They can keep kids that refuse to behave civilly from playing the sports they want to until they smarten up.
And keep them from going to the state championships?! That, dear sir, is un-American!
And one of the major problems with schools today. No longer learning institutions, it's a place where your kid goes to learn math and letters for the first few years, and then spend all of high school trying to become a big name in the sport of their choice. And the parents and schools encourage this.
Sport programs are fine, but when education (and funding as such) and fair treatement take a back seat to it, it becomes an issue. Too often students in any kind of sport get preferntial treatement because they can throw a ball really far (which is a fairly useless skill, except for the sport itself).
I recall a story from late last year. Two high school kids were pushing a fake deer in front of cars or something as "a practical joke". Well, their practical joke made a fellow student wind up in the hospital for months. In court, the judge deferred their punishment SO THEY COULD PLAY HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL. Said some bullshit about town pride or something.
Town pride is respecting other citizens and the town, which means you don't steal a fake deer and throw it in front of cars. Not letting potential criminals play fucking football.
I agree that a lot of bullying starts with the parents. Sometimes it's the lack of attention from the parents, sometimes it's too much of the wrong kind of attention from parents.
It's easy to see this in jocks who are also bullies. They have an air of superiority about them, and they're out to make sure everyone knows it. The parents of these kids just continue to lift the kid higher onto their shoulders, and don't dare punish him, so the egotism keeps growing.
I don't know about "school prisons", though. There's already in-school suspension, where you're forced to sit in the same desk all day doing your homework. The regular prison system doesn't work too great, so adopting it to a school format won't get much better results.
I prefer the whole "punishment fits the crime" thing. You bully and humiliate someone, you get humiliated yourself (such as my dress example, which would include doing up their hair, makeup, the whole nine yards- even better, let the bullied kid be the one to put makeup on them.) You sell stolen watches, you pay a fine, sit in jail a bit, and spend eight hours a day along side a busy road wearing a large clock sandwich board and holding up a sign saying "I STEAL WATCHES".
Some judges do get creative like that, but they are few and far between.
You know, that's a very good question. Did the students even remember why they did the shooting? Has the school's policies changes towards bullying?
Someone call Dateline, I'm sure there's an "anniversary" or something coming up, and this would get great ratings.
I know that at my school on the day after Columbine, the kids realized why they had done it. Since I was oft picked on, I actually had a few people come up and ask me not to go psycho and kill them (they seriously asked that; one even knelt in front of me before a class and pleaded that I not shoot her- that led to a nasty power trip). For about a week or two no one picked on me, but then it was back to normal.
Here's a thought: How about they handle regular bullying, which happens in the school, before worrying about cyberbullying, which is more out of their hands?
The thing is, at least in my experience, bullies rarely get punishment for their bullying, even when the abused works up the courage to complain to someone. Some schools may have more things to worry about, like fighting, drugs, and gang-wars, but there are plenty that don't. Most of the teachers in these schools turn a blind eye to the problem right in front of them. I've only ever seen one teacher, aside from the school counselar, tell a student to knock it off. Vulgar slurs, personal attacks, and cruel nicknames may seem like something kids are "supposed" to do to each other, but it has longer reaching effects than most adults will admit to.
And, when doled out in large quanitities, can lead to Columbine-like events.
No, I don't have an answer for bullying. I wish I did. When ever a bully is punished for what they do, it's generally a detention, and then they're back dishing out more punishment because you turned them in. Perhaps some sort of humiliation for them, like having to wear a dress for a day, would help them realize what it does, but the parents would complain that their "darling angel" is being unfairly treated, and that would be the end of that.
So if they don't get punished at school, of course they're going to continue at home, because the parents tend to be oblivious to what they are doing. Even worse is that some of those on the receiving end of bullying at school will turn around at home and do cyberbullying. Often they'll target those who attack them at school, other times they'll go after the popular kids, usually anonymously. This gives them a feeling of control and power, the reverse of what they feel at school.
So take care of regular bullying first. Then you'll know how to work against cyberbullying, and in the process probably take care of some of it, too.
I believe you missed my point. I was jeering that the kind of people who used sentences such as that somehow make it into the CEO position, and the sensible, intelligent CIOs who know it's a load of bull don't.
I would hope that no company actually uses those terms, but since they exist, someone must. The more successful companies most likely don't.
The problem there is that often the Sales and Marketing side of the business doesn't understand just what the Technical side can and can't do, and in what amount of time they can or can't do it. So they start promising the moon, when the Technical side can produce maybe the Rocky Mountains. This creates all sorts of worthless and stupid demands on Technical side. (Many of them wind up on TheDailyWTF)
The reason a CIO can't be a CEO is the same reason the CEO you described shouldn't be a CEO- they're too one-sided. A good CEO has handled all parts of a company, from overseeing a development project to handling sales of things to international relations and maybe even helping to clean the bathrooms once or twice. Unfortunatly, too many CEOs (and other members of the board) wind up as you describe.
Also, I put forth that you don't need superior Sales and Market if you have a high quality product. I have never seen a single advertisement for Pez, yet those things sell like... well, like candy. Even the tie-ins with comics or games or movies don't get any advertising from Pez themselves.
CIOs have been unable to escalate to the CEO position because they cannot synergize the corporate enterprise environment into a sigma six solution in a manner that evasperates the board and homogenizes the company.
I'm pretty certain I made up a few words there, but if I said that to a CEO s/he'd likely nod and say "Why, you're absolutely correct!"
And that's why CIOs can't obtain the CEO position.
I doubt that one or two failed validations will cause Microsoft to take action, but if they start receiving hundereds or maybe even dozens (say, from a small company trying to cut corners, or just a major clusterfuck) of failed WGA requests from a similar IP range (and I guarantee you that they store all the IP addresses), they will do a bit more investigation.
I don't think it's the search engines that cause the visits so much; rarely, if ever, do I click a link from search results and get a parked domain. If I do, it's usually because the search engine has it indexed before, and the site has since been taken down and the domain bought by someone else.
The way that domain parkers make their money is mainly through mistakes. For instance, if I buy reallykickasssite.com for a future project, a domain parker is going to come in and register reallykickasssite.net, reallykickasssite.org, and reallykickasssite.info in the hopes that my site will become popular and someone will accidentally type in the wrong TLD. Then there are ones that are mispellings, like foogle.com or yahooo.net or something.
Hell, sometimes they don't even wait for you to register it. I've gone to do domain checks at GoDaddy for a domain I might want to use, decide to mull it over, and come back the next week to buy it only to find that some company got it and parked an ad site there. I have no idea how they know that I checked on it, but they somehow get it on a list and snap it up.
What's worse, though, is that they hold on to these forever, so you can't just wait for their registration to expire. A domain is fairly cheap, so it's not a huge drain on them. And I know of no way to purchase it from them, either. If you have some sort of trademark or copyright, you could probably wrestle it from them through lawyers, but beyond that you're likely SOL.
I've learned my lesson, though. If I ever get an idea for a domain, and check to see if it's open, I'm going to buy that domain if it is. It's only $8-$10, and if I decide I don't want it I just turn off auto-renew.
GoDaddy has this thing where you pay $20, and when the domain becomes available they'll buy it for you and put it under your name. Has anyone tried this service and had it work? I have a sneaking suspicion that they are the ones doing the parking themselves (that's where I do most of my domain checks), and just trying to get another $10 out of you for the domain.
They say that that's 22% of those who attempted to be authenticated- anyone who knows they are using a pirated copy sure as hell isn't going to try to authenticate it. Those who failed either didn't know they had a pirated copy (installed by teenage son or shady computer store) or are really dumb pirates.
Or the third option, that WGA fails a fifth of the time. I can think of at least one instance where I have tried to authenticate a legitamite copy (which I had just unpacked from HP, and was doing updates on) and WGA said it didn't pass.
Since some of the ISPs have let slip their intentions (which, as I've read, aren't good) with tiered internet, I'd say it's best not to wait. I subscribe to the motto "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure". Of course, the problem then is knowing how to prevent something.
But you are right- they may not do what we all fear they could.
If MS can get away with no culpability for easily exploited systems then it would be difficult to impossible to try to pin the blame on an ISP blocking access to an update, especially if there are other exploits not patched by the update - who would be held responsible for botnets created through those open holes?
I'm not a huge fan of Microsoft (though, for the time being, I do prefer Windows over Linux/Mac), and while I do blame them for being lax about software security, I don't believe that they should held accountable for the botnets. After all, there is a major difference between leaving your window open and closing the window, locking it, but accidentally leaving the lock a bit out (thereby making it easier for a thief to break in).
On the other hand, I would be surprised if there is an ISP that does not know about Windows Update. Many rely on their customers using it, lest their boxes become bots and start cluttering the bandwidth of said ISP. However, if an ISP became especially greedy, they could slow down the entire Microsoft network to consumers and try to get Microsoft to pay some "usage" fee, hedging against a botnet being formed on their network in the meantime. Now, the loss of such critical online applications such as Hotmail and MSN Chat might get the users in enough of a work up to either leave or keehaul the ISP, but if the ISP limits it to such things as the main Microsoft site and Windows Update sites, many customers wouldn't even notice.
So, any ISP limited connection to Microsoft knows that they'll be limiting Windows Update and making boxes vulnerable. Unless they can prove that they made sure Windows Update stuff could get through, there could be some federal (since it crosses state borders) law that would cover this as malicious intent to destroy property or something.
I agree that the less government involvement, the better, but you're assuming that the average consumer cares enough to do anything if they are hampered by their provider. While people on Slashdot such as you or myself may become active enough to fight against the ISP, I have to wonder how many Joe Sixpacks would stand up and scream with us.
Now, in an ideal market, we would be able to switch ISP service. Unfortunatly, too many areas, especailly the smaller ones (not even going into the rural area) are restricted to only one choice, either through some sleazy city government deal or because they aren't close to major metropolitan areas.
For instance, where my folks live, they only have one choice for phone, internet, and cable, and it all happens to be the same company. This company is, as far as I've been informed, currently in the process of just letting their analog cable service degrade in the hopes of getting people to jump to the Digital service. I'm not quite sure if that's the issue, but I wouldn't be surprised, and if it is my parents have no other options; they're lower middle class, and can't afford such things as satellite (nor do they watch enough TV for satellite to be attractive). However, the most they are interested in doing is complaining about it when the cable has extra-distorted fits. No one in my family is going to write letters or do daily calls to the company; they might complain to friends and neighbors, but they won't start a campaign to get everyone to fight back. To them, it isn't a large enough issue.
I would bet that if ISPs did put in a tier system, most consumers would sit there and take it, because making noise can get you in trouble. Society has become complacent, and it will take a major change to get them active against something (and I guarentee you that tiered internet is not that major change). So we have to hope the government will step in, at least in this case, to protect consumer interests for the few who do care (and, somewhat ironically, the major companies that would be affected).
Perhaps I don't understand "Net Neutrality" as well as I thought, but Kahn's (KAAAAAAHHHHNN) statements confuse me.
"If the goal is to encourage people to build new capabilities, then the party that takes the lead is probably only going to have it on their net to start with and it's not going to be on anyone else's net. You want to incentivize people to innovate, and they're going to innovate on their own nets or a few other nets,"
"I am totally opposed to mandating that nothing interesting can happen inside the net," he said.
If anything, I would think that allowing corporate entities to throttle bandwidth for whichever site or service they choose, then hold that service's customer availability up for ransom would do far more damage to "encouraging capabilities" and "inventivize innvation". After all, money that might have gone into R&D from these companies (see: Google, Microsoft) might have to be used just so they aren't impeded from their customer.
It would also stall innovation on the end of ISPs- if they note that their current systems can't handle traffic from a certain site or service, they just throttle back that site/service, make them cough up dough, then use that dough to get more systems to handle the bandwidth (or just release the throttle, upgrade nothing, and screw the consumers; depends on which ISP we're talking about). So instead of handling it with improvements, they'll just look to throw more money for more of the same solution. (Which, granted, could be what they do now.)
Perhaps he's saying that the government shouldn't get involved on pro- or con-neutrality, which I can understand more, but then that opens the door for the greedy corporations to start throttling away.
A side thought on net neutrality: If an ISP decides to limit access to such sites as Microsoft.com, thereby hampering the Windows Update service, and the computers that can't get updated turn into botboxes (for spam or virii- or both), would the ISP then be liable for any damage caused by the spam/virii?
To reduce complexity and costs, the probes lack solar panels and run on battery power, limiting their lifetime to a few days. [...] Eventually the probes could detonate onboard explosives, sacrificing themselves for science one by one.
Seeing the possibility for further profit, Sony has opened an Aeronautical division within the company. The Aeronautical division is planning to take all recalled Sony laptop batteries and sell them NASA, thereby nabbing two birds with one stone. The only potential problem, according to Sony, is the random explosion time of the batteries.
If confirmed this has applications in neurology, psychology, child-rearing, and a host of other domains.
How about politics?
If this can be proven to be accurate, perhaps it can be used on politicians before an election to see just how much good they actually intend to do for the public.
Or would the machine not be able to handle negative values?
I can understand the monitoring portion- the parents may not have known that the kids are on MySpace, just as my parents didn't know I was chatting at the library instead of reading (actually, they suspected I was, but either they thought it was harmless or didn't care enough to do more than ask me). My parents could still have called the library to ask what I was doing.
However, when the kid is actually going somewhere, then the parent should be paying much more attention. Again, if you ask them where they go, they'll likely lie (don't kid yourself otherwise), so you have to follow up. And then education is important- I didn't know about paedophiles at that age, but I did know there were bad people out there, and my parents told me that telling people online where I live was bad, and explained enough that I understood why.
They never told me I could receive penises in my e-mail, though. (I didn't understand spam back then, either.)
The bar is MySpace. It facilitates the drinking and leaving of drunks. The bar patron is the child. The bar allows the patron to leave, patron is killed/kills someone, bar is sued/fined/closed.
Okay, so far so good. But with this MySpace, there's a third party directly invovled- the parents. I guess the parents would be like a bouncer at the bar whose job it is to make sure that none of the patrons get overly drunk. In those cases, though, I believe both the bouncer and bar are charged. Then there's a fourth party that doesn't appear at the bar (at least, I can't think of a correlation)- the person with malicious intent. No one leaves the bar intending to be killed or kill someone with their car.
I have a problem with bars getting charged like that- sure, they can monitor the outward drunkeness of an individual, but if this is a large bar, or even something like a dance club, it's very hard to monitor each individual patron to see how drunk they are and how many drinks they've had. Similarly, you can't monitor every interaction between people on MySpace, either, which has a far higher usage rate. In both instances, you can put in some checks, but they will fail at times or someone will get around them for whatever reason. It goes back personal responsibility- people shouldn't have to have the bar monitor their drinking, they should know their own limits. However the alcohol itself, the center of your metaphor, can impare personal responsibility itself, which is what seperates the two events.
I know this isn't an original idea on Slashdot, but perhaps, you know, the parents could have monitored the children! But that's crazy talk, because then they might not have been able to watch the entire two hour season premiere of American Idol or follow their stocks. The internet, government, and everyone involed in those things should be worried about the life that the parent brought into the world, not the parent! After all, they created the kid, shouldn't that be enough?
All of the things that MySpace has been sued for could easily have been prevented with good parenting. Where are your kids going? Who are they talking to online? Sure, they can lie, but that's why you keep tabs. When they get back, ask them if they had a good time at some other place. If they respond postively, you've just caught them in a lie. If not, you can fake like it's old-people confusion. You can't always protect them, though, so educate them. Make sure they understand that they can meet a lot of cool people on the internet, but some of these people want to hurt them. It's okay to talk to someone, but if someone wants to meet them you (the parent) have to get involved.
Here's a newsflash to these un-parents: Myspace isn't the only place where this kind of thing can be done! It is, however, one of the higher profile and richer websites, hence the lure. The potential for these acts have been around since the Internet has. I can recall being sent a picture of some guy's dick in an e-mail when I was 13 (8 years ago) or so because I gave him my e-mail address thinking he was going to send me cheat codes for a video game. At that time I had to go to the library to chat, because my parents wouldn't let me chat online at home. So I wound up in an unsupervised environment where I could have given out more information about myself or location if someone had taken me into their confidence.
While you're at it, why not sue the mall, store, or park where the pedo and kid met up? After all, the kid was there and the mall/store/park didn't bother to watch your kid for you, either.
What happened to the kids was horrible, and from the article at least some of those who actually did the harm have been locked up. This is good. But what happened on MySpace can (and probably does) happen on any other social site, in various large-scale chat rooms, even through e-mail groups. They shouldn't be sued for it.
Slashdot Mirror
And one of the major problems with schools today. No longer learning institutions, it's a place where your kid goes to learn math and letters for the first few years, and then spend all of high school trying to become a big name in the sport of their choice. And the parents and schools encourage this.
Sport programs are fine, but when education (and funding as such) and fair treatement take a back seat to it, it becomes an issue. Too often students in any kind of sport get preferntial treatement because they can throw a ball really far (which is a fairly useless skill, except for the sport itself).
I recall a story from late last year. Two high school kids were pushing a fake deer in front of cars or something as "a practical joke". Well, their practical joke made a fellow student wind up in the hospital for months. In court, the judge deferred their punishment SO THEY COULD PLAY HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL. Said some bullshit about town pride or something.
Town pride is respecting other citizens and the town, which means you don't steal a fake deer and throw it in front of cars. Not letting potential criminals play fucking football.
I agree that a lot of bullying starts with the parents. Sometimes it's the lack of attention from the parents, sometimes it's too much of the wrong kind of attention from parents.
It's easy to see this in jocks who are also bullies. They have an air of superiority about them, and they're out to make sure everyone knows it. The parents of these kids just continue to lift the kid higher onto their shoulders, and don't dare punish him, so the egotism keeps growing.
I don't know about "school prisons", though. There's already in-school suspension, where you're forced to sit in the same desk all day doing your homework. The regular prison system doesn't work too great, so adopting it to a school format won't get much better results.
I prefer the whole "punishment fits the crime" thing. You bully and humiliate someone, you get humiliated yourself (such as my dress example, which would include doing up their hair, makeup, the whole nine yards- even better, let the bullied kid be the one to put makeup on them.) You sell stolen watches, you pay a fine, sit in jail a bit, and spend eight hours a day along side a busy road wearing a large clock sandwich board and holding up a sign saying "I STEAL WATCHES".
Some judges do get creative like that, but they are few and far between.
You know, that's a very good question. Did the students even remember why they did the shooting? Has the school's policies changes towards bullying?
Someone call Dateline, I'm sure there's an "anniversary" or something coming up, and this would get great ratings.
I know that at my school on the day after Columbine, the kids realized why they had done it. Since I was oft picked on, I actually had a few people come up and ask me not to go psycho and kill them (they seriously asked that; one even knelt in front of me before a class and pleaded that I not shoot her- that led to a nasty power trip). For about a week or two no one picked on me, but then it was back to normal.
Here's a thought: How about they handle regular bullying, which happens in the school, before worrying about cyberbullying, which is more out of their hands?
The thing is, at least in my experience, bullies rarely get punishment for their bullying, even when the abused works up the courage to complain to someone. Some schools may have more things to worry about, like fighting, drugs, and gang-wars, but there are plenty that don't. Most of the teachers in these schools turn a blind eye to the problem right in front of them. I've only ever seen one teacher, aside from the school counselar, tell a student to knock it off. Vulgar slurs, personal attacks, and cruel nicknames may seem like something kids are "supposed" to do to each other, but it has longer reaching effects than most adults will admit to.
And, when doled out in large quanitities, can lead to Columbine-like events.
No, I don't have an answer for bullying. I wish I did. When ever a bully is punished for what they do, it's generally a detention, and then they're back dishing out more punishment because you turned them in. Perhaps some sort of humiliation for them, like having to wear a dress for a day, would help them realize what it does, but the parents would complain that their "darling angel" is being unfairly treated, and that would be the end of that.
So if they don't get punished at school, of course they're going to continue at home, because the parents tend to be oblivious to what they are doing. Even worse is that some of those on the receiving end of bullying at school will turn around at home and do cyberbullying. Often they'll target those who attack them at school, other times they'll go after the popular kids, usually anonymously. This gives them a feeling of control and power, the reverse of what they feel at school.
So take care of regular bullying first. Then you'll know how to work against cyberbullying, and in the process probably take care of some of it, too.
I believe you missed my point. I was jeering that the kind of people who used sentences such as that somehow make it into the CEO position, and the sensible, intelligent CIOs who know it's a load of bull don't.
I would hope that no company actually uses those terms, but since they exist, someone must. The more successful companies most likely don't.
The problem there is that often the Sales and Marketing side of the business doesn't understand just what the Technical side can and can't do, and in what amount of time they can or can't do it. So they start promising the moon, when the Technical side can produce maybe the Rocky Mountains. This creates all sorts of worthless and stupid demands on Technical side. (Many of them wind up on TheDailyWTF)
The reason a CIO can't be a CEO is the same reason the CEO you described shouldn't be a CEO- they're too one-sided. A good CEO has handled all parts of a company, from overseeing a development project to handling sales of things to international relations and maybe even helping to clean the bathrooms once or twice. Unfortunatly, too many CEOs (and other members of the board) wind up as you describe.
Also, I put forth that you don't need superior Sales and Market if you have a high quality product. I have never seen a single advertisement for Pez, yet those things sell like... well, like candy. Even the tie-ins with comics or games or movies don't get any advertising from Pez themselves.
CIOs have been unable to escalate to the CEO position because they cannot synergize the corporate enterprise environment into a sigma six solution in a manner that evasperates the board and homogenizes the company.
I'm pretty certain I made up a few words there, but if I said that to a CEO s/he'd likely nod and say "Why, you're absolutely correct!"
And that's why CIOs can't obtain the CEO position.
I doubt that one or two failed validations will cause Microsoft to take action, but if they start receiving hundereds or maybe even dozens (say, from a small company trying to cut corners, or just a major clusterfuck) of failed WGA requests from a similar IP range (and I guarantee you that they store all the IP addresses), they will do a bit more investigation.
I don't think it's the search engines that cause the visits so much; rarely, if ever, do I click a link from search results and get a parked domain. If I do, it's usually because the search engine has it indexed before, and the site has since been taken down and the domain bought by someone else.
The way that domain parkers make their money is mainly through mistakes. For instance, if I buy reallykickasssite.com for a future project, a domain parker is going to come in and register reallykickasssite.net, reallykickasssite.org, and reallykickasssite.info in the hopes that my site will become popular and someone will accidentally type in the wrong TLD. Then there are ones that are mispellings, like foogle.com or yahooo.net or something.
Hell, sometimes they don't even wait for you to register it. I've gone to do domain checks at GoDaddy for a domain I might want to use, decide to mull it over, and come back the next week to buy it only to find that some company got it and parked an ad site there. I have no idea how they know that I checked on it, but they somehow get it on a list and snap it up.
What's worse, though, is that they hold on to these forever, so you can't just wait for their registration to expire. A domain is fairly cheap, so it's not a huge drain on them. And I know of no way to purchase it from them, either. If you have some sort of trademark or copyright, you could probably wrestle it from them through lawyers, but beyond that you're likely SOL.
I've learned my lesson, though. If I ever get an idea for a domain, and check to see if it's open, I'm going to buy that domain if it is. It's only $8-$10, and if I decide I don't want it I just turn off auto-renew.
GoDaddy has this thing where you pay $20, and when the domain becomes available they'll buy it for you and put it under your name. Has anyone tried this service and had it work? I have a sneaking suspicion that they are the ones doing the parking themselves (that's where I do most of my domain checks), and just trying to get another $10 out of you for the domain.
I bet that 22% is probably very wrong.
They say that that's 22% of those who attempted to be authenticated- anyone who knows they are using a pirated copy sure as hell isn't going to try to authenticate it. Those who failed either didn't know they had a pirated copy (installed by teenage son or shady computer store) or are really dumb pirates.
Or the third option, that WGA fails a fifth of the time. I can think of at least one instance where I have tried to authenticate a legitamite copy (which I had just unpacked from HP, and was doing updates on) and WGA said it didn't pass.
This is quite possibly the most hilarious thing I've heard all day.
And I've been reading the DailyWTF archives.
Thank you for that. The mental image of a penguin attacking windmills will stay with me for days to come.
I'll be damned, that guy gets around. Maybe he heard about Godzilla...
But that would require Slashdot editors to read their own website, the articles that are submitted, or even edit the articles submitted.
It's so much easier to just hit "post to main page in X minutes" and then go back to reading Something Awful.
Since some of the ISPs have let slip their intentions (which, as I've read, aren't good) with tiered internet, I'd say it's best not to wait. I subscribe to the motto "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure". Of course, the problem then is knowing how to prevent something.
But you are right- they may not do what we all fear they could.
On the other hand, I would be surprised if there is an ISP that does not know about Windows Update. Many rely on their customers using it, lest their boxes become bots and start cluttering the bandwidth of said ISP. However, if an ISP became especially greedy, they could slow down the entire Microsoft network to consumers and try to get Microsoft to pay some "usage" fee, hedging against a botnet being formed on their network in the meantime. Now, the loss of such critical online applications such as Hotmail and MSN Chat might get the users in enough of a work up to either leave or keehaul the ISP, but if the ISP limits it to such things as the main Microsoft site and Windows Update sites, many customers wouldn't even notice.
So, any ISP limited connection to Microsoft knows that they'll be limiting Windows Update and making boxes vulnerable. Unless they can prove that they made sure Windows Update stuff could get through, there could be some federal (since it crosses state borders) law that would cover this as malicious intent to destroy property or something.
I agree that the less government involvement, the better, but you're assuming that the average consumer cares enough to do anything if they are hampered by their provider. While people on Slashdot such as you or myself may become active enough to fight against the ISP, I have to wonder how many Joe Sixpacks would stand up and scream with us.
Now, in an ideal market, we would be able to switch ISP service. Unfortunatly, too many areas, especailly the smaller ones (not even going into the rural area) are restricted to only one choice, either through some sleazy city government deal or because they aren't close to major metropolitan areas.
For instance, where my folks live, they only have one choice for phone, internet, and cable, and it all happens to be the same company. This company is, as far as I've been informed, currently in the process of just letting their analog cable service degrade in the hopes of getting people to jump to the Digital service. I'm not quite sure if that's the issue, but I wouldn't be surprised, and if it is my parents have no other options; they're lower middle class, and can't afford such things as satellite (nor do they watch enough TV for satellite to be attractive). However, the most they are interested in doing is complaining about it when the cable has extra-distorted fits. No one in my family is going to write letters or do daily calls to the company; they might complain to friends and neighbors, but they won't start a campaign to get everyone to fight back. To them, it isn't a large enough issue.
I would bet that if ISPs did put in a tier system, most consumers would sit there and take it, because making noise can get you in trouble. Society has become complacent, and it will take a major change to get them active against something (and I guarentee you that tiered internet is not that major change). So we have to hope the government will step in, at least in this case, to protect consumer interests for the few who do care (and, somewhat ironically, the major companies that would be affected).
If anything, I would think that allowing corporate entities to throttle bandwidth for whichever site or service they choose, then hold that service's customer availability up for ransom would do far more damage to "encouraging capabilities" and "inventivize innvation". After all, money that might have gone into R&D from these companies (see: Google, Microsoft) might have to be used just so they aren't impeded from their customer.
It would also stall innovation on the end of ISPs- if they note that their current systems can't handle traffic from a certain site or service, they just throttle back that site/service, make them cough up dough, then use that dough to get more systems to handle the bandwidth (or just release the throttle, upgrade nothing, and screw the consumers; depends on which ISP we're talking about). So instead of handling it with improvements, they'll just look to throw more money for more of the same solution. (Which, granted, could be what they do now.)
Perhaps he's saying that the government shouldn't get involved on pro- or con-neutrality, which I can understand more, but then that opens the door for the greedy corporations to start throttling away.
A side thought on net neutrality: If an ISP decides to limit access to such sites as Microsoft.com, thereby hampering the Windows Update service, and the computers that can't get updated turn into botboxes (for spam or virii- or both), would the ISP then be liable for any damage caused by the spam/virii?
If this can be proven to be accurate, perhaps it can be used on politicians before an election to see just how much good they actually intend to do for the public.
Or would the machine not be able to handle negative values?
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I can understand the monitoring portion- the parents may not have known that the kids are on MySpace, just as my parents didn't know I was chatting at the library instead of reading (actually, they suspected I was, but either they thought it was harmless or didn't care enough to do more than ask me). My parents could still have called the library to ask what I was doing.
However, when the kid is actually going somewhere, then the parent should be paying much more attention. Again, if you ask them where they go, they'll likely lie (don't kid yourself otherwise), so you have to follow up. And then education is important- I didn't know about paedophiles at that age, but I did know there were bad people out there, and my parents told me that telling people online where I live was bad, and explained enough that I understood why.
They never told me I could receive penises in my e-mail, though. (I didn't understand spam back then, either.)
Interesting idea. Trying to think this through...
The bar is MySpace. It facilitates the drinking and leaving of drunks. The bar patron is the child. The bar allows the patron to leave, patron is killed/kills someone, bar is sued/fined/closed.
Okay, so far so good. But with this MySpace, there's a third party directly invovled- the parents. I guess the parents would be like a bouncer at the bar whose job it is to make sure that none of the patrons get overly drunk. In those cases, though, I believe both the bouncer and bar are charged. Then there's a fourth party that doesn't appear at the bar (at least, I can't think of a correlation)- the person with malicious intent. No one leaves the bar intending to be killed or kill someone with their car.
I have a problem with bars getting charged like that- sure, they can monitor the outward drunkeness of an individual, but if this is a large bar, or even something like a dance club, it's very hard to monitor each individual patron to see how drunk they are and how many drinks they've had. Similarly, you can't monitor every interaction between people on MySpace, either, which has a far higher usage rate. In both instances, you can put in some checks, but they will fail at times or someone will get around them for whatever reason. It goes back personal responsibility- people shouldn't have to have the bar monitor their drinking, they should know their own limits. However the alcohol itself, the center of your metaphor, can impare personal responsibility itself, which is what seperates the two events.
(oh, irony: my word image is "vomited")
I know this isn't an original idea on Slashdot, but perhaps, you know, the parents could have monitored the children! But that's crazy talk, because then they might not have been able to watch the entire two hour season premiere of American Idol or follow their stocks. The internet, government, and everyone involed in those things should be worried about the life that the parent brought into the world, not the parent! After all, they created the kid, shouldn't that be enough?
All of the things that MySpace has been sued for could easily have been prevented with good parenting. Where are your kids going? Who are they talking to online? Sure, they can lie, but that's why you keep tabs. When they get back, ask them if they had a good time at some other place. If they respond postively, you've just caught them in a lie. If not, you can fake like it's old-people confusion. You can't always protect them, though, so educate them. Make sure they understand that they can meet a lot of cool people on the internet, but some of these people want to hurt them. It's okay to talk to someone, but if someone wants to meet them you (the parent) have to get involved.
Here's a newsflash to these un-parents: Myspace isn't the only place where this kind of thing can be done! It is, however, one of the higher profile and richer websites, hence the lure. The potential for these acts have been around since the Internet has. I can recall being sent a picture of some guy's dick in an e-mail when I was 13 (8 years ago) or so because I gave him my e-mail address thinking he was going to send me cheat codes for a video game. At that time I had to go to the library to chat, because my parents wouldn't let me chat online at home. So I wound up in an unsupervised environment where I could have given out more information about myself or location if someone had taken me into their confidence.
While you're at it, why not sue the mall, store, or park where the pedo and kid met up? After all, the kid was there and the mall/store/park didn't bother to watch your kid for you, either.
What happened to the kids was horrible, and from the article at least some of those who actually did the harm have been locked up. This is good. But what happened on MySpace can (and probably does) happen on any other social site, in various large-scale chat rooms, even through e-mail groups. They shouldn't be sued for it.