I never said that evidence should be destroyed, or even permanently hidden... what we need is to be reasonably safe from illegal search and seizure (which is more common nowadays than most people want to believe) or a fishing expedition. By delaying the ability of law enforcement to access personal records, one has time (and leverage!) to get proper representation and maybe some judicial oversight of whatever it is the cops think they're doing. Sometimes officials cross the line, sometimes they make mistakes. Either way, I want some protection, since the Constitution is no longer sufficiently respected by those in charge. It never has been, I suppose, but they're getting pretty damn bold lately.
Just rolling over upon command requires far more faith in either the police or the legal system than I have at this point. I have no intention of being ground up by the wheels of Justice without at least a fighting chance.
Well, when OBDIII is eventually required by Federal regulation to be included in all vehicles sold in the U.S. people will still be buying cars, although I'd expect a boost in used car sales. Since Vista is baselining many of these capabilities, it's not beyond the realm of possibility for Congress to mandate that such features are included in all personal operating systems and that they must be active.
It's very difficult for an individual to change a cultural problem, but much simpler to defend against it with technology.
Very true, however if enough individuals begin to mount such defenses (and they are readily available to all) a change in the culture has been made. The act of convincing a significant number of people to defend themselves against potential governmental intrusion is what is important here. Doesn't matter whether they have anything specific to hide, in fact the more people who have nothing to hide that do protect themselves in this way, the safer all of us will be. I'm one of those people: my life is an open book, I have performed no criminal activity of any kind. However, as a matter of principle I can assure you that law enforcement would have to spend significant resources to get their fingers on my data without my willing cooperation. Now I might consent to give them that, but they would have to guarantee certain safeguards before I'd permit anyone to go through my stuff, and I would insist on having my attorney involved to protect what rights I still have. The reason I feel this way is because I no longer have any faith in law enforcement, because it's all to easy to criminalize someone for an activity they had no idea was illegal. They have plenty of law on their side, and I want to make sure that, if push comes to shove, I can use the law to protect myself as well. Allowing the cops to peruse your network at their convenience is not the way to do that. My father used to tell me that all governments want more and more authority over their citizens, and the only way slow that process down is to make them fight for it at every opportunity.
Besides, things are qualitatively different nowadays. In past, cops could just walk in and take your file cabinets and that was that. Now they may have to ask for encryption keys: that puts a fair amount of control back in the hands of the individual... and the cops don't like that.
His girfriend was already there - waiting for us:).
she probably has her own GPS.
Yes, the Girl Positioning System. It's very accurate, but hard on any male egos in the immediate vicinity. The United States military did briefly consider using GPS to fulfill their navigational requirements, but being a largely male-dominated organization wisely decided to go with the satellites instead.
That's a tough call. Judges don't make laws, lawmakers do that... and frequently they do it badly. Giving the judiciary some wiggle-room can prevent abuse as much as permit it. Yeah, it's a double-edged sword.
The problem with that idea is that you are talking about a technological solution to a cultural problem. That's been discussed here on Slashdot before: so many things have been criminalized that even your "relative safe" stuff could still land you in jail. The bar has been lowered on what the law considers "bad shit".
Personally, if I had any really bad shit on my system I'd probably just have a buried NAS box somewhere on (or even off) the premises. Probably would be best if there were a hardwired connection to it: wouldn't want the Feds to use a sniffer and figure out you have the thing. Oh sure, if they really wanted to they could find it, but why make it easy? Hide the cabling and hide the point at which it attaches to the rest of your LAN. Probably want the box to run a watchdog task that will disable it completely if it detects that specific machines on the LAN have disappeared (as in "having been confiscated".) That way, even if someone performing forensics notices that there was another network drive mapped, by the time they get back to search for another machine it won't be detectable unless they start tearing down your walls.
Of course, you'd be a lot safer not having that bad shit in the first place.
I haven't read the article, and I don't plan to and I have no particular interest in Facebook... but this smacks of sour grapes. Okay... he took their idea. So what? Ideas are cheap, one in a hundred thousand ever becomes anything worthwhile, and if you have a good idea and you give it away you're an idiot. You're especially stupid if you give it to someone who is better at execution than you are and don't have a formal agreement (granted, contracts are only as good as the people who sign them, but without one you're gonna have a much harder time in court.)
Now, if the guy stole their source code, that would be different. It still wouldn't be a matter "turning over the company" but it might be worth some damages. Odds are any code he ripped off isn't in service anymore anyway.
I've been through a few small business ventures (none of them made me millions, alas) and if there's one thing you learn early on it's a. find people that you trust and b. keep your trap shut. The worst enemy of a fledgling business is anyone or anything who will take what's been developed and clone it for their own profit. Secrecy is your best weapon, and until your product or service is launched and everyone knows about it, the most important secret is the central product idea itself.
On the other hand... what are the production costs of a typical CD vs. an average motion picture? Orders of magnitude difference. The RIAA's member companies could afford to take a lot less per disc and make a profit (maybe not as much profit as they are accustomed to receiving, but that's not my problem.)
No, the GP has a point. Remember that the Feds have been trying (with programs like TIA) to mine private databases. In that context, the information collected by marketers and other private entities can get you in trouble (and that's bad, because such databases are notoriously inaccurate... almost as bad as Government ones.)
Google might do it just because it would be un-evil, and worth quite a few brownie points with scientists around the globe, not to mention that it would be cool archive to search.
To give another example, my father is also a small business owner and was forced to have 2 or 3 days down while the local government audited his business.
When governments do that it usually means they're on a fishing expedition (obviously, twenty bucks for three days of an auditor's time is not a reasonable exchange) and were using the license as an excuse. Either that, or they were trying to set some kind of an example to other businesses... give us our juice money or we'll screw you out a few days earnings too!
Not necessarily... they might just have chopped.23% from each professional. You know, the odd hand or extra foot that most of us in the field have to grow just to keep up with all the work.
Let's not forget Halliburton, the Energy Task Force, Dick Cheney, gasoline at $3+ a gallon, the "valued presence" of millions of illegal aliens to whom Bush keeps trying grant amnesty, tossing in the industrial towel to China (although a lot of that can be laid at Clinton's feet) and... well. It's remarkable how many things a single President can screw up in a couple of terms, and he's not even finished yet. What's more remarkable is that Nixon was forced to resign over issues that were nowhere near as damaging, inflammatory or downright treasonous as what Bush & Co. have been doing, and yet nobody in Congress is serious about squeezing him out, much less putting him in prison where he really belongs. I can't quite get my mind around all of this.
We'll never know the full extent of the list: your description of this as the "tip of the iceberg" is undoubtedly correct.
If you're talking about a chemical poison, sure. That's not necessarily true when discussing carcinogens, because the effects may take decades to appear, long after any exposure is over.
More to the point, you do want a public figure speaking about important issues because that's the only way you'll know what's going on. If the guy's a bumbling incompetent, we'll never know it unless he opens his mouth.
They don't need to change the rules any longer. They haven't had to for over a hundred years. So many human activities have been classified as criminal in our society the government (any government, Federal, State, local) can nail you any time they choose, if they want to make the effort. Just being targeted, even if you ultimately win in court (assuming you have your day in court) is punitive for most people, given the cost of justice today. If we ever want to return to something resembling a "free" country, we're going to have to toss out reams of law.
Truly a sad state of affairs. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if my comments here on Slashdot are eventually used against me in some way. A lot of us have posted stuff on this site that might be considered "subversive" in some context, particularly the anti-intellectual-property rants that pop up regularly.
Slashdot Mirror
I never said that evidence should be destroyed, or even permanently hidden ... what we need is to be reasonably safe from illegal search and seizure (which is more common nowadays than most people want to believe) or a fishing expedition. By delaying the ability of law enforcement to access personal records, one has time (and leverage!) to get proper representation and maybe some judicial oversight of whatever it is the cops think they're doing. Sometimes officials cross the line, sometimes they make mistakes. Either way, I want some protection, since the Constitution is no longer sufficiently respected by those in charge. It never has been, I suppose, but they're getting pretty damn bold lately.
Just rolling over upon command requires far more faith in either the police or the legal system than I have at this point. I have no intention of being ground up by the wheels of Justice without at least a fighting chance.
Well, when OBDIII is eventually required by Federal regulation to be included in all vehicles sold in the U.S. people will still be buying cars, although I'd expect a boost in used car sales. Since Vista is baselining many of these capabilities, it's not beyond the realm of possibility for Congress to mandate that such features are included in all personal operating systems and that they must be active.
Yes, they are that corrupt and stupid.
The previous two posts are diametrically opposed. Maybe both are right, or neither. Could a lawyer please step in and clear this up?
It's very difficult for an individual to change a cultural problem, but much simpler to defend against it with technology.
... and the cops don't like that.
Very true, however if enough individuals begin to mount such defenses (and they are readily available to all) a change in the culture has been made. The act of convincing a significant number of people to defend themselves against potential governmental intrusion is what is important here. Doesn't matter whether they have anything specific to hide, in fact the more people who have nothing to hide that do protect themselves in this way, the safer all of us will be. I'm one of those people: my life is an open book, I have performed no criminal activity of any kind. However, as a matter of principle I can assure you that law enforcement would have to spend significant resources to get their fingers on my data without my willing cooperation. Now I might consent to give them that, but they would have to guarantee certain safeguards before I'd permit anyone to go through my stuff, and I would insist on having my attorney involved to protect what rights I still have. The reason I feel this way is because I no longer have any faith in law enforcement, because it's all to easy to criminalize someone for an activity they had no idea was illegal. They have plenty of law on their side, and I want to make sure that, if push comes to shove, I can use the law to protect myself as well. Allowing the cops to peruse your network at their convenience is not the way to do that. My father used to tell me that all governments want more and more authority over their citizens, and the only way slow that process down is to make them fight for it at every opportunity.
Besides, things are qualitatively different nowadays. In past, cops could just walk in and take your file cabinets and that was that. Now they may have to ask for encryption keys: that puts a fair amount of control back in the hands of the individual
Tough.
His girfriend was already there - waiting for us :).
she probably has her own GPS.
Yes, the Girl Positioning System. It's very accurate, but hard on any male egos in the immediate vicinity. The United States military did briefly consider using GPS to fulfill their navigational requirements, but being a largely male-dominated organization wisely decided to go with the satellites instead.
Your old monolithic brain has problems with doing more than one thing at a time.
Not a concurrency issue, per se. See the previous poster's remark about bugs in the male population.
That's a tough call. Judges don't make laws, lawmakers do that ... and frequently they do it badly. Giving the judiciary some wiggle-room can prevent abuse as much as permit it. Yeah, it's a double-edged sword.
The problem with that idea is that you are talking about a technological solution to a cultural problem. That's been discussed here on Slashdot before: so many things have been criminalized that even your "relative safe" stuff could still land you in jail. The bar has been lowered on what the law considers "bad shit".
Personally, if I had any really bad shit on my system I'd probably just have a buried NAS box somewhere on (or even off) the premises. Probably would be best if there were a hardwired connection to it: wouldn't want the Feds to use a sniffer and figure out you have the thing. Oh sure, if they really wanted to they could find it, but why make it easy? Hide the cabling and hide the point at which it attaches to the rest of your LAN. Probably want the box to run a watchdog task that will disable it completely if it detects that specific machines on the LAN have disappeared (as in "having been confiscated".) That way, even if someone performing forensics notices that there was another network drive mapped, by the time they get back to search for another machine it won't be detectable unless they start tearing down your walls.
Of course, you'd be a lot safer not having that bad shit in the first place.
I haven't read the article, and I don't plan to and I have no particular interest in Facebook ... but this smacks of sour grapes. Okay ... he took their idea. So what? Ideas are cheap, one in a hundred thousand ever becomes anything worthwhile, and if you have a good idea and you give it away you're an idiot. You're especially stupid if you give it to someone who is better at execution than you are and don't have a formal agreement (granted, contracts are only as good as the people who sign them, but without one you're gonna have a much harder time in court.)
Now, if the guy stole their source code, that would be different. It still wouldn't be a matter "turning over the company" but it might be worth some damages. Odds are any code he ripped off isn't in service anymore anyway.
I've been through a few small business ventures (none of them made me millions, alas) and if there's one thing you learn early on it's a. find people that you trust and b. keep your trap shut. The worst enemy of a fledgling business is anyone or anything who will take what's been developed and clone it for their own profit. Secrecy is your best weapon, and until your product or service is launched and everyone knows about it, the most important secret is the central product idea itself.
Google's motives may be suspect, but AT&T's motives are well-known.
GH1: "Thanks, GH2, this should get me another 2 years of pubic sector bliss."
Honestly, these past ten years I think we've heard more than enough about the "pubic sector" bliss of our duly elected officials.
I guess there's a difference between "unlicensed" and "unregulated".
the media companies are lying to us.
That's a huge surprise.
On the other hand ... what are the production costs of a typical CD vs. an average motion picture? Orders of magnitude difference. The RIAA's member companies could afford to take a lot less per disc and make a profit (maybe not as much profit as they are accustomed to receiving, but that's not my problem.)
No, the GP has a point. Remember that the Feds have been trying (with programs like TIA) to mine private databases. In that context, the information collected by marketers and other private entities can get you in trouble (and that's bad, because such databases are notoriously inaccurate ... almost as bad as Government ones.)
Why, Dr. Malcolm ... is that you?
Google might do it just because it would be un-evil, and worth quite a few brownie points with scientists around the globe, not to mention that it would be cool archive to search.
To give another example, my father is also a small business owner and was forced to have 2 or 3 days down while the local government audited his business.
... give us our juice money or we'll screw you out a few days earnings too!
When governments do that it usually means they're on a fishing expedition (obviously, twenty bucks for three days of an auditor's time is not a reasonable exchange) and were using the license as an excuse. Either that, or they were trying to set some kind of an example to other businesses
Not necessarily ... they might just have chopped .23% from each professional. You know, the odd hand or extra foot that most of us in the field have to grow just to keep up with all the work.
Let's not forget Halliburton, the Energy Task Force, Dick Cheney, gasoline at $3+ a gallon, the "valued presence" of millions of illegal aliens to whom Bush keeps trying grant amnesty, tossing in the industrial towel to China (although a lot of that can be laid at Clinton's feet) and ... well. It's remarkable how many things a single President can screw up in a couple of terms, and he's not even finished yet. What's more remarkable is that Nixon was forced to resign over issues that were nowhere near as damaging, inflammatory or downright treasonous as what Bush & Co. have been doing, and yet nobody in Congress is serious about squeezing him out, much less putting him in prison where he really belongs. I can't quite get my mind around all of this.
We'll never know the full extent of the list: your description of this as the "tip of the iceberg" is undoubtedly correct.
If you're talking about a chemical poison, sure. That's not necessarily true when discussing carcinogens, because the effects may take decades to appear, long after any exposure is over.
More to the point, you do want a public figure speaking about important issues because that's the only way you'll know what's going on. If the guy's a bumbling incompetent, we'll never know it unless he opens his mouth.
{sigh} Gray areas again ... something that the Bush Administration does not deal with very well.
It's the name of an industrial data acquisition system I used to sell.
"Gag me with a spoon!"
Geller needs to get a life. Seriously.
They don't need to change the rules any longer. They haven't had to for over a hundred years. So many human activities have been classified as criminal in our society the government (any government, Federal, State, local) can nail you any time they choose, if they want to make the effort. Just being targeted, even if you ultimately win in court (assuming you have your day in court) is punitive for most people, given the cost of justice today. If we ever want to return to something resembling a "free" country, we're going to have to toss out reams of law.
Truly a sad state of affairs. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if my comments here on Slashdot are eventually used against me in some way. A lot of us have posted stuff on this site that might be considered "subversive" in some context, particularly the anti-intellectual-property rants that pop up regularly.