It's not a witch hunt, and cyber criminals and botnet admins deserve what they get. Users are people and people have all sorts of failings. Protecting them is a good thing, and there is no cogent defense for these people. Shake down rackets, ponzi schemes, and other schemes are just as evil.
So are the people that make rotten, buggy operating systems and apps.
Hackers I can believe in.
Botnet cowboys deserve as Johnny Carson might say, early transmission failure.
Google directly has an effect on my royalty checks. For that, they've injured me, and the effort I went thru to produce ten books. They have yet to pay me for that abuse.
In the case of fair use for term papers and the like; their commercial value is less clear, but in one swoop, the court killed any commercial return for these works. That's a bit onerous.
Maybe it *was* a brown dwarf or similar, cooled off early, and in the meantime, snagged all of those cool moons and atmospheric curiosities. Then when it cooled, its little planets sent a big black monolith to the third rock from the sun, and another one to its moon. Sound like a plot??
I'm sure they've done experimenting with all of this. Nothing will happen. Don't worry about the GPS positioning in your cell phone. No weapon could reach you as you walk down the street.
Seriously folks-- does the sound of someone beaming down terajoules from the sky make you just a little bit nervous? Imagine a solar sun spot causing a sudden atmospheric defraction that sends the beam to say, Tucson by mistake?
I think this needs a lot of examination before it goes into pilot, let alone production.
I wish anonymous cowards deserved mod points because this one does.
If Microsoft didn't intentionally do this, then there's a lot of programmers that ought to be filing for extended unemployment. It's boorish at best and plainly poor software testing at worst. DoJ monitors-- RU listening??
WiMax in point-point mode approximates broadband. It's deployment level is nearly nil, as is LTE. WiMax modulation schemes aren't all that red-hot, and LTE can be considered a proprietary transport. EV-DO, and EV-DOa (I use both) cannot be considered broadband, although 'a' approaches it.
Haven't done the math, have you? Haven't talked to people in Montana, Utah, and other places that are doing fiber today, doing it cheaply, and getting bandwidth to dream of.
There are some places where the economics won't work. Consider them the last mile +. Get them with point-to-point WiMax or a cellular... or at worst, a sat dish.
Resist wireless. It's a short term ploy that isn't even 'broadband'. Modulation schemes today require lots of nearby APs, and that sucks.
Instead, the USA has to buckle down and run fiber, like we did twisted pairs decades and decades ago. Wireless sounds good until you realize just what a rotten long term investment. Remember 802.11a, then, b, then g, and now the might-one-day-be-ratified n? Or how about that great WhyMax stuff? Want some LTE anyone? How about some bonded channels for GSM? Really-- trenched fiber is the best long term way to go. If you invested 20 years ago, you're still using it and haven't found an upper end limit to its capacity for speed.
As a US president, there's little Obama can do. If he wanted to expose the warrantless wiretapping, he could have done it on Day 1.
If you're a Brit, or an American, the only way you can change things within the system is to dump your MPs or legislators. Send them an email barrage, a shockwave of resentment, and teach them that civil rights to privacy are highly desired. Then dump those that don't get the message because they're still being bribed. Then dump those that believe that a government isn't by and for its people. Vote, damn it, vote your heart.
While Linux users are certainly the biggest critics, there are plenty of Linux critics. As the parent suggests, this may be a case of drama creation to benefit the hit count of the OP.
What galls me is Red Hat's CEO essentially giving up on desktop Linux, believing that cloud connectivity will eventually suffice. I don't think he gets it. Nonetheless, as in Windows or Mac OS-- fire away. No prisoners when it comes to salient criticisms-- and the Darwinian coder bunch that do kernel contribs are certainly among the harshest bunch I've ever encountered.
No one gets gratification from the pictures of stolen cars. Pictures of war might cause testosterone dumps in some people, but child porn is known to 'get off' some people, and it requires the participation of children to make.
If you obtain sexual gratification from the pics of children or teens falling asleep on GooTube, then I question your logic inherently.
Nudity in and of itself, is completely harmless in my estimation. Where nudity is designed to be cloying, or to indicate sexual desire (consider the 'beaver shot' or an erection), then were nude *and* arousing. The communication and intent changes, doesn't it?
Pictures of naked children are ok in my judgment; those exploited into sex acts are not. If a nude picture is designed to be cloying, to appeal specifically to sexual gratification, is it porn?
In today's news, several different mass shootings. Were they motivated by insensitivity to killing? I don't know the answer and won't guess.
Simulations are a grey area. Do they make us more violent in the case of video games that are violent? Do they desensitize us that doing it in simulation is ok, but the actual act is incorrect? How many can successfully draw the line? Most, I'd say. But there's a sufficient number of those that can't, that a question is raised.
Aiding and abetting is a crime, hence the notion that possession of child porn is a crime. Is a nude picture of a child a crime? I'd say not. If the picture was taken with the intent for sexual gratification, it's a slippery slope call.
While causation != correlation, with no sexual gratification from children, there is subsequently no exploitation of children. In fact, there is exploitation. You can work theory forward, or fact backward; my attempt is to show that there are those that exploit children. I eat lots of plants and am guilty therefore of their exploitation. I'll continue eating salads and veggies.
I've tried to think of analogies, and use them to test the point.
One of them is the purchase of howitzers by civilians. Most would just show them off, and perhaps polish them. A very few would put shells in them. A very few of those would fire them. A very few of them, would do so indiscriminately.
I would say that a minor exhibiting themselves for other's gratification is a bad thing. An adult gratifying themselves in private, alone, isn't a bad thing. Child porn is an exploitation of innocents. That's a bad thing. A child porn industry, and those that actually abuse children, are bad things. We try to prevent bad things. How to make this a practical measure to prevent child exploitation is the principle here.
Those that endeavor into simulations of things that are illegal for the purpose of gratification of others continue to abet the idea that sex with children is ok, good, to be lauded, or be gratified with. That's not a good idea, and leads to porn.
Drawing the line is more difficult there, because in simulations, no people are involved, just like in video games you can have the howitzer and destroy whatever you want. It's the morality of perpetuating the concept of child-abuse-is-ok is the problem.
And when a real correlation (causation != correlation) can be made that pedophiles become motivated to act on child porn, we have the circumstance that there might be a crime committed.
The actual harm is that child porn happened. It abused one or more children to have been recorded for subsequent whatever. In a way, it's like snuff films, where someone was killed in the recording of the film for the subsequent gratification or use by others.
The chicken-and-egg problem is tough. The post's implication that in and of itself, a nude picture of a child isn't porn. I would agree that this is true for most people. A certain subsegment, however, can get sexual gratification...
Is a texting of a nude pic of a teenager (or younger person) in and of itself, pornography? My judgment says no. But the context is difficult to establish. If a teenager sends it to arouse someone or titillate them, is it porn, and if so, is that tacitly illegal? Perhaps it should be, but it's not a felonious act.
I walk away from lucrative opportunities when I find them to be ethically challenging. I'm not being disingenuous here.
You'll note that I'd rather go hungry. That's a far place from starvation. I have great sympathy and empathy for the millions of people that are starving, and the 10K+ children that die every day from hunger. The several thousand that are homeless in my city get my charity when and when I can give it. I feel for them. But for gifts, I'm one of them.
And I tell you, that I'm not a thief, and I don't abet them. The 'we were only following orders' crap is slavery. Liberty comes at the price of responsibility and civility. And I'm blessed that It's unlikely that I'll starve. But I'm more resourceful than many, and understand that there are those that aren't. I have no aphorism or solution for the world's pains. I just try and assuage them when and where I can. As for the slaves, it's a moral choice to be enslaved under such constraints, or to live free.
There's a whole other thread about wage slaves, guilds, the ugly state of corporate life, and how it sucks under so many circumstances. I have to look after myself, my family, then others, in that order. I've taken no vows of poverty; but I try and be charitable where I can. And I'll go hungry, turning down gigs that are made within the nexus of ethically compromised contexts, and will do it again, and again. And I'll be, what I feel, is free.
Your OCD is narrowing your focus. I'm responsible for me. You are, for you. I won't be a thief. You be whatever you want to be. Let's hook up in the afterlife and decide which was better.
The vast majority of homeless in my area are mentally ill. People in need of meds, and lots of CBT. Some are not. You can do very well in life and not be a thief. Really. Try it. You can have uncompromised morals, and lead a comparatively decent life, and still make money, still care for those around you.
If you let corporate policy dictate your life to you, you're fucked and don't even know it. If they rule you, you're become enslaved by them, Abraham Lincoln aside. Think about that. Liberty is a very real thing.
I have 2months of food on hand, not the good stuff, but I'll live and so will my family. Maybe we get tired of ramen and beans, eventually, but we won't starve. I do that because I've lived through times where I needed that. Not Katrina, but times when I knew I might be long between income cycles.
I'm also sufficiently competent that I can work in several disciplines. Others may not be able to. But they don't have to abet criminals. We have social safety nets, crappy as they are.
Each person has to make their own decisions about what their integrity is comprised of, and where their boundaries are. I've walked out of integration consulting gigs where the licensing was dubious. I didn't ask for an audit before I went in, but I made it clear, and continue to do so, that I work above board, and I don't work on pirated stuff. Period.
If I have to walk, oh well. There are always those that won't care and will take the buck. That means that developers with real expenses and time into a product get screwed. If it's FOSS, it's a different story because the underlying model is different. I contribute to FOSS. I also work on commercially licensed software. I don't work on stolen goods.
So the aphorism applies. Just because there is FOSS, doesn't mean that you can steal commercial software. Just because there are free MP3s, doesn't mean you can steal ones that are licensed. LIberation is a very personal act. Exercise it.
Like Pirsig said-- it's a question of values. Mine are pretty simple, and while seemingly dogmatic, are anchored in core values that are the best for my context. Others will see things differently, and through different lenses/filters. My aphorism remains.
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It's not a witch hunt, and cyber criminals and botnet admins deserve what they get. Users are people and people have all sorts of failings. Protecting them is a good thing, and there is no cogent defense for these people. Shake down rackets, ponzi schemes, and other schemes are just as evil.
So are the people that make rotten, buggy operating systems and apps.
Hackers I can believe in.
Botnet cowboys deserve as Johnny Carson might say, early transmission failure.
Google directly has an effect on my royalty checks. For that, they've injured me, and the effort I went thru to produce ten books. They have yet to pay me for that abuse.
In the case of fair use for term papers and the like; their commercial value is less clear, but in one swoop, the court killed any commercial return for these works. That's a bit onerous.
Maybe it *was* a brown dwarf or similar, cooled off early, and in the meantime, snagged all of those cool moons and atmospheric curiosities. Then when it cooled, its little planets sent a big black monolith to the third rock from the sun, and another one to its moon. Sound like a plot??
The late Sir Arthur Clarke thought so......
I'm sure they've done experimenting with all of this. Nothing will happen. Don't worry about the GPS positioning in your cell phone. No weapon could reach you as you walk down the street.
Seriously folks-- does the sound of someone beaming down terajoules from the sky make you just a little bit nervous? Imagine a solar sun spot causing a sudden atmospheric defraction that sends the beam to say, Tucson by mistake?
I think this needs a lot of examination before it goes into pilot, let alone production.
I wish anonymous cowards deserved mod points because this one does.
If Microsoft didn't intentionally do this, then there's a lot of programmers that ought to be filing for extended unemployment. It's boorish at best and plainly poor software testing at worst. DoJ monitors-- RU listening??
WiMax in point-point mode approximates broadband. It's deployment level is nearly nil, as is LTE. WiMax modulation schemes aren't all that red-hot, and LTE can be considered a proprietary transport. EV-DO, and EV-DOa (I use both) cannot be considered broadband, although 'a' approaches it.
Haven't done the math, have you? Haven't talked to people in Montana, Utah, and other places that are doing fiber today, doing it cheaply, and getting bandwidth to dream of.
There are some places where the economics won't work. Consider them the last mile +. Get them with point-to-point WiMax or a cellular... or at worst, a sat dish.
Resist wireless. It's a short term ploy that isn't even 'broadband'. Modulation schemes today require lots of nearby APs, and that sucks.
Instead, the USA has to buckle down and run fiber, like we did twisted pairs decades and decades ago. Wireless sounds good until you realize just what a rotten long term investment. Remember 802.11a, then, b, then g, and now the might-one-day-be-ratified n? Or how about that great WhyMax stuff? Want some LTE anyone? How about some bonded channels for GSM? Really-- trenched fiber is the best long term way to go. If you invested 20 years ago, you're still using it and haven't found an upper end limit to its capacity for speed.
You're presuming a lot. The CYA attitude and closing of ranks needs something to break it, but within the system, change comes slowly.
As a US president, there's little Obama can do. If he wanted to expose the warrantless wiretapping, he could have done it on Day 1.
If you're a Brit, or an American, the only way you can change things within the system is to dump your MPs or legislators. Send them an email barrage, a shockwave of resentment, and teach them that civil rights to privacy are highly desired. Then dump those that don't get the message because they're still being bribed. Then dump those that believe that a government isn't by and for its people. Vote, damn it, vote your heart.
While Linux users are certainly the biggest critics, there are plenty of Linux critics. As the parent suggests, this may be a case of drama creation to benefit the hit count of the OP.
What galls me is Red Hat's CEO essentially giving up on desktop Linux, believing that cloud connectivity will eventually suffice. I don't think he gets it. Nonetheless, as in Windows or Mac OS-- fire away. No prisoners when it comes to salient criticisms-- and the Darwinian coder bunch that do kernel contribs are certainly among the harshest bunch I've ever encountered.
No one gets gratification from the pictures of stolen cars. Pictures of war might cause testosterone dumps in some people, but child porn is known to 'get off' some people, and it requires the participation of children to make.
Witch hunt? Simple nude pictures: yes. Child porn: no.
If you obtain sexual gratification from the pics of children or teens falling asleep on GooTube, then I question your logic inherently.
Nudity in and of itself, is completely harmless in my estimation. Where nudity is designed to be cloying, or to indicate sexual desire (consider the 'beaver shot' or an erection), then were nude *and* arousing. The communication and intent changes, doesn't it?
No.
Pictures of naked children are ok in my judgment; those exploited into sex acts are not. If a nude picture is designed to be cloying, to appeal specifically to sexual gratification, is it porn?
Good question.
In today's news, several different mass shootings. Were they motivated by insensitivity to killing? I don't know the answer and won't guess.
Simulations are a grey area. Do they make us more violent in the case of video games that are violent? Do they desensitize us that doing it in simulation is ok, but the actual act is incorrect? How many can successfully draw the line? Most, I'd say. But there's a sufficient number of those that can't, that a question is raised.
Aiding and abetting is a crime, hence the notion that possession of child porn is a crime. Is a nude picture of a child a crime? I'd say not. If the picture was taken with the intent for sexual gratification, it's a slippery slope call.
While causation != correlation, with no sexual gratification from children, there is subsequently no exploitation of children. In fact, there is exploitation. You can work theory forward, or fact backward; my attempt is to show that there are those that exploit children. I eat lots of plants and am guilty therefore of their exploitation. I'll continue eating salads and veggies.
I've tried to think of analogies, and use them to test the point.
One of them is the purchase of howitzers by civilians. Most would just show them off, and perhaps polish them. A very few would put shells in them. A very few of those would fire them. A very few of them, would do so indiscriminately.
I would say that a minor exhibiting themselves for other's gratification is a bad thing. An adult gratifying themselves in private, alone, isn't a bad thing. Child porn is an exploitation of innocents. That's a bad thing. A child porn industry, and those that actually abuse children, are bad things. We try to prevent bad things. How to make this a practical measure to prevent child exploitation is the principle here.
Those that endeavor into simulations of things that are illegal for the purpose of gratification of others continue to abet the idea that sex with children is ok, good, to be lauded, or be gratified with. That's not a good idea, and leads to porn.
Drawing the line is more difficult there, because in simulations, no people are involved, just like in video games you can have the howitzer and destroy whatever you want. It's the morality of perpetuating the concept of child-abuse-is-ok is the problem.
Sometimes conspiracy is a crime.
And when a real correlation (causation != correlation) can be made that pedophiles become motivated to act on child porn, we have the circumstance that there might be a crime committed.
The actual harm is that child porn happened. It abused one or more children to have been recorded for subsequent whatever. In a way, it's like snuff films, where someone was killed in the recording of the film for the subsequent gratification or use by others.
The chicken-and-egg problem is tough. The post's implication that in and of itself, a nude picture of a child isn't porn. I would agree that this is true for most people. A certain subsegment, however, can get sexual gratification...
Is a texting of a nude pic of a teenager (or younger person) in and of itself, pornography? My judgment says no. But the context is difficult to establish. If a teenager sends it to arouse someone or titillate them, is it porn, and if so, is that tacitly illegal? Perhaps it should be, but it's not a felonious act.
I walk away from lucrative opportunities when I find them to be ethically challenging. I'm not being disingenuous here.
You'll note that I'd rather go hungry. That's a far place from starvation. I have great sympathy and empathy for the millions of people that are starving, and the 10K+ children that die every day from hunger. The several thousand that are homeless in my city get my charity when and when I can give it. I feel for them. But for gifts, I'm one of them.
And I tell you, that I'm not a thief, and I don't abet them. The 'we were only following orders' crap is slavery. Liberty comes at the price of responsibility and civility. And I'm blessed that It's unlikely that I'll starve. But I'm more resourceful than many, and understand that there are those that aren't. I have no aphorism or solution for the world's pains. I just try and assuage them when and where I can. As for the slaves, it's a moral choice to be enslaved under such constraints, or to live free.
There's a whole other thread about wage slaves, guilds, the ugly state of corporate life, and how it sucks under so many circumstances. I have to look after myself, my family, then others, in that order. I've taken no vows of poverty; but I try and be charitable where I can. And I'll go hungry, turning down gigs that are made within the nexus of ethically compromised contexts, and will do it again, and again. And I'll be, what I feel, is free.
Your OCD is narrowing your focus. I'm responsible for me. You are, for you. I won't be a thief. You be whatever you want to be. Let's hook up in the afterlife and decide which was better.
The vast majority of homeless in my area are mentally ill. People in need of meds, and lots of CBT. Some are not. You can do very well in life and not be a thief. Really. Try it. You can have uncompromised morals, and lead a comparatively decent life, and still make money, still care for those around you.
If you let corporate policy dictate your life to you, you're fucked and don't even know it. If they rule you, you're become enslaved by them, Abraham Lincoln aside. Think about that. Liberty is a very real thing.
I have 2months of food on hand, not the good stuff, but I'll live and so will my family. Maybe we get tired of ramen and beans, eventually, but we won't starve. I do that because I've lived through times where I needed that. Not Katrina, but times when I knew I might be long between income cycles.
I'm also sufficiently competent that I can work in several disciplines. Others may not be able to. But they don't have to abet criminals. We have social safety nets, crappy as they are.
Each person has to make their own decisions about what their integrity is comprised of, and where their boundaries are. I've walked out of integration consulting gigs where the licensing was dubious. I didn't ask for an audit before I went in, but I made it clear, and continue to do so, that I work above board, and I don't work on pirated stuff. Period.
If I have to walk, oh well. There are always those that won't care and will take the buck. That means that developers with real expenses and time into a product get screwed. If it's FOSS, it's a different story because the underlying model is different. I contribute to FOSS. I also work on commercially licensed software. I don't work on stolen goods.
So the aphorism applies. Just because there is FOSS, doesn't mean that you can steal commercial software. Just because there are free MP3s, doesn't mean you can steal ones that are licensed. LIberation is a very personal act. Exercise it.
And imprisoned. Food is probably ok there.
I'd rather eat from a food kitchen, thank you. I've donated to them, and perhaps I'll need them one day. So it goes.
Like Pirsig said-- it's a question of values. Mine are pretty simple, and while seemingly dogmatic, are anchored in core values that are the best for my context. Others will see things differently, and through different lenses/filters. My aphorism remains.