What part of that makes it acceptable to completely and utterly violate somebody's privacy like that? Cops use the all encompassing, "in my experience as a police officer, drug distributors and users often use electronic devices and computers to store information related to their drug buying/dealing." The police always seize computers when they raid houses for drugs.
The "war on drugs" has been simply ruinous for the U.S.; the police have been transformed into a paramilitary force, and Constitutional protections for everyone else have been watered down. All of this money spent, freedom lost, and people imprisoned, with absolutely no measurable benefits.
Nobody should really be using drag-and-drop to move, copy or link files on a regular basis. My sarcasm meter must be broken. You must be joking. He was talking about sorting folders with pictures! It would take ten times longer to do it your "power user" way.
the bliss that is getting harassed with a context menu every single fricken time they drag and drop a file! Seriously. Someone please, please tell me this behavior has been dropped in Kde4 (or 4.0, or 4.0.0, or whatever the bloody hell you want to call it).
So, what do we say now? It seems like we have a choice between claiming that this guy did not learn first aid from a video game, or that people only learn good skills from games. Both of those ring pretty hollow. Umm, I'll take the first option, thanks. Did you RTA? The soldier claimed that he learned to raise a hand above someone's head to lessen the blood flow from America's Army. That's only marginally better than claiming that America's Army taught him to duck behind a wall while being shot at.
I'm astonished that (1) this guy had never previously learned that raising a wounded limb lessens the blood flow, and (2) that the army didn't cover this basic, basic first aid instruction. Do they teach soldiers about tourniquets, or does the army hope that they pick that up in some video game as well?
Maybe by the time AT&T has it's filtering plan in place, they also hope to have a wide-ranging immunity law passed by Congress that supplants 17 U.S.C. 512. The new law, passed by a Congress that is nearly completely united on their love for telecom companies, would give telecoms complete immunity from any lawsuits while engaged in "efforts to combat copyright violations."
It looks as if there's a good chance the telecoms will get retroactive immunity for aiding in breaking the law and eavesdropping on customer's communications without warrants; it doesn't seem to be a stretch to imagine that they will plan on their congress-critters to help them out in their fight against digital piracy.
ISP's cant actually offer "unlimited" access to everybody, unless you want to start paying $300/month for home Internet. Its not realistic. People will do things like P2P that just eat up way too much traffic. They have two ways of dealing with the problem: So true! There's no way that could ever work! It's inconceivable, impossible, unimaginable! It's not like they've been operating up until now without any pre-set limits... oh really? they have? 500 grandmothers checking email occasionally for every heavy internet user? Huh. Nevermind.
Australia's had this for many years, and it works quite well - watch what you download, or manually shape your torrenting, or deal with slooow internet once you hit the cap. As the GP says, this is a non-event to most of the world who already have this in place. translation: We already have this crappy system in place, and I'm a bit jealous you don't have to deal with it. Now we'll all have to suffer by adjusting our internet usage through artificial limits. I'm happy when everyone has to deal with the same annoyances I do. It works quite well.
Big money/Corporations = Kevin Martin is all ears
Concerned citizens = Kevin Martin hears nothing
If Kevin Martin can ignore the public outrage about relaxing media ownership rules that he witnessed personally at several town hall meetings, he'll have no trouble ignoring a bunch of public comments on the internet. He's a corporate lapdog. This Comcast "investigation" is merely a formality and a complete joke.
If there's one suggestion I have for yahoo to improve their email, it's to leave their users the hell alone! I tried to switch to their new beta mail format (the outlookish one), and was immediately greeted by some lame popup which stole focus. It had a little cartoon guy asking me to take a minute so he can show me some cool new features of the new yahoo mail. It said something ridiculous like, "This will be quick, promise!" There was no way to kill the first intro box without another little popup coming up which started talking about new features.
I switched back to the old yahoo mail format as quickly as I could. I never, ever, ever want to be forced to go through a stupid little cutesy tutorial on "new features". If I want to see some new features I will explore later, when I choose to.
So how long before virtual sex entirely is gone too?
Followed by avatars who are too sexy, or provacative. I'm surprised it's not already. I gave SL a brief try a year or so ago when there was an uproar about virtual adult-child sex (apparently german authorities were investigating these horrendous acts of virtual sex). Linden Labs was busy banning child avatars and certain types of sex-ageplay, and there was even talk about banning adult characters that were "too short" because they could be interpreted as being children. I expected it to devolve into everyone having freakishly tall characters with gray hair.
This is fantasy-land, do whatever you'd like! Oh, except that, and that, and that...
Right up until encrypted traffic is also throttled. Exactly. It would be trivial for them to do. Give a few press releases about terrorists and pedophiles using encrypted traffic, make an argument that more thinking must be done about the children, and bingo, encrypted traffic is blocked or limited to 5 mb a month.
They could do it within a week. Hell, if it's near election time they could have Congress pass a law to make it mandatory within an afternoon (with some stupid acronym of course... the C.A.R.E. Act: Concerned Authorities Regarding Encryption, or some such nonsence).
The laws defines the consumer of child pornography as being the beneficiary of a crime against a child. The rape of a child. You have purchased the evidence of a sex crime that in many cultures would warrant the death penalty. That's some wonderful inflammatory language you have there, but let's put down the torch and the pitchfork and examine it a bit.
You have purchased the evidence of a sex crime The law makes no distinction for whether you have purchased the material, or whether you simply came across it on usenet accidently.
in many cultures would warrant the death penalty ...and to be fair, in many cultures material depicting 16 year-olds involved in sexual activity does not warrant any penalty whatsoever. Likewise, in many cultures pictures of children who are merely nude does not make the public assume ill-intent and froth at the mouth with anger.
You are not an innocent. I would say that if a minor is being prosecuted for disseminating pictures or video they have taken of themselves, they certainly are quite innocent. In that situation, it is the hysterical, illogical society that is guilty.
There are a lot of husbands and fathers who aren't going to want their porn turned completely off even for the "sake of the kiddies." On the other hand, think of how many husbands and fathers won't want to disagree when their wife says wants to keep their access filtered. "Gee honey, I say we opt out of the filter, because I don't want to stop sneaking downstairs after you fall asleep so I can watch barely-legal cheerleader porn."
You seem very supportive of the government's idea. Would you still consider it truly optional if in a few years they offered a tiered filered structure?
Option 1 --> Fully filtered, safe for kids, no pornography, nudity, or profanity allowed
Option 2 --> Filtered, but legal adult pornography is allowed
Option 3 --> Unfiltered
Who in their right mind would choose option 3? It would produce a tremendous chilling effect on the uncensored access to the internet, and thus to free speech as well. Keep in mind the inherent problems with filters that many others have already pointed out (who determines what is inappropriate, temptation for political censorship, etc.).
I would argue that the opt-out filter that the government has current proposed will already have a tremendous chilling effect on free speech. Good luck with that.
It looks like you can't equate someone with turning off the filter as someone who watches child porn. Senator Conroy: "If people equate freedom of speech with watching child pornography, then the Rudd-Labor Government is going to disagree."
If you aren't eagerly requesting that this filter be applied to your connection at home Don't worry you don't have to request it. The Australian government has already decided that it's best to filter the internet for you; if you like child pornography, pirating movies and music, and support terrorism, you can request that the filter be removed.
They're not MANDATING the USE of the filtered content, only that the ISP has to make it available. While they may not be forcing Australian citizens to use the internet filter, they're doing the next worst thing because you have to take an affirmative step in order to get it removed. The ISPs/government will have a handy list of all the "perverts" who want access to the unfiltered internet. There's no excuse for why this is an opt-out filter in private homes.
This will suck for people who want to access filtered material. They'll either have to call the ISP or register somehow, possibly in writing, which goes in the face of privacy.
The ISP will have a database of users with the "pervert" bit and who knows what might happen with that. Will that data be confidential? Or can the ISP sell the list to its "marketing partners" and send users direct mail offers for porn?
Exactly. And this Senator Controy has already made the requisite inference to connect people that don't have this filter in place with child pornography (i.e. if this filter is in place to stop the viewing of child pornography, why would you not want it, hmmm?)
If any of these examples harm people, they do so to people who are able to defend themselves in some way. So pictures/videos of violent crimes (sleeping bum getting beaten), or acts or terrorism (9/11 or any of the beheading videos) should be illegal to view or possess?
Where you fail is thinking that the level of stress experienced in a mugging approaches the level of trauma suffered in close combat or rape. I have friends who were robbed at gun point, I have family members who saw combat in the infantry, the latter includes highly motivated soldiers who fought in a popular war. Your analogy is quite poor. The biochemical responses are on very different levels. Wonderful. Anecdotal examples to back up your argument.
The fact that you have to go to such extreme comparable examples, especially ones with permanent physical damage (gouged eyes, dead child), supports my argument that it is not simply about puritanical views on sex. It goes both ways. There are also many examples of sex crimes which are relatively tame: the questionable drunk sex act where the victim is perceived as being unable to consent, the person who witnesses a flasher expose himself, a quick feel on the subway by a groper, etc.
A minor part perhaps. The true problems lies with the biochemical reactions of the mind and body during highly traumatic events. Memories are enhanced, new reactions/reflexes are developed,... In some ways it is comparable to experiencing close combat. You may be physically unharmed, but you are permanently changed, and it is something coming from the inside not the outside. Which also applies to the examples I used of someone who was mugged in a parking lot who is then afraid to get out of their car, or someone who has had their home burglarized who is afraid to go to sleep at night. Traumatic events are traumatic events; I fail to see how having sex involved in a crime somehow elevates it to a level of super-crime more heinous than all others.
instead of banning sex offenders from the internet because it is the same as lurking at playgrounds, maybe parents should educate their kids about the dangers of the internet I agree, but here's another idea... how about we see how many children are actually abducted/molested from "predators" they met over the internet. Here's the catch: you can't include "children" that are actually law-enforcement officers lurking around sexually suggestive chat-rooms pretending to be children.
I bet, especially given the number of children/teenagers on the internet, the number is infinitesimally small.
Slashdot Mirror
The "war on drugs" has been simply ruinous for the U.S.; the police have been transformed into a paramilitary force, and Constitutional protections for everyone else have been watered down. All of this money spent, freedom lost, and people imprisoned, with absolutely no measurable benefits.
Maybe I meant he's an online soldier!
I'm astonished that (1) this guy had never previously learned that raising a wounded limb lessens the blood flow, and (2) that the army didn't cover this basic, basic first aid instruction. Do they teach soldiers about tourniquets, or does the army hope that they pick that up in some video game as well?
Maybe by the time AT&T has it's filtering plan in place, they also hope to have a wide-ranging immunity law passed by Congress that supplants 17 U.S.C. 512. The new law, passed by a Congress that is nearly completely united on their love for telecom companies, would give telecoms complete immunity from any lawsuits while engaged in "efforts to combat copyright violations."
It looks as if there's a good chance the telecoms will get retroactive immunity for aiding in breaking the law and eavesdropping on customer's communications without warrants; it doesn't seem to be a stretch to imagine that they will plan on their congress-critters to help them out in their fight against digital piracy.
Big money/Corporations = Kevin Martin is all ears
Concerned citizens = Kevin Martin hears nothing
If Kevin Martin can ignore the public outrage about relaxing media ownership rules that he witnessed personally at several town hall meetings, he'll have no trouble ignoring a bunch of public comments on the internet. He's a corporate lapdog. This Comcast "investigation" is merely a formality and a complete joke.
If there's one suggestion I have for yahoo to improve their email, it's to leave their users the hell alone! I tried to switch to their new beta mail format (the outlookish one), and was immediately greeted by some lame popup which stole focus. It had a little cartoon guy asking me to take a minute so he can show me some cool new features of the new yahoo mail. It said something ridiculous like, "This will be quick, promise!" There was no way to kill the first intro box without another little popup coming up which started talking about new features.
I switched back to the old yahoo mail format as quickly as I could. I never, ever, ever want to be forced to go through a stupid little cutesy tutorial on "new features". If I want to see some new features I will explore later, when I choose to.
This is fantasy-land, do whatever you'd like! Oh, except that, and that, and that...
They could do it within a week. Hell, if it's near election time they could have Congress pass a law to make it mandatory within an afternoon (with some stupid acronym of course... the C.A.R.E. Act: Concerned Authorities Regarding Encryption, or some such nonsence).
And the public would cheer.
You have purchased the evidence of a sex crime The law makes no distinction for whether you have purchased the material, or whether you simply came across it on usenet accidently.
in many cultures would warrant the death penalty ...and to be fair, in many cultures material depicting 16 year-olds involved in sexual activity does not warrant any penalty whatsoever. Likewise, in many cultures pictures of children who are merely nude does not make the public assume ill-intent and froth at the mouth with anger.
You are not an innocent. I would say that if a minor is being prosecuted for disseminating pictures or video they have taken of themselves, they certainly are quite innocent. In that situation, it is the hysterical, illogical society that is guilty.
You seem very supportive of the government's idea. Would you still consider it truly optional if in a few years they offered a tiered filered structure?
Option 1 --> Fully filtered, safe for kids, no pornography, nudity, or profanity allowed
Option 2 --> Filtered, but legal adult pornography is allowed
Option 3 --> Unfiltered
Who in their right mind would choose option 3? It would produce a tremendous chilling effect on the uncensored access to the internet, and thus to free speech as well. Keep in mind the inherent problems with filters that many others have already pointed out (who determines what is inappropriate, temptation for political censorship, etc.).
I would argue that the opt-out filter that the government has current proposed will already have a tremendous chilling effect on free speech. Good luck with that.
Sounds like it's already happening.
I bet, especially given the number of children/teenagers on the internet, the number is infinitesimally small.