The alternative would likely be Apple, not Linux, at this point.
The best alternative, you mean. =) Apple is unlikely to sell a $499 computer any time soon, nor are they likely to license their OS. A $499 Linux computer, with some of the ease of use of an OS X powered Macintosh, while a challenge, is doable. At least I hope so.
I think that in a recent filing, SCO has claimed that Gupta is not an expert witness, but a layman with personal knowledge of the situation. But he could be an expert if he wanted. =) Yeesh.
SCO will have a hard time trying to argue that its depositions (which are from non-experts, though they claim 'unnamed' experts performed the work) are from people more qualified than Dr. Davis.
These are declarations, not depositions. Depositions are a completely diffferent thing. They involve being deposed by a lawyer or lawyers, i.e., questioned.
It's interesting to note that SCO has said that their people making declarations are making them as layman, but that they could be experts if they wanted. =)
Actually, it's not clear that they can do that because it's not clear that they own all the copyrights to Unix. There are others who hold copyrights to bits here and there. Novell would need to secure permission from all these others first.
You forgot to ask to see his tax returns for the last 7 years, all bank statements and other documents of financial transactions, and the names of all business and individuals that might have come into contact with the money you claim is yours.
It's not a baby until it's born. Calling a fetus or embryo a baby in this sort of discussion is using emotionally loaded language to win your argument, and is usually a sign that you can't make your argument based on logic or reason.
Because Bush Snr. and Reagan, the two previous Republican presidents didn't run up the two previous records for budget deficits - no, wait, they did.
The Republicans didn't control both houses of congress under either Bush Sr. or Reagan, so you can't lay all the blame for those deficits on them. You're on target, though, on both parties being pigs at the trough.
I'm not voting for the one that will "grow it slower", though. I'm voting for the one that hasn't engaged in unprecedented levels of corporate welfare and crony capitalism that basically robs you and I to put money in their friends' (or their own *cough* Halliburton) pockets.
Reagan went into deficit spending to boost the military because he thought we were close to breaking the economic back of the Soviet Union. Turns out he was correct. Unfortunately, he also made questionable decisions and delegated power to people that turned out to be criminals (Iran Contra). We should also remember that the Taliban and Al Kaida have their roots in the groups that Reagan funded in Afghanistan. Boy, has that come back to bite us in the ass.
My point is that Reagan didn't betray the conservative cause, while Bush Jr. clearly has.
George Orwell was a socialist, but he wrote Animal Farm and 1984 because Lenin and Stalin and their ilk had clearly betrayed socialism. I'm hoping we'll see a new Orwell that will document how this current set of thugs have betrayed conservative principals in their bid for wealth and power.
I can deal with 4 years of liberalism if it means we can get these criminals out of the Whitehouse. Four years of liberalism won't destroy the country beyond repair. Four more years of Bush and Friends may well do irreparable damage.
It's probably been a while since you've read the original article, but you messed up on a fact or two. I'm not picking on you. I just believe facts are important, and when someone inadvertently misses a few details, we can easily clear it up by checking the facts....hell their stated office address at the time was a vacant rundown store!
In actuality, the address was a Mailboxes Etc mailbox. The vacant storefront just happened to be in the same strip mall, thus the initial confusion.
Another fact that you got wrong is that Kyle didn't counter sue, he sued pre-emptively (justifiably, imo) after receiving various legal threats. Read about it here.
Where was the speculation? Warning potential investors to do due diligence is speculation? Examining evidence and reaching a logical conclusion is speculation?
You've completely failed to be specific in your criticism. What about the original article is not factual or logically derived from the facts?
I've never been a hardOCP reader, other than those articles about Infinium that have been linked on slashdot, so I have no interest either way. I do have a bias against con men who bilk others out of their money, and I'm beginning to wonder what your angle is.
He didn't steal the information. He committed copyright infringement and possibly trade secret violations.
I don't know if you intended this to be funny, but it struck me that given the draconian nature of the DMCA, the government could use it to prosecute spies!
Burglary is typically defined as the unlawful entry into almost any structure (not just a home or business) with the intent to commit any crime inside (not just theft/larceny). No physical breaking and entering is required; the offender may simply trespass through an open door.
the act of gaining passage into and entering another's property (as a building or vehicle) without privilege or by force
By this definition, even if he didn't force his way into a server, he still entered without permission (without privilege). However, you likened his actions to trespass, which is also interesting!
a: a willful act or active negligence as distinguished from a mere omission of a duty that causes an injury to or invasion of the person, rights, or esp. property of another
and also, from the 2nd definition:
continuing trespass : a trespass that continues until the act (as of depriving another of his or her property without the intent to steal it) or instrumentality (as an object placed wrongfully on another's land) causing it is ended or removed
That certainly seems to fit the situation as well, especially if we're going to argue that he didn't steal, but merely copied, since the legal owner was not deprived of the thing allegedly stolen.
Oh, and before I forget, there was an "ordinary definition" of trespass that we are all probably more familiar with:
: to commit a trespass
esp : to enter wrongfully or without proper authority or consent upon the real property of another: to commit a trespass against
I hope you weren't bored to tears by my little investigation (which I don't think proves either one of us as being either correct or incorrect). I found it fascinating to read specific legal definitions, even though we are all somewhat familiar with these words. It's also interesting to ponder how one might argue the case for either side. Huh, maybe I should go back to law school someday? =)
Not yet, obviously, and probably not ever, the way we're going about it. The Middle East has a grand old tradition of people trying to control it, though (We didn't put the Shah in charge of Iran in 1953 for shits and giggles).
OPEC raised the rates we pay for the oil we *do* get from that region.
OPEC does not directly set or control prices. OPEC ostensibly* controls the supply belonging to its member states. So, indirectly, they affect the price when they set supply, but it's still the market that sets the price. The current high price is not due to OPEC limiting supply, but due to the legal and tax problems of Russia's biggest oil company. OPEC has been increasing their end of the supply equation, but have been unable to put much of a crimp in the price.
*[This only works when the member states do as directed, and don't attempt to pump more oil than they say that they will. OPEC has had problems with discipline.]
I'd say, if the war truly was fought for control of oil, not only has it failed but it could never have succeeded. I truly hope that it wasn't the unstated reason we went to war, because that level of stupidity would unsettle me far greater than the 'we are the world's police force' stupidity that I believe actually precipitated this war.
It might have succeeded in 1991, had our leaders bitten the bullet and seized the opportunity. We surely would have suffered a blow in world opinion, but nothing compared to what we are seeing today. Bush Sr. chickened out because at that time, he still thought he had a chance to win the '92 election, and such an act might not have gone over well with the voters. Ten years before 9/11, without a good fear club to beat us, he didn't have a good false pretext.
#2. If we're willing to trade US troop's lives for oil, then it's time we got off the oil addiction. It may be hard and it may be expensive, but it will completely remove the "threat" of someone denying us oil. And because of #1, there will always be that threat.
Two things:
1) AFAIK, no politician since FDR has really asked the American people as a whole to make any sort of real sacrifice, although JFK made the famous statement, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." In FDR's case, there was a war on, and people expected that they'd make small personal sacrifices and suffer inconvenience while they were asking others to make the ultimate sacrifice.
Today, it would seem that asking for Americans to make any sort of material sacrifice is politically unthinkable. While a small part of the population, say military families, might be asked to sacrifice their spouses, sons, or daughters, it would be political suicide to ask the people as a whole for anything that might inconvenience them or limit their materialist perogatives in any way whatsoever. In fact, since 9/11, we've been given tax incentives to buy bigger gas guzzlers, while tax breaks for hybrids have shrunk and are set to expire in 2006.
2) This gives us some understanding that the phrase "War on Terror" is a lie. It's a propaganda campaign, plain and simple. I'm not suggesting that there isn't a threat from terrorists, obviously there is. However, this "War on", as illustrated by the way it is being waged today, is merely a pretext for domestic and international power grabs.
Furthermore, because the war in Iraq is based on falsehoods, the politicians are further barred from asking Americans to make the sacrifices that could alleviate our oil addiction.
There are, of course, exceptions. Americans seem perfectly content to sacrifice civil liberties in exchange for security. We've also learned to deal with the inconvenience of beefed up airport checkpoints and random screening.
I wonder if America could rise to the challenge, if any politician were to have the balls to ask us to make sacrifices in our oil consumption. I guess it would depend on the politician, if there are any left that are also leaders.
I guess were no longer making the distinction between hacker and cracker on slashdot?
I'm not a thief by trade or inclination, but you'd still call me thief (and rightly so), if you left your keys in the ignition of your car and I took it for a spin without your permission.
If I were to point out that it was your own stupidity that was at fault, I'd be merely misdirecting attention from the crime (as some conservative slashdotters do), in hopes of excusing the guilty party.
Bottom line is that Miranda gained unauthorized access to information and stole that information, and he did so at the behest of his superiors. While it seems a stretch to call him a hacker or a cracker because of his lack of skills, it describes what he did, regardless of the challenge it presented.
Since his bosses have elected to hang him out to dry, I can only hope that he is able to implicate them and at the very least, drag them into court to answer some hard questions.
Slashdot Mirror
The alternative would likely be Apple, not Linux, at this point.
The best alternative, you mean. =) Apple is unlikely to sell a $499 computer any time soon, nor are they likely to license their OS. A $499 Linux computer, with some of the ease of use of an OS X powered Macintosh, while a challenge, is doable. At least I hope so.
You're my hero for the day! I prefer the spelling Buncombe, as Mencken spelled it, but no matter.
I think that in a recent filing, SCO has claimed that Gupta is not an expert witness, but a layman with personal knowledge of the situation. But he could be an expert if he wanted. =) Yeesh.
Technical note:
SCO will have a hard time trying to argue that its depositions (which are from non-experts, though they claim 'unnamed' experts performed the work) are from people more qualified than Dr. Davis.
These are declarations, not depositions. Depositions are a completely diffferent thing. They involve being deposed by a lawyer or lawyers, i.e., questioned.
It's interesting to note that SCO has said that their people making declarations are making them as layman, but that they could be experts if they wanted. =)
Actually, it's not clear that they can do that because it's not clear that they own all the copyrights to Unix. There are others who hold copyrights to bits here and there. Novell would need to secure permission from all these others first.
You forgot to ask to see his tax returns for the last 7 years, all bank statements and other documents of financial transactions, and the names of all business and individuals that might have come into contact with the money you claim is yours.
Overheard in the bedroom of the corporate spy getting his salad tossed . . .
No, it's not a dingleberry, it's a chad.
Why'd you bother to respond? Dog Dude is a known convicted speeder, and therefore his arguments hold no water.
It's not a baby until it's born. Calling a fetus or embryo a baby in this sort of discussion is using emotionally loaded language to win your argument, and is usually a sign that you can't make your argument based on logic or reason.
It's just another sign of the crony capitalism that the Bush Empire and the Bush family fortune are built on.
Because Bush Snr. and Reagan, the two previous Republican presidents didn't run up the two previous records for budget deficits - no, wait, they did.
The Republicans didn't control both houses of congress under either Bush Sr. or Reagan, so you can't lay all the blame for those deficits on them. You're on target, though, on both parties being pigs at the trough.
I'm not voting for the one that will "grow it slower", though. I'm voting for the one that hasn't engaged in unprecedented levels of corporate welfare and crony capitalism that basically robs you and I to put money in their friends' (or their own *cough* Halliburton) pockets.
Reagan went into deficit spending to boost the military because he thought we were close to breaking the economic back of the Soviet Union. Turns out he was correct. Unfortunately, he also made questionable decisions and delegated power to people that turned out to be criminals (Iran Contra). We should also remember that the Taliban and Al Kaida have their roots in the groups that Reagan funded in Afghanistan. Boy, has that come back to bite us in the ass.
My point is that Reagan didn't betray the conservative cause, while Bush Jr. clearly has.
George Orwell was a socialist, but he wrote Animal Farm and 1984 because Lenin and Stalin and their ilk had clearly betrayed socialism. I'm hoping we'll see a new Orwell that will document how this current set of thugs have betrayed conservative principals in their bid for wealth and power.
I can deal with 4 years of liberalism if it means we can get these criminals out of the Whitehouse. Four years of liberalism won't destroy the country beyond repair. Four more years of Bush and Friends may well do irreparable damage.
The public already puts up with Windows. 95% of average joe users already willingly eat up the crap put in front of them because MS calls it a meal.
The way to stop "trusted computing" is to make Linux easily usable by joe user and then market the shit out of it.
I get the impression that he's actually one of those people who actually says the word "sigh", instead of making the sound when in conversation.
Again and again you've been asked for specifics. Once more: What are the clear unsubstantiated claims? Name one!
It's probably been a while since you've read the original article, but you messed up on a fact or two. I'm not picking on you. I just believe facts are important, and when someone inadvertently misses a few details, we can easily clear it up by checking the facts. ...hell their stated office address at the time was a vacant rundown store!
In actuality, the address was a Mailboxes Etc mailbox. The vacant storefront just happened to be in the same strip mall, thus the initial confusion.
Another fact that you got wrong is that Kyle didn't counter sue, he sued pre-emptively (justifiably, imo) after receiving various legal threats. Read about it here.
Where was the speculation? Warning potential investors to do due diligence is speculation? Examining evidence and reaching a logical conclusion is speculation?
You've completely failed to be specific in your criticism. What about the original article is not factual or logically derived from the facts?
I've never been a hardOCP reader, other than those articles about Infinium that have been linked on slashdot, so I have no interest either way. I do have a bias against con men who bilk others out of their money, and I'm beginning to wonder what your angle is.
Try counting the spaces in his UID.
He didn't steal the information. He committed copyright infringement and possibly trade secret violations.
I don't know if you intended this to be funny, but it struck me that given the draconian nature of the DMCA, the government could use it to prosecute spies!
Anyway, you do have a point about whether we can call it theft, since Miranda didn't "permanently deprive him or her of the value of the property taken", if we take a simple understanding of the definition of theft from findlaw.com.
However, his actions do fit the definition of burglary, which is:
There is a further interesting definition for Breaking and Entering:
By this definition, even if he didn't force his way into a server, he still entered without permission (without privilege). However, you likened his actions to trespass, which is also interesting!
Trespass, 1st definition:
and also, from the 2nd definition:
That certainly seems to fit the situation as well, especially if we're going to argue that he didn't steal, but merely copied, since the legal owner was not deprived of the thing allegedly stolen.
Oh, and before I forget, there was an "ordinary definition" of trespass that we are all probably more familiar with:
I hope you weren't bored to tears by my little investigation (which I don't think proves either one of us as being either correct or incorrect). I found it fascinating to read specific legal definitions, even though we are all somewhat familiar with these words. It's also interesting to ponder how one might argue the case for either side. Huh, maybe I should go back to law school someday? =)
I guess my patented foot operated trackball wouldn't be of much use for you, either, if you get weak in the knees.
Witchcraft confirms
We don't control the oil.
Not yet, obviously, and probably not ever, the way we're going about it. The Middle East has a grand old tradition of people trying to control it, though (We didn't put the Shah in charge of Iran in 1953 for shits and giggles).
OPEC raised the rates we pay for the oil we *do* get from that region.
OPEC does not directly set or control prices. OPEC ostensibly* controls the supply belonging to its member states. So, indirectly, they affect the price when they set supply, but it's still the market that sets the price. The current high price is not due to OPEC limiting supply, but due to the legal and tax problems of Russia's biggest oil company. OPEC has been increasing their end of the supply equation, but have been unable to put much of a crimp in the price.
*[This only works when the member states do as directed, and don't attempt to pump more oil than they say that they will. OPEC has had problems with discipline.]
I'd say, if the war truly was fought for control of oil, not only has it failed but it could never have succeeded. I truly hope that it wasn't the unstated reason we went to war, because that level of stupidity would unsettle me far greater than the 'we are the world's police force' stupidity that I believe actually precipitated this war.
It might have succeeded in 1991, had our leaders bitten the bullet and seized the opportunity. We surely would have suffered a blow in world opinion, but nothing compared to what we are seeing today. Bush Sr. chickened out because at that time, he still thought he had a chance to win the '92 election, and such an act might not have gone over well with the voters. Ten years before 9/11, without a good fear club to beat us, he didn't have a good false pretext.
#2. If we're willing to trade US troop's lives for oil, then it's time we got off the oil addiction. It may be hard and it may be expensive, but it will completely remove the "threat" of someone denying us oil. And because of #1, there will always be that threat.
Two things:
1) AFAIK, no politician since FDR has really asked the American people as a whole to make any sort of real sacrifice, although JFK made the famous statement, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." In FDR's case, there was a war on, and people expected that they'd make small personal sacrifices and suffer inconvenience while they were asking others to make the ultimate sacrifice.
Today, it would seem that asking for Americans to make any sort of material sacrifice is politically unthinkable. While a small part of the population, say military families, might be asked to sacrifice their spouses, sons, or daughters, it would be political suicide to ask the people as a whole for anything that might inconvenience them or limit their materialist perogatives in any way whatsoever. In fact, since 9/11, we've been given tax incentives to buy bigger gas guzzlers, while tax breaks for hybrids have shrunk and are set to expire in 2006.
2) This gives us some understanding that the phrase "War on Terror" is a lie. It's a propaganda campaign, plain and simple. I'm not suggesting that there isn't a threat from terrorists, obviously there is. However, this "War on", as illustrated by the way it is being waged today, is merely a pretext for domestic and international power grabs.
Furthermore, because the war in Iraq is based on falsehoods, the politicians are further barred from asking Americans to make the sacrifices that could alleviate our oil addiction.
There are, of course, exceptions. Americans seem perfectly content to sacrifice civil liberties in exchange for security. We've also learned to deal with the inconvenience of beefed up airport checkpoints and random screening.
I wonder if America could rise to the challenge, if any politician were to have the balls to ask us to make sacrifices in our oil consumption. I guess it would depend on the politician, if there are any left that are also leaders.
A guest is invited, but no longer welcome?
Next time I'm surfing on your sofa, when I hear a round being chambered I'll know I'm no longer welcome. =)
It's a good thing that David Boies doesn't represent Karl Rove in intellectual property matters, or you'd soon be receiving a letter.
I guess were no longer making the distinction between hacker and cracker on slashdot?
I'm not a thief by trade or inclination, but you'd still call me thief (and rightly so), if you left your keys in the ignition of your car and I took it for a spin without your permission.
If I were to point out that it was your own stupidity that was at fault, I'd be merely misdirecting attention from the crime (as some conservative slashdotters do), in hopes of excusing the guilty party.
Bottom line is that Miranda gained unauthorized access to information and stole that information, and he did so at the behest of his superiors. While it seems a stretch to call him a hacker or a cracker because of his lack of skills, it describes what he did, regardless of the challenge it presented.
Since his bosses have elected to hang him out to dry, I can only hope that he is able to implicate them and at the very least, drag them into court to answer some hard questions.