The Japanese goverment has been suspiciously lax in pursuing enactment of Child Porn laws
Yeah, but their culture see's it differently i.e. not so much of a problem. To them, it's like Saudi Arabia asking us to clamp down on alcohol, because their society doesn't tolerate our activies. A lot of Asian porn features school girl references there, and they really dig the whole cute china-doll thing. I'm sure many of the legal ones get made up to look as young as possible, jeez that even goes on in Western porn as well, 25 year-olds masquerading as 18 year-olds.
With different ages of consent around the world, policing this planet is not an easy task. I think I heard once that the age in Spain was 12, though that may have been years ago and it's probably standardised through the EU now. How exactly to you legislate based on widely differing laws and cultures?
Remember also that our society is very diffent to many others, and has only become that way recently. Several hundred years ago, most people were married and had had several children by 17-18 years old. You'd be lucky to reach 30 years old and have half of your children reach adulthood. Our ever extending life-span has lengthened the "age of innocence", but it's not "naturally human". If a boy/girl can conceive children, that's natures way of saying it's time to start having sex, regardless of what abstinence groups or abusive catholic priests regard the issue.
It's a very muddled issue. Where do you draw the line?
That was the biggest mistake in history: allowing Joe user unrestricted access to the Internet without a license.
No, that would have been the biggest mistake in history, had that been made a requirement. The internet would be nowhere near where it is now (the best invention of the 20th century) and it would have an impossible to maintain license system on top of it. How do you handle shared PCs? Kids on work experience in your office? A neighbour wanting to check flight details? Do they all have to sit this test? How can you tell if they have?
It's an impactical idea, completely impossible to carry out.
No, 3-4 years to instictively know why run a virus scanner. Unless you know someone that'll tell you this (not everyone has a geek friend or two), then you have to figure it out for yourself.
you don't have to be a mechanic to drive, just know things like filling the tank, checking oil pressure etc
And how many of these same PC lusers run out of gas in the middle of nowhere? Or have an engine sieze due to lack of oil? Or blow a gasket because they didn't check the coolant? I'd say the majority of motorists don't do these essential checks. You are supposed to do them every two weeks, and I don't even do it that often myself.
Driving a car is vastly different to maintaining a car. Ditto computers.
If I knew that my ISP keeps such logs and is prepared to give them to the authorities, I'd become a former customer in no time
You'd better call them up then, if you live in the UK or USA. Both countries have legislation forcing ISPs to be able to do this.
May I suggest two tin cans and a piece of string as a more private medium?;-)
Sure kiddie porn is awful, but the right to privacy should not be eroded even if few people abuse this right.
Yup, and that's how people have been manipulating other people for (at least) hundreds of years. Claim that in order to prevent one horrible thing, another horrible thing should be done. Examples:
The Nazis claimed that the Jews were a threat to German peoples freedom and prosperity, and as a result the world had the holocaust.
The Israelis claim that the Palestinions are a threat to Israel, so Palestine must be turned into a police state
The Americans claimed that Terrorists were a threat to the USAs freedom, and that many freedoms should be taken away to prevent this.
Colgate say that if your breath smells, you will have an unhappy life, and you must buy their products for the rest of your life to prevent this
Manpulation is easy. Issues like kiddie porn are so emotive, we should be careful what liberties are taken by those who seek to use the problem to their advantage. Taking the US example from above, the new snooping powers have been saught for many years by several organisations, long before terrorism was thrust into the spotlight. They used the situation to achieve their goals. I can see the same potentially happening here.
The problem is, it's all to easy to fake any of your situations. You could create an equivalent of a "honey-pot" PC, knowing that any actions that take place on it can be explained away.
If I notice that my car's brakes aren't working that well, I can do one of three things. [snip] If I run over somebody because my brakes don't work, I'm pretty sure I can get sued because I'd be responsible for my car.
Yes, but common knowledge tells everyone what the brakes do in a car. You do a driving test that requires the use of the brake.
A lot of the people who use the internet these days know nothing about it. I'm sure that at least 90% of web users are oblivious to the fact that it's possible for a mallicious web page to crash your browser, install a trojan, and do all sorts of nasty stuff. How many click OK to Comet Cursor or "magical time sync software"? Who here hasn't been asked to help a friend with a troublesome system, that was found to contain all maner of trojans and ad-ware?
It's often said that ignorance isn't an excuse. I'd argue against that in many cases. Ignorance is an excuse where it would take 3-4 years of learning about IT to be aware of what's going on under that case.
Many of the common adult newsgroups are polluted by paedophile images sent by hard-core porn sites.
It's reassuring to me that someone else has noticed this. A friend suggested to me that I checked out the pr0n on usenet, which I did (and found some good stuff). However, I combined & decoded several series of files, one of which turned out to be kiddie filth. In my 10+ years of internet use, I've never actually stumbled across any before.
In a panic (kiddie crap is a serious mess-up-your-life thing here in the UK, the media love the sales it produces), I deleted the images and removed the newsgroup cache file, never to get filth from usenet again. I was still paranoid that night at every knock of the door though. It's not too much to think that the police might be monitoring the ISP's newsserver, logging IPs against post viewing.
The same problem could exist in any net technology, where you might not get a preview prior to download.
This is a truly serious issue. Most of the folk here could fake this either way, to set someone up, or cover your own tracks. I was once asked by a lawyer to brief him on what is possible regarding date-stamps on files. My advice was that anyone who knows what they are doing can create any "evidence" they want in the digital realm. This will become a serious problem for many of our court systems, as they focus on hard evidence. Soon, digital evidence may be regarded as weak as eyewitness reports.
most of their technology never really accomplishes anything useful for them.
I (and my friends) use technology a lot to arrange physical meetings etc. Mobiles, landlines, text messaging (SMS), instant messaging, e-mails and so on. Discussing one night out might cross across all of these mediums in planning etc. Technology is not all bad!!
I'm willing to bet there are more people like me who would get rid of all of their technology and live a more simple, fulfilling life.
Hell yeah. Half the people are know are saving to go traveling for several years, and they won't be worrying about jobs and PDAs while away. Personally, I'd still take my GSM phone though!!
Social interaction is not a basic need, and in my experience, tends to lead to life-shortening experiences, not life-lengthening ones.
You need to get out more. All of the best experiences in my life involve my friends and family (and some strangers;-), and these are life enhancing. There is a limit to how much fun you can have on your own (not so much now with technology), and if you become a recluse from society, then I feel sorry for you. You are missing out on some great times.
I think no one has a clear definition of "embedded" here. Whether or not it is embedded or not, I've seen windows NT used in both ATM machines and shop tills. Of course, I knew it was windows because I recognised the error dialog and IE page not found error on each.;-)
This kind of system would clearly benefit from a reduced installation size. Storing the OS in ROM has many huge advantages, such as speed and read-only protection. The lack of moving parts also increases reliability and resilience.
Umm, I don't trust sites on the web that I have to pay for.
Hell, I don't even trust sites that require a login. It's fair game if you post messages/articles on the site, or when you head to the checkout, but if they want me to log in just to read the content, then I'll be hitting that back button.
And as Garcia says above, the chances are that the back button will be taking me back to a Google search, and I'm sure the next site in the list will be much more accessible. Their loss.
Oops, I always mix them up. Maxwell isn't dead anyway, he had all the resources required to fake his own death. Bribe the local mortition, bury a coffin full of bricks and voilla, you don't have to face criminal charges anymore, while you retreat to your private island bought with the millions you stole.
do England's builders sound more cultured than the US's? I meen drinking tea on the job and a copy of The Sun in their back pocket? Try a playboy and a case of beer
Well, the Sun does have boobies, though I'd daresay that the articles in Playboy are much better written and aimed at a more inteligent audience. Seriously. The Sun is the lowest of the low, the paper that slagged off Princess Di for years, until she died and she practically became the papers mascot for a while. Whenever I want to feel angry about how much deliberately misleading press there is out there, I pick up the Sun. Another fine Robert Maxwell publication.
Beer also contibutes to "bitch tits". Seriously. The alcohol helps the body convert testosterone to estrogen. Men do actually have many of the same glands that femail brests have and the increased estrogen can change the shape of them.
At least, beer is isotonic, so the fluids are adsorbed quickly.
IIRC, all alcoholic drinks are also diaretics, so said fluids are expelled quickly. Experienced session drinkers have a couple of glasses of water at some point during the proceedings.
There always has been. With digital cable, the telco can find out what channel you are watching at any time. I'm not sure how digital satelite works stateside, but in the UK the box has to be hooked up to a phone line to qualify for the "free installation". This dials home now and again, which is required for pay-per-view obviously, but no one knows what else gets uploaded.
It's nowt new. As you say, it has it's upside and it's downside.
Make the specific source code open source so geeks can verify that "big brother" isn't watching what they are.
This is the way forward, however I don't see the telcos doing that. They profit from things like advertising, and an open source box would certainally have mods to allow commercial skipping. Independent ones like Freevo and MythTV are the future.
The blurb of the article also suggests "impending doom" for the Smartphones. That couldn't be further from the truth. They are some of the most feature-rich phones on the market, however until last month there was only one available, but many more are appearing now from the big phone manufacturers.
The first phone (Orange SPV) seems more like a beta test, I have one. It was only released in a couple of European markets, under an even more limited number of telcos. Most of the bugs are fixed, but in true MS style, the first few versions of the OS were pretty buggy. Curse of the early adopter. Now it's pretty damn good. Seriously. Not many phones come even close to matching it's functionality. There is a article on the front page right now about VNC viewer on the P800, bah, we had that 4 months ago.
Macrovision only affects analog outputs. Why would you pay extra for a DVD player with DVI output if your TV doesn't have DVI input capability?
With Macrovision disabled you can take the composite video out of a DVD player and send it into an AV input on a bog standard VHS machine. If you already have TV RF piped through the house, you can now tune into the video channel and watch DVDs in any room.
Even if you don't plan on using analog outputs on your main set up, it's worthwhile to not have them crippled in case you do need them for anything.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes and no. Other languages, e.g. German and French have the concept of each word having a gender, male or female. German also has a neutral gender
Combine these genders with the "I go", "you go" verb stuff you need to learn, then English starts to look a lot easier
They were also right about WMD, but we're still eating "freedom fries". ;-)
Yeah, but their culture see's it differently i.e. not so much of a problem. To them, it's like Saudi Arabia asking us to clamp down on alcohol, because their society doesn't tolerate our activies. A lot of Asian porn features school girl references there, and they really dig the whole cute china-doll thing. I'm sure many of the legal ones get made up to look as young as possible, jeez that even goes on in Western porn as well, 25 year-olds masquerading as 18 year-olds.
With different ages of consent around the world, policing this planet is not an easy task. I think I heard once that the age in Spain was 12, though that may have been years ago and it's probably standardised through the EU now. How exactly to you legislate based on widely differing laws and cultures?
Remember also that our society is very diffent to many others, and has only become that way recently. Several hundred years ago, most people were married and had had several children by 17-18 years old. You'd be lucky to reach 30 years old and have half of your children reach adulthood. Our ever extending life-span has lengthened the "age of innocence", but it's not "naturally human". If a boy/girl can conceive children, that's natures way of saying it's time to start having sex, regardless of what abstinence groups or abusive catholic priests regard the issue.
It's a very muddled issue. Where do you draw the line?
No, that would have been the biggest mistake in history, had that been made a requirement. The internet would be nowhere near where it is now (the best invention of the 20th century) and it would have an impossible to maintain license system on top of it. How do you handle shared PCs? Kids on work experience in your office? A neighbour wanting to check flight details? Do they all have to sit this test? How can you tell if they have?
It's an impactical idea, completely impossible to carry out.
No, 3-4 years to instictively know why run a virus scanner. Unless you know someone that'll tell you this (not everyone has a geek friend or two), then you have to figure it out for yourself.
you don't have to be a mechanic to drive, just know things like filling the tank, checking oil pressure etc
And how many of these same PC lusers run out of gas in the middle of nowhere? Or have an engine sieze due to lack of oil? Or blow a gasket because they didn't check the coolant? I'd say the majority of motorists don't do these essential checks. You are supposed to do them every two weeks, and I don't even do it that often myself.
Driving a car is vastly different to maintaining a car. Ditto computers.
You'd better call them up then, if you live in the UK or USA. Both countries have legislation forcing ISPs to be able to do this.
May I suggest two tin cans and a piece of string as a more private medium? ;-)
Sure kiddie porn is awful, but the right to privacy should not be eroded even if few people abuse this right.
Yup, and that's how people have been manipulating other people for (at least) hundreds of years. Claim that in order to prevent one horrible thing, another horrible thing should be done. Examples:
Manpulation is easy. Issues like kiddie porn are so emotive, we should be careful what liberties are taken by those who seek to use the problem to their advantage. Taking the US example from above, the new snooping powers have been saught for many years by several organisations, long before terrorism was thrust into the spotlight. They used the situation to achieve their goals. I can see the same potentially happening here.
The problem is, it's all to easy to fake any of your situations. You could create an equivalent of a "honey-pot" PC, knowing that any actions that take place on it can be explained away.
Yes, but common knowledge tells everyone what the brakes do in a car. You do a driving test that requires the use of the brake.
A lot of the people who use the internet these days know nothing about it. I'm sure that at least 90% of web users are oblivious to the fact that it's possible for a mallicious web page to crash your browser, install a trojan, and do all sorts of nasty stuff. How many click OK to Comet Cursor or "magical time sync software"? Who here hasn't been asked to help a friend with a troublesome system, that was found to contain all maner of trojans and ad-ware?
It's often said that ignorance isn't an excuse. I'd argue against that in many cases. Ignorance is an excuse where it would take 3-4 years of learning about IT to be aware of what's going on under that case.
It's reassuring to me that someone else has noticed this. A friend suggested to me that I checked out the pr0n on usenet, which I did (and found some good stuff). However, I combined & decoded several series of files, one of which turned out to be kiddie filth. In my 10+ years of internet use, I've never actually stumbled across any before.
In a panic (kiddie crap is a serious mess-up-your-life thing here in the UK, the media love the sales it produces), I deleted the images and removed the newsgroup cache file, never to get filth from usenet again. I was still paranoid that night at every knock of the door though. It's not too much to think that the police might be monitoring the ISP's newsserver, logging IPs against post viewing.
The same problem could exist in any net technology, where you might not get a preview prior to download.
This is a truly serious issue. Most of the folk here could fake this either way, to set someone up, or cover your own tracks. I was once asked by a lawyer to brief him on what is possible regarding date-stamps on files. My advice was that anyone who knows what they are doing can create any "evidence" they want in the digital realm. This will become a serious problem for many of our court systems, as they focus on hard evidence. Soon, digital evidence may be regarded as weak as eyewitness reports.
I (and my friends) use technology a lot to arrange physical meetings etc. Mobiles, landlines, text messaging (SMS), instant messaging, e-mails and so on. Discussing one night out might cross across all of these mediums in planning etc. Technology is not all bad!!
I'm willing to bet there are more people like me who would get rid of all of their technology and live a more simple, fulfilling life.
Hell yeah. Half the people are know are saving to go traveling for several years, and they won't be worrying about jobs and PDAs while away. Personally, I'd still take my GSM phone though!!
You need to get out more. All of the best experiences in my life involve my friends and family (and some strangers ;-), and these are life enhancing. There is a limit to how much fun you can have on your own (not so much now with technology), and if you become a recluse from society, then I feel sorry for you. You are missing out on some great times.
Each to their own though...
This kind of system would clearly benefit from a reduced installation size. Storing the OS in ROM has many huge advantages, such as speed and read-only protection. The lack of moving parts also increases reliability and resilience.
Hell, I don't even trust sites that require a login. It's fair game if you post messages/articles on the site, or when you head to the checkout, but if they want me to log in just to read the content, then I'll be hitting that back button.
And as Garcia says above, the chances are that the back button will be taking me back to a Google search, and I'm sure the next site in the list will be much more accessible. Their loss.
Well, they have to maintain the CIA's exclusive operation
Oops, I always mix them up. Maxwell isn't dead anyway, he had all the resources required to fake his own death. Bribe the local mortition, bury a coffin full of bricks and voilla, you don't have to face criminal charges anymore, while you retreat to your private island bought with the millions you stole.
Well, the Sun does have boobies, though I'd daresay that the articles in Playboy are much better written and aimed at a more inteligent audience. Seriously. The Sun is the lowest of the low, the paper that slagged off Princess Di for years, until she died and she practically became the papers mascot for a while. Whenever I want to feel angry about how much deliberately misleading press there is out there, I pick up the Sun. Another fine Robert Maxwell publication.
(It's the treehouse of Horror 3 episode)
Beer also contibutes to "bitch tits". Seriously. The alcohol helps the body convert testosterone to estrogen. Men do actually have many of the same glands that femail brests have and the increased estrogen can change the shape of them.
They don't. Pot is a good painkiller, and can allieviate the nausia that some illnesses cause.
IIRC, all alcoholic drinks are also diaretics, so said fluids are expelled quickly. Experienced session drinkers have a couple of glasses of water at some point during the proceedings.
There always has been. With digital cable, the telco can find out what channel you are watching at any time. I'm not sure how digital satelite works stateside, but in the UK the box has to be hooked up to a phone line to qualify for the "free installation". This dials home now and again, which is required for pay-per-view obviously, but no one knows what else gets uploaded.
It's nowt new. As you say, it has it's upside and it's downside.
Make the specific source code open source so geeks can verify that "big brother" isn't watching what they are.
This is the way forward, however I don't see the telcos doing that. They profit from things like advertising, and an open source box would certainally have mods to allow commercial skipping. Independent ones like Freevo and MythTV are the future.
The first phone (Orange SPV) seems more like a beta test, I have one. It was only released in a couple of European markets, under an even more limited number of telcos. Most of the bugs are fixed, but in true MS style, the first few versions of the OS were pretty buggy. Curse of the early adopter. Now it's pretty damn good. Seriously. Not many phones come even close to matching it's functionality. There is a article on the front page right now about VNC viewer on the P800, bah, we had that 4 months ago.
This is Slashdot. Many of the people here don't know what fun is. Either that, or they are alergic to it.
Ah, but can you go to the kitchen to get snacks and drinks without needing to pause the movie? ;-)
With Macrovision disabled you can take the composite video out of a DVD player and send it into an AV input on a bog standard VHS machine. If you already have TV RF piped through the house, you can now tune into the video channel and watch DVDs in any room.
Even if you don't plan on using analog outputs on your main set up, it's worthwhile to not have them crippled in case you do need them for anything.