Unfortunately, if there is a reckoning (which I doubt), it will be for some sacrificial underling to account for. Probably some grad student on work study, or a temp agency.
The real person responsible has a big comfy pillow of plausible deniability to sit on, and the wrong person will be punished, and abuse of the system borne of greed will continue.
(I understand the reasons things are as they are. Even though one of the big reasons is "they bought Microsoft", another reason is "they want to train you to do the things they want, the way they want them done.)
There won't be any discoveries or inventions made in that lab, I'm certain. But then, that's not what they want, is it? They want conforming little undergrads, and more importantly, they want their computers to still work next term...
Can't say I blame them, but I wish for the days when "university" was something inquisitive, motivated people did to develop their minds, and not just something you MUST do if you don't want to work in a factory or a department store for the rest of your life.
Gator hasn't a leg to stand on versus being called "spyware" any more than they could threaten to sue for being called "sporkfun" or "blurbageous" or "tzzkkqq$#993".
On the other hand, they might have a complaint if the "Gator" trademark were being infringed.
"Gator(tm) Spyware is a product of Gator(tm) corporation and all registered trademarks blah blah" is probably proper.
I don't think it's illegal to describe something by a made-up or nonsense word. Then again, the courts would use the whole "what would a reasonable person think?" test. But even that might fall on its face, because when I think of "spyware", I think of stuff that would be used BY me to spy on someone else, like hidden cameras and parabolic mics and phone tapping stuff. Or if I'm in the software venue, I think of packet sniffers.
Doesn't matter. The word "spyware" doesn't have anything defining it that would ever be shown to a jury.
See, the thing is, they didn't threaten YOU or YOUR big fat hairy ass with a lawsuit. If they had, you might have the opportunity to put them in their place (they'd be dismissed before voir dire on the first hearing, and you wouldn't even need a lawyer.)
But they didn't threaten you. They threatened someone else. And that someone else was completely within their rights to back down at the threat.
For all we know, maybe money changed hands. Maybe there's more to the story. Maybe not, but the important thing is they didn't sue anybody, they simply asked impolitely for the Pitstop folks to stop talking about their product, and the Pitstop folks complied. I think they made a mistake by doing so, but, I don't think they were obligated to fight the fight.
"I got hit by a site that apparenltly used an IE exploit to install Xupiter on me. "
I think if the right person pressed the issue hard enough, that would positively be a crime. Maybe not even just civil damages, but an actual crime. With a corporation doing it for profit, it might even be a racketeering type of crime.
On the other hand, if it is NOT a crime, then you can surely use the same technique to, say, gain a competetive advantage in the marketplace by observing your competition or your customers? Or anything else you'd like to do with their computer without their knowledge or consent?
See where I'm going? Either the execs of these advertising (or whatever the hell they are) companies need to be locked up and/or exiled to Cuba, or else, accessing computer systems via remote exploits is legal.
Which is it?
Legal and protected by law, or an act of terrorism?
The problem I have with this story, is that the PC Pitstop people changed their behavior at the first threat. I don't disagree that it's their privilege to do so, but I think they could possibly have benefitted by sticking to their guns and letting Gator go ahead with their losing position. Ok, there's no guarantee they had a losing position, but, I think it might be worth the company's while to let this try to get through the process. If nothing else, we would have a legal definition of the terms "spyware" and "adware".
But I don't think Pitstop was in any way obligated to see this through. They weren't looking for my business or my respect, they didn't have it before (I'd never heard of them, actually), and they didn't lose anything. But I think the Gator folks better watch their step, because not everybody believes the myth that, just because someone threatens you with legal action it's going to bankrupt you...
I was tempted to mod you down, like all the AC's who post "so-and-so died" hoaxes... But I checked, and sure enough, it's true. Hope it's not Firestone's fault.
Not all nerds are unemployed computer programmers.
I happen to be an audio nerd. One of the my dream jobs would be foley work for film. Of course, after I've gone on record with my feelings toward Jack Valenti*, I'll never work in Hollywood *OR* DC. Oh well.
Stories about the film industry matter to me.
* Valenti should have taken the bullet, not Kennedy. He benefitted the most, and longest, of everyone who was in the motorcade that day.
"There are a BUNCH of good software engineers mathimaticians, and programmers reading these lists."
Good engineers and scientists do not succeed in business or politics, apparently. On the other hand, the people who DO succeed in business and politics are the same people who got picked first for the dodgeball team starting in kindergarten.
>What they are going to say when movies are >leaked now? It will happen.
It will be funny, too. I'm willing to bet the "leaker" turns out not only to be an insider, but one that nobody will have the guts to criticize (much less, prosecute.)
I think the fact that zero-day (or even negative) warez'd movies are available AT ALL, is an indicator of dissent within the ranks of the industry.
I'd have a good laugh if it turned out the whole thing was Valenti's henchmen playing both sides against the middle, too.
"Seriously, what does the music industry hope to accomplish through action like this?"
At first, control of who listens to what, when, how often, on what equipment.
Ultimately, control of who is able to produce entertainment at the quality expectations of the current state of the art.
The music industry folks really like it when everyone in an entire country has tastes that fall into one of a few precisely defined categories. You're doing a fine job of this, good work citizens!
They don't care much for a situation where people have regional tastes, or where they make their own music.
I would personally like to see the plan backfire. Instead of building a system of control under which everyone is a good consumer and buys what the industry allows to be produced, I'd like to see millions of people say, the hell with the industry and the music they want me to listen to, and we can return to regional styles. I have a piano, and much skill for playing it, so I make music for my own enjoyment. If that spirit were widespread, like it used to be, there would again be different styles of music for different places, instead of everybody listening to the same thing, stuff becoming popular, BECAUSE it's popular, that sort of thing.
"This line: In addition to that, people signed a form that said that they had verified the results of the test before the test had finished running. Scares the hell out of me."
Depending on the legal implications of falsifying that record, it might ought to be scaring some pretty big fish. It depends on how official that document is, and what sort of rules that state has to govern such things.
Let's hope it's some ridiculously harsh prison sentence for the highest authority who knew or should have known the results were forged. We already have some names. I think the Attorney General should be getting bags of mail on this already.
"This would completely knock Watergate out of the history books."
Would it?
Watergate was an incident of a political party's attempt to manipulate an election. The perpetrators were caught, and even a conservative view of the facts indicates that members of the highest level of government conspired to coverup the incident. The effort was a failure, and led ultimately to the only resignation of a sitting US president in history.
The Diebold situation seems to consist of a correspondence record of some engineers and managers who botched the quality control phase of a project. The closest thing to a crime indicated here, would be on the hands of whoever allowed an uncertified product to be used in a public venue where certification was required.
I'm afraid Watergate still holds its place on the scale of national scandals. There's really no evidence that Diebold's incompetence is because they have been instructed by a political party. There is some evidence for negligence though. I wouldn't want to be ANY of the people whose names are on these memos, at least not while looking for my next job.
Exit polls are the stupidest thing in the world. I guess they create part time jobs for people with masters' degrees in statistics, and they help a whole country botch a national election.
I ALWAYS lie about how I voted. Depends on who asks me. If someone bothers me to sign a petition to repeal the smoking ban, I lie and say I voted FOR the ban in the first place. (It usually freaks these people out, they simply CANNOT believe that enough people voted for a cigarette ban for an entire CITY, and they cannot deal with coming face to face with the enemy, it just doesn't seem credible to them!)
I just love that example though. So much campaigning, and people just didn't think it would happen so they didn't go to the polls to vote against the ban, and they are still campaigning. Haha. The struggling bar scene died in that town. Hell, I would have voted to ban alcohol if they'd put it on the ballot! Schedule II narcotic! Make a State into a prohibition zone, just by putting alcohol in the same category as heroin. Anyone who uses or manufactures alcohol, put 'em behind bars. Make the people who own stock in companies that distill and distribute alcohol into drug lords.
Hell yes I'd vote for prohibition, as long as it was a 21st century style prohibition, not 1920's style -- just make alcohol a schedule 2 narcotic.
Even if I wouldn't vote for that, I'd lie to the polling people about it:-)
"Most of the suspicion and paranoia surrounding voting systems such as this is the development of a system by a private/commercial developer in a proprietary setting."
I guess, if you're just looking at slashdot, you may be correct.
However, I got interested when I saw that someone within the organization has leaked documents that spell out a horrible disdain by the developers for any sort of accountability in quality assurance or certification.
I don't know what kind of certification process Diebold operates under, but I have to wonder if it was legal for these people NOT to blow the whistle, considering some of the items discussed in the memos. Some of these sound like the developers knew that their machines were being used in violation of the laws where they were used. The memos tell a story of a coverup. Covering up a violation of a state law might be something that brings action against an individual, perhaps under RICO or some similar law.
I sure as hell would be making clear and precise communication to my managers if I found myself in a position like that, and I'd make damned sure to keep a copy of it. I have gone as far as to remind higher ups, just matter-of-factly saying "When the judge asks me, Did you Know that these medical records were readable on the open network every night when you made your backups", I'd say "Yes your honor, I did know that, and I suggested at that time that we use some form of public key encryption, but my manager, Mister X ordered me not to do that, your honor".
You wouldn't believe how many times a smart-ass tactic like that got me the authority to do something right instead of fucking up. In those days, it just wasn't the kind of place you could get fired from, of course...
"I don't know why you're in my cubicle, but it better be to tell me I'm fired."
I used to worry about all the lame-brained, right-wing-liberal, hippie-conservative, crazy assed shit that I've said over the years, and whether having my various posts where I've been all over the political spectrum, all over the spectrum of sanity and insanity, and everywhere from reasonable and educational to bloodthirsty pirate and troll.... I've worried that this legacy would take some explaining, maybe someday, if I were being recruited by the NSA or something, or any other job interview.
But I WOULD NOT trade for anyone named on any of these Diebold memos.
If these discussions are really true, if they are really from developers and QA people, they had better count their lucky stars if the interviewer at their next job isn't political.
You could probably get away with a batch file that prints "system test passed" for all I know.
--Ken Clark
I may have said some crazy-assed crap in my time, but that's because I tend to be a clown. But I don't think I'd want to go on record with something like this. I actually might be more inclined to blow the whistle on this operation. Which is obviously what someone did do.
"This electronic voting is the most serious threat to America that we have seen in our lifetimes."
I thought about this, and then I realized that there are just a few probable outcomes:
One of the parties that is in power already, rigs the election to slide to their party. We get a Republican or a Democrat. Or else we get the status quo on a tax issue or bond measure, or else we get the measure to pass.
That's one scenario, the one where someone in power is the one rigging the election.
Another scenario is "some hacker" wants to fuck shit up. So we end up with a libertarian president, lower taxes, legal weed.
It looks like a riggable election can only be "more of the same" or "revolutionary change".
To go further, I'll bet that printed flyers distributed by hand are immune to any sort of cease and desist order. It's clearly political speech, and it doesn't have that stigma of being "on the internet."
I'm sure this is an unusual situation, but if you have to use a computer in the same room as a recording mic, it's trouble. I don't know why everyone else wants quiet computers, but I certainly know why film and audio folks need them.
There is a whole level of "silence" to film foley guys, they really WILL hear a pin drop and it will be an expensive problem.
Slashdot Mirror
You still made the purchase, didn't you?
So you *say* you don't support the practice, but your money said the opposite, didn't it?
"[Their] laws may not be our laws?"
but
"Contracts are contracts?"
Without law as a basis of enforcing them, there's no such thing as a contract.
Unfortunately, if there is a reckoning (which I doubt), it will be for some sacrificial underling to account for. Probably some grad student on work study, or a temp agency.
The real person responsible has a big comfy pillow of plausible deniability to sit on, and the wrong person will be punished, and abuse of the system borne of greed will continue.
>Or, you can do like I do - just don't give out
>your email address online
I've gotten spam on accounts that have never been used. I've even had spam delivered to mx hosts that aren't even in the DNS yet.
I'm amused that it's called a "lab".
It sounds more like a "mill".
(I understand the reasons things are as they are. Even though one of the big reasons is "they bought Microsoft", another reason is "they want to train you to do the things they want, the way they want them done.)
There won't be any discoveries or inventions made in that lab, I'm certain. But then, that's not what they want, is it? They want conforming little undergrads, and more importantly, they want their computers to still work next term...
Can't say I blame them, but I wish for the days when "university" was something inquisitive, motivated people did to develop their minds, and not just something you MUST do if you don't want to work in a factory or a department store for the rest of your life.
You've got a very good point.
Gator hasn't a leg to stand on versus being called "spyware" any more than they could threaten to sue for being called "sporkfun" or "blurbageous" or "tzzkkqq$#993".
On the other hand, they might have a complaint if the "Gator" trademark were being infringed.
"Gator(tm) Spyware is a product of Gator(tm) corporation and all registered trademarks blah blah" is probably proper.
I don't think it's illegal to describe something by a made-up or nonsense word. Then again, the courts would use the whole "what would a reasonable person think?" test. But even that might fall on its face, because when I think of "spyware", I think of stuff that would be used BY me to spy on someone else, like hidden cameras and parabolic mics and phone tapping stuff. Or if I'm in the software venue, I think of packet sniffers.
Doesn't matter. The word "spyware" doesn't have anything defining it that would ever be shown to a jury.
See, the thing is, they didn't threaten YOU or YOUR big fat hairy ass with a lawsuit. If they had, you might have the opportunity to put them in their place (they'd be dismissed before voir dire on the first hearing, and you wouldn't even need a lawyer.)
But they didn't threaten you. They threatened someone else. And that someone else was completely within their rights to back down at the threat.
For all we know, maybe money changed hands. Maybe there's more to the story. Maybe not, but the important thing is they didn't sue anybody, they simply asked impolitely for the Pitstop folks to stop talking about their product, and the Pitstop folks complied. I think they made a mistake by doing so, but, I don't think they were obligated to fight the fight.
"I got hit by a site that apparenltly used an IE exploit to install Xupiter on me. "
I think if the right person pressed the issue hard enough, that would positively be a crime. Maybe not even just civil damages, but an actual crime. With a corporation doing it for profit, it might even be a racketeering type of crime.
On the other hand, if it is NOT a crime, then you can surely use the same technique to, say, gain a competetive advantage in the marketplace by observing your competition or your customers? Or anything else you'd like to do with their computer without their knowledge or consent?
See where I'm going? Either the execs of these advertising (or whatever the hell they are) companies need to be locked up and/or exiled to Cuba, or else, accessing computer systems via remote exploits is legal.
Which is it?
Legal and protected by law, or an act of terrorism?
I think we deserve a straight answer.
The problem I have with this story, is that the PC Pitstop people changed their behavior at the first threat. I don't disagree that it's their privilege to do so, but I think they could possibly have benefitted by sticking to their guns and letting Gator go ahead with their losing position. Ok, there's no guarantee they had a losing position, but, I think it might be worth the company's while to let this try to get through the process. If nothing else, we would have a legal definition of the terms "spyware" and "adware".
But I don't think Pitstop was in any way obligated to see this through. They weren't looking for my business or my respect, they didn't have it before (I'd never heard of them, actually), and they didn't lose anything. But I think the Gator folks better watch their step, because not everybody believes the myth that, just because someone threatens you with legal action it's going to bankrupt you...
I was tempted to mod you down, like all the AC's who post "so-and-so died" hoaxes... But I checked, and sure enough, it's true. Hope it's not Firestone's fault.
Not all nerds are unemployed computer programmers.
I happen to be an audio nerd. One of the my dream jobs would be foley work for film. Of course, after I've gone on record with my feelings toward Jack Valenti*, I'll never work in Hollywood *OR* DC. Oh well.
Stories about the film industry matter to me.
* Valenti should have taken the bullet, not Kennedy. He benefitted the most, and longest, of everyone who was in the motorcade that day.
"There are a BUNCH of good software engineers mathimaticians, and programmers reading these lists."
Good engineers and scientists do not succeed in business or politics, apparently. On the other hand, the people who DO succeed in business and politics are the same people who got picked first for the dodgeball team starting in kindergarten.
>What they are going to say when movies are
>leaked now? It will happen.
It will be funny, too. I'm willing to bet the "leaker" turns out not only to be an insider, but one that nobody will have the guts to criticize (much less, prosecute.)
I think the fact that zero-day (or even negative) warez'd movies are available AT ALL, is an indicator of dissent within the ranks of the industry.
I'd have a good laugh if it turned out the whole thing was Valenti's henchmen playing both sides against the middle, too.
> Hopefully, such a demonstration would sink into
>even the most dense "average" American's mind.
Yep. Act of terrorism. Isolated incident. Perpetrator exiled to Cuba. Experts agree, everything is fine.
"Seriously, what does the music industry hope to accomplish through action like this?"
At first, control of who listens to what, when, how often, on what equipment.
Ultimately, control of who is able to produce entertainment at the quality expectations of the current state of the art.
The music industry folks really like it when everyone in an entire country has tastes that fall into one of a few precisely defined categories. You're doing a fine job of this, good work citizens!
They don't care much for a situation where people have regional tastes, or where they make their own music.
I would personally like to see the plan backfire. Instead of building a system of control under which everyone is a good consumer and buys what the industry allows to be produced, I'd like to see millions of people say, the hell with the industry and the music they want me to listen to, and we can return to regional styles. I have a piano, and much skill for playing it, so I make music for my own enjoyment. If that spirit were widespread, like it used to be, there would again be different styles of music for different places, instead of everybody listening to the same thing, stuff becoming popular, BECAUSE it's popular, that sort of thing.
"This line: In addition to that, people signed a form that said that they had verified the results of the test before the test had finished running. Scares the hell out of me."
Depending on the legal implications of falsifying that record, it might ought to be scaring some pretty big fish. It depends on how official that document is, and what sort of rules that state has to govern such things.
Let's hope it's some ridiculously harsh prison sentence for the highest authority who knew or should have known the results were forged. We already have some names. I think the Attorney General should be getting bags of mail on this already.
"This would completely knock Watergate out of the history books."
Would it?
Watergate was an incident of a political party's attempt to manipulate an election. The perpetrators were caught, and even a conservative view of the facts indicates that members of the highest level of government conspired to coverup the incident. The effort was a failure, and led ultimately to the only resignation of a sitting US president in history.
The Diebold situation seems to consist of a correspondence record of some engineers and managers who botched the quality control phase of a project. The closest thing to a crime indicated here, would be on the hands of whoever allowed an uncertified product to be used in a public venue where certification was required.
I'm afraid Watergate still holds its place on the scale of national scandals. There's really no evidence that Diebold's incompetence is because they have been instructed by a political party. There is some evidence for negligence though. I wouldn't want to be ANY of the people whose names are on these memos, at least not while looking for my next job.
Exit polls are the stupidest thing in the world. I guess they create part time jobs for people with masters' degrees in statistics, and they help a whole country botch a national election.
:-)
I ALWAYS lie about how I voted. Depends on who asks me. If someone bothers me to sign a petition to repeal the smoking ban, I lie and say I voted FOR the ban in the first place. (It usually freaks these people out, they simply CANNOT believe that enough people voted for a cigarette ban for an entire CITY, and they cannot deal with coming face to face with the enemy, it just doesn't seem credible to them!)
I just love that example though. So much campaigning, and people just didn't think it would happen so they didn't go to the polls to vote against the ban, and they are still campaigning. Haha. The struggling bar scene died in that town. Hell, I would have voted to ban alcohol if they'd put it on the ballot! Schedule II narcotic! Make a State into a prohibition zone, just by putting alcohol in the same category as heroin. Anyone who uses or manufactures alcohol, put 'em behind bars. Make the people who own stock in companies that distill and distribute alcohol into drug lords.
Hell yes I'd vote for prohibition, as long as it was a 21st century style prohibition, not 1920's style -- just make alcohol a schedule 2 narcotic.
Even if I wouldn't vote for that, I'd lie to the polling people about it
"Most of the suspicion and paranoia surrounding voting systems such as this is the development of a system by a private/commercial developer in a proprietary setting."
:-)
I guess, if you're just looking at slashdot, you may be correct.
However, I got interested when I saw that someone within the organization has leaked documents that spell out a horrible disdain by the developers for any sort of accountability in quality assurance or certification.
I don't know what kind of certification process Diebold operates under, but I have to wonder if it was legal for these people NOT to blow the whistle, considering some of the items discussed in the memos. Some of these sound like the developers knew that their machines were being used in violation of the laws where they were used. The memos tell a story of a coverup. Covering up a violation of a state law might be something that brings action against an individual, perhaps under RICO or some similar law.
I sure as hell would be making clear and precise communication to my managers if I found myself in a position like that, and I'd make damned sure to keep a copy of it. I have gone as far as to remind higher ups, just matter-of-factly saying "When the judge asks me, Did you Know that these medical records were readable on the open network every night when you made your backups", I'd say "Yes your honor, I did know that, and I suggested at that time that we use some form of public key encryption, but my manager, Mister X ordered me not to do that, your honor".
You wouldn't believe how many times a smart-ass tactic like that got me the authority to do something right instead of fucking up. In those days, it just wasn't the kind of place you could get fired from, of course...
"I don't know why you're in my cubicle, but it better be to tell me I'm fired."
In those days, I was serious, and they knew it
I used to worry about all the lame-brained, right-wing-liberal, hippie-conservative, crazy assed shit that I've said over the years, and whether having my various posts where I've been all over the political spectrum, all over the spectrum of sanity and insanity, and everywhere from reasonable and educational to bloodthirsty pirate and troll.... I've worried that this legacy would take some explaining, maybe someday, if I were being recruited by the NSA or something, or any other job interview.
But I WOULD NOT trade for anyone named on any of these Diebold memos.
If these discussions are really true, if they are really from developers and QA people, they had better count their lucky stars if the interviewer at their next job isn't political.
You could probably get away with a batch file that prints "system test passed" for all I know.
--Ken Clark
I may have said some crazy-assed crap in my time, but that's because I tend to be a clown. But I don't think I'd want to go on record with something like this. I actually might be more inclined to blow the whistle on this operation. Which is obviously what someone did do.
"This electronic voting is the most serious threat to America that we have seen in our lifetimes."
I thought about this, and then I realized that there are just a few probable outcomes:
One of the parties that is in power already, rigs the election to slide to their party. We get a Republican or a Democrat. Or else we get the status quo on a tax issue or bond measure, or else we get the measure to pass.
That's one scenario, the one where someone in power is the one rigging the election.
Another scenario is "some hacker" wants to fuck shit up. So we end up with a libertarian president, lower taxes, legal weed.
It looks like a riggable election can only be "more of the same" or "revolutionary change".
To go further, I'll bet that printed flyers distributed by hand are immune to any sort of cease and desist order. It's clearly political speech, and it doesn't have that stigma of being "on the internet."
"If you cannot silence this equipment, you may not work in this environment."
I can see it being the difference between having a gig and being fired, in certain film, tv, and audio environments.
I'm sure this is an unusual situation, but if you have to use a computer in the same room as a recording mic, it's trouble. I don't know why everyone else wants quiet computers, but I certainly know why film and audio folks need them.
There is a whole level of "silence" to film foley guys, they really WILL hear a pin drop and it will be an expensive problem.
Paid-for secondary education.
French high schools turn out people with the equivalent coursework of an American junior college science degree.
French university costs very, very little.
Yeah, I'm jealous of this.