I work in the records department of a two year tech college. We use document imaging hardware and software to store student files on WORM optical media permanently and then we destroy the physical paper files over time.
We expect that our digital media will far outlast what we have on other permanent storage mediums, such as microfiche, which go back to 1972. If the "antiquated" microfiche can hold up that long why not our records stored on the digital media?
The Research Libraries Group (RLG) anticipates that properly handled microfilm has a life expectancy of 500+ years. Kodak believes that their CDR's will last for over 200 years, and TDK estimates archival lifespan of it's CDRs to be 70 years. It will be interesting to see if over time if these life expectancies are even close to being realistic. The microfilm people have over 50 years of archival data, optical media companies have maybe 5 years of archival data. My money is on existing optical media to be reliable for archival data storage for less than 20 years. Another factor is that adequate information can frequently be reliably obtained from even moderately physically damaged microfilm. It takes relatively little physical damage to render recordable optical media unusable.
"And Homosexuality, if I remember correctly, is a value system and life style choice..."
Homosexuality is a sexual orientation, it is neither a value system nor a life style choice. Homosexuals do not choose to be homosexuals any more than heterosexuals choose to be heterosexuals. Homosexual people have value systems and life styles as diverse and as varied as heterosexual people. If you are considering that many homosexuals want to live their lives with partners who are of the same sex as being a life style choice; then being heterosexual is also a life style choice. Atheism, liberterianism, scientology, and christianity are all lifestyle choices; homosexuality is not a lifestyle choice, is is a sexual orientation. Could you imagine what would happen if the government passed laws that said that heterosexuals couldn't marry or that heterosexuals couldn't both be honest and be in the military?
He has already been to court for his DeCSS software -- and he won. What makes you think that he isn't already mindful of whatever legal issues there may be for him in this case?
I have totally given up on rebates. Even after jumping through all of the necessary hoops; it either takes several months to get the rebate, or the rebate never arrives. I now refuse to buy anything that has the "after rebate" price shown instead of the actual price. I have had a few salesdroids get totally pissed off when I told them that I would have bought the item if he had told me the real price instead of telling me the price after rebate.
The biggest difference I can see is that your local computer store is likely to be quite willing to sell it's products at the out of date prices; but, the restaurant was not willing to sell it's products at the advertised price.
So, if extreme right-wing views are censored, why does google.de not censor "www.godhatesfags.com"? This site is as right wing as they come.
Interesting quote from www.godhatesfags.com: "Unconfirmed numbers of Swedes are dead as a result of the tsunamis which ravaged Thailand and the other lush resorts of that region, and thousands more are unaccounted for, either still rotting in the tropical conditions or buried, as they deserve, as asses in mass graves (see Jeremiah 22:19). Scarcely a family in Sweden has been untouched by the devastation. Bible preachers say, THANK GOD for it all!"
So; does this mean that instead of going to google.de or yahoo.de, that Germans must now go to google.com or yahoo.com in order to obtain complete search results?
Some 120 or 220 hair dryers consume 1800 watts at volts. The problem is handling 1800 watts at 12 volts.
The actual power required will be considerably more due to the inefficiencies of the various bits involved in charging a battery.
Even if the input power was practical, the wires between a 12 volt battery charger and the battery would need to be about as heavy as car battery jumper cables. A battery charger that would provide 144A at 12V would be bigger and weigh more than the laptop.
Could this mean that these really fast charging batteries would have to be high voltage in order to not require a ridiculously heavy charger?
What can TiVo provide that cable companies can't/don't that justifies the cost?
A great user interface and the ability to record up to 312 hours by adding commodity hard drives. There may be other worthwhile advantages as well; with TiVo I can add new programs to record via a webpage, and if I have more than one TiVo I can stream programs from one TiVo to another. The only downside to TiVo for me is that it has only one tuner. My only nitpick is that TiVo has a USB port instead of an ethernet port.
"What happened to the old days when the customer was king and great customer service was the way to do business."
I believe that there are a number of interlocking and paradoxical reasons that customer service has turned to crap. In many cases customers now have tremendous choices of what to spend their money on, but have lost any real choice of where to spend their money. At one time people bought their goods at a huge variety of mom and pop grocery stores, bakeries, pharmacies, deli's, appliance stores, radio & TV stores, office supply stores, hardware stores, book stores, newsstands, restaurants, lumber yards, clothing stores, dry goods stores, gas stations, and so on. The owners and management of these mom and pop stores were close to their customers and the loss of a relatively small number of customers could cause financial hardship for the store. Now, most stores are huge operations that sell a very broad range of goods and there is a smaller choice of stores in a given trading area. Home improvement stores have put hardware stores, paint stores, and lumber yards out of business. Discount stores and supermarkets have put many other stores out of business. The sheer size of these mega store corporations cushions the effects of unhappy customers. This cushioning effect caused by the huge size of these corporations and the fact that the dissatisfaction results in customer churn between the available stores, not the net loss of customers. If things get too bad, stores can be hurt (Kmart) and manufacturers can get into trouble (Chrysler). These large, sophisticated , legally savvy stores and manufacturers (or whatever they are, they don't actually make anything anymore) have the ability to declare bankruptcy, close a few stores or warehouses, lay off employees, get new financing; and keep abusing customers. If a mom and pop owned store or factory declared bankruptcy, mom and pop went out of business and lost their livelihood; the desire to survive was a great incentive to satisfy and retain customers. When stores and manufacturers no longer have an incentive to satisfy customers and investors demand that the maximum short term profit be squeezed out of the operation, customers may as well just bend over and smile.
Probably because anybody who has an Apple is used to Apples only working with Apple peripherals. Also, what is the market share of affected Apple vs. affected HP and IBM computers?
In most places I've seen in the US, a second phone line is going to cost $30 ~ $40 US a month after taxes and such. Cable broadband has much fewer taxes and crap than POTS. The total cost for my broadband cable is less than than the total cost of the second phone line that the cable modem replaced.
It all depends upon which is better for the company. Even companies that few people have ever heard of may have a reputation to watch out for. Companies that sue somebody for information theft can damage their own reputation becaue they are admitting that they cannot keep their own secrets safe.
"Could we see a new ISP springing up that 'routinely' wipes out logs every week? Might it provide better security and anonymity for its customers?"
I am not a lawyer and the following is not legal advice:
In the US, any ISP who wants to routinely wipe it's logs weekly, fortnightly, or nightly, or not even keep logs at all, doesn't need this new law to give them permission to do so. Except for those cases where contractual or accounting practices require the retention of billing and usage data, there are no US requirements for ISPs to retain logs.
I am not a lawyer and preceeding is not legal advice.
Whether it was legal or not would all depend upon Danish law which would be decided by Danish courts
It doesn't really matter, Bill Gates is one of those people who would never be prosecuted for anything.
"I think this is just a case of corporations get preferential treatment, when consumers would never be presumed to have the same rights."
On many levels I totally agree with this statement. This statment doesn't apply in this case. It is like saying that restaurants get preferential treatment because their commercial pots and pans are not crap like the consumer grade pots and pans.
This is not a matter of corporations getting preferential treatment over consumers. It is a matter of corporations paying commercial rates for commercial grade Internet access and consumers paying for consumer grade Internet access. Most consumers could get Commercial grade Internet access if they wanted to pay for it.
Note that the following is true for consumer grade service. If you want to use a date private line and lease a T1, T3, etc., then your Internet connectivity is likely to be provided by your ISP and it is not likely to block Vonage.
I think that you may be misusing the term "ISP" in this case. ISPs are not necessarily the same entity that provides your Internet access. It is your network provider that would be blocking Vonage, not the ISP. Network providers provide your connectiviity to the Internet, e.g.; the cable company's broadband service, the local telco's DSL service, dialup providers, WiFi providers. Your ISP MAY actually be the same company that provides your access; such as Comcast broadband or Bellsouth DSL, or the network provider and your ISP could be different companies, such as Covad or Earthlink using the local telco's DSL. In any case, it is your network provider that runs the routers that connect you to the Internet, not your ISP. Changing your ISP will have no effect on your VoIP connectivity unless your ISP is also your service provider.
At the present time there are two methods that comsumers commonly use to obtain IP connectivity that is suitable for VoIP: Broadband cable and local telco DSL. There are also some apartment complexes that have data connections available.
This means that if your cable company's broadband service and your local telco's DSL (both of which would prefer that you use their own voice telephone services) choose to block Vonage; then what choices do you have? The FCC? It has been shown that the FCC does exactly what the telcos want them to do. The market? It takes competition for the market to be effective for consumers, there is no competition. Also, unless VoIP develops a large market, I doubt that many people really care that their internet provider blocks Vonage.
I have no idea whether my broadband provider blocks Vonage or not as I do not use a wired telephone.
I know EXACTLY how much non-server based customer IP traffic is being actively monitored by large dialup providers and by cable broadband providers - none (except for testing and quality control purposes). I also know how much information gets spread throughout the Internet and exactly how much privacy there is on the Internet - zilch. I also have many years of experience working for telcos and tier one network providers, including network security and subpoena compliance. Do you have any concept of the amount of traffic you are suggesting that ISPs monitor? I have an idea of the difficulties and costs that a large ISP or network providers would encounter in setting up realtime monitoring users' data as you suggest. Do you have any idea how much bandwidth a dialup POP or broadband cable provider in a large city uses? Even suggesting that an ISP monitor their users' traffic is idiodic. Aside from the technical issues, do you have any idea in how many ways the ISP would be opening itself to lawsuits if they started monitoring users' data, even if they were given immunity for the monitoring? Do you have any idea how much something like this would cost? ISPs are high volume, extremely low margin operations and these costs would have to be passed on to customers or the ISPs will go out of business. Have you even thought of any of this before saying that you would like it to happen so that it would make it easier for you to copy music? As a libertarian, and member of the ACLU and EFF with an IQ of 165; how could you even suggest that ISPs be forced into becoming an extension of the music and movie studios' security department?
My opinion is that you are a total idiot. Why are you even considering that ISPs should be put into the position of actively policing it's customer's traffic? This would make ISPs responsible for users' traffic.
What do you mean by "By moving the enforcement downstream to the proximate illegal act, we may be free to legally digitize our collections."? Turning ISPs into police will not impact the legality of digitizing collections.
Oh dear, I forgot about the Evil Terorists. Never mind what I said earlier; turn all your logging to maximum verbosity and retain all of your logs forever. Somebody needs to start spamming HTML propoganda posters that show that log retention is our patriotic duty.
I am not a lawyer, the following is a general discussion, your mileage and your laws may vary. It is possible that some jurisdictions may have laws that require the retention of data, I know of no such requirement in the US. Did I mention that I am not a lawyer?
There is a difference between evidence tampering (illegal) and system administration (legal). If you remove data because it may be incriminating, you are tampering with evidence. It would also be illegal to delete data after you receive a subpoena or other legal demand. If you don't collect data or you have a policy to remove data after a certain period of time, you are administering a system. Another valid system administration policy is to remove log data when you fill a certain amount of disk space. You could also have a policy that says that you do not back-up certain logs. If you maintain logs or other data, a documented data retention policy is a Very Good Idea.
I am not a lawyer and I have had to comply with several subpoenas for computer records. Obviously you have never had to comply with a computer records subpoena. Pruning unnecessary logs saves disk space AND it is a real time saver. Do not decide to prune your logs after you receive a subpoena, and make sure that you comply with all applicable laws. Why are you surprised that the EFF would provide a utility that saves an admin trouble by removing unnecessary logs?
Slashdot Mirror
I work in the records department of a two year tech college. We use document imaging hardware and software to store student files on WORM optical media permanently and then we destroy the physical paper files over time.
We expect that our digital media will far outlast what we have on other permanent storage mediums, such as microfiche, which go back to 1972. If the "antiquated" microfiche can hold up that long why not our records stored on the digital media?
The Research Libraries Group (RLG) anticipates that properly handled microfilm has a life expectancy of 500+ years. Kodak believes that their CDR's will last for over 200 years, and TDK estimates archival lifespan of it's CDRs to be 70 years. It will be interesting to see if over time if these life expectancies are even close to being realistic. The microfilm people have over 50 years of archival data, optical media companies have maybe 5 years of archival data. My money is on existing optical media to be reliable for archival data storage for less than 20 years. Another factor is that adequate information can frequently be reliably obtained from even moderately physically damaged microfilm. It takes relatively little physical damage to render recordable optical media unusable.
Ewwwww, I did that and clicked on "Web Searching Tips" [searchenginewatch.com/facts/], now I feel so dirty and I just know that I caught anything.
Why would anybody be surprised that an American agency lied to American taxpayers?
"And Homosexuality, if I remember correctly, is a value system and life style choice..."
Homosexuality is a sexual orientation, it is neither a value system nor a life style choice. Homosexuals do not choose to be homosexuals any more than heterosexuals choose to be heterosexuals. Homosexual people have value systems and life styles as diverse and as varied as heterosexual people. If you are considering that many homosexuals want to live their lives with partners who are of the same sex as being a life style choice; then being heterosexual is also a life style choice. Atheism, liberterianism, scientology, and christianity are all lifestyle choices; homosexuality is not a lifestyle choice, is is a sexual orientation. Could you imagine what would happen if the government passed laws that said that heterosexuals couldn't marry or that heterosexuals couldn't both be honest and be in the military?
He has already been to court for his DeCSS software -- and he won. What makes you think that he isn't already mindful of whatever legal issues there may be for him in this case?
I have totally given up on rebates. Even after jumping through all of the necessary hoops; it either takes several months to get the rebate, or the rebate never arrives. I now refuse to buy anything that has the "after rebate" price shown instead of the actual price. I have had a few salesdroids get totally pissed off when I told them that I would have bought the item if he had told me the real price instead of telling me the price after rebate.
The biggest difference I can see is that your local computer store is likely to be quite willing to sell it's products at the out of date prices; but, the restaurant was not willing to sell it's products at the advertised price.
So, if extreme right-wing views are censored, why does google.de not censor "www.godhatesfags.com"? This site is as right wing as they come. Interesting quote from www.godhatesfags.com: "Unconfirmed numbers of Swedes are dead as a result of the tsunamis which ravaged Thailand and the other lush resorts of that region, and thousands more are unaccounted for, either still rotting in the tropical conditions or buried, as they deserve, as asses in mass graves (see Jeremiah 22:19). Scarcely a family in Sweden has been untouched by the devastation. Bible preachers say, THANK GOD for it all!"
So; does this mean that instead of going to google.de or yahoo.de, that Germans must now go to google.com or yahoo.com in order to obtain complete search results?
144 amps x 12 V = 1728 watts
Some 120 or 220 hair dryers consume 1800 watts at volts. The problem is handling 1800 watts at 12 volts.
The actual power required will be considerably more due to the inefficiencies of the various bits involved in charging a battery.
Even if the input power was practical, the wires between a 12 volt battery charger and the battery would need to be about as heavy as car battery jumper cables. A battery charger that would provide 144A at 12V would be bigger and weigh more than the laptop.
Could this mean that these really fast charging batteries would have to be high voltage in order to not require a ridiculously heavy charger?
What can TiVo provide that cable companies can't/don't that justifies the cost?
A great user interface and the ability to record up to 312 hours by adding commodity hard drives. There may be other worthwhile advantages as well; with TiVo I can add new programs to record via a webpage, and if I have more than one TiVo I can stream programs from one TiVo to another. The only downside to TiVo for me is that it has only one tuner. My only nitpick is that TiVo has a USB port instead of an ethernet port.
I used one of those cable box / DVRs at a friend's house and it made me very glad that I have TiVo.
"What happened to the old days when the customer was king and great customer service was the way to do business."
I believe that there are a number of interlocking and paradoxical reasons that customer service has turned to crap. In many cases customers now have tremendous choices of what to spend their money on, but have lost any real choice of where to spend their money. At one time people bought their goods at a huge variety of mom and pop grocery stores, bakeries, pharmacies, deli's, appliance stores, radio & TV stores, office supply stores, hardware stores, book stores, newsstands, restaurants, lumber yards, clothing stores, dry goods stores, gas stations, and so on. The owners and management of these mom and pop stores were close to their customers and the loss of a relatively small number of customers could cause financial hardship for the store. Now, most stores are huge operations that sell a very broad range of goods and there is a smaller choice of stores in a given trading area. Home improvement stores have put hardware stores, paint stores, and lumber yards out of business. Discount stores and supermarkets have put many other stores out of business. The sheer size of these mega store corporations cushions the effects of unhappy customers. This cushioning effect caused by the huge size of these corporations and the fact that the dissatisfaction results in customer churn between the available stores, not the net loss of customers. If things get too bad, stores can be hurt (Kmart) and manufacturers can get into trouble (Chrysler). These large, sophisticated , legally savvy stores and manufacturers (or whatever they are, they don't actually make anything anymore) have the ability to declare bankruptcy, close a few stores or warehouses, lay off employees, get new financing; and keep abusing customers. If a mom and pop owned store or factory declared bankruptcy, mom and pop went out of business and lost their livelihood; the desire to survive was a great incentive to satisfy and retain customers. When stores and manufacturers no longer have an incentive to satisfy customers and investors demand that the maximum short term profit be squeezed out of the operation, customers may as well just bend over and smile.
Probably because anybody who has an Apple is used to Apples only working with Apple peripherals. Also, what is the market share of affected Apple vs. affected HP and IBM computers?
In most places I've seen in the US, a second phone line is going to cost $30 ~ $40 US a month after taxes and such. Cable broadband has much fewer taxes and crap than POTS. The total cost for my broadband cable is less than than the total cost of the second phone line that the cable modem replaced.
It all depends upon which is better for the company. Even companies that few people have ever heard of may have a reputation to watch out for. Companies that sue somebody for information theft can damage their own reputation becaue they are admitting that they cannot keep their own secrets safe.
"Could we see a new ISP springing up that 'routinely' wipes out logs every week? Might it provide better security and anonymity for its customers?"
I am not a lawyer and the following is not legal advice:
In the US, any ISP who wants to routinely wipe it's logs weekly, fortnightly, or nightly, or not even keep logs at all, doesn't need this new law to give them permission to do so. Except for those cases where contractual or accounting practices require the retention of billing and usage data, there are no US requirements for ISPs to retain logs.
I am not a lawyer and preceeding is not legal advice.
Whether it was legal or not would all depend upon Danish law which would be decided by Danish courts It doesn't really matter, Bill Gates is one of those people who would never be prosecuted for anything.
"I think this is just a case of corporations get preferential treatment, when consumers would never be presumed to have the same rights."
On many levels I totally agree with this statement. This statment doesn't apply in this case. It is like saying that restaurants get preferential treatment because their commercial pots and pans are not crap like the consumer grade pots and pans.
This is not a matter of corporations getting preferential treatment over consumers. It is a matter of corporations paying commercial rates for commercial grade Internet access and consumers paying for consumer grade Internet access. Most consumers could get Commercial grade Internet access if they wanted to pay for it.
Note that the following is true for consumer grade service. If you want to use a date private line and lease a T1, T3, etc., then your Internet connectivity is likely to be provided by your ISP and it is not likely to block Vonage.
I think that you may be misusing the term "ISP" in this case. ISPs are not necessarily the same entity that provides your Internet access. It is your network provider that would be blocking Vonage, not the ISP. Network providers provide your connectiviity to the Internet, e.g.; the cable company's broadband service, the local telco's DSL service, dialup providers, WiFi providers. Your ISP MAY actually be the same company that provides your access; such as Comcast broadband or Bellsouth DSL, or the network provider and your ISP could be different companies, such as Covad or Earthlink using the local telco's DSL. In any case, it is your network provider that runs the routers that connect you to the Internet, not your ISP. Changing your ISP will have no effect on your VoIP connectivity unless your ISP is also your service provider.
At the present time there are two methods that comsumers commonly use to obtain IP connectivity that is suitable for VoIP: Broadband cable and local telco DSL. There are also some apartment complexes that have data connections available.
This means that if your cable company's broadband service and your local telco's DSL (both of which would prefer that you use their own voice telephone services) choose to block Vonage; then what choices do you have? The FCC? It has been shown that the FCC does exactly what the telcos want them to do. The market? It takes competition for the market to be effective for consumers, there is no competition. Also, unless VoIP develops a large market, I doubt that many people really care that their internet provider blocks Vonage.
I have no idea whether my broadband provider blocks Vonage or not as I do not use a wired telephone.
I know EXACTLY how much non-server based customer IP traffic is being actively monitored by large dialup providers and by cable broadband providers - none (except for testing and quality control purposes). I also know how much information gets spread throughout the Internet and exactly how much privacy there is on the Internet - zilch. I also have many years of experience working for telcos and tier one network providers, including network security and subpoena compliance. Do you have any concept of the amount of traffic you are suggesting that ISPs monitor? I have an idea of the difficulties and costs that a large ISP or network providers would encounter in setting up realtime monitoring users' data as you suggest. Do you have any idea how much bandwidth a dialup POP or broadband cable provider in a large city uses? Even suggesting that an ISP monitor their users' traffic is idiodic. Aside from the technical issues, do you have any idea in how many ways the ISP would be opening itself to lawsuits if they started monitoring users' data, even if they were given immunity for the monitoring? Do you have any idea how much something like this would cost? ISPs are high volume, extremely low margin operations and these costs would have to be passed on to customers or the ISPs will go out of business. Have you even thought of any of this before saying that you would like it to happen so that it would make it easier for you to copy music? As a libertarian, and member of the ACLU and EFF with an IQ of 165; how could you even suggest that ISPs be forced into becoming an extension of the music and movie studios' security department?
My opinion is that you are a total idiot. Why are you even considering that ISPs should be put into the position of actively policing it's customer's traffic? This would make ISPs responsible for users' traffic.
What do you mean by "By moving the enforcement downstream to the proximate illegal act, we may be free to legally digitize our collections."? Turning ISPs into police will not impact the legality of digitizing collections.
Oh dear, I forgot about the Evil Terorists. Never mind what I said earlier; turn all your logging to maximum verbosity and retain all of your logs forever. Somebody needs to start spamming HTML propoganda posters that show that log retention is our patriotic duty.
I am not a lawyer, the following is a general discussion, your mileage and your laws may vary. It is possible that some jurisdictions may have laws that require the retention of data, I know of no such requirement in the US. Did I mention that I am not a lawyer?
There is a difference between evidence tampering (illegal) and system administration (legal). If you remove data because it may be incriminating, you are tampering with evidence. It would also be illegal to delete data after you receive a subpoena or other legal demand. If you don't collect data or you have a policy to remove data after a certain period of time, you are administering a system. Another valid system administration policy is to remove log data when you fill a certain amount of disk space. You could also have a policy that says that you do not back-up certain logs. If you maintain logs or other data, a documented data retention policy is a Very Good Idea.
I am not a lawyer and I have had to comply with several subpoenas for computer records. Obviously you have never had to comply with a computer records subpoena. Pruning unnecessary logs saves disk space AND it is a real time saver. Do not decide to prune your logs after you receive a subpoena, and make sure that you comply with all applicable laws. Why are you surprised that the EFF would provide a utility that saves an admin trouble by removing unnecessary logs?