So why does it cost $4.99 for a feature which tas taken very little work to implement? OK, so it's fair that they're charging for it - if you believe their excuse, but why not $0.99 or $1?
I think most people are missing the point. I suspect it's not the software feature so much that users are paying for. Apple told users they were getting 802.11G cards and sold them as such. In reality, some were also capable of 802.11N. Since that feature was disabled, that was just fine, but if they're going to send out a software upgrade that unlocks a new hardware feature, they're suddenly running across some very gelatinous ground given our weird laws. I think the law specifies a minimum of $1 for such items, but I doubt it costs apple $4 for processing that dollar. More likely $5 is the price difference between an 802.11G and an 802.11G/N card.
If you then went to a known burglar with the information, well, you're no longer just doing something nice and innocent now, are you??
Yes, but no one is claiming you should be able to find vulnerabilities and give or sell them to blackhats, merely make them public or inform the site operator without worrying about being sued.
or the second half... WTF does having, or not having, your credit card # on file apply to this?? It seems a bit spurious to the conversation at hand, and I'll treat it as such.
No it isn't. If they have your credit card on file (as many e-businesses might) then you have a business relationship with them and a vested interest in their security. It is perfectly legal and sometimes industry practice to hire private investigators to look into the security of current or proposed business partners.
I don't think you've idly done nothing.
You've done something, but nothing illegal.
You've made available to people the means to commit and illegal act. The fact that it was just there for anyone to see (or you spent three hours trying to find it) doesn't mean you wouldn't have anything to do with them getting robbed.
So what if the local bank, where the whole town keeps their money, tends to leave the back door propped open and the safe unlocked? Should it be illegal for me to tell the paper or the paper to write an article letting everyone know they should take their money out? Should you have to be concerned about being sued if you write the bank manager and let him know what is going on?
I realize people figure that white hats should scream really loud so everyone knows the vulerability, because the black hats wouldn't. But, telling the black hats how to do it, you no longer get to say you're better than they are. In fact, you're probably worse, because you were the one casing the joint, as it were.
Not at all. Whitehats do not profit from illegal actions and are aiming to improve overall security. Full disclosure is not always the best way to go about improving security, but sometimes it is. Why you think only in terms of full disclosure, however, is a mystery to me. Even the summary specifically mentions people being sued for just telling the Web service provider that the service has vulnerabilities in it.
You don't have an obligation to ensure that everyone in the world knows how to open every unsecured lock.
No, but sometimes telling the public how to open a particular lock is the best way to improve security. If Diebold starts selling a new combination bike lock, and I discover 1.2.3.4 always opens it, and I know at least one gang of thieves is already looking for these locks and stealing bikes via this method... I should 100% have no fear that I will suffer legal repercussions if I tell the support guys at Diebold. If Diebold refuses to acknowledge the problem I should likewise have no fear that my exercising my freedom of expression and telling the local newspaper will result in my being prosecuted for some crime. The same goes for software and services on computers.
Secondly, I feel I should be able to discuss illegal actions without fear of reprisal.
So if, for example, the police had a court ordered wire tap on your house and you told your cousin Vinnie "the knife" Viviano to go stab that cop right in the face so he stops sticking his nose in the family business, you think the police should not be able to take any action until Vinnie actually did stab someone?
If someone is doing something illegal, I would like to be able to point out what they are doing (and where and how they do it) without being an accessory to the crime.
Ahh, but what if you provide them with specific instruction as to how they can go about committing that crime. "That cop always goes to the store at 8pm on thursdays and he has a key under the fake rock to the right of his house. If you go over there at 8:15, use the key, and wait in the closet next to the door, you an easily stab him to death without any risk." Now assuming someone goes and commits this crime, should you not be held guilty of aiding an abetting that crime?
Thirdly, How am I overreacting? Posting pictures of someone else's product for the purposes of discussing said product should be fair use.
But it wasn't for the purpose of discussing said product, or it might be fair use. It was for the purpose of informing others about how to break the law easily. As for how you're overreacting you're proposing a situation where Apple would not have any grounds to sue you and making comments about how you suppose they would. If you post an article discussing pirate bay and the availability of infringing os x copies, Apple would do nothing. Apple hasn't sued anyone. Say someone gets arrested for possession of marijuana. Then their knee-jerk friend goes out and says that they'd probably shoot him right in the face if he even smelled like marijuana. It is exaggerating the situation in both scope and severity and does nothing to make credible people address the actual issue. If you think sending a takedown notice for contributory copyright infringement or marijuana possession should laws should be changed, say that. Don't go postulating about hypothetical situations where a lesser action would "probably" result in you being punished even more severely.
Next you'll be telling me that the logo they have on Apple Stories is a copyright violation.
Copying Apple's logo from their stores is not copyright violation, it is trademark violation. That is to say, copying it without permission and putting it elsewhere can lead people to be confused as to whether or not some product was made by Apple or someone else, so doing that is restricted by law.
There -- I've linked directly to information on how to buy drugs. When do I go to jail?
Well, since the location of the drug purchase is not in the US and since you did not provide specific instructions, just general ones, you don't. If, however, you are in the US and tell someone on the phone that if they go talk to Jimmy on the corner of 4th and Wilson, and he's holding crack, you can be arrested for it. That is about the same level of contribution to the crime as linking to a download.
Please note, I'm not saying these laws are ethical or reasonable. Contributing to copyright infringement is a lot like aiding and abetting spitting on the sidewalk. It simply is not serious enough of a crime, in my opinion, to warrant being illegal or any effort on the part of police. It is, however, a crime and if you don't like that you need to get the law overturned, not complain when it is enforced against specific people.
A real world example would be, if you get caught outside of a door, trying to pick the lock, and then claim you were trying to ensure their locks were safe, you might get charged bith attempted B&E. You don't get to do a security audit on people's front doors.
I don't buy that analogy. Breaking and entering is a crime. Theft is a crime. Exploiting computer vulnerabilities is a crime. I'm not sure finding computer vulnerabilities is or should be a crime. I could just as easily use the analogy, "looking at the windows of houses to see if they are open or unlocked is not a crime, but climbing through a window is."
I think laws that rely upon somehow knowing the intent of the person performing an act are pretty poor laws. If I go tell you your locks are really old and can be opened with a plastic fork because I noticed it while walking by, and you happen to run a store I do business with and hence have my CC# on file, that sure shouldn't be a crime. If I write a letter to the editor of the newspaper saying the same, it should not be a crime. If I notice on your Web site the same level of e-security, I don't see how it is qualitatively different.
A couple of days ago Apple said that Cisco suing them over the name iPhone was "silly"... how do they qualify this?
I think you're trying to equate two very different actions based upon different types of IP. Trademarks are designed to keep one vendor from tricking customers into thinking the product they are considering buying is from someone else. Copyrights are about ensuring a creator profits from their creation. Both have problems with the way the laws are designed, but look at the two cases. With iPhone, Cisco arguable no longer has the copyright and did not have any product by that name for years until they faked the existence of one just after Apple contacted them and they figured they could make money off of it. Cisco is basically trying to trick consumers into thinking their product is from Apple as most people assume anything called an iPhone is made by Apple. Without Apple, the trademark on the name "iPhone" is worthless.
In the second instance Apple is sending takedown notices to people who have copied their copyrighted creations. The creations themselves are valuable whether or not Apple exists.
Imagine your name is John Smyth and you're an artist. You become very popular for your macaroni and razor blade sculptures which you sell under a trademarked brand "SmythArt." Some other guy who inherited an old and unused trademark on the term "Smithart" from his uncle's metalworking business decides you might pay him for that trademark, so he makes a lasagna and razor blade sculpture, buts it on ebay and calls you to try to get you to pay him to not trick consumers. That's silly and abuse of trademarks. You go to court with him over the issue. Now imagine another person takes one of your sculptures and recreates it as exactly as possible and starts selling that while telling everyone it is "just like SmythArt sculpture number 7." That is copyright infringement.
How'd they get the icons from the iPhone when it hasn't been released yet?
Apple published pictures on their Web site.
You sure they didn't just make their own icons that looked SIMILAR to what had been seen in the media reports on the iPhone?
In some cases they probably did, but depending on how closely they mimic Apple's work it can still be copyright infringement. In many cases in the past artwork has been reproduced by hand to copy an existing work and the copy has differed slightly. That doesn't mean it is not copyright infringement, especially when you're talking about whole sets of icons using the exact styles and colors. They need to make derivative works significantly different to be in the clear legally. Just look at the pictures in the story and on Apple.com. It is a rip off plain and simple and I'd be pissed as hell if I spent a lot of time and money creating something only to have others make knockoffs even I wouldn't know aren't the ones I made.
Are these bloggers facilitation the download of copyrighted material in the same manner. I don't think so but I think that so far the proof is pointing in the direction of yes. This is because no one has the money/balls to fight these corporations, I can see why its freaking scary.
The problem is the existence and interpretation of contributory copyright infringement laws. The ACLU and EFF have been involved in several such cases and they have money, but realistically, the problem is that our politicians sold us out by passing bad laws in exchange for legalized bribes.
In my opinion I think that blogging is as much a form of News as anything.
Blogging is news as much as anything else, with the exception of a few state whistle-blower laws that only protect certain types of news reporters and don't apply in this case.
I'm just getting overly tired of these lawsuits where someone says hey look what billies doing its pretty cool, and Tony the Tooth comes over and says shut it down or I'm going to break some legs.
Sending a copyright violation notice is hardly breaking legs or threatening. Apple in particular has a very good track record (despite media coverage to the contrary) of avoiding suppressing freedom of speech via legal muscle. In the only case of actually suing small publications and blogs that I know of they sued only for the name of their employee that had broken several laws, not for any damages or to shut the publications down.
The other point is, is if the Times had printed a screenshot of the images in questions would they be sued? I highly doubt it.
The times wouldn't have reprinted copyrighted material because they have a legal process. As for other, larger publications that are not blogs, if you RTFA you'd know Apple sent them takedown notices as well.
By Apple's reasoning, if I published an article that mentioned that The Pirate Bay has copies of OSX you can dowload, they would sue me. Good thing that no pro-Apple people read Slashdot, otherwise I would have to post anonymously...
From the article, it seems Apple did not sue any bloggers. They sent takedown notices to bloggers who were directly violating their copyrights and who were contributing to copyright infringement by linking directly to information on how to break Apple's copyrights. Both of these actions are illegal in certain jurisdictions and circumstances. Your comment is not illegal in any way I know. If, however, you linked to such a download, Apple would probably send you a takedown notice (or actually send it to Slashdot). If Slashdot failed to comply with the takedown, then Apple would have grounds to sue and might do so.
You weaken your argument and credibility by so drastically overstating the case. Contributory copyright infringement laws are very questionable, ethically speaking. Argue against them if you think they should be changed. But posting a comment like yours is sort of like when a complete pothead tries to argue that marijuana should be legalized because smoking it cures cancer according to some zine they read. It just makes reasonable people try to avoid the issue altogether so they are not associated with such irrational weirdoes.
I, at no point, suggested that we should stop trying to reduce greenhouse emissions...
You wrote in your initial post:
I think we need to start putting less thought into "how are we going to slow down our greenhouse gas emissions"
Now from your later posts it seems this was merely a poorly constructed bit of writing that did not express your true intention, but you can certainly see why someone might object to this fragment of a sentence can't you?
Now I don't want to get into a long drawn out semantic argument with you. It seems to me what you wrote was not particularly well thought out and/or the way you wrote it implied a number of things you did not intend. Whether your writing our your thinking was the origin of this imprecision is not particularly important. What we write will always be imprecise and open to some interpretation and misunderstanding. I'm not attacking you personally by calling out things you wrote, only expressing my opinions of the text that you clicked the "Submit" button for.
Seriously. Every year there's a new twist that the models missed by a mile. Most recently, it was the 2006 quiet hurricane season.
I saw lots of sensationalist claptrap that discussed climate models and somehow extrapolated from that that 2006 would have more hurricanes than 2005. I saw statements from environmentalist nut cases, and even televangelists to that affect. I did not see a lot of actual scientists predicting 2006 would have an increased number of hurricanes, only generalized talk about overall hurricane rates going up over the next century if certain other trends continue. Perhaps you should be complaining about the sensationalist information sources you seem to read/watch/listen to, rather than actual climate models. I've never even seen a global climate model that claimed it could predict overall storm trends within the period of a single year.
Anyone who claims to predict planetary weather by studying past correllations and making guesses at future causations, is doing the academic equivalent of hunting for venture capital.
Isn't that what a lot of science is? Finding correlations, proposing causation, and then testing for it with predictions? You could just as well apply the same statement to all of science. If you only pay attention to untested hypothesis as reported by the local news entertainment franchise then you are going to have problems.
...but if we're getting a spike that is outside the bounds of models based primarily on increased greenhouse gas composition in the atmosphere, which indisputably contribute to warming, then we might want to factor in increased solar activity into our models to more accurately predict the climate trends into the next century.
Predictions of ice melt have a very large margin of error. To call a given instance of ice retreating a "spike" that is outside the bounds of current models, is a stretch. You're also assuming that solar activity increases are not part of current models, which is not true from what I've seen.
Participating in fricking global warming discussions is almost completely pointless...Whatever you say, there is bound to be someone who will latch on to one word and accuse you of being a hippy or an oil company shill.
I accused you of no such thing. I just pointed out that your recommendations for models were already implemented many years, your recommendations for remediation were lacking, and your evaluation of this as somehow indicating a particular oversight in current models was also incorrect. For all I know you're a hippy that works for the oil companies, but I don't care. I addressed your assertions, not your motivation.
Makes the case that the current warming trend is more closely related to a solar upswing (than greenhouse gas buildup) more persuasive.
What reputable scientist ever argued that it was one or the other? Every recent study I've seen not funded by oil companies includes solar cycles as one factor, but which is not sufficient to explain the trends on its own. We expect the temperatures to go up due to solar cycles, but they don't come close to explaining the aberrant rate of increase unless there have been developments I haven't heard about.
Either way, I think we need to start putting less thought into "how are we going to slow down our greenhouse gas emissions" and more thought into "what steps are we going to need to take to deal with the inevitable consequences of the current warming trend."
Accepting global warming as inevitable for a time is a thing of the past. We can't turn this around in a short time period. We need to be figuring out how to deal with warming, but we also need to be figuring out if there is anything we can do to deter it before we get drastic climate shifts or before we're committed to 1,000 years of climbing temperatures around the globe.
And now the inevitable analogy. We don't look at an incident of shooting in the inner city and say, "well people have been shot now, lets not worry about catching the shooter and focus on treating the wounds." We need to work on both.
I will not watch a full movie on my PC. That's what I have a home theater setup for.
A lot of us have a PC as a component of our home theater setups. It is cheaper and easier to use than most mp3 player components. It is about the only easy way to play random YouTube videos on the big screen. Since it can also do duty as a CD player, DVD player, slideshow viewer, DVR, etc. it is a rather vital component in my mind.
Still, I don't know of any historical one-hander weapon that resembled the massive 5-10 pound sledgehammers portrayed in video games. And some would realistically weigh a lot more, judging by the hideously oversized metal head. Iron is quite heavy. I've seen the blunt side of warhammers (ok, picks), for example, but it's still a relatively small surface and a relatively lightweight weapon.
Perhaps I can clarify a few things. I read way too much about historical weaponry as a child. The small military hammers you describe were usually paired with a pick on the back end for practical reasons of the type of warfare they were used in. They were designed to be used primarily from horseback or as part of a defensive line. The pick was for armored foes with war hats and the hammer was for everyone else (the peasants and conscripts). The hammer was not designed to be used to crush armor particularly that I have ever heard of, but to crush unarmored skulls without as much risk of getting stuck.
There were some weapons more similar to the "fantasy" war-hammers described. They were actually large wooden hammers, with metal plates on the end with some rare examples using smaller stone heads. Such weapons amongst in Chinese, mediterranean, and northern European cultures are thought to derived from building implements.
The closest thing to classic depictions of Mjölnir I've seen were variants of renaissance era "swordbreaker" hammers used in the off hand to break or bend the light bladed dueling swords of the time.
Is spraying the plaster directly onto the concrete as I imagine they're going to do going to limit the possibilities for easy future alteration.
I imagine most homes would prefer a boxed in layer of insulation on the inside, rather than just plaster. Another thing to note is that not all walls need to be made of concrete. My home is concrete block construction and I love how modifiable it is. All the interior walls save one are non-load-bearing curtain walls, so I can tear them down or move them without worrying. As for wiring and the like, if I ever build a home from scratch I plan to add several large conduits that circle every room to simplify running new wires of any sort. These could easily be embedded in concrete during construction. You could even retrofit a home with them disguised in a larger ceiling moulding.
Also, this doesn't save as much work as you'd think. Putting up framing and basic walls is only maybe 1/3 of the work of building a house.
This is true, but you also have to remember this is concrete construction. Poured concrete with foam is more labor intensive and regular block is fairly expensive as well. The 1/3 cost for framing and enclosing a home is not taking into account that most stick build homes these days are very poorly made and not made to last.
If I *shot* you in the head with a.50BMG, your head would more than likely be vaporized, or at the very least completely and instantly disintegrated.
Nah, heads are too soft. The average.50BMG round would just put a hole through it. If it was sufficiently armored (as I believe the previous poster was implying) you could stop such a round, but the armor would probably be too heavy for you to walk in and the force transferred to the helmet would likely kill you anyway.
True, but to stop said bullet, your helmet would need to be constructed of the sort of armor that we tend to put on main battle tanks, and even than would be iffy in some cases.
A couple of ceramic plates would probably manage just fine, no need to go beyond that. A couple inches of steel works too, at least in one case I saw.
P.S. shooting a gallon sized can of beans with a.50BMG is pretty amusing. I wouldn't say "vaporize" but certainly "destroy" applies.
Personally I care more about other people being able to benefit from my code than preventing corporations from using it for profit.
Most OpenSource licenses aren't about stopping corporations from profiting and many even encourage that. They are also not about giving away code. Most are about making a trade. You can have my code if I can get credit, or use any code you write to improve it. If I'm writing some code either personally or for my company my motivation for licensing it with an OS license is to get free improvements to it.
So these guys look like they're targeting desktop use for the most part. So the big thing several players in the commercial space are rushing towards is support for 3D graphics acceleration via the graphics card. VMWare and Parallels are both due to release something usable in the near future. I see nothing about it on their Web site or in the user guide. It seems a strange item to leave out.
This is a blessing in disguise, really. Anything that makes it harder for the U.S. government to give away my money is good by me.
This contains the implicit statement that this does make it harder to give your money away. I don't think this is true. Grants usually get plenty of submissions. This does two things, it changes who gets the money excluding mac and Linux using researchers and it motivates organizations to buy Windows so as not to be left out. Neither benefits me.
I thought it was basically first come first serve.
You're thinking of patents. Trademarks exist for the sole purpose of preventing companies from causing confusion to consumers by branding a product in such a way that it misleads consumers into thinking it is from another company. You can lose trademarks in any number of ways including not using them or if the public does not associate that trademark with your product. For example, you invent a new gadget and call it the "grubblepoo." You trademark that name and sell your product. After five years a bunch of other companies have invented similar products with various names, and taken 70% of the market from you. Unfortunately everyone refers to all these devices as "grubblepoos" even though you're the only one with that on your device. The chances are, you'll lose your trademark because it is genericized.
I happened to do a Google search for the term "iphone" about a week before Apple announced such a device and shortly after Cisco had started re-branding their existing IP telephony product as an "iphone." Of the top 10 results, 8 were talking about a rumored, unnamed device from Apple, one was Cisco's site, and one was a blog rant about how Cisco was trying to mislead people by naming a product an "iphone." To me that is pretty strong evidence that it is Cisco whose use of the name is misleading consumers and thus at least according to the original intention of trademark laws they should lose it and it should be assigned to Apple to protect consumers from being tricked.
As to what exactly the law says, I doubt any lawyer can say with confidence, since the laws are so complex and twisted. We shall see, I suppose.
Do you really want to live in a concrete house in the English climate?
I actually live in a concrete (block) house in an area with humidity on par with England and with similar temperatures (a bit more snowfall). Concrete itself does not really mold, proper insulation and ventilation prevents the interior from having any mold issues. I'm pretty happy about having a sturdy home instead of the low quality framed wooden homes that are now common.
And, as the formet Soviet Union showed us, it does not make for a particularly attractive architecture.
I think you have your cause and effect a little backwards. The soviet union did not make attractive buildings because they were trying to be efficient. They also used concrete because they were trying to be efficient. There is no reason you can't make attractive buildings from concrete.
Think Soviet-era brutalistic apartment blocks, because that is what you will most likely get.
In the UK, there is usually a bloody good reason for the traditional building materials and designs in any area. Mass builders just drop standardised buildings at any angle to the weather which suits them, and then the owners wonder why the walls are always wet, or tiles fall off every time the prevailing wind blows.
Umm, all your arguments are against mass building methods, not against concrete building. I don't see as poured concrete done by robots is any worse than any other method.
n case you think this is Luddite prejudice, I live in a town where many houses date back to the 17th Century and are built of local materials. Part of the town centre was demolished in the 1970s to build small modern houses. Guess which houses had to be demolished less than 30 years later?
This has nothing to do with modern building technology or materials, which have both improved. This has a lot to do with the economics of housing. Two hundred years ago construction was handled using a lot more people and took a lot more time, but labor costs are much higher now. Hundreds of years ago if you build a house it was for you and your children and their children and as many generations as anyone could imagine. Houses were built to last. Today, most people move from place to place with some frequency and only plan to stay in a given house ten years or so. Why pay double the cost for more expensive materials that will outlast your living there? Why pay more for materials and labor when it only has to meet code and stay standing long enough to sell it off? Even 50 years ago, people built houses assuming they would live there forever and used materials that would last. Today I see new home with shingles rated to last 10 years. 10 years ago, no one made shingles with that poor of durability because there was no market. Everyone wanted 20 or 30 year shingles at the least because they planned to be there in 20-30 years, at least.
New builds this century are already starting to look a bit decrepit as the wind and rain (which are thrown off by our local stone) do their work on cheap modern building materials.
Most people who build homes today build them of lower quality materials and workmanship. This has nothing, however, to do with concrete being a poor choice, especially if you are planning on building a home to last. When I build a new home, I will almost certainly use concrete because it will last longer than most other construction methods in use today. The point is to do it properly, which is a bit more expensive.
Well, you're right. But if inheretance doesn't exist (or is severely limited), then there's little point for the parents to work hard to build up an inheratance in the first place.
First I never said we should do away with inheritance, merely tax it to diminishing returns so people have to work harder to provide more. Second this lack of motivation is offset by the increased motivation of their heirs since they must now work for a living and contribute to society. Third, even if you can't give your kids more than a million bucks, you can still spend it on other things, like a new yacht or funding an art museum in your name. I don't think the lack of something to do with their money will stop many from being acquisitive after a lifetime of doing just that.
My parents, for example, are busting their butts so that my siblings and I can have a nice little nut when they die.
How many millions will each of your siblings inherit? If it is under 10, then you're not in the ultra rich class I'm talking about.
And at the same time, there's an ethics piece. Is it ethical to tell somebody that they cannot give their hard earned money to their kids, if they so choose? I'm not so sure that it is...
Ethically, yes it is fair to promote equality through these taxes. You have to think of the source of inequality. Is it ethical for all african americans to be poor forever because of unethical things done to them in the past? Te key to making money is to have money. Consolidated wealth leads to more consolidation. Since we've never had a complete reset where every person was given equal amounts of wealth and then a string of ethical behavior since that time, it is fair to assume all wealth was gathered, at some point, via unethical behavior. No child is entitled to the wealth gathered by another and no person has the right to anything after they are dead.
A person who does something worthwhile with his life earns a sense of pride that no wastrel can achieve. He will be much happier, and better able to handle the difficulties that life eventually brings.
That's a fine motivation on a personal level, but not so much on a societal level. If everyone worked hard to do something worthwhile, instead of minimizing their own effort while maximizing their benefit then widespread socialism would work just fine. It doesn't. Our economic assumptions cannot be based upon the assumption that people will act selflessly, but must be based upon the assumption that most people will act selfishly.
Slashdot Mirror
So why does it cost $4.99 for a feature which tas taken very little work to implement? OK, so it's fair that they're charging for it - if you believe their excuse, but why not $0.99 or $1?
I think most people are missing the point. I suspect it's not the software feature so much that users are paying for. Apple told users they were getting 802.11G cards and sold them as such. In reality, some were also capable of 802.11N. Since that feature was disabled, that was just fine, but if they're going to send out a software upgrade that unlocks a new hardware feature, they're suddenly running across some very gelatinous ground given our weird laws. I think the law specifies a minimum of $1 for such items, but I doubt it costs apple $4 for processing that dollar. More likely $5 is the price difference between an 802.11G and an 802.11G/N card.
If you then went to a known burglar with the information, well, you're no longer just doing something nice and innocent now, are you??
Yes, but no one is claiming you should be able to find vulnerabilities and give or sell them to blackhats, merely make them public or inform the site operator without worrying about being sued.
or the second half ... WTF does having, or not having, your credit card # on file apply to this?? It seems a bit spurious to the conversation at hand, and I'll treat it as such.
No it isn't. If they have your credit card on file (as many e-businesses might) then you have a business relationship with them and a vested interest in their security. It is perfectly legal and sometimes industry practice to hire private investigators to look into the security of current or proposed business partners.
I don't think you've idly done nothing.
You've done something, but nothing illegal.
You've made available to people the means to commit and illegal act. The fact that it was just there for anyone to see (or you spent three hours trying to find it) doesn't mean you wouldn't have anything to do with them getting robbed.
So what if the local bank, where the whole town keeps their money, tends to leave the back door propped open and the safe unlocked? Should it be illegal for me to tell the paper or the paper to write an article letting everyone know they should take their money out? Should you have to be concerned about being sued if you write the bank manager and let him know what is going on?
I realize people figure that white hats should scream really loud so everyone knows the vulerability, because the black hats wouldn't. But, telling the black hats how to do it, you no longer get to say you're better than they are. In fact, you're probably worse, because you were the one casing the joint, as it were.
Not at all. Whitehats do not profit from illegal actions and are aiming to improve overall security. Full disclosure is not always the best way to go about improving security, but sometimes it is. Why you think only in terms of full disclosure, however, is a mystery to me. Even the summary specifically mentions people being sued for just telling the Web service provider that the service has vulnerabilities in it.
You don't have an obligation to ensure that everyone in the world knows how to open every unsecured lock.
No, but sometimes telling the public how to open a particular lock is the best way to improve security. If Diebold starts selling a new combination bike lock, and I discover 1.2.3.4 always opens it, and I know at least one gang of thieves is already looking for these locks and stealing bikes via this method... I should 100% have no fear that I will suffer legal repercussions if I tell the support guys at Diebold. If Diebold refuses to acknowledge the problem I should likewise have no fear that my exercising my freedom of expression and telling the local newspaper will result in my being prosecuted for some crime. The same goes for software and services on computers.
Secondly, I feel I should be able to discuss illegal actions without fear of reprisal.
So if, for example, the police had a court ordered wire tap on your house and you told your cousin Vinnie "the knife" Viviano to go stab that cop right in the face so he stops sticking his nose in the family business, you think the police should not be able to take any action until Vinnie actually did stab someone?
If someone is doing something illegal, I would like to be able to point out what they are doing (and where and how they do it) without being an accessory to the crime.
Ahh, but what if you provide them with specific instruction as to how they can go about committing that crime. "That cop always goes to the store at 8pm on thursdays and he has a key under the fake rock to the right of his house. If you go over there at 8:15, use the key, and wait in the closet next to the door, you an easily stab him to death without any risk." Now assuming someone goes and commits this crime, should you not be held guilty of aiding an abetting that crime?
Thirdly, How am I overreacting? Posting pictures of someone else's product for the purposes of discussing said product should be fair use.
But it wasn't for the purpose of discussing said product, or it might be fair use. It was for the purpose of informing others about how to break the law easily. As for how you're overreacting you're proposing a situation where Apple would not have any grounds to sue you and making comments about how you suppose they would. If you post an article discussing pirate bay and the availability of infringing os x copies, Apple would do nothing. Apple hasn't sued anyone. Say someone gets arrested for possession of marijuana. Then their knee-jerk friend goes out and says that they'd probably shoot him right in the face if he even smelled like marijuana. It is exaggerating the situation in both scope and severity and does nothing to make credible people address the actual issue. If you think sending a takedown notice for contributory copyright infringement or marijuana possession should laws should be changed, say that. Don't go postulating about hypothetical situations where a lesser action would "probably" result in you being punished even more severely.
Next you'll be telling me that the logo they have on Apple Stories is a copyright violation.
Copying Apple's logo from their stores is not copyright violation, it is trademark violation. That is to say, copying it without permission and putting it elsewhere can lead people to be confused as to whether or not some product was made by Apple or someone else, so doing that is restricted by law.
There -- I've linked directly to information on how to buy drugs. When do I go to jail?
Well, since the location of the drug purchase is not in the US and since you did not provide specific instructions, just general ones, you don't. If, however, you are in the US and tell someone on the phone that if they go talk to Jimmy on the corner of 4th and Wilson, and he's holding crack, you can be arrested for it. That is about the same level of contribution to the crime as linking to a download.
Please note, I'm not saying these laws are ethical or reasonable. Contributing to copyright infringement is a lot like aiding and abetting spitting on the sidewalk. It simply is not serious enough of a crime, in my opinion, to warrant being illegal or any effort on the part of police. It is, however, a crime and if you don't like that you need to get the law overturned, not complain when it is enforced against specific people.
A real world example would be, if you get caught outside of a door, trying to pick the lock, and then claim you were trying to ensure their locks were safe, you might get charged bith attempted B&E. You don't get to do a security audit on people's front doors.
I don't buy that analogy. Breaking and entering is a crime. Theft is a crime. Exploiting computer vulnerabilities is a crime. I'm not sure finding computer vulnerabilities is or should be a crime. I could just as easily use the analogy, "looking at the windows of houses to see if they are open or unlocked is not a crime, but climbing through a window is."
I think laws that rely upon somehow knowing the intent of the person performing an act are pretty poor laws. If I go tell you your locks are really old and can be opened with a plastic fork because I noticed it while walking by, and you happen to run a store I do business with and hence have my CC# on file, that sure shouldn't be a crime. If I write a letter to the editor of the newspaper saying the same, it should not be a crime. If I notice on your Web site the same level of e-security, I don't see how it is qualitatively different.
A couple of days ago Apple said that Cisco suing them over the name iPhone was "silly"... how do they qualify this?
I think you're trying to equate two very different actions based upon different types of IP. Trademarks are designed to keep one vendor from tricking customers into thinking the product they are considering buying is from someone else. Copyrights are about ensuring a creator profits from their creation. Both have problems with the way the laws are designed, but look at the two cases. With iPhone, Cisco arguable no longer has the copyright and did not have any product by that name for years until they faked the existence of one just after Apple contacted them and they figured they could make money off of it. Cisco is basically trying to trick consumers into thinking their product is from Apple as most people assume anything called an iPhone is made by Apple. Without Apple, the trademark on the name "iPhone" is worthless.
In the second instance Apple is sending takedown notices to people who have copied their copyrighted creations. The creations themselves are valuable whether or not Apple exists.
Imagine your name is John Smyth and you're an artist. You become very popular for your macaroni and razor blade sculptures which you sell under a trademarked brand "SmythArt." Some other guy who inherited an old and unused trademark on the term "Smithart" from his uncle's metalworking business decides you might pay him for that trademark, so he makes a lasagna and razor blade sculpture, buts it on ebay and calls you to try to get you to pay him to not trick consumers. That's silly and abuse of trademarks. You go to court with him over the issue. Now imagine another person takes one of your sculptures and recreates it as exactly as possible and starts selling that while telling everyone it is "just like SmythArt sculpture number 7." That is copyright infringement.
How'd they get the icons from the iPhone when it hasn't been released yet?
Apple published pictures on their Web site.
You sure they didn't just make their own icons that looked SIMILAR to what had been seen in the media reports on the iPhone?
In some cases they probably did, but depending on how closely they mimic Apple's work it can still be copyright infringement. In many cases in the past artwork has been reproduced by hand to copy an existing work and the copy has differed slightly. That doesn't mean it is not copyright infringement, especially when you're talking about whole sets of icons using the exact styles and colors. They need to make derivative works significantly different to be in the clear legally. Just look at the pictures in the story and on Apple.com. It is a rip off plain and simple and I'd be pissed as hell if I spent a lot of time and money creating something only to have others make knockoffs even I wouldn't know aren't the ones I made.
Are these bloggers facilitation the download of copyrighted material in the same manner. I don't think so but I think that so far the proof is pointing in the direction of yes. This is because no one has the money/balls to fight these corporations, I can see why its freaking scary.
The problem is the existence and interpretation of contributory copyright infringement laws. The ACLU and EFF have been involved in several such cases and they have money, but realistically, the problem is that our politicians sold us out by passing bad laws in exchange for legalized bribes.
In my opinion I think that blogging is as much a form of News as anything.
Blogging is news as much as anything else, with the exception of a few state whistle-blower laws that only protect certain types of news reporters and don't apply in this case.
I'm just getting overly tired of these lawsuits where someone says hey look what billies doing its pretty cool, and Tony the Tooth comes over and says shut it down or I'm going to break some legs.
Sending a copyright violation notice is hardly breaking legs or threatening. Apple in particular has a very good track record (despite media coverage to the contrary) of avoiding suppressing freedom of speech via legal muscle. In the only case of actually suing small publications and blogs that I know of they sued only for the name of their employee that had broken several laws, not for any damages or to shut the publications down.
The other point is, is if the Times had printed a screenshot of the images in questions would they be sued? I highly doubt it.
The times wouldn't have reprinted copyrighted material because they have a legal process. As for other, larger publications that are not blogs, if you RTFA you'd know Apple sent them takedown notices as well.
By Apple's reasoning, if I published an article that mentioned that The Pirate Bay has copies of OSX you can dowload, they would sue me. Good thing that no pro-Apple people read Slashdot, otherwise I would have to post anonymously...
From the article, it seems Apple did not sue any bloggers. They sent takedown notices to bloggers who were directly violating their copyrights and who were contributing to copyright infringement by linking directly to information on how to break Apple's copyrights. Both of these actions are illegal in certain jurisdictions and circumstances. Your comment is not illegal in any way I know. If, however, you linked to such a download, Apple would probably send you a takedown notice (or actually send it to Slashdot). If Slashdot failed to comply with the takedown, then Apple would have grounds to sue and might do so.
You weaken your argument and credibility by so drastically overstating the case. Contributory copyright infringement laws are very questionable, ethically speaking. Argue against them if you think they should be changed. But posting a comment like yours is sort of like when a complete pothead tries to argue that marijuana should be legalized because smoking it cures cancer according to some zine they read. It just makes reasonable people try to avoid the issue altogether so they are not associated with such irrational weirdoes.
After seeing people ask this question in every single article about global warming, is it possible they are not trolling?
I, at no point, suggested that we should stop trying to reduce greenhouse emissions...
You wrote in your initial post:
I think we need to start putting less thought into "how are we going to slow down our greenhouse gas emissions"
Now from your later posts it seems this was merely a poorly constructed bit of writing that did not express your true intention, but you can certainly see why someone might object to this fragment of a sentence can't you?
Now I don't want to get into a long drawn out semantic argument with you. It seems to me what you wrote was not particularly well thought out and/or the way you wrote it implied a number of things you did not intend. Whether your writing our your thinking was the origin of this imprecision is not particularly important. What we write will always be imprecise and open to some interpretation and misunderstanding. I'm not attacking you personally by calling out things you wrote, only expressing my opinions of the text that you clicked the "Submit" button for.
Seriously. Every year there's a new twist that the models missed by a mile. Most recently, it was the 2006 quiet hurricane season.
I saw lots of sensationalist claptrap that discussed climate models and somehow extrapolated from that that 2006 would have more hurricanes than 2005. I saw statements from environmentalist nut cases, and even televangelists to that affect. I did not see a lot of actual scientists predicting 2006 would have an increased number of hurricanes, only generalized talk about overall hurricane rates going up over the next century if certain other trends continue. Perhaps you should be complaining about the sensationalist information sources you seem to read/watch/listen to, rather than actual climate models. I've never even seen a global climate model that claimed it could predict overall storm trends within the period of a single year.
Anyone who claims to predict planetary weather by studying past correllations and making guesses at future causations, is doing the academic equivalent of hunting for venture capital.
Isn't that what a lot of science is? Finding correlations, proposing causation, and then testing for it with predictions? You could just as well apply the same statement to all of science. If you only pay attention to untested hypothesis as reported by the local news entertainment franchise then you are going to have problems.
Predictions of ice melt have a very large margin of error. To call a given instance of ice retreating a "spike" that is outside the bounds of current models, is a stretch. You're also assuming that solar activity increases are not part of current models, which is not true from what I've seen.
Participating in fricking global warming discussions is almost completely pointless...Whatever you say, there is bound to be someone who will latch on to one word and accuse you of being a hippy or an oil company shill.
I accused you of no such thing. I just pointed out that your recommendations for models were already implemented many years, your recommendations for remediation were lacking, and your evaluation of this as somehow indicating a particular oversight in current models was also incorrect. For all I know you're a hippy that works for the oil companies, but I don't care. I addressed your assertions, not your motivation.
Makes the case that the current warming trend is more closely related to a solar upswing (than greenhouse gas buildup) more persuasive.
What reputable scientist ever argued that it was one or the other? Every recent study I've seen not funded by oil companies includes solar cycles as one factor, but which is not sufficient to explain the trends on its own. We expect the temperatures to go up due to solar cycles, but they don't come close to explaining the aberrant rate of increase unless there have been developments I haven't heard about.
Either way, I think we need to start putting less thought into "how are we going to slow down our greenhouse gas emissions" and more thought into "what steps are we going to need to take to deal with the inevitable consequences of the current warming trend."
Accepting global warming as inevitable for a time is a thing of the past. We can't turn this around in a short time period. We need to be figuring out how to deal with warming, but we also need to be figuring out if there is anything we can do to deter it before we get drastic climate shifts or before we're committed to 1,000 years of climbing temperatures around the globe.
And now the inevitable analogy. We don't look at an incident of shooting in the inner city and say, "well people have been shot now, lets not worry about catching the shooter and focus on treating the wounds." We need to work on both.
I will not watch a full movie on my PC. That's what I have a home theater setup for.
A lot of us have a PC as a component of our home theater setups. It is cheaper and easier to use than most mp3 player components. It is about the only easy way to play random YouTube videos on the big screen. Since it can also do duty as a CD player, DVD player, slideshow viewer, DVR, etc. it is a rather vital component in my mind.
Still, I don't know of any historical one-hander weapon that resembled the massive 5-10 pound sledgehammers portrayed in video games. And some would realistically weigh a lot more, judging by the hideously oversized metal head. Iron is quite heavy. I've seen the blunt side of warhammers (ok, picks), for example, but it's still a relatively small surface and a relatively lightweight weapon.
Perhaps I can clarify a few things. I read way too much about historical weaponry as a child. The small military hammers you describe were usually paired with a pick on the back end for practical reasons of the type of warfare they were used in. They were designed to be used primarily from horseback or as part of a defensive line. The pick was for armored foes with war hats and the hammer was for everyone else (the peasants and conscripts). The hammer was not designed to be used to crush armor particularly that I have ever heard of, but to crush unarmored skulls without as much risk of getting stuck.
There were some weapons more similar to the "fantasy" war-hammers described. They were actually large wooden hammers, with metal plates on the end with some rare examples using smaller stone heads. Such weapons amongst in Chinese, mediterranean, and northern European cultures are thought to derived from building implements.
The closest thing to classic depictions of Mjölnir I've seen were variants of renaissance era "swordbreaker" hammers used in the off hand to break or bend the light bladed dueling swords of the time.
Is spraying the plaster directly onto the concrete as I imagine they're going to do going to limit the possibilities for easy future alteration.
I imagine most homes would prefer a boxed in layer of insulation on the inside, rather than just plaster. Another thing to note is that not all walls need to be made of concrete. My home is concrete block construction and I love how modifiable it is. All the interior walls save one are non-load-bearing curtain walls, so I can tear them down or move them without worrying. As for wiring and the like, if I ever build a home from scratch I plan to add several large conduits that circle every room to simplify running new wires of any sort. These could easily be embedded in concrete during construction. You could even retrofit a home with them disguised in a larger ceiling moulding.
Also, this doesn't save as much work as you'd think. Putting up framing and basic walls is only maybe 1/3 of the work of building a house.
This is true, but you also have to remember this is concrete construction. Poured concrete with foam is more labor intensive and regular block is fairly expensive as well. The 1/3 cost for framing and enclosing a home is not taking into account that most stick build homes these days are very poorly made and not made to last.
If I *shot* you in the head with a .50BMG, your head would more than likely be vaporized, or at the very least completely and instantly disintegrated.
Nah, heads are too soft. The average .50BMG round would just put a hole through it. If it was sufficiently armored (as I believe the previous poster was implying) you could stop such a round, but the armor would probably be too heavy for you to walk in and the force transferred to the helmet would likely kill you anyway.
True, but to stop said bullet, your helmet would need to be constructed of the sort of armor that we tend to put on main battle tanks, and even than would be iffy in some cases.
A couple of ceramic plates would probably manage just fine, no need to go beyond that. A couple inches of steel works too, at least in one case I saw.
P.S. shooting a gallon sized can of beans with a .50BMG is pretty amusing. I wouldn't say "vaporize" but certainly "destroy" applies.
Personally I care more about other people being able to benefit from my code than preventing corporations from using it for profit.
Most OpenSource licenses aren't about stopping corporations from profiting and many even encourage that. They are also not about giving away code. Most are about making a trade. You can have my code if I can get credit, or use any code you write to improve it. If I'm writing some code either personally or for my company my motivation for licensing it with an OS license is to get free improvements to it.
So these guys look like they're targeting desktop use for the most part. So the big thing several players in the commercial space are rushing towards is support for 3D graphics acceleration via the graphics card. VMWare and Parallels are both due to release something usable in the near future. I see nothing about it on their Web site or in the user guide. It seems a strange item to leave out.
This is a blessing in disguise, really. Anything that makes it harder for the U.S. government to give away my money is good by me.
This contains the implicit statement that this does make it harder to give your money away. I don't think this is true. Grants usually get plenty of submissions. This does two things, it changes who gets the money excluding mac and Linux using researchers and it motivates organizations to buy Windows so as not to be left out. Neither benefits me.
I thought it was basically first come first serve.
You're thinking of patents. Trademarks exist for the sole purpose of preventing companies from causing confusion to consumers by branding a product in such a way that it misleads consumers into thinking it is from another company. You can lose trademarks in any number of ways including not using them or if the public does not associate that trademark with your product. For example, you invent a new gadget and call it the "grubblepoo." You trademark that name and sell your product. After five years a bunch of other companies have invented similar products with various names, and taken 70% of the market from you. Unfortunately everyone refers to all these devices as "grubblepoos" even though you're the only one with that on your device. The chances are, you'll lose your trademark because it is genericized.
I happened to do a Google search for the term "iphone" about a week before Apple announced such a device and shortly after Cisco had started re-branding their existing IP telephony product as an "iphone." Of the top 10 results, 8 were talking about a rumored, unnamed device from Apple, one was Cisco's site, and one was a blog rant about how Cisco was trying to mislead people by naming a product an "iphone." To me that is pretty strong evidence that it is Cisco whose use of the name is misleading consumers and thus at least according to the original intention of trademark laws they should lose it and it should be assigned to Apple to protect consumers from being tricked.
As to what exactly the law says, I doubt any lawyer can say with confidence, since the laws are so complex and twisted. We shall see, I suppose.
Do you really want to live in a concrete house in the English climate?
I actually live in a concrete (block) house in an area with humidity on par with England and with similar temperatures (a bit more snowfall). Concrete itself does not really mold, proper insulation and ventilation prevents the interior from having any mold issues. I'm pretty happy about having a sturdy home instead of the low quality framed wooden homes that are now common.
And, as the formet Soviet Union showed us, it does not make for a particularly attractive architecture.
I think you have your cause and effect a little backwards. The soviet union did not make attractive buildings because they were trying to be efficient. They also used concrete because they were trying to be efficient. There is no reason you can't make attractive buildings from concrete.
Think Soviet-era brutalistic apartment blocks, because that is what you will most likely get. In the UK, there is usually a bloody good reason for the traditional building materials and designs in any area. Mass builders just drop standardised buildings at any angle to the weather which suits them, and then the owners wonder why the walls are always wet, or tiles fall off every time the prevailing wind blows.
Umm, all your arguments are against mass building methods, not against concrete building. I don't see as poured concrete done by robots is any worse than any other method.
n case you think this is Luddite prejudice, I live in a town where many houses date back to the 17th Century and are built of local materials. Part of the town centre was demolished in the 1970s to build small modern houses. Guess which houses had to be demolished less than 30 years later?
This has nothing to do with modern building technology or materials, which have both improved. This has a lot to do with the economics of housing. Two hundred years ago construction was handled using a lot more people and took a lot more time, but labor costs are much higher now. Hundreds of years ago if you build a house it was for you and your children and their children and as many generations as anyone could imagine. Houses were built to last. Today, most people move from place to place with some frequency and only plan to stay in a given house ten years or so. Why pay double the cost for more expensive materials that will outlast your living there? Why pay more for materials and labor when it only has to meet code and stay standing long enough to sell it off? Even 50 years ago, people built houses assuming they would live there forever and used materials that would last. Today I see new home with shingles rated to last 10 years. 10 years ago, no one made shingles with that poor of durability because there was no market. Everyone wanted 20 or 30 year shingles at the least because they planned to be there in 20-30 years, at least.
New builds this century are already starting to look a bit decrepit as the wind and rain (which are thrown off by our local stone) do their work on cheap modern building materials.
Most people who build homes today build them of lower quality materials and workmanship. This has nothing, however, to do with concrete being a poor choice, especially if you are planning on building a home to last. When I build a new home, I will almost certainly use concrete because it will last longer than most other construction methods in use today. The point is to do it properly, which is a bit more expensive.
Well, you're right. But if inheretance doesn't exist (or is severely limited), then there's little point for the parents to work hard to build up an inheratance in the first place.
First I never said we should do away with inheritance, merely tax it to diminishing returns so people have to work harder to provide more. Second this lack of motivation is offset by the increased motivation of their heirs since they must now work for a living and contribute to society. Third, even if you can't give your kids more than a million bucks, you can still spend it on other things, like a new yacht or funding an art museum in your name. I don't think the lack of something to do with their money will stop many from being acquisitive after a lifetime of doing just that.
My parents, for example, are busting their butts so that my siblings and I can have a nice little nut when they die.
How many millions will each of your siblings inherit? If it is under 10, then you're not in the ultra rich class I'm talking about.
And at the same time, there's an ethics piece. Is it ethical to tell somebody that they cannot give their hard earned money to their kids, if they so choose? I'm not so sure that it is...
Ethically, yes it is fair to promote equality through these taxes. You have to think of the source of inequality. Is it ethical for all african americans to be poor forever because of unethical things done to them in the past? Te key to making money is to have money. Consolidated wealth leads to more consolidation. Since we've never had a complete reset where every person was given equal amounts of wealth and then a string of ethical behavior since that time, it is fair to assume all wealth was gathered, at some point, via unethical behavior. No child is entitled to the wealth gathered by another and no person has the right to anything after they are dead.
A person who does something worthwhile with his life earns a sense of pride that no wastrel can achieve. He will be much happier, and better able to handle the difficulties that life eventually brings.
That's a fine motivation on a personal level, but not so much on a societal level. If everyone worked hard to do something worthwhile, instead of minimizing their own effort while maximizing their benefit then widespread socialism would work just fine. It doesn't. Our economic assumptions cannot be based upon the assumption that people will act selflessly, but must be based upon the assumption that most people will act selfishly.