You can't have a bomb without explosives or at least a detonator and supposedly the TSA is capable of detecting those.
Yes, and if they spent a few hundred million less on untested bomb detectors and a few hundred million more on competent security forces we'd all be a lot better off.
DRM can be used to protect your files. Set the read-only bit lately? that's DRM! It's simple, non intrusive, and protects you and me, how simple can it get?
You know, I'd mod you +5 Funny if I had the points.
No, but what having a debilitating disease does do for the vast majority of sufferers is keep them from earning anywhere near enough money to defend themselves in court. Hell, most people would find that difficult if not impossible. So, when we talk about someone with MS being "defenseless" it has nothing to do with their mental acuity... it has to do with the fact that such conditions are an enormous drain on personal resources. There's often not much left over for anything else, much less a vigorous legal defense.
So of course the RIAA makes an example of them. They probably aren't at all happy about this one coming up to bite them in the ass, though. And that's just too damn bad.
I dunno... I'd say it's pretty damned obvious that the RIAA targets people that haven't the means to defend themselves, and the disabled are often the most defenseless people in our society. Just like children, welfare mothers and dead people, all classes of people that have been hit by the RIAA. So it's not much of a stretch at all to say they target the disabled. NewYorkCountryLawyer is correct: both the legal and human aspects of their campaign are reprehensible, and we should maintain awareness of both.
Or perhaps you feel that with the appropriate training, no bombless person ever gets hurt?
Other way around. With inappropriate or inadequate training, security is ultimately guaranteed to hurt people, bombless or otherwise. It's the nature of the beast when dealing with deadly force, because the result of any application of such force is permanent. Why do you think police have to go through so much schooling before we allow them on the streets with firearms? Because when something goes down we want them to instantly recognize what's happening and know how to handle it. Even then they screw up, but less frequently than if we just handed people guns and uniforms and said, "Here. You're a cop." So, why are the security personnel at airports held to such a comparatively low standard? Proper training allows resolution to occur with minimum application of force, ideally none at all. If you're not trained you are much more likely to make a serious mistake by, you know... overreacting.
The problem is, you cannot expect people who've never experienced dangerous situations (either real or simulated) to intrinsically know how to react. What they require is the awareness imparted by a solid training program, as well as the physical and social skills to deal with a wide variety of possible scenarios. That learning process should be ongoing and yes, there should be tests. What absolutely torques me off about this whole TSA farce is that they'll spend literally billions of dollars on fancy-schmancy, untested and untrustworthy detection gear of one sort or another, but won't invest any significant funding for training and salary of their security personnel. It's embarrassing all around, it really is. Worse, this is potentially tragic because innocent people are going to get hurt by these policies, either because a real terrorist gets through... or because an innocent passenger is mistakenly shot dead.
They can just do what that Oriental guy on CSI does whenever they get a crappy lo-res B&W surveillance photo: he just runs a "reverse algorithmic" on the picture, and then zooms in on the magically-now-high-resolution image! Easy.
You have to distinguish between the camera acting as a deterrent to crimes of opportunity (yes, to some extent), the camera allowing law enforcement to interrupt a crime in progress (rarely), and as evidence for additional police work or prosecution. So, I suppose it always comes down to cost/benefit. Camera networks are expensive propositions: as a society we have to decide if they're worth what we're spending on them... and money is not the only cost.
Not that it much matters what We the People think about the issue... our government is forging ahead anyway. And why not... it makes us feel ever so much more secure.
... that criminals are incapable of changing their tactics/habits, and that having cameras simply makes it impossible for them to work. That's just not true: criminals will adapt to changing circumstances and will find new ways to achieve their nefarious ends. Cameras merely change the face of crime, they don't eliminate it.
Is it just corporate types who are looking to cheap out on development and know the Linux buzzword?
Possibly. Corporate types usually have no clue what's happening with in-house software development. I'd say it's likely to be developers who used GPLed code just to get the job done in a hurry. If so, that's a problem because the corporation needs to be aware of its legal responsibilities. It may turn out no-one outside the software team was even aware of the GPL violations. Wouldn't be the first time.
Ah, okay, sorry. This is Slashdot so I expected the worst.
Anyway, the problem with polarizing incidents of the type you mention is that they make people afraid. And when they are afraid, the government steps in with a "solution" (e.g., the TSA, DHS, etc.) that pretty much invariably means loss of civil liberties, and because we're afraid we go for it. That's what I was talking about. What's needed is something very public that not only involves Americans being stripped of their rights by their own government, but a something that makes people realize, at some emotional level, that their government might happen to them too, that they are at risk. Maybe we need our own Tianamen Square, I don't know. Well, we kind of did with Waco, and what down during that fiasco was pretty egregious. Yet, as a society, we let it pass (just a bunch of religious nutjobs, after all.) There's Guantanemo Bay. The Patriot Act, National Security Letters, Alberto Gonzales... what does it take for us to wake up?
Problem is, we're pretty complacent. Not enough of us have been royally screwed by the Feds, or know someone that has. We're not sufficiently afraid of big government yet. On the other hand, I know some people that emigrated here from Russia: believe me, they can tell you what it's like to have a government with little or no conception of "civil rights." I don't want to live like that.
The Sergeant from Heinlein's Starship Troopers (the novel, not that cinematic rubbish) made a comment that "societies abide by the morals they can afford." All I have to say is, if the only morals that America can afford are what I'm seeing all around me nowadays, there's something seriously wrong.
Sooner or later, I have the feeling you'll get your wish. This is going to get worse before it gets better. If it can get better.
and the USA is the only nation who has ever used them in anger
Not in anger. In a declared war. There's a difference. We didn't hate the Japanese, didn't question their right to exist, would much rather not have dropped Fatman and Littleboy. We just wanted them to stop, and the fire raids (which caused more total destruction than both atom bombs combined) weren't enough.
Most people seem to forget that, and believe that we skipped conventional warfare and went straight to nukes because, well, we just couldn't wait to murder thousands of innocent Japanese. As it happens, an absolutely incredible amount of firebombing was done before we even considered nuclear weapons, and if you read about how much devastation that caused you wouldn't be slamming the U.S. because it used a couple of 20 kiloton nuclear devicess (had a modern weapon been used Japan would have ceased to exist.) I'd also like to point out that we haven't used another atomic weapon against any enemy, declared or otherwise, to this very day. Neither did the Soviets, although one has to wonder if they'd have behaved themselves without M.A.D. and the various associated treaties. Hard to know what would have happened, but either way I'd say we swept our front door pretty well, and the rest of the world's too, once the nuclear cat was out of the bag.
Regardless, look past any distaste you may have for the United States or the Bush Misadministration and ask yourself these questions: a. has U.S. management of the Internet (really, of DNS) been sufficiently inept that control should be removed on performance grounds alone, and b. do you really, in your heart of hearts, want the United Nations to run the show? I mean... really? More to the point, do you have the slightest idea how meaningless, from a technological perspective, it is to say "control the Internet"?
I mean, DARPA started the ball rolling, and then we let it develop in a way that has worked out to the benefit of, well... everybody, I guess. Much of Internet engineering is actually pretty international already, when you get right down to it. Everyone is so afraid of the United States doing terrible things to people through the Internet (as if we could) and is behaving in such a petty manner, e.g. "We need to 'wrest control' of the Internet away from the U.S." What the hell does that mean, anyway? We own our parts of it. Everyone else owns theirs. Cripes.
Wise up. It's in our best interests that the Internet continue to work well, and right now it is. We need it. So does everyone else. Besides, the only aspect of the network that the U.S. could be consider to "control" is the Domain Name System, and that's just a bunch of distributed servers that any nation could duplicate and run in parallel. Nobody has, because then they would lose the benefits of being part of the global community. This is all politics and posturing, there's no substance here. Sure, some day you may get your wish: the root servers may get confiscated and someone else will be in "control" of the Internet.
Just be careful what you wish for, though... you just might get it.
If only there was a way for all our rights being taken away to create some sort of polarizing backlash in the same way...
Careful there... you came awfully close to using the "R" word.
What I was referring to was "incrementalism"... the gradual increase in government power over time, using extreme incidents to rationalize same to the public.
I've mentioned this on Slashdot before but I'll bring it up again since it seems germane. Back in the mid-fifties, my father, his three brothers and sister decided to head out West to look for the Lost Dutchman gold mine. There was one particular shaft which legend has it was near where the Dutchman was supposed to be. It was a long vertical drop of about fifty feet, and then a horizontal run of a couple of hundred. In any event, they decided to do some blasting (this was out in the middle of the desert somewhere, no danger of anyone but themselves getting hurt.) So on the way there, they stopped in at a local small town hardware store and picked up a case of dynamite. No forms, no paperwork, no red tape, no kowtowing to some bureaucrat somewhere. As the parent poster pointed out, there are many legitimate uses for explosives.
Well, they blasted away down there, cleared away some more rock... alas, no gold mine. That's too bad, because if they had found it, I'd be posting this from my family yacht. Eventually they finished with their search and decided it was time to come home, but they realized they had quite a bit of dynamite left. What else to do but spend an afternoon blowing up boulders and making holes in the sand. All in good fun, actually. Hard to imagine that happening in the U.S. today: odds are I'd never have been born because my father would have died in prison, rather than at home like he wanted.
In any event, I'm just pointing out that nobody bothered to restrict the sale of high explosives (not that dynamite compares to modern stuff) until some fuckheads a decade or two later decided to blow up a few buildings to make a "statement" or some such.
thus far, the law (CA 1934, CALEA, 47 U.S.C. 153(h)(1991), etc.) does not differentiate between a "communications provider" that uses voice or analog signal, and one that does packet pushing for data
The FCC and the Supreme Court seem to have decided upon a different interpretation. The court upheld the FCC's interpretation of the 1996 Telecommunications Act.
This quote is interesting:
The Court seemed to be somewhat uncomfortable, however, with the fact that the FCC's holding imposed common carrier obligations on high-speed digital subscriber line ("DSL") offerings by telephone companies, but not cable modem services--which compete head-to-head in the US internet access market.
and would indicate that the broadband offerings made by the Telcos are subject to common carriage regulation, whereas the cable outfits managed to avoid it. If that ruling still holds, it might put a bee in AT&T's bonnet.
Not as I understand it (any lawyers feel free to correct me) but Telcos are common carriers only as applies to their voice networks. For reasons I don't fully understand, so-called "data services" are exempt.
Sorry, I guess I gave the wrong impression. I'm not defending the DMCA: as a software engineer I'd be shooting myself in the foot to support it, given the effect it has had on my own neck of the woods. Maybe "middle ground" was the wrong phrase. How about "compromise", or at best "necessary evil"? I've read Jefferson's letters and other documents on copyright, and yes, it was very clear that he meant copyright to be, as I believe he put it, "a loan from the public domain." So you don't have any argument from me.
Debate: a discussion, as of a public question in an assembly, involving opposing viewpoints
There's plenty of opposing viewpoints, but really there's no "discussion" here... the individuals and organizations in favor of these shenanigans have no interest whatsoever in debating anything with anyone. They simply want their way, and they'll do pretty much whatever it takes to get it. Nobody else's perspective but their own is of any consequence to them.
A couple of more appropriate words might be "rubberstamp", or perhaps "steamroller". But not debate.
Even they deserve the liberty to gather, to say their opinions and gather in protest.
I wouldn't say that groups such as the KKK deserve that freedom, exactly... they've done nothing to earn it. Quite the opposite, in fact. Nevertheless, as a pragmatic matter (and the Founders were nothing if not pragmatic) it is their right under the Constitution. Take it away from them, distasteful as they are, and you take it away from us all.
If there's one thing that the Founders understood with crystalline clarity it is this: that line you've just drawn will eventually become a noose. Best not to draw the line.
Slashdot Mirror
You can't have a bomb without explosives or at least a detonator and supposedly the TSA is capable of detecting those.
Yes, and if they spent a few hundred million less on untested bomb detectors and a few hundred million more on competent security forces we'd all be a lot better off.
DRM can be used to protect your files. Set the read-only bit lately? that's DRM! It's simple, non intrusive, and protects you and me, how simple can it get?
You know, I'd mod you +5 Funny if I had the points.
No, but what having a debilitating disease does do for the vast majority of sufferers is keep them from earning anywhere near enough money to defend themselves in court. Hell, most people would find that difficult if not impossible. So, when we talk about someone with MS being "defenseless" it has nothing to do with their mental acuity ... it has to do with the fact that such conditions are an enormous drain on personal resources. There's often not much left over for anything else, much less a vigorous legal defense.
So of course the RIAA makes an example of them. They probably aren't at all happy about this one coming up to bite them in the ass, though. And that's just too damn bad.
I dunno ... I'd say it's pretty damned obvious that the RIAA targets people that haven't the means to defend themselves, and the disabled are often the most defenseless people in our society. Just like children, welfare mothers and dead people, all classes of people that have been hit by the RIAA. So it's not much of a stretch at all to say they target the disabled. NewYorkCountryLawyer is correct: both the legal and human aspects of their campaign are reprehensible, and we should maintain awareness of both.
Or perhaps you feel that with the appropriate training, no bombless person ever gets hurt?
... overreacting.
... or because an innocent passenger is mistakenly shot dead.
Other way around. With inappropriate or inadequate training, security is ultimately guaranteed to hurt people, bombless or otherwise. It's the nature of the beast when dealing with deadly force, because the result of any application of such force is permanent. Why do you think police have to go through so much schooling before we allow them on the streets with firearms? Because when something goes down we want them to instantly recognize what's happening and know how to handle it. Even then they screw up, but less frequently than if we just handed people guns and uniforms and said, "Here. You're a cop." So, why are the security personnel at airports held to such a comparatively low standard? Proper training allows resolution to occur with minimum application of force, ideally none at all. If you're not trained you are much more likely to make a serious mistake by, you know
The problem is, you cannot expect people who've never experienced dangerous situations (either real or simulated) to intrinsically know how to react. What they require is the awareness imparted by a solid training program, as well as the physical and social skills to deal with a wide variety of possible scenarios. That learning process should be ongoing and yes, there should be tests. What absolutely torques me off about this whole TSA farce is that they'll spend literally billions of dollars on fancy-schmancy, untested and untrustworthy detection gear of one sort or another, but won't invest any significant funding for training and salary of their security personnel. It's embarrassing all around, it really is. Worse, this is potentially tragic because innocent people are going to get hurt by these policies, either because a real terrorist gets through
They can just do what that Oriental guy on CSI does whenever they get a crappy lo-res B&W surveillance photo: he just runs a "reverse algorithmic" on the picture, and then zooms in on the magically-now-high-resolution image! Easy.
Sure. Bring a six-pack.
You have to distinguish between the camera acting as a deterrent to crimes of opportunity (yes, to some extent), the camera allowing law enforcement to interrupt a crime in progress (rarely), and as evidence for additional police work or prosecution. So, I suppose it always comes down to cost/benefit. Camera networks are expensive propositions: as a society we have to decide if they're worth what we're spending on them ... and money is not the only cost.
... our government is forging ahead anyway. And why not ... it makes us feel ever so much more secure.
Not that it much matters what We the People think about the issue
Hell, Israel declared itself a country something like 8 years before the UN recognized it.
I declared myself as a country last year. I'm still waiting for official recognition, and the opening of my own embassy in D.C.
10,000 Cameras Ineffective At Deterring Crime
... that criminals are incapable of changing their tactics/habits, and that having cameras simply makes it impossible for them to work. That's just not true: criminals will adapt to changing circumstances and will find new ways to achieve their nefarious ends. Cameras merely change the face of crime, they don't eliminate it.
Is it just corporate types who are looking to cheap out on development and know the Linux buzzword?
Possibly. Corporate types usually have no clue what's happening with in-house software development. I'd say it's likely to be developers who used GPLed code just to get the job done in a hurry. If so, that's a problem because the corporation needs to be aware of its legal responsibilities. It may turn out no-one outside the software team was even aware of the GPL violations. Wouldn't be the first time.
Ah, okay, sorry. This is Slashdot so I expected the worst.
... what does it take for us to wake up?
Anyway, the problem with polarizing incidents of the type you mention is that they make people afraid. And when they are afraid, the government steps in with a "solution" (e.g., the TSA, DHS, etc.) that pretty much invariably means loss of civil liberties, and because we're afraid we go for it. That's what I was talking about. What's needed is something very public that not only involves Americans being stripped of their rights by their own government, but a something that makes people realize, at some emotional level, that their government might happen to them too, that they are at risk. Maybe we need our own Tianamen Square, I don't know. Well, we kind of did with Waco, and what down during that fiasco was pretty egregious. Yet, as a society, we let it pass (just a bunch of religious nutjobs, after all.) There's Guantanemo Bay. The Patriot Act, National Security Letters, Alberto Gonzales
Problem is, we're pretty complacent. Not enough of us have been royally screwed by the Feds, or know someone that has. We're not sufficiently afraid of big government yet. On the other hand, I know some people that emigrated here from Russia: believe me, they can tell you what it's like to have a government with little or no conception of "civil rights." I don't want to live like that.
The Sergeant from Heinlein's Starship Troopers (the novel, not that cinematic rubbish) made a comment that "societies abide by the morals they can afford." All I have to say is, if the only morals that America can afford are what I'm seeing all around me nowadays, there's something seriously wrong.
Sooner or later, I have the feeling you'll get your wish. This is going to get worse before it gets better. If it can get better.
and the USA is the only nation who has ever used them in anger
... really? More to the point, do you have the slightest idea how meaningless, from a technological perspective, it is to say "control the Internet"?
... everybody, I guess. Much of Internet engineering is actually pretty international already, when you get right down to it. Everyone is so afraid of the United States doing terrible things to people through the Internet (as if we could) and is behaving in such a petty manner, e.g. "We need to 'wrest control' of the Internet away from the U.S." What the hell does that mean, anyway? We own our parts of it. Everyone else owns theirs. Cripes.
... you just might get it.
Not in anger. In a declared war. There's a difference. We didn't hate the Japanese, didn't question their right to exist, would much rather not have dropped Fatman and Littleboy. We just wanted them to stop, and the fire raids (which caused more total destruction than both atom bombs combined) weren't enough.
Most people seem to forget that, and believe that we skipped conventional warfare and went straight to nukes because, well, we just couldn't wait to murder thousands of innocent Japanese. As it happens, an absolutely incredible amount of firebombing was done before we even considered nuclear weapons, and if you read about how much devastation that caused you wouldn't be slamming the U.S. because it used a couple of 20 kiloton nuclear devicess (had a modern weapon been used Japan would have ceased to exist.) I'd also like to point out that we haven't used another atomic weapon against any enemy, declared or otherwise, to this very day. Neither did the Soviets, although one has to wonder if they'd have behaved themselves without M.A.D. and the various associated treaties. Hard to know what would have happened, but either way I'd say we swept our front door pretty well, and the rest of the world's too, once the nuclear cat was out of the bag.
Regardless, look past any distaste you may have for the United States or the Bush Misadministration and ask yourself these questions: a. has U.S. management of the Internet (really, of DNS) been sufficiently inept that control should be removed on performance grounds alone, and b. do you really, in your heart of hearts, want the United Nations to run the show? I mean
I mean, DARPA started the ball rolling, and then we let it develop in a way that has worked out to the benefit of, well
Wise up. It's in our best interests that the Internet continue to work well, and right now it is. We need it. So does everyone else. Besides, the only aspect of the network that the U.S. could be consider to "control" is the Domain Name System, and that's just a bunch of distributed servers that any nation could duplicate and run in parallel. Nobody has, because then they would lose the benefits of being part of the global community. This is all politics and posturing, there's no substance here. Sure, some day you may get your wish: the root servers may get confiscated and someone else will be in "control" of the Internet.
Just be careful what you wish for, though
If only there was a way for all our rights being taken away to create some sort of polarizing backlash in the same way...
... you came awfully close to using the "R" word.
... the gradual increase in government power over time, using extreme incidents to rationalize same to the public.
Careful there
What I was referring to was "incrementalism"
No, Apple is a cult. Nobody prays to Apple ... but they all drink Apple's beverage.
I've mentioned this on Slashdot before but I'll bring it up again since it seems germane. Back in the mid-fifties, my father, his three brothers and sister decided to head out West to look for the Lost Dutchman gold mine. There was one particular shaft which legend has it was near where the Dutchman was supposed to be. It was a long vertical drop of about fifty feet, and then a horizontal run of a couple of hundred. In any event, they decided to do some blasting (this was out in the middle of the desert somewhere, no danger of anyone but themselves getting hurt.) So on the way there, they stopped in at a local small town hardware store and picked up a case of dynamite. No forms, no paperwork, no red tape, no kowtowing to some bureaucrat somewhere. As the parent poster pointed out, there are many legitimate uses for explosives.
... alas, no gold mine. That's too bad, because if they had found it, I'd be posting this from my family yacht. Eventually they finished with their search and decided it was time to come home, but they realized they had quite a bit of dynamite left. What else to do but spend an afternoon blowing up boulders and making holes in the sand. All in good fun, actually. Hard to imagine that happening in the U.S. today: odds are I'd never have been born because my father would have died in prison, rather than at home like he wanted.
Well, they blasted away down there, cleared away some more rock
In any event, I'm just pointing out that nobody bothered to restrict the sale of high explosives (not that dynamite compares to modern stuff) until some fuckheads a decade or two later decided to blow up a few buildings to make a "statement" or some such.
thus far, the law (CA 1934, CALEA, 47 U.S.C. 153(h)(1991), etc.) does not differentiate between a "communications provider" that uses voice or analog signal, and one that does packet pushing for data
The FCC and the Supreme Court seem to have decided upon a different interpretation. The court upheld the FCC's interpretation of the 1996 Telecommunications Act.
This quote is interesting:
The Court seemed to be somewhat uncomfortable, however, with the fact that the FCC's holding imposed common carrier obligations on high-speed digital subscriber line ("DSL") offerings by telephone companies, but not cable modem services--which compete head-to-head in the US internet access market.
and would indicate that the broadband offerings made by the Telcos are subject to common carriage regulation, whereas the cable outfits managed to avoid it. If that ruling still holds, it might put a bee in AT&T's bonnet.
Not as I understand it (any lawyers feel free to correct me) but Telcos are common carriers only as applies to their voice networks. For reasons I don't fully understand, so-called "data services" are exempt.
I think when you reach the point of exceeding ten billion dollars, you are now in the "shitload" category ... and it really doesn't matter.
Sorry, I guess I gave the wrong impression. I'm not defending the DMCA: as a software engineer I'd be shooting myself in the foot to support it, given the effect it has had on my own neck of the woods. Maybe "middle ground" was the wrong phrase. How about "compromise", or at best "necessary evil"? I've read Jefferson's letters and other documents on copyright, and yes, it was very clear that he meant copyright to be, as I believe he put it, "a loan from the public domain." So you don't have any argument from me.
This kind. You know, where the laptop comes back (with maybe a few bullet holes) but the thieves don't.
Canada has been the home to a growing debate ...
... the individuals and organizations in favor of these shenanigans have no interest whatsoever in debating anything with anyone. They simply want their way, and they'll do pretty much whatever it takes to get it. Nobody else's perspective but their own is of any consequence to them.
From dictionary.com:
Debate: a discussion, as of a public question in an assembly, involving opposing viewpoints
There's plenty of opposing viewpoints, but really there's no "discussion" here
A couple of more appropriate words might be "rubberstamp", or perhaps "steamroller". But not debate.
Gotcha. It really is amazing how much trouble that law has caused.
Even they deserve the liberty to gather, to say their opinions and gather in protest.
... they've done nothing to earn it. Quite the opposite, in fact. Nevertheless, as a pragmatic matter (and the Founders were nothing if not pragmatic) it is their right under the Constitution. Take it away from them, distasteful as they are, and you take it away from us all.
I wouldn't say that groups such as the KKK deserve that freedom, exactly
If there's one thing that the Founders understood with crystalline clarity it is this: that line you've just drawn will eventually become a noose. Best not to draw the line.
Add:
3. Anti-reverse-engineering.
4. Anti-decryption.