July 21, 2001
The Honorable Brad Sherman
1524 Longworth Building
Washington, DC 20515-0524
Dear Congressman Sherman,
Several months ago, I had the opportunity to talk with you after you spoke at Temple Judea in West Hills. At that time, I attempted to convey to you my concern about some of the more onerous provisions of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). Recent events have deepened my concern, and as one of your voting constituents, I ask you to work towards the repeal of the DMCA.
While I am fully in favor of creators retaining control over distribution of their works, the DMCA goes several steps further. The "anti-circumvention" provision restricts time-honored Fair Use rights of consumers, and essentially also destroys the First Sale doctrine. These, in and of themselves, could be considered a reason to work towards its repeal. However, the actual situation is much worse.
(Any references given in this letter are World Wide Web links, I don't have access to the necessary hard copy.)
The DMCA has had a chilling effect on academic research. Professor Edward Felten, a distinguished professor, who was also one of the lead witnesses for the Department of Justice in the Microsoft anti-trust trial, was recently prevented from delivering an academic paper on information hiding and watermarks (see http://www.eff.org/Legal/Cases/Felten_v_RIAA). This sort of chilling effect is precisely what the First Amendment is designed to prevent.
Again, that would be sufficient to work towards overturning. Even worse, however, the criminal provisions of the DMCA have been invoked against a Russian national, Dmitry Sklyarov, who performed "anti-circumvention" work in Russia for his employer, where he broke no Russian law. He came to the US to deliver a speech about his work, and was arrested subsequent to that speech. This sets a dangerous precedent. What would the US government do, if a US citizen was arrested for violating foreign law, while the act was performed in the US where it was perfectly legal? Needless to say, the irony of this occuring to a Russian citizen is immense, and embarrassing to the United States.
Probably because the X-Window System (not X Windows) predated MS Windows?
OT: Nobody knows you're a dog
on
IANAL
·
· Score: 2
The old New Yorker cartoon about how 'on the Web no one knows you are a dog,' is so true.
Not any more. Now, they not only know that you're a dog, but they know what breed of dog you are, what brand of dog food you eat, and which kind of chew toys you like.
and you can get connected at over 50kbps on a 56k modem, something that I suspect most slashdotters (myself included) have never managed anywhere else in the world
Totally off topic, but before I went to DSL, I regularly got 52K out of my 56K modem.
The problem with Star Wars, though, is that the real threat isn't from an ICBM from a rogue state (such as N. Korea or Iraq or Libya), but from terrorist NBC (Nuke/Bio/Chem) weapons, which are man portable.
How is Star Wars going to protect anyone from a suicide bomber with a suitcase nuke?
Clarke's First Law: When a distinguished but elderly scientist says that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he says it is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
Clarke's Second Law: The only way of finding the limits of the possible is by going beyond them into the impossible.
Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguisable from magic.
In "The Lost Worlds of 2001", Clarke describes the experience of writing the novel and the screenplay simultaneously. He really wanted Saturn's moon Iapetus (Japetus) because of its 6:1 brightness curve, but the FX guys convinced him to go with Jupiter in the movie.
I could see billing the guy for the difference in electrical use between a sleeping machine and a machine running RC5. In CA, nowadays, that's probably not an insignificant amount. Perhaps his employer was budgeting for the Energy*Star savings on those computers?
A $500K fine is ridiculous, and 15 years has *GOT* to be unconstitutional under the 8th amendment.
When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
SCSI-3 FCP has a 10Km cable length. Is that long enough for you?
SCSI-3 divorced the transport and access protocols. Yes, parallel SCSI has limitations, but you can run SCSI over Fibre Channel (SCSI-FCP) and even IP (iSCSI).
Slashdot Mirror
I hope that Khan doesn't get his hands on this! Why, he might blow up the Mutara Nebula!
KHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNN!!!!!! KHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!
You forgot 5. Looking for Britney Spears MP3s.
Donating (to) Corporations More Authority?
July 21, 2001
The Honorable Brad Sherman
1524 Longworth Building
Washington, DC 20515-0524
Dear Congressman Sherman,
Several months ago, I had the opportunity to talk with you after you spoke at Temple Judea in West Hills. At that time, I attempted to convey to you my concern about some of the more onerous provisions of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). Recent events have deepened my concern, and as one of your voting constituents, I ask you to work towards the repeal of the DMCA.
While I am fully in favor of creators retaining control over distribution of their works, the DMCA goes several steps further. The "anti-circumvention" provision restricts time-honored Fair Use rights of consumers, and essentially also destroys the First Sale doctrine. These, in and of themselves, could be considered a reason to work towards its repeal. However, the actual situation is much worse.
(Any references given in this letter are World Wide Web links, I don't have access to the necessary hard copy.)
The DMCA has had a chilling effect on academic research. Professor Edward Felten, a distinguished professor, who was also one of the lead witnesses for the Department of Justice in the Microsoft anti-trust trial, was recently prevented from delivering an academic paper on information hiding and watermarks (see http://www.eff.org/Legal/Cases/Felten_v_RIAA). This sort of chilling effect is precisely what the First Amendment is designed to prevent.
Again, that would be sufficient to work towards overturning. Even worse, however, the criminal provisions of the DMCA have been invoked against a Russian national, Dmitry Sklyarov, who performed "anti-circumvention" work in Russia for his employer, where he broke no Russian law. He came to the US to deliver a speech about his work, and was arrested subsequent to that speech. This sets a dangerous precedent. What would the US government do, if a US citizen was arrested for violating foreign law, while the act was performed in the US where it was perfectly legal? Needless to say, the irony of this occuring to a Russian citizen is immense, and embarrassing to the United States.
Here are some references to the Sklyarov case:
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,45298, 00 .html (Wired)
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/archiv es /2001/jul/18/512096646.html (Las Vegas Sun)
http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/010718/n17166094_2.html (Reuters)
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nyt/20010718/tc/u_s _a rrests_russian_cryptographer_as_copyright_violator _1.html (New York Times)
Congressman Sherman, please help ordinary people by working to repeal this draconian law.
Sincerely,
etc...
44.1Khz by 16-bits.
My G-d! That was probably one of the most readable legal documents I have ever seen!
Probably because the X-Window System (not X Windows) predated MS Windows?
The old New Yorker cartoon about how 'on the Web no one knows you are a dog,' is so true.
Not any more. Now, they not only know that you're a dog, but they know what breed of dog you are, what brand of dog food you eat, and which kind of chew toys you like.
and you can get connected at over 50kbps on a 56k modem, something that I suspect most slashdotters (myself included) have never managed anywhere else in the world
Totally off topic, but before I went to DSL, I regularly got 52K out of my 56K modem.
Didn't you see GalaxyQuest?
The problem with Star Wars, though, is that the real threat isn't from an ICBM from a rogue state (such as N. Korea or Iraq or Libya), but from terrorist NBC (Nuke/Bio/Chem) weapons, which are man portable.
How is Star Wars going to protect anyone from a suicide bomber with a suitcase nuke?
Clarke's First Law: When a distinguished but elderly scientist says that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he says it is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
Clarke's Second Law: The only way of finding the limits of the possible is by going beyond them into the impossible.
Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguisable from magic.
In "The Lost Worlds of 2001", Clarke describes the experience of writing the novel and the screenplay simultaneously. He really wanted Saturn's moon Iapetus (Japetus) because of its 6:1 brightness curve, but the FX guys convinced him to go with Jupiter in the movie.
I could see billing the guy for the difference in electrical use between a sleeping machine and a machine running RC5. In CA, nowadays, that's probably not an insignificant amount. Perhaps his employer was budgeting for the Energy*Star savings on those computers?
A $500K fine is ridiculous, and 15 years has *GOT* to be unconstitutional under the 8th amendment.
I always thought that nuke yield data was classified?
I still have my KK log-log duplex. I need a new index though. The glass cracked.
Clarke's Laws (in order):
When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
New job, no Unix. But my old KSH prompt was thus:
.profile:
export NEST=0
export HOST=`hostname`
.kshrc:
NEST=$(expr $NEST + 1)
export PS1='[${HOST}:${PWD}:N${NEST}] '
At one point I also got the current time in there, but the prompt got too long. Note, it's
been a while, the quoting syntax on PS1 may be off...
Well...the Nazi's used that same excuse, as did Stalin, and just about every other abusive regime in the history of man.
By the power vested in my by Godwin's Law, I hereby declare this thread ended.
That version came from Bartlett's, as posted on Bartleby.
Specific quote ref is here.
Hey, those guys over there are dumping chemicals into the river!!! Let's go burn down that SUV dealership to protest!!!!
I Know it's Ben Franklin. The fscking 120 character limit hit me, dude.
Will my computer explode if I write DeCSS in CSS?
SCSI-3 FCP has a 10Km cable length. Is that long enough for you?
SCSI-3 divorced the transport and access protocols. Yes, parallel SCSI has limitations, but you can run SCSI over Fibre Channel (SCSI-FCP) and even IP (iSCSI).
Nice try.
Actually, that's only 8.0 zebibytes, which is the SI binary prefix for 2**70.
9.4 Zettabytes is correct. Zetta is the decimal prefix.