It's copyright infringement, not theft for fuck's sake!
Quit trying to make people confuse them.
That's like saying amputation is "partial murder".
Am I the only one noticing that the loudest, whiniest people addressing this topic are those that seem to have some personal, vested interest in preserving their ability to avoid paying for their entertainment? Actually, they can have all the free entertainment they want, as long as the entertainer is willing to do it for free. But why bitch about the MPAA? They're powerless without the entertainers that pay them to do what they do. What you're really complaining about are the artists, writers, producers, studios, and other entities that choose to be a part of the MPAA and RIAA universes.
The material that people pirate (presumably because they respect the creators' work enough to want to listen to it or watch it), is created by people who have chosen to use an established entity to help preserve their property rights and get them a paycheck. So, you like the artist, but not the artist's chosen profession or way of making a living?
Consuming an artist's work without paying what they ask for it is just like any other theft of services. Whether or not it's copyright law that has to be used to stop it, how can so many people imply that "because it's not theft" it's somehow OK? Hopping in someone else's cab without paying, just because it's going your way... that's OK? I mean, the cab isn't stolen, so why not? And, that private shuttle bus... it's driving around and around anyway, so why pay for it? Or someone spends their lifetime building botanical gardens, knowing that people will pay to experience them... but they're just sitting there, and all you're doing if you don't pay the gardener's price is using up some photons that no one else was using anyway...
I don't give a damn which law, regulation, or statute specifically addresses this issue, or by which means the artist (and their representatives) tackle the continuing abuse of the material... anyone consuming that work without paying what the artists ask is making slaves of those artists.
That's like saying amputation is "partial murder"
So, not entirely killing someone is OK if only murderers otherwise get punished? And, making only part-time slaves out of people is OK?
It's also common for police to "find" something to cite you for to justify pulling you over and searching you.
And, of course, they do this because it turns up an unbelievable number of drivers with stolen cars, outstanding warrants, trunks full of contraband, etc. Or, Timothy McVeigh.
Yesterday, a cop pulled over a guy and a girl who were going too fast on the highway. The guy acted nervous, and the cop treated his odd behavior as reason to search the car. In the trunk were bloody clothes and other items. The two had killed their mother and grandparents (and buried them in the basement) for some cash and credit cards.
Hacking a game is like modifying anything else you've bought. It's not like game hackers generally distribute the developer's code, just a set of instructions for modifying the code that is already sitting on other people's consoles or PCs.
I supposed the exception to this would be when your game connects to a network and interacts with other people and their systems. Hacking the game can indirectly mean hacking a hosted service or corrupting an experience that's being paid for by other people. The publisher/operator has to meet the expectations of its paying users/subscribers, and if one of the clients on that system is talking to the system outside of the expected behavior (and the publisher's not doing anything about it), then the other paying customers are being abused.
If copyright-related law is the best angle of attack on such cracks, so be it. The alternative may be "unauthorized use" type prosecutions (for using the service's system or peer computers in a way not provided for in the license). In general terms, I can see the game publisher (especially in the case of MMORPGs and whatnot) having a real interest in keeping unauthorized altered versions of their software from running around in the wild.
Perhaps I was being a little too subtle, as you've missed my point. I was responding to the poster that said he/she'd miss Carly because she was a "significant female CEO."
That sounded to me like someone with an agenda (related to seeing more women as CEOs), who was more interested in Carly's being a woman than whether or not Carly was necessarily good for HP. I tried to convey that if someone is interested in that whole gender-equity agenda (and I'm not, not in that politically correct sense), then they'd better find a better horse to ride than Carly... because she didn't show very well. My tone was entirely driven by my perception of the previous post's apparent political agenda, and the logical conclusion: if one's proposition is that men vs women shouldn't matter at the CEO level, then you can't miss Carly, because a man performing just as badly would also get the boot, and a gender-equity type should understand that.
Now: I think that different personalities are appropriate for different work (or, excel at different things), and gender tends to have a big impact on personalities for most people. Most. Do I think Condi Rice and Madeline Albright are the same because they're both female secretaries of state? No way. Completely different personalities (and, I think Condi will kick ass, personally, and would take her over many men who've had that job, because she's a very, very bright bulb, intellectually).
Say what you will about her policies, Fiorina was still one of only a handful of significant female CEO's in the world today. In fact, I can't think of another one off the top of my head, and certainly no other woman heads a company as powerful and important as HP.
Except, if what one is concerned about is the presence of a female CEO that demonstrates that there's no difference between men and women when it comes to performance in that area, you should be glad that she's going.
It's not about being a good or bad woman - she's underperforming as a CEO, period. It's gender-neutral underwhelming work, and her femininity doesn't matter one way or the other. That she's a woman shouldn't matter. To miss her strictly because she's a woman sells women short, and implies an almost affirmitive-action-needed shortcoming in female intellect. Just judge her and other female executives on actual performance, and that will shut down the gender chatter significantly. Her novelty has already worn off, so the HP board rightfully focused on what she was actually delivering (now that delivering PR for hiring her has run its course).
It (that shit you were talking about) has not worked, and also, it has hit the fan now. Shut up you stupid lovechild. There is more than USA in the world.
Yes, there is a lot more than the USA in the world. But why does that make it OK for the rest of the world to be angry when a US company doesn't give them something for free? Google is a US company. They may want to do more business elsewhere in the world, and they probably will... but does it make sense for someone in Europe to actually be angry when a (free! no cost!) service hasn't yet been built exactly the way they want it by an American company? To many Americans, that's what we seem to hear a lot from overseas:
"You greedy Americans are so stupid, and too powerful, and always want to have your way! Now, please give us the free thing that we want, because we can't build it ourselves. And just because we want your stuff doesn't mean we have to like you." I'm only exagerating a little bit, here, but the "we hate America, but we want their stuff" attitude is pretty childish, I think.
I suppose I should have picked up from "centre" that you're a Brit, and despite the pounding that Tony Blair took for getting UK troops in on liberating Iraq, I've got a lot of respect for you folks for seeing that you have an interest in the stability that middle east democracy will bring to the world. Right... we all pitch in on world affairs (like defeating fascists in this century and last), even if certain other pieces of Europe like to have a selective memory.
But running large privately founded/funded web sites (like Google) is an entirely different matter. In the US, businesses succeed despite regulation, taxes, etc... and the people that risk millions of dollars to make that happen have their limits. In a global economy, they'd be fools to ignore the profit opportunities in Europe, Asia, Africa, Central/South America, and Australia... but they don't owe free services to those places, and grow too quickly at their peril.
Too often the tone of such complaints suggests that Google (or eBay, what have you) is some sort of natural resource that the evil Americans are hoarding, and preventing the rest of the world from having. I can't express enough my frustration at that perspective. American companies take every reasonable opportunity to sell their wares and services overseas, and have only themselves to blame if they can't attract enough investment to expand rapidly into those markets. But to imply that not yet having done so, on the part of Google (or any other very young, rapidly growing business) is some sort of snub to the rest of the world... that's just nonsense.
but your argument seems to be "We invented ARPAnet, so you're indebted to us".
Not so. I'm pointing out that we (in the US) have a vested interest in technology standards that the rest of the world will embrace. That Tim B-L jumped on the 'net with a killer app is great. But it would have remained, of course, a small, academic/scientific/government use of the larger net if it hadn't been for pioneering businesses finding ways to make it into a viable area for the huge investments that we now see. An increasing amount of that commercial development has been from overseas as time as gone on, but the first big waves of it were from domestic US companies. Google is a grand example of a second generation of those companies, and no doubt plan to out-Microsoft Microsoft at some point. It will be fascinating to see how much they become hated, just for their size and their American origin, as they become larger/largest in areas outside of plain old Search.
The original article is a good example. Google now has the heft to pretty much crush a company like MapQuest. Much like MS has crushed smaller competitors (even those that got to something first), and much like American businesses and military operations are, by their sheer mass, dominant. With that dominance comes the inevitable love/hate/envy relationship from the rest of the world. The thing I worry about is that Google, in an effort to remain politically correct and seeming unoffensive to everyone, will allow themselves to be bullied into disadvantageous deals in Europe and Asia.
I'm also just counting the days until we see an Airbus-like, EU-sponsored pseduo-governemt entity set up to compete with Google in much the same way that Airbus competes with the US's private Boeing.
Once again it seems that our brothers in the US of A have forgotten that they are not the only country in the world...
Hmmm. Shall we start a list of products and services from non-US companies that are only meaningful for residents in Japan, Brazil, France, or Germany? Google is a US company that so far overwhelmingly serves a US audience first, and the rest of the world second. They're starting something new, it's FREE, and you're complaining because it isn't instantly global in scope? If you're wondering why sometimes Americans roll their eyes at complaints from the rest of the world, this is a good example. I'll avoid the we-sent-our-troops-in-WWII example, and just stick with which-internet-would-you-be-using-if-our-military- dollars-didn't-build-it question instead. That US companies are leveraging it, and not rolling out services to the rest of the world instantly is just something you'll have to deal with for a little while. Sheesh!
Oh: and it would also help if people who run the companies that provide these services that people (say, Europeans) want so much didn't have to get worried about being taken to court when something shocking to local sensibilities shows up in some content or an ad. We all hate Nazis, right? But in the US we don't worry too much if some idiot wants to sell some other idiot some piece of WWII memorabilia... and if somehow that information shows up in a Google search, no one here gets all woozy about it. But our search companies have to spend millions of dollars making their services "safe" for the non-paying people in other countries. You get my point, I hope: we operate in a market economy, and that means that if you've got a better idea, and can deliver something faster, do it! Otherwise, don't try to make cheap political points by making it sound like one of our great companies is somehow being arrogant for not giving you something for free as quickly as you want it.
In contrast, the public doesn't seem to care at all about astronauts in the space station.
Well, I know this isn't actually true, but from the John Q Public point of view, the space station crews aren't actually doing anything except fixing the thing they're sitting in and in which they're not doing anything (except eating, apparently).
Of course, the space station, if funded and built as intended, would be a lot more bustly, but as it is now... no wonder no one thinks about it. You bet they'd be watching Mars-walks.
A+++++++++ Awesam comment! Great point! Asset to Slashdot!! A_++++ super!
Heh. I suppose I had that coming. But you get my drift, right? Meaning, people who can't see through the noise on eBay, or can't see blatant scams for what they are, are probably also victims of lots of other offline hucksterism and manipulation, too. Definately, though, eBay grade inflation is almost as bad as it is at Harvard.
I know, it's wretched. But that sort of dumbed-down, breathless cheesy salesmanship is also found at swapmeets, bad antique shops, and community newspaper classifieds. eBay has given those same people more reach, unfortunately. I agree that their scripts should simply prohibit "+++++++" type stuff, and go with something more like the slashdot moderation method (choose from a list of qualifiers, etc).
but until somebody can offer a guarantee to protect the little guy
I'll expect that of every eBay transaction when I can expect it of every flea market, newspaper classified-based transaction, etc. It's an information engine, not personal behavior regulator. Of course, that's what their (rather substantial) reputation database is all about. Like with phishing and everything else along these lines, it's the not-very-tuned-in people that tend to have the most trouble.
What if this guy had left his ID, checkbook, ATM card, etc., sitting in his car... and didn't lock it? Or, locked it, but left the windows down, and did so in a risky neighborhood? Don't think the resulting mayhem would be the bank's fault.
I think this is clever, obviously productive, and pretty much (law-wise) in the same vein as releasing a sketch of a perp's face, per the victim's recollection (or an ATM camera shot, etc) - which we see on the news all the time.
<tinfoilhat>
Now: how many people might get framed/harassed by having something like this mocked up by bad guys, placing someone/something into a false scene, or placing false thing in conspicuous, legit, easily recognized scene? I don't mean that in the sense of law enforcement doing it, but rather someone looking to screw someone else could - and with little resources, really. Think car tags, buildings with logos, other stuff that would very quickly draw scrutiny while also being easy to fake.</tinfoilhat>
Then they should have no quals about cutting off the spammers.
I'd wager that the administrative costs (legal, accounting, sales, NOC activities, phone calls) of validating that a spam complaint is legit, and their customer is aware of, and not doing anything to prevent the spam, and on and on, would dwarf the loss of the revenue. In other words, it would probably cost the more than $5M to go to the trouble. Now, if the get sufficiently bad PR, and that impacts their sales efforts, and they lose even one multi-million dollar corporate or government client because of this problem... then they'll have more incentive (cost/benefit-wise) to do something about it.
That's kind of a harsh law, sounds akin to making filesharing software illegal because of the actions of its users.
Not really. If you look at the law, it specifically refers to software that's intended specifically to conduct your mailings in a fraudulant way (spoofing, hiding server addresses, etc.). File "sharing" (the act, if not necessarily all of the tools that are used in that way) may indeed be used almost entirely to do illegal things, but that's a different situation than the selling of tools that are, on the face of them, meant to facilitate fraud.
equal opportunity for everybody is out of the question
Right... because people have the good or bad luck to be born more or less capable than other people, or in the middle of circumstances more or less desirable/likely (weather, geography, local customs, etc) to result in great opportunities. What Marxism does, though, is ensure that no one has opportunity towards their own ends, and by their own standards. Free trade between people and groups of people does not include "little" wars or any other kind. When non-free countries run by mafia-like (not capitalist) idiots in places like Japan (see the Pacific theater of WWII, which they caused themselves - they were not capitalists, they were a feudal society), Germany (again, not capitalists, but a Fascist government in imperialist mode), or Iraq (Saddam wanted more coast line for oil export capacity... so he invaded Kuwait and started the recent ball rolling) and so on. There's nothing capitalist about those nations' actions. There's a lot of Stalin in Saddam, though, and a lot of Marx in Stalin.
Ah, well, if Karl Marx says so, then it must naturally be correct. You can tell by the fantastic, peaceful, prosperous societies that followed his advice. Of course, the ones that did, and have since managed to provide a decent standard of living and some growth in those countries' overall capacity for their people have... shifted back over to private property. Which, of course, makes sense. Without any prospect of taking that which your do with your time and making from it a life that you can pass to your family, or use as you see fit, all you are is a slave. Karl Marx's ideas certainly did make a lot of slaves (and murder millions of people).
As far as I can tell, aol still had the account names. When my car got stolen, what I objected to was that I no longer had my car, not that someone else had a car a lot like mine. Aiding spammers may be wrong, but let's keep the categories straight.
Not so. The block of data that he stole amounts, by any reasonable standard, as proprietary information and trade secrets. If he had stood there and photocopied customer data, it would have been the same story. His intent is almost beside the point - he knew he was diluting the company's value (and its customers' trust in the company) - and that's willful damage, something they should also have pursued.
So, what would this thief have to do in order to pass your test of righteousness? Maybe... kill a security guard while stealing the company data? Or is that still OK? Where do you draw the line? Or is theft OK, as long as you're not actually putting someone in the hospital?
Whew! I'll sleep better at night knowing
this guy is doing hard time.
Well, considering that guys like this literally keep system admins up at night (not sleeping better) as they clean up after the billions of pieces of trash that his "customer" sends out, choking up businesses and private e-mail accounts... fewer of him, and I'd actually, literally sleep better. As for the brick-smashing guy, well, that really sucked. Also, the guy that broke into my car and stole my LAN tools deserves to actually, truly die. I'd like to take care of that myself, and will never have the chance, and neither will the cops. But, this clown who sold out his employer's data (and their customers' trust) for a smallish pile of cash knowing that billions of spam messages would soon plague millions of people... he's an ass, and now he gets to cover his for a year or so.
Slashdot Mirror
It's copyright infringement, not theft for fuck's sake!
Quit trying to make people confuse them. That's like saying amputation is "partial murder".
Am I the only one noticing that the loudest, whiniest people addressing this topic are those that seem to have some personal, vested interest in preserving their ability to avoid paying for their entertainment? Actually, they can have all the free entertainment they want, as long as the entertainer is willing to do it for free. But why bitch about the MPAA? They're powerless without the entertainers that pay them to do what they do. What you're really complaining about are the artists, writers, producers, studios, and other entities that choose to be a part of the MPAA and RIAA universes.
The material that people pirate (presumably because they respect the creators' work enough to want to listen to it or watch it), is created by people who have chosen to use an established entity to help preserve their property rights and get them a paycheck. So, you like the artist, but not the artist's chosen profession or way of making a living?
Consuming an artist's work without paying what they ask for it is just like any other theft of services. Whether or not it's copyright law that has to be used to stop it, how can so many people imply that "because it's not theft" it's somehow OK? Hopping in someone else's cab without paying, just because it's going your way... that's OK? I mean, the cab isn't stolen, so why not? And, that private shuttle bus... it's driving around and around anyway, so why pay for it? Or someone spends their lifetime building botanical gardens, knowing that people will pay to experience them... but they're just sitting there, and all you're doing if you don't pay the gardener's price is using up some photons that no one else was using anyway...
I don't give a damn which law, regulation, or statute specifically addresses this issue, or by which means the artist (and their representatives) tackle the continuing abuse of the material... anyone consuming that work without paying what the artists ask is making slaves of those artists.
That's like saying amputation is "partial murder"
So, not entirely killing someone is OK if only murderers otherwise get punished? And, making only part-time slaves out of people is OK?
It's also common for police to "find" something to cite you for to justify pulling you over and searching you.
And, of course, they do this because it turns up an unbelievable number of drivers with stolen cars, outstanding warrants, trunks full of contraband, etc. Or, Timothy McVeigh.
Yesterday , a cop pulled over a guy and a girl who were going too fast on the highway. The guy acted nervous, and the cop treated his odd behavior as reason to search the car. In the trunk were bloody clothes and other items. The two had killed their mother and grandparents (and buried them in the basement) for some cash and credit cards.
Hacking a game is like modifying anything else you've bought. It's not like game hackers generally distribute the developer's code, just a set of instructions for modifying the code that is already sitting on other people's consoles or PCs.
I supposed the exception to this would be when your game connects to a network and interacts with other people and their systems. Hacking the game can indirectly mean hacking a hosted service or corrupting an experience that's being paid for by other people. The publisher/operator has to meet the expectations of its paying users/subscribers, and if one of the clients on that system is talking to the system outside of the expected behavior (and the publisher's not doing anything about it), then the other paying customers are being abused.
If copyright-related law is the best angle of attack on such cracks, so be it. The alternative may be "unauthorized use" type prosecutions (for using the service's system or peer computers in a way not provided for in the license). In general terms, I can see the game publisher (especially in the case of MMORPGs and whatnot) having a real interest in keeping unauthorized altered versions of their software from running around in the wild.
I believe that the black hole that is HP's board of directors has sent the star Carlis Major on a very high-speed path to a Different Place.
Perhaps I was being a little too subtle, as you've missed my point. I was responding to the poster that said he/she'd miss Carly because she was a "significant female CEO."
That sounded to me like someone with an agenda (related to seeing more women as CEOs), who was more interested in Carly's being a woman than whether or not Carly was necessarily good for HP. I tried to convey that if someone is interested in that whole gender-equity agenda (and I'm not, not in that politically correct sense), then they'd better find a better horse to ride than Carly... because she didn't show very well. My tone was entirely driven by my perception of the previous post's apparent political agenda, and the logical conclusion: if one's proposition is that men vs women shouldn't matter at the CEO level, then you can't miss Carly, because a man performing just as badly would also get the boot, and a gender-equity type should understand that.
Now: I think that different personalities are appropriate for different work (or, excel at different things), and gender tends to have a big impact on personalities for most people. Most. Do I think Condi Rice and Madeline Albright are the same because they're both female secretaries of state? No way. Completely different personalities (and, I think Condi will kick ass, personally, and would take her over many men who've had that job, because she's a very, very bright bulb, intellectually).
Say what you will about her policies, Fiorina was still one of only a handful of significant female CEO's in the world today. In fact, I can't think of another one off the top of my head, and certainly no other woman heads a company as powerful and important as HP.
Except, if what one is concerned about is the presence of a female CEO that demonstrates that there's no difference between men and women when it comes to performance in that area, you should be glad that she's going.
It's not about being a good or bad woman - she's underperforming as a CEO, period. It's gender-neutral underwhelming work, and her femininity doesn't matter one way or the other. That she's a woman shouldn't matter. To miss her strictly because she's a woman sells women short, and implies an almost affirmitive-action-needed shortcoming in female intellect. Just judge her and other female executives on actual performance, and that will shut down the gender chatter significantly. Her novelty has already worn off, so the HP board rightfully focused on what she was actually delivering (now that delivering PR for hiring her has run its course).
Woops! That's just the sort of stupid, arrogant American I am. :-)
It (that shit you were talking about) has not worked, and also, it has hit the fan now. Shut up you stupid lovechild. There is more than USA in the world.
Yes, there is a lot more than the USA in the world. But why does that make it OK for the rest of the world to be angry when a US company doesn't give them something for free? Google is a US company. They may want to do more business elsewhere in the world, and they probably will... but does it make sense for someone in Europe to actually be angry when a (free! no cost!) service hasn't yet been built exactly the way they want it by an American company? To many Americans, that's what we seem to hear a lot from overseas:
"You greedy Americans are so stupid, and too powerful, and always want to have your way! Now, please give us the free thing that we want, because we can't build it ourselves. And just because we want your stuff doesn't mean we have to like you." I'm only exagerating a little bit, here, but the "we hate America, but we want their stuff" attitude is pretty childish, I think.
I suppose I should have picked up from "centre" that you're a Brit, and despite the pounding that Tony Blair took for getting UK troops in on liberating Iraq, I've got a lot of respect for you folks for seeing that you have an interest in the stability that middle east democracy will bring to the world. Right... we all pitch in on world affairs (like defeating fascists in this century and last), even if certain other pieces of Europe like to have a selective memory.
But running large privately founded/funded web sites (like Google) is an entirely different matter. In the US, businesses succeed despite regulation, taxes, etc... and the people that risk millions of dollars to make that happen have their limits. In a global economy, they'd be fools to ignore the profit opportunities in Europe, Asia, Africa, Central/South America, and Australia... but they don't owe free services to those places, and grow too quickly at their peril.
Too often the tone of such complaints suggests that Google (or eBay, what have you) is some sort of natural resource that the evil Americans are hoarding, and preventing the rest of the world from having. I can't express enough my frustration at that perspective. American companies take every reasonable opportunity to sell their wares and services overseas, and have only themselves to blame if they can't attract enough investment to expand rapidly into those markets. But to imply that not yet having done so, on the part of Google (or any other very young, rapidly growing business) is some sort of snub to the rest of the world... that's just nonsense.
but your argument seems to be "We invented ARPAnet, so you're indebted to us".
Not so. I'm pointing out that we (in the US) have a vested interest in technology standards that the rest of the world will embrace. That Tim B-L jumped on the 'net with a killer app is great. But it would have remained, of course, a small, academic/scientific/government use of the larger net if it hadn't been for pioneering businesses finding ways to make it into a viable area for the huge investments that we now see. An increasing amount of that commercial development has been from overseas as time as gone on, but the first big waves of it were from domestic US companies. Google is a grand example of a second generation of those companies, and no doubt plan to out-Microsoft Microsoft at some point. It will be fascinating to see how much they become hated, just for their size and their American origin, as they become larger/largest in areas outside of plain old Search.
The original article is a good example. Google now has the heft to pretty much crush a company like MapQuest. Much like MS has crushed smaller competitors (even those that got to something first), and much like American businesses and military operations are, by their sheer mass, dominant. With that dominance comes the inevitable love/hate/envy relationship from the rest of the world. The thing I worry about is that Google, in an effort to remain politically correct and seeming unoffensive to everyone, will allow themselves to be bullied into disadvantageous deals in Europe and Asia.
I'm also just counting the days until we see an Airbus-like, EU-sponsored pseduo-governemt entity set up to compete with Google in much the same way that Airbus competes with the US's private Boeing.
Once again it seems that our brothers in the US of A have forgotten that they are not the only country in the world...
- dollars-didn't-build-it question instead. That US companies are leveraging it, and not rolling out services to the rest of the world instantly is just something you'll have to deal with for a little while. Sheesh!
Hmmm. Shall we start a list of products and services from non-US companies that are only meaningful for residents in Japan, Brazil, France, or Germany? Google is a US company that so far overwhelmingly serves a US audience first, and the rest of the world second. They're starting something new, it's FREE, and you're complaining because it isn't instantly global in scope? If you're wondering why sometimes Americans roll their eyes at complaints from the rest of the world, this is a good example. I'll avoid the we-sent-our-troops-in-WWII example, and just stick with which-internet-would-you-be-using-if-our-military
Oh: and it would also help if people who run the companies that provide these services that people (say, Europeans) want so much didn't have to get worried about being taken to court when something shocking to local sensibilities shows up in some content or an ad. We all hate Nazis, right? But in the US we don't worry too much if some idiot wants to sell some other idiot some piece of WWII memorabilia... and if somehow that information shows up in a Google search, no one here gets all woozy about it. But our search companies have to spend millions of dollars making their services "safe" for the non-paying people in other countries. You get my point, I hope: we operate in a market economy, and that means that if you've got a better idea, and can deliver something faster, do it! Otherwise, don't try to make cheap political points by making it sound like one of our great companies is somehow being arrogant for not giving you something for free as quickly as you want it.
In contrast, the public doesn't seem to care at all about astronauts in the space station.
Well, I know this isn't actually true, but from the John Q Public point of view, the space station crews aren't actually doing anything except fixing the thing they're sitting in and in which they're not doing anything (except eating, apparently).
Of course, the space station, if funded and built as intended, would be a lot more bustly, but as it is now... no wonder no one thinks about it. You bet they'd be watching Mars-walks.
A+++++++++ Awesam comment! Great point! Asset to Slashdot!! A_++++ super!
Heh. I suppose I had that coming. But you get my drift, right? Meaning, people who can't see through the noise on eBay, or can't see blatant scams for what they are, are probably also victims of lots of other offline hucksterism and manipulation, too. Definately, though, eBay grade inflation is almost as bad as it is at Harvard.
it still counts as "RARE!"
I know, it's wretched. But that sort of dumbed-down, breathless cheesy salesmanship is also found at swapmeets, bad antique shops, and community newspaper classifieds. eBay has given those same people more reach, unfortunately. I agree that their scripts should simply prohibit "+++++++" type stuff, and go with something more like the slashdot moderation method (choose from a list of qualifiers, etc).
but until somebody can offer a guarantee to protect the little guy
I'll expect that of every eBay transaction when I can expect it of every flea market, newspaper classified-based transaction, etc. It's an information engine, not personal behavior regulator. Of course, that's what their (rather substantial) reputation database is all about. Like with phishing and everything else along these lines, it's the not-very-tuned-in people that tend to have the most trouble.
OK.
Not having a having a virus scanner could be like not having a car alarm.
But that still ain't the bank's fault, right?
What if this guy had left his ID, checkbook, ATM card, etc., sitting in his car... and didn't lock it? Or, locked it, but left the windows down, and did so in a risky neighborhood? Don't think the resulting mayhem would be the bank's fault.
I think this is clever, obviously productive, and pretty much (law-wise) in the same vein as releasing a sketch of a perp's face, per the victim's recollection (or an ATM camera shot, etc) - which we see on the news all the time.
<tinfoilhat> Now: how many people might get framed/harassed by having something like this mocked up by bad guys, placing someone/something into a false scene, or placing false thing in conspicuous, legit, easily recognized scene? I don't mean that in the sense of law enforcement doing it, but rather someone looking to screw someone else could - and with little resources, really. Think car tags, buildings with logos, other stuff that would very quickly draw scrutiny while also being easy to fake.</tinfoilhat>
Then they should have no quals about cutting off the spammers.
I'd wager that the administrative costs (legal, accounting, sales, NOC activities, phone calls) of validating that a spam complaint is legit, and their customer is aware of, and not doing anything to prevent the spam, and on and on, would dwarf the loss of the revenue. In other words, it would probably cost the more than $5M to go to the trouble. Now, if the get sufficiently bad PR, and that impacts their sales efforts, and they lose even one multi-million dollar corporate or government client because of this problem... then they'll have more incentive (cost/benefit-wise) to do something about it.
That's kind of a harsh law, sounds akin to making filesharing software illegal because of the actions of its users.
Not really. If you look at the law, it specifically refers to software that's intended specifically to conduct your mailings in a fraudulant way (spoofing, hiding server addresses, etc.). File "sharing" (the act, if not necessarily all of the tools that are used in that way) may indeed be used almost entirely to do illegal things, but that's a different situation than the selling of tools that are, on the face of them, meant to facilitate fraud.
equal opportunity for everybody is out of the question
Right... because people have the good or bad luck to be born more or less capable than other people, or in the middle of circumstances more or less desirable/likely (weather, geography, local customs, etc) to result in great opportunities. What Marxism does, though, is ensure that no one has opportunity towards their own ends, and by their own standards. Free trade between people and groups of people does not include "little" wars or any other kind. When non-free countries run by mafia-like (not capitalist) idiots in places like Japan (see the Pacific theater of WWII, which they caused themselves - they were not capitalists, they were a feudal society), Germany (again, not capitalists, but a Fascist government in imperialist mode), or Iraq (Saddam wanted more coast line for oil export capacity... so he invaded Kuwait and started the recent ball rolling) and so on. There's nothing capitalist about those nations' actions. There's a lot of Stalin in Saddam, though, and a lot of Marx in Stalin.
there is no human right to private property
Ah, well, if Karl Marx says so, then it must naturally be correct. You can tell by the fantastic, peaceful, prosperous societies that followed his advice. Of course, the ones that did, and have since managed to provide a decent standard of living and some growth in those countries' overall capacity for their people have... shifted back over to private property. Which, of course, makes sense. Without any prospect of taking that which your do with your time and making from it a life that you can pass to your family, or use as you see fit, all you are is a slave. Karl Marx's ideas certainly did make a lot of slaves (and murder millions of people).
As far as I can tell, aol still had the account names. When my car got stolen, what I objected to was that I no longer had my car, not that someone else had a car a lot like mine. Aiding spammers may be wrong, but let's keep the categories straight.
Not so. The block of data that he stole amounts, by any reasonable standard, as proprietary information and trade secrets. If he had stood there and photocopied customer data, it would have been the same story. His intent is almost beside the point - he knew he was diluting the company's value (and its customers' trust in the company) - and that's willful damage, something they should also have pursued.
They abolished that secretly in the 70's
This claptrap gets modded as "interesting"? That's an interesting tinfoil hat, anyway.
so called "laws"
So, what would this thief have to do in order to pass your test of righteousness? Maybe... kill a security guard while stealing the company data? Or is that still OK? Where do you draw the line? Or is theft OK, as long as you're not actually putting someone in the hospital?
Whew! I'll sleep better at night knowing this guy is doing hard time.
Well, considering that guys like this literally keep system admins up at night (not sleeping better) as they clean up after the billions of pieces of trash that his "customer" sends out, choking up businesses and private e-mail accounts... fewer of him, and I'd actually, literally sleep better. As for the brick-smashing guy, well, that really sucked. Also, the guy that broke into my car and stole my LAN tools deserves to actually, truly die. I'd like to take care of that myself, and will never have the chance, and neither will the cops. But, this clown who sold out his employer's data (and their customers' trust) for a smallish pile of cash knowing that billions of spam messages would soon plague millions of people... he's an ass, and now he gets to cover his for a year or so.