The thing that the military adds to R&D that academia lacks is urgency.
This has been the case in a number of instances, but it is not the norm. What the military provides is a way to bypass both ethics and reasonable accountability and risk assessment. By operating in secret they manage to hide their actions from public outcry. Sometimes (rarely I hope) this means unethical experimentation on people. More often it means spending 100 billion dollars over the course of 20 years to create technologies only marginally better than what exist in the private sector and at prices that businesses accountable for their spending would find ludicrous. Sometimes, very rarely, these projects pay off by producing real advances. Usually, however, they are an enormous waste of taxpayer dollars. If the public had visibility into the waste the military would be stopped by public outcry. In the public sector, the investors stop the waste. The risk versus reward is terrible for most of these projects. The ability to continue with thousands of them anyway is what the military brings.
Academia can spend generations arguing the same theories to death.
But generally that costs very little. In truth, mostly it is academia who makes the real breakthroughs. Really, I'm going to have to disagree with you here.
That extension is great, but if you can do it browser independent as with AJAX, it might be better for users I think.
I strongly disagree. This type of functionality is bounded more by the user than the application. As such, the proper place for it is as a plug-in to the OS. For example, a lot of people would never want to translate anything ever. They can just not enable a translation plug-in. Others will want to translate a lot, and if they do so in their browser, they may well need to in their PDF reader, IRC/Chat client, e-mail, and word processor.
Rather than adding all these features to all these applications, why not integrate them as services a user can install and enable either globally or for some sites or applications. Otherwise, you'll end up with different sites translating things differently, with some working better and some more poorly. With a OS plug-in, you can install the best one (or more) for you. Further, there is a whole range of these functions, most of which are only useful for a specific segment of users. Maybe I never visit foreign sites and don't want translation taking up space in my menu, but I am a huge encryption enthusiast and want to be able to rapidly apply encryption to random text, in various applications. Or maybe I can't stand reading due to my poor vision and just want my computer to speak given text aloud all the time. Maybe want to rapidly strip line endings to reformat messed up text. By providing this type of functionality as OS level plug-ins, it lets each user install and enable just the features they want, not those the Website operator thinks they want. After all, users generally know better than developers what tasks they are doing.
Just because you're accessing it in a web browser does not make it a 'web site'.
Umm, yes, it does. It is a page of markup and the very first line they send to my Web browser contains the Web standard they are employing.
If I am using a web-based AJAX email client like OWA or RoundCube mail I not only *expect* the right click menu to behave like a native client ( With options like copy message, move message, flag, delete, etc), I *demand* it.
Not me. If I'm using a Web browser, I demand it treat everything like the content it is. I don't want my controls of my software to be hijacked, or for it attempt to do so. I can already customize my right-click menu, by application and by Web site if I so desire. If a Web site wants to recommend additional functions for that site, that is fine, but things like a dictionary lookup are in no way something only my Web browser needs to access. I use the same dictionary in dozens of programs and I don't want to switch to their, half-assed, poorly configured one, just for their site. I also don't want to suddenly lose the other functionality of my contextual menu, like viewing the page's source, or blocking a particular ad server. No thanks.
It pretty much excludes KHTML/Konqueror from ever running our application.
Then you need to hire a competent UI designer. A contextual menu should never, and I mean never, ever contain functionality that cannot be accessed from another part of the program. A significant number of users don't know how to right click or will not think to try it to find some functionality. It is effectively hiding that function. Some users don't even have a right click button on their mouse and many users use some sort of alternative interface. Whether they are blind, have a palsy, are paralyzed, are working on a touch pad or stylus, or are using some other interface you've never dreamed of, the right-click menu is inconvenient or unavailable to a lot of users. If a user needs it to run your application you just violated a very basic UI design rule that is in pretty much any book you can pick up on the subject. Right-click menus should only be used as a shortcut for functionality that is also present elsewhere.
Seriously, fire your UI guy and get a competent one.
It's not though. It must be clear, even to Microsoft, that the world needs open and standard formats.
I think they know the world wants them, but they also know that it is in their best interests to stop them on most fronts.
One day Microsoft will have to compete on merit instead of format lockin, but until then, every hour of delay they can engineer is a million dollar win for them.
Sure, in a few markets, but not in most. Governments are not enforcing antitrust laws against them, partially due to campaign contributions that amount to legalized bribes. Supposing enough momentum builds behind an open document format and MS is forced into compliance, they are in the process of closing other formats to compensate. They are bundling a closed replacement for PDF, making HTML more and more proprietary with Active X components, bundling closed replacements for mpeg audio and video, bundling proprietary replacements for gifs and jpegs, bundling proprietary replacements for anti-virus signatures, etc., etc. Unless the root antitrust violations that allow them to foist these inferior solutions upon their customers are addressed, I don't think one format opening while a dozen more close will help matters.
Yeah, I give food to homeless all the time. druggies and alchies, they eat it. There are programs in nyc to distribute food to the homeless, by going out into the streets and subways... I've never seen anyone turn down food.
While I agree with most of your sentiments, I think it is important that people understand this particular assertion does not hold true everywhere. I've seen attempts to hand out sandwiches to the poor that were greeted much, much more poorly. Only about 1 in 5 were interested in the food. Half would take it, then ask for money for some other reason and discard the food when none was provided. A number reacted violently, either threatening physical attacks or verbally attacking those giving out food. I personally witnessed this once and was told of the same response during several other attempts in the area.
When there are good shelters and food sources around, most of those begging for money for food are simply trying to run a scam and a significant number are not even homeless (according to homeless people at one of the local shelters). Many of those who are homeless, prefer it that way and do just fine squatting in an abandoned house and raiding dumpsters. They will beg, but usually it is for booze or drug money.
I guess what I'm saying is, you probably are doing a lot more good donating to a shelter than you are giving away food or money and if you try the former, make sure you are either in large enough numbers or have the ability to defend yourself.
Likewise, when people say "give a bit of spare change", this is often the worst advice that can be given as much of that money will go directly into feeding their addiction. It is far better to offer to buy them a coffee, or recommend them to a shelter.
Agreed. Donate the money to a shelter if you want it to help them get into a better situation for the long term. Now I have given money to homeless, but only when they are honest. I know the chances are anything I give them will be going to booze or drugs, so if someone asks for money for booze, I'm willing to share, now and again. Mostly though, there are better ways to help out.
Of course, I live in Canada, so it may very well be different in the United States of America.
For the most part things in the US are the same. The one real difference is health care. Half of all homeless people in the US are there because they got sick, couldn't go to work, lost their job, and then their home. Most personal bankruptcies happen for the same reason, but with someone with enough savvy or good advice to use the system to cut their losses and try again. Among the homeless, a lot of them have serious medical issues and no one will hire them because it will cost their insurance program too much. Drugs are also significantly more expensive here, which exacerbates the problem.
I'm sure a lot of us find this kind of crap annoying. A website developer just not have enough information to determine what my most common tasks are and thus properly define a right-click menu for me. I don't want them to have that information. My right-click menu already has a dictionary in it, as well as a handful of other functions. Now this site pops up a second context menu on the page that takes much, much longer to load and has fewer of the functions I want.
To me this says, "screw you" to users of decent browsers in favor of working around IE + Windows failure to provide a good way to integrate this functionality in the proper location.
We know from the article that the police, called by the owner, specifically told him that he was not welcome to use it. That's more than sufficient notice for a reasonable person. If that is somehow not sufficient, then I'd argue that he'll be acquitted on an unfortunate legal technicality, not some moral victory.
The police telling you is only equivalent to the owner telling you if they tell you they are acting on his behalf and it can be shown beyond a reasonable doubt that person charged believed the police were acting on his behalf instead of their own. The police often tell people to do things without having any right to do so.
Furthermore, it's very possible and plausible that he was first asked by the owners directly to stop and he refused to comply.
This is irrelevant if they later advertised and willingly provided him with the service.
In that case, I'd really hope they could ask the police for assistance.
Technically that is not their job at all. They have no obligation to protect you or even enforce the law if you are attacked. They will probably be willing to come with you and keep you safe, but how is the person being given orders to know it is coming from you, if the police do so on your behalf unofficially with no documentation?
You are making a huge assumption that a broadcast ID and no encryption is the same as an offer of service.
It is an offer of service. The fact that it was an automated exchange does not matter any more than if you set up a tape recorder to play advertisements of your service. You set it up, it is your responsibility to stop inviting people if you don't want them to come.
You really have no basis to assume that you're welcome to connect to a network.
If you broadcast a message to me, either in radio waves or audio waves, that specifically offers a service, in english, french, or binary, that is a specific offer.
It's costing someone something to operate, so there's a pretty strong argument that you should assume that you're not authorized to connect to any network unless specifically advised otherwise.
There is no logical or legal justification for that assumption. Many free things cost someone money. How does that imply it is not free when it is offered without any request for money. If someone has a signing the window that says, "free haircuts" with people inside talking about their free haircuts and you show up and they give you a haircut, it is not legal to arrest them for stealing that haircut because you did not wear plaid pants or follow any other condition they did not specify before they gave you the haircut.
Even so, I'd personally say that an initial connection could be construed as "innocent" but once you've been asked not to connect, it becomes malicious.
Sorry, it is the wireless network operator's job to collect any payment before they provide the service. If they tell someone to leave, but then offer the service again to that person, whether it is because they don't recognize them, they changed their mind, or any other reason, that person is legally in the clear.
This is simply not true. The public is generally welcome to enter a retail store. However, it's well-established (and confirmed by others in this thread) that these places routinely ban problem "customers" such as shoplifters or strongly suspected shoplifters.
Not if they communicate with you again and then invite you in. In this case they did not invite him in, but they did specifically offer the service to him.
The price of the services is being a customer. That's a small fee rolled in to the purchase price of each item, but it's not zero.
This has to be stipulated before providing the service, not after to have any legal teeth. It was not.
Anyway, this guy is clearly trying to use a service not intended for his use after being warned at least once and probably multiple times that he was not we
The parent comment is a factual statement rebutting a point in the summary of the story. Why it is modded -1 Troll is peculiar.
Probably because it blatantly ignores common knowledge, and at the same time speaks in a derogatory manner. I think the moderator is probably correct that it is willfully ignoring in the hopes of trolling, rather than actually being poorly informed and mistaken.
The MS free readers are Windows only. They are also illegal under antitrust law and the subject of current litigation. If the post was no modded down half the space in this article would have been wasted as hundreds of people needlessly pointed this out.
"Norm" is notoriously difficult to initially define and even harder to maintain over time (programmatically).
No, actually it isn't. You have to consider access to files, system resources, and other applications. All of which is pretty straightforward.
If they get a request every other day from whichever worm has piggybacked itself onto an email attachment or the latest flash game, those prompts are going to be considered pretty normal, and will be ignored.
Wait a second! You think it is too much security to notify a user when a worm is trying to access their personal files? You think accurate information and options are excessive? I disagree. Also, if they ignore them, fine, they will have a pile of open dialogue boxes and the worms will fail to compromise their system. That is a win.
OS X has this problem. The graphical sudo prompt appears reasonably frequently and most users happily type in their password neither pause nor forethought.
OS X rarely asks me for any password unless I'm installing certain software. Sometimes it asks me for too much access for some given software, like Adobe applications, and I need the software so I grant it. This is a failing of OS X. It should let me deny access and give the Adobe apps access to a VM's root files, so that I can still use the software, without compromising my system. They do a mediocre to poor job of reporting what particular access a program wants and fail to provide the needed granularity. That is why the system I propose is better.
Which they will. They will click on the buttons until they find the one that allows them to complete whatever higher-level task it was that triggered the dialog.
Testing seems to indicate otherwise. In any case, both buttons will allow them to continue working and let the program run, if not do everything it wants. Thus, in the worst case this will stop 50% of existing worm propagation at the same time as enabling knowledgeable users to be secure.. That sounds worthwhile to me.
Most software will require *at least* one dialog, during installation. Probably several, as it does things like add itself to a common user desktop, create start menu entries, insert itself into autoload lists, etc.
Autoload should spawn a dialogue, but all the others have no need to unless the developer feels like it (just like now).
When people are receiving and executing malware daily, those prompts will not be rare.
Most people don't execute new malware daily and it is once per program and that is certainly better than malware just running. One dialogue per malware is the ideal here.
Maybe. But the trouble with metaphors is they're only suitable for high-level general explanations, not the low-level fine-grained decisions that need to be made for security purposes.
Not so. Talking to the internet or other programs is easy to understand. reading and writing files is easy to understand. What exactly do you think can't be explained?
No, it won't, because people will happily let it read their address book so they can look at the naked pictures.
First, most users will balk if they realize it is not pictures, but a program. Second, even the most dimwitted user will associate their address book with the people in it with naked pictures and realize that the possibility of their mom getting naked pictures from them is not worth the risk of allowing access. Third, it is easier to educate people that pictures don't need to access anything let alone your address book than it is to educate them as to what a file extension is. Fourth, for those users who don't care at all and want to see naked pictures at any cost, they can still tell it to deny access and the program will still run the same because the OS can hand the program a bunch of dummy addresses.
However, all my examples are of things that could easily be things that should not be allowed by default.
Please give a citation that this was true for all social classes of all Western societies, or even for most. In the peasantry, women continued to work until the last months of pregnancy just like today.
Why would it have to apply to all social classes to be relevant? It was a valid and important concern to the feminist and women's lib movements.
Cite that this is true for all or even most religious groups opposing embryonic stem-cell use?
Again, who has bothered to perform a study of which sects even oppose stem cell research? All that matters is that very vocal elements who oppose stem cell research, also promote the concept of original sin, and women submitting to men. It is a common theme of christianity and is still a very common part of many wedding ceremonies in that religion.
Neither the Roman Catholic Church nor the Orthodox Church...
There is no an "Orthodox" church, but many disparate ones.
...the Church exists to provide an interpretation for Christ's teaching and a doctrine.
Okay, if your particular sect forbids you to do your own interpretation, how is it that they do interpret those teachings and why do they promote something that does so blatantly violate some of the clearer teachings and examples in the new testament?
If you've read modern philosophy, where the question of what exactly a text means is itself very much in question, you'd appreciate the system by which correct interpretation of the Bible has been safeguarded for a couple of thousand years already.
Hahahahahaha! Whew! I hope that was a joke. Someone needs to take a real course in biblical history. Common versions of the bible deviate drastically in meaning from earlier version and the catholic church itself has reversed its own position on every topic imaginable numerous times, from killing to homosexuality. There are even old, catholic and orthodox greek wedding ceremonies specifically for same sex couples. To claim that a religion that has bent rather than broken and conforms itself to the common opinions of the day so readily has not changed their interpretation of the bible is patently ludicrous.
How can it be "un-Christian" if the Church, all the way back to the age of the apostles (read the Didache) has condemned abortion in no uncertain terms? Banning abortion is part of the very definition of Christian life.
Because, while it may be in the bible (which is collected from many religions) it violates the teachings of Christ, you know the guy the religion is named for. Even if abortion is specifically banned by the words of Jesus himself, he also commands that you don't try to tell others what to do and to leave them to decide what is and isn't sin. Ergo, even if it is wrong, it is still unchristian to try to stop others from doing it. Don't try to make decisions for others or judge if what they are doing is right or wrong. Look to your own actions only.
If you connect to a network and the owner of the network tells you your use is not authorized and not to connect again, I think it's pretty safe to assume further connections are unauthorized.
But in this case, the owner did not tell him. In any case, many people may not know which network they are connecting to. If you computer passively looks at the EM emissions in a certain band and someone advertises to them that they have a wireless network, they ask if they can have an IP address and the network responds by handing them one, then they have just completed a transaction that authorizes them. They did not "hack" anything. It also supersedes their being asked not to use it earlier. If a network operator doesn't want random people using their wireless, stop giving IP addresses to random people.
To go back to my previous analogy, if you want someone to stop using your free service you have to communicate that to them and you must remove other communications you are presenting to them that conflict with that. Here's analogy. You walk into a parking lot downtown and someone comes out and tells you this is private property and to get lost. You comply. A week later you come by and there is a sign out front that says, "open house, public welcome." If you go in, you can't be convicted of trespassing, because they put up a sign inviting you in.
He's accessing a system that he KNOWS he is not welcome to access. It doesn't matter whether there is a sign, because he has PERSONALLY been told not to access it.
Except then they advertised the service to him again inviting him to use it. Just because they are too dumb to know that is what their automated system is doing is no excuse.
Rereading the article, he was not only arrested but he is also CHARGED with a specific crime.
Yes, he's charged with "theft of services" a crime which obviously does not apply since it specifically only applies to paid services, not free ones. The law is designed to stop people from running out on haircuts and defrauding coin operated gear. It specifically limits itself to pay services, not free ones. They just wanted to charge him with something while they tried to figure out if he might be guilty of something else.
I'm not familiar with the specific laws that may apply, but I would have no complaint if his activities were illegal.
I would. It is the service provider's responsibility to no advertise and provide services to those they don't want to. This is akin to going in for a free haircut provided by a local charity and they give you the free haircut, before telling you you aren't welcome and calling 911 to get you arrested for theft. If you don't want to provide a free service to someone, don't... but you certainly don't have any right to complain if you give it to them, that they received it.
...some people disagree over whether some bits are actually yours. You say "her own body" as if there is universal agreement over what is and isn't "hers". I can say "I own X" as often as I like, but repeating it doesn't make it so.
What an interesting, but poorly thought out point. So who owns a bunch of cells that could, possibly become a human being some day? Do you own the cells in someone else's body, that you have the right to say what is done with it? Does the group of cells own itself, even though it has no consciousness and cannot conceive of the concept of itself, ownership, or anything else? Does a chair own itself? Should we ban the destruction of chairs, since they should be the ones to choose if they exist or not?
Here's what I propose. You don't know the answer, so you should not make the decision for anyone else. The woman whose body is involved, who will have to pay the medical expenses, risk her own life, and be responsible for feeding and protecting another human being for the next two decades, certainly has more right to make the decision than you do. So stop trying to force others to abide by your beliefs.
What is it with this meme? Is abortion not wholly acceptable among you people? Why not spell it out:
Referring to anyone as "you people" is a good way to make people think you are prejudiced. Maybe some people just want something that will fit on a bumper sticker?
Simply truncating the statement at "choose" is a weaselly way of suggesting that if I'm anti-abortion that I'm anti-choice, or anti-feminist.
They are expressing a complete sentence and everyone understands what they are talking about. If the communication is successful, what is the problem? As for anti-choice, that is exactly what it is, isn't it? You want to choose for someone else whether what they do is right or wrong and if they should be stopped from doing it by a bunch of guys with guns. Otherwise, you'd be minding your own business and not trying to pass laws that tell others what they must do. Finally, for the anti-feminist part, have you read your history books? A lot of women died in childbirth, sometimes with unwanted pregnancies. They were literally strapped onto a bed and kept there for months in the hopes of saving the pregnancy and in the hopes it would be a boy, since the life, decisions, and freedom of the pregnant woman were of little consequence in a male dominated society. Thus, when some people associate the pro-lifer movement with anti-feminism, there is a lot of history to back them up. It does not help that the foremost supporters are christian groups that still talk about "family values" and "women's place in the home" and "obeying their husband's will above there own." It's not exactly a feminist, friendly company with which you have placed yourself. When your allies still talk about how women are born inherently evil, maybe you need to take extra care when standing next to them to not be considered to likely hold anti-feminist beliefs.
I'm not against a woman's right to attend school, pursue a job, get a tattoo, or hack the Linux kernel.
No, but you do believe that you have the right to impose your view of what is right in this instance upon them, superseding their judgement. You assume you know better than they do, and thus you should be able to force them at gunpoint to do what you believe is right. If you believe abortion is wrong, I have no problem with that. If you support the pro-life movement, however, which is trying to make choices for others under the assumption that they are a better judge of right and wrong than an individual woman, well, that is unethical, presumptuous, and very unchristian. Maybe you should read Jesus' teachings about not judging right and wrong and religious matters for others, but letting each decide for themselves.
No, the justification is that he was told he wasn't welcome. You're making the assumption that the police told him to move on on their own intitiative, which I find highly implausible.
It does not matter. Unless the police specifically told him it was a request from the property owner and they can prove the man had a reasonable expectation to believe that was the case, the police have no authority to tell him to leave, merely to enforce his leaving when the property owner asks.
If you're told to leave private property and not come back, you can be arrested next time. I know this for a fact, I've done it countless times while working in Loss Prevention.
This law is different in different jurisdictions. For example, unless you have a clearly defined property, in my jurisdiction, if there are not signs every 50 yards, in legible type at least so many inches tall and in contrasting colors, you cannot be cited for trespass, regardless of if you have been asked to leave before. This makes a lot of sense if you think about it, since otherwise there is no way to tell if you are on that person's property or public land or someone else's land.
As long as this is recorded in some fashion, usually by the officer as part of his incident report, we can have them arrested for trespassing if they ever return.
But if you don't ask them to leave, you cannot have them arrested at a later date for coming back. This case clearly states that the police, not the owner, asked him to leave in the first incident.
The good news: long term, I think IPv6 is desirable. Thus, I like seeing a large organization pave the way. Let them get the kinks out. Let them find out what all goes wrong. Let them blaze the trail so we can ride on their coattails. Let them incur the big expense.
Several others have already stepped up to the plate and have implemented IPv6. Here are some notes asked when Comcast did their presentation at NANOG about how their IPv6 migration of their cable modem pools worked.
The reason that I find it significant that the police had previously asked him to stop (on behalf of the network owners) is that it indicates that he was knowingly using a network without authorization. That strikes me as substantially different from "innocently" using an open access point. IANAL, but I do believe there are laws prohibiting unauthorized network access in many jurisdictions.
Ahh, but what is the definition of "unauthorized?" In this case the wireless was broadcasting and advertising its free wireless. This is very analogous to advertising free ice cream and then complaining trying to get someone arrested when they take some without signing up for a time share. It is not going to fly, regardless of what the time share people said after the fact. If they don't want to provide free ice cream, they are obligated to take down the sign if they want the police to arrest anyone for stealing.
The police here arrested him at the request of the owners of that network (and possibly the parking lot he was loitering in, I don't know).
True, but without putting up "No Trespassing" signs in advance, they had no legal justification for that arrest.
In your hypothetical trespass example, if the owner of the private property you wander on to requests that you leave and you refuse, the police DO have the right to arrest you when he calls them.
That is not what happened though. The police asked him to leave (without saying they were acting on behalf of the property owner) and he complied. Later, they saw him there again and arrested him at the request of the property owner, with no legal justification. Had they asked him to leave the second time and he refused, they could arrest him. Had the property put up "No Trespassing" signs, they could arrest him. Barring either of those, the police are exceeding their authority and are likely to be on the losing end of a lawsuit.
That is closer to what happened here, although it's dangerous to use analogies between physical actions and electronic ones.
To some degree this is true, but existing advertising and property laws will likely be cited as precedent when this goes to court.
Overall, he is engaging in possibly illegal behavior that is clearly against the wishes of the network owners, possibly combined with trespassing. An arrest in this case does not seem unreasonable to me.
Sitting in a public parking lot for a business, without any signs and without being asked by the owners to leave, is not trespass. Accessing a freely offered network is almost certainly not unauthorized access. It does seem unreasonable to me. The police ignore 90% of the crimes they see committed but decide to go after one guy who is doing something they think *might* be against the law, although they aren't sure which one. It sounds like unlawful harassment to me.
Plus, let's not lose sight of courtesy. Even if the guy is 100% within the law in using the access point, he has been asked by the owners not to. If this happened to me, I would stop. Not because of fear that I might be charged with a crime, but because it's just plain rude to freeload off of someone's resource.
Sure he was discourteous. So are a lot of people. That does not mean he was breaking the law, and when the police act like dictators, arresting people first and then trying to figure out something with which to charge them, I think the greater wrong is being done by them, not the guy using free wireless.
The government will never be on its own, there are too many corporations sucking at its teat who will need to step into line.
Agreed. Who writes this stuff? ISPs already have management networks running IPv6 and big players like Comcast ran out of unique IPv4, for their cable modem pools and have completed their migration to IPv6. China is on the boat and most network gear deals with both just fine. How exactly is the US government going to be on its own here?
According to the article, this guy had previously been asked by the police to move along and stop using their wireless network... Rather, he was continuing to use a network that he had been instructed at least once he was not welcome to use. Even if you hold that a network's being open is generally reasonable permission to use it, this guy knew he did not have permission.
I don't think this has any bearing. You see, the police enforce the law, they don't make them or interpret them. The police often order/request people to do things, which often they have authority to do. For example, you walk into the woods from a park and the police stop and tell you to get out of there, it is private property and you are trespassing. They have no legal right to tell you to leave. If there are no signs posted and you come back and they catch you again, you still aren't guilty of anything, despite the fact that you knew it was private property. The fact that they told you you weren't welcome, makes no difference.
As to the central issue, I have talked to a lawyer about it. He researched the issue after someone told him to stop using the open WAN outside a coffee shop. His professional opinion is it will be ruled legal, based upon property law precedents, but you might want to wait till it makes it through the courts to save yourself a hassle.
I have. Allow me, however, to clarify my previous statement, which you have removed from its context. I've yet to see a definition of human life, that applies to stem cells or fetuses and that places value upon them for logical and ethical reasons instead of religious ones.
If you've read Hume, you'd know there's no logical support for anything...
I have read Hume, but your statement is empty rhetoric. He does not invalidate logic, rather he discusses the context for it.
...your hope the government could base ethical decisions on the certain and fixed set of criteria you desire is ridiculous.
Who said anything about a fixed set? Rather, I said based upon ethical principals that are commonly agreed upon, and thus can be logically applied to particulars, as opposed to a series of dogmatic rules with no consistent basis, other than particular version of a conflicting collection of religious stories and essays. It is the differnce between laws bounded by the Bill of Rights and laws bounded by the Qua-ran.
However, there is reasonable support for the existence of the soul, and a trip from Plato through Plotinus would do you good.
If you bothered to study and understand the works of some of the people whose names you cite, you'd have something more to add to this discussion other than non-specific assertions. Providing, for example, your logical and evidentiary support for the existence of a soul would be constructive. All of those you cite were familiar with the rhetorical method (except perhaps Plotinus from whom I have read little) ) and would likely be appalled by your casual lack of arguments. Maybe you're the one who should give the classic rhetoricians and philosophers another pass.
Many moral codes require that one do one's utmost to save innocent human life. One is not permitted to simply look over the taking of human life, as you suggest when you say that "they can just refuse treatment". Now, legislative power is a means to protect life in this case, therefore it is entirely sensible that it be used for such a purpose.
This is incorrect, because it violates ethics. For example, suppose I have a religious belief that people born on Halloween are evil and those babies need to be immediately killed. (Note, this was a religious practice in some places.) If I can get enough people to agree with me, does that mean I am justified in trying to pass laws to enforce this practice? The answer is "no." The reason the answer is no, is because I'm trying to enforce a moral belief, not an ethical belief. There is no common code of ethics that makes this common belief, only a religious one, which the government has no business enforcing. It is unethical for one group to enforce their religious beliefs upon others and in fact it is forbidden by the teaching of Jesus. That means those claiming to follow those beliefs and trying to enforce them upon others are not only trying to unethically misuse the government, but are also violating their stated moral codes. This means they are adhering to only some of their moral codes, not all and it becomes an excuse for action, rather than a reason.
It does exist, and those who hold it have certain responsibilities toward it.
Yes, but when those responsibilities are in conflict with other, ethical agreements, and their own stated moral code, they lose all credibility as trying to do anything other than bully others to demonstrate their ability to do so.
Surely in order to obtain a university degree you did the obligatory Ethics course.
Surely someone who took such a course understands the distinction between morals and ethics.
Do you really believe "The government has no business legislating [moral codes]"?
I firmly believe this. The government should be about enforcing agreed upon ethics that result in a conflict between individuals, not about morals.
Does that mean that you won't care if someone...
There is a difference between "caring" and thinking it is the government's job.
...kidnaps your children,
Common ethics says children need to be protected until they mature. If one individual tries to violate that ethical rule and in so doing violates the agreed upon ethical rights of others, then it is the government's responsibility to arbitrate the dispute.
hacks into your back accounts and empties them out, steals your car, and backs a moving van up to your home and empties it?
Common ethical rules say a person can make, trade for, and own possessions and taking those without permission violates that right. Again this is an ethical rule, not a moral one and suitable for government intervention.
Some people believe that the government's job is to help protect its people--all its people, including the unborn.
The problem here, is the reasoning behind classifying something as a person. If I claim toasters are people and need to be protected from being dismantled, I need to have a logical argument for why a toaster fits the definition of being a person, within that ethical framework. If my justification for this is, "god told me so" it becomes a religious/moral issue, rather than an ethical one. I agree it is the government's place to intervene and protect the life of all people, but only according to logical and ethical definitions of what a person is, not religious ones.
Abortion and creating embryos (human lives) for the purpose of using their parts are morally wrong and the government would be remiss in not prohibiting them.
Morally wrong according to religious rules or not, the government must look to ethics. I've yet to see a definition of human life that places value upon it for logical and ethical reasons instead of religious ones. Arguing that a bundle of cells has an "invisible, undetectable soul" which needs to be protected is religion, not ethics. There is no logical or evidentiary support for it. It is demonstrable that they do not have brains or conscious thought or any other criteria that make them more worthy of protection than sperm or skin cells, which do not enjoy protection under ethical guidelines.
If you feel each stem cell or embryo has a soul and your god has doomed most of them to a natural death, but it is your religious duty to keep as many alive as possible, I have no problem with that. But the government has no more justification for trying to enforce that religious belief than it does for my religious prohibition on the disassembly of toasters. If you have a religious belief, feel free to adhere to it and even encourage others to via persuasion. Do not, however, think that you are justified in forcing others to comply with your religious beliefs. In fact, the teachings of Jesus implicitly forbid trying to enforce your interpretation of right and wrong on others, while he is somewhat less forthcoming on the topic of stem cell research.
If you are going to prompt the user for every potentially malicious action, then you are again proposing the "dialog box storm" method.
Once, per program, per action that is outside of the norm. For example, how often will a user be alerted when a program wants to read their e-mail address book, or IM buddy list (excluding the app that made them)? About once per worm, with the possible false positive if a user installs a new IM client or e-mail application, in which case they will find such a request pretty normal.
Dialog boxes warning about security don't work. They don't work because, primarily, most people are too lazy to even bother reading them, and just click whichever buttons makes them disappear and get the desired result.
Did you read the examples I presented? Which button on those do you click to "make it go away?" People will have to read them or pick randomly. Since they should only show up in rare instances, so users will not be used to seeing them. The rarity will make them seem more important and more likely to be read.
The other big reason they don't work is because most people don't have sufficient knowledge to make an educated decision, and typically acquiring a sufficient level of knowledge is a non-trivial task most of them have zero interest in.
Most users can read English and understand the basic metaphors employed by the computer. The dialogue boxes can easily provide them with the necessary information, within that metaphor, as well as a link to more advanced configuration options for those who do have the knowledge and would like to be able to employ it. Any user can understand, "the program 'naked_pictures' would like to read your e-mail address book. (Stop it from reading the e-mail addresses)(Let it read them once)(Always let it read the e-mail address book)(Advanced Options)." That dialogue box, by itself, would stop most e-mail worms today and make it a difficult instead of trivial vector.
Making dialog boxes easier to read, will not make people less lazy.
Are you being intentionally obtuse? Apply easy to lazy and you get more things done.
Unlikely. Even the default "restricted" user has more than enough privileges to do the things 99% of malware wants to do. So existing systems need to be locked down even tighter before they can start being "secure". This is certainly going to result in more "security warnings", not less.
Properly written software should result in somewhere between zero and four warnings, when it is first installed and run. Most software should have zero. Assuming you're applying this on top of Windows, take a look at the mess that is Vista beta. It will certainly be fewer dialogue boxes. Also, IE, outlook, and a dozen other programs already show warnings when you download any executable, regardless of it is violating a sandbox or not. These can be eliminated, along with dozens of other useless warnings that don't provide real options.
The only reason most malware breaks today outside of non-Admin accounts is because it's as badly written as most other Windows software.
Because MS has not provided incentive for developers to make their software behave. Their dev tools don't make it work by default and critical apps MS develops don't even work properly. As such, non-admin accounts are unusable and thus many developers don't bother to develop for it. Provide a system like this and developers certainly will make better software so that users are not annoyed.
Yes, they have (well, I'll agree the "control" aspect could be better, but it's far from nonexistant).
If I sent you an arbitrary binary, would you feel confident that you could run it in Windows without my compromising your machine. Would you be able to do it every week, without it cutting into your productivity on that machine?
Yet people who would never even consider the actions necessary to fall victim to a scam in the "real world" regularly do so when
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The thing that the military adds to R&D that academia lacks is urgency.
This has been the case in a number of instances, but it is not the norm. What the military provides is a way to bypass both ethics and reasonable accountability and risk assessment. By operating in secret they manage to hide their actions from public outcry. Sometimes (rarely I hope) this means unethical experimentation on people. More often it means spending 100 billion dollars over the course of 20 years to create technologies only marginally better than what exist in the private sector and at prices that businesses accountable for their spending would find ludicrous. Sometimes, very rarely, these projects pay off by producing real advances. Usually, however, they are an enormous waste of taxpayer dollars. If the public had visibility into the waste the military would be stopped by public outcry. In the public sector, the investors stop the waste. The risk versus reward is terrible for most of these projects. The ability to continue with thousands of them anyway is what the military brings.
Academia can spend generations arguing the same theories to death.
But generally that costs very little. In truth, mostly it is academia who makes the real breakthroughs. Really, I'm going to have to disagree with you here.
That extension is great, but if you can do it browser independent as with AJAX, it might be better for users I think.
I strongly disagree. This type of functionality is bounded more by the user than the application. As such, the proper place for it is as a plug-in to the OS. For example, a lot of people would never want to translate anything ever. They can just not enable a translation plug-in. Others will want to translate a lot, and if they do so in their browser, they may well need to in their PDF reader, IRC/Chat client, e-mail, and word processor.
Rather than adding all these features to all these applications, why not integrate them as services a user can install and enable either globally or for some sites or applications. Otherwise, you'll end up with different sites translating things differently, with some working better and some more poorly. With a OS plug-in, you can install the best one (or more) for you. Further, there is a whole range of these functions, most of which are only useful for a specific segment of users. Maybe I never visit foreign sites and don't want translation taking up space in my menu, but I am a huge encryption enthusiast and want to be able to rapidly apply encryption to random text, in various applications. Or maybe I can't stand reading due to my poor vision and just want my computer to speak given text aloud all the time. Maybe want to rapidly strip line endings to reformat messed up text. By providing this type of functionality as OS level plug-ins, it lets each user install and enable just the features they want, not those the Website operator thinks they want. After all, users generally know better than developers what tasks they are doing.
Just because you're accessing it in a web browser does not make it a 'web site'.
Umm, yes, it does. It is a page of markup and the very first line they send to my Web browser contains the Web standard they are employing.
If I am using a web-based AJAX email client like OWA or RoundCube mail I not only *expect* the right click menu to behave like a native client ( With options like copy message, move message, flag, delete, etc), I *demand* it.
Not me. If I'm using a Web browser, I demand it treat everything like the content it is. I don't want my controls of my software to be hijacked, or for it attempt to do so. I can already customize my right-click menu, by application and by Web site if I so desire. If a Web site wants to recommend additional functions for that site, that is fine, but things like a dictionary lookup are in no way something only my Web browser needs to access. I use the same dictionary in dozens of programs and I don't want to switch to their, half-assed, poorly configured one, just for their site. I also don't want to suddenly lose the other functionality of my contextual menu, like viewing the page's source, or blocking a particular ad server. No thanks.
It pretty much excludes KHTML/Konqueror from ever running our application.
Then you need to hire a competent UI designer. A contextual menu should never, and I mean never, ever contain functionality that cannot be accessed from another part of the program. A significant number of users don't know how to right click or will not think to try it to find some functionality. It is effectively hiding that function. Some users don't even have a right click button on their mouse and many users use some sort of alternative interface. Whether they are blind, have a palsy, are paralyzed, are working on a touch pad or stylus, or are using some other interface you've never dreamed of, the right-click menu is inconvenient or unavailable to a lot of users. If a user needs it to run your application you just violated a very basic UI design rule that is in pretty much any book you can pick up on the subject. Right-click menus should only be used as a shortcut for functionality that is also present elsewhere.
Seriously, fire your UI guy and get a competent one.
It's not though. It must be clear, even to Microsoft, that the world needs open and standard formats.
I think they know the world wants them, but they also know that it is in their best interests to stop them on most fronts.
One day Microsoft will have to compete on merit instead of format lockin, but until then, every hour of delay they can engineer is a million dollar win for them.
Sure, in a few markets, but not in most. Governments are not enforcing antitrust laws against them, partially due to campaign contributions that amount to legalized bribes. Supposing enough momentum builds behind an open document format and MS is forced into compliance, they are in the process of closing other formats to compensate. They are bundling a closed replacement for PDF, making HTML more and more proprietary with Active X components, bundling closed replacements for mpeg audio and video, bundling proprietary replacements for gifs and jpegs, bundling proprietary replacements for anti-virus signatures, etc., etc. Unless the root antitrust violations that allow them to foist these inferior solutions upon their customers are addressed, I don't think one format opening while a dozen more close will help matters.
Yeah, I give food to homeless all the time. druggies and alchies, they eat it. There are programs in nyc to distribute food to the homeless, by going out into the streets and subways... I've never seen anyone turn down food.
While I agree with most of your sentiments, I think it is important that people understand this particular assertion does not hold true everywhere. I've seen attempts to hand out sandwiches to the poor that were greeted much, much more poorly. Only about 1 in 5 were interested in the food. Half would take it, then ask for money for some other reason and discard the food when none was provided. A number reacted violently, either threatening physical attacks or verbally attacking those giving out food. I personally witnessed this once and was told of the same response during several other attempts in the area.
When there are good shelters and food sources around, most of those begging for money for food are simply trying to run a scam and a significant number are not even homeless (according to homeless people at one of the local shelters). Many of those who are homeless, prefer it that way and do just fine squatting in an abandoned house and raiding dumpsters. They will beg, but usually it is for booze or drug money.
I guess what I'm saying is, you probably are doing a lot more good donating to a shelter than you are giving away food or money and if you try the former, make sure you are either in large enough numbers or have the ability to defend yourself.
Likewise, when people say "give a bit of spare change", this is often the worst advice that can be given as much of that money will go directly into feeding their addiction. It is far better to offer to buy them a coffee, or recommend them to a shelter.
Agreed. Donate the money to a shelter if you want it to help them get into a better situation for the long term. Now I have given money to homeless, but only when they are honest. I know the chances are anything I give them will be going to booze or drugs, so if someone asks for money for booze, I'm willing to share, now and again. Mostly though, there are better ways to help out.
Of course, I live in Canada, so it may very well be different in the United States of America.
For the most part things in the US are the same. The one real difference is health care. Half of all homeless people in the US are there because they got sick, couldn't go to work, lost their job, and then their home. Most personal bankruptcies happen for the same reason, but with someone with enough savvy or good advice to use the system to cut their losses and try again. Among the homeless, a lot of them have serious medical issues and no one will hire them because it will cost their insurance program too much. Drugs are also significantly more expensive here, which exacerbates the problem.
I'm sure a lot of us find this kind of crap annoying. A website developer just not have enough information to determine what my most common tasks are and thus properly define a right-click menu for me. I don't want them to have that information. My right-click menu already has a dictionary in it, as well as a handful of other functions. Now this site pops up a second context menu on the page that takes much, much longer to load and has fewer of the functions I want.
To me this says, "screw you" to users of decent browsers in favor of working around IE + Windows failure to provide a good way to integrate this functionality in the proper location.
We know from the article that the police, called by the owner, specifically told him that he was not welcome to use it. That's more than sufficient notice for a reasonable person. If that is somehow not sufficient, then I'd argue that he'll be acquitted on an unfortunate legal technicality, not some moral victory.
The police telling you is only equivalent to the owner telling you if they tell you they are acting on his behalf and it can be shown beyond a reasonable doubt that person charged believed the police were acting on his behalf instead of their own. The police often tell people to do things without having any right to do so.
Furthermore, it's very possible and plausible that he was first asked by the owners directly to stop and he refused to comply.
This is irrelevant if they later advertised and willingly provided him with the service.
In that case, I'd really hope they could ask the police for assistance.
Technically that is not their job at all. They have no obligation to protect you or even enforce the law if you are attacked. They will probably be willing to come with you and keep you safe, but how is the person being given orders to know it is coming from you, if the police do so on your behalf unofficially with no documentation?
You are making a huge assumption that a broadcast ID and no encryption is the same as an offer of service.
It is an offer of service. The fact that it was an automated exchange does not matter any more than if you set up a tape recorder to play advertisements of your service. You set it up, it is your responsibility to stop inviting people if you don't want them to come.
You really have no basis to assume that you're welcome to connect to a network.
If you broadcast a message to me, either in radio waves or audio waves, that specifically offers a service, in english, french, or binary, that is a specific offer.
It's costing someone something to operate, so there's a pretty strong argument that you should assume that you're not authorized to connect to any network unless specifically advised otherwise.
There is no logical or legal justification for that assumption. Many free things cost someone money. How does that imply it is not free when it is offered without any request for money. If someone has a signing the window that says, "free haircuts" with people inside talking about their free haircuts and you show up and they give you a haircut, it is not legal to arrest them for stealing that haircut because you did not wear plaid pants or follow any other condition they did not specify before they gave you the haircut.
Even so, I'd personally say that an initial connection could be construed as "innocent" but once you've been asked not to connect, it becomes malicious.
Sorry, it is the wireless network operator's job to collect any payment before they provide the service. If they tell someone to leave, but then offer the service again to that person, whether it is because they don't recognize them, they changed their mind, or any other reason, that person is legally in the clear.
This is simply not true. The public is generally welcome to enter a retail store. However, it's well-established (and confirmed by others in this thread) that these places routinely ban problem "customers" such as shoplifters or strongly suspected shoplifters.
Not if they communicate with you again and then invite you in. In this case they did not invite him in, but they did specifically offer the service to him.
The price of the services is being a customer. That's a small fee rolled in to the purchase price of each item, but it's not zero.
This has to be stipulated before providing the service, not after to have any legal teeth. It was not.
Anyway, this guy is clearly trying to use a service not intended for his use after being warned at least once and probably multiple times that he was not we
The parent comment is a factual statement rebutting a point in the summary of the story. Why it is modded -1 Troll is peculiar.
Probably because it blatantly ignores common knowledge, and at the same time speaks in a derogatory manner. I think the moderator is probably correct that it is willfully ignoring in the hopes of trolling, rather than actually being poorly informed and mistaken.
The MS free readers are Windows only. They are also illegal under antitrust law and the subject of current litigation. If the post was no modded down half the space in this article would have been wasted as hundreds of people needlessly pointed this out.
"Norm" is notoriously difficult to initially define and even harder to maintain over time (programmatically).
No, actually it isn't. You have to consider access to files, system resources, and other applications. All of which is pretty straightforward.
If they get a request every other day from whichever worm has piggybacked itself onto an email attachment or the latest flash game, those prompts are going to be considered pretty normal, and will be ignored.
Wait a second! You think it is too much security to notify a user when a worm is trying to access their personal files? You think accurate information and options are excessive? I disagree. Also, if they ignore them, fine, they will have a pile of open dialogue boxes and the worms will fail to compromise their system. That is a win.
OS X has this problem. The graphical sudo prompt appears reasonably frequently and most users happily type in their password neither pause nor forethought.
OS X rarely asks me for any password unless I'm installing certain software. Sometimes it asks me for too much access for some given software, like Adobe applications, and I need the software so I grant it. This is a failing of OS X. It should let me deny access and give the Adobe apps access to a VM's root files, so that I can still use the software, without compromising my system. They do a mediocre to poor job of reporting what particular access a program wants and fail to provide the needed granularity. That is why the system I propose is better.
Which they will. They will click on the buttons until they find the one that allows them to complete whatever higher-level task it was that triggered the dialog.
Testing seems to indicate otherwise. In any case, both buttons will allow them to continue working and let the program run, if not do everything it wants. Thus, in the worst case this will stop 50% of existing worm propagation at the same time as enabling knowledgeable users to be secure.. That sounds worthwhile to me.
Most software will require *at least* one dialog, during installation. Probably several, as it does things like add itself to a common user desktop, create start menu entries, insert itself into autoload lists, etc.
Autoload should spawn a dialogue, but all the others have no need to unless the developer feels like it (just like now).
When people are receiving and executing malware daily, those prompts will not be rare.
Most people don't execute new malware daily and it is once per program and that is certainly better than malware just running. One dialogue per malware is the ideal here.
Maybe. But the trouble with metaphors is they're only suitable for high-level general explanations, not the low-level fine-grained decisions that need to be made for security purposes.
Not so. Talking to the internet or other programs is easy to understand. reading and writing files is easy to understand. What exactly do you think can't be explained?
No, it won't, because people will happily let it read their address book so they can look at the naked pictures.
First, most users will balk if they realize it is not pictures, but a program. Second, even the most dimwitted user will associate their address book with the people in it with naked pictures and realize that the possibility of their mom getting naked pictures from them is not worth the risk of allowing access. Third, it is easier to educate people that pictures don't need to access anything let alone your address book than it is to educate them as to what a file extension is. Fourth, for those users who don't care at all and want to see naked pictures at any cost, they can still tell it to deny access and the program will still run the same because the OS can hand the program a bunch of dummy addresses.
However, all my examples are of things that could easily be things that should not be allowed by default.
I disagree and I pr
Please give a citation that this was true for all social classes of all Western societies, or even for most. In the peasantry, women continued to work until the last months of pregnancy just like today.
Why would it have to apply to all social classes to be relevant? It was a valid and important concern to the feminist and women's lib movements.
Cite that this is true for all or even most religious groups opposing embryonic stem-cell use?
Again, who has bothered to perform a study of which sects even oppose stem cell research? All that matters is that very vocal elements who oppose stem cell research, also promote the concept of original sin, and women submitting to men. It is a common theme of christianity and is still a very common part of many wedding ceremonies in that religion.
Neither the Roman Catholic Church nor the Orthodox Church...
There is no an "Orthodox" church, but many disparate ones.
Okay, if your particular sect forbids you to do your own interpretation, how is it that they do interpret those teachings and why do they promote something that does so blatantly violate some of the clearer teachings and examples in the new testament?
If you've read modern philosophy, where the question of what exactly a text means is itself very much in question, you'd appreciate the system by which correct interpretation of the Bible has been safeguarded for a couple of thousand years already.
Hahahahahaha! Whew! I hope that was a joke. Someone needs to take a real course in biblical history. Common versions of the bible deviate drastically in meaning from earlier version and the catholic church itself has reversed its own position on every topic imaginable numerous times, from killing to homosexuality. There are even old, catholic and orthodox greek wedding ceremonies specifically for same sex couples. To claim that a religion that has bent rather than broken and conforms itself to the common opinions of the day so readily has not changed their interpretation of the bible is patently ludicrous.
How can it be "un-Christian" if the Church, all the way back to the age of the apostles (read the Didache) has condemned abortion in no uncertain terms? Banning abortion is part of the very definition of Christian life.
Because, while it may be in the bible (which is collected from many religions) it violates the teachings of Christ, you know the guy the religion is named for. Even if abortion is specifically banned by the words of Jesus himself, he also commands that you don't try to tell others what to do and to leave them to decide what is and isn't sin. Ergo, even if it is wrong, it is still unchristian to try to stop others from doing it. Don't try to make decisions for others or judge if what they are doing is right or wrong. Look to your own actions only.
I'm not forcing anyone to do anything. Trying learning to read.
Are you, or are you not trying to pass a law to restrict, using armed police, what people can and can't do?
We, as a society, don't grant ownership to chairs for all sorts of reasons, many of which are completely self-evident.
Yes, reasons that apply equally to stem cells.
Trying learning to think.
Wow, such a brilliant rebuttal deserves... a golf clap. *clap* *clap*
If you connect to a network and the owner of the network tells you your use is not authorized and not to connect again, I think it's pretty safe to assume further connections are unauthorized.
But in this case, the owner did not tell him. In any case, many people may not know which network they are connecting to. If you computer passively looks at the EM emissions in a certain band and someone advertises to them that they have a wireless network, they ask if they can have an IP address and the network responds by handing them one, then they have just completed a transaction that authorizes them. They did not "hack" anything. It also supersedes their being asked not to use it earlier. If a network operator doesn't want random people using their wireless, stop giving IP addresses to random people.
To go back to my previous analogy, if you want someone to stop using your free service you have to communicate that to them and you must remove other communications you are presenting to them that conflict with that. Here's analogy. You walk into a parking lot downtown and someone comes out and tells you this is private property and to get lost. You comply. A week later you come by and there is a sign out front that says, "open house, public welcome." If you go in, you can't be convicted of trespassing, because they put up a sign inviting you in.
He's accessing a system that he KNOWS he is not welcome to access. It doesn't matter whether there is a sign, because he has PERSONALLY been told not to access it.
Except then they advertised the service to him again inviting him to use it. Just because they are too dumb to know that is what their automated system is doing is no excuse.
Rereading the article, he was not only arrested but he is also CHARGED with a specific crime.
Yes, he's charged with "theft of services" a crime which obviously does not apply since it specifically only applies to paid services, not free ones. The law is designed to stop people from running out on haircuts and defrauding coin operated gear. It specifically limits itself to pay services, not free ones. They just wanted to charge him with something while they tried to figure out if he might be guilty of something else.
I'm not familiar with the specific laws that may apply, but I would have no complaint if his activities were illegal.
I would. It is the service provider's responsibility to no advertise and provide services to those they don't want to. This is akin to going in for a free haircut provided by a local charity and they give you the free haircut, before telling you you aren't welcome and calling 911 to get you arrested for theft. If you don't want to provide a free service to someone, don't... but you certainly don't have any right to complain if you give it to them, that they received it.
No. But they will probably link to your publishing of it.
What an interesting, but poorly thought out point. So who owns a bunch of cells that could, possibly become a human being some day? Do you own the cells in someone else's body, that you have the right to say what is done with it? Does the group of cells own itself, even though it has no consciousness and cannot conceive of the concept of itself, ownership, or anything else? Does a chair own itself? Should we ban the destruction of chairs, since they should be the ones to choose if they exist or not?
Here's what I propose. You don't know the answer, so you should not make the decision for anyone else. The woman whose body is involved, who will have to pay the medical expenses, risk her own life, and be responsible for feeding and protecting another human being for the next two decades, certainly has more right to make the decision than you do. So stop trying to force others to abide by your beliefs.
What is it with this meme? Is abortion not wholly acceptable among you people? Why not spell it out:
Referring to anyone as "you people" is a good way to make people think you are prejudiced. Maybe some people just want something that will fit on a bumper sticker?
Simply truncating the statement at "choose" is a weaselly way of suggesting that if I'm anti-abortion that I'm anti-choice, or anti-feminist.
They are expressing a complete sentence and everyone understands what they are talking about. If the communication is successful, what is the problem? As for anti-choice, that is exactly what it is, isn't it? You want to choose for someone else whether what they do is right or wrong and if they should be stopped from doing it by a bunch of guys with guns. Otherwise, you'd be minding your own business and not trying to pass laws that tell others what they must do. Finally, for the anti-feminist part, have you read your history books? A lot of women died in childbirth, sometimes with unwanted pregnancies. They were literally strapped onto a bed and kept there for months in the hopes of saving the pregnancy and in the hopes it would be a boy, since the life, decisions, and freedom of the pregnant woman were of little consequence in a male dominated society. Thus, when some people associate the pro-lifer movement with anti-feminism, there is a lot of history to back them up. It does not help that the foremost supporters are christian groups that still talk about "family values" and "women's place in the home" and "obeying their husband's will above there own." It's not exactly a feminist, friendly company with which you have placed yourself. When your allies still talk about how women are born inherently evil, maybe you need to take extra care when standing next to them to not be considered to likely hold anti-feminist beliefs.
I'm not against a woman's right to attend school, pursue a job, get a tattoo, or hack the Linux kernel.
No, but you do believe that you have the right to impose your view of what is right in this instance upon them, superseding their judgement. You assume you know better than they do, and thus you should be able to force them at gunpoint to do what you believe is right. If you believe abortion is wrong, I have no problem with that. If you support the pro-life movement, however, which is trying to make choices for others under the assumption that they are a better judge of right and wrong than an individual woman, well, that is unethical, presumptuous, and very unchristian. Maybe you should read Jesus' teachings about not judging right and wrong and religious matters for others, but letting each decide for themselves.
No, the justification is that he was told he wasn't welcome. You're making the assumption that the police told him to move on on their own intitiative, which I find highly implausible.
It does not matter. Unless the police specifically told him it was a request from the property owner and they can prove the man had a reasonable expectation to believe that was the case, the police have no authority to tell him to leave, merely to enforce his leaving when the property owner asks.
If you're told to leave private property and not come back, you can be arrested next time. I know this for a fact, I've done it countless times while working in Loss Prevention.
This law is different in different jurisdictions. For example, unless you have a clearly defined property, in my jurisdiction, if there are not signs every 50 yards, in legible type at least so many inches tall and in contrasting colors, you cannot be cited for trespass, regardless of if you have been asked to leave before. This makes a lot of sense if you think about it, since otherwise there is no way to tell if you are on that person's property or public land or someone else's land.
As long as this is recorded in some fashion, usually by the officer as part of his incident report, we can have them arrested for trespassing if they ever return.
But if you don't ask them to leave, you cannot have them arrested at a later date for coming back. This case clearly states that the police, not the owner, asked him to leave in the first incident.
The good news: long term, I think IPv6 is desirable. Thus, I like seeing a large organization pave the way. Let them get the kinks out. Let them find out what all goes wrong. Let them blaze the trail so we can ride on their coattails. Let them incur the big expense.
Several others have already stepped up to the plate and have implemented IPv6. Here are some notes asked when Comcast did their presentation at NANOG about how their IPv6 migration of their cable modem pools worked.
The reason that I find it significant that the police had previously asked him to stop (on behalf of the network owners) is that it indicates that he was knowingly using a network without authorization. That strikes me as substantially different from "innocently" using an open access point. IANAL, but I do believe there are laws prohibiting unauthorized network access in many jurisdictions.
Ahh, but what is the definition of "unauthorized?" In this case the wireless was broadcasting and advertising its free wireless. This is very analogous to advertising free ice cream and then complaining trying to get someone arrested when they take some without signing up for a time share. It is not going to fly, regardless of what the time share people said after the fact. If they don't want to provide free ice cream, they are obligated to take down the sign if they want the police to arrest anyone for stealing.
The police here arrested him at the request of the owners of that network (and possibly the parking lot he was loitering in, I don't know).
True, but without putting up "No Trespassing" signs in advance, they had no legal justification for that arrest.
In your hypothetical trespass example, if the owner of the private property you wander on to requests that you leave and you refuse, the police DO have the right to arrest you when he calls them.
That is not what happened though. The police asked him to leave (without saying they were acting on behalf of the property owner) and he complied. Later, they saw him there again and arrested him at the request of the property owner, with no legal justification. Had they asked him to leave the second time and he refused, they could arrest him. Had the property put up "No Trespassing" signs, they could arrest him. Barring either of those, the police are exceeding their authority and are likely to be on the losing end of a lawsuit.
That is closer to what happened here, although it's dangerous to use analogies between physical actions and electronic ones.
To some degree this is true, but existing advertising and property laws will likely be cited as precedent when this goes to court.
Overall, he is engaging in possibly illegal behavior that is clearly against the wishes of the network owners, possibly combined with trespassing. An arrest in this case does not seem unreasonable to me.
Sitting in a public parking lot for a business, without any signs and without being asked by the owners to leave, is not trespass. Accessing a freely offered network is almost certainly not unauthorized access. It does seem unreasonable to me. The police ignore 90% of the crimes they see committed but decide to go after one guy who is doing something they think *might* be against the law, although they aren't sure which one. It sounds like unlawful harassment to me.
Plus, let's not lose sight of courtesy. Even if the guy is 100% within the law in using the access point, he has been asked by the owners not to. If this happened to me, I would stop. Not because of fear that I might be charged with a crime, but because it's just plain rude to freeload off of someone's resource.
Sure he was discourteous. So are a lot of people. That does not mean he was breaking the law, and when the police act like dictators, arresting people first and then trying to figure out something with which to charge them, I think the greater wrong is being done by them, not the guy using free wireless.
The government will never be on its own, there are too many corporations sucking at its teat who will need to step into line.
Agreed. Who writes this stuff? ISPs already have management networks running IPv6 and big players like Comcast ran out of unique IPv4, for their cable modem pools and have completed their migration to IPv6. China is on the boat and most network gear deals with both just fine. How exactly is the US government going to be on its own here?
According to the article, this guy had previously been asked by the police to move along and stop using their wireless network... Rather, he was continuing to use a network that he had been instructed at least once he was not welcome to use. Even if you hold that a network's being open is generally reasonable permission to use it, this guy knew he did not have permission.
I don't think this has any bearing. You see, the police enforce the law, they don't make them or interpret them. The police often order/request people to do things, which often they have authority to do. For example, you walk into the woods from a park and the police stop and tell you to get out of there, it is private property and you are trespassing. They have no legal right to tell you to leave. If there are no signs posted and you come back and they catch you again, you still aren't guilty of anything, despite the fact that you knew it was private property. The fact that they told you you weren't welcome, makes no difference.
As to the central issue, I have talked to a lawyer about it. He researched the issue after someone told him to stop using the open WAN outside a coffee shop. His professional opinion is it will be ruled legal, based upon property law precedents, but you might want to wait till it makes it through the courts to save yourself a hassle.
Read Aristotle
I have. Allow me, however, to clarify my previous statement, which you have removed from its context. I've yet to see a definition of human life, that applies to stem cells or fetuses and that places value upon them for logical and ethical reasons instead of religious ones.
If you've read Hume, you'd know there's no logical support for anything...
I have read Hume, but your statement is empty rhetoric. He does not invalidate logic, rather he discusses the context for it.
Who said anything about a fixed set? Rather, I said based upon ethical principals that are commonly agreed upon, and thus can be logically applied to particulars, as opposed to a series of dogmatic rules with no consistent basis, other than particular version of a conflicting collection of religious stories and essays. It is the differnce between laws bounded by the Bill of Rights and laws bounded by the Qua-ran.
However, there is reasonable support for the existence of the soul, and a trip from Plato through Plotinus would do you good.
If you bothered to study and understand the works of some of the people whose names you cite, you'd have something more to add to this discussion other than non-specific assertions. Providing, for example, your logical and evidentiary support for the existence of a soul would be constructive. All of those you cite were familiar with the rhetorical method (except perhaps Plotinus from whom I have read little) ) and would likely be appalled by your casual lack of arguments. Maybe you're the one who should give the classic rhetoricians and philosophers another pass.
Many moral codes require that one do one's utmost to save innocent human life. One is not permitted to simply look over the taking of human life, as you suggest when you say that "they can just refuse treatment". Now, legislative power is a means to protect life in this case, therefore it is entirely sensible that it be used for such a purpose.
This is incorrect, because it violates ethics. For example, suppose I have a religious belief that people born on Halloween are evil and those babies need to be immediately killed. (Note, this was a religious practice in some places.) If I can get enough people to agree with me, does that mean I am justified in trying to pass laws to enforce this practice? The answer is "no." The reason the answer is no, is because I'm trying to enforce a moral belief, not an ethical belief. There is no common code of ethics that makes this common belief, only a religious one, which the government has no business enforcing. It is unethical for one group to enforce their religious beliefs upon others and in fact it is forbidden by the teaching of Jesus. That means those claiming to follow those beliefs and trying to enforce them upon others are not only trying to unethically misuse the government, but are also violating their stated moral codes. This means they are adhering to only some of their moral codes, not all and it becomes an excuse for action, rather than a reason.
It does exist, and those who hold it have certain responsibilities toward it.
Yes, but when those responsibilities are in conflict with other, ethical agreements, and their own stated moral code, they lose all credibility as trying to do anything other than bully others to demonstrate their ability to do so.
Surely in order to obtain a university degree you did the obligatory Ethics course.
Surely someone who took such a course understands the distinction between morals and ethics.
Do you really believe "The government has no business legislating [moral codes]"?
I firmly believe this. The government should be about enforcing agreed upon ethics that result in a conflict between individuals, not about morals.
Does that mean that you won't care if someone...
There is a difference between "caring" and thinking it is the government's job.
Common ethics says children need to be protected until they mature. If one individual tries to violate that ethical rule and in so doing violates the agreed upon ethical rights of others, then it is the government's responsibility to arbitrate the dispute.
hacks into your back accounts and empties them out, steals your car, and backs a moving van up to your home and empties it?
Common ethical rules say a person can make, trade for, and own possessions and taking those without permission violates that right. Again this is an ethical rule, not a moral one and suitable for government intervention.
Some people believe that the government's job is to help protect its people--all its people, including the unborn.
The problem here, is the reasoning behind classifying something as a person. If I claim toasters are people and need to be protected from being dismantled, I need to have a logical argument for why a toaster fits the definition of being a person, within that ethical framework. If my justification for this is, "god told me so" it becomes a religious/moral issue, rather than an ethical one. I agree it is the government's place to intervene and protect the life of all people, but only according to logical and ethical definitions of what a person is, not religious ones.
Abortion and creating embryos (human lives) for the purpose of using their parts are morally wrong and the government would be remiss in not prohibiting them.
Morally wrong according to religious rules or not, the government must look to ethics. I've yet to see a definition of human life that places value upon it for logical and ethical reasons instead of religious ones. Arguing that a bundle of cells has an "invisible, undetectable soul" which needs to be protected is religion, not ethics. There is no logical or evidentiary support for it. It is demonstrable that they do not have brains or conscious thought or any other criteria that make them more worthy of protection than sperm or skin cells, which do not enjoy protection under ethical guidelines.
If you feel each stem cell or embryo has a soul and your god has doomed most of them to a natural death, but it is your religious duty to keep as many alive as possible, I have no problem with that. But the government has no more justification for trying to enforce that religious belief than it does for my religious prohibition on the disassembly of toasters. If you have a religious belief, feel free to adhere to it and even encourage others to via persuasion. Do not, however, think that you are justified in forcing others to comply with your religious beliefs. In fact, the teachings of Jesus implicitly forbid trying to enforce your interpretation of right and wrong on others, while he is somewhat less forthcoming on the topic of stem cell research.
If you are going to prompt the user for every potentially malicious action, then you are again proposing the "dialog box storm" method.
Once, per program, per action that is outside of the norm. For example, how often will a user be alerted when a program wants to read their e-mail address book, or IM buddy list (excluding the app that made them)? About once per worm, with the possible false positive if a user installs a new IM client or e-mail application, in which case they will find such a request pretty normal.
Dialog boxes warning about security don't work. They don't work because, primarily, most people are too lazy to even bother reading them, and just click whichever buttons makes them disappear and get the desired result.
Did you read the examples I presented? Which button on those do you click to "make it go away?" People will have to read them or pick randomly. Since they should only show up in rare instances, so users will not be used to seeing them. The rarity will make them seem more important and more likely to be read.
The other big reason they don't work is because most people don't have sufficient knowledge to make an educated decision, and typically acquiring a sufficient level of knowledge is a non-trivial task most of them have zero interest in.
Most users can read English and understand the basic metaphors employed by the computer. The dialogue boxes can easily provide them with the necessary information, within that metaphor, as well as a link to more advanced configuration options for those who do have the knowledge and would like to be able to employ it. Any user can understand, "the program 'naked_pictures' would like to read your e-mail address book. (Stop it from reading the e-mail addresses)(Let it read them once)(Always let it read the e-mail address book)(Advanced Options)." That dialogue box, by itself, would stop most e-mail worms today and make it a difficult instead of trivial vector.
Making dialog boxes easier to read, will not make people less lazy.
Are you being intentionally obtuse? Apply easy to lazy and you get more things done.
Unlikely. Even the default "restricted" user has more than enough privileges to do the things 99% of malware wants to do. So existing systems need to be locked down even tighter before they can start being "secure". This is certainly going to result in more "security warnings", not less.
Properly written software should result in somewhere between zero and four warnings, when it is first installed and run. Most software should have zero. Assuming you're applying this on top of Windows, take a look at the mess that is Vista beta. It will certainly be fewer dialogue boxes. Also, IE, outlook, and a dozen other programs already show warnings when you download any executable, regardless of it is violating a sandbox or not. These can be eliminated, along with dozens of other useless warnings that don't provide real options.
The only reason most malware breaks today outside of non-Admin accounts is because it's as badly written as most other Windows software.
Because MS has not provided incentive for developers to make their software behave. Their dev tools don't make it work by default and critical apps MS develops don't even work properly. As such, non-admin accounts are unusable and thus many developers don't bother to develop for it. Provide a system like this and developers certainly will make better software so that users are not annoyed.
Yes, they have (well, I'll agree the "control" aspect could be better, but it's far from nonexistant).
If I sent you an arbitrary binary, would you feel confident that you could run it in Windows without my compromising your machine. Would you be able to do it every week, without it cutting into your productivity on that machine?
Yet people who would never even consider the actions necessary to fall victim to a scam in the "real world" regularly do so when