China is a country used to living on a different time-scale than the western world. Over here, most of our deciders think in quarters. Chinese leaders think in decades. They don't need strings because they are weaving a web instead of attaching a string.
And once they have that information, they send you a letter that states "We have your IP that proves you did this crime and if you don't pay us $7000, we're going to take you to court where we will most certainly prove (as we have done before and are currently doing to others) that you stole this file and charge you $150,000."
We are talking german law here, not USA. We have a different legal system where fines are more clearly defined and not as arbitrary and not as ridiculous. Works both ways - you also can't sue McDonalds for a million bucks because you spilt their hot coffee all over yourself.
In addition to that, germans are safety fanatics. A large part of the population here has an insurance against law suits. I know I wouldn't be too worried if one of those letters came in the mail. I'd call my insurance company which would put me in contact with a lawyer who would advise me further. Since I have some (business) experience with the court system, I also know that almost certainly there would be a settlement.
If the cops show up with a warrant, that's when I'd be worried. A civil case? Good luck.
That said, yes they do happen here in Germany. But we're talking a few hundred Euros, not your life savings.
Copyright trolls are not interested in protecting their copyrights and stopping infringement. They are interested in rent seeking,
True that. Now keep in mind what I wrote above. The article is about a specific decision in a specific country with its specific conditions. Don't take things out of context.
Wow. Until now I was on the edge on whether Assange really faced extradiction to the USA and lots and lots of pain coming his way there. Now I am convinced that he was right all along. You don't storm embassies and revoke diplomatic immunity for two counts of non-consensual intercourse.
You gave your own answer. Large parts of the world agree on other things. And, btw, there is NOTHING that EVERYONE agrees on, including kiddie porn and murder. So, where do you draw the line? Answer: Arbitrarily, because there is no other way. In the western world today, being gay is mostly fine. Change either the geographic location or the time period, and that is not so.
It also works the other way around. Today, in the western world, we consider anything sexual in relation with children highly offensive. In other times and places, practical sex education, for example (ancient Greece) was entirely normal.
We consider ourselves morally superior in both cases - as does everyone else. The Muslims consider us westerners depraved and degenerate, morally. The gay thing is only a part of that. I prefer the western way, to make that clear. Yet claiming objectively better morals is arrogant. While I believe there are moral absolutes - needlessly harming others, for example - I also think there are many questions of society to which there are multiple, equally valid answers. I don't think the gay question belongs to them, for the record. However, I can understand why a society doesn't like having outside values forced on them, and yes, even HAVING that TLD is considered an attack on their values by them.
It's a tough question on tolerance and acceptance - because both sides in the end want the same thing - their values as the standard by which "appropriate" is judged.
Because the US is all filled up with smart guys who didn't get that "the Internet is for porn" is meant to be funny?
Look at the TLDs proposed. The vast majority are corporate scent marks or sex-related. It might be news to you, but not all the world considers sex and money to be the primary objectives in the game of life.
And, frankly, there are quite a few that I don't like as TLDs. WTF is.bible meant to be for? What's next?.twilight and.fireandice?
All this really shows is that the hierarchical DNS is done for. In a few years, when they've burnt through all the money and the TLD namespace is running out, we will finally move to a TLD-free DNS. I hate to be part of the growing pain on that road, though.
The defence "it wasn't me" is really only applicable in situations where the constabulary are too lazy to do the work themselves and are leaving the enforcement to equipment such as 'speed cameras', 'ip loggers', etc.
Wrong. In the case of Internet crimes, the IP is easy to identify, the person in front of the PC can not be identified without a warrant. Some traffic offenses (parking, for example), are regularily spotted with the driver not nearby.
It's even more unjust when you consider that the infringement notices turn up weeks or months (or years!) after the actual infringement has taken place.
Which is why "I borrowed my car to someone that day, but can't remember who" remains a valid defense. And when it happens too often, having to keep a logbook is the correct solution to the memory problem.
. This is why due process is so important.
Which is why this decision requires a court order before the personal information is handed over. And why the legal custom I outlined does not usually apply for a first case. But I do consider it valid that the right owner has some option to do something. It can't be right that a source of infringement can go on just because you can't identify the one causing it.
I will give you a non-coypright example: There's a few bars very near to where I live that tend to play their music at unbearable volumes day and night. I find it proper that I can take the bar owner to court and don't have to identify who the DJ was that night and serve him. The bar owner may get away with "sorry, I told the DJ to not play that loud, but he didn't obey me" once, maybe twice, but after that the judge will tell him in no uncertain terms that from today on, he needs to make sure the DJ does as told, else he (the owner) will be fined.
IANAL, but I live in Germany and have both professional and private experience with the laws and courts.
It is not that simple. There is a principle called "StÃrerhaftung" in the german legal system, it means that if the culprit can not be identified, the one providing the means can - under certain circumstances - be brought to trial in his stead. It sounds idiotic, but makes sense if you let me explain: Imagine your car is used for a traffic violation. Of course they find you through the number plate. You claim that at the time you didn't drive the car and you don't know who did. Say, you were drunk that evening and you remember handing the keys to some friend to drive you home, but you can't remember who. This will usually result in charges being dropped because no culprit can be identified. However, if you try that several times, the court will at one point tell you to a) keep a log book in your car from now on where everyone driving has to write down his trips and b) next time this happens, they will charge you.
There is currently an active discussion on whether or not the same rules apply to things such as an open WiFi. Again, you can easily say that someone else was using it. From the POV of the law, that's a loophole, and too easily exploited by simply doing bad things and then claiming someone else must've done it.
In light of that discussion, this is a part of the legal solution to copyright infringement on the Internet. I've not studied it in detail, but it seems balanced on first glance - the requirement to have a court sign it means that most copyright holders won't bother for small-time filesharers, because it's too cumbersome and expensive.
I loved Amarok back in my Linux days, and I'll give Clementine a swirl. Does it include the automatic-rating-of-songs-by-your-actions? That was one great thing I miss from back then. If you listen to a song full length it increases the score, if you skip it it lowers it, etc. - over time, it comes to a pretty good rating without you doing anything.
some cookie uses are exempt, especially session ids, shopping carts, etc.
Sorry for brutally slaughtering half the comments posted so far.
As I read it, what this basically asks me to do is put an information that my site uses cookies somewhere with a link to a page that explains what I use the cookies for. If you're doing the usual stuff (session ids), you're probably done with two sentences.
No doubt horrible, and I'm sure I speak for many male geeks here saying that if any of us had been present, that guy would've been in a world of hurt as soon as we'd realized what was going on (e.g. certain that he's not her boyfriend). Lots of us have some martial arts training and hate assholes with a passion because these are the same people who harassed us in school.
That said, anecdotal evidence isn't a representative sample. Drawing conclusions on a whole subculture from a number of examples just isn't honest.
No, it's not. ACTUALLY physically engaging her in unwanted ways. Words alone are NEVER assault. This is what causes REAL assault to not be taken seriously. If you label everything with the same label, you devalue it.
Good point. There is a difference between giving and moving your exploitive business into the charity sector.
I never trust an "about face". The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation per se sounds like a good idea. That it is de facto run by the same guy we all hate for his business methods should ring some alarm bells. Stripes on a tiger don't wash away. And we're seing it. Not everyone wants to believe it, but the Gates Foundation does plenty of bad mixed in with its good.
So he lies to himself so he can get up every morning
Every single one of us does. Oh, granted, some of us have more and heavier lies to say than others, but every serial killer, every mafia goon, every investment banker, Wall Street trader, drug dealer, kiddie-fucking catholic priest, every single one thinks of himself as a good person. Maybe flawed, maybe unhappy, maybe even deeply troubled, but in their hearts they all think they are good people.
I'd rather have one screwed-up asshole who gives back some of his ill-gained wealth than ten who clear their conscious through prayer or just by telling themselves they're good people.
One of the most common causes for problems is a cheap chair.
An ex-girlfriend of mine had chronic back pains, so we went out and bought her are really good (and really expensive) office chair. I'm not talking leather, I'm talking "they deliver it and an expert adjusts it to you and your desk for optimum comfort".
It helped a lot. Why wait until your back hurts when you can prevent it?
Darth Vader doing some charity work as he completes the Death Star
Which is not unthinkable. Humans are complex creatures, very few of us are entirely black or white. The main damage that religion has done to us is not the omnipotent father nonsense, but the strict seperation of the world into "good" and "bad". Which you don't find in the real world if you open your mind and really see. Even your worst enemy has some interest or some trait that you'd consider positive if it weren't for your dislike of the man. And even your best friend and ally has a skeleton in the closet.
So, aside from the nonsensical choice of words (there can be no such thing as "god's work", because an omnipotent being could get its own work done with no effort), why not simply take the guy at face value?
Because, you know, he's kind of right about Zynga and Facebook, too. Yeah, maybe he's an evil business bastard, but if he genuinely wants to do good - shouldn't we encourage and welcome that?
They want to the users to give Metro a fair try by living with it for a while.
Fuck 'em sideways with a chainsaw. As if users, including corporate IT departments, were some kind of kids who need their hands held and tricked into swallowing the medicine with a cube of sugar.
It's the usual arrogance and MS attitude that they know better. It seems fairly common in IT, Apple has the same - except that in most cases, they are actually right.
Yes, it will anger users. Everyone who sees through it and understands that this option was not removed for their benefit, but because MS thought their new toy was so cool that everyone just had to use it.
People don't like arrogant assholes. I should know, I too often am one.:-)
No, I assume that there exists many situations where the human won't be paying attention - and thus the decision is by default left to the computer.
Which is one step better than current traffic conditions, in which there exist many situations where the human driver isn't paying attention and there is nobody there who alarms him to anything.
That's like flipping a coin once and judging that since you came up heads the coin has two of them. I.E. you're judging from a ridiculously small sample size.
300k miles and 1 coin flip are not exactly the same conditions, stop being ridiculous. Does it compare to the number of miles travelled by humans in, say, a year? No, not at all, that number is closing in on 3000 billion miles. So the robot car has done 0.1 millionth of that. Which is not representative. But it is considerably more than 1 coin toss. To put it in perspective, it's like picking 25 people at random from the USA and extrapolating on the entire population on that. Phrasing it that way shows how off your coin "argument" is, the chance of picking 25 people of the same gender is 0,00000003 % (for simplicity, assuming equal gender distribution, which is not 100% precise). Yes, you would probably miss something in such a small sample size. You'd probably not have a mormon in the group, or maybe no jew or no one of chinese descent or whatever. Still, it is starting to be on an order of magnitude that starts to say something. Just like nobody is claiming that this test and this test alone tells us everything we need to know about robot vehicles, but it's a start and the initial numbers are, in fact, impressive. It's like picking 25 people and finding out none of them has any illness or physical handicap or allergy whatsoever - you'd probably be surprised given that there are a few resident diseases that cover large parts of the population in most western countries.
This is one of those things that sounds like it can be handled easily - resulting in smart ass quips like yours. The reality is rather different however.
Not really. You assume that the decision is left to the computer, which is obviously nonsense. If it can evaluate a situation as "whoops, what do I do?" then it would often be easy to teach it what to do.
There's a human driver there who can decide to take over from the machine at any moment. Sure it might take a few seconds or so before the human realizes he should, however a) many tricky situations give you the time. Ice or thick fog don't appear suddenly out of nowhere and b) apparently, statistically speaking, the robot is still driving safer than an average human.
I was frank in not having tried it out, which I can't easily do since I don't have any Linux desktop machines anymore, only servers.
That said, then maybe they really should get someone who knows at least two things about marketing, because that homepage made sure that even if I had a Linux machine, I wouldn't have any desire whatsoever to try this ugly beast.
By driving with a human inside who can be notified and take over when the robot is confused. Autonomous driving does not mean that the car is out on its own.
so Google must not be counting the incidents that were the fault of flawed humans.)'
If you want to judge how well your robot performs, that is the only correct way of doing it. Someone else bumping into your correctly behaving robot should not be counted as a robot failure. Counting it would distort the statistics.
Of course, you could seperately show "# of accidents caused by the robot" and "# of accidents robot was involved in", but lots of non-geeky people wouldn't understand the difference and be confused.
Slashdot Mirror
China is a country used to living on a different time-scale than the western world. Over here, most of our deciders think in quarters. Chinese leaders think in decades. They don't need strings because they are weaving a web instead of attaching a string.
And once they have that information, they send you a letter that states "We have your IP that proves you did this crime and if you don't pay us $7000, we're going to take you to court where we will most certainly prove (as we have done before and are currently doing to others) that you stole this file and charge you $150,000."
We are talking german law here, not USA. We have a different legal system where fines are more clearly defined and not as arbitrary and not as ridiculous. Works both ways - you also can't sue McDonalds for a million bucks because you spilt their hot coffee all over yourself.
In addition to that, germans are safety fanatics. A large part of the population here has an insurance against law suits. I know I wouldn't be too worried if one of those letters came in the mail. I'd call my insurance company which would put me in contact with a lawyer who would advise me further. Since I have some (business) experience with the court system, I also know that almost certainly there would be a settlement.
If the cops show up with a warrant, that's when I'd be worried. A civil case? Good luck.
That said, yes they do happen here in Germany. But we're talking a few hundred Euros, not your life savings.
Copyright trolls are not interested in protecting their copyrights and stopping infringement. They are interested in rent seeking,
True that. Now keep in mind what I wrote above. The article is about a specific decision in a specific country with its specific conditions. Don't take things out of context.
Wow. Until now I was on the edge on whether Assange really faced extradiction to the USA and lots and lots of pain coming his way there. Now I am convinced that he was right all along. You don't storm embassies and revoke diplomatic immunity for two counts of non-consensual intercourse.
You gave your own answer. Large parts of the world agree on other things. And, btw, there is NOTHING that EVERYONE agrees on, including kiddie porn and murder. So, where do you draw the line? Answer: Arbitrarily, because there is no other way. In the western world today, being gay is mostly fine. Change either the geographic location or the time period, and that is not so.
It also works the other way around. Today, in the western world, we consider anything sexual in relation with children highly offensive. In other times and places, practical sex education, for example (ancient Greece) was entirely normal.
We consider ourselves morally superior in both cases - as does everyone else. The Muslims consider us westerners depraved and degenerate, morally. The gay thing is only a part of that. I prefer the western way, to make that clear. Yet claiming objectively better morals is arrogant.
While I believe there are moral absolutes - needlessly harming others, for example - I also think there are many questions of society to which there are multiple, equally valid answers. I don't think the gay question belongs to them, for the record. However, I can understand why a society doesn't like having outside values forced on them, and yes, even HAVING that TLD is considered an attack on their values by them.
It's a tough question on tolerance and acceptance - because both sides in the end want the same thing - their values as the standard by which "appropriate" is judged.
Because the US is all filled up with smart guys who didn't get that "the Internet is for porn" is meant to be funny?
Look at the TLDs proposed. The vast majority are corporate scent marks or sex-related. It might be news to you, but not all the world considers sex and money to be the primary objectives in the game of life.
And, frankly, there are quite a few that I don't like as TLDs. WTF is .bible meant to be for? What's next? .twilight and .fireandice?
All this really shows is that the hierarchical DNS is done for. In a few years, when they've burnt through all the money and the TLD namespace is running out, we will finally move to a TLD-free DNS. I hate to be part of the growing pain on that road, though.
Like all things Bill Gates - I'll believe it when I see it and not a second sooner.
The defence "it wasn't me" is really only applicable in situations where the constabulary are too lazy to do the work themselves and are leaving the enforcement to equipment such as 'speed cameras', 'ip loggers', etc.
Wrong. In the case of Internet crimes, the IP is easy to identify, the person in front of the PC can not be identified without a warrant. Some traffic offenses (parking, for example), are regularily spotted with the driver not nearby.
It's even more unjust when you consider that the infringement notices turn up weeks or months (or years!) after the actual infringement has taken place.
Which is why "I borrowed my car to someone that day, but can't remember who" remains a valid defense. And when it happens too often, having to keep a logbook is the correct solution to the memory problem.
. This is why due process is so important.
Which is why this decision requires a court order before the personal information is handed over. And why the legal custom I outlined does not usually apply for a first case. But I do consider it valid that the right owner has some option to do something. It can't be right that a source of infringement can go on just because you can't identify the one causing it.
I will give you a non-coypright example: There's a few bars very near to where I live that tend to play their music at unbearable volumes day and night. I find it proper that I can take the bar owner to court and don't have to identify who the DJ was that night and serve him. The bar owner may get away with "sorry, I told the DJ to not play that loud, but he didn't obey me" once, maybe twice, but after that the judge will tell him in no uncertain terms that from today on, he needs to make sure the DJ does as told, else he (the owner) will be fined.
aargh, I hate it that /. is still not UTF-8. Anways, the german word is correctly spelled "Störerhaftung".
IANAL, but I live in Germany and have both professional and private experience with the laws and courts.
It is not that simple. There is a principle called "StÃrerhaftung" in the german legal system, it means that if the culprit can not be identified, the one providing the means can - under certain circumstances - be brought to trial in his stead. It sounds idiotic, but makes sense if you let me explain:
Imagine your car is used for a traffic violation. Of course they find you through the number plate. You claim that at the time you didn't drive the car and you don't know who did. Say, you were drunk that evening and you remember handing the keys to some friend to drive you home, but you can't remember who. This will usually result in charges being dropped because no culprit can be identified. However, if you try that several times, the court will at one point tell you to a) keep a log book in your car from now on where everyone driving has to write down his trips and b) next time this happens, they will charge you.
There is currently an active discussion on whether or not the same rules apply to things such as an open WiFi. Again, you can easily say that someone else was using it. From the POV of the law, that's a loophole, and too easily exploited by simply doing bad things and then claiming someone else must've done it.
In light of that discussion, this is a part of the legal solution to copyright infringement on the Internet. I've not studied it in detail, but it seems balanced on first glance - the requirement to have a court sign it means that most copyright holders won't bother for small-time filesharers, because it's too cumbersome and expensive.
Thanks for that link!
I loved Amarok back in my Linux days, and I'll give Clementine a swirl. Does it include the automatic-rating-of-songs-by-your-actions? That was one great thing I miss from back then. If you listen to a song full length it increases the score, if you skip it it lowers it, etc. - over time, it comes to a pretty good rating without you doing anything.
1st party cookies are exempt from this regulation in many cases.
Read, comprehend, think, comment - preferrably in that order.
I hate to burst everyone's babble with facts, but here you are:
http://www.ico.gov.uk/for_organisations/privacy_and_electronic_communications/the_guide/cookies.aspx
important key points:
Sorry for brutally slaughtering half the comments posted so far.
As I read it, what this basically asks me to do is put an information that my site uses cookies somewhere with a link to a page that explains what I use the cookies for. If you're doing the usual stuff (session ids), you're probably done with two sentences.
No doubt horrible, and I'm sure I speak for many male geeks here saying that if any of us had been present, that guy would've been in a world of hurt as soon as we'd realized what was going on (e.g. certain that he's not her boyfriend). Lots of us have some martial arts training and hate assholes with a passion because these are the same people who harassed us in school.
That said, anecdotal evidence isn't a representative sample. Drawing conclusions on a whole subculture from a number of examples just isn't honest.
No, it's not. ACTUALLY physically engaging her in unwanted ways. Words alone are NEVER assault. This is what causes REAL assault to not be taken seriously. If you label everything with the same label, you devalue it.
Good point. There is a difference between giving and moving your exploitive business into the charity sector.
I never trust an "about face". The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation per se sounds like a good idea. That it is de facto run by the same guy we all hate for his business methods should ring some alarm bells. Stripes on a tiger don't wash away. And we're seing it. Not everyone wants to believe it, but the Gates Foundation does plenty of bad mixed in with its good.
Is that cognitive dissonance I smell?
Probably. It drips strongly out of TFS.
So he lies to himself so he can get up every morning
Every single one of us does. Oh, granted, some of us have more and heavier lies to say than others, but every serial killer, every mafia goon, every investment banker, Wall Street trader, drug dealer, kiddie-fucking catholic priest, every single one thinks of himself as a good person. Maybe flawed, maybe unhappy, maybe even deeply troubled, but in their hearts they all think they are good people.
I'd rather have one screwed-up asshole who gives back some of his ill-gained wealth than ten who clear their conscious through prayer or just by telling themselves they're good people.
One of the most common causes for problems is a cheap chair.
An ex-girlfriend of mine had chronic back pains, so we went out and bought her are really good (and really expensive) office chair. I'm not talking leather, I'm talking "they deliver it and an expert adjusts it to you and your desk for optimum comfort".
It helped a lot. Why wait until your back hurts when you can prevent it?
Darth Vader doing some charity work as he completes the Death Star
Which is not unthinkable. Humans are complex creatures, very few of us are entirely black or white. The main damage that religion has done to us is not the omnipotent father nonsense, but the strict seperation of the world into "good" and "bad". Which you don't find in the real world if you open your mind and really see. Even your worst enemy has some interest or some trait that you'd consider positive if it weren't for your dislike of the man. And even your best friend and ally has a skeleton in the closet.
So, aside from the nonsensical choice of words (there can be no such thing as "god's work", because an omnipotent being could get its own work done with no effort), why not simply take the guy at face value?
Because, you know, he's kind of right about Zynga and Facebook, too. Yeah, maybe he's an evil business bastard, but if he genuinely wants to do good - shouldn't we encourage and welcome that?
They want to the users to give Metro a fair try by living with it for a while.
Fuck 'em sideways with a chainsaw. As if users, including corporate IT departments, were some kind of kids who need their hands held and tricked into swallowing the medicine with a cube of sugar.
It's the usual arrogance and MS attitude that they know better. It seems fairly common in IT, Apple has the same - except that in most cases, they are actually right.
Yes, it will anger users. Everyone who sees through it and understands that this option was not removed for their benefit, but because MS thought their new toy was so cool that everyone just had to use it.
People don't like arrogant assholes. I should know, I too often am one. :-)
Why would you want such a thing?
Maybe you should have read TFA? It contains a section conveniently titled "What are the uses of the system?"
No, I assume that there exists many situations where the human won't be paying attention - and thus the decision is by default left to the computer.
Which is one step better than current traffic conditions, in which there exist many situations where the human driver isn't paying attention and there is nobody there who alarms him to anything.
That's like flipping a coin once and judging that since you came up heads the coin has two of them. I.E. you're judging from a ridiculously small sample size.
300k miles and 1 coin flip are not exactly the same conditions, stop being ridiculous. Does it compare to the number of miles travelled by humans in, say, a year? No, not at all, that number is closing in on 3000 billion miles. So the robot car has done 0.1 millionth of that. Which is not representative. But it is considerably more than 1 coin toss. To put it in perspective, it's like picking 25 people at random from the USA and extrapolating on the entire population on that. Phrasing it that way shows how off your coin "argument" is, the chance of picking 25 people of the same gender is 0,00000003 % (for simplicity, assuming equal gender distribution, which is not 100% precise).
Yes, you would probably miss something in such a small sample size. You'd probably not have a mormon in the group, or maybe no jew or no one of chinese descent or whatever. Still, it is starting to be on an order of magnitude that starts to say something. Just like nobody is claiming that this test and this test alone tells us everything we need to know about robot vehicles, but it's a start and the initial numbers are, in fact, impressive. It's like picking 25 people and finding out none of them has any illness or physical handicap or allergy whatsoever - you'd probably be surprised given that there are a few resident diseases that cover large parts of the population in most western countries.
This is one of those things that sounds like it can be handled easily - resulting in smart ass quips like yours. The reality is rather different however.
Not really. You assume that the decision is left to the computer, which is obviously nonsense. If it can evaluate a situation as "whoops, what do I do?" then it would often be easy to teach it what to do.
There's a human driver there who can decide to take over from the machine at any moment. Sure it might take a few seconds or so before the human realizes he should, however a) many tricky situations give you the time. Ice or thick fog don't appear suddenly out of nowhere and b) apparently, statistically speaking, the robot is still driving safer than an average human.
I was frank in not having tried it out, which I can't easily do since I don't have any Linux desktop machines anymore, only servers.
That said, then maybe they really should get someone who knows at least two things about marketing, because that homepage made sure that even if I had a Linux machine, I wouldn't have any desire whatsoever to try this ugly beast.
how does it handle atypical situations?
By driving with a human inside who can be notified and take over when the robot is confused. Autonomous driving does not mean that the car is out on its own.
Next question?
so Google must not be counting the incidents that were the fault of flawed humans.)'
If you want to judge how well your robot performs, that is the only correct way of doing it. Someone else bumping into your correctly behaving robot should not be counted as a robot failure. Counting it would distort the statistics.
Of course, you could seperately show "# of accidents caused by the robot" and "# of accidents robot was involved in", but lots of non-geeky people wouldn't understand the difference and be confused.