There is "su" in Unix and "Run as..." in Windows. I think the transient privilege escalation behaviour is well supported by all.
Yup. Which is worse, really, because now you've gone from a user messing up their own account, to locking down their account too far so that they have to give the software the ability to screw up the entire machine. Not exactly a great advancement in security, IMO.
This isn't fair, IMO. Windows lets you click just after the thing got downloaded. Unix needs you to conciously enable execution of the thingie, by chmod'ing in the command line, or a property sheet of nautilus, whatever. I think stuff like this it (requiring some additional action from you) really stops lazy / passive users from launching just about anything.
Oh, c'mon. We're talking about users installing software. They're either going to run make install, or sh something.sh, or rpm, or whatever. I wouldn't be surprised if the RPM based installations had a way to install an RPM by clicking on it (easy to do) anyway. The point being that unless your user never adds new software, they can (and will) download and install spyware, adware, et cetera. Simply making it hard for them to install software is not a very scalable or effective solution.
Very true. And moderately meaningless. How many home users have partitions set up to disable execution rights? Anyway, if this was the case in the user's home directory (for example), they wouldn't be able to install any new applications with becoming the superuser, which kinda defeats the purpose.
That, and the fact that the "executable attribute" of Windows binaries is on the *filename* (which is by default *set by the remote party*), makes me thing there is still a big difference.
Many home users:
a) like to install new software
b) don't pay a lot of attention to what it is
c) expect it to actually work and run
Unless you can get rid of one of those issues, home users will continue to expose themselves to spyware. Most home users don't run Linux machines. That's why spyware/malware authors target Windows boxes.
Look at things like Comet Cursor. Or Bonzi Buddy (whatever it was called). People download those programs, by themselves, willingly, all over the damn place. There's nothing about Linux that would prevent that either other than the fact that its not worth their time to write software for - sheer economies of scale.
And once the user has installed one program, it can easily download, chmod, and install others. In weird, random places. Added to the shell startup file. Or start a keylogger and look for an "su" command, and then add things to system startup. Or whatever else it wants to do. And there's nothing stopping it.
But hey, who even said that a locked down 'user' account (not even Power User) would have been any less dangerous? Spyware could still install itself to any folder within that users own Documents and Settings folder. Registry keys under HKEY_USER could still be modified.
Which is 100% true on UNIX systems also. It just happens to be true that most spyware type apps (the vast majority of which are actively and willingly downloaded by their end-users) are written for Windows. If more people were using UNIX, you'd get these apps for UNIX as well. There's no technical superiority here, just user frustration (ie: this app (which has bad side effects) isn't available for my OS so I can't download it and see the pretty cursors (or whatever)).
Heh - I just talked about that elsewhere in this thread. I honestly believe that a UNIX/Apache admin could do more with Windows/IIS, faster, easier, than an IIS admin could do with Apache.
Of course, you can just install Apache on Windows too for an alternative. But honestly, unless you're skating right to the thin edge or using Apache specific add-ons, you probably don't need to bother with it.
Did that take me longer to do that it would have done in Apache? Absolutely. Was it faster than it would have taken an IIS wizard to accomplish the same task? Almost certainly.
I meant, "...IIS wizard to accomplish the same task in Apache." Not meaning to imply that I can click faster than they can do whatever. Just saying that for crossover administration (like the grandparent discusses), I've found precious little in Windows that wasn't easier than it would have been for my mythical counterpart.
I'm a UNIX guy myself, but a few months ago we started co-locing a Windows server. The "Manage Your Server" program (under Start->Programs->Administrative) has to be one of the easiest things to use when you're not entirely sure what you want to do.
I'm not talking raw power, or admining 50 boxen, something that you'd want someone who knows the ins and outs of the system for. I'm talking easy basic server administration looking for a "good enough" result.
Even the individual server admin screens are pretty easy to follow. I needed to add a new virtual domain to IIS - something I can do to Apache in my sleep. Followed the linky to the admin page, right-clicked on the "Web Sites" folder, chose "New...". Entered a description, the folder, IP, port, etc. Chose the default "Read" permission.
Did that take me longer to do that it would have done in Apache? Absolutely. Was it faster than it would have taken an IIS wizard to accomplish the same task? Almost certainly.
It gets more interesting though - right click on the new website and choose "Properties." Hmm - performance. There's a checkbox/field to limit network bandwidth to this site. Cool. Not something that I need, but the exploratory nature revealed it and - I have to admit - I don't know how to accomplish the same task using Apache. I've never needed to, and I'm sure that I could figure it out with a lot of STFWing...
But, for lone box / untrained admin situations, I have to say that Windows Server is surprisingly, even remarkably, easy to use.
For this UNIX admin, anyway.
Oh, and as for DNS - on that same program (which starts by default on your administrator account unless you've disabled it), you can choose "Add role" and then "DNS server" and be walked through the entire process. Just a thought.
Excuse me? I think that a law office - or anyone with more than 10 laptops floating around - should have no problem buying devices with the appropriate limits (high or non-existant). After all, you're talking about a shop with many thousands of dollars in computers trying to spend time to apply a non-supported hack to save, what, another $100 or so? Not likely, and not necessary.
So this kid spends an average of 1025 minutes a MONTH on his cell phone?
Why is that so weird? Think about it. You're being overwhelmed by a large number. First, divide 1025 by 60 to see that its 19 hours. There. Already that doesn't sound so bad. 19 hours a month. Divide by four. Round up. That's five hours a week.
NEWSFLASH! High school student talks on phone for five hours a week! Parents and community amazed! Film at 11!
C'mon. Most, if not all, of those minutes were probably used in the evenings, or on weekends, when they're unmetered anyway. Since when was this excessive phone usage for an eighteen year old? Just because its a celphone, not a regular cordless phone?
I'm not really fond of the idea of keeping them out at Guantanamo Bay. I would prefer that they be hooked up with legal assistance and moved stateside, but depending on how some things work out, it appears that there is a loophole in the legal framework that isn't likely to be closed soon. They're not POW's, so there's no requirement to treat them as such. They're not in the US, so US law may not apply to them (last I heard, no one had been able to tell on which side the Supreme Court justices were falling on this). But Guantanamo Bay is also not subject to Cuban law.
The real challenge would be proving that those held at Guantanamo Bay are indeed Al Queda operatives. Especially since it seems that some of those who have been released after being held for multiple years... were not. I don't see anything about the Geneva Convention not applying to suspected terrorists. After all, you could make the case that - as in the constitutional precepts of the US - that people are civillians unless proven terrorists for the purposes of the Geneva Convention. But yeah, its a really hard call to make. And I sure don't have the answer either.
Why is it important that all sizes have identical aspect ratios? Why is 2-up such a magic number? What if you wanted 3-up side by side? Or just wanted to scale by 1.6? There's nothing so special (or metric) about sqrt(2).
Oh, its not important that all sizes do. And so all sizes don't, even in that scheme. However, it is useful to have some that do. Hence, the letter. The letter (A,B,etc) denotes the aspect ratio. The number (0,1,2,3,etc) denotes the relative size. Simple, really. And damned useful.
There are many people, however, mainly metropolitan commuters, who drive upwards of fifty miles each day transporting nothing but themselves and a briefcase. Take a look at any large (1mm+) city and you'll see them. This car is for them instead.
I mean, how often is it that you actually need both cars in a two-car family to be able to accomodate more than one person at the same time? Its actually pretty rare. Having one comfortable mid-size car (or SUV, or minivan) and one of these would make sense for a lot of families.
On paper, at least.
Re:Attention "Duh! A computer costs $300!" posters
on
Open Source Hotspots
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Remember...
Most poeple running Linux already have a computer...
What they don't have is a Wi-Fi hotspot...
Hmm. Yes, but an awful lot of people running Linux have a, singular, computer. And they'd kind of like to use it in different places without running wires everywhere. IE: the normal use of a wireless internet connection.
This is only useful as you point out if they have two computers, one of which they want to leave right where its it. Oh, and they're willing to pay about the same amount of money to get a wireless card as you can pay for a decent WAP. Which is fine, if you get your jollies hacking on your WAP... personally, that falls into the "Just make it work" category for me - there are more interesting things that I can do with my time, even while coding.
Wordpress can be rough if you don't know PHP or not willing to play with the code
Ya know - you just lost me right there. Which is fine, you're not trying to sell the product and I appreciate being told the truth. And yes, I actually have slung a few thousand lines of PHP code in my time. But when I'm dumping out an exercise log using MT (or whatever), its the last thing I want to think about.
I would say that if you have to drop down to toolkit code in WordPress, then it is indeed "that much better". Of course, that's just my opinion. Note: "have to" != "can".
And btw, I use 11x17" all the time, which is *surprise* exactly twice the size of Letter.
Twice the area of letter, I think you mean. Exactly 187in2 compared to letter's 93.5in2. But not really twice the size. That would be a more useful 12.0175" x 15.56064" (approximately). That would be what you need to give you a piece of paper that has the same ration as a US Letter sheet, but twice the area.
Why is this useful? Enlargements and reductions. You can actually design on any convenient A* piece of paper and print on any other A* piece of paper with no changes (except for the final size). Same with the B* series, et cetera. As an added bonus, because of the ration that they chose, you still get the ability to make two side-by-side pages fit on the next size up. Pretty cool, eh?
'It took Adam Arkin and David Schaffer just $200,000 and a grad student to develop a potential treatment for AIDS. And that scares them.'
Developing a potential treatment for AIDS is, after all, relatively easy. Doing all of the studies necessary before releasing an engineered virus into the wild, now that's both difficult and expensive. Very difficult, and very expensive, in terms of highly dangerous controlled tests, especially over large amounts of time.
But it isn't that simple. What the Wired article alludes to without really exploring it is that efficiency is related to driving habits. You can drive a hybrid like any other car, of course, but if you want the best efficiency out of a hybrid, you have to learn to drive it efficiently. That's one of the reasons the Prius has the computer display in the center of the console: so you can relate how you drive with how the engine is utilized. Mastering regenerative braking is one of these details. Learning the most efficient routes around town is another.
Of course, most of the standard hybrid hints (no jack rabit starts, etc) and your comment about learning efficient routes around town would apply equally to non-hybrid vehicles...
Do you *really* think your 2004 BMW 3 Series 325Ci Coupe gets 20 MPG city/29 MPG highway? Really? I call bullshit!
You might be surprised. I had (until I started my own business) a nice, mildly modified '01 Corvette convertible. Big heavy sports car, and the ragtop doesn't help the mileage. I could hit 22/28mpg averages no problem, and that 28 was at 85+ mph with the top down - dropping to 65 would get me around 32mpg on the rare occasions that I drove that way. Of course, it helped that with the 6 speed the engine was running at around 1500rpm on the highway, just loafing along. That was a great roadtrip car...
There's a ton of FUD about this going around. But its necessary. Basically, the car counts as "income" so you pay income taxes on it.
If they didn't do this, then instead of companies paying you in dollars, they could just pay you in "cars" (or something smaller, like bycicles) that you could convert to dollars tax-free. So this really plugs a loophole. But you pay tax on your income, no matter what form it comes in - money, cars, vacations, etc.
The worst example I ever saw was someone who won a one-year lease on a new BMW Z3. Have you seen the price on a one year lease? They ended up paying ~$600 a month in equiv. taxes, a reasonable car payment, and they didn't even get to pick the car.
You argue that my sharing the content (which I paid for with my tax dollars) comes at a "very real cost to the broadcasters." This is what I meant by a **AA mentality. The logic is nonsenical enough for commercial content producers. They claim that if someone shares an MP3 they lose a dollar because the recipient would surely otherwise have paid for it.
Actually, since the topic was the BBC streaming feeds, I was thinking of the bandwidth that they'd have to have to handle everything. Not a P2P sharing thing at all.
Instead of mindlessly embracing the **AA mentality of "ownership of everything," why not ask yourself this: if the BBC, and PBS, and NPR, and other PUBLIC broadcasters produced their programs for the PUBLIC domain instead of trying to hoard it, what would be the effect?
The immediate effect would be that they would have to get much less restrictive agreements from everyone else that they dealt with whose material they use in their broadcasts. This would be a pain. Unless you want to restrict them to never showing anything or using any footage from someone who doesn't also want to give up all future revenue from it. Its the same process that is both the greatest strength and the greatest weakness of the GPL - everyone has to agree.
Let's say that there's some file footage owned by another network. They can license it for use on their network, even online. But could they even license it if they were then going to give it away? Not very likely, since its considered to be salable property of the originating network. So now they wouldn't be able to use it. Think of the footage coming from overseas, from various network's special correspondents who may be the only people around to get the shot. You'd never see it. Now do you understand their concerns a little more?
Of course, considering Regan's medical condition, its very probable that he was speaking nothing but the truth and had "no recollection" of all sorts of events.
We need PUBLIC broadcasters to serve the PUBLIC, and make content for the PUBLIC domain. If you want to argue that no one should get anything they haven't paid for, why should there even be a pubic domain?
Hmm. Maybe because nothing is free? After all, the PUBLIC (to use your word) broadcasters need funding from somewhere. And it comes from the PUBLIC (hence the name). And goes to the PUBLIC. Except in this case, where it also goes to all sorts of other PUBLICs (ie: those of us who don't pay UK taxes) at a very real cost to the broadcasters.
If there was some kind of International broadcasting company supported by international taxes, you'd have a point. Unfortunately, there isn't.
As for why we need them? Well, "need" is a touchy word. We don't "need" much of anything. But, historically, they have done a much better job at things like news production (think McNiel/Leher or BBC News) than the commercial channels, who have a habit of not showing "unhappy" news because the viewers change the channel.
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There is "su" in Unix and "Run as..." in Windows. I think the transient privilege escalation behaviour is well supported by all.
Yup. Which is worse, really, because now you've gone from a user messing up their own account, to locking down their account too far so that they have to give the software the ability to screw up the entire machine. Not exactly a great advancement in security, IMO.
This isn't fair, IMO. Windows lets you click just after the thing got downloaded. Unix needs you to conciously enable execution of the thingie, by chmod'ing in the command line, or a property sheet of nautilus, whatever. I think stuff like this it (requiring some additional action from you) really stops lazy / passive users from launching just about anything.
Oh, c'mon. We're talking about users installing software. They're either going to run make install, or sh something.sh, or rpm, or whatever. I wouldn't be surprised if the RPM based installations had a way to install an RPM by clicking on it (easy to do) anyway. The point being that unless your user never adds new software, they can (and will) download and install spyware, adware, et cetera. Simply making it hard for them to install software is not a very scalable or effective solution.
Which is 100% true on UNIX systems also.
Very true. And moderately meaningless. How many home users have partitions set up to disable execution rights? Anyway, if this was the case in the user's home directory (for example), they wouldn't be able to install any new applications with becoming the superuser, which kinda defeats the purpose.
That, and the fact that the "executable attribute" of Windows binaries is on the *filename* (which is by default *set by the remote party*), makes me thing there is still a big difference.
Many home users:
a) like to install new software
b) don't pay a lot of attention to what it is
c) expect it to actually work and run
Unless you can get rid of one of those issues, home users will continue to expose themselves to spyware. Most home users don't run Linux machines. That's why spyware/malware authors target Windows boxes.
Look at things like Comet Cursor. Or Bonzi Buddy (whatever it was called). People download those programs, by themselves, willingly, all over the damn place. There's nothing about Linux that would prevent that either other than the fact that its not worth their time to write software for - sheer economies of scale.
And once the user has installed one program, it can easily download, chmod, and install others. In weird, random places. Added to the shell startup file. Or start a keylogger and look for an "su" command, and then add things to system startup. Or whatever else it wants to do. And there's nothing stopping it.
But hey, who even said that a locked down 'user' account (not even Power User) would have been any less dangerous? Spyware could still install itself to any folder within that users own Documents and Settings folder. Registry keys under HKEY_USER could still be modified.
Which is 100% true on UNIX systems also. It just happens to be true that most spyware type apps (the vast majority of which are actively and willingly downloaded by their end-users) are written for Windows. If more people were using UNIX, you'd get these apps for UNIX as well. There's no technical superiority here, just user frustration (ie: this app (which has bad side effects) isn't available for my OS so I can't download it and see the pretty cursors (or whatever)).
Heh - I just talked about that elsewhere in this thread. I honestly believe that a UNIX/Apache admin could do more with Windows/IIS, faster, easier, than an IIS admin could do with Apache.
Of course, you can just install Apache on Windows too for an alternative. But honestly, unless you're skating right to the thin edge or using Apache specific add-ons, you probably don't need to bother with it.
When I said:
Did that take me longer to do that it would have done in Apache? Absolutely. Was it faster than it would have taken an IIS wizard to accomplish the same task? Almost certainly.
I meant, "...IIS wizard to accomplish the same task in Apache." Not meaning to imply that I can click faster than they can do whatever. Just saying that for crossover administration (like the grandparent discusses), I've found precious little in Windows that wasn't easier than it would have been for my mythical counterpart.
I'm a UNIX guy myself, but a few months ago we started co-locing a Windows server. The "Manage Your Server" program (under Start->Programs->Administrative) has to be one of the easiest things to use when you're not entirely sure what you want to do.
I'm not talking raw power, or admining 50 boxen, something that you'd want someone who knows the ins and outs of the system for. I'm talking easy basic server administration looking for a "good enough" result.
Even the individual server admin screens are pretty easy to follow. I needed to add a new virtual domain to IIS - something I can do to Apache in my sleep. Followed the linky to the admin page, right-clicked on the "Web Sites" folder, chose "New...". Entered a description, the folder, IP, port, etc. Chose the default "Read" permission.
Did that take me longer to do that it would have done in Apache? Absolutely. Was it faster than it would have taken an IIS wizard to accomplish the same task? Almost certainly.
It gets more interesting though - right click on the new website and choose "Properties." Hmm - performance. There's a checkbox/field to limit network bandwidth to this site. Cool. Not something that I need, but the exploratory nature revealed it and - I have to admit - I don't know how to accomplish the same task using Apache. I've never needed to, and I'm sure that I could figure it out with a lot of STFWing...
But, for lone box / untrained admin situations, I have to say that Windows Server is surprisingly, even remarkably, easy to use.
For this UNIX admin, anyway.
Oh, and as for DNS - on that same program (which starts by default on your administrator account unless you've disabled it), you can choose "Add role" and then "DNS server" and be walked through the entire process. Just a thought.
Excuse me? I think that a law office - or anyone with more than 10 laptops floating around - should have no problem buying devices with the appropriate limits (high or non-existant). After all, you're talking about a shop with many thousands of dollars in computers trying to spend time to apply a non-supported hack to save, what, another $100 or so? Not likely, and not necessary.
This will be the vast majority of them, even for a professional.
Almost correct. I would say, "This will be the vast majority of them, especially for a professional.
Even in situations like a wedding where people originally want every picture, you're going to end up taking 500-700 for a 50-photo album.
So this kid spends an average of 1025 minutes a MONTH on his cell phone?
Why is that so weird? Think about it. You're being overwhelmed by a large number. First, divide 1025 by 60 to see that its 19 hours. There. Already that doesn't sound so bad. 19 hours a month. Divide by four. Round up. That's five hours a week.
NEWSFLASH! High school student talks on phone for five hours a week! Parents and community amazed! Film at 11!
C'mon. Most, if not all, of those minutes were probably used in the evenings, or on weekends, when they're unmetered anyway. Since when was this excessive phone usage for an eighteen year old? Just because its a celphone, not a regular cordless phone?
I mean, really.
I'm not really fond of the idea of keeping them out at Guantanamo Bay. I would prefer that they be hooked up with legal assistance and moved stateside, but depending on how some things work out, it appears that there is a loophole in the legal framework that isn't likely to be closed soon. They're not POW's, so there's no requirement to treat them as such. They're not in the US, so US law may not apply to them (last I heard, no one had been able to tell on which side the Supreme Court justices were falling on this). But Guantanamo Bay is also not subject to Cuban law.
The real challenge would be proving that those held at Guantanamo Bay are indeed Al Queda operatives. Especially since it seems that some of those who have been released after being held for multiple years... were not. I don't see anything about the Geneva Convention not applying to suspected terrorists. After all, you could make the case that - as in the constitutional precepts of the US - that people are civillians unless proven terrorists for the purposes of the Geneva Convention. But yeah, its a really hard call to make. And I sure don't have the answer either.
Why is it important that all sizes have identical aspect ratios? Why is 2-up such a magic number? What if you wanted 3-up side by side? Or just wanted to scale by 1.6? There's nothing so special (or metric) about sqrt(2).
Oh, its not important that all sizes do. And so all sizes don't, even in that scheme. However, it is useful to have some that do. Hence, the letter. The letter (A,B,etc) denotes the aspect ratio. The number (0,1,2,3,etc) denotes the relative size. Simple, really. And damned useful.
Then this car is not for you. Simple enough, no?
There are many people, however, mainly metropolitan commuters, who drive upwards of fifty miles each day transporting nothing but themselves and a briefcase. Take a look at any large (1mm+) city and you'll see them. This car is for them instead.
I mean, how often is it that you actually need both cars in a two-car family to be able to accomodate more than one person at the same time? Its actually pretty rare. Having one comfortable mid-size car (or SUV, or minivan) and one of these would make sense for a lot of families.
On paper, at least.
Remember...
... personally, that falls into the "Just make it work" category for me - there are more interesting things that I can do with my time, even while coding.
Most poeple running Linux already have a computer...
What they don't have is a Wi-Fi hotspot...
Hmm. Yes, but an awful lot of people running Linux have a, singular, computer. And they'd kind of like to use it in different places without running wires everywhere. IE: the normal use of a wireless internet connection.
This is only useful as you point out if they have two computers, one of which they want to leave right where its it. Oh, and they're willing to pay about the same amount of money to get a wireless card as you can pay for a decent WAP. Which is fine, if you get your jollies hacking on your WAP
That's actually part of the standard AIX fortune program - has been for many, many years - but there the term is "DEC engineer".
Wordpress can be rough if you don't know PHP or not willing to play with the code
Ya know - you just lost me right there. Which is fine, you're not trying to sell the product and I appreciate being told the truth. And yes, I actually have slung a few thousand lines of PHP code in my time. But when I'm dumping out an exercise log using MT (or whatever), its the last thing I want to think about.
I would say that if you have to drop down to toolkit code in WordPress, then it is indeed "that much better". Of course, that's just my opinion. Note: "have to" != "can".
And btw, I use 11x17" all the time, which is *surprise* exactly twice the size of Letter.
Twice the area of letter, I think you mean. Exactly 187in2 compared to letter's 93.5in2. But not really twice the size. That would be a more useful 12.0175" x 15.56064" (approximately). That would be what you need to give you a piece of paper that has the same ration as a US Letter sheet, but twice the area.
Why is this useful? Enlargements and reductions. You can actually design on any convenient A* piece of paper and print on any other A* piece of paper with no changes (except for the final size). Same with the B* series, et cetera. As an added bonus, because of the ration that they chose, you still get the ability to make two side-by-side pages fit on the next size up. Pretty cool, eh?
'It took Adam Arkin and David Schaffer just $200,000 and a grad student to develop a potential treatment for AIDS. And that scares them.'
Developing a potential treatment for AIDS is, after all, relatively easy. Doing all of the studies necessary before releasing an engineered virus into the wild, now that's both difficult and expensive. Very difficult, and very expensive, in terms of highly dangerous controlled tests, especially over large amounts of time.
But it isn't that simple. What the Wired article alludes to without really exploring it is that efficiency is related to driving habits. You can drive a hybrid like any other car, of course, but if you want the best efficiency out of a hybrid, you have to learn to drive it efficiently. That's one of the reasons the Prius has the computer display in the center of the console: so you can relate how you drive with how the engine is utilized. Mastering regenerative braking is one of these details. Learning the most efficient routes around town is another.
Of course, most of the standard hybrid hints (no jack rabit starts, etc) and your comment about learning efficient routes around town would apply equally to non-hybrid vehicles...
Do you *really* think your 2004 BMW 3 Series 325Ci Coupe gets 20 MPG city/29 MPG highway? Really? I call bullshit!
You might be surprised. I had (until I started my own business) a nice, mildly modified '01 Corvette convertible. Big heavy sports car, and the ragtop doesn't help the mileage. I could hit 22/28mpg averages no problem, and that 28 was at 85+ mph with the top down - dropping to 65 would get me around 32mpg on the rare occasions that I drove that way. Of course, it helped that with the 6 speed the engine was running at around 1500rpm on the highway, just loafing along. That was a great roadtrip car...
Shouldn't that read, Server Error in '/.' Application.?
They have (had?) a sweepstakes where the grand prize was $1mm, after taxes. You actually won $1.66mm, the taxes on which are approximately $0.66mm.
There's a ton of FUD about this going around. But its necessary. Basically, the car counts as "income" so you pay income taxes on it.
If they didn't do this, then instead of companies paying you in dollars, they could just pay you in "cars" (or something smaller, like bycicles) that you could convert to dollars tax-free. So this really plugs a loophole. But you pay tax on your income, no matter what form it comes in - money, cars, vacations, etc.
The worst example I ever saw was someone who won a one-year lease on a new BMW Z3. Have you seen the price on a one year lease? They ended up paying ~$600 a month in equiv. taxes, a reasonable car payment, and they didn't even get to pick the car.
You argue that my sharing the content (which I paid for with my tax dollars) comes at a "very real cost to the broadcasters." This is what I meant by a **AA mentality. The logic is nonsenical enough for commercial content producers. They claim that if someone shares an MP3 they lose a dollar because the recipient would surely otherwise have paid for it.
Actually, since the topic was the BBC streaming feeds, I was thinking of the bandwidth that they'd have to have to handle everything. Not a P2P sharing thing at all.
Instead of mindlessly embracing the **AA mentality of "ownership of everything," why not ask yourself this: if the BBC, and PBS, and NPR, and other PUBLIC broadcasters produced their programs for the PUBLIC domain instead of trying to hoard it, what would be the effect?
The immediate effect would be that they would have to get much less restrictive agreements from everyone else that they dealt with whose material they use in their broadcasts. This would be a pain. Unless you want to restrict them to never showing anything or using any footage from someone who doesn't also want to give up all future revenue from it. Its the same process that is both the greatest strength and the greatest weakness of the GPL - everyone has to agree.
Let's say that there's some file footage owned by another network. They can license it for use on their network, even online. But could they even license it if they were then going to give it away? Not very likely, since its considered to be salable property of the originating network. So now they wouldn't be able to use it. Think of the footage coming from overseas, from various network's special correspondents who may be the only people around to get the shot. You'd never see it. Now do you understand their concerns a little more?
Of course, considering Regan's medical condition, its very probable that he was speaking nothing but the truth and had "no recollection" of all sorts of events.
We need PUBLIC broadcasters to serve the PUBLIC, and make content for the PUBLIC domain. If you want to argue that no one should get anything they haven't paid for, why should there even be a pubic domain?
Hmm. Maybe because nothing is free? After all, the PUBLIC (to use your word) broadcasters need funding from somewhere. And it comes from the PUBLIC (hence the name). And goes to the PUBLIC. Except in this case, where it also goes to all sorts of other PUBLICs (ie: those of us who don't pay UK taxes) at a very real cost to the broadcasters.
If there was some kind of International broadcasting company supported by international taxes, you'd have a point. Unfortunately, there isn't.
As for why we need them? Well, "need" is a touchy word. We don't "need" much of anything. But, historically, they have done a much better job at things like news production (think McNiel/Leher or BBC News) than the commercial channels, who have a habit of not showing "unhappy" news because the viewers change the channel.