The parent was correct - they pointed out how the statistic you cite is flawed. You didn't even read the comment you were responding to.
The findings presented (in the summary, the linked article, and the original paper) were based on total incidents per institution (favoring small institutions), and incidents in relation to total deposits (favoring institutions having large average deposits).
Since the study was meant to "meaningfully compare institutions on their performance in avoiding identity theft," it would have been desireable to look at the number of incidents in relation to the number of depositers. That is the metric which would give the best indication of how likely an individual depositer is to encounter an identity theft problem with that institution.
the rest of us should have to live through this sillyness because you can't figure out that working 8-4 instead of 9-5 would achieve exactly the same thing. Duh.
They used a chipset from INNMAX, the IM7206, believing it provided AES encryption to data. INNMAX's marketing strongly implies that AES encryption is being used for data on disk.
According to the article, when confronted with this situation, INNMAX's response was
The IN7206 merely uses AES encryption when saving the RFID chip's ID in the controller's flash memory. The company explained that actual data encryption is based on a proprietary algorithm. The company claims the IM7206 only offers basic protection and is designed for "general purpose" users.
Patents are good for, what, 17-20 years. I have a hard time believing that banks weren't scanning at least some checks 20+ years ago (or photographing/microfilming them). How is this patent not invalidated by prior art (scanning) or obviousness (photograph/microfilm)?
Every time I read an article like this, I'm amazed at how the term "life" is used. They don't mean life, they mean "life, as we know it on earth" (and often even more restrictive than that). Looking at the extremophiles right here on earth should be enough to see that life can adapt to many "unsuitable" environments. Are these people really that myopic?
If I'm not mistaken, the lethality of salty environments (for "life as we know it") is related to osmatic pressure at a cellular level. Too many assumptions there to rule out realistic adaptations (and "adaptation" assumes that the lifeform originated in a different situation) to such an environment.
the invention does not capture an iris image with each shot. In fact, it describes allowing up to 5 users to pre-register their irises in the camera. It goes on to say...
As a result of the foregoing, biological information indicative of a photographer need not be acquired every time an image is taken and, hence, processing executed by the imaging apparatus is not subjected to a load in terms of the sequence of photography. Furthermore, biological information can be registered in advance.
do you believe that prevents someone from building that circuit? Is the circuit anything other than a derivative copy (much like performing sheet music)?
You haven't answered the fundamental question - what is the characteristic in the continuum from high level descriptive language (Bluespec) through finished product (a functional H.264 decoder) that defines the transition from software to hardware, from copyrightable to patentable?
If I take a PROM, and program it so the inputs are connected to a regularly incremented binary counter, and the outputs are connected to various relays and valves which control an industrial process, is the programming in that device copyrighted, or is it an invention which requires me to apply for patent protection?
In the 1970s and 1980s, there were extensive discussions on whether the patent system, the copyright system, or a sui generis system, should provide protection for computer software. These discussions resulted in the generally accepted principle that computer programs should be protected by copyright, whereas apparatus using computer software or software-related inventions should be protected by patent.
Copyright law and patent law provide different types of protection. Copyright protection extends only to expressions, and not to ideas, procedures, methods of operation or mathematical concepts as such, whereas a patent is an exclusive right granted for an invention, which is a product or a process that provides a new way of doing something, or offers a new technical solution to a problem.
At first cut, software is the unique expression of a procedure (or method, etc.) and hardware is the physical infrastructure which allows that procedure to become tangible. When one writes "source code" for Bluespec, the end result could be an ASIC (layout-design) or some bits to tell an FPGA how to behave.
So, is that "source code" software, or a hardware design (it is obviously NOT hardware itself)? If compiled to produce the programming for an FPGA, it is closely analagous to software, but if compiled to produce masks for an ASIC, it's more like a functional specification for hardware. Industry nomenclature notwithstanding (i.e. "VHDL"), describing at a high level a logical function which ultimately causes off-the-shelf hardware (an FPGA) to behave in a certain way is not "hardware design," any more than writing a logic simulator to run under Windows is. If I tell a manufacturer to build me a green sedan with a six cylinder engine, and I doing automotive design? Can I claim a copyright which prevents anyone else from describing (creating an order) for a green sedan with six cylinders?
One might argue against that, and say that bits for an FPGA are analogous to object code for a general purpose computer, but there are significant differences. FPGAs are in general "fixed" in their operation after programming, and used for specific, static purposes which are defined at the time of manufacture (an FPGA typically isn't an H.264 decoder one minute, an Ethernet interface the next). Computers generally perform a flexible range of different functions, at the behest of an end user. When Compaq copied the interconnections in the IBM PC to create the first "clone," there were no copyright concerns (except the software in the BIOS); how is programming the interconnection of gates in an FPGA any different?
For integrated circuits, the "layout-design" (i.e. mask patterns) is copyrightable under law, but the function is clearly not. In fact, since specific text was necessary to provide copyright protection to layout-design, that seems to be an otherwise gray area, which needed that clarification. The function is determined by the interconnection of logic gates, the description of which clearly (to me) falls into the realm of patents.
Let me ask this way - assuming it didn't already exist, would a half-adder be copyrightable or patentable? Would it make a difference if it were expressed as RTL code or as transistors soldered together? Why? My response is that it is only patentable. I think it is clear why in the case of transistors. In the case of RTL code, I believe that the code itself is a functional, not creative, description of the logic involved. The creativity component is the same in both cases - RTL is just a language used to describe the invention. In copyright terms, it is like a phone book (which can't be copyrighted), it's just a list of facts (connect the output of this gate to the input of that one).
You can't copyright a hardware design (that's what patents are for). You could copyright a circuit board layout, or a schematic (the graphic, not the concept), but it's pretty easy for someone to redo either.
Whoa! What a year this has been. And what achievements we have had. If I may quote Trotsky of all people, this Revolution is permanent. It will not end at the Republican convention. It will not end in November. It will not end until we have won the great battle on which we have embarked. Not because of me, but because of you. Millions of Americans -- and friends in many other countries -- have dedicated themselves to the principles of liberty: to free enterprise, limited government, sound money, no income tax, and peace. We will not falter so long as there is one restriction on our persons, our property, our civil liberties. How much I owe you. I can never possibly repay your generous donations, hard work, whole-hearted dedication and love of freedom. How blessed I am to be associated with you. Carol, of course, sends her love as well.
Let me tell you my thoughts. With Romney gone, the chances of a brokered convention are nearly zero. But that does not affect my determination to fight on, in every caucus and primary remaining, and at the convention for our ideas, with just as many delegates as I can get. But with so many primaries and caucuses now over, we do not now need so big a national campaign staff, and so I am making it leaner and tighter. Of course, I am committed to fighting for our ideas within the Republican party, so there will be no third party run. I do not denigrate third parties -- just the opposite, and I have long worked to remove the ballot-access restrictions on them. But I am a Republican, and I will remain a Republican.
I also have another priority. I have constituents in my home district that I must serve. I cannot and will not let them down. And I have another battle I must face here as well. If I were to lose the primary for my congressional seat, all our opponents would react with glee, and pretend it was a rejection of our ideas. I cannot and will not let that happen.
In the presidential race and the congressional race, I need your support, as always. And I have plans to continue fighting for our ideas in politics and education that I will share with you when I can, for I will need you at my side. In the meantime, onward and upward! The neocons, the warmongers, the socialists, the advocates of inflation will be hearing much from you and me.
it is not "eBay legal," except in very rare cases (such as a fragile item where there may be significant packaging cost).
Sellers may charge reasonable shipping and handling fees to cover the costs for mailing, packaging, and handling the items they are selling...Sellers who want to be sure they are in compliance with this policy may charge actual shipping costs plus actual packaging materials cost (or less).
In addition to the final listing price, sellers are permitted to charge:
Actual Shipping cost: This is the actual cost (i.e. postage) for shipping the item.
Handling Fee: Actual packaging materials costs may be charged. A handling fee in addition to actual shipping cost may be charged if it is not excessive.
Unfortunately, this policy is commonly ignored. It is quite common to find an item which is $1, shipped by first class mail for under $1, in an envelope costing under $1, which took under 2 minutes to pack, but which the seller wants to charge $12 or more for shipping/handling on. $10 for stuffing an envelope is excessive.
What it is, is a scam by sellers to significantly reduce their "final value fees" by moving dollars from item cost to shipping. The "shipping and handling" is a profit maker for them, in direct violation of eBay policy.
This hardly seems like a fair test, for what the results are implied to indicate.
I'll predict that Vista goes down first, because there are more Windows programmers out there than Mac/*nix. Time-to-first-hack isn't a valid measure of OS robustness.
That probably won't be a popular statement here on/. , but oh well.
and is not part of the United States of America (neither are Navassa Island, the US Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Baker Island, Guam, Howland Island, Jarvis Island, Johnston Atoll, Kingman Reef, Midway Atoll, the Northern Mariana Islands or Wake Atoll). It is a commonwealth, and a US insular area.
the language ("To perform means...to transmit... a performance or display of the work... to the public, by means of any device or process, whether the members of the public capable of receiving the performance or display receive it in the same place or in separate places and at the same time or at different times.") describes exactly what the broadcaster is doing (not the church), both in the situation where the parishiners are watching at home ("in separate places") or together ("in the same place").
Furthermore, the definition given of "perform" makes it clear that the act occurs at the origination (the actor, dancer, football player, broadcaster).
Where's the definition for "display?" From context, it appears that "perform" applies to live action and "display" applies to recorded audio-visual works. Note that the text refers to "transmit[ting a]... display of the work to a place..." Again, that would be the broadcaster, not the church.
...and how does prohibiting a group of people from watching together, when each can readily watch individually, "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts," the basic requirement for any US copyright law to be Constitutional.
Multiple parishiners watch the game together at the church, when an ad occurs, anyone can watch or not watch the ads, as they desire. The same set of people watch the game individually at home, when an ad appears, anyone can watch or not watch the ads, as they desire.
The game is being broadcast on the public airwaves. The NFL loses nothing when a group of people watch it together, regardless of where they are. If they don't want the general public to see the game, they should change to cable pay-per-view, and stop milking a public resource for profit.
It's time for a not-so-gentle reminder that contrary to the pontifications of "real" lawyers, growing your own crops is not Interstate Commerce, forcefully transferring land from one private party to another is not "public use," and preventing people from watching the Superbowl together at their church does not "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts."
it is the TV broadcaster which is doing the "performing"/distributing (after all, providing a public performance is exactly what broadcasting is, and they presumably have a legitimate license). In the case at hand, the church is simply providing the resource upon which that performance is perceived. A TV is a passive display device, and is not the source of the "performance." It is logically no different than inviting some friends to your apartment's rooftop to watch a baseball game at Wrigley Field/Fenway Park. The TV might be considered the logical equivalent of a pair of binoculars.
Slashdot Mirror
The parent was correct - they pointed out how the statistic you cite is flawed. You didn't even read the comment you were responding to.
The findings presented (in the summary, the linked article, and the original paper) were based on total incidents per institution (favoring small institutions), and incidents in relation to total deposits (favoring institutions having large average deposits).
Since the study was meant to "meaningfully compare institutions on their performance in avoiding identity theft," it would have been desireable to look at the number of incidents in relation to the number of depositers. That is the metric which would give the best indication of how likely an individual depositer is to encounter an identity theft problem with that institution.
you believe that using the force of government to make everyone else bend to your petty desires is appropriate. You must be from California.
the rest of us should have to live through this sillyness because you can't figure out that working 8-4 instead of 9-5 would achieve exactly the same thing. Duh.
that's an old Andy Williams song, isn't it?
it's not durian.
They used a chipset from INNMAX, the IM7206, believing it provided AES encryption to data. INNMAX's marketing strongly implies that AES encryption is being used for data on disk.
According to the article, when confronted with this situation, INNMAX's response wasCheap Chinese Crap.
Patents are good for, what, 17-20 years. I have a hard time believing that banks weren't scanning at least some checks 20+ years ago (or photographing/microfilming them). How is this patent not invalidated by prior art (scanning) or obviousness (photograph/microfilm)?
Every time I read an article like this, I'm amazed at how the term "life" is used. They don't mean life, they mean "life, as we know it on earth" (and often even more restrictive than that). Looking at the extremophiles right here on earth should be enough to see that life can adapt to many "unsuitable" environments. Are these people really that myopic?
If I'm not mistaken, the lethality of salty environments (for "life as we know it") is related to osmatic pressure at a cellular level. Too many assumptions there to rule out realistic adaptations (and "adaptation" assumes that the lifeform originated in a different situation) to such an environment.
I mean, is this legal?
I won't bother calculating how big a birthday cake would be necessary to hold 12.8 billion candles.
shouldn't the MPAA be thanking filesharers, since they're diluting their losses? (just using Hollywood accounting logic here)
do you believe that prevents someone from building that circuit? Is the circuit anything other than a derivative copy (much like performing sheet music)?
You haven't answered the fundamental question - what is the characteristic in the continuum from high level descriptive language (Bluespec) through finished product (a functional H.264 decoder) that defines the transition from software to hardware, from copyrightable to patentable?
If I take a PROM, and program it so the inputs are connected to a regularly incremented binary counter, and the outputs are connected to various relays and valves which control an industrial process, is the programming in that device copyrighted, or is it an invention which requires me to apply for patent protection?
According to WIPO, At first cut, software is the unique expression of a procedure (or method, etc.) and hardware is the physical infrastructure which allows that procedure to become tangible. When one writes "source code" for Bluespec, the end result could be an ASIC (layout-design) or some bits to tell an FPGA how to behave.
So, is that "source code" software, or a hardware design (it is obviously NOT hardware itself)? If compiled to produce the programming for an FPGA, it is closely analagous to software, but if compiled to produce masks for an ASIC, it's more like a functional specification for hardware. Industry nomenclature notwithstanding (i.e. "VHDL"), describing at a high level a logical function which ultimately causes off-the-shelf hardware (an FPGA) to behave in a certain way is not "hardware design," any more than writing a logic simulator to run under Windows is. If I tell a manufacturer to build me a green sedan with a six cylinder engine, and I doing automotive design? Can I claim a copyright which prevents anyone else from describing (creating an order) for a green sedan with six cylinders?
One might argue against that, and say that bits for an FPGA are analogous to object code for a general purpose computer, but there are significant differences. FPGAs are in general "fixed" in their operation after programming, and used for specific, static purposes which are defined at the time of manufacture (an FPGA typically isn't an H.264 decoder one minute, an Ethernet interface the next). Computers generally perform a flexible range of different functions, at the behest of an end user. When Compaq copied the interconnections in the IBM PC to create the first "clone," there were no copyright concerns (except the software in the BIOS); how is programming the interconnection of gates in an FPGA any different?
For integrated circuits, the "layout-design" (i.e. mask patterns) is copyrightable under law, but the function is clearly not. In fact, since specific text was necessary to provide copyright protection to layout-design, that seems to be an otherwise gray area, which needed that clarification. The function is determined by the interconnection of logic gates, the description of which clearly (to me) falls into the realm of patents.
Let me ask this way - assuming it didn't already exist, would a half-adder be copyrightable or patentable? Would it make a difference if it were expressed as RTL code or as transistors soldered together? Why? My response is that it is only patentable. I think it is clear why in the case of transistors. In the case of RTL code, I believe that the code itself is a functional, not creative, description of the logic involved. The creativity component is the same in both cases - RTL is just a language used to describe the invention. In copyright terms, it is like a phone book (which can't be copyrighted), it's just a list of facts (connect the output of this gate to the input of that one).
How is an H.264 decoder different?
You can't copyright a hardware design (that's what patents are for). You could copyright a circuit board layout, or a schematic (the graphic, not the concept), but it's pretty easy for someone to redo either.
What's the problem you're trying to solve?
when you can have none!
- http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-shipping.html
Unfortunately, this policy is commonly ignored. It is quite common to find an item which is $1, shipped by first class mail for under $1, in an envelope costing under $1, which took under 2 minutes to pack, but which the seller wants to charge $12 or more for shipping/handling on. $10 for stuffing an envelope is excessive.
What it is, is a scam by sellers to significantly reduce their "final value fees" by moving dollars from item cost to shipping. The "shipping and handling" is a profit maker for them, in direct violation of eBay policy.
This hardly seems like a fair test, for what the results are implied to indicate.
/. , but oh well.
I'll predict that Vista goes down first, because there are more Windows programmers out there than Mac/*nix. Time-to-first-hack isn't a valid measure of OS robustness.
That probably won't be a popular statement here on
and is not part of the United States of America (neither are Navassa Island, the US Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Baker Island, Guam, Howland Island, Jarvis Island, Johnston Atoll, Kingman Reef, Midway Atoll, the Northern Mariana Islands or Wake Atoll). It is a commonwealth, and a US insular area.
the CDC.
the language ("To perform means...to transmit ... a performance or display of the work ... to the public, by means of any device or process, whether the members of the public capable of receiving the performance or display receive it in the same place or in separate places and at the same time or at different times.") describes exactly what the broadcaster is doing (not the church), both in the situation where the parishiners are watching at home ("in separate places") or together ("in the same place").
... display of the work to a place..." Again, that would be the broadcaster, not the church.
Furthermore, the definition given of "perform" makes it clear that the act occurs at the origination (the actor, dancer, football player, broadcaster).
Where's the definition for "display?" From context, it appears that "perform" applies to live action and "display" applies to recorded audio-visual works. Note that the text refers to "transmit[ting a]
...and how does prohibiting a group of people from watching together, when each can readily watch individually, "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts," the basic requirement for any US copyright law to be Constitutional.
are "advertising revenues affected?"
Multiple parishiners watch the game together at the church, when an ad occurs, anyone can watch or not watch the ads, as they desire.
The same set of people watch the game individually at home, when an ad appears, anyone can watch or not watch the ads, as they desire.
The game is being broadcast on the public airwaves. The NFL loses nothing when a group of people watch it together, regardless of where they are. If they don't want the general public to see the game, they should change to cable pay-per-view, and stop milking a public resource for profit.
It's time for a not-so-gentle reminder that contrary to the pontifications of "real" lawyers, growing your own crops is not Interstate Commerce, forcefully transferring land from one private party to another is not "public use," and preventing people from watching the Superbowl together at their church does not "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts."
it is the TV broadcaster which is doing the "performing"/distributing (after all, providing a public performance is exactly what broadcasting is, and they presumably have a legitimate license). In the case at hand, the church is simply providing the resource upon which that performance is perceived. A TV is a passive display device, and is not the source of the "performance." It is logically no different than inviting some friends to your apartment's rooftop to watch a baseball game at Wrigley Field/Fenway Park. The TV might be considered the logical equivalent of a pair of binoculars.
"extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation..."
Is not playing a game with well defined rules a "procedure" or "process?"