Actually, the purpose of "cheat codes" is to let quality assurance testers duplicate bugs. They're actually dev tools.
Trust me, it's no fun to play a pre-alpha game for an hour just to replicate one crash bug, if you can do the same thing in 5 minutes with liberal applications of iddqd and summon_weapon plasma rifle.
Of course, you should also talk to a lawyer and see what your rights are under the Uniform Commercial Code. See, it turns out that when sales people make these "express warrantees," they have an awful tendency to be binding on the store.
At least until another Federal Circuit Court of Appeals gets the issue. Then prepare for reversal.
Full Disclosure: I say this without ever having read the 9th Circuit's opinion. However, if the 9th Circuit says it's day, odds are the Supreme Court will be in their jammies asleep.
Generally, the 9th Circuit speaks with as much authority as my left foot (except that the 9th Circuit's opinions, are, of course binding on those states within its borders).
Generally, attempt is treated as a crime of the same degree or slightly lower degree. The idea is that criminals shouldn't be punished less just because they didn't succeed. Thus, if Criminal Trespass of an Automobile is a Class 5 (or E) felony, Attempted Criminal Trespass will probably be a Class 5 (E) or 6 (F) Felony.
The size of the punishment for attempt is usually proportionate to the penalty for the complete offense. Thus, if the laws in America were so draconian to impose a year of jail for computer related crimes, the attempt might well result in 6 months in the Federal Penitentiary. For a 16 year old kid who's not entirely comfortable with who he is, that can be a truly intimidating prospect. (Hell, for a 30 year old man who knows who he is it can be damn frightening).
Except that there's this great concept in American Law called "Attempt."
Generally, the way it works is like this:
If a defendant, acting with the intent otherwise necessary for the commission of a crime, take a substantial step toward completion of that crime, you're guilty of attempt.
A substantial step is an action strongly corroborative of your intent to commit the crime.
The kicker is that the substantial step need not be illegal.
Thus, if a kid walks down a row of cars testing door handles, the prosecutor can make a good case for the intent to illegally enter one of those cars because he's trying all the doors (and therefore has a no legitimate interest in being inside any of them).
Well, not really. You're conflating stored data with transmitted data. A real time tap of VOIP data isn't stored data, so it's not governed by the First Circuit's ruling.
Second, the Patriot Act didn't didn't change the rules for the Wiretap Act. What it did was expand the scope of FISA. The government has always had broad powers to intercept communications under the Foreign Intelligence Service Act. The only changes the Patriot Act did to FISA was permit the government to use the to investigate terrorists.
The reason for this is that FISA was designed to deal with espionage committed by nations like the Soviet Union (and Great Britain), rather than small independant political organizations. Getting a FISA act still requires review by a judge and an application for a warrant.
Frankly, they're not likely to be tapping your phone for fun. If they legitimately think you've got a briefcase nuke or are about to fly a plane into a building, however, you bet your ass that they're going to spend the time to crack your conversation. And, at the end of the day, the rest of us should be glad that they did. I'd rather you suffer the partial loss of your privacy than a thousand people die, but I'm just pragmatic like that.
It's not like the FBI has an easy time of obtaining a wire tap. In fact, they've got to jump through a number of complicated hoops in order to get permission to do so.
Under 18 USCA 2518, the FBI has to apply for a warrant from a court before it can obtain a wire tap. This isn't your ordinary search warrant either. In the criminal justice realm, it's referred to as a "superwarrant."
There's a limit on how long the government can tap your phone for before it has to go back and re-apply. In addition, they've got to show a) the type of information the tap is going to obtain, and b) that there's no other way to get the kind of information they're looking for, other than a wiretap.
There are a few caveats for situations involving national security, organized crime, and immanent danger of death or serious injury, but even there, the agency intercepting the wire communications has to apply for a superwarrant within 48 hours of starting the tap.
Oh, and if they tap you, or try to get a warrant and fail, they've got to let you know within 90 days of ceasing surveilance (or of the denial of the warrant application).
It's not like the government is running around tapping your phone lines willy-nilly.
Did you miss the part where the guy has been selling stuff online, taking people's money, and then not delivering the product? That's the classic definition of wire fraud.
The Patriot Act wasn't just about terrorism. It was also about expanding Federal Law Enforcement's ability to respond to high tech crimes. This is a fact that people tend to overlook because they've never read the act.
You're right, of course, copyright infringement isn't something generally within the FBI's purview. Mail and wire fraud, however, are right up its alley.
Say, that's what this guy was doing! Maybe there's a reason the Feeble Eyes were involved.
Has anyone here actually read the PATRIOT Act? It was kindly linked in earlier in the thread.
Here's some relevant parts:
18 USC 2516 was amended to permit wiretaps relating to computer fraud and abuse. There's no language in this amendment limiting its application to terrorism.
18 USC 2703 was amended to permit the government to obtain a significant amount of information from a "provider of electronic communication services," including name, address, connection times, length of service and type of service, phone number or IP address, and credit card number or bank account. All it takes is an administrative subpoena. There's no language in either the amendment or the statute itself limiting its application to terrorism. (This one is one of the provisions exempt from the sunset clause).
Not all of the PATRIOT Act was designed to deal with terrorism. Some of it was designed to allow the FBI greater access to information they couldn't get elsewhere.
You might well point this out to your Senators and Representatives when you write your letters.
That said, there's little point in raging that they're using "provisions of the PATRIOT Act" in a non-terrorist case. The powers they're using aren't limited to that purpose. They're part of the expanded powers of your government.
--AC
Of course, that's exactly how to eviscerate the value of the competition's copyrighted works. 1) Infringe but don't profit. 2) Dilute the market for their product, and aggressively promote the differences between your product and theirs. 3) Proft.
Okay then, that clears up my confusion. I've only been peripherally aware of these studies, and was merely trying to see what kind of correlation there was.
Interestingly enough, the top 50% also control 95% of the wealth. Likewise, 38.1% of the wealth is concentrated in the hands of 1% of the population. In fact, if you do an analysis of wealth distribution in the United States, you'll see that there's a fairly close correlation between income taxes paid and overall wealth concentration. It's not a perfect correlation, and in fact, it tends to favor the wealthy, but it's pretty tight.
As to why the rich should pay more than the poor? Well, it's not like the poor have the money to pay. Flat taxes, like the one you suggest tend to be regressive and hurt the poorest members of society. If I'm making $20,000 per year, taking 15% of my income leaves me with only $17,000 to pay for my necessities. If I'm making $2,000,000 per year, a 15% tax will leave me with $1,700,000. Unless I'm particularly needy, my necessities aren't going to come near that amount. In effect, then, a flat tax cuts the poor loose while leaving the rich relatively unhindered.
Now, if we taxed the millionaire at 25% and the thousandaire at 5%, the millionaire still gets to keep $1,500,000, a sum which is a fairly hefty incentive to keep trying to be successful. The thousandaire gets to keep $19,000 providing him with $2,000 more to spend on the things he needs to continue being an effective contributor to the economy.
In effect, then, your flat tax provides a substantial disincentive to the poorest members of society: why work harder to earn another $1,000 per year when you're still not going to be able to pay rent and buy food? In contrast, while the richest members of society will have to forgo their annual Ferrari purchase, a progressive tax still leaves them in a state of luxury.
Please send me your algorithm, as I am currently working on an http filter which will only display images containing nipples. This will greatly accelerate my work.
--AC
The Computer and Communications Industry of America had Robert H. Bork and Kenneth W. Starr. Not a bad couple of lawyers . . . well, at least they've got name recognition.
The CCIA represents a group of non-Microsoft software companies who were trying to intervene and argue that the settlement was not in the public interest. The Court let them in as a way of wrapping their arguments into its opinion.
CCIA wanted the court to order MS to incorporate a Java platform into Windows. They also object to the part of the consent decree that let MS reveal only those APIs that MS's middleware uses.
This last one is kind of a funny argument. CCIA says, if they won't give us all the APIs, we'll only be able to make software that's as good as MicroSoft's, not better. The court basically says--"Hey, at least you're not being disadvantaged now . . .."
There's also an argument by the CCIA that the District Court didn't do enough because it didn't require MS to sever its OS from its other products (IE, for example).
There's a whole bunch of stuff in this opinion. If I get time to look at the guts of it, I may come back and post a more thorough analysis. Still, it's interesting to see what the CCIA was asking for, and why the court felt they didn't deserve it.
The problem, of course is that the Executive Branch is waging a terror war of its own in cases like this. If you look around out there, you'll see prosecutors from around the country saying that the Court's recent decisions make it too hard to obtain convictions of vicious criminals.
They do so in full knowledge of the facts of the cases and the scope of the law, something most folks lack. Often, but not always, a close examination of the underlying factual situation in which a case arises reveals that a conviction could have been obtained via another route, but that the prosecutors have strained the law to permit conviction by the easiest possible course.
This is why a strong judiciary is important. A judicial branch which will stand up to the executive and restrict its ability to "stretch" the law is a structural bulwark against the errosion of our Constitutional Rights.
At the end of the day, even the guilty deserve due process.
I'm not sure this is such a great deal for the people.
DirecTV will now drop its suits if the end user provides enough evidence of their innocence. DirecTV doesn't specify a quanta of proof, but we can assume that it will be whatever DirecTV wants it to be.
In a court, DirecTV would have the burden of proving its case by a preponderance of the evidence. In effect, DirecTV would have to prove that it is more probable than not that these users were pirating their signal.
Given the fact that DirecTV based its claims solely on the possession of a smart card encoder or emulator (or other technology), these cases wouldn't survive a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim or a motion for summary judgment.
Thus, DirecTV loses in court.
I'm sure someone will complain about legal fees though. Here's the thing: In most states, and in the Federal system, it's possible to obtain sanctions for pleadings filed in bad faith.
In this case, there's a solid argument to be made that filing a suit based merely on possession of otherwise legal equipment is . . . wait for it . . . bad faith.
This isn't to say that what the EFF did isn't a good thing, but at the end of the day, it didn't save any of these victims either.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, the purpose of "cheat codes" is to let quality assurance testers duplicate bugs. They're actually dev tools.
Trust me, it's no fun to play a pre-alpha game for an hour just to replicate one crash bug, if you can do the same thing in 5 minutes with liberal applications of iddqd and summon_weapon plasma rifle.
--AC
When PBX equipment is outlawed, only outlaws will have PBX equipment.
--AC
But Thrawn's ability to evaluate a culture only functions when he can look at works of art. That means he can't help us. --AC
Of course, you should also talk to a lawyer and see what your rights are under the Uniform Commercial Code. See, it turns out that when sales people make these "express warrantees," they have an awful tendency to be binding on the store.
--AC
At least until another Federal Circuit Court of Appeals gets the issue. Then prepare for reversal.
Full Disclosure: I say this without ever having read the 9th Circuit's opinion. However, if the 9th Circuit says it's day, odds are the Supreme Court will be in their jammies asleep.
Generally, the 9th Circuit speaks with as much authority as my left foot (except that the 9th Circuit's opinions, are, of course binding on those states within its borders).
--AC
Generally, attempt is treated as a crime of the same degree or slightly lower degree. The idea is that criminals shouldn't be punished less just because they didn't succeed. Thus, if Criminal Trespass of an Automobile is a Class 5 (or E) felony, Attempted Criminal Trespass will probably be a Class 5 (E) or 6 (F) Felony.
The size of the punishment for attempt is usually proportionate to the penalty for the complete offense. Thus, if the laws in America were so draconian to impose a year of jail for computer related crimes, the attempt might well result in 6 months in the Federal Penitentiary. For a 16 year old kid who's not entirely comfortable with who he is, that can be a truly intimidating prospect. (Hell, for a 30 year old man who knows who he is it can be damn frightening).
--AC
Except that there's this great concept in American Law called "Attempt."
Generally, the way it works is like this:
If a defendant, acting with the intent otherwise necessary for the commission of a crime, take a substantial step toward completion of that crime, you're guilty of attempt.
A substantial step is an action strongly corroborative of your intent to commit the crime.
The kicker is that the substantial step need not be illegal.
Thus, if a kid walks down a row of cars testing door handles, the prosecutor can make a good case for the intent to illegally enter one of those cars because he's trying all the doors (and therefore has a no legitimate interest in being inside any of them).
--AC
Just wait until the new 802.11i standard comes out. Then we'll see wireless routers advertised as "802.11b/i/n/g/o Compatible!"
"There was a HAXXOR had a router, and BINGO was its name-o."
--AC
Complete with enormous V8 engine . . . that gets (on average) about 14 miles per gallon.
Which, in turn, means that the 10-12% increase in fuel economy raises its fuel economy to a whopping 15.7 miles per gallon.
--AC
Well, not really. You're conflating stored data with transmitted data. A real time tap of VOIP data isn't stored data, so it's not governed by the First Circuit's ruling.
Second, the Patriot Act didn't didn't change the rules for the Wiretap Act. What it did was expand the scope of FISA. The government has always had broad powers to intercept communications under the Foreign Intelligence Service Act. The only changes the Patriot Act did to FISA was permit the government to use the to investigate terrorists.
The reason for this is that FISA was designed to deal with espionage committed by nations like the Soviet Union (and Great Britain), rather than small independant political organizations. Getting a FISA act still requires review by a judge and an application for a warrant.
--AC
Actually, the FCC is an administrative agency with broad rule-making power delegated by Congress to regulate Interstate Communications.
That means, a) they do have the power to enforce such a law, and b) their rulings are laws (though they can be over ruled by Congress).
--AC
Frankly, they're not likely to be tapping your phone for fun. If they legitimately think you've got a briefcase nuke or are about to fly a plane into a building, however, you bet your ass that they're going to spend the time to crack your conversation. And, at the end of the day, the rest of us should be glad that they did. I'd rather you suffer the partial loss of your privacy than a thousand people die, but I'm just pragmatic like that.
--AC
It's not like the FBI has an easy time of obtaining a wire tap. In fact, they've got to jump through a number of complicated hoops in order to get permission to do so.
Under 18 USCA 2518, the FBI has to apply for a warrant from a court before it can obtain a wire tap. This isn't your ordinary search warrant either. In the criminal justice realm, it's referred to as a "superwarrant."
There's a limit on how long the government can tap your phone for before it has to go back and re-apply. In addition, they've got to show a) the type of information the tap is going to obtain, and b) that there's no other way to get the kind of information they're looking for, other than a wiretap.
There are a few caveats for situations involving national security, organized crime, and immanent danger of death or serious injury, but even there, the agency intercepting the wire communications has to apply for a superwarrant within 48 hours of starting the tap.
Oh, and if they tap you, or try to get a warrant and fail, they've got to let you know within 90 days of ceasing surveilance (or of the denial of the warrant application).
It's not like the government is running around tapping your phone lines willy-nilly.
--AC
Did you miss the part where the guy has been selling stuff online, taking people's money, and then not delivering the product? That's the classic definition of wire fraud.
The Patriot Act wasn't just about terrorism. It was also about expanding Federal Law Enforcement's ability to respond to high tech crimes. This is a fact that people tend to overlook because they've never read the act.
--AC
You're right, of course, copyright infringement isn't something generally within the FBI's purview. Mail and wire fraud, however, are right up its alley.
Say, that's what this guy was doing! Maybe there's a reason the Feeble Eyes were involved.
--AC
Has anyone here actually read the PATRIOT Act? It was kindly linked in earlier in the thread. Here's some relevant parts: 18 USC 2516 was amended to permit wiretaps relating to computer fraud and abuse. There's no language in this amendment limiting its application to terrorism. 18 USC 2703 was amended to permit the government to obtain a significant amount of information from a "provider of electronic communication services," including name, address, connection times, length of service and type of service, phone number or IP address, and credit card number or bank account. All it takes is an administrative subpoena. There's no language in either the amendment or the statute itself limiting its application to terrorism. (This one is one of the provisions exempt from the sunset clause). Not all of the PATRIOT Act was designed to deal with terrorism. Some of it was designed to allow the FBI greater access to information they couldn't get elsewhere. You might well point this out to your Senators and Representatives when you write your letters. That said, there's little point in raging that they're using "provisions of the PATRIOT Act" in a non-terrorist case. The powers they're using aren't limited to that purpose. They're part of the expanded powers of your government. --AC
Of course, that's exactly how to eviscerate the value of the competition's copyrighted works.
1) Infringe but don't profit.
2) Dilute the market for their product, and aggressively promote the differences between your product and theirs.
3) Proft.
--AC
Okay then, that clears up my confusion. I've only been peripherally aware of these studies, and was merely trying to see what kind of correlation there was.
--AC
If this is true, then how do we explain the studies that show a very strong correlation between use of pornography and violent rape?
I'm not saying the studies are correct, and I'm not suggesting that pornography is a bad thing. I'm honestly curious.
--AC
Interestingly enough, the top 50% also control 95% of the wealth. Likewise, 38.1% of the wealth is concentrated in the hands of 1% of the population. In fact, if you do an analysis of wealth distribution in the United States, you'll see that there's a fairly close correlation between income taxes paid and overall wealth concentration. It's not a perfect correlation, and in fact, it tends to favor the wealthy, but it's pretty tight.
As to why the rich should pay more than the poor? Well, it's not like the poor have the money to pay. Flat taxes, like the one you suggest tend to be regressive and hurt the poorest members of society. If I'm making $20,000 per year, taking 15% of my income leaves me with only $17,000 to pay for my necessities. If I'm making $2,000,000 per year, a 15% tax will leave me with $1,700,000. Unless I'm particularly needy, my necessities aren't going to come near that amount. In effect, then, a flat tax cuts the poor loose while leaving the rich relatively unhindered.
Now, if we taxed the millionaire at 25% and the thousandaire at 5%, the millionaire still gets to keep $1,500,000, a sum which is a fairly hefty incentive to keep trying to be successful. The thousandaire gets to keep $19,000 providing him with $2,000 more to spend on the things he needs to continue being an effective contributor to the economy.
In effect, then, your flat tax provides a substantial disincentive to the poorest members of society: why work harder to earn another $1,000 per year when you're still not going to be able to pay rent and buy food? In contrast, while the richest members of society will have to forgo their annual Ferrari purchase, a progressive tax still leaves them in a state of luxury.
--AC
Please send me your algorithm, as I am currently working on an http filter which will only display images containing nipples. This will greatly accelerate my work. --AC
The Computer and Communications Industry of America had Robert H. Bork and Kenneth W. Starr. Not a bad couple of lawyers . . . well, at least they've got name recognition.
."
The CCIA represents a group of non-Microsoft software companies who were trying to intervene and argue that the settlement was not in the public interest. The Court let them in as a way of wrapping their arguments into its opinion.
CCIA wanted the court to order MS to incorporate a Java platform into Windows. They also object to the part of the consent decree that let MS reveal only those APIs that MS's middleware uses.
This last one is kind of a funny argument. CCIA says, if they won't give us all the APIs, we'll only be able to make software that's as good as MicroSoft's, not better. The court basically says--"Hey, at least you're not being disadvantaged now . . .
There's also an argument by the CCIA that the District Court didn't do enough because it didn't require MS to sever its OS from its other products (IE, for example).
There's a whole bunch of stuff in this opinion. If I get time to look at the guts of it, I may come back and post a more thorough analysis. Still, it's interesting to see what the CCIA was asking for, and why the court felt they didn't deserve it.
--AC
Technically, that's the Miller obscenity test. In essence, Congress defined as "harmful to minors" anything that is obscene.
Here's why: If it's obscene, it's not protected by the first amendment.
--AC
The problem, of course is that the Executive Branch is waging a terror war of its own in cases like this. If you look around out there, you'll see prosecutors from around the country saying that the Court's recent decisions make it too hard to obtain convictions of vicious criminals.
They do so in full knowledge of the facts of the cases and the scope of the law, something most folks lack. Often, but not always, a close examination of the underlying factual situation in which a case arises reveals that a conviction could have been obtained via another route, but that the prosecutors have strained the law to permit conviction by the easiest possible course.
This is why a strong judiciary is important. A judicial branch which will stand up to the executive and restrict its ability to "stretch" the law is a structural bulwark against the errosion of our Constitutional Rights.
At the end of the day, even the guilty deserve due process.
--AC
I'm not sure this is such a great deal for the people.
DirecTV will now drop its suits if the end user provides enough evidence of their innocence. DirecTV doesn't specify a quanta of proof, but we can assume that it will be whatever DirecTV wants it to be.
In a court, DirecTV would have the burden of proving its case by a preponderance of the evidence. In effect, DirecTV would have to prove that it is more probable than not that these users were pirating their signal.
Given the fact that DirecTV based its claims solely on the possession of a smart card encoder or emulator (or other technology), these cases wouldn't survive a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim or a motion for summary judgment.
Thus, DirecTV loses in court.
I'm sure someone will complain about legal fees though. Here's the thing: In most states, and in the Federal system, it's possible to obtain sanctions for pleadings filed in bad faith.
In this case, there's a solid argument to be made that filing a suit based merely on possession of otherwise legal equipment is . . . wait for it . . . bad faith.
This isn't to say that what the EFF did isn't a good thing, but at the end of the day, it didn't save any of these victims either.
--AC