Are you planning to screw up your income taxes intentionally, or do you just make mistakes? I've made mistakes. I've gotten reasonably polite letters from the IRS saying that their information and/or calculation differs from mine, and that I can either send them a check for the difference plus a small amount of interest or tell them why not. The year I put dividends into the interest income instead, I explained what must have happened, and they accepted my explanation and I owed nothing. The IRS is interested in making sure that people pay what they owe, and is understanding about mistakes. They mostly just want the money due.
(There may be grounds for recommending me as a model for various roles. Financial record-keeping and precision is not one of those.)
Partly it's because COBOL has some unique ways to screw up. At least when I used it last, control structures were holdovers from the dark ages, and data types had to be ridiculously overspecified. Take a money amount that handles six digits (9(6)V99), decide you have to increase the number of digits (say to 9(8)V99), and you have to make absolutely sure you change all places where the amount is handled (and you have to keep track of file operations, MOVE CORRESPONDING, everything) or it will silently drop the most significant digits. I worked at a shop where we discovered that we'd been underbilling the users for some time because of such a failure.
Would they have? When the code was written, if there had been such a thing as automated unit tests, one would have been written that checked three-digit numeric strings (9(3) or X(3)). (COBOL was not designed to support automated tests, so I doubt there ever were any.) When the branch code format was changed, if someone had realized the appropriate unit test needed to be changed that someone would have realized the program needed to be changed.
Odds are good that the original code was written entirely by regular employees, since outsourcing didn't become popular until after the heyday of COBOL systems using EBCDIC. Odds are also good that the original programmers have retired some time ago, or perhaps were promoted to management.
Unfortunately a clause like that has an excellent chance of being upheld by the courts (if you'll believe a pseudonymous random guy on Slashdot, anyway).
Read up on "contracts of adhesion", which is the sort of contract EULAs are. US courts will throw out sufficiently egregious clauses in contracts of adhesion.
There have been court rulings saying that not complying with the EULA does not constitute unauthorized access in the sense the CFAA uses. There was a case recently mentioned on Slashdot in which the defendant had been fired from a company and his access revoked, and had acquired a former colleague's login and password, and the court opinion made a clear and deliberate distinction between things like not complying with the EULA and true unauthorized access.
Courts aren't likely to throw out legal clauses that you negotiated about. Contracts of adhesion, in which one side writes the contract to their own purposes, with no negotiation possible, are on shakier ground, and unreasonable and/or surprising provisions are likely to be thrown out. EULAs are contracts of adhesion, which means that halfway reasonable terms relating to the use of the whatever will be upheld, but even if turning over the first-born was legal and enforceable no US court would uphold it.
There's very likely a provision saying AT&T can cancel the contract on sufficiently broad and/or vague terms that reinstatement wouldn't be an option. A lawsuit would very likely decide that AT&T couldn't enforce such changes, and that OP wouldn't owe the money. At that time, AT&T would likely cancel the contract and offer OP a new contract at the changed rate.
Forcing someone who uses GPLed code to GPL the rest of the project is a feature that not all people want (they can use BSD-type licenses). Stallman's idea was to create a sufficiently attractive collection of GPL code to induce other people to make their projects GPLed so they could use the code. It worked reasonably well, at least for a while. The FSF web site claims that Gnat (Gnu Ada Translator) became Free/Open Source for that reason.
For some reason, the GPL seems to enrage some BSD-style license fans more than proprietary/closed source licenses do.
Stallman is a zealot with what I think some odd moral principles, and isn't up to my personal hygiene standards, but he's not dumb. The GPL was designed to make Free Software attractive, and he provided exceptions to encourage people into the GPL ecosystem.
The clause will be invalidated, because it's (legalspeak ahead) an unconscionable provision of a contract of adhesion. This is old stuff in the courts, so it isn't going to cause a major kerfluffle.
I'd love to see laws stating that additional provisions imposed after payment are invalid. A lot of what EULAs are for is covered by copyright law, which applies to all acquisition of copyrighted material without further ado.
EULAs are contracts of adhesion, since there's no negotiation possible and it's to the benefit of the party writing them. Those are normally still valid, but they're held to a higher standard. The courts will interpret any ambiguity against the party writing the contract, and will throw out provisions it finds "unconscionable" (which isn't a well-defined concept). If the provision is reasonable in the light of what the contract is for, it'll be upheld. If it's unreasonable, and either irrelevant to the purpose (turning over one's first-born is not particularly relevant to web apps) or excessive and not obvious, it might well be tossed out.
Non-compete agreements and non-disclosure agreements are typically signed in the course of job negotiations, pertain to the job, and are generally not considered contracts of adhesion.
The last terrorist attempt using nerve gas I know of was that one in Japan, that killed 12 people in a jam-packed subway system. The terrorists had high-tech assistance (or they wouldn't have had the nerve gas) and failed to do anything serious about making sure it got dispersed. Dispersal is, I believe, tricky. Bombs are easier to get, lower tech, and are fairly easy to get right.
Ever been to a baseball game? Aside from the delays on the field, every inning break has to be two minutes long to insert commercials. There's quite a bit of dead time, with nothing more exciting to watch than infield practice.
As a former Bernie supporter, individual voter fraud is not serious, but Republican attempts to disenfranchise minorities by making it hard to vote are. Hillary won the campaign fair and square, although Bernie attracted more enthusiastic supporters, hence the success of his rallies.
Hillary would have won without superdelegates, but superdelegates serve an important role in the nominating process. My first election was 1972, when the Democrats were in the same sort of ideological mess the Republicans have been in (although for a much shorter period of time). I watched McGovern get hammered. If there had been superdelegates then, they would have made it harder for McGovern to get the nomination, and the election might not have been so painful.
For some reason, people keep repeating this nonsense. The FBI said that cases like hers were normally resolved with administrative sanctions, up to and including people being fired and never getting a security clearance ever again. These can't be applied because Clinton is not a government employee and doesn't have a clearance, I believe. The careers of politicians run by different rules: they can shake off things that would ruin other people's careers, but their careers can be ended by the voters at any election.
I'd imagine the authorities were aware of the crime shortly after it was committed. There are crimes that come to light years after commission, but this isn't one of them.
Inserting a listening device into the phone system has traditionally been called wiretapping, and it has been illegal without a warrant for a long time. The police are apparently trying to use a technological device to tap phones without a warrant, and that's illegal. I don't see that telephone conversations should be legally different now that we're using different technology.
Slashdot Mirror
Are you planning to screw up your income taxes intentionally, or do you just make mistakes? I've made mistakes. I've gotten reasonably polite letters from the IRS saying that their information and/or calculation differs from mine, and that I can either send them a check for the difference plus a small amount of interest or tell them why not. The year I put dividends into the interest income instead, I explained what must have happened, and they accepted my explanation and I owed nothing. The IRS is interested in making sure that people pay what they owe, and is understanding about mistakes. They mostly just want the money due.
(There may be grounds for recommending me as a model for various roles. Financial record-keeping and precision is not one of those.)
Partly it's because COBOL has some unique ways to screw up. At least when I used it last, control structures were holdovers from the dark ages, and data types had to be ridiculously overspecified. Take a money amount that handles six digits (9(6)V99), decide you have to increase the number of digits (say to 9(8)V99), and you have to make absolutely sure you change all places where the amount is handled (and you have to keep track of file operations, MOVE CORRESPONDING, everything) or it will silently drop the most significant digits. I worked at a shop where we discovered that we'd been underbilling the users for some time because of such a failure.
Would they have? When the code was written, if there had been such a thing as automated unit tests, one would have been written that checked three-digit numeric strings (9(3) or X(3)). (COBOL was not designed to support automated tests, so I doubt there ever were any.) When the branch code format was changed, if someone had realized the appropriate unit test needed to be changed that someone would have realized the program needed to be changed.
Odds are good that the original code was written entirely by regular employees, since outsourcing didn't become popular until after the heyday of COBOL systems using EBCDIC. Odds are also good that the original programmers have retired some time ago, or perhaps were promoted to management.
I assumed that original AC's comment was sarcastic, although that wasn't real clear. Not all of my jokes work, either.
Unfortunately a clause like that has an excellent chance of being upheld by the courts (if you'll believe a pseudonymous random guy on Slashdot, anyway).
I think the "eternal soul" thing has already been done. Nobody takes it seriously.
Read up on "contracts of adhesion", which is the sort of contract EULAs are. US courts will throw out sufficiently egregious clauses in contracts of adhesion.
There have been court rulings saying that not complying with the EULA does not constitute unauthorized access in the sense the CFAA uses. There was a case recently mentioned on Slashdot in which the defendant had been fired from a company and his access revoked, and had acquired a former colleague's login and password, and the court opinion made a clear and deliberate distinction between things like not complying with the EULA and true unauthorized access.
Courts aren't likely to throw out legal clauses that you negotiated about. Contracts of adhesion, in which one side writes the contract to their own purposes, with no negotiation possible, are on shakier ground, and unreasonable and/or surprising provisions are likely to be thrown out. EULAs are contracts of adhesion, which means that halfway reasonable terms relating to the use of the whatever will be upheld, but even if turning over the first-born was legal and enforceable no US court would uphold it.
There's very likely a provision saying AT&T can cancel the contract on sufficiently broad and/or vague terms that reinstatement wouldn't be an option. A lawsuit would very likely decide that AT&T couldn't enforce such changes, and that OP wouldn't owe the money. At that time, AT&T would likely cancel the contract and offer OP a new contract at the changed rate.
Forcing someone who uses GPLed code to GPL the rest of the project is a feature that not all people want (they can use BSD-type licenses). Stallman's idea was to create a sufficiently attractive collection of GPL code to induce other people to make their projects GPLed so they could use the code. It worked reasonably well, at least for a while. The FSF web site claims that Gnat (Gnu Ada Translator) became Free/Open Source for that reason.
For some reason, the GPL seems to enrage some BSD-style license fans more than proprietary/closed source licenses do.
Stallman is a zealot with what I think some odd moral principles, and isn't up to my personal hygiene standards, but he's not dumb. The GPL was designed to make Free Software attractive, and he provided exceptions to encourage people into the GPL ecosystem.
The clause will be invalidated, because it's (legalspeak ahead) an unconscionable provision of a contract of adhesion. This is old stuff in the courts, so it isn't going to cause a major kerfluffle.
I'd love to see laws stating that additional provisions imposed after payment are invalid. A lot of what EULAs are for is covered by copyright law, which applies to all acquisition of copyrighted material without further ado.
EULAs are contracts of adhesion, since there's no negotiation possible and it's to the benefit of the party writing them. Those are normally still valid, but they're held to a higher standard. The courts will interpret any ambiguity against the party writing the contract, and will throw out provisions it finds "unconscionable" (which isn't a well-defined concept). If the provision is reasonable in the light of what the contract is for, it'll be upheld. If it's unreasonable, and either irrelevant to the purpose (turning over one's first-born is not particularly relevant to web apps) or excessive and not obvious, it might well be tossed out.
Non-compete agreements and non-disclosure agreements are typically signed in the course of job negotiations, pertain to the job, and are generally not considered contracts of adhesion.
The last terrorist attempt using nerve gas I know of was that one in Japan, that killed 12 people in a jam-packed subway system. The terrorists had high-tech assistance (or they wouldn't have had the nerve gas) and failed to do anything serious about making sure it got dispersed. Dispersal is, I believe, tricky. Bombs are easier to get, lower tech, and are fairly easy to get right.
Ever been to a baseball game? Aside from the delays on the field, every inning break has to be two minutes long to insert commercials. There's quite a bit of dead time, with nothing more exciting to watch than infield practice.
As a former Bernie supporter, individual voter fraud is not serious, but Republican attempts to disenfranchise minorities by making it hard to vote are. Hillary won the campaign fair and square, although Bernie attracted more enthusiastic supporters, hence the success of his rallies.
Hillary would have won without superdelegates, but superdelegates serve an important role in the nominating process. My first election was 1972, when the Democrats were in the same sort of ideological mess the Republicans have been in (although for a much shorter period of time). I watched McGovern get hammered. If there had been superdelegates then, they would have made it harder for McGovern to get the nomination, and the election might not have been so painful.
For Western Europe, Bernie would be more or less centrist, and Hillary's to the right of him. Are you calling Western Europe right-wing?
For some reason, people keep repeating this nonsense. The FBI said that cases like hers were normally resolved with administrative sanctions, up to and including people being fired and never getting a security clearance ever again. These can't be applied because Clinton is not a government employee and doesn't have a clearance, I believe. The careers of politicians run by different rules: they can shake off things that would ruin other people's careers, but their careers can be ended by the voters at any election.
Sure I do. Do you remember the context in which she said it, and what she meant?
"I belong to no organized political party. I am a Democrat." -Will Rogers
I'd imagine the authorities were aware of the crime shortly after it was committed. There are crimes that come to light years after commission, but this isn't one of them.
Stupid browser lag...mismoderated.
Inserting a listening device into the phone system has traditionally been called wiretapping, and it has been illegal without a warrant for a long time. The police are apparently trying to use a technological device to tap phones without a warrant, and that's illegal. I don't see that telephone conversations should be legally different now that we're using different technology.