He must be talking about some commercial product. How anyone with an Internet connection could be that misinformed about TrueCrypt is beyond me.
There is some good news. A recent court decision has affirmed that Fifth Amendment protections apply to encrypted data... if the password is in your head, you can't legally be forced to reveal it. Just make damn sure you choose a good one.
Ultimately, if a content producer is invoking copyright law (however twisted) in order to maintain their (ahem) "limited" monopoly, that is currently within their right. I'm as anti-RIAA, anti-DMCA as any Slashdotter, but if a company or artist doesn't want their work treated in that fashion, they should probably have the right to say "no". Whether or not we believe they're better off allowing widespread copyright infringement, it's not our place to determine another entity's business plan.
Not that I disagree with you in principle. However, the market will determine if those who are less stingy with their copyrights prove more successful. I rather suspect they will... it's rarely a good idea to mistreat or otherwise piss off people that like what you have to offer.
No artist ever starved because of copyright infringement. Many artists have starved because of obscurity.
There's a simple truth that is getting lost in all this discussion about copyrights and artists being properly compensated for their efforts. Nobody is really arguing that artists should work for free (at least, I'm not.) I will, however, categorically state that more artists have starved because of their relationship with a traditional record label than have ever starved due to "piracy". Not because of obscurity, per se, but because of dishonesty, bad faith and outright criminal behavior on the part of those very corporations who now claim to be "defending the rights of the artists." With people like that defending you, you're better off with us pirates. If nothing else, if we like you there's a good chance we'll give you money.
The level of public hypocrisy in the content industry is truly flabbergasting. Furthermore, the captive artists we are talking about don't even hold the rights to their own works (they sign those away right off the bat) and are very fortunate if they ever make a profit. Don't believe me? Read what Janis Ian has to say about it. Consequently, any of the major record labels (or the RIAA) which states that file sharing takes food from the mouths of the artists is full of pure, unadulterated horsehockey. They cheat their own suppliers, and have the unmitigated gall to complain when they get the same treatment. Hypocrites, all of them.
All the Internet and file sharing have done is take these bloodsucking leeches down a notch. Furthermore, it has given real artists a chance to achieve notoriety based upon their own merits, without some clueless record executive sitting between them and well-deserved financial success. Good for the customer, good for the artist... maybe not so good for the labels.
I have no problem (despite all the "stories" here) of this happening. If you weren't doing something illegal...you wouldn't have the issue. If Joe Blow hadn't had drugs in his car the police wouldn't have found it.
You have far more faith your fellow human beings and modern technology than can be reasonably justified. You might want to re-think your position before a database or clerical error puts you in the hot seat.
Hell, it almost happened to me. I was issued a bad ticket by a fat cop with Coke-bottle glasses who was sitting three blocks away at the time. He claimed I passed a school bus with its sign out. That was physically impossible since I was at a 4-way stoplight, the bus was on my left, and I was turning left. The driver was on a cell phone and waved me on. No stop sign was extended.
So I go to court, and the judge tells me that, because of recent changes in the relevant statute, she could no longer take my driving record into account. Automatic six-month suspension. However, the judge looked over at the cop sitting in the corner (you know, the right to face your accuser in court), looked back at me, and asked the prosecutor if there was anything he could do to help me. He pulled out a thick legal tome, and began poring over the wording of the statue. Turned out that the charge could be plead down to a lesser charge, at the judge's discretion. So I ended up with an illegal left turn, got supervision, and paid the fine. End of story, or so I thought.
Six months later, I'm at the local Secretary of State's office trying to renew my driver's license. The woman behind the counter pulled up my record on her computer, and said she was sorry, but they couldn't help me, and would I please go talk to the officer in the little room off to one side.
So in this room is another fat cop, this one with a moustache. He starts shouting at me, calling me a danger to the public, and that it was people like me that get children killed. I kept trying to get the guy to chill, but he was on a roll. After about ten minutes of abuse, I'd had just about enough of this idiot, and lit back into him at max decibels. Eventually the whole facility went silent, everyone listening to me argue with this fucktard, me still not knowing what the hell was going on. This guy couldn't even tell me, all he knew was that I was supposed to be arrested. Civil servant, my ass. Finally I told him to either arrest me or shut the hell up. Oddly, he chose to shut up and I left.
It turned out that either because of a technical problem with their database system, or an error by the court clerk, that ticket had gone through as a conviction for the original charge, my license had been suspended and an arrest warrant issued. I had been, of course, completely oblivious of this, and was utterly dumbfounded when I found out.
Had I been pulled over for a busted taillight or an expired license sticker, I'd have been arrested on the spot. For half a year I'd been driving on a suspended license with an arrest warrant in my name, and nobody in the system had the decency to tell me. A letter stating that my license had been suspended, something to let me know there was a problem. Nope, just fucking arrest me, print me, and let the courts sort it out.
So don't give me this crap. The system makes mistakes, lots of mistakes, and people get regularly shafted because of them. This "if you weren't doing anything illegal you wouldn't have the issue" philosophy of yours is morally bankrupt, and has no connection with reality whatsoever. People aren't perfect (either us regular citizens or those work work in law enforcement.) Yet, you seem willing to grant government officials a veneer of perfection that they have not earned, and certainly do not deserve.
"Doesn't the guy know that there are old pilots, and bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots?"
Arghhhh! I hate this saying. Have a look at the space program.
Yes, but remember that any landing you can walk away from is a good one. And, if you get to re-use the aircraft... it's a great one.
In my State, the police are completely immune from any legal consequences arising from a false arrest. I had a relative get arrested a couple of years ago because when she moved here from another State, that State's DMV erroneously transferred records claiming that her license was expired. Nobody bothered to send her a letter or otherwise inform her of this problem. Instead, an arrest warrant was issued, and she was hauled off by several cops. She was very badly treated by these assholes, and overheard some interesting conversations while in their custody, something about "keeping the darkies in their place" and how they were going to teach one of the officer's ex-wife a lesson in respect. Really unbelievable. We spoke to my attorney about suing these assholes, and I discovered that police here, statewide, are immune from any consequences, civil or criminal. My lawyer said, "The law sucks, I know, but that's the way it is."
So, given that lawmakers have removed the last vestiges of legal accountability from the police force, it's not surprising that they have no problems going too far.
The problem is that no matter where we go, MS will come and try polluting that, too. Now that we have a good standard that governments want to use, MS wants a piece of the pie. Are we supposed to just abandon ODF? If FOSS leaves ODF behind, then MS would be the only entity that supports the mandated format (which is exactly what they want).
They can have a piece of the pie... they just shouldn't get to be the baker.
My point was clearly not Google.
I said that _you_ disgust me, because you proposed that google went to Mexico and bribed people, as if it was a good thing to do.
A) Mexico is third world.
B) I am not refuting your claim of widespread official corruption in Mexico. I am complaining about your willingness to finance it.
You make a good point about Google, otherwise. I am just disgusted by how casually you propose such a harmful action. I understand in your country things are just like that, but it doesn't make it any less disgusting.
Apparently you don't understand as much about my country as I do about Mexico. I also don't understand your attitude, since the Mexican people could certainly clean matters up for themselves, if they wished. That they don't indicates that that is how they wish to do business. So far as I'm concerned, I can casually suggest such a thing because that is how business is done in Mexico. What, you don't like that fact? Well, all I have to say is the "disgust" you've evinced towards me would be better directed at the people who willingly sell themselves out. Mexico is not, I might add, the only nation to do that. Others do too, in different ways.
So, Mexico hasn't bothered to clean up their act: the corruption in both the public and private sectors is pervasive, and expecting other countries to not take advantage of the opportunities afforded by Mexico's current culture is unrealistic. I feel the same way about my country: we've all complained bitterly about the damage to our economy and our industrial base caused by China and others (as we did Japan before them) but the reality is more basic: we let them. Or rather, our government and corporate leaders did.
Regardless, expecting nations which are either actively hostile or only nominally an ally to play nice is just naive. Mexico has certainly done its level best to take advantage of our weaknesses, and rather successfully too. Does such behavior on the part of the Mexican people and their government induce the same feelings of revulsion in you?
'This is the worst nightmares of the conspiracy theorists around surveillance coming true,' says Ronald J. Deibert, an associate professor of political science at the University of Toronto. 'It's "X-Files" without the aliens.'"
People, if you have an principles at all, don't support an outfit like Blizzard that absolutely has to have everything their way. Hell, bad as Microsoft is, they're nowhere near as litigious as these assholes have proven to be. Furthermore, Blizzard is setting a lot of bad legal precedent in the software realm, and I won't give them a penny.
I feel pretty much the same way about Apple, for that matter, another jackass corporation that uses lawyers as anticompetitive tools.
You do realize that the online habits of those few who are "causing problems" for the ISP will eventually become mainstream, right? The ISPs can't head off the inevitable digital download era that companies like Apple, Microsoft, Google, Netflix, etc., are ushering in.
Sure they can. If they don't provide the bandwidth, they don't provide the bandwidth. End of statement.
The only thing that will prevent that ugly scenario is Congress allowing functional competition. There are plenty of big companies out there with deep pockets that would love to spend some of that money building out a guaranteed profit center. I mean, broadband is certainly a growth industry right now... or it would be, if certain companies weren't inside a zone of magical Federal protection.
In other words, they would charge each other transit costs, but all the big boys agree to carry each other's traffic for free. Now, there have been conflicts in the past between backbone providers, so it can get sticky sometimes, but by and large the GP is correct.
If average usage increases then the caps will grow to accommodate it for the obvious reason that these companies wish to sell to the average person.
Good point. Which means one thing... we need to get Joe Sixpack to start grabbing all the torrents he can. Once everyone is a "bandwidth hog" they won't be able to point fingers anymore, and won't be able to turn Internet users against each other.
Guess what - that is the market. No one is promising that you're going to get everything you want at the price you want to pay. No one ever did promise that. I know this is a shock to you, but the main reason people bother making the investments to make all these services work for you is the hope for profit. Trying to take away that incentive in favor of some imaginary right to free technology isn't actually going to make anything happen.
Well, so okay. I understand that. But, in exchange for that profit, we should be able to expect reasonable service. That's what a profit-making venture is all about: figuring out ways to give customers what they want at a price they are willing to pay. Ideally, of course, that is accomplished without misleading, cheating, or outright lying to one's customers, saying one thing and doing another, and providing the least possible service for the greatest possible profit, all the while absorbing billions of dollars in tax breaks... for what?
What is is happening in the U.S. broadband sector today is most decidedly not an open and competitive market. It's not "the market" at work, it's monopolism. If broadband providers didn't have the Feds keeping competition at bay, believe me, we'd have decent service and we'd have plenty outfits willing to work for our business.
No one is promising that you're going to get everything you want at the price you want to pay. No one ever did promise that.
Uh... yes, they did. For years upon years, in fact. Now conditions are different (guess what - that is the market, change is the only constant) and they're being called upon to live up to those promises. The problem is, they're bloodsucking leeches and they just don't want to do it. So they'll lie, and cheat, and steal, and continue playing games with us and in Congress. That's your market at work.
Actually, that goddamn hand is up everybody else's ass. Unless you're talking some prison time for the crooks running these outfits, they aren't the ones getting reamed.
Slashdot Mirror
He must be talking about some commercial product. How anyone with an Internet connection could be that misinformed about TrueCrypt is beyond me.
... if the password is in your head, you can't legally be forced to reveal it. Just make damn sure you choose a good one.
There is some good news. A recent court decision has affirmed that Fifth Amendment protections apply to encrypted data
David Axmark Resigns From Sun
So, he gets the ax because somebody missed the mark.
... and if humans should have the 'right' to switch it off.
I don't see the problem myself. I mean, we switch each other off every day by the tens of thousands.
Why does a free market economy need czars?
"What does 'god' need with a starship?"
PS: apoligies to all - but I like the god-starship meme
You know, a lot of Jaffa should have asked that same question a long time ago.
Ultimately, if a content producer is invoking copyright law (however twisted) in order to maintain their (ahem) "limited" monopoly, that is currently within their right. I'm as anti-RIAA, anti-DMCA as any Slashdotter, but if a company or artist doesn't want their work treated in that fashion, they should probably have the right to say "no". Whether or not we believe they're better off allowing widespread copyright infringement, it's not our place to determine another entity's business plan.
... it's rarely a good idea to mistreat or otherwise piss off people that like what you have to offer.
Not that I disagree with you in principle. However, the market will determine if those who are less stingy with their copyrights prove more successful. I rather suspect they will
No artist ever starved because of copyright infringement. Many artists have starved because of obscurity.
There's a simple truth that is getting lost in all this discussion about copyrights and artists being properly compensated for their efforts. Nobody is really arguing that artists should work for free (at least, I'm not.) I will, however, categorically state that more artists have starved because of their relationship with a traditional record label than have ever starved due to "piracy". Not because of obscurity, per se, but because of dishonesty, bad faith and outright criminal behavior on the part of those very corporations who now claim to be "defending the rights of the artists." With people like that defending you, you're better off with us pirates. If nothing else, if we like you there's a good chance we'll give you money.
... maybe not so good for the labels.
The level of public hypocrisy in the content industry is truly flabbergasting. Furthermore, the captive artists we are talking about don't even hold the rights to their own works (they sign those away right off the bat) and are very fortunate if they ever make a profit. Don't believe me? Read what Janis Ian has to say about it. Consequently, any of the major record labels (or the RIAA) which states that file sharing takes food from the mouths of the artists is full of pure, unadulterated horsehockey. They cheat their own suppliers, and have the unmitigated gall to complain when they get the same treatment. Hypocrites, all of them.
All the Internet and file sharing have done is take these bloodsucking leeches down a notch. Furthermore, it has given real artists a chance to achieve notoriety based upon their own merits, without some clueless record executive sitting between them and well-deserved financial success. Good for the customer, good for the artist
Tough bananas.
Dammit.
I was going to say exactly the same thing, only I would have probably guessed where I think he pulled them out of.
His hat?
I have no problem (despite all the "stories" here) of this happening. If you weren't doing something illegal...you wouldn't have the issue. If Joe Blow hadn't had drugs in his car the police wouldn't have found it.
You have far more faith your fellow human beings and modern technology than can be reasonably justified. You might want to re-think your position before a database or clerical error puts you in the hot seat.
Hell, it almost happened to me. I was issued a bad ticket by a fat cop with Coke-bottle glasses who was sitting three blocks away at the time. He claimed I passed a school bus with its sign out. That was physically impossible since I was at a 4-way stoplight, the bus was on my left, and I was turning left. The driver was on a cell phone and waved me on. No stop sign was extended.
So I go to court, and the judge tells me that, because of recent changes in the relevant statute, she could no longer take my driving record into account. Automatic six-month suspension. However, the judge looked over at the cop sitting in the corner (you know, the right to face your accuser in court), looked back at me, and asked the prosecutor if there was anything he could do to help me. He pulled out a thick legal tome, and began poring over the wording of the statue. Turned out that the charge could be plead down to a lesser charge, at the judge's discretion. So I ended up with an illegal left turn, got supervision, and paid the fine. End of story, or so I thought.
Six months later, I'm at the local Secretary of State's office trying to renew my driver's license. The woman behind the counter pulled up my record on her computer, and said she was sorry, but they couldn't help me, and would I please go talk to the officer in the little room off to one side.
So in this room is another fat cop, this one with a moustache. He starts shouting at me, calling me a danger to the public, and that it was people like me that get children killed. I kept trying to get the guy to chill, but he was on a roll. After about ten minutes of abuse, I'd had just about enough of this idiot, and lit back into him at max decibels. Eventually the whole facility went silent, everyone listening to me argue with this fucktard, me still not knowing what the hell was going on. This guy couldn't even tell me, all he knew was that I was supposed to be arrested. Civil servant, my ass. Finally I told him to either arrest me or shut the hell up. Oddly, he chose to shut up and I left.
It turned out that either because of a technical problem with their database system, or an error by the court clerk, that ticket had gone through as a conviction for the original charge, my license had been suspended and an arrest warrant issued. I had been, of course, completely oblivious of this, and was utterly dumbfounded when I found out.
Had I been pulled over for a busted taillight or an expired license sticker, I'd have been arrested on the spot. For half a year I'd been driving on a suspended license with an arrest warrant in my name, and nobody in the system had the decency to tell me. A letter stating that my license had been suspended, something to let me know there was a problem. Nope, just fucking arrest me, print me, and let the courts sort it out.
So don't give me this crap. The system makes mistakes, lots of mistakes, and people get regularly shafted because of them. This "if you weren't doing anything illegal you wouldn't have the issue" philosophy of yours is morally bankrupt, and has no connection with reality whatsoever. People aren't perfect (either us regular citizens or those work work in law enforcement.) Yet, you seem willing to grant government officials a veneer of perfection that they have not earned, and certainly do not deserve.
Naked shorting is dirty, crappy stuff and those that engage in the practice should rightfully be put in jail.
Fuck you! If I want to sit around in my underwear in my own home I should be allowed to do so without fear of being put in jail!
Given that you're posting on Slashdot, odds are you've got plenty of company.
"Doesn't the guy know that there are old pilots, and bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots?" Arghhhh! I hate this saying. Have a look at the space program.
Yes, but remember that any landing you can walk away from is a good one. And, if you get to re-use the aircraft ... it's a great one.
In my State, the police are completely immune from any legal consequences arising from a false arrest. I had a relative get arrested a couple of years ago because when she moved here from another State, that State's DMV erroneously transferred records claiming that her license was expired. Nobody bothered to send her a letter or otherwise inform her of this problem. Instead, an arrest warrant was issued, and she was hauled off by several cops. She was very badly treated by these assholes, and overheard some interesting conversations while in their custody, something about "keeping the darkies in their place" and how they were going to teach one of the officer's ex-wife a lesson in respect. Really unbelievable. We spoke to my attorney about suing these assholes, and I discovered that police here, statewide, are immune from any consequences, civil or criminal. My lawyer said, "The law sucks, I know, but that's the way it is."
So, given that lawmakers have removed the last vestiges of legal accountability from the police force, it's not surprising that they have no problems going too far.
Well, IBM probably figures that, for their purposes, they don't need a global standard. For a lot of things, they are a global standard.
Globalization crushes poor people, I'm in favor of it.
You must be a lot of fun at parties.
The problem is that no matter where we go, MS will come and try polluting that, too. Now that we have a good standard that governments want to use, MS wants a piece of the pie. Are we supposed to just abandon ODF? If FOSS leaves ODF behind, then MS would be the only entity that supports the mandated format (which is exactly what they want).
They can have a piece of the pie ... they just shouldn't get to be the baker.
My point was clearly not Google. I said that _you_ disgust me, because you proposed that google went to Mexico and bribed people, as if it was a good thing to do.
A) Mexico is third world. B) I am not refuting your claim of widespread official corruption in Mexico. I am complaining about your willingness to finance it.
You make a good point about Google, otherwise. I am just disgusted by how casually you propose such a harmful action. I understand in your country things are just like that, but it doesn't make it any less disgusting.
Apparently you don't understand as much about my country as I do about Mexico. I also don't understand your attitude, since the Mexican people could certainly clean matters up for themselves, if they wished. That they don't indicates that that is how they wish to do business. So far as I'm concerned, I can casually suggest such a thing because that is how business is done in Mexico. What, you don't like that fact? Well, all I have to say is the "disgust" you've evinced towards me would be better directed at the people who willingly sell themselves out. Mexico is not, I might add, the only nation to do that. Others do too, in different ways.
So, Mexico hasn't bothered to clean up their act: the corruption in both the public and private sectors is pervasive, and expecting other countries to not take advantage of the opportunities afforded by Mexico's current culture is unrealistic. I feel the same way about my country: we've all complained bitterly about the damage to our economy and our industrial base caused by China and others (as we did Japan before them) but the reality is more basic: we let them. Or rather, our government and corporate leaders did.
Regardless, expecting nations which are either actively hostile or only nominally an ally to play nice is just naive. Mexico has certainly done its level best to take advantage of our weaknesses, and rather successfully too. Does such behavior on the part of the Mexican people and their government induce the same feelings of revulsion in you?
Wow, you are one heck of a troll, let me tell you. You're also uninformed. But it's late and I'm too tired to enlighten you.
'This is the worst nightmares of the conspiracy theorists around surveillance coming true,' says Ronald J. Deibert, an associate professor of political science at the University of Toronto. 'It's "X-Files" without the aliens.'"
How does he know it's without the aliens?
To bash only one of them is hypocritical.
Welcome to the world of Blizzard.
People, if you have an principles at all, don't support an outfit like Blizzard that absolutely has to have everything their way. Hell, bad as Microsoft is, they're nowhere near as litigious as these assholes have proven to be. Furthermore, Blizzard is setting a lot of bad legal precedent in the software realm, and I won't give them a penny.
I feel pretty much the same way about Apple, for that matter, another jackass corporation that uses lawyers as anticompetitive tools.
You do realize that the online habits of those few who are "causing problems" for the ISP will eventually become mainstream, right? The ISPs can't head off the inevitable digital download era that companies like Apple, Microsoft, Google, Netflix, etc., are ushering in.
Sure they can. If they don't provide the bandwidth, they don't provide the bandwidth. End of statement.
... or it would be, if certain companies weren't inside a zone of magical Federal protection.
The only thing that will prevent that ugly scenario is Congress allowing functional competition. There are plenty of big companies out there with deep pockets that would love to spend some of that money building out a guaranteed profit center. I mean, broadband is certainly a growth industry right now
In other words, they would charge each other transit costs, but all the big boys agree to carry each other's traffic for free. Now, there have been conflicts in the past between backbone providers, so it can get sticky sometimes, but by and large the GP is correct.
We have to ask, is their collusion intentional, or not?
I'm not sure. Do you know if Brian Roberts and Randall L. Stephenson use the same golf course?
If average usage increases then the caps will grow to accommodate it for the obvious reason that these companies wish to sell to the average person.
Good point. Which means one thing ... we need to get Joe Sixpack to start grabbing all the torrents he can. Once everyone is a "bandwidth hog" they won't be able to point fingers anymore, and won't be able to turn Internet users against each other.
Guess what - that is the market. No one is promising that you're going to get everything you want at the price you want to pay. No one ever did promise that. I know this is a shock to you, but the main reason people bother making the investments to make all these services work for you is the hope for profit. Trying to take away that incentive in favor of some imaginary right to free technology isn't actually going to make anything happen.
Well, so okay. I understand that. But, in exchange for that profit, we should be able to expect reasonable service. That's what a profit-making venture is all about: figuring out ways to give customers what they want at a price they are willing to pay. Ideally, of course, that is accomplished without misleading, cheating, or outright lying to one's customers, saying one thing and doing another, and providing the least possible service for the greatest possible profit, all the while absorbing billions of dollars in tax breaks ... for what?
What is is happening in the U.S. broadband sector today is most decidedly not an open and competitive market. It's not "the market" at work, it's monopolism. If broadband providers didn't have the Feds keeping competition at bay, believe me, we'd have decent service and we'd have plenty outfits willing to work for our business.
No one is promising that you're going to get everything you want at the price you want to pay. No one ever did promise that.
Uh ... yes, they did. For years upon years, in fact. Now conditions are different (guess what - that is the market, change is the only constant) and they're being called upon to live up to those promises. The problem is, they're bloodsucking leeches and they just don't want to do it. So they'll lie, and cheat, and steal, and continue playing games with us and in Congress. That's your market at work.
Actually, that goddamn hand is up everybody else's ass. Unless you're talking some prison time for the crooks running these outfits, they aren't the ones getting reamed.
Luckily, I believe in the market
I believe in the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, and Santa Clause. Where's my pony?
Right next to this $29.95/month "unlimited broadband" connection.