Apparently you've never been involved or else your Mommy was blowing the public defender's best friend.
Of course the situation should be defendable but there's no initiative for it. If the public defender pushes the court to find in favor of the citizen then there's going to be an investigation within the police department. Once it's legally validated that a citizen's rights have been violated then there's all sorts of room for a damages suit against the department. No public defender wants to stick his foot in that.
Public defenders don't do any investigation. Their possibility of promotion or moving to a more respectable position is based upon number of cases handled and the outcomes. When they handle more cases with fewer problems and no snubbed noses or bruised egos around the courthouse they have a better chance of moving up in their field.
It's office politics. Nothing against the poor Joe on the street that spent the night waiting for someone to throw bail.
EVERYONE knows how things are supposed to work. Start thinking about the way they do work.
My conclusion is that IP rights are meaningless unless you're already wealthy. I've had my intellectual property stolen over, and over, and over again simply because I can't do everything. I can't spend the time developing the idea AND spend the time registering the idea with the proper authorities AND spend the time keeping track of who else might be using the idea AND afford the legal backup to ensure that it's protected. It doesn't take much thought to see that our democratically elected Communist system is weighted in favor of the wealthy.
Don't play the patriot card. No one else is reading this and, until this great nation of the USA returns to some semblance of a republic, I personally don't care.
---- ANY lawyer worth his salt ---- Any lawyer worth his salt is working on bigger cases than this. Public defenders don't give a sh*t. In all reality public defenders are looking to side with the police in the interest of advancing their social status within legal circles. They could give a rat's crap about some guy who got harassed.
Everyone talks in terms of the ideal world. Does anyone ever consider the _real_ world?
"What if" "what if" "what if". What if the world was fair? You could OCR it but you're not going to get that many people to sit in front of their monitors to read it. People that read books and novels read books and novels for a reason. If there was a market for novels on-line you'd see it already.
And yes, you do have to be a rich SOB to sue me. The time that it costs you to track me down, file the paperwork, and keep up-to-date with all of the proceedings is far outside the ability of even the above average citizen. Unless you're a rich SOB you're too busy working hard and paying taxes to know that I'm stealing your IP from halfway across the nation. Additionally, unless you were a rich enough SOB to take the time and money out to file for the copyrights/trademarks/patents then you'll never be able to prove that you owned the property before I started producing it.
Sure you have publishing rights. Good luck with distributorship and marketing. You may be able to buy Stephen King's latest novel for $12 but I highly doubt that you'll have any luck in copying, producing, and selling it to any extent that the original publisher would even notice.
Quit hassling the public with your ghost-chasing FUD.
You're wrong about people that whine about IP. Everyone whines about IP. The only people who can afford to hire government Guido enforcers (ie. buy politicians, influence laws, afford lawyers) are those that stole their golden goose from someone else.
Automobiles should be rigged with self-destruct explosives in the event of theft?
It really all comes back to this: Once you have accepted money in exchange for something you have NO RIGHTS WHATSOEVER to think that you still control the something that you sold. Any laws, regulations, or rules which try to negate this very basic natural fact are going to cause problems.
If only the majority of the population/government would understand this and quit pandering to rich brats who whine about their intellectual property.
Your art analogy is flawed. Most artists whose paintings and works are selling for mutlimillions died after a life of poverty and persecution. Many of them were commissioned against their will. A precedent has been set in society--it is okay to steal other peoples' work for personal profit.
I'm not in the "everything should be free" thinking but piracy is part of the regulation of the industry. If you want to sell your product to suckers who will pay $10k for it, then don't whine and cry when pirates make you out to be the sucker.
Someone needs to feed Microsoft and all the major software/media/pharamceutical companies a tall glass of "STFU and practice what you preach". They're taking advantage of the consumers so why should they whine and cry to the government when a small segment of consumers takes advantage of them?
----- only means that the police officer cannot pressure you to commit a crime ----- Hypothetical situation: A police officer stops you in the street and demands that you stop to answer some questions. You are in a hurry and ask if he's conducting an investigation. His response is negative, he's just lonely and wants to chat. You ignore his pleas and continue on your way.
The police officer arrests you for obstruction of justice. Additionally he uses the obstruction of justice as reason to search your person and finds a pack of cigarettes without the wrapper in your coat. He writes up an additional ticket for possession of contraband goods (cigarettes without the appropriate tax stamp).
Note: This isn't a hypothetical situation but REALLY DID HAPPEN.
So please, quit talking about legality. We live in a subjective police state and no lawyer really cares unless there's a potential to get rich quick.
Of course it's not a crime but, as a human being, you have no right screwing someone for $10k for something that took you 10 minutes to produce. It's theft of energy. It took you 10 minutes worth of energy to exist and you're going to take what took them closer to 4 months worth of energy. That's hardly a fair trade. That's my point. If it all falls into the category of "life isn't fair" then...
Quit whining when I pirate your crappy 100 line code. Life isn't fair.
Just because you've got the legal Guidos on your side doesn't make you any better than a street pimp.
I've been thinking for years about what it would take to get the BIOS to scan the PCI bus, find a network card, hook it to some memory registers, and allow port access. This could be described as a BIOS edition of NetBus or Sub7. Considering that a fully functional terminal program can be written in less than 10k and current BIOS chips have at least 64kb (that I'm aware of) this isn't rocket science to figure that the opportunity is there. I think the most difficult hurdle would be to account for different wiring paths in different chipsets.
Honestly, I can't imagine that it hasn't been done already. I'm just waiting for/., Symantec, or McAfee to finally get their hands on one and make it public.
Here in the US we *do* live in a police state, you know. And the Illuminati *are* worldwide.
The real criminal is the company that charges $100 for the latest game knowing that it will sell at that price for no other reason than a carefully socially engineered populance. I know it sounds like a conspiracy theory but at what point is taking advantage of the ignorant going to be a crime? If it all falls under the "life's not fair" category then someone needs to tell that to the major media companies and software producers that do nothing but whine about their lost profits. They can dish it out but they can't take it.
The average human being enjoys being able to classify people in categories that they can persecute. Insurance companies, governments, and social cliques all revolve around ignoring this in order to justify themselves.
While the fallacy of composition and comparison may indeed be a true fallacy and one of the greatest downfalls of modern society... I hate to break it to you... the world feeds off this stuff. Life never has been and never will be fair. At some point all of us are going to get charged more, taken advantage of, or targeted for no other reason than unjustified (but very eloquently expressed) guilt by association.
Even if we assume that these vigilantes are doing nothing morally wrong themselves at what point should they be responsible for opening a security hole in a system which can be exploited by other more malicious stalkers? Can these vigilantes show that their code is 100% secure such that only they can make use of the resources that it provides?
Spyware and malware and P2P programs and instant messaging programs may not be malicious in and of themselves but they're all coded by half-hacks who aren't very interested in security. Do they properly check their buffer overflows, input validation, or ensure perfect alignment with a proper handshake protocol?
I think not...
Let's say that the law would tolerate the vigilante retrieval of stolen property. At what point is the vigilante liable for leaving the backdoor open?
Let's say that malware and spyware and spammers really are nothing more than advertising methods used to boost the economy (which can be argued as "good"). At what point are the authors of those progams liable for the malicious attacker or stalker who relies on them to identify easy targets?
Let's say that posting signs for your candidate on someone else's front lawn would be legal. Are you liable if a serial killer decides to pick his targets based upon lawn signs?
Implications are more than just one step removed from the source.
I think what the original author was trying to emphasize was this:
If you don't know the tumblers in the lock, the ring voltage of the phone, or the TV transmission frequency it doesn't really matter.
If, however, you don't know about the workings of your computer operating system and you're any sort of intelligent nerd, you become an immediate and probable target for the rich script-kiddie down the street who has nothing better to do than sniff his local network packets and dream up new schemes to harass you.
As people spend more time online and integrate the internet more closely into their lives the opportunity for practical jokes (ie. criminal harassment) increases as well. Unline practical jokes of decades past which faded with the passage of time and memory, the internet is very good at preserving a practical joke for years at a time thanks to Google and Yahoo!.
Say it never happens. You don't have to believe me.
I'm not a BIOS writing guru but I imagine that it'd be easy enough to provide for transparent bits in BIOS flashing utilities or even in the.bin file that contains the BIOS code. If it becomes industry standard to leave a certain block of BIOS addresses reserved for TCPA/DRM capability then reflashing the BIOS won't rempve it. If the TCPA/DRM movement picks up enough steam then the proper values for the proper registers corresponding to TCPA/DRM awareness could be a requirement for hardware compatibility at the processor or bus level which would render LinuxBIOS unusable unless it also left the requisite registers untouched.
----- By the way, it doesn't take a small fortune to do this ----- This is the single most important point which provided the launchpad for the others.
If you have been mistreated by an employer in the US and are not a member of a group legally defined as protected (eg. minority, female, gay, disabled) then it does take at least $5k to put up a retainer fee and that rarely guarantees that the lawyer gives you any more than lip-service. If you want a lawyer to do any real legal research you should have at least $20k banked and waiting (unless you're a member of the "slam-dunk" groups mentioned above). If your employer has finished running you through the wringer then even $5k is nearly impossible to come up with. Additionally, under laws in the US affirmed by most state supreme courts and the US supreme court, employers are free to treat employees however they like and hire/fire them at will. This gives employers a clean slate to operate as slavers. A manager at work can treat you in ways that would be considered assault on the open street but, because it's within the confines of the employer, it's perfectly a-okay. Ideally there are limitations to "crap rolls downhill". In reality there are none.
I agree that most employers do not pursue the slaver approach. The fact remains, however, that unless you are independently well-off there is nothing that you can do to gain proper compensation should your employer decide to use you as cannon fodder. Ask anyone that's worked in an entry-level position in a small and growing company. They get worked to death, browbeaten daily, and tossed to the side when they're no longer willing to play politics.
----- It's your definition of "slavery" that I disagree with ----- My definition of slavery is demanding proper work with improper compensation. Any other definition has loopholes. For example, pre Civil War "slaves" would more properly be defined as "sharecroppers". The only thing that gave the North authority was their demands that compensation be paid to the sharecropping employees in funds that could be documented in a ledger as opposed to providing the slaves with land, minimal housing and free time. Don't give me any Uncle Tom's Cabin drivel. I empathize with the people that were at the worst extremes of the spectrum but, just like today's employers, most Sourthern slaveowners were generally humane.
As for buying and selling people and hunting them down when they leave (commonly cited evils of slavery)--these systems still persist in today's society. Now they're called headhunters, staffing agencies, Manpower, employment counselors, and the demand for letters of reference from previous employers. If an improperly compensated employee leaves a company the company is free to discreetly blackball them by refusing to provide a fair and objective letter of reference. Maybe the former employee isn't hunted down and beaten but spending two to three years salvaging a credit rating, battling off creditors, having a car repossessed or being turned out of a home or apartment for lack of funds to pay the mortgage/rent can be just as damaging to a persons ability to function in normal society.
----- The "I disagree with out" one? ----- No, you're a troll in the sense that you argue with me primarily by refusing to acknowledge the existence of the facts which make up my argument. I've acknowledged that your litigation policy is a real possibility but my argument stems from the fact that, for the vast majority of Americans, it unrealizable. Your argument stems from "I don't have it that bad so if you don't like it then leave the country." Narrow-mindedness is the symptom of a troll.
So... once again... if you feel like fighting of TCPA or DRM with litigation, good luck and I hope you have the resources to put your money where your mouth is. For the majority of Americans the best we can do is watch complacently as our rights are repeatedly circumvented and taken away. TCPA/DRM is like selling a car t
----- 1. Have you seen how people work in other countries? We have it good here. ----- Compared to Guatemala, yes. Compared to other technologically advanced and resource rich countries, no.
----- 2. There are many labor laws here in the US. Employer trying to get you to work 7 days in a week? ----- Which brings us back to the ideal of any sort of rights. Sure you can refuse to work 7 days a week but if your manager thinks you should be putting in that extra time he'll find ways to slap you for refusing. I suppose you work in a Union shop where you're protected? Lucky you. I happen to be in the professional industry where companies slit the throats of union sympathizers.
----- 3. Could you elaborate on psychological abuse? ----- You are a worthless piece of sh*t that can't do your job and you should be happy that we even keep you here. Now get back to work because no one else is going to get your work done for you and don't even think about asking for a raise. As of right now we officially declare you on probation because you do such crappy work. No, we're not going to fire you because we can't find anyone else to do your job better but, yes, you are a worthless piece of undeserving cow-manure.
----- 4. If companies could treat you like a slave, then they probably would. ----- Once again comparing the US to Guatemala is not a proper comparison. Comparing the US to a country, say Germany or Great Britain, where they work barely 40 hours a week and get 6 weeks vacation time to start, is much more fair. Different light, isn't it?
----- There are a lot of labor laws where I live. If you think that "The Man" is treating you as if you were a slave, my suggestion would be to move someplace where corporations are not allowed to ----- Oh sure. If political graft is so bad we shouldn't stick up for our rights as Americans to challenge it as true patriots, we should just leave.
Your arguments suck and you're a troll.
Trusted computing is another extension of "the man" enslaving the end user.
----- That's the sort of thing I'd be perfectly willing to challenge in court. No, I'd not be assured of winning, but at the same time, I'd not be assured of losing, either. ----- The prospect of challenging anything in court sounds nice but let's face reality. Unless you're relatively independently wealthy and can prepay a lawyer to devote time to research this sort of thing you can forget it.
Quit teasing the majority of the population into thinking they have any real rights.
----- Merely accepting an agreement does not necessarily mean that if push came to shove I would have to be bound by it - a company cannot just put anything they like in it. ----- Have you looked at your employment agreement lately. Once you sign that bottom line the company can treat you like dogs**t, tear you up, have you work long hours, and subject you to psychological abuse and THEN kick you out the door for underperforming and it's all perfectly legal.
Who said slavery ended in the Civil War? The Civil War only changed the definition to mean "as long as we pay you in bank notes, WE OWN YOUR A$$"
How is this ontopic: Trusted computing is a form of computer slavery made legal by the EULA.
The biggest problme with a "computer license" is that, with the political and financial muscle that it packs, M$ would be set in charge of writing the standards for issuing the license. They're already approaching the de facto standard for non-college educated IT staffing.
On the reality side, however, it wouldn't function much different from the rest of this dysfunctional society. I'm personally amazed at the number of $100k+ jobs that I'm qualified for in terms of experience and knowledge but I'll never get hired because they're being filled by people with the proper paperwork. It's like we never purged the Nazies. We sanitized them to make them politically correct and business minded.
"Where are your papers." "I don't need any papers." "No good life for you. Off to the salt mines!"
---- all powers not given to the federal government are given to the states... ---- And the PEOPLE--a very important part which you omitted with "...". The PEOPLE are the most important part of a democracy. There is no "elastic clause" to the Tenth Amendment. It's very plain, very simple, it's not a vague concept and it's not hard to outline. Anything not explicitly granted within the US Constitution goes to the states and the people. There is no weasling around it.
Nowhere in the Constitution is the federal government given the power to create a roster or roll call or database of the citizenry. That is the sort of thing that the founding fathers were trying to escape from merry 'ole England for. If the individual states want to contract to make databases that's fine (if granted within the scope of the states' constitution) but the feds have absolutely no business even acknowledging that such a thing exists.
---- I would change that to be every good idea has the possibility for abuse ---- When mandated from above it's guaranteed. No top level government is completely free of greedy self-serving politicians. As long as they exist they will exploit any power that is available to them. It's natural law.
----- Does that mean we shouldn't punish murderers? ----- Blown way out of proportion and way out of context. But, since you mention it, I personally don't feel that the federal government has any place in trying murderers. Let them go round-robin with the locales. It's this sort of redundancy (the existence of both local laws prohibiting murder and federal laws prohibiting murder) that feeds the egomania and abuse of power that's rancidly prevalent in our current system.
Were you aware that the vast majority of federal laws include a preemption clause which seeks to make the federal law more sovereign than any equivalent state or local law? Think of the implications. If we live in a true democracy for the people why would the federal government ever even get into the habit of including preemption clauses?
----- Most people are disatisfied with the government because they want to see their agenda adopted ----- If we ever had a group of politicians who would adhere to the Tenth Amendment this wouldn't be a problem because their agendas would be meaningless. The Tenth Amendment explicitly states that, good idea or not, it's really none of the government's business to be meddling in things like this.
It's there for a good reason. Every good idea leads inevitably to abuses when mandated from above.
I did vote. However, one properly cast vote in a sea of random votes isn't going to send any reasonable message. It's like posting on USENET. The signal to noise ratio is far too low.
This is how the voting system is rigged. The vast majority of people have no concept of the real issues, they have no idea of the actual role of government, and they tend to vote for soap-box issues or the candidate whose party affiliation feeds their personal bias. This ensures that the vast majority of votes are cast randomly at best or, as can be proven by the predictable success and failure of Hollywood movies, cast in the direction that the major media favors.
And no. It's not rigged by Republicans. Must I explain a "Dog and Pony Show"? There are no real rebulicans or democrats.
----- There is a process called "review and challenge" ----- Is this the same process that allows me to fill out a claim form for the lost zipper on my jacket at the airport? (http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=100266&cid=85 44837)
Review and challenge only exists if you have the time and money to wade through the monolithic ball of red tape that's in the way. Since most of us are too busy working overtime to pay taxes, fees, surcharges, and fines (http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=100266&cid=85 45360) many of which fund circular programs like this one, we can't participate in your idealistic review and challenge.
The democratic method of holding elections by casting ballots is one of the oldest methods of decision making known to man since the time when a bunch of BC's sat around a fire and decided which direction to travel tomorrow on their quest for tires.
It's only logical that METHODS TO RIG THE VOTING system have existed just as long.
Slashdot Mirror
Apparently you've never been involved or else your Mommy was blowing the public defender's best friend.
Of course the situation should be defendable but there's no initiative for it. If the public defender pushes the court to find in favor of the citizen then there's going to be an investigation within the police department. Once it's legally validated that a citizen's rights have been violated then there's all sorts of room for a damages suit against the department. No public defender wants to stick his foot in that.
Public defenders don't do any investigation. Their possibility of promotion or moving to a more respectable position is based upon number of cases handled and the outcomes. When they handle more cases with fewer problems and no snubbed noses or bruised egos around the courthouse they have a better chance of moving up in their field.
It's office politics. Nothing against the poor Joe on the street that spent the night waiting for someone to throw bail.
EVERYONE knows how things are supposed to work. Start thinking about the way they do work.
My conclusion is that IP rights are meaningless unless you're already wealthy. I've had my intellectual property stolen over, and over, and over again simply because I can't do everything. I can't spend the time developing the idea AND spend the time registering the idea with the proper authorities AND spend the time keeping track of who else might be using the idea AND afford the legal backup to ensure that it's protected. It doesn't take much thought to see that our democratically elected Communist system is weighted in favor of the wealthy.
Don't play the patriot card. No one else is reading this and, until this great nation of the USA returns to some semblance of a republic, I personally don't care.
----
ANY lawyer worth his salt
----
Any lawyer worth his salt is working on bigger cases than this. Public defenders don't give a sh*t. In all reality public defenders are looking to side with the police in the interest of advancing their social status within legal circles. They could give a rat's crap about some guy who got harassed.
Everyone talks in terms of the ideal world. Does anyone ever consider the _real_ world?
"What if" "what if" "what if". What if the world was fair? You could OCR it but you're not going to get that many people to sit in front of their monitors to read it. People that read books and novels read books and novels for a reason. If there was a market for novels on-line you'd see it already.
And yes, you do have to be a rich SOB to sue me. The time that it costs you to track me down, file the paperwork, and keep up-to-date with all of the proceedings is far outside the ability of even the above average citizen. Unless you're a rich SOB you're too busy working hard and paying taxes to know that I'm stealing your IP from halfway across the nation. Additionally, unless you were a rich enough SOB to take the time and money out to file for the copyrights/trademarks/patents then you'll never be able to prove that you owned the property before I started producing it.
Sure you have publishing rights. Good luck with distributorship and marketing. You may be able to buy Stephen King's latest novel for $12 but I highly doubt that you'll have any luck in copying, producing, and selling it to any extent that the original publisher would even notice.
Quit hassling the public with your ghost-chasing FUD.
You're wrong about people that whine about IP. Everyone whines about IP. The only people who can afford to hire government Guido enforcers (ie. buy politicians, influence laws, afford lawyers) are those that stole their golden goose from someone else.
Automobiles should be rigged with self-destruct explosives in the event of theft?
It really all comes back to this: Once you have accepted money in exchange for something you have NO RIGHTS WHATSOEVER to think that you still control the something that you sold. Any laws, regulations, or rules which try to negate this very basic natural fact are going to cause problems.
If only the majority of the population/government would understand this and quit pandering to rich brats who whine about their intellectual property.
Your art analogy is flawed. Most artists whose paintings and works are selling for mutlimillions died after a life of poverty and persecution. Many of them were commissioned against their will. A precedent has been set in society--it is okay to steal other peoples' work for personal profit.
I'm not in the "everything should be free" thinking but piracy is part of the regulation of the industry. If you want to sell your product to suckers who will pay $10k for it, then don't whine and cry when pirates make you out to be the sucker.
Someone needs to feed Microsoft and all the major software/media/pharamceutical companies a tall glass of "STFU and practice what you preach". They're taking advantage of the consumers so why should they whine and cry to the government when a small segment of consumers takes advantage of them?
-----
only means that the police officer cannot pressure you to commit a crime
-----
Hypothetical situation: A police officer stops you in the street and demands that you stop to answer some questions. You are in a hurry and ask if he's conducting an investigation. His response is negative, he's just lonely and wants to chat. You ignore his pleas and continue on your way.
The police officer arrests you for obstruction of justice. Additionally he uses the obstruction of justice as reason to search your person and finds a pack of cigarettes without the wrapper in your coat. He writes up an additional ticket for possession of contraband goods (cigarettes without the appropriate tax stamp).
Note: This isn't a hypothetical situation but REALLY DID HAPPEN.
So please, quit talking about legality. We live in a subjective police state and no lawyer really cares unless there's a potential to get rich quick.
Of course it's not a crime but, as a human being, you have no right screwing someone for $10k for something that took you 10 minutes to produce. It's theft of energy. It took you 10 minutes worth of energy to exist and you're going to take what took them closer to 4 months worth of energy. That's hardly a fair trade. That's my point. If it all falls into the category of "life isn't fair" then...
Quit whining when I pirate your crappy 100 line code. Life isn't fair.
Just because you've got the legal Guidos on your side doesn't make you any better than a street pimp.
I've been thinking for years about what it would take to get the BIOS to scan the PCI bus, find a network card, hook it to some memory registers, and allow port access. This could be described as a BIOS edition of NetBus or Sub7. Considering that a fully functional terminal program can be written in less than 10k and current BIOS chips have at least 64kb (that I'm aware of) this isn't rocket science to figure that the opportunity is there. I think the most difficult hurdle would be to account for different wiring paths in different chipsets.
/., Symantec, or McAfee to finally get their hands on one and make it public.
Honestly, I can't imagine that it hasn't been done already. I'm just waiting for
Here in the US we *do* live in a police state, you know. And the Illuminati *are* worldwide.
Hehehehe...
That's a short-sighted view.
The real criminal is the company that charges $100 for the latest game knowing that it will sell at that price for no other reason than a carefully socially engineered populance. I know it sounds like a conspiracy theory but at what point is taking advantage of the ignorant going to be a crime? If it all falls under the "life's not fair" category then someone needs to tell that to the major media companies and software producers that do nothing but whine about their lost profits. They can dish it out but they can't take it.
The average human being enjoys being able to classify people in categories that they can persecute. Insurance companies, governments, and social cliques all revolve around ignoring this in order to justify themselves.
While the fallacy of composition and comparison may indeed be a true fallacy and one of the greatest downfalls of modern society... I hate to break it to you... the world feeds off this stuff. Life never has been and never will be fair. At some point all of us are going to get charged more, taken advantage of, or targeted for no other reason than unjustified (but very eloquently expressed) guilt by association.
This brings back memories of The Twilight Zone and the box that says "Do not open until Doomsday".
I think it's long past time for Doomsday.
Even if we assume that these vigilantes are doing nothing morally wrong themselves at what point should they be responsible for opening a security hole in a system which can be exploited by other more malicious stalkers? Can these vigilantes show that their code is 100% secure such that only they can make use of the resources that it provides?
Spyware and malware and P2P programs and instant messaging programs may not be malicious in and of themselves but they're all coded by half-hacks who aren't very interested in security. Do they properly check their buffer overflows, input validation, or ensure perfect alignment with a proper handshake protocol?
I think not...
Let's say that the law would tolerate the vigilante retrieval of stolen property. At what point is the vigilante liable for leaving the backdoor open?
Let's say that malware and spyware and spammers really are nothing more than advertising methods used to boost the economy (which can be argued as "good"). At what point are the authors of those progams liable for the malicious attacker or stalker who relies on them to identify easy targets?
Let's say that posting signs for your candidate on someone else's front lawn would be legal. Are you liable if a serial killer decides to pick his targets based upon lawn signs?
Implications are more than just one step removed from the source.
I think what the original author was trying to emphasize was this:
If you don't know the tumblers in the lock, the ring voltage of the phone, or the TV transmission frequency it doesn't really matter.
If, however, you don't know about the workings of your computer operating system and you're any sort of intelligent nerd, you become an immediate and probable target for the rich script-kiddie down the street who has nothing better to do than sniff his local network packets and dream up new schemes to harass you.
As people spend more time online and integrate the internet more closely into their lives the opportunity for practical jokes (ie. criminal harassment) increases as well. Unline practical jokes of decades past which faded with the passage of time and memory, the internet is very good at preserving a practical joke for years at a time thanks to Google and Yahoo!.
Say it never happens. You don't have to believe me.
I'm not a BIOS writing guru but I imagine that it'd be easy enough to provide for transparent bits in BIOS flashing utilities or even in the .bin file that contains the BIOS code. If it becomes industry standard to leave a certain block of BIOS addresses reserved for TCPA/DRM capability then reflashing the BIOS won't rempve it. If the TCPA/DRM movement picks up enough steam then the proper values for the proper registers corresponding to TCPA/DRM awareness could be a requirement for hardware compatibility at the processor or bus level which would render LinuxBIOS unusable unless it also left the requisite registers untouched.
-----
By the way, it doesn't take a small fortune to do this
-----
This is the single most important point which provided the launchpad for the others.
If you have been mistreated by an employer in the US and are not a member of a group legally defined as protected (eg. minority, female, gay, disabled) then it does take at least $5k to put up a retainer fee and that rarely guarantees that the lawyer gives you any more than lip-service. If you want a lawyer to do any real legal research you should have at least $20k banked and waiting (unless you're a member of the "slam-dunk" groups mentioned above). If your employer has finished running you through the wringer then even $5k is nearly impossible to come up with. Additionally, under laws in the US affirmed by most state supreme courts and the US supreme court, employers are free to treat employees however they like and hire/fire them at will. This gives employers a clean slate to operate as slavers. A manager at work can treat you in ways that would be considered assault on the open street but, because it's within the confines of the employer, it's perfectly a-okay. Ideally there are limitations to "crap rolls downhill". In reality there are none.
I agree that most employers do not pursue the slaver approach. The fact remains, however, that unless you are independently well-off there is nothing that you can do to gain proper compensation should your employer decide to use you as cannon fodder. Ask anyone that's worked in an entry-level position in a small and growing company. They get worked to death, browbeaten daily, and tossed to the side when they're no longer willing to play politics.
-----
It's your definition of "slavery" that I disagree with
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My definition of slavery is demanding proper work with improper compensation. Any other definition has loopholes. For example, pre Civil War "slaves" would more properly be defined as "sharecroppers". The only thing that gave the North authority was their demands that compensation be paid to the sharecropping employees in funds that could be documented in a ledger as opposed to providing the slaves with land, minimal housing and free time. Don't give me any Uncle Tom's Cabin drivel. I empathize with the people that were at the worst extremes of the spectrum but, just like today's employers, most Sourthern slaveowners were generally humane.
As for buying and selling people and hunting them down when they leave (commonly cited evils of slavery)--these systems still persist in today's society. Now they're called headhunters, staffing agencies, Manpower, employment counselors, and the demand for letters of reference from previous employers. If an improperly compensated employee leaves a company the company is free to discreetly blackball them by refusing to provide a fair and objective letter of reference. Maybe the former employee isn't hunted down and beaten but spending two to three years salvaging a credit rating, battling off creditors, having a car repossessed or being turned out of a home or apartment for lack of funds to pay the mortgage/rent can be just as damaging to a persons ability to function in normal society.
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The "I disagree with out" one?
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No, you're a troll in the sense that you argue with me primarily by refusing to acknowledge the existence of the facts which make up my argument. I've acknowledged that your litigation policy is a real possibility but my argument stems from the fact that, for the vast majority of Americans, it unrealizable. Your argument stems from "I don't have it that bad so if you don't like it then leave the country." Narrow-mindedness is the symptom of a troll.
So... once again... if you feel like fighting of TCPA or DRM with litigation, good luck and I hope you have the resources to put your money where your mouth is. For the majority of Americans the best we can do is watch complacently as our rights are repeatedly circumvented and taken away. TCPA/DRM is like selling a car t
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1. Have you seen how people work in other countries? We have it good here.
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Compared to Guatemala, yes. Compared to other technologically advanced and resource rich countries, no.
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2. There are many labor laws here in the US. Employer trying to get you to work 7 days in a week?
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Which brings us back to the ideal of any sort of rights. Sure you can refuse to work 7 days a week but if your manager thinks you should be putting in that extra time he'll find ways to slap you for refusing. I suppose you work in a Union shop where you're protected? Lucky you. I happen to be in the professional industry where companies slit the throats of union sympathizers.
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3. Could you elaborate on psychological abuse?
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You are a worthless piece of sh*t that can't do your job and you should be happy that we even keep you here. Now get back to work because no one else is going to get your work done for you and don't even think about asking for a raise. As of right now we officially declare you on probation because you do such crappy work. No, we're not going to fire you because we can't find anyone else to do your job better but, yes, you are a worthless piece of undeserving cow-manure.
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4. If companies could treat you like a slave, then they probably would.
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Once again comparing the US to Guatemala is not a proper comparison. Comparing the US to a country, say Germany or Great Britain, where they work barely 40 hours a week and get 6 weeks vacation time to start, is much more fair. Different light, isn't it?
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There are a lot of labor laws where I live. If you think that "The Man" is treating you as if you were a slave, my suggestion would be to move someplace where corporations are not allowed to
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Oh sure. If political graft is so bad we shouldn't stick up for our rights as Americans to challenge it as true patriots, we should just leave.
Your arguments suck and you're a troll.
Trusted computing is another extension of "the man" enslaving the end user.
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That's the sort of thing I'd be perfectly willing to challenge in court. No, I'd not be assured of winning, but at the same time, I'd not be assured of losing, either.
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The prospect of challenging anything in court sounds nice but let's face reality. Unless you're relatively independently wealthy and can prepay a lawyer to devote time to research this sort of thing you can forget it.
Quit teasing the majority of the population into thinking they have any real rights.
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Merely accepting an agreement does not necessarily mean that if push came to shove I would have to be bound by it - a company cannot just put anything they like in it.
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Have you looked at your employment agreement lately. Once you sign that bottom line the company can treat you like dogs**t, tear you up, have you work long hours, and subject you to psychological abuse and THEN kick you out the door for underperforming and it's all perfectly legal.
Who said slavery ended in the Civil War? The Civil War only changed the definition to mean "as long as we pay you in bank notes, WE OWN YOUR A$$"
How is this ontopic: Trusted computing is a form of computer slavery made legal by the EULA.
The biggest problme with a "computer license" is that, with the political and financial muscle that it packs, M$ would be set in charge of writing the standards for issuing the license. They're already approaching the de facto standard for non-college educated IT staffing.
On the reality side, however, it wouldn't function much different from the rest of this dysfunctional society. I'm personally amazed at the number of $100k+ jobs that I'm qualified for in terms of experience and knowledge but I'll never get hired because they're being filled by people with the proper paperwork. It's like we never purged the Nazies. We sanitized them to make them politically correct and business minded.
"Where are your papers."
"I don't need any papers."
"No good life for you. Off to the salt mines!"
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all powers not given to the federal government are given to the states...
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And the PEOPLE--a very important part which you omitted with "...". The PEOPLE are the most important part of a democracy. There is no "elastic clause" to the Tenth Amendment. It's very plain, very simple, it's not a vague concept and it's not hard to outline. Anything not explicitly granted within the US Constitution goes to the states and the people. There is no weasling around it.
Nowhere in the Constitution is the federal government given the power to create a roster or roll call or database of the citizenry. That is the sort of thing that the founding fathers were trying to escape from merry 'ole England for. If the individual states want to contract to make databases that's fine (if granted within the scope of the states' constitution) but the feds have absolutely no business even acknowledging that such a thing exists.
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I would change that to be every good idea has the possibility for abuse
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When mandated from above it's guaranteed. No top level government is completely free of greedy self-serving politicians. As long as they exist they will exploit any power that is available to them. It's natural law.
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Does that mean we shouldn't punish murderers?
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Blown way out of proportion and way out of context. But, since you mention it, I personally don't feel that the federal government has any place in trying murderers. Let them go round-robin with the locales. It's this sort of redundancy (the existence of both local laws prohibiting murder and federal laws prohibiting murder) that feeds the egomania and abuse of power that's rancidly prevalent in our current system.
Were you aware that the vast majority of federal laws include a preemption clause which seeks to make the federal law more sovereign than any equivalent state or local law? Think of the implications. If we live in a true democracy for the people why would the federal government ever even get into the habit of including preemption clauses?
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Most people are disatisfied with the government because they want to see their agenda adopted
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If we ever had a group of politicians who would adhere to the Tenth Amendment this wouldn't be a problem because their agendas would be meaningless. The Tenth Amendment explicitly states that, good idea or not, it's really none of the government's business to be meddling in things like this.
It's there for a good reason. Every good idea leads inevitably to abuses when mandated from above.
I did vote. However, one properly cast vote in a sea of random votes isn't going to send any reasonable message. It's like posting on USENET. The signal to noise ratio is far too low.
This is how the voting system is rigged. The vast majority of people have no concept of the real issues, they have no idea of the actual role of government, and they tend to vote for soap-box issues or the candidate whose party affiliation feeds their personal bias. This ensures that the vast majority of votes are cast randomly at best or, as can be proven by the predictable success and failure of Hollywood movies, cast in the direction that the major media favors.
And no. It's not rigged by Republicans. Must I explain a "Dog and Pony Show"? There are no real rebulicans or democrats.
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5 45360) many of which fund circular programs like this one, we can't participate in your idealistic review and challenge.
There is a process called "review and challenge"
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Is this the same process that allows me to fill out a claim form for the lost zipper on my jacket at the airport? (http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=100266&cid=8
Review and challenge only exists if you have the time and money to wade through the monolithic ball of red tape that's in the way. Since most of us are too busy working overtime to pay taxes, fees, surcharges, and fines (http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=100266&cid=8
Oh poor naive little troll.
The democratic method of holding elections by casting ballots is one of the oldest methods of decision making known to man since the time when a bunch of BC's sat around a fire and decided which direction to travel tomorrow on their quest for tires.
It's only logical that METHODS TO RIG THE VOTING system have existed just as long.
Cripes...