I'll get a blu-ray player when I can easily rip the movies and do what I want with them including making standard def dvd backups, or transcode it for my video iPod.
Well, it's a good thing you don't have to wait. Every disk released so far is cracked. They are going to take a stab at improving the protection, but companies have been doing that since DeCSS came out.
And yes, I went out and bought a bunch of blu-ray disks after the cracks happened, for much the same reason.
You're right about one thing - DUIs with alcohol shouldn't be treated differently than DUI with other drugs - mercilessly, with severe consequences on the _first_ offense. No fines - a year in jail and 10 years license suspension should do it.
When you drive under the influence of Alcohol, you are gambling with other people's lives. Placing other's peoples lives at an unreasonable level of risk _is_, and _should be_ a crime. Gamble with your life, not mine.
First off, it doesn't say the right of the militia to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, but rather the right of the people.
Furthermore: (10 USC 311)
311. Militia: composition and classes (a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard. (b) The classes of the militia are-- (1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and (2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.
So, fine - the right of all able-bodied males between ages 17-45 to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Sounds good to me.
Most variables that have been found to affect driver attitude... things like the type (actually, speed) of music you're listening to.
I can certainly vouch for this one. I typically listen to my music at ~140% of normal speed (personal preference - it turns trance into dance, and dance into, well, really fast dance). I can't do this while driving, as it screws with my sense of time (and therefore speed). I find myself driving faster, without realizing I'm doing it.
Slight correction - where I state "student drivers have apparently never seen cars before", it should read "college drivers have never seen bikes before".
Isn't insomnia wonderful? Side effects of a really high metabolism may include insanely high resistance to drugs. Not only do I need really high doses of drugs, but most of the time they don't even work. Oh well, at least I can take comfort in the fact that I pay for them myself, rather than being a leech on those around me.
I could _never_ get insurance due to a pre-existing condition. The only way for me to get it is to work for someone else.
So, you're a selfish prick who has/will probably have huge medical bills, and the only way for you to compensate is to saddle your coworkers with the bill, since the insurance company isn't in a position to mitigate risk. Good for you.
Insurance's purpose is to _spread the risk_. Once you get away from that, you may as well abolish insurance altogether.
That's true. If you're uninsurable, it's because your risk is an order of magnitude larger than everyone else's. You aren't talking about spreading risk, but rather heaping your problems on everyone else.
No, I'm not being particularly religious, but you must be either 20 or younger, or you've never had a disease in your life. It must be so wonderful to not have a chronic disease.
If you're such a free-marketer, answer me this: How could I _ever_ become involved in starting my own business? I could _never_ get insurance due to a pre-existing condition.
The same way I did - start a company without insurance. I pay my own medical bills, and my last 30-day supply of Strattera and Seroqel cost over $250. I've got preexisting conditions up the whazoo. I have ligament and joint issues (spontaneous dislocation is fun), and I got hit by a car - three times (student drivers have apparently never seen cars before). My ankle (injured to the point of requiring physical therapy), shoulder (dislocated - took 5 guys to pop it back in since they couldn't give me enough drugs to actually relax my muscles), knees (ligament issues - isn't being tall fun) are all considered preexisting conditions. I have a family history including heart defects, alcoholism, and predisposition towards addiction. Insurance should be a way for similarly risky people to hedge against catastrophic illness or injury. It should not be a way for one man to enrich himself at the harm of others.
Health Spending Accounts are a good way to accomplish hedging against risk, without the overhead typically associated with health insurance. Medical savings accounts (available to you if you start a small business) couple a high deductable insurance plan (much easier to get), with a tax-deferred savings account. The savings are rolled-over every year, and don't depend on employment status. They also stick with _you_, so they transfer when you change jobs. Because most expenses are paid out of pocket, there is a lot less overhead involved. Besides, it's stupid to pay the insurance company money for them to pay for expenses (check-ups, teeth cleaning, etc.) that you know are going to occur anyway. This way, you pay for the services directly, but still have a hedge against catastrophic happenings. As a bonus, you're using pre-tax funds, so you actually decrease your tax liabilities doing it this way. Heck, you can even use the funds to pay for COBRA from the job you just left to start your own company. Another little bonus is that you can pull out the money later (should the good health last, you get covered by insurance, or you have a non-health emergency); you do incur a 15% penalty for doing this, though.
In short, suck it up. Plan on life being full of minor and mid-level emergencies and problems, and insure against the catastrophic. It's cheaper, better, and fairer for everyone that way.
So why not just get the insurance, then get tested. If preventative care is cheaper for the insurance company, then the company should be willing to provide for it, since you are now their problem.
As far as my insurance company goes, they do pay for some testing and preventative measures. Answer me this - why should an insurance company be required to accept people who are known risks (especially ones who choose to do so - smokers, etc.) More importantly, why should I pay higher premiums to cover them? At my last job, we had an obese diabetic who worked there just for the insurance (by his own admission), and his diabetes and obesity were a function of low self-control (again, by his own admission). Someone has to pick up the tab for his insurance premiums, and who should it be? Me? The taxpayers? The employer (who of course passes it on to the customers and employees).
Insuring someone like that is extremely expensive (really high risk), so the premiums must be higher for him. If not, they are higher for everyone else, or they don't insure him. The free market "solution" is to charge him a crapload of money, or don't insure him. Socalism makes every one else suffer for his stupidity.
Yet another example of a problem that socalism can't solve. The free market solution may not be much of one, but it's certainly better than the alternative.
Here's a hint - if you never have any equity, you don't really own anything. It's just as easy to rent from someone else as from the bank. Besides, with Record number of houses, and Home sales dropping 4 years in a row in some areas, what would be the point.
Besides, with the Subprime Meltdown going on (41 major lenders down since Dec 31), you probably can't afford the payments on that new place anyway. You couldn't afford it before, but at least there were people willing to lend you more money than they should, figuring you could just flip it to a bigger sucker at a profit if you get in trouble. With median prices declining countrywide, that's not happening any time soon.
At the moment, you're better off "investing" in a new sports car or computer, you will make a better profit off them than that new home. That's true whether you are dying or not. (Don't believe me? Factor in the interest paid over the life of the loan, and the opportunity cost from not investing that money in something that earns interest. Adjust for inflation, and don't count the 2004-2005 years when people went nuts and drove up prices without a shift in the factors which should determine the price. You will _lose_ money buying a house, and it gets worse the longer you own it, even when it's not crashing like it is now.)
No, it's a good thing. The transition from Mac to Linux is much easier since they already lost compatibility, application support, gaming, and driver support anyway.
And then when they accuse you and can't find anything, sue the ever loving crap out of them and get it all over CNN. Soverign immunity. You can't sue the government (or it's agents), unless the government decides to allow you to.
I say if you have nothing to hide... leave it open, unencrypted and accessible. I did. They still accused me (in front of my family) of a variety of charges, from pedophelia to arms trafficing and human trafficing. They also threatened to kill me, but that's a different matter. It took me over 7 months to get a copy of this so-called "evidence", and find out it was satire from theonion.com, satirewire.com, some gun pictures for a mod I was working on, and the Landover Baptist Church ("Christian Gamers are Leading Gnomes and Elves to Jesus! "). I had nothing to hide, and they still used it against me.
If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.
I ticked them off because I a) made them get a search warrant (how dare I), and b) didn't let them question me without a lawyer present. Because of this, I had my property ransacked (and a bunch of stuff broken), a number of things just "disappear" that weren't on the property report (small electronics, mostly), was threatened with death if I didn't consent to an illegal search, and had my name smeared through the mud.
Well, you can have two passwords for plausable deniability - the first decrypts some stuff, the second decrypts the rest. Disclose one.
Also, I asked this same question to the EFF - I was told that they had been looking for a case to set precident; however, the few cases there were settled out of court. So, to the best of my knowledge, this has not been the case.
IANAL (yet), but I do believe there is a strong case for 5th amendment protection for disclosure of passwords. Your "stuff" can be used as evidence against you; however, you cannot be compelled to testify against yourself.
The second point is that wiping incriminating material is a crime. If there was evidence on your computer - no matter what it might be - and it is provably deleted you are guilty of spoilation.
Unless, of course, the system routinely deletes the system as a matter of course. Then it's not destruction of evidence. After all, you aren't legally _required_ to log your history for years at a time - it just can be used as evidence if you do.
An unmotivated cop is your friend. He has lots of stuff to do, probably more pressing and more important. My case was over one fire cracker (M-80). I provided all the motivation they needed when I made them get a search warrant. I was threatened with death, had two felony charges (Posession of explosive devices, and posession of explosive materials) pressed (and a "Obstruction of justice" for good measure). I spent the weekend in jail until bond could be set. The prosecution was willing to make a deal, but the officer wanted a conviction - and that's when they started digging through the computer. Part of the reason for the officer's spite seems to be the fact she was new on the job. I was her first search warrant, and it took her several hours. I also overheard how much she was really looking forward to questioning her first suspect. I, of course, shut up and got a lawyer - that really made her mad.
They accused me of pedophelia, arms trafficing, child trafficing, terrorism, and a number of other things - all in front of my family. It took me over 7 months to get the so-called "evidence" (a bunch of satire, and some pictures of guns for a mod I'm working on). As the computer was publically available in a dorm, there was a possibility someone else had used it to do something like that - it scared the crap out of me.
Do not destroy evidence. It can go extremely hard on you. Do not believe for a moment that your computer contains all the evidence in total and there exists nothing else. Well, here's the thing - there was no evidence on the computer. All there is is some satire, and some automatically generated thumbnails (non-nude) from a non-child porn related easynews search. That doesn't stop them from smearing my name in front of my family. Also, I lost a lot of faith in our police when they threatened to kill me if I didn't let them search. Had I encrypted the hard drive beforehand, the case would have been dropped long ago.
If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.
Encrypt everything. Always. That way, it's not evidence of anything. You might get the cops attention, but you can achieve that by simply excercising your constitutionally protected rights (in my experience, 4 and 5 really tick them off). If you aren't guilty, you have everything to hide. If you are guilty, even more so.
Of course, if you live in the US, they can make just about anything evidence (see my post). At least this way, you have plausable deniability. Also, TCGina supports wrapped containers - you can have multiple passwords, and only disclose one. It's impossible to prove or disprove that there are or aren't any more containers on the device.
Also, you are still innocent until proven guilty, at least if you have enough money to appeal it to a court that follows the law.
I wouldn't say I lucked out - I had one threaten to kill me if I didn't let them search my apartment (he pulled out a knife, said it was his "throwdown knife", and he could just shoot me and say I pulled it on him).
Prosecution was willing to make a deal, he called the officer. The officer said she didn't want a deal, and wanted a felony conviction, so they have been doing everything they can to make it happen.
As for the "sources" - one was satirewire.com. One was theonion.com, and one was This.
Landover Baptist Creation Scientists have used Scripture to calculate every amount of payment except for the price of white females. Scripture teaches us that females are worth less than men (Leviticus 27:1-7), but since these are the last days, and the present economic and international situation is unbalanced during this time, we found it appropriate to modify the pricing where necessary. Members of the Young Christian Soldiers Program released these figures after days of concentrated prayer and meditation. We're also taking a big leap by jumping on the "politically correct" bandwagon here and announcing that the word "Colored" does not just refer to Negroes. It also includes Mexicans and any race of people visibly tainted by the sin of Ham (Genesis 9:20-28). And just because Negroes have smaller brains and extra bones in their ankles doesn't mean we should be prejudice toward their children. We are all God's people, even if we are of lesser value to Him because of our sex or race. Please note that the pricing table below reflects current rates as of January 17, 2003.
Note: this is satire - it's not a reflection of any personally held beliefs.
Well, having had my computer taken by the cops as "evidence", I've learned several important lessons:
1) The cops have _no_ sense of humor. Thanks to Fark, I had This, and This in my cache. Apparently, I'm now into terrorism and child trafficing.
2) EFS doesn't help. Microsoft's Encrypting File System doesn't encrypt anything that can't be broken in seconds with the password (and usually minutes/hours without).
So, especially for farkers, get TrueCrypt. It's free, and open-source. Then, get TCTEMP. It makes it so your temporary files encrypted with a random key. Restart, and they all go "poof". Then get TCGina. You get to encrypt your home directory (and history, documents, etc.) - it automatically mounts it when you login.
Use AES/SHA-1 as your encryption scheme, and pick a good password. If you're _really_ paranoid, grab Shred Agent (wipes files you delete automatically), and Distrust (a firefox addon that automatically deletes your history and cache for you). Nobody is _ever_ going to be recovering your data (even you, if you forget your password).
If you are looking for a quick, easy, fool-proof way to wipe your hard drive so _nobody_ will _ever_ recover _anything_ from it, make yourself a DBAN disk. Easy to use, and it gets the job done right.
Well, as an American, I have to say not all of us are like that. Personally, I don't want any of that.
That being said, a lot of the problem is the perception that "I've been paying all my [working] life, and I'm entitled to [Medicare/Medicaid/Social Security]". Here's the problem with that line of thinking:
You (figuratively speaking) have paid for a long time, and you actually believed your government representatives when they said the program would be around when you retired. On the other hand, they pay for you by taking it (by force, if necessary) from me. We recognize now that your representatives mislead you, and while it's sad that you got screwed, the alternative is for me to get screwed instead of you, because your government lied to you 50 years ago.
And the low-income people need the money NOW to pay bills (like rent and food) and literally can't afford to wait a year to get the money back. The whole rebate plan is a non-starter.
That's why you make it a prebate, rather than a rebate. You know they either a) are going to spend under the poverty line, so they will not pay any taxes (in the end) anyway, or b), they are spending more than the poverty line (and now have a much harder time avoiding taxes), so you don't need to worry.
As for being impossible to get money to low-income people, the current welfare system seems to get along just fine. Perhaps the solution is a WIC-style debit card. Shows up in the mail. If they don't have a physical address, it gets a little more difficult to send them the card, but they could always come and pick it up from the local welfare office.
There are plenty of issues with a sales tax/prebate system (although far less than the current system) - getting money to people isn't one of them. It's just not that hard to do. Also, since this is a "tax prebate", rather than welfare, it can come with a lot less strings attached.
So, how does this apply to computer software? Well, the original thought was that a license was required, because when you run and install software, it's copied to the disk (sometimes) and to ram (always). Copyright holders thought "Great! We can do whatever we want, and change the terms to whatever we want after purchase!" When you purchase a car, for example, they can't sell you the car and then say "you can only use Ford service on it", or "You can only use Chevy parts".
Regardless, copyright law (in the US, at least - YMMV) now specifically grants the right to make copies for installation, running, and archiving of purchased software. In other words, You don't need an EULA or license to use software you have already bought. The modern EULA pretends to be a "contract", yet it attempts to modify the terms of sale, post-sale, supposedly applies to minors, and supposed applies whether or not you've had a chance to read it beforehand.
And yes, every company can tell you how you can use a technology you licensed from it. No, they can't. Software companies can't do it any more than Ford can forbid you from having your car serviced by someone else. Specifically, see Microsoft Corp. v. DAK Indus.
IANAL but the only legal argly-bargly i CAN find questionable, is that most times you can only see the contract terms after buying the product - at least, when you are a private person instead of a company. Well, let me help.
When it's a sales tax, after their prebate, they have paid $0 in tax.
While this is true, the FairTax goes a step further (as far as progressive taxing goes) - if you are below the poverty line (or if your spending on new items is below the poverty line), you actually end up with cash in your pocket from the FairTax.
Personally, I'm not in favor of most government-ran welfare, as it can often provide incentives to _not_ work. Doing better financially typically results in less eligibility for financial programs (student aid, welfare, etc). In addition, many tax plans provide disincentives for working harder due to diminishing returns. As an example of this, I had a subcontractor that wouldn't pick up extra projects in the current tax year because the added tax liability made it not worthwhile (he was not in the US).
The FairTax program avoids both of these issues - you get the exact same prebate, whether you're an unemployed college student, or a multi-billionaire. While it may seem silly, it means a lot less to the billionare, and they both come out of his taxes anyway. You'll end up paying more than the prebate the first Hummer you buy. In addition, there is no longer any incentive whatsoever not to work - your taxes scale linearly with spending, and you are not penalized for making money.
For those who say "but the rich don't have to spend their money" - why are they rich? If they are rich (and not spending like crazy and getting taxed), it's probably because they use sense or discretion with regards to wealth. If that's the case, they aren't hiding it under a mattress somewhere - it's invested, or saved in a bank. Money that sits there doesn't keep up with inflation, and you're being effectively taxed anyway.
So what happens when you leave your money just sitting in the bank? Banks make money by loaning money to people, and charging interest. Suppose they loan the money to a new "homeowner" (I use the term lightly - those who never build equity or suck it out are just renting from the bank)? The homeowner buys a home. Ok, the money's been taxed.
So, the money gets loaned to an evil, tax-avoiding company - what happens next? Well, the company needs facilities and equipment. Buy it in the US? It gets taxed. Buy it overseas? It probably still gets taxed. Next, they need employees, who (of course) want money for their troubles. Under the FairTax, this income isn't taxed... yet. Have to make that mortgage payment (the loan was already taxed in advance, so no "new" tax revenue here; however, the money used for the loan will be taxed again the next time it's loaned out - it still gets taxed). Ok, the kids need new books and shoes for school - more taxes. The family has to eat - more taxes.
The FairTax is a radically simplified system that is largely revenue neutral, avoids the I.R.S and all the invasive, unconstitutional stuff that goes with it, lowers the tax burden on the poor (achieving revenue neutrality and lowering the tax burden on the poor is largely made possible by avoiding the overhead associated with the I.R.S), and based on spending (which is done in public), rather than earning (which is often done in private). For those who dislike illegal aliens, the aliens get no prebate, and pay the same taxes as everyone else - resulting in a higher tax burden for illegal aliens than any citizen). What's not to like?
Slashdot Mirror
Well, it's a good thing you don't have to wait. Every disk released so far is cracked. They are going to take a stab at improving the protection, but companies have been doing that since DeCSS came out.
And yes, I went out and bought a bunch of blu-ray disks after the cracks happened, for much the same reason.
You're right about one thing - DUIs with alcohol shouldn't be treated differently than DUI with other drugs - mercilessly, with severe consequences on the _first_ offense. No fines - a year in jail and 10 years license suspension should do it.
When you drive under the influence of Alcohol, you are gambling with other people's lives. Placing other's peoples lives at an unreasonable level of risk _is_, and _should be_ a crime. Gamble with your life, not mine.
Furthermore: (10 USC 311)
So, fine - the right of all able-bodied males between ages 17-45 to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Sounds good to me.
I can certainly vouch for this one. I typically listen to my music at ~140% of normal speed (personal preference - it turns trance into dance, and dance into, well, really fast dance). I can't do this while driving, as it screws with my sense of time (and therefore speed). I find myself driving faster, without realizing I'm doing it.
Slight correction - where I state "student drivers have apparently never seen cars before", it should read "college drivers have never seen bikes before".
Isn't insomnia wonderful? Side effects of a really high metabolism may include insanely high resistance to drugs. Not only do I need really high doses of drugs, but most of the time they don't even work. Oh well, at least I can take comfort in the fact that I pay for them myself, rather than being a leech on those around me.
So, you're a selfish prick who has/will probably have huge medical bills, and the only way for you to compensate is to saddle your coworkers with the bill, since the insurance company isn't in a position to mitigate risk. Good for you.
That's true. If you're uninsurable, it's because your risk is an order of magnitude larger than everyone else's. You aren't talking about spreading risk, but rather heaping your problems on everyone else.
The same way I did - start a company without insurance. I pay my own medical bills, and my last 30-day supply of Strattera and Seroqel cost over $250. I've got preexisting conditions up the whazoo. I have ligament and joint issues (spontaneous dislocation is fun), and I got hit by a car - three times (student drivers have apparently never seen cars before). My ankle (injured to the point of requiring physical therapy), shoulder (dislocated - took 5 guys to pop it back in since they couldn't give me enough drugs to actually relax my muscles), knees (ligament issues - isn't being tall fun) are all considered preexisting conditions. I have a family history including heart defects, alcoholism, and predisposition towards addiction. Insurance should be a way for similarly risky people to hedge against catastrophic illness or injury. It should not be a way for one man to enrich himself at the harm of others.
Health Spending Accounts are a good way to accomplish hedging against risk, without the overhead typically associated with health insurance. Medical savings accounts (available to you if you start a small business) couple a high deductable insurance plan (much easier to get), with a tax-deferred savings account. The savings are rolled-over every year, and don't depend on employment status. They also stick with _you_, so they transfer when you change jobs. Because most expenses are paid out of pocket, there is a lot less overhead involved. Besides, it's stupid to pay the insurance company money for them to pay for expenses (check-ups, teeth cleaning, etc.) that you know are going to occur anyway. This way, you pay for the services directly, but still have a hedge against catastrophic happenings. As a bonus, you're using pre-tax funds, so you actually decrease your tax liabilities doing it this way. Heck, you can even use the funds to pay for COBRA from the job you just left to start your own company. Another little bonus is that you can pull out the money later (should the good health last, you get covered by insurance, or you have a non-health emergency); you do incur a 15% penalty for doing this, though.
In short, suck it up. Plan on life being full of minor and mid-level emergencies and problems, and insure against the catastrophic. It's cheaper, better, and fairer for everyone that way.
So why not just get the insurance, then get tested. If preventative care is cheaper for the insurance company, then the company should be willing to provide for it, since you are now their problem.
As far as my insurance company goes, they do pay for some testing and preventative measures. Answer me this - why should an insurance company be required to accept people who are known risks (especially ones who choose to do so - smokers, etc.) More importantly, why should I pay higher premiums to cover them? At my last job, we had an obese diabetic who worked there just for the insurance (by his own admission), and his diabetes and obesity were a function of low self-control (again, by his own admission). Someone has to pick up the tab for his insurance premiums, and who should it be? Me? The taxpayers? The employer (who of course passes it on to the customers and employees).
Insuring someone like that is extremely expensive (really high risk), so the premiums must be higher for him. If not, they are higher for everyone else, or they don't insure him. The free market "solution" is to charge him a crapload of money, or don't insure him. Socalism makes every one else suffer for his stupidity.
Yet another example of a problem that socalism can't solve. The free market solution may not be much of one, but it's certainly better than the alternative.
Here's a hint - if you never have any equity, you don't really own anything. It's just as easy to rent from someone else as from the bank. Besides, with Record number of houses, and Home sales dropping 4 years in a row in some areas, what would be the point.
Besides, with the Subprime Meltdown going on (41 major lenders down since Dec 31), you probably can't afford the payments on that new place anyway. You couldn't afford it before, but at least there were people willing to lend you more money than they should, figuring you could just flip it to a bigger sucker at a profit if you get in trouble. With median prices declining countrywide, that's not happening any time soon.
At the moment, you're better off "investing" in a new sports car or computer, you will make a better profit off them than that new home. That's true whether you are dying or not. (Don't believe me? Factor in the interest paid over the life of the loan, and the opportunity cost from not investing that money in something that earns interest. Adjust for inflation, and don't count the 2004-2005 years when people went nuts and drove up prices without a shift in the factors which should determine the price. You will _lose_ money buying a house, and it gets worse the longer you own it, even when it's not crashing like it is now.)
If that's "lucky", I'd hate to be "unlucky". Not getting killed by the police is a good thing, but it shouldn't be anything special.
No, it's a good thing. The transition from Mac to Linux is much easier since they already lost compatibility, application support, gaming, and driver support anyway.
Soverign immunity. You can't sue the government (or it's agents), unless the government decides to allow you to.
I say if you have nothing to hide
I did. They still accused me (in front of my family) of a variety of charges, from pedophelia to arms trafficing and human trafficing. They also threatened to kill me, but that's a different matter. It took me over 7 months to get a copy of this so-called "evidence", and find out it was satire from theonion.com, satirewire.com, some gun pictures for a mod I was working on, and the Landover Baptist Church ("Christian Gamers are Leading Gnomes and Elves to Jesus! "). I had nothing to hide, and they still used it against me.
I ticked them off because I a) made them get a search warrant (how dare I), and b) didn't let them question me without a lawyer present. Because of this, I had my property ransacked (and a bunch of stuff broken), a number of things just "disappear" that weren't on the property report (small electronics, mostly), was threatened with death if I didn't consent to an illegal search, and had my name smeared through the mud.
Well, you can have two passwords for plausable deniability - the first decrypts some stuff, the second decrypts the rest. Disclose one.
Also, I asked this same question to the EFF - I was told that they had been looking for a case to set precident; however, the few cases there were settled out of court. So, to the best of my knowledge, this has not been the case.
IANAL (yet), but I do believe there is a strong case for 5th amendment protection for disclosure of passwords. Your "stuff" can be used as evidence against you; however, you cannot be compelled to testify against yourself.
Unless, of course, the system routinely deletes the system as a matter of course. Then it's not destruction of evidence. After all, you aren't legally _required_ to log your history for years at a time - it just can be used as evidence if you do.
An unmotivated cop is your friend. He has lots of stuff to do, probably more pressing and more important.
My case was over one fire cracker (M-80). I provided all the motivation they needed when I made them get a search warrant. I was threatened with death, had two felony charges (Posession of explosive devices, and posession of explosive materials) pressed (and a "Obstruction of justice" for good measure). I spent the weekend in jail until bond could be set. The prosecution was willing to make a deal, but the officer wanted a conviction - and that's when they started digging through the computer. Part of the reason for the officer's spite seems to be the fact she was new on the job. I was her first search warrant, and it took her several hours. I also overheard how much she was really looking forward to questioning her first suspect. I, of course, shut up and got a lawyer - that really made her mad.
They accused me of pedophelia, arms trafficing, child trafficing, terrorism, and a number of other things - all in front of my family. It took me over 7 months to get the so-called "evidence" (a bunch of satire, and some pictures of guns for a mod I'm working on). As the computer was publically available in a dorm, there was a possibility someone else had used it to do something like that - it scared the crap out of me.
Do not destroy evidence. It can go extremely hard on you. Do not believe for a moment that your computer contains all the evidence in total and there exists nothing else.
Well, here's the thing - there was no evidence on the computer. All there is is some satire, and some automatically generated thumbnails (non-nude) from a non-child porn related easynews search. That doesn't stop them from smearing my name in front of my family. Also, I lost a lot of faith in our police when they threatened to kill me if I didn't let them search. Had I encrypted the hard drive beforehand, the case would have been dropped long ago.
Encrypt everything. Always. That way, it's not evidence of anything. You might get the cops attention, but you can achieve that by simply excercising your constitutionally protected rights (in my experience, 4 and 5 really tick them off). If you aren't guilty, you have everything to hide. If you are guilty, even more so.
Of course, if you live in the US, they can make just about anything evidence (see my post). At least this way, you have plausable deniability. Also, TCGina supports wrapped containers - you can have multiple passwords, and only disclose one. It's impossible to prove or disprove that there are or aren't any more containers on the device.
Also, you are still innocent until proven guilty, at least if you have enough money to appeal it to a court that follows the law.
Prosecution was willing to make a deal, he called the officer. The officer said she didn't want a deal, and wanted a felony conviction, so they have been doing everything they can to make it happen.
As for the "sources" - one was satirewire.com. One was theonion.com, and one was This.
Note: this is satire - it's not a reflection of any personally held beliefs.
Truecrypt/TCGina supports this. Enter the second password with a space after the first.
Well, having had my computer taken by the cops as "evidence", I've learned several important lessons:
1) The cops have _no_ sense of humor. Thanks to Fark, I had This, and This in my cache. Apparently, I'm now into terrorism and child trafficing.
2) EFS doesn't help. Microsoft's Encrypting File System doesn't encrypt anything that can't be broken in seconds with the password (and usually minutes/hours without).
So, especially for farkers, get TrueCrypt. It's free, and open-source. Then, get TCTEMP. It makes it so your temporary files encrypted with a random key. Restart, and they all go "poof". Then get TCGina. You get to encrypt your home directory (and history, documents, etc.) - it automatically mounts it when you login.
Use AES/SHA-1 as your encryption scheme, and pick a good password. If you're _really_ paranoid, grab Shred Agent (wipes files you delete automatically), and Distrust (a firefox addon that automatically deletes your history and cache for you). Nobody is _ever_ going to be recovering your data (even you, if you forget your password).
If you are looking for a quick, easy, fool-proof way to wipe your hard drive so _nobody_ will _ever_ recover _anything_ from it, make yourself a DBAN disk. Easy to use, and it gets the job done right.
You can still use allofmp3 - you just have to buy an xrost card and activate that. Yes, there are companies that take visa.
Well, as an American, I have to say not all of us are like that. Personally, I don't want any of that.
That being said, a lot of the problem is the perception that "I've been paying all my [working] life, and I'm entitled to [Medicare/Medicaid/Social Security]". Here's the problem with that line of thinking:
You (figuratively speaking) have paid for a long time, and you actually believed your government representatives when they said the program would be around when you retired. On the other hand, they pay for you by taking it (by force, if necessary) from me. We recognize now that your representatives mislead you, and while it's sad that you got screwed, the alternative is for me to get screwed instead of you, because your government lied to you 50 years ago.
So, it's sad. Tough.
That's why you make it a prebate, rather than a rebate. You know they either a) are going to spend under the poverty line, so they will not pay any taxes (in the end) anyway, or b), they are spending more than the poverty line (and now have a much harder time avoiding taxes), so you don't need to worry.
As for being impossible to get money to low-income people, the current welfare system seems to get along just fine. Perhaps the solution is a WIC-style debit card. Shows up in the mail. If they don't have a physical address, it gets a little more difficult to send them the card, but they could always come and pick it up from the local welfare office.
There are plenty of issues with a sales tax/prebate system (although far less than the current system) - getting money to people isn't one of them. It's just not that hard to do. Also, since this is a "tax prebate", rather than welfare, it can come with a lot less strings attached.
An interesting argument against EULAs.
And yes, every company can tell you how you can use a technology you licensed from it.
No, they can't. Software companies can't do it any more than Ford can forbid you from having your car serviced by someone else. Specifically, see Microsoft Corp. v. DAK Indus.
IANAL but the only legal argly-bargly i CAN find questionable, is that most times you can only see the contract terms after buying the product - at least, when you are a private person instead of a company.
Well, let me help.
Why dont more and more people use the Donate method of payment just like open source projects?
Because very few people actually donate money to open source projects?
When it's a sales tax, after their prebate, they have paid $0 in tax.
While this is true, the FairTax goes a step further (as far as progressive taxing goes) - if you are below the poverty line (or if your spending on new items is below the poverty line), you actually end up with cash in your pocket from the FairTax.
Personally, I'm not in favor of most government-ran welfare, as it can often provide incentives to _not_ work. Doing better financially typically results in less eligibility for financial programs (student aid, welfare, etc). In addition, many tax plans provide disincentives for working harder due to diminishing returns. As an example of this, I had a subcontractor that wouldn't pick up extra projects in the current tax year because the added tax liability made it not worthwhile (he was not in the US).
The FairTax program avoids both of these issues - you get the exact same prebate, whether you're an unemployed college student, or a multi-billionaire. While it may seem silly, it means a lot less to the billionare, and they both come out of his taxes anyway. You'll end up paying more than the prebate the first Hummer you buy. In addition, there is no longer any incentive whatsoever not to work - your taxes scale linearly with spending, and you are not penalized for making money.
For those who say "but the rich don't have to spend their money" - why are they rich? If they are rich (and not spending like crazy and getting taxed), it's probably because they use sense or discretion with regards to wealth. If that's the case, they aren't hiding it under a mattress somewhere - it's invested, or saved in a bank. Money that sits there doesn't keep up with inflation, and you're being effectively taxed anyway.
So what happens when you leave your money just sitting in the bank? Banks make money by loaning money to people, and charging interest. Suppose they loan the money to a new "homeowner" (I use the term lightly - those who never build equity or suck it out are just renting from the bank)? The homeowner buys a home. Ok, the money's been taxed.
So, the money gets loaned to an evil, tax-avoiding company - what happens next? Well, the company needs facilities and equipment. Buy it in the US? It gets taxed. Buy it overseas? It probably still gets taxed. Next, they need employees, who (of course) want money for their troubles. Under the FairTax, this income isn't taxed... yet. Have to make that mortgage payment (the loan was already taxed in advance, so no "new" tax revenue here; however, the money used for the loan will be taxed again the next time it's loaned out - it still gets taxed). Ok, the kids need new books and shoes for school - more taxes. The family has to eat - more taxes.
The FairTax is a radically simplified system that is largely revenue neutral, avoids the I.R.S and all the invasive, unconstitutional stuff that goes with it, lowers the tax burden on the poor (achieving revenue neutrality and lowering the tax burden on the poor is largely made possible by avoiding the overhead associated with the I.R.S), and based on spending (which is done in public), rather than earning (which is often done in private). For those who dislike illegal aliens, the aliens get no prebate, and pay the same taxes as everyone else - resulting in a higher tax burden for illegal aliens than any citizen). What's not to like?
And for those of us without instant reflexes, here's the easy way to obliterate people in PVP.
ISXWoW. Bot your way to success in PVP!
Now, you don't even need to think up your own talent trees and armor sets, and nobody has reflexes that can compare to a computers.