That is all well and good, but how will we know anything about maintaining long-term presence in space if we do not have people in space for a long time?
How will we have people in space for a long time without the International Space Station?
How will we build the ISS without something to fly the components up there?
Something with a crane, people, room for tools and room for the very component that needs to be installed?
How will be able to do anything effective at the ISS without more than the three astronauts?
How will we be able to have more than three astronauts without another lifeboat that can ferry these people away?
And, incidently, how will we test, cheaply, new materials that can allow us to build a new reusable spacecraft that doesn't need expensive repairs between each mission without building a small craft whose sole job it is to go through the atmostphere?
And how do we gather, safely and cheaply, enough information about Mars to finally know where to send Men and what they should look for?
The answer to all these questions are:
Build the International Space Station
Either maintain the existing Shuttle or build a new type of shuttle
The OSP for lifeboat duties. This also tests new re-entry materials and techniques
Send robots and probes to Mars
Whooops, that sounds exactly like what NASA/ESA/RKA is doing.
The problem with this whole "we need a destination to go to" argument is that everybody has that destination in mind already. We're talking Mars, for the love of God, and the only reason we aren't, is that politically it is inedible to set out goals "this high".
The reason NASA got so far, so fast in Apollo-mode is that, comparetively, their tasks was simpler than what it is now.
Sending people to a destination 300000 km. away and sending people to a destination 78 million km. away is not the same. Putting people on Mars and returning them safely is a job with a logarithmic job in difficulty compared to landing on the Moon.
Especially when everybody is whining that these guys aren't doing their job.
And for the love of God, and unrelated to this comment's parent, NASA should use the X-Prize winners????? These people will manage to put humans a 100 km. into the air. Contrast, again, with 78 million km.
> Yeah, I can picture that, too. The question is what that picture has to do with this device.
Hey man, lighten up:) I was hoping that opening line was going to be quite easy to identify as an attempt to be humorous, but apparently I failed on all accounts.
I applaud your belief in this technology, although I take offense to your suggestion that I didn't RTFA. I did infact read the article before I commented, but unlike you I have a hard time believing any system to be 100% failsafe.
Naturally we are talking gain vs. risk, and I'm not against using nuclear power when this equation ends up on the positive side of "gain". I would personally not like living right next to a nuclear reactor that is supposed to run without monitoring personnel (or, at best where things are dumbed down to the point that untrained personnel can see if the light is green or red).
I tried suggesting this by prefacing my post with NIMBY, as in my backyard, but seemingly this intent was not apparent enough.
I've worked with lots of systems supposedly failsafe and I've experienced most of them fail at some point. The difference between failure in a locking clamp of a German Leopard Attack Bridge and a failure in a nuclear reactor is that the German attack bridge falls to the ground and a nuclear reactor failing has a very high chance of contaminating the surroundings quickly.
Your premise is that all foreseen circumstances have been safeguarded. My premise is that some unforseen circumstance will happen anyway.
Well, isn't this exciting. Especially the part of the article that goes: The reactor has no operator or maintainance personnel
I can just picture the breakdown in the middle of a cold Alaskan night, Papa running around glowing green, shouting for Mama to fetch him the anti-radiation suit.
You have to be darn sure your machine (a NUCLEAR REACTOR!) works before you decide to leave it running in the heart of a rural community in the middle of bloody ALASKA without personnel. How long is it going to take before qualified people can even get up there?
This stuff wouldn't be necesary if web designers were better doing their jobs.
Sure it might be warranted on all the poorly designed web pages, but when you arrive at one that is well designed, you know exactly where to go.
No, in that case I haven't explained myself well enough.
What I am saying is that you have to go down to get a private-public keyset *once* and then you can vote online for the next many referendums/elections.
Well, I dare the position that the internet can be made a lot more secure than a regular hole-puncher voting-machine ever will.
In some countries/referendums you tick a box; with more than one tick the vote is void. What's to prevent someone from ticking an already ticked vote when counting them up. Redundacy, of course, but Mr. Smith walking around, making sure that 15 other Mr. Smiths don't void the votes they have been given is hardly what I would call a secure system.
In other countries/referendums you use a hole puncher. I mean, I hardly even need to comment on a hole puncher... suffice to say that Gore and Bush quarreled over these machines quite a bit.
In Denmark, where I've lived, you need to brind ID to the voting booths (often a passport). You go down, get counted (yes, Mr. So'n'So have votes) and tick your box. Nothing prevents me from giving my passport (or whatever other means of ID that is deemed fitting) to someone else and let them vote in my name.
Contrast to internet voting, where a full ID check can be done once (i.e. you go down to your city hall, you bring ID, they check your ID, they double-check your ID, they check your picture etc.) and then, once, they issue you a voting key (say, an in-expensive USB dongle) with a private-public keyset. With this dongle there's a mathematically much smaller chance of fraud than there ever will be with paper-based referendums.
Sure, everything can be hacked... paper-based, internet based, the issue here is of course with trust. Whether you or my mom would trust internet voting more than paper voting is another matter entirely and lends itself to a much larger discussion about referendum validity, but mathematically it is indeed harder to fake a Diffie key-exchange than it is to throw in a few extra paper votes in the bag when counting.
That's exactly what I do, but now the period of me having to empty the Inbox out is getting to an annoying level. I more or less have to do it every day (I get around 120 spams/day... yes it is an old account), but in an effort to make it simple for myself I have to do it once there's a 100 new spams (that way I can just click the "select all" and delete everything).
If people feel they are being treated fairly, they will not act against you. However, you could use the exact same argument about allowing Germany to invade Austria in pre WWII times. Germany sure felt treated fairly and peace was preserved... for a while.
The problem is that there's a huge gap between how the US administration feels they treat the world and how the rest of the world feels treated. Although lobbyism is certainly a problem I think anyone can appreciate that Bush - no matter his levels of stipidity - doesn't wake up every day thinking "Today I'm gonna treat some anonymous Muhammed really badly, so I can buy his oil for cheap".
No, the US administration feels they are doing the best they can and if I push aside my fears of being an etnocentric ass, I honestly think the Western World wishes the best for everyone else.
I think the real question is: Does the people living under a despotic rule feel badly treated because they are or because they have corrupt governments telling them they are? No matter how much your everyday life sucks, nothing beats a scapegoat (again look at pre WWII Germany).
If the case is that these areas breed terrorism because of misinformation about our true intent then surely the only right thing to do is to change their leadership. We will get no where by apeacement towards dictatorships. Although the US was no bleached hero during the Cold War, it is hard to rule out that their decision not to follow an apeacement policy towards the USSR landed results. Would West-berliners have been more or less free if the Allies had pulled out?
However, if the people of the Middle East feels badly treated because truly they are, then it is up to us to change our ways.
Once you've found your own answer to the question "Are we trying to do good or bad?", you will have found the answer to what we should do about dictatorships around the world.
This article is from Jyllands Posten, the largest newspaper in Denmark. I'm quite surprised it hasn't been mentioned on Slashdot, but here's my chance to karma-whore I guess.
Freely translated by me, I'm sure some Dane will correct me. [Source]
=============
Headline: Expensive to spam
Text: In the first case about violating the marketing law regarding spam via email or telefax, the company Fonn Danmark A/S have been handed a fine of 15000 Dkr [= 2020]. More cases are waiting in other juristrictions.
100 Dkr [= 13,46] per illegal email or telefax.
That's how the Sea- and Merchant Court judged a case against Fonn Danmark A/S for violating the marketing law regarding transmittal of unrequested adverts as email or telefax.
The case is the first in Denmark regarding so called spam adverts.
Even though the Consumer Ombudsman had demanded 200.000 Dkr [= 26,935] from the Norwegian company, Consumer Ombudsman Hagen Jørgensen is still happy about the fine, which the court settled at 15000 Dkr.
"We would have liked to see a larger fine, but considering how small the company is, and the fact that the judgement is for 156 spams only, the fine isn't that bad", says Hagen Jørgensen.
Reasons for the size of the fine are many. Amongst others the Sea- and Merchant Court have considered the concrete number of violations, if the company has known about the laws regarding this issue and the size of the company's revenue.
Consumers not pleased
While the Consumer Ombudsman seems reasonable pleased, the judgement makes Aktive Forbrugere [Active Consumers] shake their heads.
"It cannot be considered fair that a company can transmit large amounts of adverts and get off with a fine of 15000 Dkr. Neither can it be considered fair that it is the consumers who need the do something to raise a case like this", says Ole Tange, IT executive at Aktive Forbrugere.
In the case versus Fonn Danmark the company has admitted to transmit 10000 to 15000 emails. Nevertheless the judgement considers the 156 documented emails only.
Part of the case is that Fonn Danmark several times were told that they were violating 6a of the marketing law, which clearly states that without prior consent, companies are not allowed to contact someone by electronic mail, automatic dialing systems or telefax for the purpose of selling goods or services.
In the reminder from the Sea- and Merchant Court it was told that Fonn Danmark was also punished for unnecesarily having stolen peoples' time by forcing them to read and process the unrequested adverts.
But Ole Tange feels that the notion of making a distinction because of Fonn Danmark's size and the number of documented spams opens the floodgates for future abuse of spam emails since it is hard to imagine cases where consumers or the Consumer Ombudsman manages to collect the 100000 of emails which are apparently necesary to increase the size of the fine to a level where it becomes unattractive for companies to speculate in spam-emails.
With last Thursday's judgement, the Consumer Ombudsman hopes companies will think again before they push the button and send unsolicited emails.
Ready for more cases
If the companies dare it anyway, the Consumer Ombudsman is ready to sue. If sent by smaller companies, the Ombudsman will typically contact them and remind them of the law, while larger companies will usually face the police immediately, Special Consultant for the Consumer Office Peter Fogh Knudsen tells. He was the one running the case against Fonn Danmark.
At the moment, Peter Fogh Knudsen estimates that 3 to 4 similar cases are running in other juristrictions.
The Consumer Office also requests Danes to forward spam to spam@fs.dk because that is the most effective way of collecting the documentation for possible violatings of the marketing law.
This judgement for the Danish market comes at a time when Microsoft, AOL Time Warner and Yahoo jointly exclaim spam as the largest threat against the IT sector.
=============
This article is from Jyllands Posten, the largest newspaper in Denmark. I'm quite surprised it hasn't been mentioned on Slashdot, but here's my chance to karma-whore I guess.
Freely translated by me, I'm sure some Dane will correct me. [Source]
=============
Headline: Expensive to spam
Text:
In the first case about violating the marketing law regarding spam via email or telefax, the company Fonn Danmark A/S have been handed a fine of 15000 Dkr [= 2020]. More cases are waiting in other juristriction.
100 Dkr [= 13,46] per illegal email or telefax.
That's how the Sea- and Merchant Court judged a case against Fonn Danmark A/S for violating the marketing law regarding transmittal of unrequested adverts as email or telefax.
The case is the first in Denmark regarding so called spam adverts.
Even though the Consumer Ombudsman had demanded 200.000 Dkr [= 26,935] from the Norwegian company, Consumer Ombudsman Hagen Jørgensen is still happy about the fine, which the court settled at 15000 Dkr.
"We would have liked to see a larger fine, but considering how small the company is, and the fact that the judgement is for 156 spams only, the fine isn't that bad", says Hagen Jørgensen.
Reasons for the size of the fine are many. Amongst others the Sea- and Merchant Court have considered the concrete number of violations, if the company has known about the laws regarding this issue and the size of the company's revenue.
Consumers not pleased
While the Consumer Ombudsman seems reasonable pleased, the judgement makes Aktive Forbrugere [Active Consumers] shake their heads.
"It cannot be considered fair that a company can transmit large amounts of adverts and get off with a fine of 15000 Dkr. Neither can it be considered fair that it is the consumers who need the do something to raise a case like this", says Ole Tange, IT executive at Aktive Forbrugere.
In the case versus Fonn Danmark the company has admitted to transmit 10000 to 15000 emails. Nevertheless the judgement considers the 156 documented emails only.
Part of the case is that Fonn Danmark several times were told that they were violating 6a of the marketing law, which clearly states that without prior consent, companies are not allowed to contact someone by electronic mail, automatic dialing systems or telefax for the purpose of selling goods or services.
In the reminder from the Sea- and Merchant Court it was told that Fonn Danmark was also punished for unnecesarily having stolen peoples' time by forcing them to read and process the unrequested adverts.
But Ole Tange feels that the notion of making a distinction because of Fonn Danmark's size and the number of documented spams opens the floodgates for future abuse of spam emails since it is hard to imagine cases where consumers or the Consumer Ombudsman manages to collect the 100000 of emails which are apparently necesary to increase the size of the fine to a level where it becomes unattractive for companies to speculate in spam-emails.
With last Thursday's judgement, the Consumer Ombudsman hopes companies will think again before they push the button and send unsolicited emails.
Ready for more cases
If the companies dare it anyway, the Consumer Ombudsman is ready to sue. If sent by smaller companies, the Ombudsman will typically contact them and remind them of the law, while larger companies will usually face the police immediately, Special Consultant for the Consumer Office Peter Fogh Knudsen tells. He was the one running the case against Fonn Danmark.
At the moment, Peter Fogh Knudsen estimates that 3 to 4 similar cases are running in other juristrictions.
The Consumer Office also requests Danes to forward spam to spam@fs.dk because that is the most effective way of collecting the documentation for possible violatings of the marketing law.
This judgement for the Danish market comes at a time when Microsoft, AOL Time Warner and Yahoo jointly exclaim spam as the largest threat against the IT sector.
=============
The only thing I am interested in regarding the new version is if I can *finally* get rid of that ugly PGP text cluttering up my messages.
According to the PGP Coperation, the problem with PGP/MIME in Office XP is a problem with, well, Office XP.
Slashdot Mirror
Outlook 2003! Wait, where am I? Slashdot??!?!? Oh Hell. Nice knowing you all.
... they dug too deep.
How will we have people in space for a long time without the International Space Station?
How will we build the ISS without something to fly the components up there?
Something with a crane, people, room for tools and room for the very component that needs to be installed?
How will be able to do anything effective at the ISS without more than the three astronauts?
How will we be able to have more than three astronauts without another lifeboat that can ferry these people away?
And, incidently, how will we test, cheaply, new materials that can allow us to build a new reusable spacecraft that doesn't need expensive repairs between each mission without building a small craft whose sole job it is to go through the atmostphere?
And how do we gather, safely and cheaply, enough information about Mars to finally know where to send Men and what they should look for?
The answer to all these questions are:
- Build the International Space Station
- Either maintain the existing Shuttle or build a new type of shuttle
- The OSP for lifeboat duties. This also tests new re-entry materials and techniques
- Send robots and probes to Mars
Whooops, that sounds exactly like what NASA/ESA/RKA is doing.The problem with this whole "we need a destination to go to" argument is that everybody has that destination in mind already. We're talking Mars, for the love of God, and the only reason we aren't, is that politically it is inedible to set out goals "this high".
The reason NASA got so far, so fast in Apollo-mode is that, comparetively, their tasks was simpler than what it is now.
Sending people to a destination 300000 km. away and sending people to a destination 78 million km. away is not the same. Putting people on Mars and returning them safely is a job with a logarithmic job in difficulty compared to landing on the Moon.
Especially when everybody is whining that these guys aren't doing their job.
And for the love of God, and unrelated to this comment's parent, NASA should use the X-Prize winners????? These people will manage to put humans a 100 km. into the air. Contrast, again, with 78 million km.
Fair enough. You've convinced me. Thanks for filling in my blanks.
Hey man, lighten up :) I was hoping that opening line was going to be quite easy to identify as an attempt to be humorous, but apparently I failed on all accounts.
I applaud your belief in this technology, although I take offense to your suggestion that I didn't RTFA. I did infact read the article before I commented, but unlike you I have a hard time believing any system to be 100% failsafe.
Naturally we are talking gain vs. risk, and I'm not against using nuclear power when this equation ends up on the positive side of "gain". I would personally not like living right next to a nuclear reactor that is supposed to run without monitoring personnel (or, at best where things are dumbed down to the point that untrained personnel can see if the light is green or red).
I tried suggesting this by prefacing my post with NIMBY, as in my backyard, but seemingly this intent was not apparent enough.
I've worked with lots of systems supposedly failsafe and I've experienced most of them fail at some point. The difference between failure in a locking clamp of a German Leopard Attack Bridge and a failure in a nuclear reactor is that the German attack bridge falls to the ground and a nuclear reactor failing has a very high chance of contaminating the surroundings quickly.
Your premise is that all foreseen circumstances have been safeguarded. My premise is that some unforseen circumstance will happen anyway.
3MW according to my source
Hey, will we get those automatic cars too? I hope they are gonna look as nifty as the articles promised us in the 50s.
I must say, after checking up on those blue-prints of Titanic, it does sound very safe too.
The reactor has no operator or maintainance personnel
I can just picture the breakdown in the middle of a cold Alaskan night, Papa running around glowing green, shouting for Mama to fetch him the anti-radiation suit.
You have to be darn sure your machine (a NUCLEAR REACTOR!) works before you decide to leave it running in the heart of a rural community in the middle of bloody ALASKA without personnel. How long is it going to take before qualified people can even get up there?
Hey, if you want a criminally fun language for games, try Blitz Basic ... compiled, not interpreted.
Didn't we try this a few years back? :)
Ehm, yes, so, eh, we agree, right?
This stuff wouldn't be necesary if web designers were better doing their jobs. Sure it might be warranted on all the poorly designed web pages, but when you arrive at one that is well designed, you know exactly where to go.
No, in that case I haven't explained myself well enough. What I am saying is that you have to go down to get a private-public keyset *once* and then you can vote online for the next many referendums/elections.
Well, I dare the position that the internet can be made a lot more secure than a regular hole-puncher voting-machine ever will.
... suffice to say that Gore and Bush quarreled over these machines quite a bit.
... paper-based, internet based, the issue here is of course with trust. Whether you or my mom would trust internet voting more than paper voting is another matter entirely and lends itself to a much larger discussion about referendum validity, but mathematically it is indeed harder to fake a Diffie key-exchange than it is to throw in a few extra paper votes in the bag when counting.
In some countries/referendums you tick a box; with more than one tick the vote is void. What's to prevent someone from ticking an already ticked vote when counting them up. Redundacy, of course, but Mr. Smith walking around, making sure that 15 other Mr. Smiths don't void the votes they have been given is hardly what I would call a secure system.
In other countries/referendums you use a hole puncher. I mean, I hardly even need to comment on a hole puncher
In Denmark, where I've lived, you need to brind ID to the voting booths (often a passport). You go down, get counted (yes, Mr. So'n'So have votes) and tick your box. Nothing prevents me from giving my passport (or whatever other means of ID that is deemed fitting) to someone else and let them vote in my name.
Contrast to internet voting, where a full ID check can be done once (i.e. you go down to your city hall, you bring ID, they check your ID, they double-check your ID, they check your picture etc.) and then, once, they issue you a voting key (say, an in-expensive USB dongle) with a private-public keyset. With this dongle there's a mathematically much smaller chance of fraud than there ever will be with paper-based referendums.
Sure, everything can be hacked
You should come to Scotland where I live. I know a few red-headed guys in kilts that would like to beat that attitude out of you :)
That's exactly what I do, but now the period of me having to empty the Inbox out is getting to an annoying level. I more or less have to do it every day (I get around 120 spams/day ... yes it is an old account), but in an effort to make it simple for myself I have to do it once there's a 100 new spams (that way I can just click the "select all" and delete everything).
I agree with you.
... for a while.
If people feel they are being treated fairly, they will not act against you. However, you could use the exact same argument about allowing Germany to invade Austria in pre WWII times. Germany sure felt treated fairly and peace was preserved
The problem is that there's a huge gap between how the US administration feels they treat the world and how the rest of the world feels treated. Although lobbyism is certainly a problem I think anyone can appreciate that Bush - no matter his levels of stipidity - doesn't wake up every day thinking "Today I'm gonna treat some anonymous Muhammed really badly, so I can buy his oil for cheap".
No, the US administration feels they are doing the best they can and if I push aside my fears of being an etnocentric ass, I honestly think the Western World wishes the best for everyone else.
I think the real question is: Does the people living under a despotic rule feel badly treated because they are or because they have corrupt governments telling them they are? No matter how much your everyday life sucks, nothing beats a scapegoat (again look at pre WWII Germany).
If the case is that these areas breed terrorism because of misinformation about our true intent then surely the only right thing to do is to change their leadership. We will get no where by apeacement towards dictatorships. Although the US was no bleached hero during the Cold War, it is hard to rule out that their decision not to follow an apeacement policy towards the USSR landed results. Would West-berliners have been more or less free if the Allies had pulled out?
However, if the people of the Middle East feels badly treated because truly they are, then it is up to us to change our ways.
Once you've found your own answer to the question "Are we trying to do good or bad?", you will have found the answer to what we should do about dictatorships around the world.
Freely translated by me, I'm sure some Dane will correct me. [Source]
=============
Headline: Expensive to spam
Text:
In the first case about violating the marketing law regarding spam via email or telefax, the company Fonn Danmark A/S have been handed a fine of 15000 Dkr [= 2020]. More cases are waiting in other juristrictions.
100 Dkr [= 13,46] per illegal email or telefax.
That's how the Sea- and Merchant Court judged a case against Fonn Danmark A/S for violating the marketing law regarding transmittal of unrequested adverts as email or telefax.
The case is the first in Denmark regarding so called spam adverts.
Even though the Consumer Ombudsman had demanded 200.000 Dkr [= 26,935] from the Norwegian company, Consumer Ombudsman Hagen Jørgensen is still happy about the fine, which the court settled at 15000 Dkr.
"We would have liked to see a larger fine, but considering how small the company is, and the fact that the judgement is for 156 spams only, the fine isn't that bad", says Hagen Jørgensen.
Reasons for the size of the fine are many. Amongst others the Sea- and Merchant Court have considered the concrete number of violations, if the company has known about the laws regarding this issue and the size of the company's revenue.
Consumers not pleased
While the Consumer Ombudsman seems reasonable pleased, the judgement makes Aktive Forbrugere [Active Consumers] shake their heads.
"It cannot be considered fair that a company can transmit large amounts of adverts and get off with a fine of 15000 Dkr. Neither can it be considered fair that it is the consumers who need the do something to raise a case like this", says Ole Tange, IT executive at Aktive Forbrugere.
In the case versus Fonn Danmark the company has admitted to transmit 10000 to 15000 emails. Nevertheless the judgement considers the 156 documented emails only.
Part of the case is that Fonn Danmark several times were told that they were violating 6a of the marketing law, which clearly states that without prior consent, companies are not allowed to contact someone by electronic mail, automatic dialing systems or telefax for the purpose of selling goods or services.
In the reminder from the Sea- and Merchant Court it was told that Fonn Danmark was also punished for unnecesarily having stolen peoples' time by forcing them to read and process the unrequested adverts.
But Ole Tange feels that the notion of making a distinction because of Fonn Danmark's size and the number of documented spams opens the floodgates for future abuse of spam emails since it is hard to imagine cases where consumers or the Consumer Ombudsman manages to collect the 100000 of emails which are apparently necesary to increase the size of the fine to a level where it becomes unattractive for companies to speculate in spam-emails.
With last Thursday's judgement, the Consumer Ombudsman hopes companies will think again before they push the button and send unsolicited emails.
Ready for more cases
If the companies dare it anyway, the Consumer Ombudsman is ready to sue. If sent by smaller companies, the Ombudsman will typically contact them and remind them of the law, while larger companies will usually face the police immediately, Special Consultant for the Consumer Office Peter Fogh Knudsen tells. He was the one running the case against Fonn Danmark.
At the moment, Peter Fogh Knudsen estimates that 3 to 4 similar cases are running in other juristrictions.
The Consumer Office also requests Danes to forward spam to spam@fs.dk because that is the most effective way of collecting the documentation for possible violatings of the marketing law.
This judgement for the Danish market comes at a time when Microsoft, AOL Time Warner and Yahoo jointly exclaim spam as the largest threat against the IT sector.
=============
Sorry about the crappy formatting. I suck.
This article is from Jyllands Posten, the largest newspaper in Denmark. I'm quite surprised it hasn't been mentioned on Slashdot, but here's my chance to karma-whore I guess. Freely translated by me, I'm sure some Dane will correct me. [Source] ============= Headline: Expensive to spam Text: In the first case about violating the marketing law regarding spam via email or telefax, the company Fonn Danmark A/S have been handed a fine of 15000 Dkr [= 2020]. More cases are waiting in other juristriction. 100 Dkr [= 13,46] per illegal email or telefax. That's how the Sea- and Merchant Court judged a case against Fonn Danmark A/S for violating the marketing law regarding transmittal of unrequested adverts as email or telefax. The case is the first in Denmark regarding so called spam adverts. Even though the Consumer Ombudsman had demanded 200.000 Dkr [= 26,935] from the Norwegian company, Consumer Ombudsman Hagen Jørgensen is still happy about the fine, which the court settled at 15000 Dkr. "We would have liked to see a larger fine, but considering how small the company is, and the fact that the judgement is for 156 spams only, the fine isn't that bad", says Hagen Jørgensen. Reasons for the size of the fine are many. Amongst others the Sea- and Merchant Court have considered the concrete number of violations, if the company has known about the laws regarding this issue and the size of the company's revenue. Consumers not pleased While the Consumer Ombudsman seems reasonable pleased, the judgement makes Aktive Forbrugere [Active Consumers] shake their heads. "It cannot be considered fair that a company can transmit large amounts of adverts and get off with a fine of 15000 Dkr. Neither can it be considered fair that it is the consumers who need the do something to raise a case like this", says Ole Tange, IT executive at Aktive Forbrugere. In the case versus Fonn Danmark the company has admitted to transmit 10000 to 15000 emails. Nevertheless the judgement considers the 156 documented emails only. Part of the case is that Fonn Danmark several times were told that they were violating 6a of the marketing law, which clearly states that without prior consent, companies are not allowed to contact someone by electronic mail, automatic dialing systems or telefax for the purpose of selling goods or services. In the reminder from the Sea- and Merchant Court it was told that Fonn Danmark was also punished for unnecesarily having stolen peoples' time by forcing them to read and process the unrequested adverts. But Ole Tange feels that the notion of making a distinction because of Fonn Danmark's size and the number of documented spams opens the floodgates for future abuse of spam emails since it is hard to imagine cases where consumers or the Consumer Ombudsman manages to collect the 100000 of emails which are apparently necesary to increase the size of the fine to a level where it becomes unattractive for companies to speculate in spam-emails. With last Thursday's judgement, the Consumer Ombudsman hopes companies will think again before they push the button and send unsolicited emails. Ready for more cases If the companies dare it anyway, the Consumer Ombudsman is ready to sue. If sent by smaller companies, the Ombudsman will typically contact them and remind them of the law, while larger companies will usually face the police immediately, Special Consultant for the Consumer Office Peter Fogh Knudsen tells. He was the one running the case against Fonn Danmark. At the moment, Peter Fogh Knudsen estimates that 3 to 4 similar cases are running in other juristrictions. The Consumer Office also requests Danes to forward spam to spam@fs.dk because that is the most effective way of collecting the documentation for possible violatings of the marketing law. This judgement for the Danish market comes at a time when Microsoft, AOL Time Warner and Yahoo jointly exclaim spam as the largest threat against the IT sector. =============
The only thing I am interested in regarding the new version is if I can *finally* get rid of that ugly PGP text cluttering up my messages. According to the PGP Coperation, the problem with PGP/MIME in Office XP is a problem with, well, Office XP.