the maximal profit on drive sales vs returns. In other words, any longer than that and the returns are going to eat into the company's profits, but there will be drive deaths both before and after that term. Nowadays a three year warranty isn't any sort of guarantee of such longevity, but rather the point at which the manufacturer is no longer willing to eat the cost of returns.
It's also common for a company to take a "do-not-use" approach to software (or hardware for that matter) that causes known conflicts. Where I work, we have a policy of reverting machines that come with IE7 back to IE6, and disabling the windows-update packages for IE7.
Why, because we know that it bugs out with our portal system, as well as some of our other information management systems. I know that many other industries and/or sectors are experiencing the same thing: it's not a case of "might not work" or even consistency, it's pretty clear that anyone using IE7 will run into issues with the systems we commonly use.
For that matter Java 6 (from 1.5 to 6, WTF?) doesn't play nicely with various systems either, so that's on the do-not-use/do-not-upgrade list as well. The fun comes when all the happy little auto-updater applications decide to take it upon themselves and increment versions without our knowledge... which means making sure that auto-upgrades are in general disabled when possible.
So far I've found that firefox 2.x is working happily, which is one of the few newer web-type apps that hasn't run into conflicts when moving up from older versions. It seems that one end or the other runs into standards compliance issues in most cases (i.e. older web-app that doesn't meet standards, newer browser/java/whatever or vise-versa).
Linux as a whole might take some blame if an older version worked with the hardware (say in kernel 2.4) , but a newer version (say kernel 2.6) didn't. This does happen on occasion, but it is generally fixed-up by either an OSS developer that wants to use the hardware, or the vendor (such as the Nvidia binaries).
Remember, Vista is purported to be somewhat of an upgrade/improvement over XP. That means that people expect it to do what XP does, and more. It's still MS windows, just a newer, shinier, bulkier ones.
So if your winmodem worked in 2.4.x and not in 2.6.x, you might have a legitimate gripe at linux. Generally such things come out in the next-version bugfixes, but issues do happen where a particular newer version does not like certain hardware, or the source-code for modules doesn't compile and no newer-version source is available. If there never was support for your winmodem in the first place (note, WINmodem is a good giveway that it's not non-windows friendly), then the blame rests somewhat on the manufacturer for not providing a driver, or at least specs for such. In the case of winmodems, the software pretty much is most of the product, so the manufacturers guard it fairly closely.
Long long ago I had a bike light that was chargable in this manner, but as mentioned by others it's actually requiring more effort to turn the charger than you would put out just peddling. Of course what others don't consider is that if you're in it for the workout anyways, a little extra sweat is not necessarily a bad thing.
I believe this particular little device charged off a spinning wheel (attached to your bike wheel), but there was a quick-snap mechanism that could be used to release it from the wheel. It might be more efficent to do something similar off the bike-chain or perhaps right at the pedals. Adding a kickable or clickable switch to enable it (much like the gear-shifts) could help to save a little pain on the uphill stretches.
I would envision something like what my PDA uses. In addition to the internal battery, you can plug the whole thing into an external battery pack, charging the internal battery off the pack (or using power from the pack). So rather than plugging your phone or whatever into the bike, just plug the proper form-factor power-pack in, and then recharge your device off the power-pack.
You can also do fun things like manipulate the pages themselves. There was a slashdot article a while back where somebody was reversing all the images on the destination pages.
The easiest way might be made a page that looks official and says "Due to technical difficulties, this myspace page is unavailable" that pops up 99% of the time (with the 1% to let people think the problem is myspace and not your servers).
And that raises some tantalizing possibilities, including a real long shot: Open-source, royalty-free formats win.
What about WMA, since it's an MS format I'm assuming that they don't have to deal with the same issues as mp3, and many other companies already support it on their products (car stereo, portable players, dvd players, etc). I'm not sure what the licensing terms are, but even if mp3 disappears it doesn't mean that an open format will automatically be the one to take the stage (not that I would mind in the least if ogg/flac support did increase)
Indeed. Here at work we have a bunch of machines that were getting re-done due to infections and/or other screwups. After dealing with my fifth or sixth call to MS Activation (and being rejected by the voice agent after typing in all those numbers and then having to talk to some guy with an accept), I said "screw it" and made a master image (all the systems were same) with one of our VLK's.
Now each machine has its own valid XP Pro license, it's just a whole lot less of a pain in the ass to setup one machine with a VLK and image it over all the other screwed up ones, than it is to setup each one and also deal with validating the installation keys over the phone.
So we might end up using more than X installations using the VLK, but actual legitimate XP Pro installs would still be on par.
I don't know if I'd say that cell-phone crippling infringes on one's liberties (last time I checked one did not have an unaliable right to 3rd-party apps on a phone), but how about meeting their contractual obligations. I know a lot of cellphone providers which advertise a service, only to pull sneaky tricks on it later.
If your provider is crippling their phones, what is your recourse? How about if they're changing the network topology (mine is supposedly disbanding the analog towers due to high cost and low use, but they're also the only real way to get a call out from inside many buildings where I work)?
If something isn't in a contract, but it is part of what is advertised at the time, is it part of a contractual obligation? How about if they're not advertising important details (like, we'll sell you phone X, but not mention that it's phone X minus a whackload of features due to crippleware). I know many people who were pissed because they spent $40-50 on data cables only to find they couldn't do anything with them due to software crippling.
I don't know what "runs like a mutt" qualifies as anyhow, but it may in many cases be enough for those who don't need high-performance database abilities (say, small company websites or apps with a DB, internal stuff etc).
The whole "FOSS on Windows" strategy might backfire in this case, especially when dealing with MPFOSS (Multiple Platform Free Open Source Software), and especially again when there is a performance improvement involved with an alternative operating system such as linux.:
Step 1: Convince companies to use FOSS on windows
Step 2: FOSS works well enough to meet the needs of the companies, without any extra licensing costs
Step 3: Customer realizes that they are running Firefox, Apache, PostgreSQL, and PHP, all of which run on Linux (or BSD, or perhaps even Macs)
Step 4: Customer realizes that said applications run *better* on Linux (although I can't personally speak for such with firefox when it comes to plugins such as flash/java, because it screws up a lot on some of my 'nix machines).
Step 5: Customer sets up a small linux machine as test, installing from a ubuntu CD or whatever
Step 6: Customer realizes they can save more money by switching their desktops/servers... and ditches windows
Step 7: (much chair-throwing ensues)
Essentially we have little sub-1Ghz client boxes with 512MB RAM and no hard drive. They boot off ethernet via PXE, grabbing a kernel and then mounting the root filesystem etc via NFS.
Newer setups have the client files in a vserver (google util-vserv) which allows for some convenience in seperating the server's components and those for the clients.
Some apps run locally on the client's processor/RAM, while others are run remotely "ssh -X" with the GUI piped back.
I'm trying to setup something similar at home, with a server image that should allow friends to connect and use 'nix while at my house (for rounds of frozen bubble, or whatever). You could email me (form on my website) if you want more info.
Does anyone know how well it works on Wine/Cedega? I haven't tried the game on either platform but I tend to run most of my games natively in linux or through one of the intermediary programs for windows games.
Agreed. The justice seems to be screwing greatly towards a "ends justifies the means" view, while not taking into consideration that the means do not always come up to the same result, and that they lead to a dangerously slippery slope.
I think that to analyse the case properly, you have to start at the top. Ignore what was found, and take the actions of the Canadian kid... they're illegal and definately unethical. That's the way the law should work, but nowadays things are complication. Plus, cross-border situation is another complication, and the bleeding-hearts are another. Do American authorities go after the kid for digital trespass, or the Canadian ones? Regardless of who does it, all the kid has to do is protest for the greater good, and suddenly the judges and politicians have the press and the bleeding-hearts breathing down his neck. I doubt the media would play it as "Canadian hacker breaks into 3000 computers internationally" but rather "Boy who brings down pedo ring arrested by police!"
I'm just waiting for the day when they do find some guy has been framed by his enemy, ex-wife, or whatever, with KP planted on his computer... either directly by the person in question or by a hired hacker etc. The problem with these types of offenses is that they're appear so ugly to many people that nobody wants to look at them closely. It's like a doctor trying to perform an operation on a nasty infection while looking away because what he sees is too offensive... it wouldn't make for good medicine, and until we're willing to confront these issues openly and head on without flinching, it doesn't make for good law.
But it's a Canadian hacker. Makes things interesting, as I once heard that the American gov't does employ Canadian agencies to do the spying etc they themselves cannot do by law... and vise-versa.
Hmmm, well by the sounds of it, it's both. These groups are often of individuals who trade (and often members who produce) such material. By the sounds of it the judge had some involvement attempting to reel in local kids:
After reading the judge's electronic diary, he concluded it showed an apparent plot to sexually exploit young boys at a private health club.
Maybe the conclusion is flawed, but it sounds like the judge in question was more than just a viewer of the material...
a) We don't know what usenet groups were used. Maybe it's just his opinion that they're ones that only CP frequenters would visit.
b) We have only his word that he didn't plant it elsewhere...
c) How do we know that the infected file wasn't transferred by somebody else accidentally to others. Say the great hacker posts it in a CP forum, and a forum member posts it elsewhere in usenet or wherever. So the program calls home, how does he know it's from a valid target?
d) WHY do CP-focussed usenet groups exist? Is there actually an alt.binaries.pictures.SOMEILLEGALCRAP group?
Frankly, I don't side with either him or his targets. The judge should be investigated, and so should the hacker... if they find he's snooping around a bunch of innocent people's computers, which I wouldn't be surprised, then perhaps we'll have some evidence to form an opinion about him.
Yes, what I think we really need is less protections for juveniles and/or their parents.
Kid fucks somebody's reputation over (and it can be very, very bad) with lies... nail 'em for slander.
Kid sucker-punches somebody and knocks out some teeth, nail 'em for assault
While kids are perhaps too young to have a firm grip on some of the finer points of law (hell, even most adults would), most of the shit that goes on should be understandable as illegal (and not just "oh, that's bad) by anyone past the fourth grade.
Which works great when you're not about half the size of the person in question, or facing groups of 5-7 people. In those situations you're just going to get your ass kicked.
Of course, sometimes there's going to be an asskicking either way, so sometimes in those cases it's best to get your licks in and hope you can knock a few of them down before they can all shitkick you, or just prove to them that you're too psycho to f*** around with.
(yes, even when they're small little buggers, nobody messed with the "psycho" kids)
Slashdot Mirror
So, when you see a gal kick someone across the room, technically, the kicker (or holder of a gun) must fly across the room in the opposite direction - unless she has a back against the wall.
Not only that, but it fails to take into effect the masses of the two individuals. Just like I could push, kick, or punch a ball away from me, a person with enough mass can in fact repel a person of smaller mass over a certain distance. Perhaps not across the room and partway through a wall, but most people could already figure that part out.
Still, whether it's a person or any other object, it all comes down to friction, angle, and mass. I semi travelling at decent speed can send a small car flying, especially if it manages to "scoop" it with a certain angle. A mid-sized person braces right can propel another person away, and a larger person (well, more massive) can do so to a greater extent.
As to the shotgun blasts blowing someone across the room, I've never shot anyone or anything at close range with a shotgun, but it might work against a smaller person/animal. With a really big gun held by a really massive person (properly braced) it would possibly stagger the shooter while propelling the shootee...
Bank: End-user receipts are allowed and in fact welcomed. When you make a transaction it spits out a little piece of paper that shows your balance and/or banking history
Voting Machine: End user is not to receive a paper receipt, mainly on the basis that doing so could further vote-buying/pressuring/forcing/etc (i.e. a given group threatening dire consequences if voted Y doesn't come out with a slip saying he/she voted for "X")
Ok, but what happens to your precious application when your company's Windows users are screaming for a functional version?
Ummmm, standardize on a cross-platform compatible browser? Firefox, Mozilla, and I believe netscape/opera are available on most if not all major platforms.
Just because they're windows users doesn't mean they're tied to a particular browser. We have plenty of both windows and linux machines at work, and they both get firefox, and generally both behave the same in firefox in regards to loading/displaying pages.
Darn, you stole my point. But to add to that for those that want to see this in action (hey, the RIAA likes screenshots, right):
See Here, or here, or just here
You've got one card allowing you to set or clone (copy from the connecting machine) a MAC address, another allow to type in the MAC segments, and then a bunch of google results in general for the interfaces to this.
And this is just for routers, mind. It's also quite easy to spoof MAC using windows, easy on linux/BSD using ifconfig, or see here for info on all the common OS's.
So what can you do with this?
Well with a router it makes it easy (as mentioned in the parent) to configure so that the ISP thinks a given PC is connected... thus skipping the issues when you have either the computer or the router plugged directly to the DSL/cable modem.
With a PC you can test various DHCP settings, pretend to be somebody else and nab their IP (the dhcp serving machine will generally assume you are whomever your MAC states you are), get onto MAC-secured wireless, and many other things. There are plenty of legit uses, but certainly many other cases where one an online "identity" could be easily misrepresented.
Of course, I somewhat figured on that assumption. However, how is it comparable to other similarly used materials. For example, at the thickness of a window pane, how does it compared in transparency and strength? Ditto for other useful applications.
How strong is this stuff at greater thicknesses? Could it be used for better windows (less breakable, more transparent)?
There are plenty of applications for high-strength high-transparency (which I'm assuming is a product of lower reflectivity) materials. Heck, if they're strong enough then depending on the cost there's a decent market for them just in the vehicle-window market (especially planes, jets, submarines, ships, etc).
Hell, nowadays I wouldn't rely on one single drive before it reaches warranty. Usually by the time of the smaller warranty's (1yr) you've accumulated enough important stuff to make the data-loss much more painful than the cost of the replacement drive.
Now in some cases manufacturers with longer warranties are stating that they have more faith in their product, and certainly the sudden drop in warranty length (from 2-3 years down to one for many) indicates a lack of faith in their products.
Basically, a warranty isn't so much your guarantee on a product so much it says:
This warranty length gives us the maximal profit on drive sales vs returns. In other words, any longer than that and the returns are going to eat into the company's profits, but there will be drive deaths both before and after that term. Nowadays a three year warranty isn't any sort of guarantee of such longevity, but rather the point at which the manufacturer is no longer willing to eat the cost of returns.
It's also common for a company to take a "do-not-use" approach to software (or hardware for that matter) that causes known conflicts. Where I work, we have a policy of reverting machines that come with IE7 back to IE6, and disabling the windows-update packages for IE7.
Why, because we know that it bugs out with our portal system, as well as some of our other information management systems. I know that many other industries and/or sectors are experiencing the same thing: it's not a case of "might not work" or even consistency, it's pretty clear that anyone using IE7 will run into issues with the systems we commonly use.
For that matter Java 6 (from 1.5 to 6, WTF?) doesn't play nicely with various systems either, so that's on the do-not-use/do-not-upgrade list as well. The fun comes when all the happy little auto-updater applications decide to take it upon themselves and increment versions without our knowledge... which means making sure that auto-upgrades are in general disabled when possible.
So far I've found that firefox 2.x is working happily, which is one of the few newer web-type apps that hasn't run into conflicts when moving up from older versions. It seems that one end or the other runs into standards compliance issues in most cases (i.e. older web-app that doesn't meet standards, newer browser/java/whatever or vise-versa).
Linux as a whole might take some blame if an older version worked with the hardware (say in kernel 2.4) , but a newer version (say kernel 2.6) didn't. This does happen on occasion, but it is generally fixed-up by either an OSS developer that wants to use the hardware, or the vendor (such as the Nvidia binaries).
Remember, Vista is purported to be somewhat of an upgrade/improvement over XP. That means that people expect it to do what XP does, and more. It's still MS windows, just a newer, shinier, bulkier ones.
So if your winmodem worked in 2.4.x and not in 2.6.x, you might have a legitimate gripe at linux. Generally such things come out in the next-version bugfixes, but issues do happen where a particular newer version does not like certain hardware, or the source-code for modules doesn't compile and no newer-version source is available. If there never was support for your winmodem in the first place (note, WINmodem is a good giveway that it's not non-windows friendly), then the blame rests somewhat on the manufacturer for not providing a driver, or at least specs for such. In the case of winmodems, the software pretty much is most of the product, so the manufacturers guard it fairly closely.
Long long ago I had a bike light that was chargable in this manner, but as mentioned by others it's actually requiring more effort to turn the charger than you would put out just peddling. Of course what others don't consider is that if you're in it for the workout anyways, a little extra sweat is not necessarily a bad thing.
I believe this particular little device charged off a spinning wheel (attached to your bike wheel), but there was a quick-snap mechanism that could be used to release it from the wheel. It might be more efficent to do something similar off the bike-chain or perhaps right at the pedals. Adding a kickable or clickable switch to enable it (much like the gear-shifts) could help to save a little pain on the uphill stretches.
I would envision something like what my PDA uses. In addition to the internal battery, you can plug the whole thing into an external battery pack, charging the internal battery off the pack (or using power from the pack). So rather than plugging your phone or whatever into the bike, just plug the proper form-factor power-pack in, and then recharge your device off the power-pack.
C:\cat /proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info | grep model
Bad Command or File Name
C:\
*ducks*
You can also do fun things like manipulate the pages themselves. There was a slashdot article a while back where somebody was reversing all the images on the destination pages.
The easiest way might be made a page that looks official and says "Due to technical difficulties, this myspace page is unavailable" that pops up 99% of the time (with the 1% to let people think the problem is myspace and not your servers).
Machines with preinstalled OS's. Machines which existed before the VLK, but now need to be reimaged. Lots of issues can cause this situation.
And that raises some tantalizing possibilities, including a real long shot: Open-source, royalty-free formats win.
What about WMA, since it's an MS format I'm assuming that they don't have to deal with the same issues as mp3, and many other companies already support it on their products (car stereo, portable players, dvd players, etc). I'm not sure what the licensing terms are, but even if mp3 disappears it doesn't mean that an open format will automatically be the one to take the stage (not that I would mind in the least if ogg/flac support did increase)
Indeed. Here at work we have a bunch of machines that were getting re-done due to infections and/or other screwups. After dealing with my fifth or sixth call to MS Activation (and being rejected by the voice agent after typing in all those numbers and then having to talk to some guy with an accept), I said "screw it" and made a master image (all the systems were same) with one of our VLK's.
Now each machine has its own valid XP Pro license, it's just a whole lot less of a pain in the ass to setup one machine with a VLK and image it over all the other screwed up ones, than it is to setup each one and also deal with validating the installation keys over the phone.
So we might end up using more than X installations using the VLK, but actual legitimate XP Pro installs would still be on par.
I don't know if I'd say that cell-phone crippling infringes on one's liberties (last time I checked one did not have an unaliable right to 3rd-party apps on a phone), but how about meeting their contractual obligations. I know a lot of cellphone providers which advertise a service, only to pull sneaky tricks on it later.
If your provider is crippling their phones, what is your recourse? How about if they're changing the network topology (mine is supposedly disbanding the analog towers due to high cost and low use, but they're also the only real way to get a call out from inside many buildings where I work)?
If something isn't in a contract, but it is part of what is advertised at the time, is it part of a contractual obligation? How about if they're not advertising important details (like, we'll sell you phone X, but not mention that it's phone X minus a whackload of features due to crippleware). I know many people who were pissed because they spent $40-50 on data cables only to find they couldn't do anything with them due to software crippling.
I don't know what "runs like a mutt" qualifies as anyhow, but it may in many cases be enough for those who don't need high-performance database abilities (say, small company websites or apps with a DB, internal stuff etc).
:
The whole "FOSS on Windows" strategy might backfire in this case, especially when dealing with MPFOSS (Multiple Platform Free Open Source Software), and especially again when there is a performance improvement involved with an alternative operating system such as linux.
Step 1: Convince companies to use FOSS on windows
Step 2: FOSS works well enough to meet the needs of the companies, without any extra licensing costs
Step 3: Customer realizes that they are running Firefox, Apache, PostgreSQL, and PHP, all of which run on Linux (or BSD, or perhaps even Macs)
Step 4: Customer realizes that said applications run *better* on Linux (although I can't personally speak for such with firefox when it comes to plugins such as flash/java, because it screws up a lot on some of my 'nix machines).
Step 5: Customer sets up a small linux machine as test, installing from a ubuntu CD or whatever
Step 6: Customer realizes they can save more money by switching their desktops/servers... and ditches windows
Step 7: (much chair-throwing ensues)
We use this where I work.
Essentially we have little sub-1Ghz client boxes with 512MB RAM and no hard drive. They boot off ethernet via PXE, grabbing a kernel and then mounting the root filesystem etc via NFS.
Newer setups have the client files in a vserver (google util-vserv) which allows for some convenience in seperating the server's components and those for the clients.
Some apps run locally on the client's processor/RAM, while others are run remotely "ssh -X" with the GUI piped back.
I'm trying to setup something similar at home, with a server image that should allow friends to connect and use 'nix while at my house (for rounds of frozen bubble, or whatever). You could email me (form on my website) if you want more info.
Does anyone know how well it works on Wine/Cedega? I haven't tried the game on either platform but I tend to run most of my games natively in linux or through one of the intermediary programs for windows games.
Agreed. The justice seems to be screwing greatly towards a "ends justifies the means" view, while not taking into consideration that the means do not always come up to the same result, and that they lead to a dangerously slippery slope.
I think that to analyse the case properly, you have to start at the top. Ignore what was found, and take the actions of the Canadian kid... they're illegal and definately unethical. That's the way the law should work, but nowadays things are complication. Plus, cross-border situation is another complication, and the bleeding-hearts are another. Do American authorities go after the kid for digital trespass, or the Canadian ones? Regardless of who does it, all the kid has to do is protest for the greater good, and suddenly the judges and politicians have the press and the bleeding-hearts breathing down his neck. I doubt the media would play it as "Canadian hacker breaks into 3000 computers internationally" but rather "Boy who brings down pedo ring arrested by police!"
I'm just waiting for the day when they do find some guy has been framed by his enemy, ex-wife, or whatever, with KP planted on his computer... either directly by the person in question or by a hired hacker etc. The problem with these types of offenses is that they're appear so ugly to many people that nobody wants to look at them closely. It's like a doctor trying to perform an operation on a nasty infection while looking away because what he sees is too offensive... it wouldn't make for good medicine, and until we're willing to confront these issues openly and head on without flinching, it doesn't make for good law.
But it's a Canadian hacker. Makes things interesting, as I once heard that the American gov't does employ Canadian agencies to do the spying etc they themselves cannot do by law... and vise-versa.
Hmmm, well by the sounds of it, it's both. These groups are often of individuals who trade (and often members who produce) such material. By the sounds of it the judge had some involvement attempting to reel in local kids:
After reading the judge's electronic diary, he concluded it showed an apparent plot to sexually exploit young boys at a private health club.
Maybe the conclusion is flawed, but it sounds like the judge in question was more than just a viewer of the material...
a) We don't know what usenet groups were used. Maybe it's just his opinion that they're ones that only CP frequenters would visit.
b) We have only his word that he didn't plant it elsewhere...
c) How do we know that the infected file wasn't transferred by somebody else accidentally to others. Say the great hacker posts it in a CP forum, and a forum member posts it elsewhere in usenet or wherever. So the program calls home, how does he know it's from a valid target?
d) WHY do CP-focussed usenet groups exist? Is there actually an alt.binaries.pictures.SOMEILLEGALCRAP group?
Frankly, I don't side with either him or his targets. The judge should be investigated, and so should the hacker... if they find he's snooping around a bunch of innocent people's computers, which I wouldn't be surprised, then perhaps we'll have some evidence to form an opinion about him.
Yes, what I think we really need is less protections for juveniles and/or their parents.
Kid fucks somebody's reputation over (and it can be very, very bad) with lies... nail 'em for slander.
Kid sucker-punches somebody and knocks out some teeth, nail 'em for assault
While kids are perhaps too young to have a firm grip on some of the finer points of law (hell, even most adults would), most of the shit that goes on should be understandable as illegal (and not just "oh, that's bad) by anyone past the fourth grade.
Which works great when you're not about half the size of the person in question, or facing groups of 5-7 people. In those situations you're just going to get your ass kicked.
Of course, sometimes there's going to be an asskicking either way, so sometimes in those cases it's best to get your licks in and hope you can knock a few of them down before they can all shitkick you, or just prove to them that you're too psycho to f*** around with.
(yes, even when they're small little buggers, nobody messed with the "psycho" kids)