After reading the verdict, it looks like you're probably right - he apparently did know what he was getting into. I still think it's understandable for him to make this mistake, especially since there was no expectation that the Chinese government would have any clue who leaked the info, so wouldn't know whose email address to subpoena.
Which raises a much more interesting question. I've been reading and rereading the above testimony and I can't for the life of me figure out how the Chinese govt managed to link a post made in a forum on Shi Tao's behalf with Shi Tao's email address. The only three possibilities I can see are:
That his co-workers alerted the authorities so he was considered worth checking out. Possible, but seems unlikely to me given that the co-workers presumably wouldn't even know about the posting of the summary. And surely they'd have mentioned it in the verdict if this were the case
That the Asia Democracy Foundation got r00ted by the Chinese govt. This would suck. Plausibility depends on the Chinese government's hacking capabilities and how willing it is to use them.
That the Asia Democracy Foundation has a mole. To me this seems the most plausible explanation, in which case I sure as hell hope they catch the bugger and kick him out.
Yeah, your assessment is much closer to actual economic behaviour. However, the RIAA rep distinctly said "let the market decide". I was just pointing out what a bloody stupid thing this was to say.
Possibly he just assumed that the Chinese government operated by any standards of logic or justice. My personal opinion is that you shouldn't have to be an experienced computer geek to avoid being locked up for quoting the government. I certainly wouldn't class such behaviour as "looking for it", especially given that China is, afaict, fairly inconsistent about stuff like this.
Also, I'm slightly confused. He was stupid for not using stuff that would be death-sentence-worthy? Wouldn't you be claiming he was stupid to have it on his computer if he was caught with it?
Supply of any given song in digital form is effectively infinite, with effectively zero incremental cost. Demand is finite. By standard economic theory, this should mean that the price is zero. Somehow I don't think that was what this guy was suggesting though...
I'd tend to class that as failing fairly gracefully. As you say, it's not exactly exploding; however, if it looks terrible (and could look better) it's not a perfectly graceful fail.
Yes. These days they try to be more subtle about their attempts to break the law. It's all part of their New Shiny Image [tm]. And suing someone for using/distributing code to which they were given a perpetual license allowing use and redistribution would be comic at best.
In an ideal world, stuff like slashdot would fail gracefully. But that's something that probably can be slapped on afterwards, and probably shouldn't interfere with those of us whose browsers are relatively standards-compliant.
If they were caught doing that then, because of Google's aforementioned mindshare, top MS execs would be getting lynched left, right and centre. It'd almost certainly get into the more thoughtful newspapers, and would just encourage people to go get firefox.
Hey, I use creativity in telling the truth too. One of the aforementioned parents writes advertising material, and I got contaminated with marketspeak. I also rehearse what I'm going to say before I say it, as otherwise I mumble and stammer. Going by the article, this would mean two big black marks against my name.
I know that I tend to react "guiltily" to being challenged, regardless of whether I'm actually in the wrong. I suspect this is a consequence of the fact that, when one's parents are enraged at, for example, the paint on the walls, one's guilt or innocence (no really, my sister did it) ceases to be an issue. Then if, as I suspect, the detectable physiological reaction to guilt is fear-based, it could be that the so-called "liars" just had parents who were a bit hasty with the shouting and the smacking and the grounding. Hardly a basis on which to lock them up.
is that Google does not allow more than a small fraction of the book to be exposed to the public. So, no matter how many searches you did, it'd still not let you at the large proportion that wasn't customer-facing.
But hey if you want to go write an OS from scratch on you go, if you want to then call it Linux, well, lol good luck.
But you can't do that in the US. This is the point of trademark law. If Microsoft or someone pulled a stunt like that in the US then Linus could legally bitchslap them for it. In Australia, however, that option is no longer available. Anyone can dilute the value of the trademark by producing a poor-quality DOS clone, call it Linux and proceed to sell it on to unsuspecting punters who will never again risk trying "that dodgy linux stuff". Which sucks.
Sorry, my co-workers are acronym freaks. I'd forgotten that Real People [tm] might not have heard them:-/
For the uninitiated: the point of Local Loop Unbundling and similar initiatives is that, if someone wants to start up a new telecoms company, they can specialise in either large cross-country fibre networks or small local set-ups. Like a network stack, the modularisation means that companies can focus on one at a time rather than having to do the lot.
The more layers, the easier it is for new companies to join in because they need fewer wires to achieve independence from other companies. And the easier it is for people to join in, the more competition and hence better service. And the better service, the less lag CEOs get on their Counterstrike games so the more likely they are to move to your country. Or something like that.
(That last comment wasn't completely a joke - my old Economics teacher always used to talk about the "Golf Course Principle" whereby building a new golf course massively increases the price of surrounding land. The reason is that CEOs want to live near golf courses, and don't want to commute to their place of work, so they ensure that the two are located together.)
Telco infrastructure is one of those things that small companies just don't have the footprint or bags of cash with which to compete.
I'd just like to point out that that's pretty much a US-only thing due to your govt's complete failure to get the LLU ball rolling. Well, the US and a few other foot-draggers anyway. I'm supposed to be writing a piece on this for a business analysis company at this very moment... Lobby your govt and you too could have the 100mbit/s connections that places like Tokyo get!
/works for company that works for a company that's attempting to persuade the Irish govt to implement LLU, so take the above with that slant.
This will mean that the Aussie LUGs will need to keep an eye out for slander and libel, and act.
No, this will mean that they can't act. Anyone is free to write their own OS, call it Linux and then either sell it on or complain loudly about how demonstrably buggy Linux is.
As I understand it, the effort in the cases under discussion in TFA was all supplied by the government. And then industry gets to come in and cream off the patent rights to any areas of research that actually produce something. And, in doing so, commercialise what is supposed to be non-commercial research.
If a company spends lots of money doing basic research to discover a wonder drug, I have no problem with them getting a patent. However, if research is done on the taxpayer's tab, I strongly feel that the taxpayer should get the benefit.
And all that using computers for vector graphics and the like is damaging the minds of the next generation of mathematicians. Cmon, people, it's basic geometry. Do it in your head, you lazy gits.
The above sentence is extremely dumb. So is the parent post. If anything, a proper (non-MSOffice) grammar checker will improve the grammar of the population by giving them examples of how it should be done. And, even if it doesn't manage that, the research necessary to perfect such a checker will undoubtedly improve our understanding of language, and will probably have all sorts of unexpected cool uses.
My understanding is that school in Japan is a constant meatgrinder of pressure. In the USA, it's possible to flunk every class, drop out and become a millionaire. In Japan, that is pretty much impossible because, as far as I can tell, the society is a lot less tolerant of people trying to make a living outside the usual social structure.
OT: I was planning to say "look at the suicide rates, then try to tell me Japan is less stressful". The figures I found did indeed show this, but I can't bring that in because, by the same logic, the most stressful place in the world is East Europe/Russia. Anyone got any thoughts as to why that should be?
Yes, but compare this with reselling a recording or movie. If I do this, nobody would take it to mean that I was one of the musicians or actors, unless I told them.
That's because the value associated with a recording or movie is related to the ability to listen to or watch it, and hence is transferrable. The value of a degree, however, is related to the knowledge gained over the course of the degree, and hence isn't transferrable. Any attempt to sell on the degree certificate and assorted paraphernalia would presumably (unless it went to a collector) be under the guise of allowing the recipient to claim a degree - value he wouldn't in fact posess.
But even then, I could argue that it's "my" degree, so why shouldn't I be allowed to copy it?
Again, confusion is arising between the value gained from the degree course, which isn't transferrable, and the paraphernalia of the degree (certificates etc.) which is perfectly transferrable as long as the recipient doesn't then claim to have received a degree from MIT or wherever when they've only received a degree certificate.
If I can't resell my college degree, it sure sounds like the "education corportation" that sold it to me is claiming that they own the knowledge that it represents.
The difference between the RIAA and MIT (for example) is that MIT isn't blocking you from transmitting the value (the knowledge), just the paraphernalia of it. It's more akin to Intel refusing to let you stick "Intel Inside" stickers on an Athlon-based computer than traditional copyright protection. No claim is made to the knowledge; the effort is being made to ensure the paraphernalia remain associated with the knowledge. Anything else destroys the perceived value of the paraphernalia, which after all only arises from the value of the education, thus screwing over all the other graduates of the educational institution. It's more a matter of devaluing trademarks than infringing copyright.
And I for one am a heck of a lot less bothered about current trademark law than I am about current copyright law.
Slashdot Mirror
Which raises a much more interesting question. I've been reading and rereading the above testimony and I can't for the life of me figure out how the Chinese govt managed to link a post made in a forum on Shi Tao's behalf with Shi Tao's email address. The only three possibilities I can see are:
That assumes a competitive market.
Yeah, your assessment is much closer to actual economic behaviour. However, the RIAA rep distinctly said "let the market decide". I was just pointing out what a bloody stupid thing this was to say.
Possibly he just assumed that the Chinese government operated by any standards of logic or justice. My personal opinion is that you shouldn't have to be an experienced computer geek to avoid being locked up for quoting the government. I certainly wouldn't class such behaviour as "looking for it", especially given that China is, afaict, fairly inconsistent about stuff like this.
Also, I'm slightly confused. He was stupid for not using stuff that would be death-sentence-worthy? Wouldn't you be claiming he was stupid to have it on his computer if he was caught with it?
The market should decide
Supply of any given song in digital form is effectively infinite, with effectively zero incremental cost. Demand is finite. By standard economic theory, this should mean that the price is zero. Somehow I don't think that was what this guy was suggesting though...
I'd tend to class that as failing fairly gracefully. As you say, it's not exactly exploding; however, if it looks terrible (and could look better) it's not a perfectly graceful fail.
Yes. These days they try to be more subtle about their attempts to break the law. It's all part of their New Shiny Image [tm]. And suing someone for using/distributing code to which they were given a perpetual license allowing use and redistribution would be comic at best.
They can't. This is the power of Open Source - once you've sent it out into the world, you can't call it back. Very handy in situations like this.
In an ideal world, stuff like slashdot would fail gracefully. But that's something that probably can be slapped on afterwards, and probably shouldn't interfere with those of us whose browsers are relatively standards-compliant.
If they were caught doing that then, because of Google's aforementioned mindshare, top MS execs would be getting lynched left, right and centre. It'd almost certainly get into the more thoughtful newspapers, and would just encourage people to go get firefox.
Unless MS messed with Firefox too.
Hey, I use creativity in telling the truth too. One of the aforementioned parents writes advertising material, and I got contaminated with marketspeak. I also rehearse what I'm going to say before I say it, as otherwise I mumble and stammer. Going by the article, this would mean two big black marks against my name.
I know that I tend to react "guiltily" to being challenged, regardless of whether I'm actually in the wrong. I suspect this is a consequence of the fact that, when one's parents are enraged at, for example, the paint on the walls, one's guilt or innocence (no really, my sister did it) ceases to be an issue. Then if, as I suspect, the detectable physiological reaction to guilt is fear-based, it could be that the so-called "liars" just had parents who were a bit hasty with the shouting and the smacking and the grounding. Hardly a basis on which to lock them up.
is that Google does not allow more than a small fraction of the book to be exposed to the public. So, no matter how many searches you did, it'd still not let you at the large proportion that wasn't customer-facing.
What makes you think that banks have a clue about computer security? There exists evidence to the contrary.
But hey if you want to go write an OS from scratch on you go, if you want to then call it Linux, well, lol good luck.
But you can't do that in the US. This is the point of trademark law. If Microsoft or someone pulled a stunt like that in the US then Linus could legally bitchslap them for it. In Australia, however, that option is no longer available. Anyone can dilute the value of the trademark by producing a poor-quality DOS clone, call it Linux and proceed to sell it on to unsuspecting punters who will never again risk trying "that dodgy linux stuff". Which sucks.
Sorry, my co-workers are acronym freaks. I'd forgotten that Real People [tm] might not have heard them :-/
For the uninitiated: the point of Local Loop Unbundling and similar initiatives is that, if someone wants to start up a new telecoms company, they can specialise in either large cross-country fibre networks or small local set-ups. Like a network stack, the modularisation means that companies can focus on one at a time rather than having to do the lot.
The more layers, the easier it is for new companies to join in because they need fewer wires to achieve independence from other companies. And the easier it is for people to join in, the more competition and hence better service. And the better service, the less lag CEOs get on their Counterstrike games so the more likely they are to move to your country. Or something like that.
(That last comment wasn't completely a joke - my old Economics teacher always used to talk about the "Golf Course Principle" whereby building a new golf course massively increases the price of surrounding land. The reason is that CEOs want to live near golf courses, and don't want to commute to their place of work, so they ensure that the two are located together.)
Telco infrastructure is one of those things that small companies just don't have the footprint or bags of cash with which to compete.
/works for company that works for a company that's attempting to persuade the Irish govt to implement LLU, so take the above with that slant.
I'd just like to point out that that's pretty much a US-only thing due to your govt's complete failure to get the LLU ball rolling. Well, the US and a few other foot-draggers anyway. I'm supposed to be writing a piece on this for a business analysis company at this very moment... Lobby your govt and you too could have the 100mbit/s connections that places like Tokyo get!
This will mean that the Aussie LUGs will need to keep an eye out for slander and libel, and act.
No, this will mean that they can't act. Anyone is free to write their own OS, call it Linux and then either sell it on or complain loudly about how demonstrably buggy Linux is.
As I understand it, the effort in the cases under discussion in TFA was all supplied by the government. And then industry gets to come in and cream off the patent rights to any areas of research that actually produce something. And, in doing so, commercialise what is supposed to be non-commercial research.
If a company spends lots of money doing basic research to discover a wonder drug, I have no problem with them getting a patent. However, if research is done on the taxpayer's tab, I strongly feel that the taxpayer should get the benefit.
And all that using computers for vector graphics and the like is damaging the minds of the next generation of mathematicians. Cmon, people, it's basic geometry. Do it in your head, you lazy gits.
The above sentence is extremely dumb. So is the parent post. If anything, a proper (non-MSOffice) grammar checker will improve the grammar of the population by giving them examples of how it should be done. And, even if it doesn't manage that, the research necessary to perfect such a checker will undoubtedly improve our understanding of language, and will probably have all sorts of unexpected cool uses.
I've taken another fstab at it
Bad slashdotter! No dupes for you!
Until whatever complex authentication they've put in place breaks, anyway.
My understanding is that school in Japan is a constant meatgrinder of pressure. In the USA, it's possible to flunk every class, drop out and become a millionaire. In Japan, that is pretty much impossible because, as far as I can tell, the society is a lot less tolerant of people trying to make a living outside the usual social structure.
OT: I was planning to say "look at the suicide rates, then try to tell me Japan is less stressful". The figures I found did indeed show this, but I can't bring that in because, by the same logic, the most stressful place in the world is East Europe/Russia. Anyone got any thoughts as to why that should be?
Yes, but compare this with reselling a recording or movie. If I do this, nobody would take it to mean that I was one of the musicians or actors, unless I told them.
:)
That's because the value associated with a recording or movie is related to the ability to listen to or watch it, and hence is transferrable. The value of a degree, however, is related to the knowledge gained over the course of the degree, and hence isn't transferrable. Any attempt to sell on the degree certificate and assorted paraphernalia would presumably (unless it went to a collector) be under the guise of allowing the recipient to claim a degree - value he wouldn't in fact posess.
But even then, I could argue that it's "my" degree, so why shouldn't I be allowed to copy it?
Again, confusion is arising between the value gained from the degree course, which isn't transferrable, and the paraphernalia of the degree (certificates etc.) which is perfectly transferrable as long as the recipient doesn't then claim to have received a degree from MIT or wherever when they've only received a degree certificate.
If I can't resell my college degree, it sure sounds like the "education corportation" that sold it to me is claiming that they own the knowledge that it represents.
The difference between the RIAA and MIT (for example) is that MIT isn't blocking you from transmitting the value (the knowledge), just the paraphernalia of it. It's more akin to Intel refusing to let you stick "Intel Inside" stickers on an Athlon-based computer than traditional copyright protection. No claim is made to the knowledge; the effort is being made to ensure the paraphernalia remain associated with the knowledge. Anything else destroys the perceived value of the paraphernalia, which after all only arises from the value of the education, thus screwing over all the other graduates of the educational institution. It's more a matter of devaluing trademarks than infringing copyright.
And I for one am a heck of a lot less bothered about current trademark law than I am about current copyright law.
Good discussion btw
/me hunts RealisticCanadian down with a Cluebat With Nails In
So this means that your field of expertise is in interactions between the humanities and the sciences (and resulting personality clashes), right?