Also, I take issue with this statement. This is part of that whole silly argument. The banks are NOT run by the government, and they don't run the government.
Is there a FAR too close relationship between many large corporations and the government? Oh yes, absolutely. So they have influence over each other to a limited extent? Yes, absolutely. However, they do not RUN one another, and they are NOT the same entity.
However, that aside, By attacking the banks in the way they are and making semi-veiled threats against ordinary people's accounts ("Change your passwords!") they are tipping their hand. This isn't about politics. It's about stealing money, pure and simple.
Still though, as a political target it is VERY poor choice. There are plenty of fully governmental "soft targets" available throughout the US government structure that could be used to gain greater systemic access.
While I agree that the bank bailouts and other tax money giveaways were horrible (Note that as a libertarian/Conservative I LOATHE the idea of bailing out private institutions of ANY kind with taxpayer money.) Doing what amounts to attacking the bank-accounts of the tax-paying victims of said graft and corruption just doesn't makes any sense.
Unless, as I stated, your entire purpose is to simply steal shed-loads of money from as many accounts as possible, using pseudo-political rhetoric as a cover.
Lulzsec is merely graduating to organized criminal status, full stop. Nothing else to see here.
Ok, but "The Fed" is a specific institution, not "banks" in general. To think otherwise is a profound misunderstanding of the relationship these entities share with The Fed.
So again, no reason to be attacking random banks, unless they are actually after money rather than a political result.
Top priority is to steal and leak any classified government information, including email spools and documentation. Prime targets are banks and other high-ranking establishments
Soo... Do they think that various governments are keeping their email at the bank?? Or have they swallowed that stupid "The government is run by the banks!" argument? Are they gonna go after "Da Joooos" next?
Meh, sounds like Lulzsec is just graduating from general annoyance to genuine criminality and using pseudo-political cover from some Anons to try and hide it.
It's surprising to make people come and get a stack of paper 24,000 pages long? What, are they supposed to just drop that in the mail?
Don't be an idiot. They may be required to print it all out for FOIA, but that doesn't mean they have to waste even more money on shipping costs. Let the people requesting it bear that burden.
It's known as "Abiding by the letter of the law, not the spirit of the law". "Skirting" a law involves finding a way to not have to obey it at all without strictly breaking it.
In this case, "skirting" would likely involve claiming some kind of executive privacy privilege that exempts them from having to release the emails. Much like Clinton did back in the '90's during the various scandals he went through.
Alaska's government has obeyed the letter of the law by releasing the emails. Nowhere in the law does it say that they have to release them in an easy to distribute format.
Besides that, it IS customary to release FOIA documents in hard copy form, so this isn't surprising.
After completing its 6-month moon survey mission, China's second moon orbiter, Chang'e-2, was found to be in excellent condition and has abundant fuel left, and so it set off from its moon orbit into deep space,
Translation from Sino-Orwellian to plain English:
After crashing into the sea upon launch, PLAN has decided to claim that the orbiter is doing so well they've sent it off into deep space, never to return.
It never occurred to me to set up a web cam pic harvesting operation. I had to work on their computers... the last thing I wanted to was to see their faces.
I'm fairly certain that the tech wasn't really interested in the girl's faces either.
Or buy a laptop with a cover for the camera lens. my wife's Asus netbook has an "on-off" switch for the camera that actually slides a lens cover over the lens when in the "off" position. It's a nice touch that ensures that even if you can turn the camera on via software, you still can't see out of it.
He also had the laptop pop fake warning messages saying that the laptop was malfunctioning, and that putting it near hot steam might clear up the issue. This prompted many victims to take the computer into their washrooms while they showered.
Eventually someone brought their computer to a MacStore instead, and the tech there found the spyware.
So, he's horny, criminal AND stupid. Never a good combination.
That people would put up with having to jump through so many hoops just to have a jailbroken iPhone.
Don't get me wrong; I like Apple products. But Apple seems to go to such lengths to prevent the end user from using the phone in the way they want it just boggles my mind that so many supposed geeks here on/. still want to be part of that experience.
Personally I'm on WebOS. While it's a miniscule platform compared to iOS, "jailbreaking" it isn't even necessary. Just punch in the konami code and you are in developer mode, instantly enabling the ability to load up thousands of homebrew apps, themes, patches and mods.
Even my non-techie father had it figured out in minutes once I showed him how. I can't imagine trying to explain having to tether your phone JUST TO BOOT IT after jailbreaking.
Actually, if the success of iTunes is any indication, You actually CAN get more reasonable than "free".
I know that I don't mind paying a moderate price for the cost of an "album" because I get a sense that I am supporting the artist. Particularly if I am buying it from either the artist's website or from an independent artist not affiliated with a major record label.
That feeling alone is a form of value. It is the intangible value that you do NOT get when you simply download it. I think the success of online music sales has proven that even without a physical object, legal ownership of data does carry intrinsic value all on it's own.
At issue is not that the organization wants to protect it's copyright. That is certainly a logical desire. At issue is the argument that they make in an attempt to protect said copyright. The argument is clearly and obviously flawed and frankly, just plain silly on the face of it, as evidenced by the success of iTunes alone.
Be careful, the Sprint Unlimited Plan is only on their 4G service. If 4G service is not available, the phone silently downshifts to 3g where the 5gig caps still apply.
Sprint has the smallest 4g network of all the major carriers.
This is not true AT ALL. I don't know where you got that info, but it is absolutely wrong, as even a cursory glance over their plans (easily available online at Sprint.com) would show.
Sprint still has reasonable and UNLIMITED V-T-D plans.
No, they don't have the iPhone. They DO have some pretty sweet Android phones though. Let the iSheep get raped for bandwidth, come ride the unlimited airwaves on Sprint!
(No, I'm not affiliated with Sprint at all. Just want to see my carrier of choice do well.)
It's not that i want to take that away, I just want to take away the ability to Patent Troll. I would propose a change along these lines:
If you invent something patentable and obtain a patent, you have the classic 15 years of time to either produce the patented thing and make a profit, or sell the patent to someone else. Patent creators and inventors still have full original rights.
If you BUY a patent from anyone, you have FIVE years to produce something with the patent and MAY NOT resell it. After 5 years all "second owner" patents enter the Public Domain IF nothing is being produced with the patent. If the patent is in use after 5 years then a single 10 year extension is placed on the patent, after which it enters the public domain.
This results in a maximum of 20 years that a patent may remain idle, and a maximum of 30 years that a patent may be in active use, after which all patents are forced into the Public Domain.
Now, this doesn't prevent a company from say, creating an invention, patenting it, producing it for 15 years, and then just before expiration selling it to a subsidiary and continuing to create for 15 years.
Regarding Internet-based patents, taking into account just how fast the internet moves, the time limitations would be shrunk accordingly. 5 years of ownership for an original inventor, only one sale allowed, and a SINGLE year to implement the idea for purchasers of the patents, with 4 additional years if the idea is in active use.
Let's face it: Every 5 years the internet is a completely different place. Allowing internet concept patents to last longer than that stifles growth.
The idea behind my concept is simply to prevent or minimize Patent trolling. If the patent is in active USE, then trolling isn't happening, even if said company is suing the pants off of other companies for trying to copy it's patented idea.
Incidentally, I would also outright BAN software patents. Software is covered under copyright.
For those that don't want to read the section, allow me to sum up: Some guy named Dan invested a crapload of time patenting things he had no intention of making. those patents were resold a couple times until they landed in the hands of a Patent Troll company who set up multiple smaller companies with the expressed intention of Patent trolling.
Yep. It's every bit as obnoxious and evil as you thought it was.
And Slashdotters wonder why so many of them can't get/keep women.
There's a word for people who continually pick at other people's statements regardless of whether they agree with them or not: "Asshole".
(Note: I am NOT calling you an asshole. Just saying that people will frequently think that of those who are constantly contrary.)
My suggestion? Leave the logic picking for Debate class. Some of us just want to have a conversation that doesn't devolve into arguments over pointless minutiae.
Care to cite examples? If you can't, you *are* trolling.
That's because he *is* trolling.
Here are two recent and telling examples of why the troll is wrong:
Exhibit A: Crazy person goes on a rampage and shoots a Democrat politician in the head, nearly killing her.
Media response: Multiple week long circus trying to blame Sarah Palin for the actions of a loon.
Police response: Local police Chief spends more time in front of the camera railing against the Tea Party than he does investigating the attack.
End result: Eventually the investigation is completed by the FBI. The crazy person was crazy and acted alone, uninfluenced by any mainstream political thought or either party. Media continues blame game against Palin unabated.
Exhibit B: After a week spent trashing the capital building in Madison, Leftist thugs send multiple death threats against Wisconsin GOP members and their families.
Media response: Nonexistent outside Fox and the con-alt-media.
Police response: 1 month later and they have ONE person in custody.
End Result: Still playing out.
These are only the most recent examples. I could come up with many more. The point is, in public life in general and in the media in particular, Dems are generally given a pass and let slide when it comes to misbehavior. But the same behavior done by a GOP member elicits WEEKS of scathing coverage with the clear and obvious intent of the absolute destruction of said GOP politician.
Not to say that ANY politician should be allowed to slide when they do wrong. They should be absolutely held accountable. But it would be nice, for a change, if we got the same anti-corruption zeal from the MSM when the bad guy or gal is a 'D' as we do when he or she is an 'R'.
The "budget" that hasn't been passed is the one that the Democrats were supposed to pass back in 2010 for FY2011. The Dems had absolute control of both houses of Congress and the White House and STILL didn't get a budget passed.
The Republicans have been forced to create "continuing resolutions" to keep the govt. running, and are trying to pass a budget for the rest of 2011 so they can get onto working on the FY2012 budget. Since the Republicans only control ONE house of Congress, (The House of Reps) they are relying on the Democrats (who control the Senate) to either pass the budgets they are sending, or create their own and send it to the House for a vote.
The Democrats have done NEITHER. They are ignoring the budget resolutions sent to them from the House and have done ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to create one of their own.
So... How is a Government shutdown a Republican problem if they are the ONLY ones actually attempting to avoid said shutdown by creating, presenting, and voting on budgets?
Answer: It's not. This shutdown (if it happens) is OWNED by the Democrat party.
Now you are just making straw man arguments. Come on.
Your argument doesn't even make sense anyway. You are essentially saying that because he believes in personal property rights, then he therefore must also believe that GNU is invalid, despite GNU being based upon the concept of both Copyright and personal property rights?
I should note that GNU and FSF ONLY restrict certain types of sales and distribution of software. NOT modification, which is what the OP is talking about. In fact, GNU and FSF are specifically designed to allow and protect the end-user's right to modify the software in any manner one sees fit!
I respect that you are attempting to defend the rule of law, but in this case, the OP is well within the law and well within his rights. You have no quarrel with him.
Slashdot Mirror
Banks are at best semi-public.
Also, I take issue with this statement. This is part of that whole silly argument. The banks are NOT run by the government, and they don't run the government.
Is there a FAR too close relationship between many large corporations and the government? Oh yes, absolutely. So they have influence over each other to a limited extent? Yes, absolutely. However, they do not RUN one another, and they are NOT the same entity.
However, that aside, By attacking the banks in the way they are and making semi-veiled threats against ordinary people's accounts ("Change your passwords!") they are tipping their hand. This isn't about politics. It's about stealing money, pure and simple.
Still though, as a political target it is VERY poor choice. There are plenty of fully governmental "soft targets" available throughout the US government structure that could be used to gain greater systemic access.
While I agree that the bank bailouts and other tax money giveaways were horrible (Note that as a libertarian/Conservative I LOATHE the idea of bailing out private institutions of ANY kind with taxpayer money.) Doing what amounts to attacking the bank-accounts of the tax-paying victims of said graft and corruption just doesn't makes any sense.
Unless, as I stated, your entire purpose is to simply steal shed-loads of money from as many accounts as possible, using pseudo-political rhetoric as a cover.
Lulzsec is merely graduating to organized criminal status, full stop. Nothing else to see here.
Ok, but "The Fed" is a specific institution, not "banks" in general. To think otherwise is a profound misunderstanding of the relationship these entities share with The Fed.
So again, no reason to be attacking random banks, unless they are actually after money rather than a political result.
Top priority is to steal and leak any classified government information, including email spools and documentation. Prime targets are banks and other high-ranking establishments
Soo... Do they think that various governments are keeping their email at the bank?? Or have they swallowed that stupid "The government is run by the banks!" argument? Are they gonna go after "Da Joooos" next?
Meh, sounds like Lulzsec is just graduating from general annoyance to genuine criminality and using pseudo-political cover from some Anons to try and hide it.
It's surprising to make people come and get a stack of paper 24,000 pages long? What, are they supposed to just drop that in the mail?
Don't be an idiot. They may be required to print it all out for FOIA, but that doesn't mean they have to waste even more money on shipping costs. Let the people requesting it bear that burden.
It's known as "Abiding by the letter of the law, not the spirit of the law". "Skirting" a law involves finding a way to not have to obey it at all without strictly breaking it.
In this case, "skirting" would likely involve claiming some kind of executive privacy privilege that exempts them from having to release the emails. Much like Clinton did back in the '90's during the various scandals he went through.
Alaska's government has obeyed the letter of the law by releasing the emails. Nowhere in the law does it say that they have to release them in an easy to distribute format.
Besides that, it IS customary to release FOIA documents in hard copy form, so this isn't surprising.
After completing its 6-month moon survey mission, China's second moon orbiter, Chang'e-2, was found to be in excellent condition and has abundant fuel left, and so it set off from its moon orbit into deep space,
Translation from Sino-Orwellian to plain English:
After crashing into the sea upon launch, PLAN has decided to claim that the orbiter is doing so well they've sent it off into deep space, never to return.
It never occurred to me to set up a web cam pic harvesting operation. I had to work on their computers... the last thing I wanted to was to see their faces.
I'm fairly certain that the tech wasn't really interested in the girl's faces either.
Or buy a laptop with a cover for the camera lens. my wife's Asus netbook has an "on-off" switch for the camera that actually slides a lens cover over the lens when in the "off" position. It's a nice touch that ensures that even if you can turn the camera on via software, you still can't see out of it.
Doesn't sound like an optimal operating environment.
Well, it's optimal if you are surreptitiously snapping pictures of people with the camera of said laptop.
The fact that in (apparently) several cases it actually worked is what's really amazing.
He also had the laptop pop fake warning messages saying that the laptop was malfunctioning, and that putting it near hot steam might clear up the issue. This prompted many victims to take the computer into their washrooms while they showered.
Eventually someone brought their computer to a MacStore instead, and the tech there found the spyware.
So, he's horny, criminal AND stupid. Never a good combination.
That people would put up with having to jump through so many hoops just to have a jailbroken iPhone.
Don't get me wrong; I like Apple products. But Apple seems to go to such lengths to prevent the end user from using the phone in the way they want it just boggles my mind that so many supposed geeks here on /. still want to be part of that experience.
Personally I'm on WebOS. While it's a miniscule platform compared to iOS, "jailbreaking" it isn't even necessary. Just punch in the konami code and you are in developer mode, instantly enabling the ability to load up thousands of homebrew apps, themes, patches and mods.
Even my non-techie father had it figured out in minutes once I showed him how. I can't imagine trying to explain having to tether your phone JUST TO BOOT IT after jailbreaking.
I guess I'm spoiled.
Actually, if the success of iTunes is any indication, You actually CAN get more reasonable than "free".
I know that I don't mind paying a moderate price for the cost of an "album" because I get a sense that I am supporting the artist. Particularly if I am buying it from either the artist's website or from an independent artist not affiliated with a major record label.
That feeling alone is a form of value. It is the intangible value that you do NOT get when you simply download it. I think the success of online music sales has proven that even without a physical object, legal ownership of data does carry intrinsic value all on it's own.
At issue is not that the organization wants to protect it's copyright. That is certainly a logical desire. At issue is the argument that they make in an attempt to protect said copyright. The argument is clearly and obviously flawed and frankly, just plain silly on the face of it, as evidenced by the success of iTunes alone.
No, my toaster has limited solid state storage and streams from the cloud.
This is not true AT ALL. I don't know where you got that info, but it is absolutely wrong, as even a cursory glance over their plans (easily available online at Sprint.com) would show.
Sprint still has reasonable and UNLIMITED V-T-D plans.
No, they don't have the iPhone. They DO have some pretty sweet Android phones though. Let the iSheep get raped for bandwidth, come ride the unlimited airwaves on Sprint!
(No, I'm not affiliated with Sprint at all. Just want to see my carrier of choice do well.)
It's not that i want to take that away, I just want to take away the ability to Patent Troll. I would propose a change along these lines:
If you invent something patentable and obtain a patent, you have the classic 15 years of time to either produce the patented thing and make a profit, or sell the patent to someone else. Patent creators and inventors still have full original rights.
If you BUY a patent from anyone, you have FIVE years to produce something with the patent and MAY NOT resell it. After 5 years all "second owner" patents enter the Public Domain IF nothing is being produced with the patent. If the patent is in use after 5 years then a single 10 year extension is placed on the patent, after which it enters the public domain.
This results in a maximum of 20 years that a patent may remain idle, and a maximum of 30 years that a patent may be in active use, after which all patents are forced into the Public Domain.
Now, this doesn't prevent a company from say, creating an invention, patenting it, producing it for 15 years, and then just before expiration selling it to a subsidiary and continuing to create for 15 years.
Regarding Internet-based patents, taking into account just how fast the internet moves, the time limitations would be shrunk accordingly. 5 years of ownership for an original inventor, only one sale allowed, and a SINGLE year to implement the idea for purchasers of the patents, with 4 additional years if the idea is in active use.
Let's face it: Every 5 years the internet is a completely different place. Allowing internet concept patents to last longer than that stifles growth.
The idea behind my concept is simply to prevent or minimize Patent trolling. If the patent is in active USE, then trolling isn't happening, even if said company is suing the pants off of other companies for trying to copy it's patented idea.
Incidentally, I would also outright BAN software patents. Software is covered under copyright.
Here is the most revealing section of the "answer" given"
http://www.lodsys.com/1/post/2011/05/q-what-is-dan-abelows-involvement-is-intellectual-ventures-behind-lodsys-or-controlling-lodsys-in-some-way.html
For those that don't want to read the section, allow me to sum up: Some guy named Dan invested a crapload of time patenting things he had no intention of making. those patents were resold a couple times until they landed in the hands of a Patent Troll company who set up multiple smaller companies with the expressed intention of Patent trolling.
Yep. It's every bit as obnoxious and evil as you thought it was.
And Slashdotters wonder why so many of them can't get/keep women.
There's a word for people who continually pick at other people's statements regardless of whether they agree with them or not: "Asshole".
(Note: I am NOT calling you an asshole. Just saying that people will frequently think that of those who are constantly contrary.)
My suggestion? Leave the logic picking for Debate class. Some of us just want to have a conversation that doesn't devolve into arguments over pointless minutiae.
That's because he *is* trolling.
Here are two recent and telling examples of why the troll is wrong:
Exhibit A: Crazy person goes on a rampage and shoots a Democrat politician in the head, nearly killing her.
Media response: Multiple week long circus trying to blame Sarah Palin for the actions of a loon.
Police response: Local police Chief spends more time in front of the camera railing against the Tea Party than he does investigating the attack.
End result: Eventually the investigation is completed by the FBI. The crazy person was crazy and acted alone, uninfluenced by any mainstream political thought or either party. Media continues blame game against Palin unabated.
Exhibit B: After a week spent trashing the capital building in Madison, Leftist thugs send multiple death threats against Wisconsin GOP members and their families.
Media response: Nonexistent outside Fox and the con-alt-media.
Police response: 1 month later and they have ONE person in custody.
End Result: Still playing out.
These are only the most recent examples. I could come up with many more. The point is, in public life in general and in the media in particular, Dems are generally given a pass and let slide when it comes to misbehavior. But the same behavior done by a GOP member elicits WEEKS of scathing coverage with the clear and obvious intent of the absolute destruction of said GOP politician.
Not to say that ANY politician should be allowed to slide when they do wrong. They should be absolutely held accountable. But it would be nice, for a change, if we got the same anti-corruption zeal from the MSM when the bad guy or gal is a 'D' as we do when he or she is an 'R'.
The "budget" that hasn't been passed is the one that the Democrats were supposed to pass back in 2010 for FY2011. The Dems had absolute control of both houses of Congress and the White House and STILL didn't get a budget passed.
The Republicans have been forced to create "continuing resolutions" to keep the govt. running, and are trying to pass a budget for the rest of 2011 so they can get onto working on the FY2012 budget. Since the Republicans only control ONE house of Congress, (The House of Reps) they are relying on the Democrats (who control the Senate) to either pass the budgets they are sending, or create their own and send it to the House for a vote.
The Democrats have done NEITHER. They are ignoring the budget resolutions sent to them from the House and have done ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to create one of their own.
So... How is a Government shutdown a Republican problem if they are the ONLY ones actually attempting to avoid said shutdown by creating, presenting, and voting on budgets?
Answer: It's not. This shutdown (if it happens) is OWNED by the Democrat party.
Thank you, Obadiah Stane, for your words of wisdom.
Now you are just making straw man arguments. Come on.
Your argument doesn't even make sense anyway. You are essentially saying that because he believes in personal property rights, then he therefore must also believe that GNU is invalid, despite GNU being based upon the concept of both Copyright and personal property rights?
I should note that GNU and FSF ONLY restrict certain types of sales and distribution of software. NOT modification, which is what the OP is talking about. In fact, GNU and FSF are specifically designed to allow and protect the end-user's right to modify the software in any manner one sees fit!
I respect that you are attempting to defend the rule of law, but in this case, the OP is well within the law and well within his rights. You have no quarrel with him.