Facebook should be slammed for what it has done, and it should REALLY be slammed for its ridiculously, deliberately misleading advertising going on now. But calling it a monopoly and "breaking it up", that's nonsense. Don't punish success, punish the bad things that anyone does.
If you haven't seen the current ad campaign, here it is in a nutshell. People talking about how great it was to be able to connect to friends, "and then we got spam" and invasion of privacy and all the bad stuff. If we could go back to the good stuff, imagine how good things would be? Facebook promises to protect your privacy, etc... and we'll go back to that.
Except it was Facebook that brought us the spam and the invasion of privacy. It wasn't some unintended consequence from "other people". It's two faced and insulting.
The ad summary, in my words: "Trust us, we won't screw you a second time."
So they can determine when Kim Dotcom arrives asking for political asylum.
If Kim Dotcom arrives asking for political asylum, I don't think they're going to need facial recognition software to "catch" him. He's going to stand in front of an immigration agent and say "I'm Kim Dotcom and I am seeking political asylum."
The payments for this lawsuit come out of the revenue that was generated selling the stamps that were never used (collected).
There is no reasonable way to identify how many of those stamps were never used. They are "forever" stamps -- they could be used tomorrow or in a week or in a year or in ten years. You MIGHT be able to count how many HAVE been used, but you can't just subtract to get how many will not be used. I can't imagine that the USPS actually tries to count which stamps are being used, but perhaps it is part of the postmarking system.
Second, the revenue for those stamps was not paying for an image. The USPS is not profiting from the sale of the image. The revenue is paying for the service of sending the email. This service has nothing to do with the image on the stamp. When I buy stamps, I say "give me a package of stamps", and I don't care what the images are. Do I have some of the SOL forevers still unused? Certainly -- I know I have lost at least one package of stamps, and it very well could be that version. Should the USPS be fined 5% of the money I paid for them? Don't be ridiculous.
Getty should be paying the entire judgement, since they falsely represented that they had the rights to sell, and the US Government accepted that claim in good faith. But...
because the stamp was not sold for the picture but a SERVICE
We just saw the story on a Virginia court that ruled that a for-profit group (a Virginia Film Festival) could use a photographer's image as part of its advertising ("come to our festival and you can also do these local things...") under "fair use" exemptions. The Post Office is not a for-profit corporation, and the picture of the statue is not what was being purchased, as you point out. Neither the owner of the photograph nor the owner of the statue were fiscally injured in this process, so they deserve no punitive damages, nor do they deserve royalties from the USPS.
Never had a passport, or used one to travel, I see.
Having to juggle documents when traveling is a problem. People forget which pocket their boarding pass is in. They stand in line watching everyone else show a boarding pass to get on, and then start searching for theirs when they get to the front of the line.
I carry mine in my pocket when I'm abroad, just so I always have ID with me. Problem: they absorb water when you sweat, start to become unreadable. Before I started solving the problem by carrying it in a plastic bag, I was on one trip where I was concerned that it wouldn't be readable enough to get back into the US. That would be a problem, no? Not for you, of course.
It will have problems with false positives and there will be issues which never happened when the old system of using passports was in place.
Of course. Every system has problems. Different systems have different problems. Your comment is "do'h", Captain Obvious.
The question is, will there be fewer problems or a reduction of existing problems with the new system? If this system results in faster processing and less paperwork for 95% of the passenger traffic, and requires a fallback to the old passport system for only 5%, then it is a win for the entire system. Those 5% who still need to show a passport or boarding pass will get through the process FASTER than before, because the other 95% will be processed much faster and won't hold up the lines.
I guess Australians like the taste of fascist boot soles.
What an asinine comment. Facial recognition software at an airport is hardly a violation of privacy or fascism or anything of the kind. An airport is already one of the most video-active places on the planet. It is also one of the most IDd places. For example, explain to me the difference between getting to the ID check at security and smiling into a camera to be identified, versus showing my passport and boarding pass. Both cases put an identifiable ME at that point at that time. Ditto for the check-in at the ticket counter. Ditto for the boarding gate.
You're actually making my point here. You're paying $5 because you're paying for something above and beyond what UPS was originally contracted to perform.
Nope. They were paid to deliver a package. They cannot deliver it to me if I am not where they are trying to deliver it. It is much cheaper for them to redirect the delivery -- to the same city, on the same truck -- than to deal with a non-delivery or a lost delivery.
What additional service was Comcast providing when it demanded extra payments?
Uhhh, electricity, network connection, air conditioning, environmental protection. Colo is not free, despite Netflix offering to provide a colocated server in Comcast's data center "for free".
If Comcast wants to charge Netflix extra to colocate or whatnot, I have no problem with that,
You do or you don't. I can't figure out.
Given that Netflix wasn't colocating with Comcast in the first place when Comcast throttled them and demanded the fees
Border congestion is not "throttling". Netflix's offer of "free colo" of one of their servers in a Comcast data center to solve the border congestion issues was met with a proper demand for payment for the colo services.
I keep wondering in what idiotic world does last mile connection constitute "interstate commerce".
Given that you've not quoted anything for context, and/.'s broken "parent" links that don't show parents, I'm having a hard time reading relevance in this.
The "last mile" is not interstate commerce, but when you buy Internet service from an ISP you are not getting just "last mile" service, you are getting a connection that can and usually does cross state boundaries. NN has little to do with "last mile" service in any case, since any true violations of NN take place far from the endpoints.
If FedEx and Amazon agree to a contract and you then order something from Amazon, FedEx doesn't get to hustle you for money in order to deliver the package on time.
This is great news for all the people who have had to pay extra to redirect a package that UPS is trying to deliver to a place where they aren't. UPS has been paid to deliver it already. Charging $5 to readdress it enroute is a breach of contract.
Oh, wait, as a recipient of a package I have no contract with UPS.
Without safeguards like these, the fees that ISPs like Comcast were trying to charge services like Netflix
NN has nothing to do with charging other commercial operators a fee for co-locating their servers in the ISPs data center.
As I understand it, it's not a ban on ISPs from breaking net neutrality, but rather an order to the state government that anybody doing business with the state of California must abide by net neutrality.
It's hard to know what's in this sausage because, according to TFA, the text of the bill won't be released until August. It's not passed yet, it's not even written yet. Assuming you are right, then the State of California will be getting its internet service from Comcast Government of California instead of Comcast. Different company, you know?
Also, according to TFA:
"I think the FCC preemption is not valid," Wiener told Ars, saying that California has authority to protect consumers and business from unfair business practices.
In other words, Wiener (not the Wiener with the weener pix, a different one) is admitting that the FCC is not the right place for such regulation, it should come from the FTC. It's not a technical issue, it's a trade issue.
The court might look at the content of the messages and decide they were all auto-responses, BUT THE COP WHO WRITES THE TICKET probably will not. You've fallen into the trap of thinking that something is not illegal and you won't get punished for it as long as a court eventually finds you not guilty. You're spending an awful lot of time and money waiting for that final verdict. If you're one of the first people who hits the top offender category (X many times in Y years) you may even get a nice newspaper story about it -- complete with mugshot.
That's the same trap that hams in Oregon find themselves in with the new distracted driving law here. We used to be exempted, now it is "an affirmative defense" to be using an amateur radio while driving. As a specialist on the law told me, "affirmative defense" means you get to be found "not guilty" after getting the ticket on your record and spending time in front of a judge. And you had better be using a model of radio that says "amateur radio" in the documentation and not a repurposed commercial radio.
The text message even says 'Auto-response' in it.
You need to read the message to see that. The content of the message is irrelevant, so no cop is going to read all 8313 messages to see that they're all "auto-response". He's going to see your texting history and that it has you sending messages while you are driving.
Are you seriously trying to claim that the Northern Virginia Film Festival is free and open to the public? I looked at the website and it sure looks like it is a full-blown commercial operation. I don't see what the price of tickets is, but they brag that a portion of ticket sales is donated to some charity. They also brag about the parties and participants and amount of business that takes place there. If this is anything like any other convention the operators charge a good fee to both exhibitors and visitors and take a good cut off the top for profit.
They were using someone's image to advertise their commercial venture. Claiming they "made no money from it" is ridiculous.
Or it establishes good faith if you want to use the term.
Yeah, a group of film makers and distributors trying to claim "good faith" when they use a photographer's image without payment or permission is SO convincing.
My phone already has a feature that if it's connected to my vehicle's Bluetooth, it will auto-respond to any text messages informing the sender that I'm driving and cannot respond.
Cool. So someone else who is driving breaks the law and texts you, and you both get punished by having 8313 incoming SMS after your two-hour drive.
Better yet, you get pulled over for a minor infraction and the officer thinks you've been texting in violation of the law. He looks at your SMS history and sees 8313 outgoing text messages while you've been driving.
I think we have a really deep cultural problem, fueled by the IM applications were there is an "expectation" of being available all the time...
You don' t need a "status" message, just don't run the program. If you're running an IM client, then why shouldn't someone assume you are accepting IMs? If you're not running the IM client, then it is pretty obvious that you aren't available.
On the other hand, if you have genuine reason to fear you might be harmed or killed
Then go to a different country.
or that if word of your leaving gets out your family left back home might be targeted..
Because nobody would notice that you aren't there anymore, right?
How is obeying the rules fair when the rules are gonna get you killed?
You leap from "maybe" to a definite statement of fact.
And why assume the rules are reasonable or fair anyway, when they are clearly designed not to be?
And now you assume that which you need to prove. I don't assume the laws are fair, I look at the laws and make an informed judgement. If you think that telling the immigration officials at the country where you seek asylum will result in your death, you need to go somewhere else. If you think that lying and committing a crime to be able to enter a country where you will be afraid to live is right, then what other laws will you simply ignore once you are there?
I think they are clearly designed to be fair. Your opinion differs, and your only argument is that I must be assuming the fairness instead of making my own judgement. Sorry, your argument is seriously unconvincing.
with GPS receiver and cellular modem next time you go dumpster diving.
Remind me, what is the term for someone making a fake call to get SWAT to descend on someone innocent? You'd want to do that to yourself?
In reading the summary, I'm surprised that he'd think that cops can't tell the difference. Most license plates I know of today use color, even if it is just the stickers to show expiration dates. A grayscale e-ink license plate will stand out like a sore thumb.
But what about lying about your name or the town you came from
"I am from Berne, and my name is Mr. Bimler... this is my friend Mr. Hilter and he most recently lived in Vienna.
Lying about your name prevents validation of your status in the country you are fleeing, including criminal and political. By lying about your name you are deliberately trying to bypass the legal process of asylum, and should be deported. If you are going to lie to get into the country, what other laws are you going to break once you are here?
Remember that refugees are fleeing something, and they don't know the system
Are you seriously trying to claim that they don't know they are lying ("don't know the system")? Or that they don't trust the place they are trying to gain entry to? Then why would they flee to that country if they don't trust that country? That's leaping from the frying pan into the fire, isn't it?
Go somewhere that lying is acceptable and that you trust. Bye.
A zero tolerance policy is unfair.
It is quite fair to the people who already live here, and to those who obey the laws to try to gain entry. It is certainly fair to those who are refused asylum for cause when they tell the truth.
As far as I know, every state requires US citizenship in order to vote.
But can do nothing to verify that the person casting that ballot is a US citizen. Trying to require something as simple as ID is labelled as "racism" and results in lawsuits.
Imagine a law that says only people older than 20 can drink alcohol, and then not allowing the bars to check IDs to make sure all the people they serve are at least 21. Would you still argue that there is any law against 18 year olds drinking? Any USEFUL law?
It's OK if you're afraid of immigrants,
Nothing here shows any fear of immigrants. It shows a disdain for criminals, however. Not every immigrant is a criminal.
but it's not OK to lie about how things work in the real world.
Nor it is OK to ignore that prohibiting the enforcement of laws effectively eliminates those laws.
Slashdot Mirror
Facebook should be slammed for what it has done, and it should REALLY be slammed for its ridiculously, deliberately misleading advertising going on now. But calling it a monopoly and "breaking it up", that's nonsense. Don't punish success, punish the bad things that anyone does.
If you haven't seen the current ad campaign, here it is in a nutshell. People talking about how great it was to be able to connect to friends, "and then we got spam" and invasion of privacy and all the bad stuff. If we could go back to the good stuff, imagine how good things would be? Facebook promises to protect your privacy, etc... and we'll go back to that.
Except it was Facebook that brought us the spam and the invasion of privacy. It wasn't some unintended consequence from "other people". It's two faced and insulting.
The ad summary, in my words: "Trust us, we won't screw you a second time."
So they can determine when Kim Dotcom arrives asking for political asylum.
If Kim Dotcom arrives asking for political asylum, I don't think they're going to need facial recognition software to "catch" him. He's going to stand in front of an immigration agent and say "I'm Kim Dotcom and I am seeking political asylum."
The payments for this lawsuit come out of the revenue that was generated selling the stamps that were never used (collected).
There is no reasonable way to identify how many of those stamps were never used. They are "forever" stamps -- they could be used tomorrow or in a week or in a year or in ten years. You MIGHT be able to count how many HAVE been used, but you can't just subtract to get how many will not be used. I can't imagine that the USPS actually tries to count which stamps are being used, but perhaps it is part of the postmarking system.
Second, the revenue for those stamps was not paying for an image. The USPS is not profiting from the sale of the image. The revenue is paying for the service of sending the email. This service has nothing to do with the image on the stamp. When I buy stamps, I say "give me a package of stamps", and I don't care what the images are. Do I have some of the SOL forevers still unused? Certainly -- I know I have lost at least one package of stamps, and it very well could be that version. Should the USPS be fined 5% of the money I paid for them? Don't be ridiculous.
Getty should be refunding the $1500,
Getty should be paying the entire judgement, since they falsely represented that they had the rights to sell, and the US Government accepted that claim in good faith. But...
because the stamp was not sold for the picture but a SERVICE
We just saw the story on a Virginia court that ruled that a for-profit group (a Virginia Film Festival) could use a photographer's image as part of its advertising ("come to our festival and you can also do these local things...") under "fair use" exemptions. The Post Office is not a for-profit corporation, and the picture of the statue is not what was being purchased, as you point out. Neither the owner of the photograph nor the owner of the statue were fiscally injured in this process, so they deserve no punitive damages, nor do they deserve royalties from the USPS.
There was no problem with how passports worked.
Never had a passport, or used one to travel, I see.
Having to juggle documents when traveling is a problem. People forget which pocket their boarding pass is in. They stand in line watching everyone else show a boarding pass to get on, and then start searching for theirs when they get to the front of the line.
I carry mine in my pocket when I'm abroad, just so I always have ID with me. Problem: they absorb water when you sweat, start to become unreadable. Before I started solving the problem by carrying it in a plastic bag, I was on one trip where I was concerned that it wouldn't be readable enough to get back into the US. That would be a problem, no? Not for you, of course.
It will have problems with false positives and there will be issues which never happened when the old system of using passports was in place.
Of course. Every system has problems. Different systems have different problems. Your comment is "do'h", Captain Obvious.
The question is, will there be fewer problems or a reduction of existing problems with the new system? If this system results in faster processing and less paperwork for 95% of the passenger traffic, and requires a fallback to the old passport system for only 5%, then it is a win for the entire system. Those 5% who still need to show a passport or boarding pass will get through the process FASTER than before, because the other 95% will be processed much faster and won't hold up the lines.
I guess Australians like the taste of fascist boot soles.
What an asinine comment. Facial recognition software at an airport is hardly a violation of privacy or fascism or anything of the kind. An airport is already one of the most video-active places on the planet. It is also one of the most IDd places. For example, explain to me the difference between getting to the ID check at security and smiling into a camera to be identified, versus showing my passport and boarding pass. Both cases put an identifiable ME at that point at that time. Ditto for the check-in at the ticket counter. Ditto for the boarding gate.
You're actually making my point here. You're paying $5 because you're paying for something above and beyond what UPS was originally contracted to perform.
Nope. They were paid to deliver a package. They cannot deliver it to me if I am not where they are trying to deliver it. It is much cheaper for them to redirect the delivery -- to the same city, on the same truck -- than to deal with a non-delivery or a lost delivery.
What additional service was Comcast providing when it demanded extra payments?
Uhhh, electricity, network connection, air conditioning, environmental protection. Colo is not free, despite Netflix offering to provide a colocated server in Comcast's data center "for free".
If Comcast wants to charge Netflix extra to colocate or whatnot, I have no problem with that,
You do or you don't. I can't figure out.
Given that Netflix wasn't colocating with Comcast in the first place when Comcast throttled them and demanded the fees
Border congestion is not "throttling". Netflix's offer of "free colo" of one of their servers in a Comcast data center to solve the border congestion issues was met with a proper demand for payment for the colo services.
I keep wondering in what idiotic world does last mile connection constitute "interstate commerce".
Given that you've not quoted anything for context, and /.'s broken "parent" links that don't show parents, I'm having a hard time reading relevance in this.
The "last mile" is not interstate commerce, but when you buy Internet service from an ISP you are not getting just "last mile" service, you are getting a connection that can and usually does cross state boundaries. NN has little to do with "last mile" service in any case, since any true violations of NN take place far from the endpoints.
If FedEx and Amazon agree to a contract and you then order something from Amazon, FedEx doesn't get to hustle you for money in order to deliver the package on time.
This is great news for all the people who have had to pay extra to redirect a package that UPS is trying to deliver to a place where they aren't. UPS has been paid to deliver it already. Charging $5 to readdress it enroute is a breach of contract.
Oh, wait, as a recipient of a package I have no contract with UPS.
Without safeguards like these, the fees that ISPs like Comcast were trying to charge services like Netflix
NN has nothing to do with charging other commercial operators a fee for co-locating their servers in the ISPs data center.
As I understand it, it's not a ban on ISPs from breaking net neutrality, but rather an order to the state government that anybody doing business with the state of California must abide by net neutrality.
It's hard to know what's in this sausage because, according to TFA, the text of the bill won't be released until August. It's not passed yet, it's not even written yet. Assuming you are right, then the State of California will be getting its internet service from Comcast Government of California instead of Comcast. Different company, you know?
Also, according to TFA:
In other words, Wiener (not the Wiener with the weener pix, a different one) is admitting that the FCC is not the right place for such regulation, it should come from the FTC. It's not a technical issue, it's a trade issue.
No. No court is that stupid, sorry buddy.
The court might look at the content of the messages and decide they were all auto-responses, BUT THE COP WHO WRITES THE TICKET probably will not. You've fallen into the trap of thinking that something is not illegal and you won't get punished for it as long as a court eventually finds you not guilty. You're spending an awful lot of time and money waiting for that final verdict. If you're one of the first people who hits the top offender category (X many times in Y years) you may even get a nice newspaper story about it -- complete with mugshot.
That's the same trap that hams in Oregon find themselves in with the new distracted driving law here. We used to be exempted, now it is "an affirmative defense" to be using an amateur radio while driving. As a specialist on the law told me, "affirmative defense" means you get to be found "not guilty" after getting the ticket on your record and spending time in front of a judge. And you had better be using a model of radio that says "amateur radio" in the documentation and not a repurposed commercial radio.
The text message even says 'Auto-response' in it.
You need to read the message to see that. The content of the message is irrelevant, so no cop is going to read all 8313 messages to see that they're all "auto-response". He's going to see your texting history and that it has you sending messages while you are driving.
Judges have never been wrong before.
Also they made no money from it
Are you seriously trying to claim that the Northern Virginia Film Festival is free and open to the public? I looked at the website and it sure looks like it is a full-blown commercial operation. I don't see what the price of tickets is, but they brag that a portion of ticket sales is donated to some charity. They also brag about the parties and participants and amount of business that takes place there. If this is anything like any other convention the operators charge a good fee to both exhibitors and visitors and take a good cut off the top for profit.
They were using someone's image to advertise their commercial venture. Claiming they "made no money from it" is ridiculous.
Or it establishes good faith if you want to use the term.
Yeah, a group of film makers and distributors trying to claim "good faith" when they use a photographer's image without payment or permission is SO convincing.
My phone already has a feature that if it's connected to my vehicle's Bluetooth, it will auto-respond to any text messages informing the sender that I'm driving and cannot respond.
Cool. So someone else who is driving breaks the law and texts you, and you both get punished by having 8313 incoming SMS after your two-hour drive.
Better yet, you get pulled over for a minor infraction and the officer thinks you've been texting in violation of the law. He looks at your SMS history and sees 8313 outgoing text messages while you've been driving.
That's like a huge fine at least in Oregon.
I think we have a really deep cultural problem, fueled by the IM applications were there is an "expectation" of being available all the time...
You don' t need a "status" message, just don't run the program. If you're running an IM client, then why shouldn't someone assume you are accepting IMs? If you're not running the IM client, then it is pretty obvious that you aren't available.
you have to have pretty heavy buy-in to the O365 platform
It's not "buy-in" when you're talking about O365, it's "rent-in".
By definition these folks don't have any papers or documentation (i.e. undocumented).
That is not true. It is not "by definition". They may not have any documents on their person, but it is quite possible that they do.
Further, their status as asylum seekers doesn't mean the source country has no documentation on them.
On the other hand, if you have genuine reason to fear you might be harmed or killed
Then go to a different country.
or that if word of your leaving gets out your family left back home might be targeted..
Because nobody would notice that you aren't there anymore, right?
How is obeying the rules fair when the rules are gonna get you killed?
You leap from "maybe" to a definite statement of fact.
And why assume the rules are reasonable or fair anyway, when they are clearly designed not to be?
And now you assume that which you need to prove. I don't assume the laws are fair, I look at the laws and make an informed judgement. If you think that telling the immigration officials at the country where you seek asylum will result in your death, you need to go somewhere else. If you think that lying and committing a crime to be able to enter a country where you will be afraid to live is right, then what other laws will you simply ignore once you are there?
I think they are clearly designed to be fair. Your opinion differs, and your only argument is that I must be assuming the fairness instead of making my own judgement. Sorry, your argument is seriously unconvincing.
If you carry a cell phone, you already have a tracker.
People sometimes forget where they parked, or need to find out where their SO parked it. Finding a misplaced car is a useful ability, for some.
If you carry a cell phone, it's tracking you, not your car. If you can't find yourself, you have more serious problems than just finding yourself.
That sounds like a plus.
If you think that being pulled over and going through a felony-stop for not having a license plate is a "plus".
That causes his car to break itself when he is trying to go backward
Sounds like the car is already broken. Maybe he should get it fixed? Then it will just lay on top of the TV and look sad.
with GPS receiver and cellular modem next time you go dumpster diving.
Remind me, what is the term for someone making a fake call to get SWAT to descend on someone innocent? You'd want to do that to yourself?
In reading the summary, I'm surprised that he'd think that cops can't tell the difference. Most license plates I know of today use color, even if it is just the stickers to show expiration dates. A grayscale e-ink license plate will stand out like a sore thumb.
But what about lying about your name or the town you came from
"I am from Berne, and my name is Mr. Bimler ... this is my friend Mr. Hilter and he most recently lived in Vienna.
Lying about your name prevents validation of your status in the country you are fleeing, including criminal and political. By lying about your name you are deliberately trying to bypass the legal process of asylum, and should be deported. If you are going to lie to get into the country, what other laws are you going to break once you are here?
Remember that refugees are fleeing something, and they don't know the system
Are you seriously trying to claim that they don't know they are lying ("don't know the system")? Or that they don't trust the place they are trying to gain entry to? Then why would they flee to that country if they don't trust that country? That's leaping from the frying pan into the fire, isn't it?
Go somewhere that lying is acceptable and that you trust. Bye.
A zero tolerance policy is unfair.
It is quite fair to the people who already live here, and to those who obey the laws to try to gain entry. It is certainly fair to those who are refused asylum for cause when they tell the truth.
As far as I know, every state requires US citizenship in order to vote.
But can do nothing to verify that the person casting that ballot is a US citizen. Trying to require something as simple as ID is labelled as "racism" and results in lawsuits.
Imagine a law that says only people older than 20 can drink alcohol, and then not allowing the bars to check IDs to make sure all the people they serve are at least 21. Would you still argue that there is any law against 18 year olds drinking? Any USEFUL law?
It's OK if you're afraid of immigrants,
Nothing here shows any fear of immigrants. It shows a disdain for criminals, however. Not every immigrant is a criminal.
but it's not OK to lie about how things work in the real world.
Nor it is OK to ignore that prohibiting the enforcement of laws effectively eliminates those laws.
Uh, you understand the difference between in-band call routing and out-of-band call routing, right?
Yes, sweetheart, I understand the difference. That's why what I said is a joke. Or, in the common vernacular: whoosh.
In some cases those frequencies ARE unused for somebody with a state of the art radio receiver
It is not up to an owner of a "state of the art" (whatever that means) radio receiver to determine if a frequency is unused.
analog technologies need not apply.
The US FM broadcast band is, despite any rumors you might have heard to the contrary, still analog.