If the purpose of providing user's location in real time is strictly for saving life and health of the same user (eg. if user dialed in for emergency, or is being actively searched for as a missing person, or as a person under stress as in danger of committing suicide, or a person suffering from Alzheimer's and known to wander off, etc..) then this measure seems logical and justified. However, if the purpose of the measure is to track all the people all the time, and recording this for yet unknown reasons, than the measure is to be feared and rejected as unjustified and unproportionate. There's never a question whether or not technology helps in fighting the crime. The real question is whether society (especially democratic society) wants that kind of intrusion in lives of law obedient citizens.
It's already clogged and impossible to get. So in essence MoD may yet find another way to prevent general public from getting the documents.
Create rule to "slashdot" web site hosting documents..
While the satellite is indeed in space, the company that created it, that owns it and operates it is on Earth. It is true, however, that producing satellite itself to the judge would be next to impossible. Only blueprints are available, plans of operations, and other documentation as well.
BT as an ISP failed it's customers at just about every level imaginable. Not only they infringed on privacy of it's customers, but it was apparently done deliberately and on a grand scale. I haven't found direct reasoning behind these actions, but spying on customers and citizens is nowadays "covered" by the omnypotent argument, that there's a ongoing "war on terror". I just wonder what happends next in the name of the fight against terrorism?
Funny you should say that, but the taxpayers, workers (in or out of the ENRON), pensioners and many others would cleraly be better off if ENRON never went bancrupt, if ENRON never had such fate as it did. However, ENRON, at the time, represented "new breed of capitalism" where very top of the management went far (literally) to cover for some highly dubious activities directed squarely to pockets of their shareholders (for example, misrepresenting accounting sheets is and should always be a biiig no-no), to personally profit on such moves, while neglecting core activities of the company. ENRON quickly and savagely climbed the ladder of success, obviously with little or no regard to either of those later affected by it's fall. So I say to you that comparing company that works hand in hand with partners (suppliers and buyers, employees and government) for 120 years (IBM was established in 1888 according to Wikipedia) with wanabees like ENRON is preposterous, hineous and highly offensive. And no, I don't work for the IBM, I have never worked for the IBM and my comments are based on practical knowledge. Govt. action is simply wrong on many levels.
Psyichology behind certain brutal actions (by the government) may not always be clear or immediately understandable. But this latest move is certainly brutal beyond comprehension, and while some other companies were sued (by the federal government AND some states) never had "remedy" come in form of immediate and abrupt cancellations of new govt. orders, let alone immediate and mandated switch to other suppliers and technologies. And the last action is the most troubling and worrisome. Once the switch is made it's hard to get contracts back, and even in that case damage is usually permanet (on both sides, on side of the supplier and the govt. side). The damage on the side of the government is paid by the government (and subsequently taxpayers, that's why this action is NOT in the interest of the taxpayers), but the damage sustained by the supplier falls onto the company, employees, shareholders, subcontractors and the technology itself. What we see here is not mere EPA action. It's coordinated and orchestrated attack on "Big Blue" by the top. And it opens myriad of other possibilities. It's not about "just 1%" of the revenue. Tomorrow government may say that IBM cannot get ANY federal money (in effect imposing economic sanctions against the company, which this first move surely looks like) even from their perspective buyers. Thus, anyone making business with the IBM stays dry of federal orders. In effect forcing them as well to switch to another (competing) technologies. This issue may not (in the long run) be related to the technology (Open Source vs. closed source) or with the politics (Democrats vs. Republicans), or even with the wild acusations that the Open Source movement is a new breed of communism (and therefore un-American). But right now this "example" is so wildly out of the ordinary that all options about the main motives are on the table.
ISPs went long way from leasing lines from the "common carriers" and utilizing publicly available infrasturture in order to build the Internet to the point in time today, where they themselves are part of the public infrastructure, and they themselves are in many cases owners of the physical links that connect places. In the same time they went from lucrative business models to minimal margin (or even below margin in certain cases), while offering ever greater bandwith and for lower price. Now, that multitude of options, combind with the shere geograpy gives historically quite diverse ZOO of ISPs with different business models, different technologies, different business practices. But what's the result of all of it? Clearly, result is that only the strongest will survive. ALL business models have already been tried by at least some ISPs, and if the survived, the model survived. If they failed, model failed with the ISP. It's that simple. And today we can only see that only the biggest companies can offer a lot of bandwith, for acceptable price, with poor or bad customer service. But then again, the same can be said for almost any utility company. In essence, I just proved that "offering Internet" today has glamour of "offering Electricity" or "offering gas". And while we can understand "pay per use" with gas and electricity I would warn anyone against favoring "pay per use" in Internet. Internet became popular JUST BECAUSE it had different pricing model, where one could surf the content next door or accross the globe for the same price. Where one could just use it moderately, or heavily, and still pay the same (if it's the same speed). Internet is a reality. It can be crushed only if it's taken over by (geographic-wise) monopolies. Only then they could choose whatever business model, pump the price and get away with it. And we had that in times of old TELCO's. Never forget that TELCOs were the last to start their own IP routers.
How can taxpayers benefit from such move? Given the multithousend workforce within IBM (and their subcontractors) which also tend to be US taxpayers? So US government had chosen to be acuser, judge and the jury and had chosen to punish company heavily involved with the government orders with the death penalty with no due process or some other remedy if there are illegal activities involved? Oh, incidently, IBM is also publicly traded company (NYSE: IBM) and it's stock is also included in the Dow Jones Industrial Index. Not that it matters since it's direct competition is also inside, so fall of the IBM might benefit direct competition. This all stinks!
I wonder when will first "drone arrest" happend in the USA? In Iraq I remember some Iraqi army units surrendered to the overfying US drone so there's obviously a clear precedent.
Luckily, in civil law (continental legal systems) clock starts ticking once defendent is being served by the court a lawsuit of the plaintiff, so he/she can enter his legal arguments.
In essence, suing people should never be "easy" and whoever brings lawsuit against anyone, there should be a clear knowledge that mandating defendant to defend is in itself causing (him or her) harm.
"Checks and balances" comes in the form of clearly stating legal costs and accompanying fees with each and ever filing, so that once case is closed, with the court decision or by retracting of the lawsiut, there's always a clear track record of certain fees. These usually can't be over certain limit, so even if an ordinary guy sues big company, that big company can seldom dry the plaintiff broke (if he loses)..
In all, civil law works pretty well and is quite logical. Given the fact that it has roots in Roman law it's probably even understandable.
However, this issue has nothing particular in common with the RIAA itself. Slashdot readers should know that within US legal system (common law, precedents, etc..) simply there's much different way of arguing things before the court. Almost everythig must be brought before the court. Within so called "continental law" (civil law, etc..) in most of the morld reimbursing attorney fees to the winning side of the case is a rule rather then an exception that has to be argued specially.
Complacency of the average people with the nazism, or with the communism for that matter is something that people in the USA should bear in mind.
If great nations like Germans or Russians, who gave to the world numerous philosophers, artists and scientists could fell for the Hitler and Lenin/Stalin, is it that difficult to understand that dictatorial behaviour can happend in almost every society?
If these polls give true verdict on the status of "average Joe/Jane", that he/she indeed doesn't care if the government roams around with impunity, then we can almost say Liberty in the USA is all but dead.
This is definetelly very promissing technology.
I can easily imagine letting one of those (tethered, why now) devices into sewer (or even into toilet) two, three blocks away from the target.
One should know that after the WWII and horrible crimes against humanity done in the name of Nazi ideology, but likewise supported by then accepted laws, that Germany worked hard to correct it and is today probably leader in human rights. German Constitution emphasises strongly on human rights. And it's deliberate. Democracies that above all else charish human rights deliberatly choose not to legislate in such way that would undermine very foundations of the democratic society. Reasoning behind it is very simple. True democracies STRONGLY BELIEVE that these foundations are strong enough to withstand undemocratic, violent and rude attacks, and that it's not nearly necessary to become undemocratic, violent and rude in order to fight back. I can only applaud Germany on it's sanity in this (sometimes) insane world.
When I say "trial" or due process I have "disciplinary hearing" in mind. Included with this is right to an appeal.
Regarding you claim that supreme court's decision can be used in this case I beg to differ. Simply put, if you aggree with the CNN's position that merely writing the (private) blog under one's own name immediately impacts employer, that would consequently mean that almost ANY activity where employee uses his/her name directly impacts employer in suct way that employer has the right to dismiss employee. This surely isn't the case of corporate espionage. And provided that the employee did not write about the CNN or his superiors, I fail to see the ground for the lawfull dismissal. In my opinion (but I might be wrong, if not all the detailes of the case are being told correctly) the guy should have the right to claim compensation, if the action of the CNN proves to be illegal even by CNN's own rules.
Actually, it's the opinion of the CNN that he violated it. Clearly, it's the case of judge and the jury.
If they thought he violated company policy, they should have asked him to clarify himself on that. To put it simply, they punished him (don't say that being fired isn't a very severe punishment) without a trial or due process.
In my opinion his rights are being violated because of his activities in his free time. No employer should have the right to dictate what one should or should not do outside of the office. Employer is NOT and SHOULD NOT be entitled for an employee's name as a brand. Any yet, CNN's handbook instructs employees to behave as if they are owned by the CNN.
Little physics says that potential energy stored in, say, 10 kg weight, on 1 m height is 98,1 J (or Watt-seconds).
Now, either I miscalculated something or that lamp would work precisely 9,81 seconds, the most (100% utilisation, no energy lost due to friction, heating, etc..), if the power output should be 10 W?
More convinient would be winding a spring.
And, of course, both methods in any case just collect energy from the person, light operator, transform it into potential energy, and release it through a lighting mechanism.
This most certainly WILL have impact on OpenBSD's status as "secure" OS. Indeed, OpenBSD claims to have "proactive" approach towards security whereas this issue should and will diminish some of the OpenBSD's "security goodwill".
Let's face it.
Internet wou never, ever become so popular and omnipresent if there wouldn't be advance efforts by NSFNET, EUNET, UUNET and hundreds if not thousends bigger and smaller commercial ISPs that WERE NOT telcos.
Telcos charging schemes always went for maximising immediate profit and never really understood the possibility that shere size of the market can bring whole new services, opportunities and, yes, more money.
Telcos in fact DID HAVE global data network even in days "before WWW" (pre-1993). And, boy, was it expensive to use.
So if we compare cost of one SMS, we could as well compare it to the price telcos were charging for 1 KB of data transferred over global (X.25) network. (In fact, using global X.25 network is still a bit expensive, albeit safe..).
To put it simply, telcos cannot raise price for the Internet access, even if they would like, because existing competition still prevents that.
On the other hand, SMS are very lucrative and existing price models and charging scheme prevent bigger competition in that sector (price scissors).
Slashdot Mirror
If the tiniest amount of storage is on molecular level, the total capacity of "memory" of a person is HUGE.
If the purpose of providing user's location in real time is strictly for saving life and health of the same user (eg. if user dialed in for emergency, or is being actively searched for as a missing person, or as a person under stress as in danger of committing suicide, or a person suffering from Alzheimer's and known to wander off, etc..) then this measure seems logical and justified. However, if the purpose of the measure is to track all the people all the time, and recording this for yet unknown reasons, than the measure is to be feared and rejected as unjustified and unproportionate. There's never a question whether or not technology helps in fighting the crime. The real question is whether society (especially democratic society) wants that kind of intrusion in lives of law obedient citizens.
Because you need a job.
My first association: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMgBA8CZq2s at 1:50
It's already clogged and impossible to get. So in essence MoD may yet find another way to prevent general public from getting the documents. Create rule to "slashdot" web site hosting documents..
Not only that, but also Big Bang isn't singularity..
While the satellite is indeed in space, the company that created it, that owns it and operates it is on Earth. It is true, however, that producing satellite itself to the judge would be next to impossible. Only blueprints are available, plans of operations, and other documentation as well.
BT as an ISP failed it's customers at just about every level imaginable. Not only they infringed on privacy of it's customers, but it was apparently done deliberately and on a grand scale. I haven't found direct reasoning behind these actions, but spying on customers and citizens is nowadays "covered" by the omnypotent argument, that there's a ongoing "war on terror". I just wonder what happends next in the name of the fight against terrorism?
Funny you should say that, but the taxpayers, workers (in or out of the ENRON), pensioners and many others would cleraly be better off if ENRON never went bancrupt, if ENRON never had such fate as it did. However, ENRON, at the time, represented "new breed of capitalism" where very top of the management went far (literally) to cover for some highly dubious activities directed squarely to pockets of their shareholders (for example, misrepresenting accounting sheets is and should always be a biiig no-no), to personally profit on such moves, while neglecting core activities of the company. ENRON quickly and savagely climbed the ladder of success, obviously with little or no regard to either of those later affected by it's fall. So I say to you that comparing company that works hand in hand with partners (suppliers and buyers, employees and government) for 120 years (IBM was established in 1888 according to Wikipedia) with wanabees like ENRON is preposterous, hineous and highly offensive. And no, I don't work for the IBM, I have never worked for the IBM and my comments are based on practical knowledge. Govt. action is simply wrong on many levels.
Psyichology behind certain brutal actions (by the government) may not always be clear or immediately understandable. But this latest move is certainly brutal beyond comprehension, and while some other companies were sued (by the federal government AND some states) never had "remedy" come in form of immediate and abrupt cancellations of new govt. orders, let alone immediate and mandated switch to other suppliers and technologies. And the last action is the most troubling and worrisome. Once the switch is made it's hard to get contracts back, and even in that case damage is usually permanet (on both sides, on side of the supplier and the govt. side). The damage on the side of the government is paid by the government (and subsequently taxpayers, that's why this action is NOT in the interest of the taxpayers), but the damage sustained by the supplier falls onto the company, employees, shareholders, subcontractors and the technology itself. What we see here is not mere EPA action. It's coordinated and orchestrated attack on "Big Blue" by the top. And it opens myriad of other possibilities. It's not about "just 1%" of the revenue. Tomorrow government may say that IBM cannot get ANY federal money (in effect imposing economic sanctions against the company, which this first move surely looks like) even from their perspective buyers. Thus, anyone making business with the IBM stays dry of federal orders. In effect forcing them as well to switch to another (competing) technologies. This issue may not (in the long run) be related to the technology (Open Source vs. closed source) or with the politics (Democrats vs. Republicans), or even with the wild acusations that the Open Source movement is a new breed of communism (and therefore un-American). But right now this "example" is so wildly out of the ordinary that all options about the main motives are on the table.
ISPs went long way from leasing lines from the "common carriers" and utilizing publicly available infrasturture in order to build the Internet to the point in time today, where they themselves are part of the public infrastructure, and they themselves are in many cases owners of the physical links that connect places. In the same time they went from lucrative business models to minimal margin (or even below margin in certain cases), while offering ever greater bandwith and for lower price. Now, that multitude of options, combind with the shere geograpy gives historically quite diverse ZOO of ISPs with different business models, different technologies, different business practices. But what's the result of all of it? Clearly, result is that only the strongest will survive. ALL business models have already been tried by at least some ISPs, and if the survived, the model survived. If they failed, model failed with the ISP. It's that simple. And today we can only see that only the biggest companies can offer a lot of bandwith, for acceptable price, with poor or bad customer service. But then again, the same can be said for almost any utility company. In essence, I just proved that "offering Internet" today has glamour of "offering Electricity" or "offering gas". And while we can understand "pay per use" with gas and electricity I would warn anyone against favoring "pay per use" in Internet. Internet became popular JUST BECAUSE it had different pricing model, where one could surf the content next door or accross the globe for the same price. Where one could just use it moderately, or heavily, and still pay the same (if it's the same speed). Internet is a reality. It can be crushed only if it's taken over by (geographic-wise) monopolies. Only then they could choose whatever business model, pump the price and get away with it. And we had that in times of old TELCO's. Never forget that TELCOs were the last to start their own IP routers.
How can taxpayers benefit from such move? Given the multithousend workforce within IBM (and their subcontractors) which also tend to be US taxpayers? So US government had chosen to be acuser, judge and the jury and had chosen to punish company heavily involved with the government orders with the death penalty with no due process or some other remedy if there are illegal activities involved? Oh, incidently, IBM is also publicly traded company (NYSE: IBM) and it's stock is also included in the Dow Jones Industrial Index. Not that it matters since it's direct competition is also inside, so fall of the IBM might benefit direct competition. This all stinks!
I wonder when will first "drone arrest" happend in the USA? In Iraq I remember some Iraqi army units surrendered to the overfying US drone so there's obviously a clear precedent.
Luckily, in civil law (continental legal systems) clock starts ticking once defendent is being served by the court a lawsuit of the plaintiff, so he/she can enter his legal arguments. In essence, suing people should never be "easy" and whoever brings lawsuit against anyone, there should be a clear knowledge that mandating defendant to defend is in itself causing (him or her) harm. "Checks and balances" comes in the form of clearly stating legal costs and accompanying fees with each and ever filing, so that once case is closed, with the court decision or by retracting of the lawsiut, there's always a clear track record of certain fees. These usually can't be over certain limit, so even if an ordinary guy sues big company, that big company can seldom dry the plaintiff broke (if he loses).. In all, civil law works pretty well and is quite logical. Given the fact that it has roots in Roman law it's probably even understandable.
However, this issue has nothing particular in common with the RIAA itself. Slashdot readers should know that within US legal system (common law, precedents, etc..) simply there's much different way of arguing things before the court. Almost everythig must be brought before the court. Within so called "continental law" (civil law, etc..) in most of the morld reimbursing attorney fees to the winning side of the case is a rule rather then an exception that has to be argued specially.
Good man has died. R.I.P.
Complacency of the average people with the nazism, or with the communism for that matter is something that people in the USA should bear in mind. If great nations like Germans or Russians, who gave to the world numerous philosophers, artists and scientists could fell for the Hitler and Lenin/Stalin, is it that difficult to understand that dictatorial behaviour can happend in almost every society? If these polls give true verdict on the status of "average Joe/Jane", that he/she indeed doesn't care if the government roams around with impunity, then we can almost say Liberty in the USA is all but dead.
This is definetelly very promissing technology. I can easily imagine letting one of those (tethered, why now) devices into sewer (or even into toilet) two, three blocks away from the target.
One should know that after the WWII and horrible crimes against humanity done in the name of Nazi ideology, but likewise supported by then accepted laws, that Germany worked hard to correct it and is today probably leader in human rights. German Constitution emphasises strongly on human rights. And it's deliberate. Democracies that above all else charish human rights deliberatly choose not to legislate in such way that would undermine very foundations of the democratic society. Reasoning behind it is very simple. True democracies STRONGLY BELIEVE that these foundations are strong enough to withstand undemocratic, violent and rude attacks, and that it's not nearly necessary to become undemocratic, violent and rude in order to fight back. I can only applaud Germany on it's sanity in this (sometimes) insane world.
When I say "trial" or due process I have "disciplinary hearing" in mind. Included with this is right to an appeal. Regarding you claim that supreme court's decision can be used in this case I beg to differ. Simply put, if you aggree with the CNN's position that merely writing the (private) blog under one's own name immediately impacts employer, that would consequently mean that almost ANY activity where employee uses his/her name directly impacts employer in suct way that employer has the right to dismiss employee. This surely isn't the case of corporate espionage. And provided that the employee did not write about the CNN or his superiors, I fail to see the ground for the lawfull dismissal. In my opinion (but I might be wrong, if not all the detailes of the case are being told correctly) the guy should have the right to claim compensation, if the action of the CNN proves to be illegal even by CNN's own rules.
Actually, it's the opinion of the CNN that he violated it. Clearly, it's the case of judge and the jury. If they thought he violated company policy, they should have asked him to clarify himself on that. To put it simply, they punished him (don't say that being fired isn't a very severe punishment) without a trial or due process. In my opinion his rights are being violated because of his activities in his free time. No employer should have the right to dictate what one should or should not do outside of the office. Employer is NOT and SHOULD NOT be entitled for an employee's name as a brand. Any yet, CNN's handbook instructs employees to behave as if they are owned by the CNN.
Little physics says that potential energy stored in, say, 10 kg weight, on 1 m height is 98,1 J (or Watt-seconds). Now, either I miscalculated something or that lamp would work precisely 9,81 seconds, the most (100% utilisation, no energy lost due to friction, heating, etc..), if the power output should be 10 W? More convinient would be winding a spring. And, of course, both methods in any case just collect energy from the person, light operator, transform it into potential energy, and release it through a lighting mechanism.
Hmm, first post? That's nice from M$. Why did they do that? Because .DOC/.XLS, etc. formats will in any case became obsolete? I wonder.
This most certainly WILL have impact on OpenBSD's status as "secure" OS. Indeed, OpenBSD claims to have "proactive" approach towards security whereas this issue should and will diminish some of the OpenBSD's "security goodwill".
Let's face it. Internet wou never, ever become so popular and omnipresent if there wouldn't be advance efforts by NSFNET, EUNET, UUNET and hundreds if not thousends bigger and smaller commercial ISPs that WERE NOT telcos. Telcos charging schemes always went for maximising immediate profit and never really understood the possibility that shere size of the market can bring whole new services, opportunities and, yes, more money. Telcos in fact DID HAVE global data network even in days "before WWW" (pre-1993). And, boy, was it expensive to use. So if we compare cost of one SMS, we could as well compare it to the price telcos were charging for 1 KB of data transferred over global (X.25) network. (In fact, using global X.25 network is still a bit expensive, albeit safe..). To put it simply, telcos cannot raise price for the Internet access, even if they would like, because existing competition still prevents that. On the other hand, SMS are very lucrative and existing price models and charging scheme prevent bigger competition in that sector (price scissors).