How long until it is required by law that every citizen must be paying for health insurance, life insurance and lawyer insurance or be put in jail?
The future may be here already (in the US, anyway) -- Medicaire and Medicaid, and to a lesser extent Social Security, come pretty close to legally-mandated versions of health insurance and life insurance.
It's like having a rottweiler in a house - sure it's legal, but you can't get insurance for the house, which means you can't get a mortgage, which means you can't buy a house unless you pay for it out of pocket...so it may as well be illegal for you to have a rottweiler.
Reading that, what I really see is "I can't get insurance *at a price that's acceptable to me*" and or "I can't get insurance *in a convenient manner*".
I'm certain you can get insurance in almost all situations. It is true that due to problems quantifying the risks/exposures or finding underwriters you might have to deal with special-purpose companies (e.g. Lloyds of London ?) whose costs far exceed those of the mass-market companies (e.g. Prudential, Liberty Mutual, etc.).
But, after all, if sports stars can insure their bodies & actresses can insure their legs, surely you can find someone to offer you homeowner's insurance?
Note also that anyone can write a database system with complete transactional integrity: you simply lock the whole database for every single operation and run only one query or update at a time, one after the other.
How does locking the whole database help if your UPDATE or DELETE statement affects multiple rows and fails somewhere in the middle?
"...the owner could be held in contempt for refusing to produce the key."
Which is why the winnowing/chaffing approach is so interesting, as one could arrange it so a "fake" key could decrypt to innocuous information (e.g. "last 5 seconds was 30 mph, with brake lightly applied").
"...it's probably not going to be hard to get a warrant to 'search' the black box, and use what they find inside."
But if the contents of the black box was encrypted (as my hypothetical stated) the decryption key would be required to make sense of "what they find inside".
So in that case would you force someone to divulge the decryption key? That becomes a Fifth Amendment issue, doesn't it?
...are we to throw out matching bullets to guns as well?
I recognize the inconsistency, which is why I mentioned in my original post that "I recognize that this is probably inconsistent with how other "evidence" is treated".
As I posted in another message, though, what if the black box information was encrypted in such a way that only the car owner could decrypt it (e.g. with the owner's public key, requiring the owner's private key to decrypt)? Would you call for a court order to demand the decryption key?
An interesting approach to side-stepping such an order to divulge the decryption key would be to use winnowing & chaffing to encrypt the black box information:
"...if law enforcement were to demand to see an authentication key so it could identify the wheat, the sender could yield up one such key that identifies a wheat subsequence containing an innocuous message as the wheat, and leaving everything else as ``chaff''. The real message would still be buried in the chaff."
What do you think would (or should) happen if the black box information was encrypted in such a way that only the car owner could decrypt it (e.g. with the owner's public key, requiring the owner's private key to decrypt)? A court order to demand the decryption key?
An interesting approach to side-stepping such an order to divulge the decryption key would be to use winnowing & chaffing to encrypt:
"...if law enforcement were to demand to see an authentication key
so it could identify the wheat, the sender could yield up one such key
that identifies a wheat subsequence containing an innocuous message as
the wheat, and leaving everything else as ``chaff''. The real message
would still be buried in the chaff."
Speaking from the US point-of-view, the issue that I struggle with is whether black-box info (BBI ?) should fall under the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. I lean towards treating the BBI as the car-owner's, to be used/disclosed at his sole discretion. I recognize that this is probably inconsistent with how other "evidence" is treated, but it would make me more comfortable with the presence of the black boxes as the information wouldn't necessarily "come back to haunt me" in the form of criminal/civil jeopardy, as justification for higher insurance rates, etc.
Beyond that, there's always basic questions to be answered like how do we know that the BBI in the Canadian case wasn't a recording of a 5-second interval where the (front ?) tires (or just one of the tires?) weren't in contact with the road?
Re:Software architect?
on
UML Fever
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· Score: 2, Insightful
...but people are still people and they get lazy and cut corners just like in any industry.
I heard/read a quote from someone to the effect that "anyone can build a bridge that will stand for 100 years -- it takes engineering to build one that will just barely stand for 100 years", with the point being that engineering consists of balancing/estimating/reconciling competing constraints (e.g. budgets, usage patterns, loads, schedules, etc.).
Was the Tacoma Narrows collapse due to cutting corners? I thought it was more related to ignorance of how winds might effect a bridge as opposed to what might be thought of as lousy engineering. And at least civil engineers learned from the failure -- isn't wind tunnel testing a standard practice in bridge design these days?
But maybe there is consistency here. Linux = free software. India = cheap labor.
Wonderful observation -- from one perspective IBM's interests align quite nicely with Joe/Jane Slashdot's, and from another perspective not so nicely.
But in any case IBM is just acting to maximize its profits, and *not* to further moral or ethical agendas. That is what (the vast majority of profit-seeking) companies do, and it is all that they should do.
Granted, perhaps drivel is a poor choice of words.
But I don't feel that people in developed nations need to apologize for the fruits of decades (if not centuries) of economic- and lifestyle-effecting investments, or for the fact that they have access to abundant natural resources (v. Saharan Africa, for instance), or whatever else is blamed for the lots of the impoverished nations.
This is not to claim that overt actions haven't had an effect on impoverished nations, or that developed nations shouldn't have an interest in them, just that apologizing for it is unnecessary.
I understand that i have no right to the lifestyle I live now...
Dump the politically-correct drivel -- you have a perfect "right" to it (in the sense of "something to which one has a just claim") to the extent that you put forth effort, work hard, save money, pay taxes to contribute to education & other infrastructure (i.e. the "common goods"), and participate in the political process.
If the DB 'owner' is not aggregating copyrightable content, then no, he should not have the right to copyright the sum collection of that information.
...This is where the sports precedent comes in -- the supreme court decided that a league cannot copyright its box-scores, nor an aggregation of those scores.
Do you really think Motorola should be allowed to do something like "skim" information from the NBA's web site and re-sell that information to phone users? It'd be a little different if Moto got their data by sending their employees to NBA games (or even by listening to newscasts), entered the scores manually, and then delivered/sold the info.
To illustrate what I think the point of the law is, should I have no recourse if I:
go door-to-door in New York City and compile a database of blue-eyed people who like the Yankees ;
find a market for this information (e.g. the makers of Yankee(TM) Shampoo, tinted contacts manufacturers, or whatever) ;
sell several copies of my database to these folks ;
only to find out 2 months from now that a competitor has literally copied my database and is selling it on their own?
Now I'd have no problem if my competitor compiled their information in some other way (perhaps by going door-to-door on their own, buying similar information from the Census Bureau, etc.), but having no protection from outright copying seems wrong.
Any combination of gifts greater than $10,000 from one person to the same other person in the same year creates a taxable event...
Just to be clear, the OP wouldn't have problems regardless of the car's value, as the gift tax generates a tax liability for the person doing the gifting, *not* for the recipient.
*and* you're looking for a programming library, you could always check out CodeBase which is xBase-compatible and "...written in ANSI C and C++ and is fully portable between Windows XP, 2000, NT, 9x, CE, 3.x, DOS, OS/2, Macintosh and many UNIX versions, including Linux, BSDI, SCO, UnixWare, AIX, Dec Alpha, Solaris and Sun."
It's no help if you're looking for a UI, though you could always use the API to make simple utils for creating tables & such.
Or, for that matter, create/maintain your tables & indexes in DOS/Windows using dBase/FoxPro/etc. and copy them wherever your app needs to go.
That way if someone unleashes a similiar program into the market , you could at least stop them.
you imply that copyright somehow stops/prevents someone developing a competitive piece of software, and that just isn't true.
It *does* stop someone from taking your source code & publishing it (outside of established fair use), or blatantly taking your executable and "competing" with you by selling it, but that *is not* what you imply in your original post.
There are CALEA-compliant products available for VOIP, and no end-to-end VOIP encryption standards exist.
Encryption is more problematic if you consider the interface to POTS -- even if you had appropriate/sufficient hardware at the central office to handle the VOIP encryption, the audio would still be available in "cleartext" on the POTS side.
Why would I want to change to VOIP when I'm not insured that cable will always be available -- especially since a POTS system is much, much, much more reliable.
Probably because of the price difference.
For example, you might:
decide that saving $20/month (or more) offsets the decrease (if any) in reliability ;
be looking for a secondary line primarily for use by your adolescent children, and maybe the price difference v. the ILEC's offering offsets the perceived reliability issue in that case ;
have started to treat your cellphone as your primary line, but want a cheap full-featured land-based line for some reason.
Slashdot Mirror
Why wouldn't you just do:
I'm certain you can get insurance in almost all situations. It is true that due to problems quantifying the risks/exposures or finding underwriters you might have to deal with special-purpose companies (e.g. Lloyds of London ?) whose costs far exceed those of the mass-market companies (e.g. Prudential, Liberty Mutual, etc.).
But, after all, if sports stars can insure their bodies & actresses can insure their legs, surely you can find someone to offer you homeowner's insurance?
So in that case would you force someone to divulge the decryption key? That becomes a Fifth Amendment issue, doesn't it?
As I posted in another message, though, what if the black box information was encrypted in such a way that only the car owner could decrypt it (e.g. with the owner's public key, requiring the owner's private key to decrypt)? Would you call for a court order to demand the decryption key?
An interesting approach to side-stepping such an order to divulge the decryption key would be to use winnowing & chaffing to encrypt the black box information:
An interesting approach to side-stepping such an order to divulge the decryption key would be to use winnowing & chaffing to encrypt:
Beyond that, there's always basic questions to be answered like how do we know that the BBI in the Canadian case wasn't a recording of a 5-second interval where the (front ?) tires (or just one of the tires?) weren't in contact with the road?
Was the Tacoma Narrows collapse due to cutting corners? I thought it was more related to ignorance of how winds might effect a bridge as opposed to what might be thought of as lousy engineering. And at least civil engineers learned from the failure -- isn't wind tunnel testing a standard practice in bridge design these days?
But in any case IBM is just acting to maximize its profits, and *not* to further moral or ethical agendas. That is what (the vast majority of profit-seeking) companies do, and it is all that they should do.
But I don't feel that people in developed nations need to apologize for the fruits of decades (if not centuries) of economic- and lifestyle-effecting investments, or for the fact that they have access to abundant natural resources (v. Saharan Africa, for instance), or whatever else is blamed for the lots of the impoverished nations.
This is not to claim that overt actions haven't had an effect on impoverished nations, or that developed nations shouldn't have an interest in them, just that apologizing for it is unnecessary.
To illustrate what I think the point of the law is, should I have no recourse if I:
- go door-to-door in New York City and compile a database of blue-eyed people who like the Yankees ;
- find a market for this information (e.g. the makers of Yankee(TM) Shampoo, tinted contacts manufacturers, or whatever) ;
- sell several copies of my database to these folks ;
only to find out 2 months from now that a competitor has literally copied my database and is selling it on their own?Now I'd have no problem if my competitor compiled their information in some other way (perhaps by going door-to-door on their own, buying similar information from the Census Bureau, etc.), but having no protection from outright copying seems wrong.
It's no help if you're looking for a UI, though you could always use the API to make simple utils for creating tables & such.
Or, for that matter, create/maintain your tables & indexes in DOS/Windows using dBase/FoxPro/etc. and copy them wherever your app needs to go.
From your original post:
you imply that copyright somehow stops/prevents someone developing a competitive piece of software, and that just isn't true.It *does* stop someone from taking your source code & publishing it (outside of established fair use), or blatantly taking your executable and "competing" with you by selling it, but that *is not* what you imply in your original post.
They already have a few competitors who are leading a "race to the bottom" on rates ($20/mo, in the case of Packet8).
Encryption is more problematic if you consider the interface to POTS -- even if you had appropriate/sufficient hardware at the central office to handle the VOIP encryption, the audio would still be available in "cleartext" on the POTS side.
For example, you might: