That's actually not true. It's less of an issue with audio file formats, but video file formats can contain video compressed with any number of codecs, and you need the correct codec to play them.
Well, DUH! That's why it was important to notice that what I replied to said "a file format you can already play." That's why I wrote "if you can play the file..."
IF YOU CAN PLAY THE FILE, YOU ALREADY HAVE THE CODEC. That's a FACT. It's either built in or has already been installed, and the player already knows which codec to run. A player that has a codec for a certain format will NOT tell you that you need to download one. A website (not the player, the website) that tells you that you must download a codec is SCREAMING malware in BIG RED LETTERS. Period.
You are correct that many malware websites use fake codecs to install their malware, but it's just not true that any codec will work for any given file format.
Nobody said that any codec will work for any given file format.
Just because you can open the file...
You are the only one talking about opening a file. I specifically spoke about, and the person who made the initial statement is talking about, files you can PLAY, not just open.
If you don't have the right codec, the video won't play back at all.
Well, DUH again, and that's why this discussion was about the format of FILES YOU CAN PLAY.
I don't expect people here to RTFA, but at least read the comment you are replying to, ok?
That's good advice, but just because you can play the file format doesn't mean you have the right codec...
It means you have A codec that works, and all the player cares is that you have A codec that claims to work. If you can play the file format, you have both a working codec and a codec that the player knows about, so the player isn't going to tell you that you need to download another one.
Any WEBSITE that tells you that you need to download a codec when you already have one for that format is screaming MALWARE, whether or not you want to get into an argument about which is the BEST codec or the fastest or the "right" one. "Right" is an opinion and irrelevant.
Sorry, but when someone says "anything goes", to me, that means no rules at all, including no limits on power.
And let's not forget the historical record on "anything goes except power limits". CB radio has a 5 watt INPUT power limit (not output) that the first thing anyone did was retune the output to exceed. And then got themselves some "boots" to get through the competition.
Remember, current bands where "anything goes" aren't quite like that: they have strict power limits, so that you don't have to worry about your cordless phone or 802.11 access point being drowned out by your neighbor's, as long as you're not too close together.
Except you need to worry about your 802.11 being disabled by the phone, or your 2.4G video link by both. Or your bluetooth.
And if your neighbor is a ham who happens to be involved in HSMM, yes, you get to have all of your 2.4GHz devices disabled at the same time. HE's a licensed user of that spectrumm, and HE has much higher power limits than you do.
Spread-spectrum technology also made these less-regulated bands possible; if we still had fixed "channels" like FM or TV, this simply wouldn't be possible.
And we should be careful not to mix digital TV in with spread spectrum, even though they both look like noise to standard analog receivers. This is a key flaw in the "empty space" argument. It's really hard to know when you are interfering with a digital signal, since your analog receiver won't tell you it is there, and you may be just beyond the "good" contour and yet prevent people within it from getting a signal. It will take a regulatory agency of some kind, either the FCC or some other agency acting like them, to define where empty spaces are.
It can't be that hard to just cut off sound while CID is being sent.
I am not sure of the technical details, and I'm sure there are people here who are but haven't responded yet, but I think this is close.
They aren't sending the tones to the caller id box, they are using a certain kind of bulk phone line which allows them to specify the caller id information on the outgoing call. This is what big companies use to feed their PBX systems. Companies where certain extensions have visible external numbers, but many extensions don't. They send the generic id for internal lines calling out; specific id for sales reps and others who want to get recognized.
This also isn't the same as the ANI information that is used to bill a long distance call.
I don't know the technical names for this, just the concept.
Call 'em back. Inbound toll-free calls are expensive,
The numbers are either invalid or belong to someone else. That's why they use them in their spoofed caller id. They aren't stupid enough to spoof the name and then let their real number be displayed.
Does anyone have any idea how to make them go away?
These crap calls are a natural result of the DNC. They spoof the caller id and they never tell you what company they are calling from until after you "press 1" and thus accept the call.
I've had these people two or three times a day leaving messages on my answering machine at home. It varies between "you've won a wonderful vacation, press 1 to collect or 9 to be removed from the list" and "this is your final notification about your credit account, press 1...". The caller id is a fake 800/866/877 number and the name of a state (MISSOURI, e.g.). Yeah, the entire state of Missouri is calling on line 1... yesterday I heard from the state of Illinois!
There is no way to file a complaint because there is no information the FTC can use to find these people.
Keeping them on the line doesn't solve your problem. They'll just call again. The dialers are automatic and if the number isn't removed it will just come up in the list again.
Actually the seemed to have worked out a good balance. A lot of people are crabbing about the exceptions but those exceptions are for the protection of political and religious speech.
No, they aren't. They are for the protection of politicians and pollsters hired by politicians who want to be able to call you at election time to remind you to vote.
Your freedom of speech is not interfered with in any way by my telling you not to call me. You can stand at your phone and speak all you want. The laws aren't supposed to guarantee you an audience. They aren't supposed to let you use my property to conduct your speech.
I should have the same ability to tell The Mormon Church or Joe's Political Polling Company not to ever call me that I do in telling Sears Roebuck not to call me. I do not want to EVER hear from any of those three; I should be able to preemtively opt-out using the DNC list from all of them.
To claim otherwise means I must opt-out individually, and there are simply too many pollsters and politicians and religious and charitable organizations to make that viable.
A third problem is it doesn't protect against collection agencies.
It would be a bad law that says that a company with which you are involved in business dealings couldn't call you because you are on the DNC list. A collection agency inherits your "business dealings" with the people you didn't pay. Or the people who had the number before you who didn't pay.
Come to think of it, does anyone know if I have any recourse (other than to just use my cell phone, which I do)?
The law says they must stop calling you if you tell them to stop calling you, even IF you are the deadbeat they are trying to find.
If you aren't, that ends the problem. They are usually trying to harass someone, anyone, into paying something, and if you don't harass well, they lose money by calling you. They probably don't have enough evidence to prove you owe the money, so they won't waste court time.
If you ARE the deadbeat, and they can prove it, you've just escalated the problem to the next level, which might mean legal proceedings and lawsuits, so you might want to think twice about telling them to stop.
"2) Still ineffective against pollsters, politicians, and fundraisers"
That is covered under freedom of speech.
Actually, it isn't. Freedom of speech does not mean freedom to use my property to conduct your speech. The freedom of pollsters to "speak" to me ends at the demarc, where I start paying for the wires.
It's ineffective simply because the politicians get money from fundraisers and hire pollsters to push-poll their constituents. They wrote their own exemption into the law.
They exemption they DO NOT HAVE, is if you tell them explicitely not to call you. THAT makes the next call illegal.
But what is important is to do your due diligence and TEST anthing you want to sell.
That's true.
However, there's the old adage that you cannot prove a negative. That is what current testing methods attempt to do. "This does not cause cancer..." "This drug has no serious side effects...".
Unfortunately, some cancers take decades to show up, and some cancers are specific to humans and do not appear in the test subjects. And some cancers only show up in the test subjects when they are subjected to massive quantities of the material.
The testing we have, for the most part, takes two forms. One is to (effectively) soak a mouse (or bacterial culture) in full-strength test material and see if it dies (or mutates). (Yes, that's a very simplified description.) If it doesn't, we go to human testing, which is highly statistical in nature simply because we cannot test everything on everyone, and we certainly cannot soak the new test subjects in 1000 times the normal dose just to see what happens. If a certain sample of people (very small) survives the test, we call it good.
And then we wind up with recalls of really beneficial drugs because a small percentage of the population doesn't react well to them. The benefit to those it can help is ignored in the haste to protect the few who had a bad reaction. And, unfortunately, there will always be people who have a bad reaction to something, since there are so many people and so many ways a "bad reaction" can happen. Especially true when you consider that the drug is being given to people who are sick in some way to start with.
There is no reason to fear nano, only to be a little cautious.
I agree. Fear is useless. Caution is good. What level of caution is applied is the question.
I think not. Townships rarely allow more than one cable / internet provider. Politicians prevent this from happening...
I have been on two local cable television advisory boards in two very different parts of the country. We followed these kinds of things closely.
Every franchise agreement I've seen (and clearly, it isn't all of them) have been non-exclusive. There are technical and social standards that are set by the locality, and any company that wants to agree to meet those standards is free to sign the franchise agreement and start building.
What keeps multiple companies from competing is not the nasty government creating a monopoly, it is the simple cost of building a system versus the payout from customers. As soon as two companies compete for the same pot of customers, the payouts cut in half, but the costs of wiring stay the same. (You have to cover the same area as the other guy, but you only get half the customers -- he's got the other half.)
I think we can look at DSL/Cable as evidence of this. Once the telco's got the technology to use their existing wiring for phones as network (and even cable TV) pipes, they started offering that service. Their wiring was, for the most part, already in place. A few upgrades and bingo, they can access the same customers that cable has. If Verizon had to install all the wiring they are using to provide DSL, they simply could not compete.
The buildout cost/return ratio was used many times when we would get complaints from "less citified" areas (less densely populated) when the cable company wouldn't wire their area. The cable co would trot out their numbers showing the return on investment in building hit zero right around two houses per "block" (1/10th mile). That's only about 1/3 or 1/4 of normal city density (in suburbs/small cities).
simply by overstating actual "TV Tax" increases that would happen with a second cable company coming into play...
You lost me on this one. In the US there is no "TV Tax", so I'm assuming you're talking about England or someplace where they do tax TVs. The franchise fee would not go up when a second system comes to town. If you subscribe to two services, of course you pay two fees.
I work for one of the many telecom companies along I-75 in Dallas that develop hardware and software capable of "monitoring a user".
Then you are not required to get a PI license, because you are not in the business of tracking people, you are in the business of designing hardware and softare that can be used to track people.
I can drop a GPS/APRS unit into someone's backpack. The fact I can do that doesn't mean I need a PI license in Texas, only that if I DO IT FOR A LIVING or am employed to do it, I need a license.
People who work in gun factories do not need carry permits. They are employed to BUILD guns, not USE them.
I think "engaging in the business of" can be as simple as a one-time event, like a corporate network admin receiving a court order to search for logs related to network (mis)use.
You are wrong. If you are in a business and rely on a one-time, non-paying event, you are hosed, first of all.
Second, there are too many examples that prove you wrong. From federal law, as a private pilot you may not be paid for services as pilot in command of an aircraft UNLESS the flying you perform is ancillary to your job. A private pilot cannot be "in the business" of flying for hire, but CAN be paid for his time if he "sometimes, maybe" flies his boss to a jobsite.
Again, under federal law, a person cannot be paid for the operation of an amateur radio station except for specific circumstances, only one of which can be considered to be "in the business". (One loophole for running an amateur station that sends morse code practice, which I am sure the ARRL got written into law so they could hire someone to do that for W1AW.) Every other exception is for "sometimes, maybe" operation of a station -- a schoolteacher who uses ham radio in the classroom for instruction in geography, etc, for example.
"In the business of" isn't as open-ended as it is being interpreted as.
Therefore, it seems to me that, since there is an off-chance you might be subpoenaed, you need to get a PI license..
Under that argument, a car mechanic needs a PI license because he might look in the glove compartment to find a "rattle" and find pot. A pool-cleaner needs a PI license because he might come to clean the pool and find a dead body. A mailman needs a PI license because one of your parcels might come open while being delivered and a dollop of your coke spill out. "In the business of" simply doesn't mean "might see something criminal". It means what you were employed to do, or what services you sell to others.
Actually, the entire LAW is defining who needs a PI license...
No. (a)(1) defines the kinds of activities someone must be in the business of doing that requires a PI license. (b) defines one of the terms in (a)(1), and ONLY (a)(1). The definition of a term in one section does NOT, by itself, create a new class of people who need a PI license.
You seem to be stating that because the law does not reference computer tech companies BY NAME, they don't qualify.
I did not say that, and it is now clear that I cannot explain the law to you in words you will understand.
In either case, a computer tech company meets this definition, so you certainly can't say that (b) disqualifies them.
No, a computer tech company does NOT meet that definition. They do NOT analyze or investigate into the content of the data they are recovering as their business.
So you're stating that lost data does not constitute "lost property".
Not that requires a PI license to recover, since you are not in the business of investigating into the content of that lost data for any civil or ciminal reason.
Ever heard of software? Ever heard of software companies?
But as others have posted, if you're taking your computer in for virus checking, or any software-related issues, guess what....you ARE reviewing, analyzing, and investigating the content of data, aren't you?
And here we are again, one sentence out of the law being interpreted sans context. No, you do not need a PI license to scan for viruses. You are not analyzing the virus, you are detecting it. You are not in the business of or employed to gather or furnish information with respect to the list of activities in (a)(1). Read the interview with the guy who is responsible for enforcing this. He is clear in saying that this is not investigation.
As I've clarified in my other reply to your post, doing these activities for finding criminal intent is only ONE of FOUR factors that qualify.
And as I've clarified to you in other replies, a computer repair technician is NOT IN THE BUSINESS nor is he employed to do any of the things listed in the four clauses under (a)(1). It doesn't matter if you analyze the shit out of a system once you discover it is the cause of the crash, you weren't employed to analyze it, you were employed to find the cause of the crash.
Ask yourself this: if it's so readily apparent that tech companies don't fall under these definitions, why did every single article referenced believe otherwise?
It didn't. I am only one of a handful of people who are saying this law does not say what the chicken-littles say it does, and both the interviews with the author and the enforcer of the law say it does not apply to computer repair people.
So magazines have blatantly misinterpreted this law,
Magazines make money from selling magazines, not being right about everything. If you've ever had the pleasure of reading an article about something you know, you will already know that the media (magazines, TV, and newspapers) very often get it wrong.
and companies (surely with lawyers) have misinterpreted this law,
I don't know any companies who have misinterpreted the law.
but you know for a fact that your interpretation is right.
Because I READ THE LAW, all the words, and read the interviews with the people responsible for the law.
How about the fact that the agency that regulates PIs has said that this law applies to generic computer tech activities?
From the interview with Capt. RenEarl Bowie, Texas Private Security Bureau, the person who is in charge of enforcing this law:
Bowie: A basic example would be an individual like a computer repairman who is providing computer repair or support services for a customer; normally that is not a regulated activity. But when an individual is performing work involving the review of computer data for the purpose of investigating criminal or civil matters, then they could fall under the 1701.104, which is considered an investigation company.
"That is not a regulated activity". This law does not apply.
NPD:For example, let's say there was a network engineer who is trying to find the root cause of a slowdown on the network, and in the course of investigating that, they discover that the root cause is some sort of criminal activity, such as a virus infection, or someone engaging in massive intellectual property violation, in other words "piracy," something like that. Would they then require a private investigation license? Would they have to stop their investigation at that point?
Bowie: Based on the scenario you gave it sounds like they're performing a repair or support service, and they're not - the intent was not to go in and do an investigation, they are just collecting information that they found, and that doesn't, based on that scenario, doesn't rise to that level of an investigation.
"doesn't rise to the level of an investigation". The law does not apply to them.
NPD: What about a PC repairman who is being asked to check for viruses on a person's computer?
Bowie: That does not rise to that level either.
NPD: What if a parent brought in a computer that they owned, but which is primarily used by a son or daughter, and they wanted to find out, say, the browsing history?
Bowie: That's just considered normal computer repair or support service.
The bureau that is charged with enforcing this law says "generic computer tech activities" doesn't require a PI license. The law doesn't say computer repair people need a license. Why is this still a question?
I was under the impression that Obama is not perfect but that he would always admit if he was wrong and quickly qork towards the right direction.
Really? Where is the admission of being wrong about the second amendment w.r.t. the recent SCOTUS decision on DC's gun ban?
In November, he said he thought the DC ban as correct. Now he says that he's agreed with what SCOTUS has just said "for years". Can't be both ways. You either think the law was constitutional or you don't.
Where has he admitted that we don't actually have 57 states in the US? Or that his grandfather wasn't part of the group freeing Auschwitz? Or that he has no uncle that was part of the group freeing Auschwitz?
Where is his admission that he was wrong when he said that higher tax rates on everyone are necessary to pay off the "chinese credit card", even after he was reminded that lower tax rates have always resulted in higher tax revenues? Where is his admission that he was wrong for wanting to raise taxes on the poor just to try to catch the few rich people he thinks are not paying enough?
Where is his admission for being wrong on his connections to Bill Ayers, James Meeks, Michael Pfleger? On seeing a lot of the people who "paid the price for our freedoms with their lives" in the audience at one of his events?
Where is his admission that he's wrong when he claims his ideas are new?
For some people, being in the business of running a computer network includes assisting law enforcement officials in gathering data,
Yes, SOME PEOPLE who are employed in the business of gathering and furninshing data relating to the criminal or civil liabilities listed in (a)(1) may act as network admins. They will be required to have a PI license. This is the law.
The person I replied to said nothing about being in that business, only that sometimes maybe he might be required to provide data requested in a court order. Sometimes maybe might be is not
"in the business of". He said nothing about his employer being in the business of investigations; in fact, he rather strongly implied they were not.
Of course, the "computer-based data" clause of (b) DOES NOT APPLY to (a)(2), only to (a)(1). And again, "in the business of" is a lot more than just "might happen on the off chance a court order comes around."
Sure thing. In fact, I'll use the quotes from the relevant sections that you, yourself provided:
Except that those quotes do NOT say a computer repair tech needs a PI license. You need to quote something that does say this.
Let's put this through the test:
Does a computer repair company meet the first requirement, as referenced by (b)? Yes,...
It does not matter if they meet any condition specified by (b), because (b) does not define who needs a PI license. They do not meet the conditions specified to be an "Investigations Company." They don't need a PI license.
No, they don't fit under either C or D, because they aren't in the business of determining any of what C or D covers. If you think "lost data" is what "loss" means, try claiming a lost data sector on your hard drive as a loss on your income taxes and see if the guvmint doesn't set you straight.
You've now cut two phrases out of an entire law and are trying to interpret them without any other context. All the words are important.
... information obtained or furnished
through the review and analysis of, and the investigation into the
content of, computer-based data not available to the public.
AND is a conjunction that means ALL conditions must be true. REVIEW, ANALYSIS, and
INVESTIGATION INTO THE CONTENT OF.
Looking at the hardware to determine why a hard disk is failing to record data is NOT "investigation into the content of" the data, nor is it analysis of that data. Putting a voltmeter on the +12 line and seeing "gosh, it's only 9.3V" isn't "investigation into the content of the data" on the disk. Here is a simple question to ask yourself as you "recover lost data". Do you CARE what the data is, or are you simply recovering whatever is there? If you don't CARE, then you cannot be analyzing it, nor are you investigating the content. Even if your friend says "please recover the file I deleted named 'fred.jpg'", you aren't investigating the content of that data when you recover it for him.
As I wrote that, I asked myself about the old Cisco (IIRC) router bug that would drop packets with a specific content, and would investigating that bug be covered here. No, it would not, because you don't care WHAT the source or meaning of the data was, it is was simply the bit-pattern that triggered the bug you were looking for. That bit pattern could come from a jpeg of a three year old or a compressed set of sea surface temperatures, it doesn't matter.
Compare to this. "What is the data that wasn't being written, where did it come from, and did posession of that data involve any criminal or civil liability? If this is financial data, does it 'add up' and are there matching records in other places to verify it." THAT'S analysis and investigation into the content of the data.
And that's ignoring the parent clause anyway -- in the business of.
For you to require a PI license, you must be in the business of obtaining or furnishing information about the list of activities given in the law, or employed to do that. When you repair a computer you are not seeking information in that list, you are seeking information about "why isn't this working". The ANSWER may be, as I've said before, "as a result of a criminal act", but you are not seeking information about a criminal act when you start out. As a citizen, you are quite within the law to report criminal activity you see.
If a PI hands you a computer and says "I'll pay you to recover any incriminating information you can find", THEN you need the PI license, because THEN you are employed to gather information about the person and are looking for criminal information as outlined in the original section.
Normal Geek Squad specialists aren't hired to care what the data is or where it came from. They aren't covered by this law and don't need a PI license, even if they are dealing with a "loss" of data.
As for the other poster who thinks maintaining a web page and removing a phishing page from it would require a PI license, well, since YOUR WEB SITE is providing that phishing page TO THE PUBLIC, then the clause that says "data not available to the public" means this law doesn't apply, even if he was employed to investigate criminal activity. That's why "all the words" are important!
Requiring that a private individual maintaining a website be a PI before he can go in and remove a phishing page that some guy has dropped on his site, let alone fix the problem, seems a bit rough to me... but that's exactly the kind of activity the law covers.
No, it doesn't. A private individual maintaining a website is not one of the occupations listed in the law as requiring a PI license.
I've quoted the relevant sections of the law enough times now, so now I'm going to ask that people who think they need a PI license quote the law that says they do. Specific quote. Section numbers included, and all the words.
This law is quite reasonable. People who investigate crimes should have a license to do so.
If someone brings me their computer to blow everything off the hard drive and reinstall Windoze from the rescue CD-ROMs, why should I need to be a private investigator?
You don't. Nothing in the law says you do.
Oh I know! How 'bout a PI license to, oh, I don't know, be a private investigator for crying out loud?!!
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Well, DUH! That's why it was important to notice that what I replied to said "a file format you can already play." That's why I wrote "if you can play the file..."
IF YOU CAN PLAY THE FILE, YOU ALREADY HAVE THE CODEC. That's a FACT. It's either built in or has already been installed, and the player already knows which codec to run. A player that has a codec for a certain format will NOT tell you that you need to download one. A website (not the player, the website) that tells you that you must download a codec is SCREAMING malware in BIG RED LETTERS. Period.
You are correct that many malware websites use fake codecs to install their malware, but it's just not true that any codec will work for any given file format.
Nobody said that any codec will work for any given file format.
Just because you can open the file...
You are the only one talking about opening a file. I specifically spoke about, and the person who made the initial statement is talking about, files you can PLAY, not just open.
If you don't have the right codec, the video won't play back at all.
Well, DUH again, and that's why this discussion was about the format of FILES YOU CAN PLAY.
I don't expect people here to RTFA, but at least read the comment you are replying to, ok?
It means you have A codec that works, and all the player cares is that you have A codec that claims to work. If you can play the file format, you have both a working codec and a codec that the player knows about, so the player isn't going to tell you that you need to download another one.
Any WEBSITE that tells you that you need to download a codec when you already have one for that format is screaming MALWARE, whether or not you want to get into an argument about which is the BEST codec or the fastest or the "right" one. "Right" is an opinion and irrelevant.
But you can read them in the dark.
And let's not forget the historical record on "anything goes except power limits". CB radio has a 5 watt INPUT power limit (not output) that the first thing anyone did was retune the output to exceed. And then got themselves some "boots" to get through the competition.
Except you need to worry about your 802.11 being disabled by the phone, or your 2.4G video link by both. Or your bluetooth.
And if your neighbor is a ham who happens to be involved in HSMM, yes, you get to have all of your 2.4GHz devices disabled at the same time. HE's a licensed user of that spectrumm, and HE has much higher power limits than you do.
Spread-spectrum technology also made these less-regulated bands possible; if we still had fixed "channels" like FM or TV, this simply wouldn't be possible.
And we should be careful not to mix digital TV in with spread spectrum, even though they both look like noise to standard analog receivers. This is a key flaw in the "empty space" argument. It's really hard to know when you are interfering with a digital signal, since your analog receiver won't tell you it is there, and you may be just beyond the "good" contour and yet prevent people within it from getting a signal. It will take a regulatory agency of some kind, either the FCC or some other agency acting like them, to define where empty spaces are.
I am not sure of the technical details, and I'm sure there are people here who are but haven't responded yet, but I think this is close.
They aren't sending the tones to the caller id box, they are using a certain kind of bulk phone line which allows them to specify the caller id information on the outgoing call. This is what big companies use to feed their PBX systems. Companies where certain extensions have visible external numbers, but many extensions don't. They send the generic id for internal lines calling out; specific id for sales reps and others who want to get recognized.
This also isn't the same as the ANI information that is used to bill a long distance call.
I don't know the technical names for this, just the concept.
The numbers are either invalid or belong to someone else. That's why they use them in their spoofed caller id. They aren't stupid enough to spoof the name and then let their real number be displayed.
If I had mod points, I'd mark this "redundant". Not the whole article, just the words "telemarketer" and "con-persons".
These crap calls are a natural result of the DNC. They spoof the caller id and they never tell you what company they are calling from until after you "press 1" and thus accept the call.
I've had these people two or three times a day leaving messages on my answering machine at home. It varies between "you've won a wonderful vacation, press 1 to collect or 9 to be removed from the list" and "this is your final notification about your credit account, press 1 ...". The caller id is a fake 800/866/877 number and the name of a state (MISSOURI, e.g.). Yeah, the entire state of Missouri is calling on line 1 ... yesterday I heard from the state of Illinois!
There is no way to file a complaint because there is no information the FTC can use to find these people.
Keeping them on the line doesn't solve your problem. They'll just call again. The dialers are automatic and if the number isn't removed it will just come up in the list again.
No, they aren't. They are for the protection of politicians and pollsters hired by politicians who want to be able to call you at election time to remind you to vote.
Your freedom of speech is not interfered with in any way by my telling you not to call me. You can stand at your phone and speak all you want. The laws aren't supposed to guarantee you an audience. They aren't supposed to let you use my property to conduct your speech.
I should have the same ability to tell The Mormon Church or Joe's Political Polling Company not to ever call me that I do in telling Sears Roebuck not to call me. I do not want to EVER hear from any of those three; I should be able to preemtively opt-out using the DNC list from all of them.
To claim otherwise means I must opt-out individually, and there are simply too many pollsters and politicians and religious and charitable organizations to make that viable.
It would be a bad law that says that a company with which you are involved in business dealings couldn't call you because you are on the DNC list. A collection agency inherits your "business dealings" with the people you didn't pay. Or the people who had the number before you who didn't pay.
Come to think of it, does anyone know if I have any recourse (other than to just use my cell phone, which I do)?
The law says they must stop calling you if you tell them to stop calling you, even IF you are the deadbeat they are trying to find.
If you aren't, that ends the problem. They are usually trying to harass someone, anyone, into paying something, and if you don't harass well, they lose money by calling you. They probably don't have enough evidence to prove you owe the money, so they won't waste court time.
If you ARE the deadbeat, and they can prove it, you've just escalated the problem to the next level, which might mean legal proceedings and lawsuits, so you might want to think twice about telling them to stop.
Actually, it isn't. Freedom of speech does not mean freedom to use my property to conduct your speech. The freedom of pollsters to "speak" to me ends at the demarc, where I start paying for the wires.
It's ineffective simply because the politicians get money from fundraisers and hire pollsters to push-poll their constituents. They wrote their own exemption into the law.
They exemption they DO NOT HAVE, is if you tell them explicitely not to call you. THAT makes the next call illegal.
That's true.
However, there's the old adage that you cannot prove a negative. That is what current testing methods attempt to do. "This does not cause cancer..." "This drug has no serious side effects...".
Unfortunately, some cancers take decades to show up, and some cancers are specific to humans and do not appear in the test subjects. And some cancers only show up in the test subjects when they are subjected to massive quantities of the material.
The testing we have, for the most part, takes two forms. One is to (effectively) soak a mouse (or bacterial culture) in full-strength test material and see if it dies (or mutates). (Yes, that's a very simplified description.) If it doesn't, we go to human testing, which is highly statistical in nature simply because we cannot test everything on everyone, and we certainly cannot soak the new test subjects in 1000 times the normal dose just to see what happens. If a certain sample of people (very small) survives the test, we call it good.
And then we wind up with recalls of really beneficial drugs because a small percentage of the population doesn't react well to them. The benefit to those it can help is ignored in the haste to protect the few who had a bad reaction. And, unfortunately, there will always be people who have a bad reaction to something, since there are so many people and so many ways a "bad reaction" can happen. Especially true when you consider that the drug is being given to people who are sick in some way to start with.
There is no reason to fear nano, only to be a little cautious.
I agree. Fear is useless. Caution is good. What level of caution is applied is the question.
I have been on two local cable television advisory boards in two very different parts of the country. We followed these kinds of things closely.
Every franchise agreement I've seen (and clearly, it isn't all of them) have been non-exclusive. There are technical and social standards that are set by the locality, and any company that wants to agree to meet those standards is free to sign the franchise agreement and start building.
What keeps multiple companies from competing is not the nasty government creating a monopoly, it is the simple cost of building a system versus the payout from customers. As soon as two companies compete for the same pot of customers, the payouts cut in half, but the costs of wiring stay the same. (You have to cover the same area as the other guy, but you only get half the customers -- he's got the other half.)
I think we can look at DSL/Cable as evidence of this. Once the telco's got the technology to use their existing wiring for phones as network (and even cable TV) pipes, they started offering that service. Their wiring was, for the most part, already in place. A few upgrades and bingo, they can access the same customers that cable has. If Verizon had to install all the wiring they are using to provide DSL, they simply could not compete.
The buildout cost/return ratio was used many times when we would get complaints from "less citified" areas (less densely populated) when the cable company wouldn't wire their area. The cable co would trot out their numbers showing the return on investment in building hit zero right around two houses per "block" (1/10th mile). That's only about 1/3 or 1/4 of normal city density (in suburbs/small cities).
simply by overstating actual "TV Tax" increases that would happen with a second cable company coming into play...
You lost me on this one. In the US there is no "TV Tax", so I'm assuming you're talking about England or someplace where they do tax TVs. The franchise fee would not go up when a second system comes to town. If you subscribe to two services, of course you pay two fees.
Then you are not required to get a PI license, because you are not in the business of tracking people, you are in the business of designing hardware and softare that can be used to track people.
I can drop a GPS/APRS unit into someone's backpack. The fact I can do that doesn't mean I need a PI license in Texas, only that if I DO IT FOR A LIVING or am employed to do it, I need a license.
People who work in gun factories do not need carry permits. They are employed to BUILD guns, not USE them.
You are wrong. If you are in a business and rely on a one-time, non-paying event, you are hosed, first of all.
Second, there are too many examples that prove you wrong. From federal law, as a private pilot you may not be paid for services as pilot in command of an aircraft UNLESS the flying you perform is ancillary to your job. A private pilot cannot be "in the business" of flying for hire, but CAN be paid for his time if he "sometimes, maybe" flies his boss to a jobsite.
Again, under federal law, a person cannot be paid for the operation of an amateur radio station except for specific circumstances, only one of which can be considered to be "in the business". (One loophole for running an amateur station that sends morse code practice, which I am sure the ARRL got written into law so they could hire someone to do that for W1AW.) Every other exception is for "sometimes, maybe" operation of a station -- a schoolteacher who uses ham radio in the classroom for instruction in geography, etc, for example.
"In the business of" isn't as open-ended as it is being interpreted as.
Therefore, it seems to me that, since there is an off-chance you might be subpoenaed, you need to get a PI license..
Under that argument, a car mechanic needs a PI license because he might look in the glove compartment to find a "rattle" and find pot. A pool-cleaner needs a PI license because he might come to clean the pool and find a dead body. A mailman needs a PI license because one of your parcels might come open while being delivered and a dollop of your coke spill out. "In the business of" simply doesn't mean "might see something criminal". It means what you were employed to do, or what services you sell to others.
No. (a)(1) defines the kinds of activities someone must be in the business of doing that requires a PI license. (b) defines one of the terms in (a)(1), and ONLY (a)(1). The definition of a term in one section does NOT, by itself, create a new class of people who need a PI license.
You seem to be stating that because the law does not reference computer tech companies BY NAME, they don't qualify.
I did not say that, and it is now clear that I cannot explain the law to you in words you will understand.
In either case, a computer tech company meets this definition, so you certainly can't say that (b) disqualifies them.
No, a computer tech company does NOT meet that definition. They do NOT analyze or investigate into the content of the data they are recovering as their business.
So you're stating that lost data does not constitute "lost property".
Not that requires a PI license to recover, since you are not in the business of investigating into the content of that lost data for any civil or ciminal reason.
Ever heard of software? Ever heard of software companies?
Roger, out.
And here we are again, one sentence out of the law being interpreted sans context. No, you do not need a PI license to scan for viruses. You are not analyzing the virus, you are detecting it. You are not in the business of or employed to gather or furnish information with respect to the list of activities in (a)(1). Read the interview with the guy who is responsible for enforcing this. He is clear in saying that this is not investigation.
As I've clarified in my other reply to your post, doing these activities for finding criminal intent is only ONE of FOUR factors that qualify.
And as I've clarified to you in other replies, a computer repair technician is NOT IN THE BUSINESS nor is he employed to do any of the things listed in the four clauses under (a)(1). It doesn't matter if you analyze the shit out of a system once you discover it is the cause of the crash, you weren't employed to analyze it, you were employed to find the cause of the crash.
Ask yourself this: if it's so readily apparent that tech companies don't fall under these definitions, why did every single article referenced believe otherwise?
It didn't. I am only one of a handful of people who are saying this law does not say what the chicken-littles say it does, and both the interviews with the author and the enforcer of the law say it does not apply to computer repair people.
So magazines have blatantly misinterpreted this law,
Magazines make money from selling magazines, not being right about everything. If you've ever had the pleasure of reading an article about something you know, you will already know that the media (magazines, TV, and newspapers) very often get it wrong.
and companies (surely with lawyers) have misinterpreted this law,
I don't know any companies who have misinterpreted the law.
but you know for a fact that your interpretation is right.
Because I READ THE LAW, all the words, and read the interviews with the people responsible for the law.
From the interview with Capt. RenEarl Bowie, Texas Private Security Bureau, the person who is in charge of enforcing this law:
"That is not a regulated activity". This law does not apply.
"doesn't rise to the level of an investigation". The law does not apply to them.
The bureau that is charged with enforcing this law says "generic computer tech activities" doesn't require a PI license. The law doesn't say computer repair people need a license. Why is this still a question?
Really? Where is the admission of being wrong about the second amendment w.r.t. the recent SCOTUS decision on DC's gun ban?
In November, he said he thought the DC ban as correct. Now he says that he's agreed with what SCOTUS has just said "for years". Can't be both ways. You either think the law was constitutional or you don't.
Where has he admitted that we don't actually have 57 states in the US? Or that his grandfather wasn't part of the group freeing Auschwitz? Or that he has no uncle that was part of the group freeing Auschwitz?
Where is his admission that he was wrong when he said that higher tax rates on everyone are necessary to pay off the "chinese credit card", even after he was reminded that lower tax rates have always resulted in higher tax revenues? Where is his admission that he was wrong for wanting to raise taxes on the poor just to try to catch the few rich people he thinks are not paying enough?
Where is his admission for being wrong on his connections to Bill Ayers, James Meeks, Michael Pfleger? On seeing a lot of the people who "paid the price for our freedoms with their lives" in the audience at one of his events?
Where is his admission that he's wrong when he claims his ideas are new?
Yes, SOME PEOPLE who are employed in the business of gathering and furninshing data relating to the criminal or civil liabilities listed in (a)(1) may act as network admins. They will be required to have a PI license. This is the law.
The person I replied to said nothing about being in that business, only that sometimes maybe he might be required to provide data requested in a court order. Sometimes maybe might be is not "in the business of". He said nothing about his employer being in the business of investigations; in fact, he rather strongly implied they were not.
Of course, the "computer-based data" clause of (b) DOES NOT APPLY to (a)(2), only to (a)(1). And again, "in the business of" is a lot more than just "might happen on the off chance a court order comes around."
Except that those quotes do NOT say a computer repair tech needs a PI license. You need to quote something that does say this.
Let's put this through the test: Does a computer repair company meet the first requirement, as referenced by (b)? Yes,...
It does not matter if they meet any condition specified by (b), because (b) does not define who needs a PI license. They do not meet the conditions specified to be an "Investigations Company." They don't need a PI license.
No, they don't fit under either C or D, because they aren't in the business of determining any of what C or D covers. If you think "lost data" is what "loss" means, try claiming a lost data sector on your hard drive as a loss on your income taxes and see if the guvmint doesn't set you straight.
AND is a conjunction that means ALL conditions must be true. REVIEW, ANALYSIS, and INVESTIGATION INTO THE CONTENT OF.
Looking at the hardware to determine why a hard disk is failing to record data is NOT "investigation into the content of" the data, nor is it analysis of that data. Putting a voltmeter on the +12 line and seeing "gosh, it's only 9.3V" isn't "investigation into the content of the data" on the disk. Here is a simple question to ask yourself as you "recover lost data". Do you CARE what the data is, or are you simply recovering whatever is there? If you don't CARE, then you cannot be analyzing it, nor are you investigating the content. Even if your friend says "please recover the file I deleted named 'fred.jpg'", you aren't investigating the content of that data when you recover it for him.
As I wrote that, I asked myself about the old Cisco (IIRC) router bug that would drop packets with a specific content, and would investigating that bug be covered here. No, it would not, because you don't care WHAT the source or meaning of the data was, it is was simply the bit-pattern that triggered the bug you were looking for. That bit pattern could come from a jpeg of a three year old or a compressed set of sea surface temperatures, it doesn't matter.
Compare to this. "What is the data that wasn't being written, where did it come from, and did posession of that data involve any criminal or civil liability? If this is financial data, does it 'add up' and are there matching records in other places to verify it." THAT'S analysis and investigation into the content of the data. And that's ignoring the parent clause anyway -- in the business of. For you to require a PI license, you must be in the business of obtaining or furnishing information about the list of activities given in the law, or employed to do that. When you repair a computer you are not seeking information in that list, you are seeking information about "why isn't this working". The ANSWER may be, as I've said before, "as a result of a criminal act", but you are not seeking information about a criminal act when you start out. As a citizen, you are quite within the law to report criminal activity you see.
If a PI hands you a computer and says "I'll pay you to recover any incriminating information you can find", THEN you need the PI license, because THEN you are employed to gather information about the person and are looking for criminal information as outlined in the original section.
Normal Geek Squad specialists aren't hired to care what the data is or where it came from. They aren't covered by this law and don't need a PI license, even if they are dealing with a "loss" of data.
As for the other poster who thinks maintaining a web page and removing a phishing page from it would require a PI license, well, since YOUR WEB SITE is providing that phishing page TO THE PUBLIC, then the clause that says "data not available to the public" means this law doesn't apply, even if he was employed to investigate criminal activity. That's why "all the words" are important!
No, it doesn't. A private individual maintaining a website is not one of the occupations listed in the law as requiring a PI license.
I've quoted the relevant sections of the law enough times now, so now I'm going to ask that people who think they need a PI license quote the law that says they do. Specific quote. Section numbers included, and all the words.
Anyone?
This law is quite reasonable. People who investigate crimes should have a license to do so.
If someone brings me their computer to blow everything off the hard drive and reinstall Windoze from the rescue CD-ROMs, why should I need to be a private investigator?
You don't. Nothing in the law says you do.
Oh I know! How 'bout a PI license to, oh, I don't know, be a private investigator for crying out loud?!!
That is what this law provides for.