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User: Anonymous+Cowpat

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  1. CC companies aren't being kind on Hacked Business Owner Stuck With $52k Phone Bill · · Score: 1

    Maybe it's time for the phone company to get their fraud detection and prevention services at least on par with what the credit card companies have done.

    It's not like CC companies are doing that out of the kindness of their hearts. They're legally obliged to protect their customers against fraudelent use of their cards. It's not time for the phone companies to get their systems on a par with those of the credit card companies, it's time for legislation to force them to.

  2. Re:Film and TV producers also call for action on RIAA To Stop Prosecuting Individual File Sharers · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Not really, a lot of people speak chinese, but they're all in one place (China). English is far more widely distributed: the UK, Ireland, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa. Other large English-speaking groups in virtually every other former British colony (India, for example).

    Wherever you go in the world, you're not going to have to look too hard to find someone with some useable level of ability in English, you can't say that about Chinese.

  3. Re:Who will replace her? on Majel Roddenberry Dies At 76 · · Score: 1

    Nobody can, and that's a very bad thing

    Because the only modern Star Trek set before voice-interactive computers is Enterprise - so we're destined to have 15 Enterprise movies now (to make up for the DS9 & Voyager movies that we haven't had yet, and now can't have). Crap.

  4. Re:Charged As Terrorists? on Indian GPS Cartographers Charged As Terrorists · · Score: 1

    ...and there were lots of MiG 21's there 2-3 years ago...

    Fixed that for you

  5. Re:In defense of 24 (but not torture) on Torture in Games · · Score: 1

    And in all those cases they go: "Oh, well, no permanent harm done, move on. Have a pay rise."
    In those cases they may show that torture doesn't always work, but their reaction to having screwed up is so apathetic that they give the impession that while torture may not always work, you have nothing to lose by giving it a go.

  6. Re:Protection racket? on RIAA May Be Violating a Court Order In California · · Score: 1

    what makes you think that the example that you just gave isn't a protection racket? For another see Fixed Penalty Notices in the UK.

  7. Re:Devil's Advocate on RIAA May Be Violating a Court Order In California · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yeah, but can he give them a slap on the wrist (i.e. a fine)? Or can he actually give them a solid kicking (a 7-figure+ fine and organise some sort of professional sanctions against the lawyers) and actually end the cases? Because the RIAA isn't suing people for the money, they're suing people to try and scare the public at large and if they can go "look, we can get your names on a 'no-sue' basis, ignore that, sucessfully sue you anyway and it'll only cost us a moderate fine" then they're come out clearly on top. Infact if the message that they can carry illegal lawsuits all the way through even after being called on it gets out, it'll play right into their hands.

    To play devil* for a moment, using the old information-wants-to-be-free argument, once someone knows who it is that they need to sue how can you conscionably tell them that they can't actually sue them because you only told them the name so they could use it for something else?

    *the devil is the RIAA's advocate.

  8. Pinko commies! on The Best Burglar Alarm In History · · Score: 1

    Tesla coils are a Soviet defence!

  9. Re:Failed the Grandma Test on openSUSE Launches 11.1 · · Score: 1

    because that way tests the ability to use the word processor (and the various formatting function to get a decent-looking letter), the ability to save the file, the ability to attach a file and the ability to find where you saved the file (so, for instance, if the word processor saves to ~/Documents by default, and the email client looks for attachments in ~/ by default it may not be immediately obvious where the file has gone)

  10. Re:And I seem to prefer KDE on Samba's Jeremy Allison On Linux's Future · · Score: 1

    I have yet to find anything, anywhere, available on any OS, which is even half as good as amarok.

  11. Re:National soverignity? on Human Rights Court Calls UK DNA Database a 'Breach of Rights' · · Score: 1

    no, actually, the UK has been signed up to the human rights charter since the late 1950s (Churchill played a large part in drawing it up), what labout did in 1998 was incorporate it directly into British law so that claimants could first bring up human rights based arguments in the British courts rather than having to lose their way through 4 or 5 levels of appeals courts before going to Europe (except that you can go straight to Europe and bypass domestic courts if you want) to get a law overturned.

  12. Re:The French on French "Three Strikes" Law Gets New Life · · Score: 4, Informative

    Time for another line from yes minister (about a compulsory European ID card): "The Germans will love it, the French will ignore it and the Italians will be too disorganised to implement it; it's only the British who will resent it"

    While 'Let the French do what the Fench think is good for France' is a good sentiment, the way it works is that the EU presidency rotates around every 6 months, and during those 6 months, whichever country hold the presidency has a completely free hand to try and force the craziest nonsense from their law books onto the rest of Europe.
    The UK forced 2 years retention of electronic communications particulars through, for instance. (Which I suspect that they did because they wouldn't have got enough support for the measure at home)

  13. Re:Well that's what you get on French "Three Strikes" Law Gets New Life · · Score: 2, Informative

    this would be the state judiciaries? No - the federal judiciary overturned a decision taken by the federal government. However the mechanism actually works, the GP's point, that the federal government actually runs the country that the rest of the world sees, is still valid.

  14. Re:half of the price? on How Politics Interacts With Games · · Score: 2, Funny

    brilliant, if I buy a game for $50, and sell it for $30, my profit is $-20, so I owe them $-10. I like this plan.

  15. Re:Dragging on? on Lori Drew Cyber-Bullying Trial Begins · · Score: 1

    and they need to be instructed that they're free to ignore the judge if they think (s)he's gibbering like a plate of beans trying to negotiate its way out of a cow's digestive system. Which was my point.

    All jurors need to be given the same standard documentation which details their responsibilty to be the sanity check:

    • that they're not obliged to convict if they believe the law to be wrong
    • That a person is not automatically guilty because the prosecutor (who seems like a good man) wouldn't be prosecuting him if he were innocent
    • That their role is not to rubber-stamp whatever the judge wants
    • That juries exist to protect the interests of the accused against a government pushing to have them found guilty even if they aren't and that if they don't do that, they might as well not be there
    • etc., etc., etc.

    That stuff should also be taught in civics lessons. Repeatedly. Knowing how a law is made is useful, knowing how to ensure that it's applied justly is far more important.

    I'm not saying that's how it does work, I'm saying that's how it should work. The right to be treated equally under the law absolutely requires that the manner in which a person is judged is not largely dependent on the way that the judge directs the jury.

  16. Re:Dragging on? on Lori Drew Cyber-Bullying Trial Begins · · Score: 1

    something in the legal machine will act as a sanity-check

    What's needed is proper education of jurors that they are that sanity check. That it's their job to see where prosecutors are using laws far outside their intended scope and acquit, that it's their job to ignore laws which start from a foundation of distorting objective reality (Because the average temperature in the united states in -40 degrees; all persons must wear heavy duffle coats on pain of 10 years imprisonment, for instance), that it's their job to refuse to provide a conviction even if they think the defendant is guilty if they're likely to recieve an obscenly disproportionate punishment, that it's their job to put the kibosh on underhanded police & prosecution tactics by refusing to provide convictions.

    Only then will we have a justice system which provides some semblance of justice.

  17. Re:its just a car. on Toyota Demands Removal of Fan Wallpapers · · Score: 1

    Here in wales I drive a manual and focus on the road, a friend drives an automatic with one hand & no lane discipline, and is no longer driving owing to having his license suspended. Sample size of 2 FTW!

  18. Re:Yes. on Should You Get Paid While Your Computer Boots? · · Score: 1

    pay one employee a day (on a rota system) to come in a full hour earlier and turn all the computers on?

  19. Re:shouldn't be legal on The Trap Set By the FBI For Half Life 2 Hacker · · Score: 1

    for all we know, this boundary-moving story takes place before GPS was widespread. So now a person has to take an orienteering course to be able to make sure that the county boundary sign is in the right place, and that only counts if the other local landmarks haven't been moved as well.

    Or maybe it happened a few years ago with only an old GPS system available - the margin of error on those things was high enough that you couldn't know within 20 or 30 feet really where you were.

    Which brings me back to my original point, which is that in objective reality (where most of us live), the only plausible* way to tell where you are on the ground with respect to boundary lines is to go by where the official markings are. Juries are supposed to be there to bring this sort of common sense to the court room and acquit for lack of jurisdiction on that basis.

    *plausible way means any way which doesn't require non-trivial equipment, or education beyond that which a person completing their stautory education could be expected to have had.

    What if, as well as moving the signs, they'd printed up phoney maps, so when the nefarious types get a map of the county boundaries and compare to GPS, the map shows them on the one side when infact they're really on the other. Would that be ok?
    How about it they leave the original maps, but move the signs and put up high-powered transmitters to send out phoney GPS data thus leading people to believe that they're somewhere that they're not?

    How much skullduggery to trick people into being somewhere other than where they think they are is ok? Is there a limit? Or does it depend on the public opinion of the people that they're catching with it? Would it still be ok if it were being done with state boundaries? or national boundaries?

    My opinion? No skulduggery is ok; if an agent of the state deliberately misleads you, that should be reason enough for you to be treated as if what you were told is true.

  20. Re:Gun-Foot-*Bang* on The Trap Set By the FBI For Half Life 2 Hacker · · Score: 1

    the fact that it's not supposed to be illegal and clearly out of jurisdiction won't stop some hotshot busybody getting a sealed arrest warrant for you and picking you up when you enter the airport. You might be able to fight them off (but good luck with having charges sprung on you in a foreign legal system), but by that point you'll have been arrested and probably been deported, guilty or not.

  21. Re:its just a car. on Toyota Demands Removal of Fan Wallpapers · · Score: 1

    Of course, then crazy people don't like manual transmissions

    Try parallel parking on a hill in a space only 2' longer than your car without a manual transmission.

    Having to think about your gear makes you think about your speed and generally keeps you more focussed on the fact that you're driving a big chunk of metal around.

  22. Re:Mr. Heilmann, you should talk to Mrs. Streisand on Politician Forces German Wikipedia Off the Net · · Score: 3, Funny

    "East Yemen; isn't that a democracy too?"
    "Its full name is 'The People's Democractic Republic of East Yemen' "
    "Oh, I see, so it's a communist dictatorship then"

    -Sir Humphrey Appleby and Sir Richard Wharton, Yes Prime Minister, "A Victory for Democracy"

  23. Nerve on Duke Demands Proof of Infringement From RIAA · · Score: 4, Insightful

    let's hope this sends out a ripple of nerve to the other universities and more of them have the guts to stand up. If nothing else, this would skyrocket the administrative costs of these previously cheap mass shakedowns and hopefully put a stop to them.

  24. Gun-Foot-*Bang* on The Trap Set By the FBI For Half Life 2 Hacker · · Score: 1

    How many of us that have got our hands dirty with computers haven't at some time done something which is probably illegal in the US (libdvdcss, anyone?).
    So now the nerd community has to treat any invitation for a job interview in the US as a potential FBI trap.

    Is trying your very best to alienate a large chunk of the more intelligent population of the world all that clever?

    And they didn't even get the guy - another nail in the coffin of the US economy for a payoff that wouldn't have been worth it even if they'd succeded.

  25. Re:shouldn't be legal on The Trap Set By the FBI For Half Life 2 Hacker · · Score: 1

    Don't we keep saying "if you don't like the rules in place X, go somewhere else"? So people make the choice to go somewhere else and you applaud tricking them into actually being in place X so you keep keep them inside your rules anyway?

    On another note, how F***ing stupid are your juries? If state actors have moved the signs, they've moved the boundary - the boundary is, for the purposes of deciding which laws you're acting under, where the sign is. You cannot possibly claim that deliberately misdirecting someone as to the nature of the laws they're operating under is the-right-thing-to-do (tm), especially when you're charged with the delivery of justice.