If the fuel rods haven't melted down and the containment has not been
breached then (GP) please explain why there are at least 18,000 tons
of highly radioactive water outside the plant. At least 6,000 tons of
the water is 100,000 times more radioactive than water found inside a
fully powered functioning reactor. The water is so radioactive
because the zirconium fuel rods releasing the radioactivity they were
supposed to contain into the water. The only way the water was able
to get outside the plant would be if either the containment was
breached or if the melted fuel rods were those that were in the spent
fuel rod storage pool.
The thousands of tons of water already *outside* the plant give
off enough radiation to give a worker their emergency lifetime
dose of 250 mSv in 15 minutes. Spending 8 hours near the water
will give anyone a fatal does of radiation. This water has
completely stopped efforts at restoring the cooling system of
the leaking reactor. At a manhole leading to one tunnel the highly
radioactive water is within 10cm of ground level. Yesterday TEPCO
*reduced* the water they were spraying on the reactors in order to
prevent this highly radioactive water from spilling out over the
ground which would be disastrous to any hope of fixing the problems.
This in turn caused the temperature of the *outside* of the #2 reactor
to rise by 20C.
The armchair quarterbacks are fighting the Chernobyl disaster
not Fukushima. At Chernobyl the moderator was graphite and
the main vector of the release of radioactivity was upward
via a fire in the graphite. Covering the reactor at Chernobyl
stemmed this flow of radioactive materials.
At Fukushima the moderator is water. Water is less likely to
burn than graphite but while fire and smoke and heat go upward,
water moves downward. Everyone is looking upward for escaping
radioactive materials but then major vector for the release of
radioactive materials from Fukushima is *downward* via this
highly radioactive water. The authorities know that at least
18,000 tons of highly radioactive water has escaped the plants
by calculating the volume of the three tunnels that are filled.
There is a much greater volume of highly radioactive water in the
turbine buildings (one is waist deep) but this doesn't technically
count as beyond the containment system. They have no idea if this is
the majority of the leaked water or if it is only the tip of the
iceberg. If you look at the levels of radioactivity that was measured
in ocean water 30 km from the plant (7 -- 19 bq/L), it is quite likely
that more radioactivity has leaked into the ocean than is in the
tunnels and turbine buildings filled with deadly water.
Covering the Fukushima reactors with cement is unlikely to
stem the massive flow of highly radioactive water. In fact,
the cement would probably make it more difficult to fix the
leak(s).
All of the information above, except my speculations about the
futility of covering the plants with concrete was obtained from
NKH World broadcasts and from The Japan Times Online.
The Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act of 1957
says that the American people pay for underwriting the insurance for all
nuclear power plants. In case of an accident, after a heftly deductible of
$12.6 billion, the American public is on the hook for the rest of the costs.
The rationale for this "temporary" (ha ha) measure is that nuclear power
would not be competitive with alternative forms of power generation if
they had to pay for their own insurance. THIS IS COMPLETELY INSANE!
We are intentionally tilting the playing field in favor of the most dangerous
form of power production available (when the danger is measured by the
marketplace via the cost for insurance). Imagine what the world would be
like if for the past 50 years we had instead tilted the playing field in
favor of safer, renewable, alternative forms of energy production. Or,
perhaps better still, if we had just left the playing field level.
The only reason for this insane public subsidy of nuclear power is the
greed of corporations. At the end of World War Two, many corporations
had huge investments in nuclear technology. For example, DuPont had
more capital investment in nuclear than all their other capital investments
combined. In order to "maximize shareholder value" (wealth without work)
they bought the Price-Anderson Act (politics without principles) in order
to get rights without responsibilities.
In Soviet Russia the problem was that the government controlled the
corporations. The situation in Capitalist America is exactly the
reverse.
The AFC test was developed by the United States Court of Appeals for the
Second Circuit in 1992 in its opinion for Computer Associates Int. Inc.
v. Altai Inc. It has been widely adopted by United States courts and
recognized by courts outside the United States as well.
Microsoft:There is no escape. Don't make me destroy you.
[pauses] Microsoft:: Nokia, you do not yet realize your importance. You have only begun to discover your power. Join me, and I will complete your training. With our combined strength, we can end this destructive conflict and bring order to the galaxy.
One of the aims of the [e16] window manager is to be as configurable as
possible, and to this end, it includes customization dialogs for focus
settings, window movement, resizing, grouping and placement settings,
audio, multiple desktop, desktop background, pager, tooltip and
autoraise settings.
It really is the most configurable piece of software I've ever used.
I had used KDE for over a decade and I was usually very happy
with it but I couldn't deal with 4.x. I am now much happier with
e16 than I ever was with KDE-3.5.10, which IMO is the 2nd best
windows manager. Of course, YMMVG.
Real windows managers give the user and theme creators complete control
over the buttons, not just on the titlebar but on all parts of the border.
I've added buttons for:
full-screen (like a borderless maximize)
vertical maximize toggle
take window to next desktop
take window to previous desktop
When I get around to it I might add a button to move the window and the cursor
to the other/next monitor. I also have complete control over the right-click
titlebar menu which I've heavily modified.
This move is just outright bizarre to me. Nokia is essentially throwing themselves under a bus.
Agreed. The only thing that makes sense to me is if Microsoft made them an offer they couldn't refuse:
Microsoft: There is no escape. Don't make me destroy you.
[pauses] Microsoft: Nokia, you do not yet realize your importance. You have only begun to discover your power. Join me, and I will complete your training. With our combined strength, we can end this destructive conflict and bring order to the galaxy.
... but the article is less about "reform" and more about gutting Intellectual
Property. The author isn't for, say, a 20-year or a 10-year copyright, but is
against copyright at all.
Please show where the article suggests we do away with copyright law. You
can't because it doesn't. PJ is a big fan of the GPL and she knows very well
that the GPL only works because of copyright law.
If you disagree with what she says, fine, that is your prerogative, but why do you just make up crap like this?
The thesis "Current IP law stifles innovation" is a good one, however I don't agree with the examples provided in the paper. I think a more persuasive argument would have used company vs company lawsuits are are going crazy right now
From the fine article:
Let's take Android. It's something new and the world is loving it. So what happened once it became a hit? Patent and copyright infringement lawsuits up the kazoo. Is that going to encourage innovation? And it's not just Android. It's any successful technical product. They all have to spend millions in litigation. And it's a drain on the economy too, because when the plaintiffs win, that money isn't a win for innovation, not when the law allows patents to be owned and litigated by entities that make nothing at all but litigation.
Just to be perfectly clear, the lawsuits against Android are actually filed against Google. They are a prime example of the "company vs company lawsuits" that you complain are not in the fine article.
Google is no victim here. They don't own search results.
You are incorrect. Google does indeed own the search results. If you were correct then Bing (and anyone else) could funnel all of their searches to Google, strip the ads off of the Google results pages, and insert their own ads instead.
That is a heck of a lot cheaper and easier then building your own search engine.It gives results that are just as good as Google's, and better yet, you can pass your savings on to the advertisers, thus underselling Google.
Sorry KDE, I've moved on. I suggest you do too. I'm glad the therapy and new meds are working out for you. I believe you when you say you're all better now and won't ever try to cut off my ballls with the kitchen knife again but there has just been too much water over the dam. I've found a new DE and we are in love. This one is better than you ever were even before you went a little crazy.
PS: I'm posting this under a friend's account just in case you're not quite all better yet.
Clementine
was inspired by amarok 1.4 but it uses QT4 instead of QT3. I started using it around 0.3 and was sold then. It is up to 0.6 and it is hands down the best music player out there IMHO.
The lesson I'm getting is, if you want to change the World, act like a conservative right winger and then slowly poison them from the inside.
I saw that
cartoon too. ISTM both parties are trying to destroy themselves from within. Either that or they are both working for the corporations that pay for their campaigns. Nah, that couldn't be it because that's blatant bribery.
Will they please target the Linux platform so we can prove once and for all to all the Windows lovers that the underlying architecture protects better than the Windows design?
Slashdot warning:
Deep recursion in thread "Cybercriminals Shifting Focus To Non-Windows OSes" at post "Re:Thank God...".
Transparent conducting oxides are not new. A form of tin oxide was used to coat windows on high altitude bombers in WWII. An electrical current was sent through the coating which acted as a defroster.
(1) Nothing in this section shall affect rights, remedies, limitations, or defenses to copyright infringement, including fair use, under this title.
Emphasis added.
I admit that a paranoid reading of the DMCA (which is probably appropriate given our current legal climate) might discount the phrase I emphasized. I also admit that this phrase has probably not been strenuously tested in case law. However, I believe the phrase makes it perfectly clear that fair use is relevant with regards to section 1201 of the DMCA.
I agree with you that it may have been a bit of a stretch to link a defense in the current action to the Supreme Court ruling in Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc but I couldn't resist the delicious irony in the possibility that Sony's win in that case would be used as a precedent that would cause them to lose this case. The precedent is that a device (such as a VCR) is not illegal as long as it has legitimate fair uses.
In addition, look at 1201.a.2 in the page I linked to:
(2) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that--
(A)
is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title;
If geohot's exploit was primarily designed to restore the OtherOS feature then it would be legal (under the DMCA) even if it could also be used to pirate copyrighted games. [As a side note, I'd bet that this clause was added to the DMCA because of the 1984 Sony ruling. Congress wanted to make sure the DMCA did not conflict with that ruling.]
IMO, the wording in section 1201 of the DMCA completely supports what I said in my original post, namely that the purpose and use of the exploit would be extremely relevant to a defense against DMCA charges.
I agree that the DMCA is a horrible horrible mess. It's all twisted around to give the corporate overlords^H^H campaign contributors everything they asked for while at the same time not egregiously violate the constitution or Supreme Court precedents. The messiness creates uncertainty. The uncertainty in turn discourages people from testing the limits of the DMCA so case law has not yet lifted the veil of uncertainty. Given the wording in section 1201 of the DMCA I believe geohot has a solid defense so I agree with the original poster who said:
There is already at least one class action suit against Sony for dropping the OtherOS feature.
Before using a firmware release to disable OtherOS,
Sony has said:
Please be assured that SCE [Sony Computer Entertainment] is committed to continue the support for previously sold models that have the "Install Other OS" feature and that this feature will not be disabled in future firmware releases.
IANAL, but I believe the fact that geohot was using the exploit to re-enable OtherOS will be a vital part of his defense against charges he violated the DMCA. My understanding of the current case law is that if you circumvent a security measure for the sole purpose of violating someone's copyrights then you are liable for prosecution under the DMCA. But if you circumvent a security device in order to exercise a "fair use" then you are safe. A recent example of this was the announcement by the US Government (I forget which department) that is was legal to jailbreak iPhones in order to change carriers.
This then takes us back to the 1984 Supreme Court decision in
Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc
where they ruled that "making of individual copies of complete television shows for purposes of time-shifting does not constitute copyright infringement, but is fair use". The idea was that if there were valid (fair) uses of video recorders then video recorders were legal even if they could be used for infringement.
IMO (IANAL), geohot's exploit has fair uses, such as restoring OtherOS, and other uses that would infringe copyright (pirating games). Without the fair uses, geohot might have been in trouble.
Because others guys are doing it, it's okay for me to do it, or this case continue doing it? I don't see that as a particularly good defense.
which was most likely in reference to this comment by
geohot's Lawyer:
On the face of Sony’s Motion, a TRO serves no purpose in the present matter. The code necessary to 'jailbreak' the Sony Playstation computer is on the internet. That cat is not going back in the bag.
Note: TRO = Temporary Restraining Order.
Sony's shy^H^H lawyers tried to get the court to give them all of geohots computer equipment before geohot had time to mount a defense. He was only informed of this attempt a few hours before the hearing.
The "cat is out of the bag" statement wasn't addressing whether geohot is guilty or innocent of any crime. It was addressing the lame attempt by Sony to confiscate all of geohots computers. Sony said they needed the court to take this rapid and extraordinary action to keep the world from learning how to perform the exploit. Since the information was already on the web, seizing geohot's computers would not stem the tide.
TL;DR: Sony was being an asshole and tried to use a temporary restraining order as an excuse to steal all of geohots computers. Geohot had already lawyered up and was prepared for this sneak attack.
It is relevant because the one of the dirty tactics is to post nasty comments that are then quoted or linked to if not immediately removed.
but I have to point out that when PJ dealt with GPL v3 (many articles on Groklaw when it was being drafted), she did not say anything about her involvement in the process(and so, potential conflict of interest) until *after* the license was approved.
That is so utterly not true. The entire GPL3 process was open to the public. There was no way for her participation to be secret. Everyone was invited to participate. PJ did her best to get as many people to participate as possible. She would be a hypocrite of she didn't participate. How is that a conflict of interest? She participated, she tried to get others to participate and she posted articles about the process on Groklaw. It's not like she gets a kickback every time someone uses the GPL3.
Furthermore she talked about her involvement as early as
2005.
PJ was targeted with a very aggressive smear campaign (O' Gara and co.) that IMO went far beyond the limits of decency, but it doesn't mean she's perfect.
I fully agree. Like all humans, PJ is not perfect. That is exactly what I said in my first post. Twice. I think she does sometimes think something is an attack when it is not but I don't think that is paranoia. It is because she is attacked so vigorously and so regularly, it's normal that her number of false positives would increase. Something would be wrong with her if it didn't.
That point I mentioned was a major letdown for me.
You really need to explain how that was a conflict of interest. Participating in the drafting of the GPL3 and encouraging others to participate as well are perfectly compatible. If she has acted otherwise then you would have been able to complain about that instead. PJ did everything in her power to get you to participate.
If you (or anyone else) didn't get your say then it is no one's fault but your own.
I like a lot the investigative side of Groklaw, but I like a lot less paranoia-induced articles like this one.
My tastes align with yours on this. I prefer the investigative articles. I disagree with your assessment that this one was induced by paranoia. If anything, I think PJ was a little naïve about how the world works and the article reflects part of her (perhaps rude) awakening. She is realizing that much of the world, especially the business world, acts without a shred of integrity. It is to her credit that she was surprised and shocked by this.
If somebody posts something to make groklaw "look awful," then PJ, or somebody else on groklaw, can dispute that particular post.
Sure, if it just one or two posts, it is really not much of a problem. The problem is that there can be an avalanche of posts, many of them phony, people pretending to be representing the FOSS community but saying nasty things. If these are not nipped in the bud then confederates link to them and quote them on other sites as typical examples of Groklaw and FOSS supporters.
If such posts weren't deleted, Groklaw would die in weeks.
When somebody starts deleting posts, just because those posts don't conform to her point of view, then onlookers can never be sure if the opposition has made a relevant point. I'm sorry, but that does put her integrity in question.
I agree with you. Certainly it is possible to abuse the authority to delete posts. But this doesn't make all deletions bad. The posts I've seen that I've flagged as abusive were posts where someone says they are an avid FOSS and Groklaw supporter and then they say nasty, abusive things that make the poster look like an awful person. If these are not removed then they are used as evidence that FOSS and Groklaw supporters are awful people.
You are not helping FOSS by spreading false, derogatory rumors about PJ. If you have first hand experience, speak up. My first hand experience is that I've been appalled by some of the nasty posts I've seen on Groklaw and I've immediately informed PJ about them so they could be deleted.
Furthermore, "the opposition" has had reporters in their pocket printing false stories all over the web for years. Why does Groklaw lose credibility of they print the truth instead of the lies? No other site is held to the ridiculous standard you reserve for Groklaw. It is often impossible to get a site to issue a retraction when they have been caught telling outright lies. The idea that Groklaw loses credibility by not spreading the lies they are trying to debunk is absurd.
You've got to be kidding me, but I'm afraid you may not be. Slashdot gets by because of the moderation and meta-moderation system. Its goals and challenges differ greatly from those of Groklaw. I'm sorry for explaining the obvious but it seems to have thus far eluded your grasp.
Slashdot, for the most part, posts summaries and links to stories along with comments by readers, moderated and meta-moderated by readers. It doesn't do any investigative journalism, which is what Groklaw does day and and day out. The people who are investigated don't like it and will do anything they can to shut up or discredit Groklaw. Slashdot does not have significant content other than links and readers' comments which is why it can get by with the moderation system.
The idea that this reflects "strong ideals" is absurd in the extreme. If most people had similar "ideals" then content-less Slashdot would cease to function because there would be no content-ful sites to link to. If anything, it is PJ and Groklaw who are showing integrity and ideals by taking a stand for what is right and what is true. The irony is that it is because Groklaw takes a stand that people are actively trying to destroy it which in turn leads to the policy of deleting nasty posts.
It is also important to note that there has always been open invitations at Groklaw for Darl McBride, and other targets of investigation to post their side of things. These are rejected and instead Groklaw gets a flood of posts by people who are pretending to be members of the FOSS community who are trying to discredit Growlaw.
I'm not saying Groklaw is without flaws but I am saying that the deletion of posts that are designed to discredit the site is not one of them. This has nothing to do with a "lack of transparency" because the posts that are deleted do not reflect PJ or the Groklaw community. The deleted posts lack transparency because they are almost always anonymous and they are almost always by someone pretending to be a member of the community who is not.
As you may be aware, almost all content-ful sites have this problem. Do you also say "no thanks" to Google, Youtube, WaPo, the NYT, etc? Funny thing is that when you say "But I'm a free software supporter with strong ideals and high expectations" and then condemn Groklaw for doing what what is required of all sites that do investigative journalism then you start to sound very much like either a stupid friend of FOSS or a sly enemy.
Slashdot Mirror
The thousands of tons of water already *outside* the plant give off enough radiation to give a worker their emergency lifetime dose of 250 mSv in 15 minutes. Spending 8 hours near the water will give anyone a fatal does of radiation. This water has completely stopped efforts at restoring the cooling system of the leaking reactor. At a manhole leading to one tunnel the highly radioactive water is within 10cm of ground level. Yesterday TEPCO *reduced* the water they were spraying on the reactors in order to prevent this highly radioactive water from spilling out over the ground which would be disastrous to any hope of fixing the problems. This in turn caused the temperature of the *outside* of the #2 reactor to rise by 20C.
The armchair quarterbacks are fighting the Chernobyl disaster not Fukushima. At Chernobyl the moderator was graphite and the main vector of the release of radioactivity was upward via a fire in the graphite. Covering the reactor at Chernobyl stemmed this flow of radioactive materials. At Fukushima the moderator is water. Water is less likely to burn than graphite but while fire and smoke and heat go upward, water moves downward. Everyone is looking upward for escaping radioactive materials but then major vector for the release of radioactive materials from Fukushima is *downward* via this highly radioactive water. The authorities know that at least 18,000 tons of highly radioactive water has escaped the plants by calculating the volume of the three tunnels that are filled. There is a much greater volume of highly radioactive water in the turbine buildings (one is waist deep) but this doesn't technically count as beyond the containment system. They have no idea if this is the majority of the leaked water or if it is only the tip of the iceberg. If you look at the levels of radioactivity that was measured in ocean water 30 km from the plant (7 -- 19 bq/L), it is quite likely that more radioactivity has leaked into the ocean than is in the tunnels and turbine buildings filled with deadly water.
Covering the Fukushima reactors with cement is unlikely to stem the massive flow of highly radioactive water. In fact, the cement would probably make it more difficult to fix the leak(s).
All of the information above, except my speculations about the futility of covering the plants with concrete was obtained from NKH World broadcasts and from The Japan Times Online.
The rationale for this "temporary" (ha ha) measure is that nuclear power would not be competitive with alternative forms of power generation if they had to pay for their own insurance. THIS IS COMPLETELY INSANE!
We are intentionally tilting the playing field in favor of the most dangerous form of power production available (when the danger is measured by the marketplace via the cost for insurance). Imagine what the world would be like if for the past 50 years we had instead tilted the playing field in favor of safer, renewable, alternative forms of energy production. Or, perhaps better still, if we had just left the playing field level.
The only reason for this insane public subsidy of nuclear power is the greed of corporations. At the end of World War Two, many corporations had huge investments in nuclear technology. For example, DuPont had more capital investment in nuclear than all their other capital investments combined. In order to "maximize shareholder value" (wealth without work) they bought the Price-Anderson Act (politics without principles) in order to get rights without responsibilities.
In Soviet Russia the problem was that the government controlled the corporations. The situation in Capitalist America is exactly the reverse.
The AFC test was developed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in 1992 in its opinion for Computer Associates Int. Inc. v. Altai Inc. It has been widely adopted by United States courts and recognized by courts outside the United States as well.
Let me fix that for you ...
Microsoft:There is no escape. Don't make me destroy you.
[pauses]
Microsoft:: Nokia, you do not yet realize your importance. You have only begun to discover your power. Join me, and I will complete your training. With our combined strength, we can end this destructive conflict and bring order to the galaxy.
One of the aims of the [e16] window manager is to be as configurable as possible, and to this end, it includes customization dialogs for focus settings, window movement, resizing, grouping and placement settings, audio, multiple desktop, desktop background, pager, tooltip and autoraise settings.
It really is the most configurable piece of software I've ever used.
I had used KDE for over a decade and I was usually very happy with it but I couldn't deal with 4.x. I am now much happier with e16 than I ever was with KDE-3.5.10, which IMO is the 2nd best windows manager. Of course, YMMVG.
I've added buttons for:
When I get around to it I might add a button to move the window and the cursor to the other/next monitor. I also have complete control over the right-click titlebar menu which I've heavily modified.
Sure, they come for the PHP but they stay because of the NDA and the threatened BMLS.
In Capitalist America watching evening news tortures you!
This move is just outright bizarre to me. Nokia is essentially throwing themselves under a bus.
Agreed. The only thing that makes sense to me is if Microsoft made them an offer they couldn't refuse:
Is that you Keyser Soze?
... but the article is less about "reform" and more about gutting Intellectual Property. The author isn't for, say, a 20-year or a 10-year copyright, but is against copyright at all.
Please show where the article suggests we do away with copyright law. You can't because it doesn't. PJ is a big fan of the GPL and she knows very well that the GPL only works because of copyright law.
If you disagree with what she says, fine, that is your prerogative, but why do you just make up crap like this?
The thesis "Current IP law stifles innovation" is a good one, however I don't agree with the examples provided in the paper. I think a more persuasive argument would have used company vs company lawsuits are are going crazy right now
From the fine article:
Let's take Android. It's something new and the world is loving it. So what happened once it became a hit? Patent and copyright infringement lawsuits up the kazoo. Is that going to encourage innovation? And it's not just Android. It's any successful technical product. They all have to spend millions in litigation. And it's a drain on the economy too, because when the plaintiffs win, that money isn't a win for innovation, not when the law allows patents to be owned and litigated by entities that make nothing at all but litigation.
Just to be perfectly clear, the lawsuits against Android are actually filed against Google. They are a prime example of the "company vs company lawsuits" that you complain are not in the fine article.
Google is no victim here. They don't own search results.
You are incorrect. Google does indeed own the search results. If you were correct then Bing (and anyone else) could funnel all of their searches to Google, strip the ads off of the Google results pages, and insert their own ads instead.
That is a heck of a lot cheaper and easier then building your own search engine.It gives results that are just as good as Google's, and better yet, you can pass your savings on to the advertisers, thus underselling Google.
PS: I'm posting this under a friend's account just in case you're not quite all better yet.
Clementine was inspired by amarok 1.4 but it uses QT4 instead of QT3. I started using it around 0.3 and was sold then. It is up to 0.6 and it is hands down the best music player out there IMHO.
All I see are rainbows and unicodes.
The lesson I'm getting is, if you want to change the World, act like a conservative right winger and then slowly poison them from the inside.
I saw that cartoon too. ISTM both parties are trying to destroy themselves from within. Either that or they are both working for the corporations that pay for their campaigns. Nah, that couldn't be it because that's blatant bribery.
I'm saying there is no way you can compare the security of an OS that barely holds 1% of the market to the most widely used OS on the entire planet.
Please see this post:
Will they please target the Linux platform so we can prove once and for all to all the Windows lovers that the underlying architecture protects better than the Windows design?
Slashdot warning: .
Deep recursion in thread "Cybercriminals Shifting Focus To Non-Windows OSes" at post "Re:Thank God..."
Transparent conducting oxides are not new. A form of tin oxide was used to coat windows on high altitude bombers in WWII. An electrical current was sent through the coating which acted as a defroster.
(c) Other Rights, Etc., Not Affected.--
Emphasis added.
I admit that a paranoid reading of the DMCA (which is probably appropriate given our current legal climate) might discount the phrase I emphasized. I also admit that this phrase has probably not been strenuously tested in case law. However, I believe the phrase makes it perfectly clear that fair use is relevant with regards to section 1201 of the DMCA.
I agree with you that it may have been a bit of a stretch to link a defense in the current action to the Supreme Court ruling in Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc but I couldn't resist the delicious irony in the possibility that Sony's win in that case would be used as a precedent that would cause them to lose this case. The precedent is that a device (such as a VCR) is not illegal as long as it has legitimate fair uses.
In addition, look at 1201.a.2 in the page I linked to:
(2) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that--
If geohot's exploit was primarily designed to restore the OtherOS feature then it would be legal (under the DMCA) even if it could also be used to pirate copyrighted games. [As a side note, I'd bet that this clause was added to the DMCA because of the 1984 Sony ruling. Congress wanted to make sure the DMCA did not conflict with that ruling.] IMO, the wording in section 1201 of the DMCA completely supports what I said in my original post, namely that the purpose and use of the exploit would be extremely relevant to a defense against DMCA charges.
I agree that the DMCA is a horrible horrible mess. It's all twisted around to give the corporate overlords^H^H campaign contributors everything they asked for while at the same time not egregiously violate the constitution or Supreme Court precedents. The messiness creates uncertainty. The uncertainty in turn discourages people from testing the limits of the DMCA so case law has not yet lifted the veil of uncertainty. Given the wording in section 1201 of the DMCA I believe geohot has a solid defense so I agree with the original poster who said:
I hope it goes all the way to the supreme court.
Before using a firmware release to disable OtherOS, Sony has said:
Please be assured that SCE [Sony Computer Entertainment] is committed to continue the support for previously sold models that have the "Install Other OS" feature and that this feature will not be disabled in future firmware releases.
IANAL, but I believe the fact that geohot was using the exploit to re-enable OtherOS will be a vital part of his defense against charges he violated the DMCA. My understanding of the current case law is that if you circumvent a security measure for the sole purpose of violating someone's copyrights then you are liable for prosecution under the DMCA. But if you circumvent a security device in order to exercise a "fair use" then you are safe. A recent example of this was the announcement by the US Government (I forget which department) that is was legal to jailbreak iPhones in order to change carriers.
This then takes us back to the 1984 Supreme Court decision in Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc where they ruled that "making of individual copies of complete television shows for purposes of time-shifting does not constitute copyright infringement, but is fair use". The idea was that if there were valid (fair) uses of video recorders then video recorders were legal even if they could be used for infringement.
IMO (IANAL), geohot's exploit has fair uses, such as restoring OtherOS, and other uses that would infringe copyright (pirating games). Without the fair uses, geohot might have been in trouble.
Because others guys are doing it, it's okay for me to do it, or this case continue doing it? I don't see that as a particularly good defense.
which was most likely in reference to this comment by geohot's Lawyer:
On the face of Sony’s Motion, a TRO serves no purpose in the present matter. The code necessary to 'jailbreak' the Sony Playstation computer is on the internet. That cat is not going back in the bag.
Note: TRO = Temporary Restraining Order.
Sony's shy^H^H lawyers tried to get the court to give them all of geohots computer equipment before geohot had time to mount a defense. He was only informed of this attempt a few hours before the hearing.
The "cat is out of the bag" statement wasn't addressing whether geohot is guilty or innocent of any crime. It was addressing the lame attempt by Sony to confiscate all of geohots computers. Sony said they needed the court to take this rapid and extraordinary action to keep the world from learning how to perform the exploit. Since the information was already on the web, seizing geohot's computers would not stem the tide.
TL;DR: Sony was being an asshole and tried to use a temporary restraining order as an excuse to steal all of geohots computers. Geohot had already lawyered up and was prepared for this sneak attack.
YAESF (yet another epic Sony FAIL).
Perhaps not relevant to the discussion, ...
It is relevant because the one of the dirty tactics is to post nasty comments that are then quoted or linked to if not immediately removed.
but I have to point out that when PJ dealt with GPL v3 (many articles on Groklaw when it was being drafted), she did not say anything about her involvement in the process(and so, potential conflict of interest) until *after* the license was approved.
That is so utterly not true. The entire GPL3 process was open to the public. There was no way for her participation to be secret. Everyone was invited to participate. PJ did her best to get as many people to participate as possible. She would be a hypocrite of she didn't participate. How is that a conflict of interest? She participated, she tried to get others to participate and she posted articles about the process on Groklaw. It's not like she gets a kickback every time someone uses the GPL3. Furthermore she talked about her involvement as early as 2005.
PJ was targeted with a very aggressive smear campaign (O' Gara and co.) that IMO went far beyond the limits of decency, but it doesn't mean she's perfect.
I fully agree. Like all humans, PJ is not perfect. That is exactly what I said in my first post. Twice. I think she does sometimes think something is an attack when it is not but I don't think that is paranoia. It is because she is attacked so vigorously and so regularly, it's normal that her number of false positives would increase. Something would be wrong with her if it didn't.
That point I mentioned was a major letdown for me.
You really need to explain how that was a conflict of interest. Participating in the drafting of the GPL3 and encouraging others to participate as well are perfectly compatible. If she has acted otherwise then you would have been able to complain about that instead. PJ did everything in her power to get you to participate. If you (or anyone else) didn't get your say then it is no one's fault but your own.
I like a lot the investigative side of Groklaw, but I like a lot less paranoia-induced articles like this one.
My tastes align with yours on this. I prefer the investigative articles. I disagree with your assessment that this one was induced by paranoia. If anything, I think PJ was a little naïve about how the world works and the article reflects part of her (perhaps rude) awakening. She is realizing that much of the world, especially the business world, acts without a shred of integrity. It is to her credit that she was surprised and shocked by this.
If somebody posts something to make groklaw "look awful," then PJ, or somebody else on groklaw, can dispute that particular post.
Sure, if it just one or two posts, it is really not much of a problem. The problem is that there can be an avalanche of posts, many of them phony, people pretending to be representing the FOSS community but saying nasty things. If these are not nipped in the bud then confederates link to them and quote them on other sites as typical examples of Groklaw and FOSS supporters.
If such posts weren't deleted, Groklaw would die in weeks.
When somebody starts deleting posts, just because those posts don't conform to her point of view, then onlookers can never be sure if the opposition has made a relevant point. I'm sorry, but that does put her integrity in question.
I agree with you. Certainly it is possible to abuse the authority to delete posts. But this doesn't make all deletions bad. The posts I've seen that I've flagged as abusive were posts where someone says they are an avid FOSS and Groklaw supporter and then they say nasty, abusive things that make the poster look like an awful person. If these are not removed then they are used as evidence that FOSS and Groklaw supporters are awful people.
You are not helping FOSS by spreading false, derogatory rumors about PJ. If you have first hand experience, speak up. My first hand experience is that I've been appalled by some of the nasty posts I've seen on Groklaw and I've immediately informed PJ about them so they could be deleted.
Furthermore, "the opposition" has had reporters in their pocket printing false stories all over the web for years. Why does Groklaw lose credibility of they print the truth instead of the lies? No other site is held to the ridiculous standard you reserve for Groklaw. It is often impossible to get a site to issue a retraction when they have been caught telling outright lies. The idea that Groklaw loses credibility by not spreading the lies they are trying to debunk is absurd.
Slashdot, for the most part, posts summaries and links to stories along with comments by readers, moderated and meta-moderated by readers. It doesn't do any investigative journalism, which is what Groklaw does day and and day out. The people who are investigated don't like it and will do anything they can to shut up or discredit Groklaw. Slashdot does not have significant content other than links and readers' comments which is why it can get by with the moderation system.
The idea that this reflects "strong ideals" is absurd in the extreme. If most people had similar "ideals" then content-less Slashdot would cease to function because there would be no content-ful sites to link to. If anything, it is PJ and Groklaw who are showing integrity and ideals by taking a stand for what is right and what is true. The irony is that it is because Groklaw takes a stand that people are actively trying to destroy it which in turn leads to the policy of deleting nasty posts.
It is also important to note that there has always been open invitations at Groklaw for Darl McBride, and other targets of investigation to post their side of things. These are rejected and instead Groklaw gets a flood of posts by people who are pretending to be members of the FOSS community who are trying to discredit Growlaw.
I'm not saying Groklaw is without flaws but I am saying that the deletion of posts that are designed to discredit the site is not one of them. This has nothing to do with a "lack of transparency" because the posts that are deleted do not reflect PJ or the Groklaw community. The deleted posts lack transparency because they are almost always anonymous and they are almost always by someone pretending to be a member of the community who is not.
As you may be aware, almost all content-ful sites have this problem. Do you also say "no thanks" to Google, Youtube, WaPo, the NYT, etc? Funny thing is that when you say "But I'm a free software supporter with strong ideals and high expectations" and then condemn Groklaw for doing what what is required of all sites that do investigative journalism then you start to sound very much like either a stupid friend of FOSS or a sly enemy.