The post I originally replied to said that the "cops and courts are at the beck and call of the RIAA". You say that the courts "subscribe to reality".
None of this is true.
Cops enforce the law and the courts interpret the law. The reason that the courts are coming down on the RIAA's side is that is what the law says. The courts don't decide what's legal and what's not. Your legislators do and, ultimately, you the voter. If you don't like the laws your legislators are passing, vote for someone else.
I know I sound like a broken record with this, but there isn't a market solution (i.e., boycott) for this. With cops and courts at the RIAA's beck and call, there's not much of a technological solution, either. There has to be a political solution.
There is nothing to do with courts or police having to do with this situation. This was an out of court settlement. IIS paid the fine because they agreed to not because they were ordered to.
Esther Dyson advocates something like this. In her book Release 2.1 she talks about a sort of e-mail market. You pay to get e-mail you want (from your friends, etc.) and you get paid (or, rather, people pay you) to send you e-mail. So you could have a filter set that you wouldn't accept any e-mail unless you get a dollar with it. It could be a nice supplemental income.
Why should the geek pay more than the mother? They most likely consume about the same quantity of public goods?
Continuing this logic, why pay taxes at all. Just pay user fees. Drive down the road, pay tolls. Take the bus, pay bus fare. Pay market costs for water and sewage. Pay your firefighters and police directly. The more you use it the more you pay.
I understand what you're saying, but that's not what Allchin's saying. The way the conversation should have gone is this:
Court: Can you unbundle IE?
Allchin: Yes.
Court: How much would it cost?
Allchin: A million billion trillion dollars and the collapse of the free world.
The problem is that if he answers yes to the first question it is not necessary to answer the second question assuming it is the prosecution asking the question. All the second question does is hurt their case. I know this because I watch a lot of courtroom drama.
Thats why I said, you must still trust the recipiant not to take a screen shot!
The market for this type of technology would be companies that don't want to get into trouble assuming "business as usual" practice. Bill Gates and Bill Clinton got hung out to dry by all the e-mails that were automatically saved by the system. Had they had they had a system like this, the old e-mails would be encrypted and the keys wouldn't function any more.
There's nothing that can protect you if you have a whistle-blower in your company. They could even -- technically but not legally -- bug your office if they wanted. So I guess Bill Clinton would have had the same problem as before because Monica Lewinski had his semen.
And if you use this system for which law enforcement access is required whereby the emails are no longer available will you now be charged with interference of an investigation? Dustruction of evidence? Failure to co-operate in an investigation?
IANAL but I don't think this is an issue. From the article:
For the most part, the law allows businesses to destroy documents as long as they do so uniformly and regularly, not in response to a specific threat of lawsuit or criminal investigation.
If the key expiry is set by the sender, this would be normal operating procedure and wouldn't be subject to "obstruction of justice" type of charges.
However, the Geneva Convention says that detainees are to be given POW status unless they are determined not to be by a competent tribunal. None of these "detainees" have had a hearing so the US is still violating the Convention.
Dan Gillmor is obviously savvy at forming search queries. The average person is clueless. Google helps, but not nearly enough. It's always easier and faster if the user knows how to load a URL directly instead of relying on a search engine.
My mum is not the most technically sophisticated person in the world but she was a librarian and she doesn't have any trouble using Google. If you can find a book in the library you can use Google.
Re:Cutting off you nose to spite your face
on
The LDP and Debian
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· Score: 1
Documentation is less likely to scratch a personal itch.
This is the key point. No-one likes to write documentation. Writing software is fun. Writing documentation is boring.
My bet is that if MS had to develop IE from scratch Netscape would still be in the game.
If Netscape had a browser that was as good as IE it would still be in the game. Bob Cringley has a good article about how Microsoft's competitors complain more about Microsoft than competing with them.
September 11th was a great example of this. When the fit really hit the shan, all the major news sites got slammed, failed, and people went back to watching CNN, MSNBC, or whatever.
This is a good example of why the net is not a good medium in an emergency. If there is high demand for a particular site, the server crumbles under the demand. However, CNN (and other broadcast media) will continue function whether they have a single viewer or a million viewers (or listeners in the case of radio).
Most of the controversy about this seems to be about a single sentence:
He has been overwhelmed with feelings of guilt.
However, later in the same article, it says:
Zimmermann said he doesn't regret posting the encryption program on the Internet.
Of course, only Philip Zimmerman is qualified to comment on this. But, to me, if you read the entire article, you get a correct impression of what Zimmerman is all about. And if you delete that unfortunate sentence, I don't think that there is any problem with the article at all.
Having said that, I still think that the Post should still print a retraction or -- even better -- Philip Zimmerman's reply.
Nobody is forcing Microsoft to use the GPL so why does Microsoft care? The only problem is they can't take existing GPL code and use it in their products without releasing all their source. In other words, they can't expropriate GPL'ed source as they would like. However, they have thousands of programmers that could replicate the functionality of any GPL product if they wanted.
The reason that they care is because they see GPL'ed software as a competitive thread. GPL'ed software can provide something that Microsoft can't -- the source.
The abridgment of our rights is in no way a "win" for terrorists.
This attack has been called -- more than once -- an attack on freedom. If our rights are abridged, then our freedom is being whittled away and their attack is succeeding.
Having said that, we also have a "right to life". We may have to give up some of our other rights to protect this one at least for a little while.
So I guess I could get a 486 with two network cards for $45 or under. Possibly even in a slimline case
But you haven't included the cost of a hub in this. If you are only connecting two computers together you don't really need one. But if you do need (or want) a hub, most of these ADSL routers already include them.
If there was some way to print a verifiable listing of the stuff peoples' brains contain (like a guaranteed-true CV), it would save a lot of people the hassle of paying for a University to rubberstamp knowledge they have anyway.
The reason that I would hire someone who had a degree over someone who doesn't is that it shows me that the person has enough discipline and commitment to do something that takes four years. Someone may have a lot of a knowlege but would they be a good employee?
The purpose of Napster, until a few months ago, was to traffic in copyrighted materials. If this wasn't the case, the usage wouldn't have dropped something like 90% since they started filtering the illegal files.
It's not a case that someone may use Napster to committed a crime; millions of people were using Napster to circumvent copyright every day. If it was a murder case, Napster would be an accessory.
Re:Difference between "adjusted" and "reported"?
on
Red Hat In The Black
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· Score: 1
It's like buying a house. Usually, you don't pay cash for the house. You get a mortgage and amortize the cost of the house over many years.
This is a similar (but not exactly the same) idea.
If Flikx had his own website, independent from U of U, they couldn't touch him.
Not according to the University. They have stated that they own the IP rights to the site and that he can't bring it up outside. This would be laughable if it didn't have such tragic results for flikx -- they are asserting their IP rights on something they don't even approve of!
If I was flikx, I would concentrate on finishing my degree if at all possible. Ideally, you would want to stick up for what's right but I believe that pragmatic considerations take precedence here.
Re:A Simple Business Model
on
GPL FAQ
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· Score: 1
I think that the reason that people buy WinZip is that it's a very sophisticated piece of software that people can get a lot of use from and it doesn't cost too much money.
Slashdot Mirror
The post I originally replied to said that the "cops and courts are at the beck and call of the RIAA". You say that the courts "subscribe to reality".
None of this is true.
Cops enforce the law and the courts interpret the law. The reason that the courts are coming down on the RIAA's side is that is what the law says. The courts don't decide what's legal and what's not. Your legislators do and, ultimately, you the voter. If you don't like the laws your legislators are passing, vote for someone else.
I know I sound like a broken record with this, but there isn't a market solution (i.e., boycott) for this. With cops and courts at the RIAA's beck and call, there's not much of a technological solution, either. There has to be a political solution.
There is nothing to do with courts or police having to do with this situation. This was an out of court settlement. IIS paid the fine because they agreed to not because they were ordered to.
Esther Dyson advocates something like this. In her book Release 2.1 she talks about a sort of e-mail market. You pay to get e-mail you want (from your friends, etc.) and you get paid (or, rather, people pay you) to send you e-mail. So you could have a filter set that you wouldn't accept any e-mail unless you get a dollar with it. It could be a nice supplemental income.
Why should the geek pay more than the mother? They most likely consume about the same quantity of public goods?
Continuing this logic, why pay taxes at all. Just pay user fees. Drive down the road, pay tolls. Take the bus, pay bus fare. Pay market costs for water and sewage. Pay your firefighters and police directly. The more you use it the more you pay.
- Court: Can you unbundle IE?
- Allchin: Yes.
- Court: How much would it cost?
- Allchin: A million billion trillion dollars and the collapse of the free world.
The problem is that if he answers yes to the first question it is not necessary to answer the second question assuming it is the prosecution asking the question. All the second question does is hurt their case. I know this because I watch a lot of courtroom drama.Our country is a well managed republic. It is in no way, shape or form a democracy.
Actually it's both. That so few of your citizens choose to exercise their right to vote doesn't make it any less of a democracy.
Thats why I said, you must still trust the recipiant not to take a screen shot!
The market for this type of technology would be companies that don't want to get into trouble assuming "business as usual" practice. Bill Gates and Bill Clinton got hung out to dry by all the e-mails that were automatically saved by the system. Had they had they had a system like this, the old e-mails would be encrypted and the keys wouldn't function any more.
There's nothing that can protect you if you have a whistle-blower in your company. They could even -- technically but not legally -- bug your office if they wanted. So I guess Bill Clinton would have had the same problem as before because Monica Lewinski had his semen.
IANAL but I don't think this is an issue. From the article:
If the key expiry is set by the sender, this would be normal operating procedure and wouldn't be subject to "obstruction of justice" type of charges.
However, the Geneva Convention says that detainees are to be given POW status unless they are determined not to be by a competent tribunal. None of these "detainees" have had a hearing so the US is still violating the Convention.
Dan Gillmor is obviously savvy at forming search queries. The average person is clueless. Google helps, but not nearly enough. It's always easier and faster if the user knows how to load a URL directly instead of relying on a search engine.
My mum is not the most technically sophisticated person in the world but she was a librarian and she doesn't have any trouble using Google. If you can find a book in the library you can use Google.
This is the key point. No-one likes to write documentation. Writing software is fun. Writing documentation is boring.
Sounds like you don't approve of patents at all. Should they be abolished?
Yeah, I'd like to know as well. It would be an interesting topic for debate.
My bet is that if MS had to develop IE from scratch Netscape would still be in the game.
If Netscape had a browser that was as good as IE it would still be in the game. Bob Cringley has a good article about how Microsoft's competitors complain more about Microsoft than competing with them.
September 11th was a great example of this. When the fit really hit the shan, all the major news sites got slammed, failed, and people went back to watching CNN, MSNBC, or whatever.
This is a good example of why the net is not a good medium in an emergency. If there is high demand for a particular site, the server crumbles under the demand. However, CNN (and other broadcast media) will continue function whether they have a single viewer or a million viewers (or listeners in the case of radio).
However, later in the same article, it says:
Of course, only Philip Zimmerman is qualified to comment on this. But, to me, if you read the entire article, you get a correct impression of what Zimmerman is all about. And if you delete that unfortunate sentence, I don't think that there is any problem with the article at all.
Having said that, I still think that the Post should still print a retraction or -- even better -- Philip Zimmerman's reply.
Nobody is forcing Microsoft to use the GPL so why does Microsoft care? The only problem is they can't take existing GPL code and use it in their products without releasing all their source. In other words, they can't expropriate GPL'ed source as they would like. However, they have thousands of programmers that could replicate the functionality of any GPL product if they wanted.
The reason that they care is because they see GPL'ed software as a competitive thread. GPL'ed software can provide something that Microsoft can't -- the source.
The abridgment of our rights is in no way a "win" for terrorists.
This attack has been called -- more than once -- an attack on freedom. If our rights are abridged, then our freedom is being whittled away and their attack is succeeding.
Having said that, we also have a "right to life". We may have to give up some of our other rights to protect this one at least for a little while.
So I guess I could get a 486 with two network cards for $45 or under. Possibly even in a slimline case
But you haven't included the cost of a hub in this. If you are only connecting two computers together you don't really need one. But if you do need (or want) a hub, most of these ADSL routers already include them.
If there was some way to print a verifiable listing of the stuff peoples' brains contain (like a guaranteed-true CV), it would save a lot of people the hassle of paying for a University to rubberstamp knowledge they have anyway.
The reason that I would hire someone who had a degree over someone who doesn't is that it shows me that the person has enough discipline and commitment to do something that takes four years. Someone may have a lot of a knowlege but would they be a good employee?
True. The possible problem here is that you're going to end up with a single class of criminals, once a criminal, always a criminal.
What do you think they do now when you've served your time? Throw away your fingerprints and mug shots?
The purpose of Napster, until a few months ago, was to traffic in copyrighted materials. If this wasn't the case, the usage wouldn't have dropped something like 90% since they started filtering the illegal files.
It's not a case that someone may use Napster to committed a crime; millions of people were using Napster to circumvent copyright every day. If it was a murder case, Napster would be an accessory.
It's like buying a house. Usually, you don't pay cash for the house. You get a mortgage and amortize the cost of the house over many years.
This is a similar (but not exactly the same) idea.
If Flikx had his own website, independent from U of U, they couldn't touch him.
Not according to the University. They have stated that they own the IP rights to the site and that he can't bring it up outside. This would be laughable if it didn't have such tragic results for flikx -- they are asserting their IP rights on something they don't even approve of!
If I was flikx, I would concentrate on finishing my degree if at all possible. Ideally, you would want to stick up for what's right but I believe that pragmatic considerations take precedence here.
I think that the reason that people buy WinZip is that it's a very sophisticated piece of software that people can get a lot of use from and it doesn't cost too much money.