I tend to assume that most of this stuff ends up being a problem with hyper-codification and wacky case law. That, and our fetish for high conviction rates. We want to see prosecutors put as many people as possible behind bars. In turn, they can self-congratulate on finding "zomg child porns!" where there many not have been any in the first place.
I don't think most reasonable people would just convict someone for having a photo of their kid playing in the bathtub, unless they were instructed that they had to rule based on some BS existing case law... which only serves to reinforce the next absurd case. But then maybe my estimation of my fellow citizens is too optimistic.
I'd always imagined the trick there is to present your case in a, "It's $350 per store, one time, but it'll cost you $1000/yr, per store, in lost/broken equipment and wasted man hours if we don't".
My understanding is that our countries intelligence agencies presently do maintain private networks that are air-gapped from the internet and often use multiple terminals to work between the two.
I don't love them either, but this won't happen. For nearly everyone browsing the web, shortened urls aren't a problem. It's a process that has added utility for both parties and "just works".
Or put another way, when people stop liking Twitter AND knowing how many clicks they've gotten through urls... THEN it'll stop.
Exactly. Microsoft is terrible about this sort of thing. They already had the Courier, then they shelved it.
It was one of the few MS projects where people seemed to really like the device and got exciting about buying an MS product. Then they just didn't come to market.
So MS... tell me when you actually have a product shipping to the local big-box store. Then I'll care.
I use them, because they have their use. I just tend to use ones that don't involve user tracking and always give someone a heads-up on where they're going.
That said, there are plenty of url shortening services that have analytics built in. HootSuite is a popular one for business users.
Chatter is lame. I couldn't convince a single one of our users to make use of it even if I wanted to.
I sincerely doubt this "20,000 companies are using it" statement. That sounds like typical Benioff (he's a big mouth). Ok, so there are 20,000 companies with Chatter enabled. That doesn't mean people are actually using it. Maybe in some of those, one user logged in and tinkered with it for 5 minutes.
The issue is breach of contract. Two parties voluntarily entered into an agreement. One part broke their end of the contract, the other exercised the clauses relevant to said breech. There's really nothing else to argue about here and everything about it seems completely on the up-and-up. There is absolutely no right to free speech issue here.
If people want to argue about whether or not they'd host at Rackspace anymore, that's a different discussion altogether. However, it shouldn't be confused with any perceived rights or responsibilities outside of contract law.
Where the later is "registered or licensed within certain jurisdictions to offer professional services directly to the public" and "The professional status and the actual practice of professional engineering is legally defined and protected by a government body."
It makes no difference to me, but I can see why it does to some. I've also frequently seen a clever way of discerning between the two... where "Capital E, Engineer" indicates someone who is somehow registered and licensed to provide services that are "legally defined and protected by a government".
I thought this as well, but it seems like it's useful anyway. First, if it's used against you, you'd know that your account has been compromised and contact Facebook in an out-of-band way to solve the problem. This is in everyones best interest. It's also possible that there's a secondary level of authentication with a higher degree of confidence that can be used to deal with this.
Scenario might then go:
1) Spammer gets in and tries to lock you out. 2) You find that you can't get in to your account. 3) You perform secondary authentication (above and beyond std user/pass/email) to prove you're you. 4) Get exclusive access returned to you, forced FB PW change, recommendation to change email PWD, lock out spammer.
I agree with many - that these suits are absurd. Nobody caused them $2900 in damages by downloading the film. However, I don't think they should be blaming themselves for deciding not to release it as soon as it was finished. I think that's entirely their decision to make with their work.
I know it's not quite the same, but if I finish a desirable software project and decide not to release it for a few months (for whatever reason), I don't think that means it's my fault if someone manages to wrest a copy from me and distribute it online for free. When it's all said-and-done, I'd say it's the person who took the software [movie] and willfully distributed it. The people who download and use it illegally are complicit, but any suit against an individual downloader should have to be for a rational amount.
As has been brought up a million times before, I think part of the issue is the method of distribution - in that most swarm nodes are both a downloader and a distributor. There's really no arguing against the technological merits of this method, but it seems like it's a more precarious position when it comes to future legal action.
True, though it seems like the number of these that aren't used as a client end to a hosted service somewhere are dwindling. Either that, or they still require the ability to "phone home" to make them usable. It's just a bad situation. I get why publishers want DRM, and I get why gamers don't.
In the meantime, Silverlight doesn't support many features across platforms. As a quick example, try using your Netflix streaming on Linux with no DRM support.:(
It's also potentially a violation of any number of anti-spying laws. Is it actually legal for a school to install a video camera in my home?
To be clear, I'm not arguing this, as I don't have enough information on this story. But my first thought is... didn't the kids voluntarily bring school cameras (laptops with obvious cameras) into their homes? Weren't they required to sign them out against some kind of document that says (at least) something like, "this is our device, we can do whatever we want with it, including activating anti-theft measures, entirely at our discretion"? If not, then the school most certainly screwed up. Though even then it would seem like everyone had a reasonable expectation that the school could do whatever they want with their equipment, locally or remotely... even if we find this particular action distasteful (accident or not).
Again, I'm not really disagreeing, just curious... without wanting to read months of back stories and differing accounts on the subject.;)
Slashdot Mirror
I tend to assume that most of this stuff ends up being a problem with hyper-codification and wacky case law. That, and our fetish for high conviction rates. We want to see prosecutors put as many people as possible behind bars. In turn, they can self-congratulate on finding "zomg child porns!" where there many not have been any in the first place.
I don't think most reasonable people would just convict someone for having a photo of their kid playing in the bathtub, unless they were instructed that they had to rule based on some BS existing case law... which only serves to reinforce the next absurd case. But then maybe my estimation of my fellow citizens is too optimistic.
I'd always imagined the trick there is to present your case in a, "It's $350 per store, one time, but it'll cost you $1000/yr, per store, in lost/broken equipment and wasted man hours if we don't".
My understanding is that our countries intelligence agencies presently do maintain private networks that are air-gapped from the internet and often use multiple terminals to work between the two.
I don't love them either, but this won't happen. For nearly everyone browsing the web, shortened urls aren't a problem. It's a process that has added utility for both parties and "just works".
Or put another way, when people stop liking Twitter AND knowing how many clicks they've gotten through urls... THEN it'll stop.
Yeah, helicopters. Turns out they're complicated things to keep in the air. :)
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=10/09/11/2150229
Also, there's no conveniently damning repository of abandoned closed source projects
Is tucows still around?
Businesses might be huge consumers of tablet devices that don't need 3g capabilities.
Restaurants, event facility staff, managers, etc.
Exactly. Microsoft is terrible about this sort of thing. They already had the Courier, then they shelved it.
It was one of the few MS projects where people seemed to really like the device and got exciting about buying an MS product. Then they just didn't come to market.
So MS... tell me when you actually have a product shipping to the local big-box store. Then I'll care.
IIRC, USTREAM (et al) already have the live streaming video option for mobile phones.
I use them, because they have their use. I just tend to use ones that don't involve user tracking and always give someone a heads-up on where they're going.
That said, there are plenty of url shortening services that have analytics built in. HootSuite is a popular one for business users.
If the attacker requires the stack trace, I feel better about this already. Is that a requirement of this exploit?
While I do see unhandled exceptions kicking stack traces to remote clients far too often, at least I know I've always covered that.
Chatter is lame. I couldn't convince a single one of our users to make use of it even if I wanted to.
I sincerely doubt this "20,000 companies are using it" statement. That sounds like typical Benioff (he's a big mouth). Ok, so there are 20,000 companies with Chatter enabled. That doesn't mean people are actually using it. Maybe in some of those, one user logged in and tinkered with it for 5 minutes.
Exactly.
The issue is breach of contract. Two parties voluntarily entered into an agreement. One part broke their end of the contract, the other exercised the clauses relevant to said breech. There's really nothing else to argue about here and everything about it seems completely on the up-and-up. There is absolutely no right to free speech issue here.
If people want to argue about whether or not they'd host at Rackspace anymore, that's a different discussion altogether. However, it shouldn't be confused with any perceived rights or responsibilities outside of contract law.
I blame facebook.
I've often heard it said (and it makes sense to me) that much of the argument here is over the difference between this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineer
and this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_Engineer
Where the later is "registered or licensed within certain jurisdictions to offer professional services directly to the public" and "The professional status and the actual practice of professional engineering is legally defined and protected by a government body."
It makes no difference to me, but I can see why it does to some. I've also frequently seen a clever way of discerning between the two... where "Capital E, Engineer" indicates someone who is somehow registered and licensed to provide services that are "legally defined and protected by a government".
And I'm not even much of a fan of the original Star Trek (do I lose my slashdot membership for saying this?)
Not if, in return, you state for the record that Star Wars is WAY awesomer.
Similar to what you said, being that it's based on XBMC, Boxee is quite nice.
I've had good luck with this on linux, though I also miss the Netflix support. :(
I thought this as well, but it seems like it's useful anyway. First, if it's used against you, you'd know that your account has been compromised and contact Facebook in an out-of-band way to solve the problem. This is in everyones best interest. It's also possible that there's a secondary level of authentication with a higher degree of confidence that can be used to deal with this.
Scenario might then go:
1) Spammer gets in and tries to lock you out.
2) You find that you can't get in to your account.
3) You perform secondary authentication (above and beyond std user/pass/email) to prove you're you.
4) Get exclusive access returned to you, forced FB PW change, recommendation to change email PWD, lock out spammer.
I agree with many - that these suits are absurd. Nobody caused them $2900 in damages by downloading the film. However, I don't think they should be blaming themselves for deciding not to release it as soon as it was finished. I think that's entirely their decision to make with their work.
I know it's not quite the same, but if I finish a desirable software project and decide not to release it for a few months (for whatever reason), I don't think that means it's my fault if someone manages to wrest a copy from me and distribute it online for free. When it's all said-and-done, I'd say it's the person who took the software [movie] and willfully distributed it. The people who download and use it illegally are complicit, but any suit against an individual downloader should have to be for a rational amount.
As has been brought up a million times before, I think part of the issue is the method of distribution - in that most swarm nodes are both a downloader and a distributor. There's really no arguing against the technological merits of this method, but it seems like it's a more precarious position when it comes to future legal action.
True, though it seems like the number of these that aren't used as a client end to a hosted service somewhere are dwindling. Either that, or they still require the ability to "phone home" to make them usable. It's just a bad situation. I get why publishers want DRM, and I get why gamers don't.
Well yeah, a guy can dream. :)
In the meantime, Silverlight doesn't support many features across platforms. As a quick example, try using your Netflix streaming on Linux with no DRM support. :(
I don't need that kind of speed at that price in my phone or my fridge.
Well sure, I can see where most don't, but I'd like that. And it seems like breakthroughs like this often herald cost reductions across the line.
I'd like this one on a pico board for my drone project though. :)
It's also potentially a violation of any number of anti-spying laws. Is it actually legal for a school to install a video camera in my home?
To be clear, I'm not arguing this, as I don't have enough information on this story. But my first thought is... didn't the kids voluntarily bring school cameras (laptops with obvious cameras) into their homes? Weren't they required to sign them out against some kind of document that says (at least) something like, "this is our device, we can do whatever we want with it, including activating anti-theft measures, entirely at our discretion"? If not, then the school most certainly screwed up. Though even then it would seem like everyone had a reasonable expectation that the school could do whatever they want with their equipment, locally or remotely... even if we find this particular action distasteful (accident or not).
Again, I'm not really disagreeing, just curious... without wanting to read months of back stories and differing accounts on the subject. ;)
7 is right out.
This they will make sure of.
I'm not sure about the viability of this business plan. There simply isn't enough child pornography on your average home computer.