The fact that we have whole swarms of people that like to "interpret" what the framers meant is sick in and of itself. It was fairly clear when it was written.
Um... Language is always subject to interpretation. The framers wrote the fourth amendment as prohibiting unreasonable searches and seizures. One way or another, what is "reasonable" must be interpreted. Etc.
Lock your phone people and then provide the code when a warrant is given. Nothing is in plain view and therefore not subject to search without *consent* or *warrant*.
The fourth only protects against 'unreasonable' searches without a warrant. A search incident to a lawful arrest has been, for almost a century, been (per SCOTUS interpretation) reasonable, and requires no warrant nor consent. Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383, 392 (1914): "the right on the part of the Government, always recognized under English and American law, to search the person of the accused when legally arrested to discover and seize the fruits or evidences of crime. This right has been uniformly maintained in many cases."
Or, "The right without a search warrant contemporaneously to search persons lawfully arrested while committing crime and to search the place where the arrest is made in order to find and seize things connected with the crime as its fruits or as the means by which it was committed, as well as weapons and other things to effect an escape from custody, is not to be doubted." Agnello v. United States, 269 U.S. 20, 30 (1925)
United States v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218. 235 (1973): A custodial arrest of a suspect based on probable cause is a reasonable intrusion under the Fourth Amendment; that intrusion being lawful, a search incident to the arrest requires no additional justification. It is the fact of the lawful arrest which establishes the authority to search, and we hold that in the case of a lawful custodial arrest a full search of the person is not only an exception to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment, but is also a `reasonable' search under that Amendment."
This is pretty old stuff, every first-year law student gets this in Constitutional Criminal Procedure. I'm not aware of any SCOTUS case law directly on point, but lower courts have been applying SILA ("Search Incident to a Lawful Arrest") to electronic devices for decades, e.g., United States v. Lynch, 908 F.Supp. 284, 287 (D.V.I. 1995): "the search and retrieval of the telephone numbers from [the defendant's] pager was justified as being incident to a valid arrest, even though [the defendant] had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of the pager." (Cited with approval in U.S. v. BROOKES, Crim. No. 2004-0154 (V.I. 2005).) Cellphones and pagers have been held to be akin to wallets and address books which, if on a suspect's person or within the sphere of his immediate control at the time of arrest, are fair game.
So, not exactly sure how this is news; it's certainly nothing new.
But whatever the hell could it mean? The only thing remotely valid I can think of is: 699-3192 might be his phone number, but since it clearly doesn't form a proper "byte" without some padding... it's an ignorant gibberish.
Not to defend the tool with the website, but... Assuming a binary number must align with an arbitrary byte length (nothing says a byte *has* to be a power of two in length; maybe the system designer had a fetish for prime numbers) is ignorant gibberish.
I'm going to assume you've never worked lower level, with, e.g., FPGAs or embedded microcontrollers, etc.
I've been meaning to sit down and draft a license for my own (and others', obviously) use, that would be sort of a hybrid license. Binary (re)distribution would be prohibited, but source code could / would be freely available and (re)distributable. Businesses, people who don't want to run `make`, etc., could have an easy one-click installer downloaded for a fee; shell / compiler literate people would have the source and could work with it and continue to pass it along, but couldn't offer binary downloads, just source.
One thing I noticed (and was thankful for, though I'm sure the security measures aren't exactly what we'd consider strong - most likely an embedded device id) as I started getting Macs with bundled remote controls: by default, any Apple remote can control any remote-equipped Mac, but you can "Pair" one remote to one computer. http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302545 I don't know if other manufacturers are doing this, but it makes sense.
A wake-up call to a 1 in a 1000000000000000000000000000000 chance of a piece of rock hitting us? I couldn't care less, and even if I did care, there is nothing I can do about it.
I think OS X is not a very 'native UNIX environment'
I think you're wrong.:) OS X is, in fact, an officially certified UNIX[tm]. http://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/brand3555.htm It conforms to the Single UNIX Specification Version 3. It's not just "UNIX-like," it is UNIX. Linux is not.:) (Granted, only because (presumably) no one cares enough to cough up the $$ to certify a Linux distribution, and/or put in the effort it would (again, presumably) take to tweak Linux to pass the certification process.)
I used to be a pretty hard-core Linux on the Desktop guy. Every PC I ever built or bought (laptops) dual-booted Windows and Linux. At one point in college, I was even writing my essays in HTML to print from within Netscape 4, as there weren't any decent Linux word processing software (that was free;)) circa late 1996.
I kept Windows around because there was-and-is a lot of stuff that Linux doesn't do well, if at all; Photoshop (GIMP wasn't a contender until GimpShop, too little too late), Office, Final Cut Pro, StarCraft, etc. OpenOffice (NeoOffice) is finally to the point where it's almost an Office replacement (in my line of work, I have to volley a document back and forth a dozen times or more between my office and third parties', with Track Changes and Comments and those aren't in OpenOffice).
I returned to Mac (my last Mac previously was a PowerBook 5300/100 with System 7.5.x and MachTen (http://www.tenon.com/products/machten/) around OS X Jaguar, on an iBook G3/600. That thing was indestructible (fell off the back of my motorcycle at ~40mph and survived outdoors for a week before I recovered it, still works 4 years later), and led to a PowerBook, MacBook Pro, MacBook (engineering school tote-along), iMac, Mac mini HTPC...
What I love? Running Perl / Apache / PHP / MySQL / etc. in a comfortable "native" UNIX environment, while still having all my GUI goodness with Mail.app, Safari.app, Preview.app, Office 2004, StarCraft (yeah, I'm way behind the times in gaming, don't care, don't have time), etc., all a click away as native apps. Plus, now with VMWare and Windows, I can keep around the software I need for school (XILINX, Visual Studio Pro 2005, etc) on one platform. Front Row is a great HTPC interface. AppleScript lets me automate flipping between it and my Elgato EyeTV, with the sleek little Apple remote control. Awesome industrial design (Macs are pretty; most PCs look cobbled together, with the possible exception of the VAIOs).
I haven't run Linux in years, except at the office where we setup a big Linux file / backup server. Even my home server is now an old PowerMac G4 with matched (and software mirrored) internal hard drives and OS X Tiger Server. The UI is better, the third-party application support is there, and most software I want is either a single-click.dmg install or no more difficult to install than it is on Linux (through Darwin Ports and fink), often easier (fink vs. yum, for instance).
Most servers I'd deploy would still be Linux, as Apple's hardware is expensive in that market niche and there's no value add (I'm going to be running the same AMP software stack regardless of OS X or Linux as the underlying platform). But on the desktop, unless you're totally cash-starved, there's no compelling reason for me or most of the techie people I know to run Linux on the desktop, and lots of good reasons to use OS X instead.
I think, if a judge were ever to rule on the specific question of song ripping, it would be held as a fair use, extending the thinking in RIAA v. Diamond Multimedia (which extended the Audio Home Recording Act to 'space shifting' a track -- copying it from a computer to a handheld, for instance. http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=9th&navby=case&no=9856727
Just because something has a fair use defense, however, does not mean it was authorized. In fact, asserting a fair use defense is a tacit acknowledgement that the copyright holder did not authorize the use, hence the need to rely on the fair use doctrine.
Finally, even if ripping tracks is a fair use (likely), putting them online for someone else (especially if that someone else is not within the sphere of your private household, going by the text of the AHRA and the legislative record behind it) to download is certainly unauthorized and (per every court that's looked at it, e.g., Napster, Grokster, Aimster, etc) not within the fair use doctrine.
Nice to know there's no bias... (I know, I know, with a 5-digit UID I should know better.) Guys, intellectual property is real, there's a body of law defining it going back almost three full centuries (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Anne). Intellectual property is what powers the GNU licenses, etc. Intellectual property represents ~5% of the GDP of the United States (think our economy is in poor shape at the moment? Cut out IP related commerce and see where we're at -- if you still have a job and a home).
Bell did not invent the telephone. It was Antonio Meucci!
Are you sure? I've read a bit of the caselaw from that time (UNITED STATES v. BELL TELEPHONE CO., 128 U.S. 315 (1888), etc), which looked at Meucci's work as well as Bell's, and I don't believe anyone had fully connected the dots before Bell did. Now, I wasn't there, obviously, but panels of learned jurists were, and heard the evidence presented by all sides...
The experiments and invention of one Antonio Meucci, relating to the transmission of speech by an electrical apparatus, for which invention a caveat was filed in the United States patentoffice, December 28,1871, renewed in December, 1882, and again in December, 1883, do not contain any such elements of an electric speaking telephone as would give the same priority over or interfere with the said Bell patent. American Bell Telephone Co. v. Globe Telephone Co., 31 Fed. 728-735 (S.D.N.Y., 1887)
Not everyone is willing to dedicate themselves to multi-year plans, or spend a not-insignificant number of dollars on a handset so they can pay (exhorbitantly) as they go.
Not that I advocate Wal-Hell for anything, but $19.99 will get you a pre-paid phone that costs less than a pay phone ($.12/minute, vs. $.35) to operate.
Although Apple seem to have a halo on Slashdot, they are every bit as nasty as Microsoft in this department. Apple want to lock you in to the Fairplay every bit as much as Microsoft wants to lock you in to Windows Media DRM.
ORLY? "Convincing [the big music companies] to license their music to Apple and others DRM-free will create a truly interoperable music marketplace. Apple will embrace this wholeheartedly." http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/
I thought "grand theft auto" was a very standard English word with a lot of history prior to Rockstar's usage, can they REALLY claim trademark on it?
It's a descriptive term ordinarily, yes, but within the specific context of electronic gaming it's acquired (at least arguably) sufficient 'secondary meaning' to be a 'source identifier' for Rockstar's series, and can therefore be protected by trademark.
Or even just unexpected commercial trips; I recently flew to Las Vegas in a rented Cessna that didn't pass pre-flight when I went to take off (bad magnetos). I left the bird with the local FBO mechanic and got a ride to McCarran (I was at Henderson), booking a Southwest flight back to L.A. from my Treo during the drive over, as I had to be back in L.A. later that day for an important meeting.
She was convicted of distribution. Actually, she was also convicted to pay more than 9000$ for each song she allegedly distributed. But there wasn't a shred of evidence that she distributed anything.
For that simple reason, she should not have been convicted.
First, she wasn't convicted of anything, she was held civilly liable, there are key differences (standards of proof, penalties, etc). But setting that aside...
She was found liable under an existing (though not very substantially fleshed out) legal theory that making available constitutes distribution. The only case really on point that I'm aware of is a low-level (I think it was a district court) opinion that a library, by having books in its stacks and references to them in its card catalog, was liable for 'distribution' even though no proof was entered into the record that the books had ever been checked out. (That gives rise to whether or not 'distribution' can occur over the Internet; I've personally discussed this with Fred von Lohman, and we disagree;), I think it can and there's caselaw (e.g., Playboy v. Frena) that supports that, along with language in dicta all the way up to SCOTUS.) I actually briefed this at one point in my career, wonder where that document is...
With a history of being wrong and smearing those with a different view, he sets a precedent as being an unreliable news source and despite whatever appologies are given - a liability to Forbes as a trustworthy news source. He would have to work to regain credibility with people checking the facts against what he said.
SCO's case was at least strong enough to survive early motions to dismiss, despite IBM's high-powered team of lawyers working to debunk the SCO version as thoroughly as possible. That a judge, after years of discovery and motions, was able to finally decide authoritatively that SCO was in the wrong and the geeks/nerds/whatever had it right, doesn't mean the case didn't, at some point, appear to have at least some merit. Saying "journalist shoulda checked his facts better" misses the point, I think -- if the facts were that blatant the litigation would have been over in 3 months, not 3 years. I can forgive him for not seeing through something it took a learned and experienced jurist some time to get through.
But you're right, the plots of those shows (including Battle of the Planets, aka Voltron) were simplistic and preposterous. "Together with the good planets of the solar system..." Evil witches, coffin-shaped star ships, helpful mice...
Anyway, we al know KITT was built using captured Cylon technology as part of the Battlestar Galactica's crew's attempt to bring Earth up to technological parity...
Slashdot Mirror
The fact that we have whole swarms of people that like to "interpret" what the framers meant is sick in and of itself. It was fairly clear when it was written.
Um... Language is always subject to interpretation. The framers wrote the fourth amendment as prohibiting unreasonable searches and seizures. One way or another, what is "reasonable" must be interpreted. Etc.
Lock your phone people and then provide the code when a warrant is given. Nothing is in plain view and therefore not subject to search without *consent* or *warrant*.
The fourth only protects against 'unreasonable' searches without a warrant. A search incident to a lawful arrest has been, for almost a century, been (per SCOTUS interpretation) reasonable, and requires no warrant nor consent. Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383, 392 (1914): "the right on the part of the Government, always recognized under English and American law, to search the person of the accused when legally arrested to discover and seize the fruits or evidences of crime. This right has been uniformly maintained in many cases."
Or, "The right without a search warrant contemporaneously to search persons lawfully arrested while committing crime and to search the place where the arrest is made in order to find and seize things connected with the crime as its fruits or as the means by which it was committed, as well as weapons and other things to effect an escape from custody, is not to be doubted." Agnello v. United States, 269 U.S. 20, 30 (1925)
United States v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218. 235 (1973): A custodial arrest of a suspect based on probable cause is a reasonable intrusion under the Fourth Amendment; that intrusion being lawful, a search incident to the arrest requires no additional justification. It is the fact of the lawful arrest which establishes the authority to search, and we hold that in the case of a lawful custodial arrest a full search of the person is not only an exception to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment, but is also a `reasonable' search under that Amendment."
This is pretty old stuff, every first-year law student gets this in Constitutional Criminal Procedure. I'm not aware of any SCOTUS case law directly on point, but lower courts have been applying SILA ("Search Incident to a Lawful Arrest") to electronic devices for decades, e.g., United States v. Lynch, 908 F.Supp. 284, 287 (D.V.I. 1995): "the search and retrieval of the telephone numbers from [the defendant's] pager was justified as being incident to a valid arrest, even though [the defendant] had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of the pager." (Cited with approval in U.S. v. BROOKES, Crim. No. 2004-0154 (V.I. 2005).) Cellphones and pagers have been held to be akin to wallets and address books which, if on a suspect's person or within the sphere of his immediate control at the time of arrest, are fair game.
So, not exactly sure how this is news; it's certainly nothing new.
But whatever the hell could it mean? The only thing remotely valid I can think of is: 699-3192 might be his phone number, but since it clearly doesn't form a proper "byte" without some padding ... it's an ignorant gibberish.
Not to defend the tool with the website, but... Assuming a binary number must align with an arbitrary byte length (nothing says a byte *has* to be a power of two in length; maybe the system designer had a fetish for prime numbers) is ignorant gibberish.
I'm going to assume you've never worked lower level, with, e.g., FPGAs or embedded microcontrollers, etc.
7. His "binary logo" - probably mandatory for any firm calling itself CyberLaw - is "11010101011010100101000". That's 23 bits.
11010101011010100101000 is a valid base-2 number.
I've been meaning to sit down and draft a license for my own (and others', obviously) use, that would be sort of a hybrid license. Binary (re)distribution would be prohibited, but source code could / would be freely available and (re)distributable. Businesses, people who don't want to run `make`, etc., could have an easy one-click installer downloaded for a fee; shell / compiler literate people would have the source and could work with it and continue to pass it along, but couldn't offer binary downloads, just source.
One thing I noticed (and was thankful for, though I'm sure the security measures aren't exactly what we'd consider strong - most likely an embedded device id) as I started getting Macs with bundled remote controls: by default, any Apple remote can control any remote-equipped Mac, but you can "Pair" one remote to one computer. http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302545 I don't know if other manufacturers are doing this, but it makes sense.
A wake-up call to a 1 in a 1000000000000000000000000000000 chance of a piece of rock hitting us? I couldn't care less, and even if I did care, there is nothing I can do about it.
Two words: Bruce Willis.
I think OS X is not a very 'native UNIX environment'
I think you're wrong. :) OS X is, in fact, an officially certified UNIX[tm]. http://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/brand3555.htm It conforms to the Single UNIX Specification Version 3. It's not just "UNIX-like," it is UNIX. Linux is not. :) (Granted, only because (presumably) no one cares enough to cough up the $$ to certify a Linux distribution, and/or put in the effort it would (again, presumably) take to tweak Linux to pass the certification process.)
I used to be a pretty hard-core Linux on the Desktop guy. Every PC I ever built or bought (laptops) dual-booted Windows and Linux. At one point in college, I was even writing my essays in HTML to print from within Netscape 4, as there weren't any decent Linux word processing software (that was free ;)) circa late 1996.
I kept Windows around because there was-and-is a lot of stuff that Linux doesn't do well, if at all; Photoshop (GIMP wasn't a contender until GimpShop, too little too late), Office, Final Cut Pro, StarCraft, etc. OpenOffice (NeoOffice) is finally to the point where it's almost an Office replacement (in my line of work, I have to volley a document back and forth a dozen times or more between my office and third parties', with Track Changes and Comments and those aren't in OpenOffice).
I returned to Mac (my last Mac previously was a PowerBook 5300/100 with System 7.5.x and MachTen (http://www.tenon.com/products/machten/) around OS X Jaguar, on an iBook G3/600. That thing was indestructible (fell off the back of my motorcycle at ~40mph and survived outdoors for a week before I recovered it, still works 4 years later), and led to a PowerBook, MacBook Pro, MacBook (engineering school tote-along), iMac, Mac mini HTPC...
What I love? Running Perl / Apache / PHP / MySQL / etc. in a comfortable "native" UNIX environment, while still having all my GUI goodness with Mail.app, Safari.app, Preview.app, Office 2004, StarCraft (yeah, I'm way behind the times in gaming, don't care, don't have time), etc., all a click away as native apps. Plus, now with VMWare and Windows, I can keep around the software I need for school (XILINX, Visual Studio Pro 2005, etc) on one platform. Front Row is a great HTPC interface. AppleScript lets me automate flipping between it and my Elgato EyeTV, with the sleek little Apple remote control. Awesome industrial design (Macs are pretty; most PCs look cobbled together, with the possible exception of the VAIOs).
I haven't run Linux in years, except at the office where we setup a big Linux file / backup server. Even my home server is now an old PowerMac G4 with matched (and software mirrored) internal hard drives and OS X Tiger Server. The UI is better, the third-party application support is there, and most software I want is either a single-click .dmg install or no more difficult to install than it is on Linux (through Darwin Ports and fink), often easier (fink vs. yum, for instance).
Most servers I'd deploy would still be Linux, as Apple's hardware is expensive in that market niche and there's no value add (I'm going to be running the same AMP software stack regardless of OS X or Linux as the underlying platform). But on the desktop, unless you're totally cash-starved, there's no compelling reason for me or most of the techie people I know to run Linux on the desktop, and lots of good reasons to use OS X instead.
This is a trend that's been building for a while (I jumped in 2002, the biggest geeks in my circle jumped shortly thereafter): http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/29/1818256
Just because something has a fair use defense, however, does not mean it was authorized. In fact, asserting a fair use defense is a tacit acknowledgement that the copyright holder did not authorize the use, hence the need to rely on the fair use doctrine.
Finally, even if ripping tracks is a fair use (likely), putting them online for someone else (especially if that someone else is not within the sphere of your private household, going by the text of the AHRA and the legislative record behind it) to download is certainly unauthorized and (per every court that's looked at it, e.g., Napster, Grokster, Aimster, etc) not within the fair use doctrine.
Nice to know there's no bias... (I know, I know, with a 5-digit UID I should know better.) Guys, intellectual property is real, there's a body of law defining it going back almost three full centuries (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Anne). Intellectual property is what powers the GNU licenses, etc. Intellectual property represents ~5% of the GDP of the United States (think our economy is in poor shape at the moment? Cut out IP related commerce and see where we're at -- if you still have a job and a home).
Bell did not invent the telephone. It was Antonio Meucci!
Are you sure? I've read a bit of the caselaw from that time (UNITED STATES v. BELL TELEPHONE CO., 128 U.S. 315 (1888), etc), which looked at Meucci's work as well as Bell's, and I don't believe anyone had fully connected the dots before Bell did. Now, I wasn't there, obviously, but panels of learned jurists were, and heard the evidence presented by all sides...
Not everyone is willing to dedicate themselves to multi-year plans, or spend a not-insignificant number of dollars on a handset so they can pay (exhorbitantly) as they go.
Not that I advocate Wal-Hell for anything, but $19.99 will get you a pre-paid phone that costs less than a pay phone ($.12/minute, vs. $.35) to operate.
Although Apple seem to have a halo on Slashdot, they are every bit as nasty as Microsoft in this department. Apple want to lock you in to the Fairplay every bit as much as Microsoft wants to lock you in to Windows Media DRM.
ORLY? "Convincing [the big music companies] to license their music to Apple and others DRM-free will create a truly interoperable music marketplace. Apple will embrace this wholeheartedly." http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/
] ] And you thought Air Wolf had badass headgear.
] Thank you for that bit of nostalgia! Now I'm browsing YouTube for cool startup sequences and intro's of AirWolf again! :)
If you watch the episode Moffett's Ghost, you'll learn Airwolf was programmed in AppleSoft BASIC.
I thought "grand theft auto" was a very standard English word with a lot of history prior to Rockstar's usage, can they REALLY claim trademark on it?
It's a descriptive term ordinarily, yes, but within the specific context of electronic gaming it's acquired (at least arguably) sufficient 'secondary meaning' to be a 'source identifier' for Rockstar's series, and can therefore be protected by trademark.
Or even just unexpected commercial trips; I recently flew to Las Vegas in a rented Cessna that didn't pass pre-flight when I went to take off (bad magnetos). I left the bird with the local FBO mechanic and got a ride to McCarran (I was at Henderson), booking a Southwest flight back to L.A. from my Treo during the drive over, as I had to be back in L.A. later that day for an important meeting.
Shit like this will cripple America...
She was convicted of distribution. Actually, she was also convicted to pay more than 9000$ for each song she allegedly distributed. But there wasn't a shred of evidence that she distributed anything.
For that simple reason, she should not have been convicted.
First, she wasn't convicted of anything, she was held civilly liable, there are key differences (standards of proof, penalties, etc). But setting that aside...
She was found liable under an existing (though not very substantially fleshed out) legal theory that making available constitutes distribution. The only case really on point that I'm aware of is a low-level (I think it was a district court) opinion that a library, by having books in its stacks and references to them in its card catalog, was liable for 'distribution' even though no proof was entered into the record that the books had ever been checked out. (That gives rise to whether or not 'distribution' can occur over the Internet; I've personally discussed this with Fred von Lohman, and we disagree ;), I think it can and there's caselaw (e.g., Playboy v. Frena) that supports that, along with language in dicta all the way up to SCOTUS.) I actually briefed this at one point in my career, wonder where that document is...
They made their mistakes long ago with Apple III/Lisa and/or other lines and have done nothing but win consumers over since then.
...With the IIvx, and the Newton, and the clone licensing program, and the Performa line, and the PowerBook 5300, and... ;)
I see, I see... Yes, and what is that in pubes? (Or gold-pressed latinum, if you want to stay in-context...)
With a history of being wrong and smearing those with a different view, he sets a precedent as being an unreliable news source and despite whatever appologies are given - a liability to Forbes as a trustworthy news source. He would have to work to regain credibility with people checking the facts against what he said.
SCO's case was at least strong enough to survive early motions to dismiss, despite IBM's high-powered team of lawyers working to debunk the SCO version as thoroughly as possible. That a judge, after years of discovery and motions, was able to finally decide authoritatively that SCO was in the wrong and the geeks/nerds/whatever had it right, doesn't mean the case didn't, at some point, appear to have at least some merit. Saying "journalist shoulda checked his facts better" misses the point, I think -- if the facts were that blatant the litigation would have been over in 3 months, not 3 years. I can forgive him for not seeing through something it took a learned and experienced jurist some time to get through.
And Jerry Fletcher. And... OTOH, this will be a boon for the Paxans
...That life here, began ... out there, far across the universe...
along with his sidekick: a pontiac grand am
Grand Am?! Um, no. The Knight Industries Two Thousand (K.I.T.T.) was a Firebird Trans-Am. Compare and contrast: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88 /800px-83firebird.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2a /'85-'88_Pontiac_Grand_Am.jpg
But you're right, the plots of those shows (including Battle of the Planets, aka Voltron) were simplistic and preposterous. "Together with the good planets of the solar system..." Evil witches, coffin-shaped star ships, helpful mice...
Anyway, we al know KITT was built using captured Cylon technology as part of the Battlestar Galactica's crew's attempt to bring Earth up to technological parity...
No. http://imdb.com/title/tt1060277/