If people can't get a cab, they'll find another mode of transportation. That's not the smartest form of marketing... but then I guess we're talking about cab drivers, after all.
I just LOVE being an intellectual property attorney. The level of ignorance in the field (as demonstrated by the majority of the posts here) give me great comfort in my job security. THANKS GUYS!
Nope. People get "licenses" to things they don't need to all the time. Just because McAffee entered negotiations for one doesn't mean they had to get it.
I could put up a pot and a sign in my front yard that says "everyone that passes must pay $1". Maybe some people would drop something in the pot, but the smart ones would just walk right on by.
RIAA and the MPAA overstate their positions all the time. I'll bet McAffee has a team of intellectual property attorneys who have developed a well thought out procedure for scraping and handling these kinds of disputes.
Now if RIAA and the MPAA actually wrote the law or ran the courts, then I'd be worried.
Well, you know that people at the state level are too dumb to notice a train with 100+ tanker cars crossing their borders or their domain. The Feds need to tell them.
Jack Backwoods won't say anything when he has to wait 20 minutes for a train to pass his favorite crossing, right?
It's just more Obama grandstanding. It may be safely ignored.
"OSVDB aggregates and formated public vulnerability records for free individual consumption but requests that those seeking more comprehensive access pay for the right. The outfit's site includes a copyright statement."
So, OSVDB is copying vulnerability records from others and then providing free access to their database. That access sounds pretty "comprehensive" to me.
If OSVDB wants to be paid, then they'll have to actually "restrict" access. A copyright statement doesn't "restrict" anything, particularly where they don't have any copyrights in the data to begin with.
Not all data is protected by copyright. If someone makes data available on a website that is not protected by copyright, then it's perfectly legal to scrape it. (At least by U.S. law.) The posting of a license on a website makes no difference where there are no copyrights in the material copied. By posting web pages and data in a location available to the public, the website granted an "implied license" to copy the pages and data.
Copyrights attach to "works of authorship". A database can be such a work, but simple data in a database probably isn't. If the scraping engine looked up the unprotected data in the database without copying substantial parts thereof (as seems to be the case from the article), then no copyrights were infringed.
So I'd have to ask the question: what did McAffee scrape, and was it a "work of authorship"? If all they got was the fingerprints, filenames and names of viruses/vulnerabilities, then I'd have to say "no".
This will be one of the times that I shout "hurrah" for McAfee!
Your suspicions are wrong. A caseworker will not solve the problems of keyloggers, of smartphone recorders (audio and number logs), or of ignorant victims who just don't have any clue how to protect themselves. Tor won't solve any of that. If the victim needs to contact the caseworker, advocate or the police, they can do it over the neighbor's telephone or in person. This "resource" (the resource being developed by these two groups) won't fix exposures to a tech-savvy jerk who wants information from his victim.
Maybe this resource should be instructions to the victim to get a new cell phone, bank accounts, address, etc. (Oh, except that's pretty much what they're already doing.)
Unless the "solution" makes the situation worse. This is great for the ones installing and maintaining the technical "solution", but if it doesn't actually fix the problem then all it will do is cause a consumption of time and resources of shelter workers and give victims a false sense of security.
Improving what? Tor won't improve the situation. Those at risk won't use it: they'll still have their identities on the net. If you only want to surf the web, you can do that without Tor. Even if it does get used, the people staffing the shelter won't understand it, and won't be able to advise these victims sufficiently to keep them from being exposed to abuse. These people have educations in psychology and social work (if even that).
People have been dealing with this problem for a long time. They do it by moving, changing their bank accounts and, if necessary, changing their names. You don't need Tor for that, and having Tor won't stop the victims from reassociating themselves with their abusers.
Restraining orders should be reasonably easy to get, by a victim being able to show abuse. When restraining orders are issued, there need to be consequences for violations. Once the abuser knows the police are behind that locked door, he won't be breaking it down.
The average worker in a violence shelter knows how to work the cursor on a computer and push the "send" button, but has a long, long way to go before beginning to understand the issues with Internet security. This problem has no technological solution. You can install the most sophisticated locks on your front door, but it won't protect you if you leave it unlocked, and it won't protect you from having your door smashed down.
There is a solution to this, and it goes "clink" with the closing of a prison cell door.
Our "vehemence" is really self-respect. I want the information needed to judge the correctness. I do not want to be told that it is morally right to shout "seig heil" with the rest.
Everyone used to believe that the earth was 6,000 years old, until someone proved differently. Let the global warming alarmists point to proof, not to each other in making a popular opinion.
This "national assessment" was released by the White House, presently in control of Barack Obama who desperately needs issues to blather about to shore up popular opinion. It's a report stringing together previously issued reports in a new presentation. Congress did not authorize it: it's propoganda for the mid-term elections.
Dear members of the press:
When this country was founded, it was fashioned with three branches of government. Those are the executive, the legislative, and the judiciary. Remember your history classes from your high school years? Unless issued through a legislative process, this report was not issued by "the government" of the United States.
With the condition of the press as it is today, why do I even bother with it?
A contract provision won't stop the police from answering during a deposition or a hearing, nor will it stop a judge from holding them in contempt of court and throwing them in jail if they refuse. That "excuse" won't hold up in court.
Now there may be supervisors and chiefs at the police department who might try that. Of course, my experience with police staff is that they have a high school education, and have just enough legal education to recite the Miranda warnings. The stupidity that I smell may very well inside the P.D....
There's this legal principal in the U.S. called "Sovereign Immunity" having its origins in the colonial (and earlier english) law. A citizen can't sue the king without his consent, the king here having become the government.
Suppose some P.D. did disclose the existence or the data from this database. Do you really think Vigilant Solutions is going to take them to court? Even if there was a statutory authorization permitting the P.D. to be sued, a secret corporation probably would not want their database to become publicized in a trial. Add to that that the judge probably wouldn't favor an out-of-state entity over the P.D. who keeps him safe in his bed at night. Good luck enforcing that "secret" contract provision...
Something smells funny here... it kind of smells like "stupidity".
The global warming clan is shouting loudly about some uncertain predictive models based upon imprecise historical measurements. The global climate was changing long before man started mining coal and pulling oil out of the ground, as you can see for yourself from that link.
Perhaps the reason the public doesn't get involved is because no one has shown them their choices will have any appreciable effect. If the oceans have been rising multiple meters in 8,000 - 10,000 years (at least as compared to a prehistoric land mass comparable to the size of the British Isles), no one's going to notice a few centimeters in a century due to "global warming". For the majority of the people out there (who either live inland or in places where climate change won't have an adverse effect), their lives will not change much.
People worry about where their food is coming from tomorrow, not about what might happen 100+ years in the future, and that is IMHO a very rational approach.
So, if I own an ordinary gun and the bad guy wants to steal it, he takes the gun. If I own this special gun that requires a wristband, then he hacks off my wrist just before he takes the gun. Unless this gun is going to require a hidden microchip embedded within my body, then it won't provide any safety at all against a personal theft.
I suppose that this is supposed to provide an automatic safety should the owner leave the gun in their car, etc. where it could be stolen. So now the bad guy disassembles it, takes out the safety device, installs a fake one, and has what amounts to an ordinary gun.
Criminals have been avoiding the eyes of law enforcement since.... forever. Putting a camera in the sky is like turning on the lights in a room full of cockroaches. They all scurry beneath whatever hiding spots they can find... but they're still lurking there.
This looks more to me like a device for their sheriff or police chief (whatever they have there) to claim that he's fighting crime hard, so he can get reelected. (We're talking about California, after all, where their legislature thinks they can outlaw the production of bad bodily smells in public.) Knowing a little tiny bit about graphics, I know that there's no way they can cover a 10-square mile area with a camera and get an image with enough resolution to identify anything.
This will at best, force the car thefts, the drug deals, the pimping and everything else but perhaps drunk driving to happen in places there is a canopy, such as a parking garage or inside a structure. Law enforcement isn't going to be able to prove anything by sole reliance of a camera in the sky. They'll still need the eyes of the officers and other witnesses of crime, and nothing significant will have changed.
Isn't it curious how Fmr. Judge Stevens wants to add words to this amendment that would restrict arms to only those in the military? If we did as Mr. Sevens suggests, then we'd have the same situation as if the Second Amendment were repealed.
Judge Stevens: if you don't like the Second Amendment, then just say so. Don't cloud the issue by trying to apply a "fix" that really isn't.
A hallmark of stupidity is not being open to the possibility of being wrong. I've come to know that no one has a correct and complete understanding of anything. Thank you, Sardaukar86, for applying intelligence and testing what I believe.
I know there are a large number of studies that have been done attempting to identify a reliable proxy. I simply don't have the time to look through these; my occupation is in something else entirely. I rely upon the absence of an article somewhere in the news that announces a reliable proxy, although it's quite possible that one has escaped my notice. This author's proxies are precipitation-related, in that the metrics used are influenced greatly by precipitation. (Trees grow best when there is water, ice layers accumulate when there is more snow, etc.) I recall (but cannot point to) a discussion that identifies that it has not been proven that precipitation is directly affected by temperature (in a close to linear fashion), and certainly in some locations it might work differently depending upon the prevailing weather conditions.
I don't object to the effort made by these scientists to find a way to predict the effect upon the climate of CO2 in the atmosphere: I actually applaud it. What I object to is overstatement of results of studies made, whether that be by the authoring scientists, the press, governments or by pundits wanting to apply their particular biases. These scientists have undertaken a difficult task, one that may be impossible. If I am to be scientifically objective, I cannot be swayed by the fear exhibited seemly everywhere about global warming, nor can my judgment be influenced by the moral rightness or wrongness of anyone's efforts.
I would also prefer that my country get its energy from renewable resources, not only to mitigate against the risk of global worming, but also because it would make my countrymen more independent from the conditions of the world. Technology will advance, I'm sure. Today's smartphones were inconceivable 20 years ago, and smart and inexpensive energy production will probably come about relatively soon.
Early in the American Colonies masses would get together and hold mock trials for those thought to have been in league with the devil. Those foolish masses abused and killed the innocent because they would not question nor test their own beliefs. Let these studies get a fair trial, and if they turn out to be inadequate, then let the science develop further.
I didn't say that we should or we shouldn't. What I said was that there are people out there (like you) who will claim on the basis of a report produced by 12 people that the entire world agrees, because it was authorized by the U.N.
I wish that you WOULD state facts. How about these facts:
The U.S. has not ratified the Kyoto treaty/protocol. Russia no longer adheres to the limits of Kyoto. There is no way to enforce Kyoto, and any country that desires can opt out whenever they want to. Most countries that you claim are in agreement the cut carbon dioxide emissions are building new coal-fired power plants and putting more cars on the road (especially China).
Oh, your proof is another report from another body of the U.N. Oh, your words are so convincing...
Sure, your "widespread" agreement works if you consider only the environmental lobby, but it doesn't work so well if you include the general population of the world.
Go forth if you want and proclaim your membership in a fictional human race that agrees as you think, but don't ask me to participate in your fantasies, please.
Exactly who do you think the "we" is that you claim to be a part of? You sound like another liberal quack to me, telling me that you're going to raise my taxes and to shut up! You have plenty of advice, and very little in the way of proof or evidence.
These less than the 12 scientists mentioned above are out there telling me (and everyone else in the world) what "must" happen to "keep climate change within safe limits". Now you and all the other pundits for renewable and nuclear energy will march forth claiming that "the world" has issued it's decree because this originated from the "UN". The Wizard of Oz looks very impressive, until you figure out how to look behind the curtain.
Slashdot Mirror
If people can't get a cab, they'll find another mode of transportation. That's not the smartest form of marketing ... but then I guess we're talking about cab drivers, after all.
I just LOVE being an intellectual property attorney. The level of ignorance in the field (as demonstrated by the majority of the posts here) give me great comfort in my job security. THANKS GUYS!
Nope. People get "licenses" to things they don't need to all the time. Just because McAffee entered negotiations for one doesn't mean they had to get it.
I could put up a pot and a sign in my front yard that says "everyone that passes must pay $1". Maybe some people would drop something in the pot, but the smart ones would just walk right on by.
RIAA and the MPAA overstate their positions all the time. I'll bet McAffee has a team of intellectual property attorneys who have developed a well thought out procedure for scraping and handling these kinds of disputes.
Now if RIAA and the MPAA actually wrote the law or ran the courts, then I'd be worried.
Well, you know that people at the state level are too dumb to notice a train with 100+ tanker cars crossing their borders or their domain. The Feds need to tell them.
Jack Backwoods won't say anything when he has to wait 20 minutes for a train to pass his favorite crossing, right?
It's just more Obama grandstanding. It may be safely ignored.
"OSVDB aggregates and formated public vulnerability records for free individual consumption but requests that those seeking more comprehensive access pay for the right. The outfit's site includes a copyright statement."
So, OSVDB is copying vulnerability records from others and then providing free access to their database. That access sounds pretty "comprehensive" to me.
If OSVDB wants to be paid, then they'll have to actually "restrict" access. A copyright statement doesn't "restrict" anything, particularly where they don't have any copyrights in the data to begin with.
Not all data is protected by copyright. If someone makes data available on a website that is not protected by copyright, then it's perfectly legal to scrape it. (At least by U.S. law.) The posting of a license on a website makes no difference where there are no copyrights in the material copied. By posting web pages and data in a location available to the public, the website granted an "implied license" to copy the pages and data.
Copyrights attach to "works of authorship". A database can be such a work, but simple data in a database probably isn't. If the scraping engine looked up the unprotected data in the database without copying substantial parts thereof (as seems to be the case from the article), then no copyrights were infringed.
So I'd have to ask the question: what did McAffee scrape, and was it a "work of authorship"? If all they got was the fingerprints, filenames and names of viruses/vulnerabilities, then I'd have to say "no".
This will be one of the times that I shout "hurrah" for McAfee!
Your suspicions are wrong. A caseworker will not solve the problems of keyloggers, of smartphone recorders (audio and number logs), or of ignorant victims who just don't have any clue how to protect themselves. Tor won't solve any of that. If the victim needs to contact the caseworker, advocate or the police, they can do it over the neighbor's telephone or in person. This "resource" (the resource being developed by these two groups) won't fix exposures to a tech-savvy jerk who wants information from his victim.
Maybe this resource should be instructions to the victim to get a new cell phone, bank accounts, address, etc. (Oh, except that's pretty much what they're already doing.)
"Any solution is better than nothing."
Unless the "solution" makes the situation worse. This is great for the ones installing and maintaining the technical "solution", but if it doesn't actually fix the problem then all it will do is cause a consumption of time and resources of shelter workers and give victims a false sense of security.
Improving what? Tor won't improve the situation. Those at risk won't use it: they'll still have their identities on the net. If you only want to surf the web, you can do that without Tor. Even if it does get used, the people staffing the shelter won't understand it, and won't be able to advise these victims sufficiently to keep them from being exposed to abuse. These people have educations in psychology and social work (if even that).
People have been dealing with this problem for a long time. They do it by moving, changing their bank accounts and, if necessary, changing their names. You don't need Tor for that, and having Tor won't stop the victims from reassociating themselves with their abusers.
Restraining orders should be reasonably easy to get, by a victim being able to show abuse. When restraining orders are issued, there need to be consequences for violations. Once the abuser knows the police are behind that locked door, he won't be breaking it down.
The average worker in a violence shelter knows how to work the cursor on a computer and push the "send" button, but has a long, long way to go before beginning to understand the issues with Internet security. This problem has no technological solution. You can install the most sophisticated locks on your front door, but it won't protect you if you leave it unlocked, and it won't protect you from having your door smashed down.
There is a solution to this, and it goes "clink" with the closing of a prison cell door.
Our "vehemence" is really self-respect. I want the information needed to judge the correctness. I do not want to be told that it is morally right to shout "seig heil" with the rest.
Everyone used to believe that the earth was 6,000 years old, until someone proved differently. Let the global warming alarmists point to proof, not to each other in making a popular opinion.
This "national assessment" was released by the White House, presently in control of Barack Obama who desperately needs issues to blather about to shore up popular opinion. It's a report stringing together previously issued reports in a new presentation. Congress did not authorize it: it's propoganda for the mid-term elections.
Dear members of the press:
When this country was founded, it was fashioned with three branches of government. Those are the executive, the legislative, and the judiciary. Remember your history classes from your high school years? Unless issued through a legislative process, this report was not issued by "the government" of the United States.
With the condition of the press as it is today, why do I even bother with it?
A contract provision won't stop the police from answering during a deposition or a hearing, nor will it stop a judge from holding them in contempt of court and throwing them in jail if they refuse. That "excuse" won't hold up in court.
Now there may be supervisors and chiefs at the police department who might try that. Of course, my experience with police staff is that they have a high school education, and have just enough legal education to recite the Miranda warnings. The stupidity that I smell may very well inside the P.D. ...
There's this legal principal in the U.S. called "Sovereign Immunity" having its origins in the colonial (and earlier english) law. A citizen can't sue the king without his consent, the king here having become the government.
Suppose some P.D. did disclose the existence or the data from this database. Do you really think Vigilant Solutions is going to take them to court? Even if there was a statutory authorization permitting the P.D. to be sued, a secret corporation probably would not want their database to become publicized in a trial. Add to that that the judge probably wouldn't favor an out-of-state entity over the P.D. who keeps him safe in his bed at night. Good luck enforcing that "secret" contract provision...
Something smells funny here ... it kind of smells like "stupidity".
You know these people were hired by the pencil and paper manufacturers so they can keep cutting down our forests... :-)
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-sco...
The global warming clan is shouting loudly about some uncertain predictive models based upon imprecise historical measurements. The global climate was changing long before man started mining coal and pulling oil out of the ground, as you can see for yourself from that link.
Perhaps the reason the public doesn't get involved is because no one has shown them their choices will have any appreciable effect. If the oceans have been rising multiple meters in 8,000 - 10,000 years (at least as compared to a prehistoric land mass comparable to the size of the British Isles), no one's going to notice a few centimeters in a century due to "global warming". For the majority of the people out there (who either live inland or in places where climate change won't have an adverse effect), their lives will not change much.
People worry about where their food is coming from tomorrow, not about what might happen 100+ years in the future, and that is IMHO a very rational approach.
So, if I own an ordinary gun and the bad guy wants to steal it, he takes the gun. If I own this special gun that requires a wristband, then he hacks off my wrist just before he takes the gun. Unless this gun is going to require a hidden microchip embedded within my body, then it won't provide any safety at all against a personal theft.
I suppose that this is supposed to provide an automatic safety should the owner leave the gun in their car, etc. where it could be stolen. So now the bad guy disassembles it, takes out the safety device, installs a fake one, and has what amounts to an ordinary gun.
What a useless, stupid idea!
Criminals have been avoiding the eyes of law enforcement since .... forever. Putting a camera in the sky is like turning on the lights in a room full of cockroaches. They all scurry beneath whatever hiding spots they can find ... but they're still lurking there.
This looks more to me like a device for their sheriff or police chief (whatever they have there) to claim that he's fighting crime hard, so he can get reelected. (We're talking about California, after all, where their legislature thinks they can outlaw the production of bad bodily smells in public.) Knowing a little tiny bit about graphics, I know that there's no way they can cover a 10-square mile area with a camera and get an image with enough resolution to identify anything.
This will at best, force the car thefts, the drug deals, the pimping and everything else but perhaps drunk driving to happen in places there is a canopy, such as a parking garage or inside a structure. Law enforcement isn't going to be able to prove anything by sole reliance of a camera in the sky. They'll still need the eyes of the officers and other witnesses of crime, and nothing significant will have changed.
Isn't it curious how Fmr. Judge Stevens wants to add words to this amendment that would restrict arms to only those in the military? If we did as Mr. Sevens suggests, then we'd have the same situation as if the Second Amendment were repealed.
Judge Stevens: if you don't like the Second Amendment, then just say so. Don't cloud the issue by trying to apply a "fix" that really isn't.
A hallmark of stupidity is not being open to the possibility of being wrong. I've come to know that no one has a correct and complete understanding of anything. Thank you, Sardaukar86, for applying intelligence and testing what I believe.
I know there are a large number of studies that have been done attempting to identify a reliable proxy. I simply don't have the time to look through these; my occupation is in something else entirely. I rely upon the absence of an article somewhere in the news that announces a reliable proxy, although it's quite possible that one has escaped my notice. This author's proxies are precipitation-related, in that the metrics used are influenced greatly by precipitation. (Trees grow best when there is water, ice layers accumulate when there is more snow, etc.) I recall (but cannot point to) a discussion that identifies that it has not been proven that precipitation is directly affected by temperature (in a close to linear fashion), and certainly in some locations it might work differently depending upon the prevailing weather conditions.
I don't object to the effort made by these scientists to find a way to predict the effect upon the climate of CO2 in the atmosphere: I actually applaud it. What I object to is overstatement of results of studies made, whether that be by the authoring scientists, the press, governments or by pundits wanting to apply their particular biases. These scientists have undertaken a difficult task, one that may be impossible. If I am to be scientifically objective, I cannot be swayed by the fear exhibited seemly everywhere about global warming, nor can my judgment be influenced by the moral rightness or wrongness of anyone's efforts.
I would also prefer that my country get its energy from renewable resources, not only to mitigate against the risk of global worming, but also because it would make my countrymen more independent from the conditions of the world. Technology will advance, I'm sure. Today's smartphones were inconceivable 20 years ago, and smart and inexpensive energy production will probably come about relatively soon.
Early in the American Colonies masses would get together and hold mock trials for those thought to have been in league with the devil. Those foolish masses abused and killed the innocent because they would not question nor test their own beliefs. Let these studies get a fair trial, and if they turn out to be inadequate, then let the science develop further.
Let us all know what you find...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K...
Wow. My "hubris" and "ignorance" is matched by my ability to find the Wikipedia.
Enjoy your fantasy, all...
I didn't say that we should or we shouldn't. What I said was that there are people out there (like you) who will claim on the basis of a report produced by 12 people that the entire world agrees, because it was authorized by the U.N.
I wish that you WOULD state facts. How about these facts:
The U.S. has not ratified the Kyoto treaty/protocol.
Russia no longer adheres to the limits of Kyoto.
There is no way to enforce Kyoto, and any country that desires can opt out whenever they want to.
Most countries that you claim are in agreement the cut carbon dioxide emissions are building new coal-fired power plants and putting more cars on the road (especially China).
Enjoy your fantasy...
Oh, your proof is another report from another body of the U.N. Oh, your words are so convincing ...
Sure, your "widespread" agreement works if you consider only the environmental lobby, but it doesn't work so well if you include the general population of the world.
Go forth if you want and proclaim your membership in a fictional human race that agrees as you think, but don't ask me to participate in your fantasies, please.
Exactly who do you think the "we" is that you claim to be a part of? You sound like another liberal quack to me, telling me that you're going to raise my taxes and to shut up! You have plenty of advice, and very little in the way of proof or evidence.
These less than the 12 scientists mentioned above are out there telling me (and everyone else in the world) what "must" happen to "keep climate change within safe limits". Now you and all the other pundits for renewable and nuclear energy will march forth claiming that "the world" has issued it's decree because this originated from the "UN". The Wizard of Oz looks very impressive, until you figure out how to look behind the curtain.
Baloney.