What if someone makes hardware to interpret the Open Source code differently?
You're stretching. What if the vote counter fell in the shower that morning, and thought red meant Democrat and blue meant Republican? How attenuated do you want to argue? No system will be perfectly secure. We both know that, and arguing unlikely scenarios detracts from the overall issue, which is trust. Besides, it's simple enough to require that the software run on hardware supplied by the state.
The big risk is that manipulation from a single person or organization can easily be distributed far and wide through electronic voting.
If the machines are non-networked, there isn't too big of a risk. I wouldn't trust any e-voting machine with a network card in it anyway. As long as the source MD5 hash checks out, it doesn't matter who's trying to corrupt what. That's something that can be verified on-site, after the Big Evil Scary Guys have no more control. And any corruption that happens outside the voting booth isn't an attack against the system used to record the votes.
You don't. How do you know that when you pull the handle in an election machine, it records a vote for the right candidate? You don't. What level of certainty do you require? I'm fine with election observers making sure that the electronic machines have the proper source, as verified by MD5 hash or other reliable technique, either at the voting site or at another location with a proper chain of custody in between. That's at least as good as what we've got now, and doesn't require a lot of extra work to implement.
We almost always get overnight results from a Presidential election, procedural screwups and statistical dead heats notwithstanding. Hiring counters isn't the problem, the problem is trust. I trust a program whose code I can inspect more than I trust some seasonal lackey hired off the street, provided appropriate safeguards are taken.
In the UK we count all the votes in our elections within 12 hours including the odd recount. Why are Americans obsessed with diluting their democracy by using machines to do it ?
United Kingdom -- Population: 60,441,457
United States -- Population: 295,734,134
And how do we know that the prinout matches whatever counter is incremented within the computer?
We don't, other than by inspecting the source. Once we cast our vote using a paper ballot, how do we know it was actually counted? We don't, other than by having observers present. Source inspection is the digital analogue of human election observers.
IMHO, having computers count is more accurate than having people count. Remember, as Stalin may or may not have said, "those who cast the votes decide nothing; those who count the votes decide everything." Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004 showed us that. Computers have no motivation to lie, and I can inspect a computer's source code. I can't inspect the mind of the person counting my paper ballot. To me, computers have more accountability.
Forming federal political parties sucks. Trust me. Try the Libertarians, although they don't have a lot of money. See the previous link for the reason why.
Re:Everyone loves to hate patents, but...
on
The Patent Epidemic
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Corporations like to build webs of patents around their products.
Corporate abuse of a broken system does not justify the system being broken in the first place.
But without such protections, there would be little incentive for companies to pay people like me to invent new products, because as soon as we did, they would be copied by places like China, and sold back in our markets for pennies on the dollar for what we could be able to sell them for. . . . Let's face it, folks, thought (IP) is one of the last marketable things that our country (USA) produces.
Without IP protections, we'd be making a hell of a lot more tangible goods domestically, and we wouldn't be worrying so much about foreign competition. On the other hand, IP protection by its very nature prevents free market domestic production of the same tangible goods. Strong IP rights being enforced domestically are, ironically enough, driving manufacturing jobs overseas, creating the very problem you fear.
If I can create the same technology in my garage over the weekend, there is no reason why I should have to pay royalties or licensing to implement the technology.
This is classic hindsight bias. I invent a better mousetrap. You might have done the same thing in your garage over the weekend, but you didn't and I did. It's as simple as that. Sure, what I did is obvious in retrospect, but invention doesn't happen by looking backwards.
Patents should apply to technology that requires years of research and/or lots of money and/or lots of people to develop
Because small inventors shouldn't get protection? Do their ideas deserve to be sucked up by big corporations who can afford lawyers?
Another aspect of the patent litmus test is to question whether the patent is ACTUALLY a unique innovation, or whether countless other people have the same idea and simply don't have the resources or time to go through the patent process.
If it's really that obvious, it's not a huge burden to require that at least one of those countless people actually write something about it. In which case, 35 USC 102(a) applies.
Also, why not insist that if the innovation has merit to benefit mankind, then the patent will only be awarded if it becomes public domain.
Patents by definition are monopolies of use exclusion, and public domain is unrestricted use. Since patents automatically expire, and their inventions become public, I'm not sure what you mean by this.
Finally, a patent should only be awarded to a company or individual willing to make the innovation a reality.
This I agree with, to the extent that if patents should be granted at all, they exist to promote use, not hinder it. Seeing as how patents restrict use by their very nature, whether they can promote use effectively is debatable.
In order for a patent to be valid, the entity (person or company) owning the patent must produce at least one (1) working, real, physical example of whatever it is that they are patenting.
It may be clear (in hindsight, obviously) that there are many, MANY ways of performing a particular (novel, non-obvious) function. Do you have to produce a realization of each of these devices? For instance, you make a mousetrap covered with a non-stick substance to make clean up easier. No one has ever thought of this before. Do you have to give the patent office mousetraps coated with every non-stick substance known (and unknown, for that matter)? Under your 'production' system, the first guy who reads your patent will use a substance you didn't think of, and the rationale behind issuing your patent in the first place is defeated.
In order to meaningfully preserve such a system, you must allow generalization in the patent claims beyond what is actually 'produced' in order to preserve the rationales of the patent system. In which case, how far do you open the door? In what directions do you allow generalization? Only on so-called 'key functions', those that differentiate the device from devices which came before? Then who determines what the key functions are? (The patent office.) Who is responsible for determining whether the application, as filed, is 'close enough' to the produced device? (The patent office.) Who is responsible for determining that the application doesn't include anything that isn't in the produced device, to avoid 'trolls'? (The patent office.) I'm sure there's more work the patent office would have to do, that I haven't thought of.
I wasn't aiming for Insightful, I was aiming for Funny. I have a fair understanding of the people involved, and a good understanding laws in this country, better than most (I'm in law school). I cherish the liberties my forefathers died for, and I don't want them to be lost. It would take about a half hour for me to explain exactly why Bush's spy program is illegal, citing Constitutions, laws, and cases. That is, if everything I've heard about it is true, which it might not be, and I try not to give free legal advice for precisely that reason. And before you criticize someone for not being out in the 'real world', I used to work for the NSA. I quit about five years ago, because I knew something like this was coming, and I didn't want to be a part of it. But I love those guys, they do more to keep this country safe than most people will ever know. All of the ones I met were patriots, and loved this country more than most America-bashers on Slashdot. I simply disagree with what they're being told to do. If that gets me points in an echo chamber, so be it, but I'll be damned if I sit idly by and not say anything about it.
Sex is good, unless it's for money, then it's bad (in capitalist America, who would have thought?). Porn is good, unless you're a conservative. Sex with children is bad, but selling it is really bad. Violent porn is very, very bad. Violence in general is bad, unless you're under a repressive government, in which case it's OK to overthrow a dictator if it's yours, but not if it's somebody else's. China is terrible, because they spy on their citizens. America is the greatest country on Earth, we'd never do that. Oh, wait, yes we would. It's great to speak out, unless you're in a paranoid government that doesn't follow its own laws (but I just covered that). But we're still the best, because we're loud, over-confident, and we've got the 82nd Airborne, and all you other countries don't, so neener neener. Oh yeah, and we've got God on our side, and that beats all you heathens.
Due to wind, bees, eh, nature the GM plants spread to your field, and soon you're growing GM plants.
If you're an organic farmer, you probably won't get de-certified, but you will incur additional charges to re-evaluate your barrier with your certifying agent. You might be able to sue Monsanto for this cost. If you have to erect additional physical barriers to prevent further contamination, you might be able to get Monsanto to pay for that as well. The real problem is the strict liability nature of patents being applied automatically to genetic patents, but that's a thread for another day.
history and economics have shown UNQUESTIONABLY that the notion of copyright (and other IP mechanisms) (and the necessary enforcement that comes with it) are actually very useful for "human culture and advancement."
I question it. Prove your claim. Show me two systems in comparison, one with copyright and one without. I want numbers to back up your claim, not just rhetoric. I want you to demonstrate a causal link, that societies with copyright have progressed farther than those without.
Claims that copyright is better than no copyright are empty, without real proof on either side. Sure, there's a lot of circumstantial evidence, but that doesn't mean much to me. There was a lot of circumstantial evidence that the Earth is flat, too, but we all see how well that theory worked out. So I question your conclusion, on strictly logical grounds.
In my estimation, the vast majority of [lawyers] are not providing a valuable service, they're just bottom scrapers who leech off benefits from a crooked system.
I don't know what your profession is, but I'm going to use an example I think a lot of readers here will understand. You don't hire a lawyer to write code. Conversely, you wouldn't hire a coder (or anyone else without legal training) to try a case.
People have different talents. If you have a software problem, you hire a coder; if you have a building problem, you hire an architect; if you have a power problem, you hire an electrician; if you have a legal problem, you hire a lawyer. I don't particularly believe any of those people are 'bottom scrapers', or are otherwise unhelpful. You yourself indicated that you would immediately hire a lawyer if you got into legal trouble again, which seems to me that you understand how useful lawyers are. If you think the system sucks, change it. Go to law school. Write your Congressmen. Give money to the EFF.
I'm sorry you lost your case. I'm not particularly surprised, but at least it didn't cost you too much. On the other hand, I don't think it's sufficient justification for your comment.
You hit the nail on the head. It's all about fairness. Enforcing fairness doesn't come cheaply. If you want a cheap trial, let's sit you and me down in front of a judge, spend a half hour each arguing our case, and let the judge decide. That would be cheap, but it wouldn't be fair. It gets more expensive every time someone says that they didn't get to introduce evidence, or that they need experts, or that they have to call more witnesses, or that the other side did something wrong, or that they need more time, etc. If you had a legal system where the judge wouldn't allow you to do these things, it wouldn't be fair either.
But these are problems with the legal system, not the substance of the laws themselves. The latter is where the real issue lies. Most of the laws surrounding copyright were passed long before Napster was a twinkle in Shawn Fanning's eye. Congress was focused on copyright infringment for commercial gain, not for personal use. That's why the fair use exceptions are for "criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research", with the first factor to consider being "the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes". Of course, this was before news programs became profit centers for Big Media, but that's another discussion.
The problem isn't the RIAA -- they're just exploiting a bad law. If it weren't they, it would just be someone else (for example, the artists themselves). The problem is Congress, who need to change the law to reflect the change in society's views on copying. However, any change to the law favoring free downloads would hit the music (and possibly movie) industries in the pocketbook, which is why they've been lobbying so hard for so many years now. I think they're genuinely frightened, since they've thrown so much political capital at the issue.
The US favors a legal system of fairness of rights over equality of ability to pay, and I think rightly so. But it would be so much nicer if we didn't have to use the legal system at all to resolve our differences.
C#, for all of it's nicety, is little more than Java taken in MS' desired direction.
C# is absolutely nothing more than Java embraced and extended by MS. I'm sure you remember this lawsuit, followed just shy of three years later by this announcement.
Let's not forget that C# is the closed-source bastard stepchild of another, mostly closed-source language. What does that make Mono??
From the case in Illinois, which gave a permanent injunction against enforcing the Illinois Violent Video Games Law and the Sexually Explicit Video Games Law:
The priceless heritage of American society is the unrestricted constitutional right of each member to think as he will. Thought control is a copyright of totalitarianism, and Americans have no claim to it. It is not the function of the government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error. These concerns apply to minors just as they apply to adults. If controlling access to allegedly "dangerous" speech is important in promoting the positive psychological development of children, in American society that role is properly accorded to parents and families, not the state.
Amen, Brother. I hope all you Illinois residents out there send a big thank you to
JUDGE MATTHEW F. KENNELLY
United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division
Everett McKinley Dirksen Building
219 South Dearborn Street
Chicago, Illinois 60604
The name of the case is Entertainment Software Association v. Blagojevich. The judge was quoting Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson, from his opinion in a 1950 case.
Here's my (Libertarian) take. People should have freedom, but be responsible about it. This means two things. One, the government shouldn't get involved and regulate cell phone use while driving. But two, people should have enough responsibility to never use cell phones while driving, unless it's an emergency.
Maybe the reason government is over-intrusive is that so many people have forgotten personal responsibility, and ruined it for the rest of us.
What upsets them is when some domain hijacker comes along, reports the "invalid WHOIS," gets the domain revoked and then purchases it themselves.
This isn't a problem with public information, this is a problem with the ISP being lazy and automatically granting domains without bothering to pick up a phone or do any other verification. On the other hand, it's a lot more work to do it Right, and work equals $$.
I think that the best answer is to require the registrar to have the right contact information, but don't make it publicly available.
This would be great, if registrars were actually responsive to complaints about spam, phishing, etc. Maybe you are, but I know plenty that aren't. Keeping the owner's information public is a great equalizer.
I would guess it's more just people trying to maintain some modicum of privacy.
The Internet is not private. When will people learn this? If you want privacy, send 3-by-5 pix in an envelope. If you want I'm-too-lazy-to-move-my-ass-from-the-couch, post your pix online. If people want Privacy, they know where to get it. Unfortunately, no ISP can tell them the truth, because that loses business.
First, you narrowly define what you mean by "intelligence". Then you put together something that meets those narrow criteria while pumping your stock. Profit!
What does "intelligent" mean, please?
First, you narrowly define what you mean by "intelligence". Then you put together something that meets those narrow criteria while pumping your stock. Profit!
Slashdot Mirror
You're stretching. What if the vote counter fell in the shower that morning, and thought red meant Democrat and blue meant Republican? How attenuated do you want to argue? No system will be perfectly secure. We both know that, and arguing unlikely scenarios detracts from the overall issue, which is trust. Besides, it's simple enough to require that the software run on hardware supplied by the state.
The big risk is that manipulation from a single person or organization can easily be distributed far and wide through electronic voting.
If the machines are non-networked, there isn't too big of a risk. I wouldn't trust any e-voting machine with a network card in it anyway. As long as the source MD5 hash checks out, it doesn't matter who's trying to corrupt what. That's something that can be verified on-site, after the Big Evil Scary Guys have no more control. And any corruption that happens outside the voting booth isn't an attack against the system used to record the votes.
You don't. How do you know that when you pull the handle in an election machine, it records a vote for the right candidate? You don't. What level of certainty do you require? I'm fine with election observers making sure that the electronic machines have the proper source, as verified by MD5 hash or other reliable technique, either at the voting site or at another location with a proper chain of custody in between. That's at least as good as what we've got now, and doesn't require a lot of extra work to implement.
I'm going to go out on a limb here, and say they all begin with "F".
We almost always get overnight results from a Presidential election, procedural screwups and statistical dead heats notwithstanding. Hiring counters isn't the problem, the problem is trust. I trust a program whose code I can inspect more than I trust some seasonal lackey hired off the street, provided appropriate safeguards are taken.
United Kingdom -- Population: 60,441,457
United States -- Population: 295,734,134
We don't, other than by inspecting the source. Once we cast our vote using a paper ballot, how do we know it was actually counted? We don't, other than by having observers present. Source inspection is the digital analogue of human election observers.
IMHO, having computers count is more accurate than having people count. Remember, as Stalin may or may not have said, "those who cast the votes decide nothing; those who count the votes decide everything." Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004 showed us that. Computers have no motivation to lie, and I can inspect a computer's source code. I can't inspect the mind of the person counting my paper ballot. To me, computers have more accountability.
Forming federal political parties sucks. Trust me. Try the Libertarians, although they don't have a lot of money. See the previous link for the reason why.
Corporate abuse of a broken system does not justify the system being broken in the first place.
But without such protections, there would be little incentive for companies to pay people like me to invent new products, because as soon as we did, they would be copied by places like China, and sold back in our markets for pennies on the dollar for what we could be able to sell them for. . . . Let's face it, folks, thought (IP) is one of the last marketable things that our country (USA) produces.
Without IP protections, we'd be making a hell of a lot more tangible goods domestically, and we wouldn't be worrying so much about foreign competition. On the other hand, IP protection by its very nature prevents free market domestic production of the same tangible goods. Strong IP rights being enforced domestically are, ironically enough, driving manufacturing jobs overseas, creating the very problem you fear.
This is classic hindsight bias. I invent a better mousetrap. You might have done the same thing in your garage over the weekend, but you didn't and I did. It's as simple as that. Sure, what I did is obvious in retrospect, but invention doesn't happen by looking backwards.
Patents should apply to technology that requires years of research and/or lots of money and/or lots of people to develop
Because small inventors shouldn't get protection? Do their ideas deserve to be sucked up by big corporations who can afford lawyers?
Another aspect of the patent litmus test is to question whether the patent is ACTUALLY a unique innovation, or whether countless other people have the same idea and simply don't have the resources or time to go through the patent process.
If it's really that obvious, it's not a huge burden to require that at least one of those countless people actually write something about it. In which case, 35 USC 102(a) applies.
Also, why not insist that if the innovation has merit to benefit mankind, then the patent will only be awarded if it becomes public domain.
Patents by definition are monopolies of use exclusion, and public domain is unrestricted use. Since patents automatically expire, and their inventions become public, I'm not sure what you mean by this.
Finally, a patent should only be awarded to a company or individual willing to make the innovation a reality.
This I agree with, to the extent that if patents should be granted at all, they exist to promote use, not hinder it. Seeing as how patents restrict use by their very nature, whether they can promote use effectively is debatable.
It may be clear (in hindsight, obviously) that there are many, MANY ways of performing a particular (novel, non-obvious) function. Do you have to produce a realization of each of these devices? For instance, you make a mousetrap covered with a non-stick substance to make clean up easier. No one has ever thought of this before. Do you have to give the patent office mousetraps coated with every non-stick substance known (and unknown, for that matter)? Under your 'production' system, the first guy who reads your patent will use a substance you didn't think of, and the rationale behind issuing your patent in the first place is defeated.
In order to meaningfully preserve such a system, you must allow generalization in the patent claims beyond what is actually 'produced' in order to preserve the rationales of the patent system. In which case, how far do you open the door? In what directions do you allow generalization? Only on so-called 'key functions', those that differentiate the device from devices which came before? Then who determines what the key functions are? (The patent office.) Who is responsible for determining whether the application, as filed, is 'close enough' to the produced device? (The patent office.) Who is responsible for determining that the application doesn't include anything that isn't in the produced device, to avoid 'trolls'? (The patent office.) I'm sure there's more work the patent office would have to do, that I haven't thought of.
I wasn't aiming for Insightful, I was aiming for Funny. I have a fair understanding of the people involved, and a good understanding laws in this country, better than most (I'm in law school). I cherish the liberties my forefathers died for, and I don't want them to be lost. It would take about a half hour for me to explain exactly why Bush's spy program is illegal, citing Constitutions, laws, and cases. That is, if everything I've heard about it is true, which it might not be, and I try not to give free legal advice for precisely that reason. And before you criticize someone for not being out in the 'real world', I used to work for the NSA. I quit about five years ago, because I knew something like this was coming, and I didn't want to be a part of it. But I love those guys, they do more to keep this country safe than most people will ever know. All of the ones I met were patriots, and loved this country more than most America-bashers on Slashdot. I simply disagree with what they're being told to do. If that gets me points in an echo chamber, so be it, but I'll be damned if I sit idly by and not say anything about it.
Did I miss anything?
If you're an organic farmer, you probably won't get de-certified, but you will incur additional charges to re-evaluate your barrier with your certifying agent. You might be able to sue Monsanto for this cost. If you have to erect additional physical barriers to prevent further contamination, you might be able to get Monsanto to pay for that as well. The real problem is the strict liability nature of patents being applied automatically to genetic patents, but that's a thread for another day.
I think it was Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster Press.
Me too. That's why I comment my code, and never trust my arguments. And I always punt refactoring to some lackey.
I question it. Prove your claim. Show me two systems in comparison, one with copyright and one without. I want numbers to back up your claim, not just rhetoric. I want you to demonstrate a causal link, that societies with copyright have progressed farther than those without.
Claims that copyright is better than no copyright are empty, without real proof on either side. Sure, there's a lot of circumstantial evidence, but that doesn't mean much to me. There was a lot of circumstantial evidence that the Earth is flat, too, but we all see how well that theory worked out. So I question your conclusion, on strictly logical grounds.
I don't know what your profession is, but I'm going to use an example I think a lot of readers here will understand. You don't hire a lawyer to write code. Conversely, you wouldn't hire a coder (or anyone else without legal training) to try a case.
People have different talents. If you have a software problem, you hire a coder; if you have a building problem, you hire an architect; if you have a power problem, you hire an electrician; if you have a legal problem, you hire a lawyer. I don't particularly believe any of those people are 'bottom scrapers', or are otherwise unhelpful. You yourself indicated that you would immediately hire a lawyer if you got into legal trouble again, which seems to me that you understand how useful lawyers are. If you think the system sucks, change it. Go to law school. Write your Congressmen. Give money to the EFF.
I'm sorry you lost your case. I'm not particularly surprised, but at least it didn't cost you too much. On the other hand, I don't think it's sufficient justification for your comment.
But these are problems with the legal system, not the substance of the laws themselves. The latter is where the real issue lies. Most of the laws surrounding copyright were passed long before Napster was a twinkle in Shawn Fanning's eye. Congress was focused on copyright infringment for commercial gain, not for personal use. That's why the fair use exceptions are for "criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research", with the first factor to consider being "the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes". Of course, this was before news programs became profit centers for Big Media, but that's another discussion.
The problem isn't the RIAA -- they're just exploiting a bad law. If it weren't they, it would just be someone else (for example, the artists themselves). The problem is Congress, who need to change the law to reflect the change in society's views on copying. However, any change to the law favoring free downloads would hit the music (and possibly movie) industries in the pocketbook, which is why they've been lobbying so hard for so many years now. I think they're genuinely frightened, since they've thrown so much political capital at the issue.
The US favors a legal system of fairness of rights over equality of ability to pay, and I think rightly so. But it would be so much nicer if we didn't have to use the legal system at all to resolve our differences.
C# is absolutely nothing more than Java embraced and extended by MS. I'm sure you remember this lawsuit, followed just shy of three years later by this announcement.
Let's not forget that C# is the closed-source bastard stepchild of another, mostly closed-source language. What does that make Mono??
So every time the Mooninites launch an attack on the Golgotron, it makes Slashdot? Nothing to see here, move along...
Same as the Old America.
Maybe the reason government is over-intrusive is that so many people have forgotten personal responsibility, and ruined it for the rest of us.
This isn't a problem with public information, this is a problem with the ISP being lazy and automatically granting domains without bothering to pick up a phone or do any other verification. On the other hand, it's a lot more work to do it Right, and work equals $$.
I think that the best answer is to require the registrar to have the right contact information, but don't make it publicly available.
This would be great, if registrars were actually responsive to complaints about spam, phishing, etc. Maybe you are, but I know plenty that aren't. Keeping the owner's information public is a great equalizer.
I would guess it's more just people trying to maintain some modicum of privacy.
The Internet is not private. When will people learn this? If you want privacy, send 3-by-5 pix in an envelope. If you want I'm-too-lazy-to-move-my-ass-from-the-couch, post your pix online. If people want Privacy, they know where to get it. Unfortunately, no ISP can tell them the truth, because that loses business.
What does "intelligent" mean, please?
First, you narrowly define what you mean by "intelligence". Then you put together something that meets those narrow criteria while pumping your stock. Profit!
LOL.