Very true - we are an arrogant culture, let's face it. Slashdot is as biased as any open forum, but hopefully moderation does something to keep our more flagrant leanings in check.
I do have every sympathy for those in the US as well. The government there has to be more subtle about things than China, true, but bit by bit things are getting just as bad over there... and sadly, I expect the UK government to follow suit. Apathy will be the end of us all.
Just tell all your clients to move to New Zealand and wait it out;-)
You're right in saying that no country is whiter than white.
However, you do need to put it in perspective. Pretty much all of the UK citations you make were cases where the government put a spin on their own releases (or plain lied), which appears to be the role of government everywhere. The news agencies themselves were not prevented from reporting as they saw fit on what the government said and did, and that's the real issue here.
Again, I ain't saying it's perfect, but the Beeb is pretty much free to report whatever it sees as pertinent (how true that is today and how long that will remain so seems uncertain, which bothers me a lot).
It's fair enough to point out that nobody can "cast the first stone", as it were, but then you seem to be saying that nobody has the right to criticise this story because their own governments have dirty laundry...? It think it's the right to criticise governments that is at stake here, so I don't see how your condition is helpful. By that same rule, nobody from China would be able to criticise either, and that's what got us here in the first place...
Yes, I can see that this sort of thing goes on in the US. I am, after all, from the UK, and view such things with a mixture of horror and pity. So before you continue your Merkin-bashing crusade here, stop and breathe.
From the very quote you've chosen, "undermine China's national unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity" seems to me to be, to use your terms, "horribly bad and oppressive". It is a totally subjective and unqualified restriction which may interpreted by the XNA in any way the current regime sees fit, which is about as "horribly bad and oppressive" as any censorship gets, don't you think?
Having read the article in full, and selectively pulled out the bits I find most abhorrent, with an explanation of why I understand them to be so, I have posted them in the hope of further clarifying the problems with this new stance taken by the government. If that means that I will "score some points with the big majority of/. readers who will never read the article", thereby presenting what I believe to be a more informative perspective on the article than would be gleaned by such readers, then so be it. This is, after all, the purpose of the moderation system.
Finally, your stance on the article seems to more closely match the problems with reactionary US laws than anyone's. You think that justifying one or two possibly reasonable items in the new law such as preventing "incitement of hatred and discrimination" justifies the whole law - when clearly items such as not allowing news agencies to "endanger China's... reputation" are massively oppressive.
If you're happy to see a large part of an entire nation's liberty sacrificed by its government for the sake of "security" or, in this case, control, then you are far more guilty of the very "brainwashed tunnelvision" you denounce than I.
It was in fact Benjamin Franklin, a Merkin, who said something to the effect of "Anyone who is prepared to sacrifice a little liberty for a little security deserves neither, and will lose both". Maybe you should think about such things a little more before you start swinging, hmm?
to promote the dissemination of news and information in a sound and orderly manner
That's how they're calling it, anyway. Spin it right and the People will swallow anything.
Foreign news agencies shall not directly solicit subscription of their news and information services in China
So, no internationally recognised (relatively) independent news agency can even advertise. Period. I might have presented a slightly skewed interpretation of "solicit", but that's a bit crappy anyway.
In using news and information from a foreign news agency, the user in China shall clearly indicate the sources and shall not transfer them to another party in any form....penalties for violations in the releasing, distributing or using of news and information from a foreign news agency in China
So if you do access news from a foreign agency - whether vetted or not by the Xinhua New Agency - it is illegal to pass on that information. Fuck me, that's horrible.
And from the submitted article it seems that they're even prepared to revoke the state-defined status of any international news-agency who contravenes these measures in any way.
What also bothers me is the notion of vetting this stuff at source. Are the XNA going to demand that news agencies do as Google have done, procuding a secondary, vetted, approved version of the news? Google argued their case for doing so to the international web community (successfully or otherwise, depends on your POV - they're getting the revenue from it anyway), but most international news agencies pride and extol themselves for their independence and impartiality. Will they bow to the same pressure in order to, as Google said (again, my own interpretation), "gain a foothold in China and at least keep its information borders actively moving traffic, however restricted"?
There's no need to talk-down - being patronizing does not necessarily mean you have a greater understanding of the issue.
What doesn't fit is your subjective view of "unwanted". Any criminal conviction (except for the very few laws involving "strict liability") involves two components - the actus reus and the mens rea, or, the guilty act and the guilty mind.
And it's the issue of guilty mind with which I have contention. Trespass is not a strict-liability law, so it must be proven beyond reasonable doubt that (as well as performing the act) the perpetrator was aware that their use of the plaintiff's property was "unwanted" by the plaintiff. In the case of email this is basically impossible - not because it can't be shown that the mail was unwanted after the fact, but because it is not possible for the plaintiff to show that they were explicitly opposed to the act before it was committed. Law cannot act on retroactive subjective perception. Trespass is not a convictable offence unless it can be shown beyond reasonable doubt that any reasonable man in the position of the perpetrator would have been aware that their imposition was unwanted.
Now to you or I it would seem to be common-sense that spam is unwanted, but the law is not so subjective, and indeed cannot afford to be. This is not a clear-cut issue in the case of email - even spam. If a spammer gets a couple of successful hits from their emailing, they can show they have reason to believe their service or whatever is wanted by some people in spite of the public image surrounding their activites. It is not enough to say that "most people don't want it", because this does not provide explicit display of unwelcomeness in any given case. Therefore it is reasonable to have doubt (not complete, granted, but doubt nonetheless) that the perpetrator believed they were acting in a fashion unwanted by the plaintiff, ie that they committed trespass.
Don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't understand the concept of trespass (although, like just about everyone on/., IANAL except in my own armchair), it's that I also understand the legal requirements to fulfill that concept to a legal standard. Spam sucks a$$, in a big way, but the state would not prosecute for trespass in such cases because it would be too easy to defend. That's why anti-spam laws were created.
I'm really not trying to say that it shouldn't be viewed as gravely as trespass, but legally speaking, it just isn't all there. That's why I think it's a strange and foolish thing for the court to say. If the state really views this crime as trespass, why not convict it as such?
Of course theft of service is a theft. Abuse of service, however, is not. It's still illegal where such provisions are made by the law, but it is not theft.
Every one of your analogies pertains to theft of service, not an abuse. It seems clear that your conception of theft is incorrect.
If someone saps power from your supply, as you say, they are stealing it. That's theft. Well done. If, however, they merely keep running past and deliberately tripping your security light so that you use more power to support the service that you have installed, they are NOT stealing power. They are abusing your service (the security light) and thereby causing you a loss of resources (money is merely a nebulous representaion of resources, so whether someone steals your money, your power or your phone line, it's theft). Do you understand that? They are not misappropriating your resources, but they are deliberately causing you to expend more resources than is necessary purely for the sake of doing so. THAT is an abuse of service, NOT THEFT. The have not appropriated anything of yours.
There are provisions in law to prevent this kind of abuse - anti-spam being one of them. Where there are no direct provisions but you are still being deliberately caused unreasonable loss (of time, sleep, money, power, whatever) as a result of someone's actions, they may eventually be prosecuted for harassment or somesuch, and you can then seek compensation for that loss in a civil suit. They will not, however, be prosecuted for theft.
*After* clearly showing you how the ISP is suffering a very real monetary loss, there is no theft of service ? Try using the lame "abuse" excuse when it comes to making illegal connections to your neighbours phone lines, power lines, cable connection and see how far you get.
This illustrates your lack of understanding perfectly. In the first example, the ISP is suffering financial loss because the spammer is causing them to use more resources than is reasonable. The spammer is causing the ISP loss by abusing their service, but they are NOT stealing anything from them. In the list of services that follows, you mention making illegal connections for the specific purpose of appropriating a service for which the appropriator has not paid. This is, yes, theft of service. Two completely different legal situations. The latter will get you prosecuted for theft, the former will not.
Why is this such a difficult distinction for you to comprehend?
To put it plainly, for a spammer to "steal your service", they would have to actually gain access to your mailbox or your bandwidth and use it as their own, not merely cause you to use it more than you had intended. They are clearly not doing this. They are not "stealing your service".
Your understanding of theft is over simplified. There is a clear distinction between theft and abuse, and your lack of ability to comprehend it is sad rather than amusing. Clearly, YANAL.
Try and stick to the argument in hand instead of resorting to personal insults, will you? I'm sure you feel very strongly about this, but you seem to be labouring under the misapprehension that I suggested spam is fine, legal, acceptable. I don't think that at all, I just object to the muddying of legal waters. If you can't discuss these things without getting bitchy then you're going to find you "win" a lot of arguments to people who just can't be bothered with your unreasonable attitude.
Firstly, I used the postal service as an analogy to illustrate one point - that of an independent unvetted service. Any analogy breaks under sufficiently detailed scrutiny, so don't think that disproving the complete compatibility of an analogy is the same as disproving the argument it serves to illustrate. Your attempt to do so suggests that you're so focussed on your own agenda that you've missed the point I was making.
I don't think spam is acceptable in any form, whether it deliberately circumvents filters or not, so don't respond as though I'm defending or advocating spam. My only objection was to the comparison to trespass. My point in using the postal analogy was that there are already laws covering the abuse of these communication services (mail-fraud, anti-spam etc). These laws would not have come into being if existing laws already served to make such practices illegal. (As an aside, you try to tear down the postal analogy on the basis of cost, but if direct financial impact were a qualifying criterion for illegality then free webmail, for example, would not be covered - yes, it does have an impact on the ISP or webmail service owner, and thus indirectly on you, but that's not going to cut it in court, and certainly has no bearing on trespass.)
Incidentally, yes, spam is inevitable. Not acceptable, not even tolerable, but it is inevitable. If there is any way of abusing a system, it will be abused - spam is a fact of life that we must combat the best we can. The fact that I accept that doesn't mean I like it any more than you - I'm just a little more pragmatic.
As for this whole "picking my lock" thing: yes, of course the email equivalent is illegal, but that's what anti-spam law is for. Why do you think no spammer has ever been prosecuted for trespass? "He deliberately put his email on my system without my prior express permission". So did your best friend, work colleague, long-lost college-buddy. True, they are not making a deliberate effort to circumvent your filters, while the spammer is. It is, however, that attempt to circumvent using false headers (among other things) that is illegal - not the act of emailing you. That is the act that the spam laws serve to discourage and punish, not the presence of the email on your system. If trespass covered this act, it would already have been tried as such. You're welcome to sue for financial damages in civil court as well, but that is not part of the criminal law process and is incidental.
On a final note, ask yourself this: if you click a web link that falsely purports to be for a list of monosyllabic insults, and instead you get knitting patterns, has the web-site owner committed trespass? Try reporting them to the police and see what happens. I know it's not exactly the same issue, but do you see where this muddying of the legal waters can lead? It's a very slippery slope, my friend...
I'm not saying that it isn't the sender's fault that the email arrived at its destination. That is their fault, and that's why we have spam law.
What I'm saying is that it isn't trespass
As for the postal worker, you're butchering my analogy worse than I did. The email service is one that you set up yourself, so the fact that the this service you installed did its job and allowed the email onto your system means that the spammer didn't trespass. They made use of the service you paid for, just as anyone who emails you does. There doesn't need to be a law allowing this service to take place on your server as you set up and paid for the service yourself.
The fact that spammers are also abusing this service in a way that is harmful to you is illegal as covered by anti-spam law, but it is not trespass.
It IS illegal to forge a mailing address though. And with email the checks can be done electronically. It will slow things down a little, sure, but that doesn't mean its not feasable and that the spammers shouldn't have to do this.
I think you're missing the point of my orignal post: I'm not saying the spammers have done nothing wrong or illegal. I'm just saying they haven't trespassed.
What if people don't want to be contacted by those they never met? Shouldn't that be their right?
Absolutely that's their right. You have the right to set up your email service so that only emails from addresses you've specifically approved will be accepted. People don't usually do that though, simply because it means nobody they haven't previously asked to can email them, which defeats one of email's perceived benefits.
At worse, none of MY resources are used when receiving junk mail; that's not the case for email.
This is where my analogy breaks down - as does any analogy under close enough scrutiny. I was illustrating the point that the service is invited, not that it's free. I understand that the use of resources makes it more complex, but the receipt of any email, legitimate or not, welcome or not, requested or not, requires the use of your resources. If you want to prevent anyone using it without your permission, you have a virtually closed system (again, losing some of its benefit). Unfortunately email is open to abuse, and the abuse of that system - spam - is already illegal. Again though, that doesn't make it trespass, any more than it makes the email from a friend you haven't seen in years trespass.
The people receiving this crap have a right NOT to be communicated with, especially at their own expense.
I think I've answered that one. They also have a right not to be spammed with illegitimate mail headers - but again, this is already covered by appropriate laws. Why does that mean that this is trespass? You have knowingly invited email from a service which does not discriminate, even though it is possible for you to make the service discriminate. Your openness is being abused, but you did make it open. It sucks, yes, it's illegal, yes, but it isn't trespass.
Since it seems to be the unpermitted occupation of property that's confusing everyone, I'll use another analogy. If you have a house-party, and you post signs everywhere saying ANYONE can come, you will undoubtedly get undesirable elements appearing. When they arrive, they haven't trespassed unless you have already informed them they cannot enter. If they enter and then you tell them to leave, and they leave, they haven't trespassed. If you tell them to leave and they don't, THEN they are trespassing.
However, any email that gets on your system you can delete, just as you can turn away an undesirable from your party. No trespass. The email occupied your server, the undesirable guest trampled your lawn, drank a bit, but didn't do anything illegal (well, they could have, but that's a different issue).
If you post these invites everywhere, and someone gets a hold of it, shows it to all their friends, they show it to theirs, and so on, you may find thousands of undesirable people arriving. What do you do? You either cancel/stop the party (close your server), maybe with a list of people who CAN come in (email whitelist), or you put a doorman on the gate (spam filter). They won't do a perfect job, maybe getting it wrong one way or another sometimes, but what choice have you got? An intelligent doorman will recognise people whom maybe you don't know but wouldn't mind coming in, but that's the best you can hope for - he isn't an avatar who knows your every whim.
Whatever measure you take, the only time somebody would be committing trespass would be if they didn't leave when asked (couldn't be deleted). Doesn't really apply in the case of normal spam.
Please don't be upset everyone. I know it's frustrating, annoying, even costly when spam gets through, and that it should be punished accordingly. However, this muddying of the waters, by bringing up inappropriate laws because they feel right until they are carefully considered, doesn't help.
Yes, one question: by your definition, why isn't an unsolicited (ie without your express invitation) email from a friend "trespass"? You may welcome the email after you have learned its content and source, but up until you've made that entirely subjective decision - according to you - your friend is breaking the law. Imagine even that it's someone you've never met, but a welcome email nonetheless. Where do they stand?
It is not possible to retroactively impose your preferences on an open situation like this and expect it to be legally cogent. The law has to be consistent and objective or it isn't law. Either your friend is committing trespass or the spammer isn't (again, they might be breaking the law, but not trespass law).
Of course - forced entry to someone's property, I can see the reason behind that.
But is sending someone a junk letter trespass? If you forced your way into their house and put it on their kitchen table, yes - and that's what you're talking about with criminal hacking. If you put it in the mail like anyone else, no it isn't. The result is the same, but the means are perfectly legitimate. The method of the mail's entry to your property is via a service that you invite, knowing full well that such an abuse is possible but illegal. Spam law wouldn't exist if trespass law already covered this act.
it is certainly using resources that the spammer never obtained permission to use
So is every email that you did not explicitly request - does that mean they're all trespassing (or whatever)? None of them obtained permission, so by your definition, yes they are.
But they're not, are they. This is why I used the postal analogy. You can't vet these things before they've arrived, so we have laws in place to make misuse or abuse of the services illegal. It's actually a desirable quality of postal- or e-mail that it is possible to send things unsolicited. That is one of its greatest strengths, but also its greatest avenue of abuse - which is why these laws are in place.
You do pay for your bandwidth but, like it or not, your choice over what you do and don't receive is inherently limited. You click on a web-link, you get whatever the web-designer/publisher/whatever puts on there, like it or not. You set up an email service, you get whatever email is sent your way, like it or not.
Stop thinking of your bandwidth and storage as property, and start thinking of it as territory. When your own measures aren't enough to defend it from casual incursion, the common law of the land should be. If the law is not sufficiently upheld, complain to your governor, DEA, whomever the hell it takes to get these things implemented properly. There's no need to muddy the waters by confusing it with other, inappropriate laws - that's all I'm saying.
There are so many misapprehensions in your posting that I barely know where to start dismantling it, but let's just start by saying that calling someone Dumbass every few lines because you disagree with what they said is hardly clear-headed argument.
First: no, it isn't stealing. If I shaved 10 millionths of a cent from you bank account every day, it would be stealing. The spammers are not appropriating any of your lost funds however - merely causing you to do so by abusing the service you rent. That's wrong, obviously, which is why it's illegal under spam laws. That's the purpose of spam law. The fact that it's wrong doesn't make it stealing. The fact that you have lost money does not mean it has been stolen.
All of the points you make essentially state that Spamming Is Wrong. OF COURSE IT'S FUCKING WRONG - THAT'S WHAT THE JUDGMENT IS SAYING! But that does NOT mean it's trespass, and that's all I said - that it was an inaccurate and irresponsible comparison. If the court had said "it's the equivalent of murder" and I had objected to that statement, would you be calling me a dumbass for criticising the inappropriate comparison?
Next: no, you do not "own" the email service from your ISP. You rent it. They use it exclusively for delivery of email, and you voluntarily give them the money to do so - you are paying for a service. Web-space, server-space etc are not the same as an email service. The abuse of that service is of course wrong, but it is not stealing, nor is it trespassing on your space. Try and convict a spammer under trespass law - see how far you get. I think the judicial system has a clearer understanding of the law than you do.
Finally, once again, I did NOT say that spamming is acceptable. Of course it's fucking wrong, and it's illegal under ANTI-SPAM LAW. I did say I agreed with the judgment, didn't I? Pay attention! My objection was ONLY to the comparison with trespass, which it clearly is not, in legal terms.
It's a welcome sight to see some informed response among the dross that's been posted in reply to my original comment.
I appreciate the notion of Trespass to Chattels. However, I think it is worth noting that the email service we install on our servers was so installed by our own volition, and it is that service which allows the spam to occupy our systems - the spam cannot enter without the appropriate system we have put in place. This is why I used the postal analogy - we invite the mailman every day, implicitly, accepting the consequences that may ensue. We put our trust in the various laws covering postal services that are designed to protect us from its possible abuse.
Since Trespass of Chattels does not apply when somebody sends junk mail to our postbox, nor, I believe, should it apply to mail servers. Again, we have laws which should protect us from the abuse of our email service. The fact that the laws are ineffectually enforced does not mean that they are not sufficient, but that their enforcement is insufficient.
The issue of paying for the service is a muddy one, but then how do you separate those who use "free" webmail services from those who run their own web services. It seems to me that the issue of cost of the mail service should not be a part of the criminal laws pertaining to spam - though of course, recompense can be sought through civil lawsuits, as this is their purpose.
Isn't spam law enough in itself, without bringing in the notions of "property"? I know the following is slightly off-topic and a somewhat nebulous issue (so please don't treat it as the same subject), but I personally found that my understanding of computer security took a huge leap when I ceased to see my bandwidth, processor cycles and memory as "property" and started to view them as "territory". All the principles of defense, ownership and security seemed a lot simpler to apply after that...
It still isn't trespass, is it? All analogies are flawed when examined to sufficient depth. I was merely pointing out that the sender of spam at no point makes use of your property - it is your mail service that does this, which you have installed and commissioned. The abuse of this mail service is illegal, but that doesn't mean it's trespass, or even theft.
Try that thing with the trucks. Just try it. Then see if the court will convict the perpetrator of trespass. IT WILL NOT HAPPEN. This is not covered by the laws pertaining to trespass! It's exactly what I said - an inconvenience - but on a much larger scale. The analogous situation you provide would probably fall under harassment. But the perpetrator would legally not have committed any crime involving accessing your property.
Don't throw anthrax into the argument (or "thinking of the children" FFS) - that's not analogous, that would be like sending a trojan, worm, whatever in an email, which is covered by different laws, and is not the subject of this discussion.
No, that's not my argument at all. You're talking about something which can be compared to trojans and email worms, which is a different issue entirely - that is nothing like sending junk-mail. You're as guilty of muddying the waters as the court who made this spurious statement.
THE LAW ALREADY COVERS THESE THINGS - if such crimes were subject to trespass law (or whatever), these laws about spamming, mail fraud in the mail etc WOULD NOT EXIST. There would be no need for them!
The mail-bombing thing is an entirely different issue.
Neither - it's spamming, which is illegal. It has its own law, which is being poorly enforced by an ineffective and technologically ignorant judicial system. Sounds like a very bad thing for your company, absolutely, but it is covered by neither of the laws you mention. Read about them, for crying out loud.
Did you even read what I said? The statement that shooting is an inappropriate response is based on the premise that this action is not trespass, but more like unsolicited junk-mail - which is not defined as trespass in US or any other law. To then take your bizarre assumption and reiterate the shooting principle upon which it is based is called "begging the question", and is a really stupid argumentative trap that commonly displays a lack of ability to even see an argument from all perspectives, let alone entertain the possiblity of being wrong.
So, let's break it down: Is sending someone a letter through the post that they don't want trespass? Under US law, no, it isn't. It does indeed involve using their property - namely a mailbox, possibly a garden path for the mailman to walk on, but it is not trespass. If you tell the mailman to stop delivering then he will. You will not receive junk-mail. However, you want your legitimate mail, so you implicitly invite the mailman (is he trespassing? I think you'll find that hard to support) to deliver the mail. It is not his responsibility to vet the mail to see whether you approve of it or not. He is just a service provider.
It's the same with email. The service - which you pay for, true, and which is open to abuse - is not trespassing when it delivers the email as you invite it in. If the service were not impartial, we would not be talking about the internet (though that's a discussion for another article, I suspect). Why is this any different from junk-mail in your mail box? How can one be trespass, warranting physical retaliation, and the other not be?
No, it doesn't - that's like saying junk-mailers are "making use" of your mailbox when the mailman does his thing. Again, not illegal, nor should it be. If the postal service has to check that the sender is legit with you every time someone sends a letter, the system becomes unworkable and breaks down - both from the service's perspective and from yours. How else would people legitimately contact those they have never met? The laws that govern unsolicited junkmail are enough - this court statement just muddy's the waters.
Look, I appreciate that this is an emotive issue, especially for those who have dealt with a lot of spam and such, but ineffective application of perfectly suitable laws does not warrant additional laws. That way lies judicial ruin and opressive over-regulation.
If the current laws are not being enforced, why bother creating more laws? Once again, I have no problem at all with the ruling - just the ill-informed statement that followed it. It displays a fundamental lack of understanding of the issues.
I work for a small Local Education Authority where all secondary schools use interactive whiteboards, as do the majority of primaries.
There is a school in London that uses fingerprint-scanners at the classroom entrances instead of registers (a little more reliable than a perfectly portable ID card? I dunno.), and there are numerous examples of the effective use of decent technology to impact attendance and learning. Automatic texts to parents' mobiles or emails to their work accounts when the kids don't show in the morning is a pretty effective one that's gaining momentum.
And no books, just laptops? Look, I don't know about you, but that sounds like a really bad idea to me. I've heard of pilot "one laptop per child" schemes that came unstuck within weeks, because there is nothing that can prevent an army of bored, intelligent kids from completely hijacking and abusing any technology you care to give them. Now that may not necessarily be a bad thing in more more libertarian concepts of learning, but I really don't think it helps the class teachers one bit.
So what's really unique about this school? Apart from that it's a white building in Philly, I mean. It's the management system. Which comes from Microsoft. I don't need to add anything M$-bashy here, surely...
Prestigious this may be, but what a fucking awful idea of how to run a school! The use of technology in education is often a good thing, sometimes indifferent, occasionally bad, but certainly not new.
The only actual news here is that it's been designed by M$, and for that reason, I fear for the future of Philadelphia more than I ever did.
Slashdot Mirror
I do have every sympathy for those in the US as well. The government there has to be more subtle about things than China, true, but bit by bit things are getting just as bad over there... and sadly, I expect the UK government to follow suit. Apathy will be the end of us all.
Just tell all your clients to move to New Zealand and wait it out ;-)
Oh, wait - he had 2 wives?? Shit, no wonder he was trying to move that money out of his account...
However, you do need to put it in perspective. Pretty much all of the UK citations you make were cases where the government put a spin on their own releases (or plain lied), which appears to be the role of government everywhere. The news agencies themselves were not prevented from reporting as they saw fit on what the government said and did, and that's the real issue here.
Again, I ain't saying it's perfect, but the Beeb is pretty much free to report whatever it sees as pertinent (how true that is today and how long that will remain so seems uncertain, which bothers me a lot).
It's fair enough to point out that nobody can "cast the first stone", as it were, but then you seem to be saying that nobody has the right to criticise this story because their own governments have dirty laundry...? It think it's the right to criticise governments that is at stake here, so I don't see how your condition is helpful. By that same rule, nobody from China would be able to criticise either, and that's what got us here in the first place...
From the very quote you've chosen, "undermine China's national unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity" seems to me to be, to use your terms, "horribly bad and oppressive". It is a totally subjective and unqualified restriction which may interpreted by the XNA in any way the current regime sees fit, which is about as "horribly bad and oppressive" as any censorship gets, don't you think?
Having read the article in full, and selectively pulled out the bits I find most abhorrent, with an explanation of why I understand them to be so, I have posted them in the hope of further clarifying the problems with this new stance taken by the government. If that means that I will "score some points with the big majority of /. readers who will never read the article", thereby presenting what I believe to be a more informative perspective on the article than would be gleaned by such readers, then so be it. This is, after all, the purpose of the moderation system.
Finally, your stance on the article seems to more closely match the problems with reactionary US laws than anyone's. You think that justifying one or two possibly reasonable items in the new law such as preventing "incitement of hatred and discrimination" justifies the whole law - when clearly items such as not allowing news agencies to "endanger China's... reputation" are massively oppressive.
If you're happy to see a large part of an entire nation's liberty sacrificed by its government for the sake of "security" or, in this case, control, then you are far more guilty of the very "brainwashed tunnelvision" you denounce than I.
It was in fact Benjamin Franklin, a Merkin, who said something to the effect of "Anyone who is prepared to sacrifice a little liberty for a little security deserves neither, and will lose both". Maybe you should think about such things a little more before you start swinging, hmm?
And from the submitted article it seems that they're even prepared to revoke the state-defined status of any international news-agency who contravenes these measures in any way.
What also bothers me is the notion of vetting this stuff at source. Are the XNA going to demand that news agencies do as Google have done, procuding a secondary, vetted, approved version of the news? Google argued their case for doing so to the international web community (successfully or otherwise, depends on your POV - they're getting the revenue from it anyway), but most international news agencies pride and extol themselves for their independence and impartiality. Will they bow to the same pressure in order to, as Google said (again, my own interpretation), "gain a foothold in China and at least keep its information borders actively moving traffic, however restricted"?
Scary stuff indeed.
Perhaps the "Bi-die double Core 2 Duo 2".
Or perhaps not.
I'm rooting for the "Mach 4".
*sigh*Time to go make up with the missus, I guess.
What doesn't fit is your subjective view of "unwanted". Any criminal conviction (except for the very few laws involving "strict liability") involves two components - the actus reus and the mens rea, or, the guilty act and the guilty mind.
And it's the issue of guilty mind with which I have contention. Trespass is not a strict-liability law, so it must be proven beyond reasonable doubt that (as well as performing the act) the perpetrator was aware that their use of the plaintiff's property was "unwanted" by the plaintiff. In the case of email this is basically impossible - not because it can't be shown that the mail was unwanted after the fact, but because it is not possible for the plaintiff to show that they were explicitly opposed to the act before it was committed. Law cannot act on retroactive subjective perception. Trespass is not a convictable offence unless it can be shown beyond reasonable doubt that any reasonable man in the position of the perpetrator would have been aware that their imposition was unwanted.
Now to you or I it would seem to be common-sense that spam is unwanted, but the law is not so subjective, and indeed cannot afford to be. This is not a clear-cut issue in the case of email - even spam. If a spammer gets a couple of successful hits from their emailing, they can show they have reason to believe their service or whatever is wanted by some people in spite of the public image surrounding their activites. It is not enough to say that "most people don't want it", because this does not provide explicit display of unwelcomeness in any given case. Therefore it is reasonable to have doubt (not complete, granted, but doubt nonetheless) that the perpetrator believed they were acting in a fashion unwanted by the plaintiff, ie that they committed trespass.
Don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't understand the concept of trespass (although, like just about everyone on /., IANAL except in my own armchair), it's that I also understand the legal requirements to fulfill that concept to a legal standard. Spam sucks a$$, in a big way, but the state would not prosecute for trespass in such cases because it would be too easy to defend. That's why anti-spam laws were created.
I'm really not trying to say that it shouldn't be viewed as gravely as trespass, but legally speaking, it just isn't all there. That's why I think it's a strange and foolish thing for the court to say. If the state really views this crime as trespass, why not convict it as such?
Every one of your analogies pertains to theft of service, not an abuse. It seems clear that your conception of theft is incorrect.
If someone saps power from your supply, as you say, they are stealing it. That's theft. Well done. If, however, they merely keep running past and deliberately tripping your security light so that you use more power to support the service that you have installed, they are NOT stealing power. They are abusing your service (the security light) and thereby causing you a loss of resources (money is merely a nebulous representaion of resources, so whether someone steals your money, your power or your phone line, it's theft). Do you understand that? They are not misappropriating your resources, but they are deliberately causing you to expend more resources than is necessary purely for the sake of doing so. THAT is an abuse of service, NOT THEFT. The have not appropriated anything of yours.
There are provisions in law to prevent this kind of abuse - anti-spam being one of them. Where there are no direct provisions but you are still being deliberately caused unreasonable loss (of time, sleep, money, power, whatever) as a result of someone's actions, they may eventually be prosecuted for harassment or somesuch, and you can then seek compensation for that loss in a civil suit. They will not, however, be prosecuted for theft.
This illustrates your lack of understanding perfectly. In the first example, the ISP is suffering financial loss because the spammer is causing them to use more resources than is reasonable. The spammer is causing the ISP loss by abusing their service, but they are NOT stealing anything from them. In the list of services that follows, you mention making illegal connections for the specific purpose of appropriating a service for which the appropriator has not paid. This is, yes, theft of service. Two completely different legal situations. The latter will get you prosecuted for theft, the former will not.Why is this such a difficult distinction for you to comprehend?
To put it plainly, for a spammer to "steal your service", they would have to actually gain access to your mailbox or your bandwidth and use it as their own, not merely cause you to use it more than you had intended. They are clearly not doing this. They are not "stealing your service".
Your understanding of theft is over simplified. There is a clear distinction between theft and abuse, and your lack of ability to comprehend it is sad rather than amusing. Clearly, YANAL.
Firstly, I used the postal service as an analogy to illustrate one point - that of an independent unvetted service. Any analogy breaks under sufficiently detailed scrutiny, so don't think that disproving the complete compatibility of an analogy is the same as disproving the argument it serves to illustrate. Your attempt to do so suggests that you're so focussed on your own agenda that you've missed the point I was making.
I don't think spam is acceptable in any form, whether it deliberately circumvents filters or not, so don't respond as though I'm defending or advocating spam. My only objection was to the comparison to trespass. My point in using the postal analogy was that there are already laws covering the abuse of these communication services (mail-fraud, anti-spam etc). These laws would not have come into being if existing laws already served to make such practices illegal. (As an aside, you try to tear down the postal analogy on the basis of cost, but if direct financial impact were a qualifying criterion for illegality then free webmail, for example, would not be covered - yes, it does have an impact on the ISP or webmail service owner, and thus indirectly on you, but that's not going to cut it in court, and certainly has no bearing on trespass.)
Incidentally, yes, spam is inevitable. Not acceptable, not even tolerable, but it is inevitable. If there is any way of abusing a system, it will be abused - spam is a fact of life that we must combat the best we can. The fact that I accept that doesn't mean I like it any more than you - I'm just a little more pragmatic.
As for this whole "picking my lock" thing: yes, of course the email equivalent is illegal, but that's what anti-spam law is for. Why do you think no spammer has ever been prosecuted for trespass? "He deliberately put his email on my system without my prior express permission". So did your best friend, work colleague, long-lost college-buddy. True, they are not making a deliberate effort to circumvent your filters, while the spammer is. It is, however, that attempt to circumvent using false headers (among other things) that is illegal - not the act of emailing you. That is the act that the spam laws serve to discourage and punish, not the presence of the email on your system. If trespass covered this act, it would already have been tried as such. You're welcome to sue for financial damages in civil court as well, but that is not part of the criminal law process and is incidental.
On a final note, ask yourself this: if you click a web link that falsely purports to be for a list of monosyllabic insults, and instead you get knitting patterns, has the web-site owner committed trespass? Try reporting them to the police and see what happens. I know it's not exactly the same issue, but do you see where this muddying of the legal waters can lead? It's a very slippery slope, my friend...
What I'm saying is that it isn't trespass
As for the postal worker, you're butchering my analogy worse than I did. The email service is one that you set up yourself, so the fact that the this service you installed did its job and allowed the email onto your system means that the spammer didn't trespass. They made use of the service you paid for, just as anyone who emails you does. There doesn't need to be a law allowing this service to take place on your server as you set up and paid for the service yourself.
The fact that spammers are also abusing this service in a way that is harmful to you is illegal as covered by anti-spam law, but it is not trespass.
I think you're missing the point of my orignal post: I'm not saying the spammers have done nothing wrong or illegal. I'm just saying they haven't trespassed.
What if people don't want to be contacted by those they never met? Shouldn't that be their right?
Absolutely that's their right. You have the right to set up your email service so that only emails from addresses you've specifically approved will be accepted. People don't usually do that though, simply because it means nobody they haven't previously asked to can email them, which defeats one of email's perceived benefits.
At worse, none of MY resources are used when receiving junk mail; that's not the case for email.
This is where my analogy breaks down - as does any analogy under close enough scrutiny. I was illustrating the point that the service is invited, not that it's free. I understand that the use of resources makes it more complex, but the receipt of any email, legitimate or not, welcome or not, requested or not, requires the use of your resources. If you want to prevent anyone using it without your permission, you have a virtually closed system (again, losing some of its benefit). Unfortunately email is open to abuse, and the abuse of that system - spam - is already illegal. Again though, that doesn't make it trespass, any more than it makes the email from a friend you haven't seen in years trespass.
The people receiving this crap have a right NOT to be communicated with, especially at their own expense.
I think I've answered that one. They also have a right not to be spammed with illegitimate mail headers - but again, this is already covered by appropriate laws. Why does that mean that this is trespass? You have knowingly invited email from a service which does not discriminate, even though it is possible for you to make the service discriminate. Your openness is being abused, but you did make it open. It sucks, yes, it's illegal, yes, but it isn't trespass.
Since it seems to be the unpermitted occupation of property that's confusing everyone, I'll use another analogy. If you have a house-party, and you post signs everywhere saying ANYONE can come, you will undoubtedly get undesirable elements appearing. When they arrive, they haven't trespassed unless you have already informed them they cannot enter. If they enter and then you tell them to leave, and they leave, they haven't trespassed. If you tell them to leave and they don't, THEN they are trespassing.
However, any email that gets on your system you can delete, just as you can turn away an undesirable from your party. No trespass. The email occupied your server, the undesirable guest trampled your lawn, drank a bit, but didn't do anything illegal (well, they could have, but that's a different issue).
If you post these invites everywhere, and someone gets a hold of it, shows it to all their friends, they show it to theirs, and so on, you may find thousands of undesirable people arriving. What do you do? You either cancel/stop the party (close your server), maybe with a list of people who CAN come in (email whitelist), or you put a doorman on the gate (spam filter). They won't do a perfect job, maybe getting it wrong one way or another sometimes, but what choice have you got? An intelligent doorman will recognise people whom maybe you don't know but wouldn't mind coming in, but that's the best you can hope for - he isn't an avatar who knows your every whim.
Whatever measure you take, the only time somebody would be committing trespass would be if they didn't leave when asked (couldn't be deleted). Doesn't really apply in the case of normal spam.
Please don't be upset everyone. I know it's frustrating, annoying, even costly when spam gets through, and that it should be punished accordingly. However, this muddying of the waters, by bringing up inappropriate laws because they feel right until they are carefully considered, doesn't help.
It is not possible to retroactively impose your preferences on an open situation like this and expect it to be legally cogent. The law has to be consistent and objective or it isn't law. Either your friend is committing trespass or the spammer isn't (again, they might be breaking the law, but not trespass law).
But is sending someone a junk letter trespass? If you forced your way into their house and put it on their kitchen table, yes - and that's what you're talking about with criminal hacking. If you put it in the mail like anyone else, no it isn't. The result is the same, but the means are perfectly legitimate. The method of the mail's entry to your property is via a service that you invite, knowing full well that such an abuse is possible but illegal. Spam law wouldn't exist if trespass law already covered this act.
But they're not, are they. This is why I used the postal analogy. You can't vet these things before they've arrived, so we have laws in place to make misuse or abuse of the services illegal. It's actually a desirable quality of postal- or e-mail that it is possible to send things unsolicited. That is one of its greatest strengths, but also its greatest avenue of abuse - which is why these laws are in place.
You do pay for your bandwidth but, like it or not, your choice over what you do and don't receive is inherently limited. You click on a web-link, you get whatever the web-designer/publisher/whatever puts on there, like it or not. You set up an email service, you get whatever email is sent your way, like it or not.
Stop thinking of your bandwidth and storage as property, and start thinking of it as territory. When your own measures aren't enough to defend it from casual incursion, the common law of the land should be. If the law is not sufficiently upheld, complain to your governor, DEA, whomever the hell it takes to get these things implemented properly. There's no need to muddy the waters by confusing it with other, inappropriate laws - that's all I'm saying.
First: no, it isn't stealing. If I shaved 10 millionths of a cent from you bank account every day, it would be stealing. The spammers are not appropriating any of your lost funds however - merely causing you to do so by abusing the service you rent. That's wrong, obviously, which is why it's illegal under spam laws. That's the purpose of spam law. The fact that it's wrong doesn't make it stealing. The fact that you have lost money does not mean it has been stolen.
All of the points you make essentially state that Spamming Is Wrong. OF COURSE IT'S FUCKING WRONG - THAT'S WHAT THE JUDGMENT IS SAYING! But that does NOT mean it's trespass, and that's all I said - that it was an inaccurate and irresponsible comparison. If the court had said "it's the equivalent of murder" and I had objected to that statement, would you be calling me a dumbass for criticising the inappropriate comparison?
Next: no, you do not "own" the email service from your ISP. You rent it. They use it exclusively for delivery of email, and you voluntarily give them the money to do so - you are paying for a service. Web-space, server-space etc are not the same as an email service. The abuse of that service is of course wrong, but it is not stealing, nor is it trespassing on your space. Try and convict a spammer under trespass law - see how far you get. I think the judicial system has a clearer understanding of the law than you do.
Finally, once again, I did NOT say that spamming is acceptable. Of course it's fucking wrong, and it's illegal under ANTI-SPAM LAW. I did say I agreed with the judgment, didn't I? Pay attention! My objection was ONLY to the comparison with trespass, which it clearly is not, in legal terms.
I agree. I don't disapprove of the ruling at all - just the analogy given by the court. It seems like an unreasonable icing on a very reasonable cake.
I appreciate the notion of Trespass to Chattels. However, I think it is worth noting that the email service we install on our servers was so installed by our own volition, and it is that service which allows the spam to occupy our systems - the spam cannot enter without the appropriate system we have put in place. This is why I used the postal analogy - we invite the mailman every day, implicitly, accepting the consequences that may ensue. We put our trust in the various laws covering postal services that are designed to protect us from its possible abuse.
Since Trespass of Chattels does not apply when somebody sends junk mail to our postbox, nor, I believe, should it apply to mail servers. Again, we have laws which should protect us from the abuse of our email service. The fact that the laws are ineffectually enforced does not mean that they are not sufficient, but that their enforcement is insufficient.
The issue of paying for the service is a muddy one, but then how do you separate those who use "free" webmail services from those who run their own web services. It seems to me that the issue of cost of the mail service should not be a part of the criminal laws pertaining to spam - though of course, recompense can be sought through civil lawsuits, as this is their purpose.
Isn't spam law enough in itself, without bringing in the notions of "property"? I know the following is slightly off-topic and a somewhat nebulous issue (so please don't treat it as the same subject), but I personally found that my understanding of computer security took a huge leap when I ceased to see my bandwidth, processor cycles and memory as "property" and started to view them as "territory". All the principles of defense, ownership and security seemed a lot simpler to apply after that...
It still isn't trespass, is it? All analogies are flawed when examined to sufficient depth. I was merely pointing out that the sender of spam at no point makes use of your property - it is your mail service that does this, which you have installed and commissioned. The abuse of this mail service is illegal, but that doesn't mean it's trespass, or even theft.
Don't throw anthrax into the argument (or "thinking of the children" FFS) - that's not analogous, that would be like sending a trojan, worm, whatever in an email, which is covered by different laws, and is not the subject of this discussion.
THE LAW ALREADY COVERS THESE THINGS - if such crimes were subject to trespass law (or whatever), these laws about spamming, mail fraud in the mail etc WOULD NOT EXIST. There would be no need for them!
The mail-bombing thing is an entirely different issue.
Neither - it's spamming, which is illegal. It has its own law, which is being poorly enforced by an ineffective and technologically ignorant judicial system. Sounds like a very bad thing for your company, absolutely, but it is covered by neither of the laws you mention. Read about them, for crying out loud.
So, let's break it down: Is sending someone a letter through the post that they don't want trespass? Under US law, no, it isn't. It does indeed involve using their property - namely a mailbox, possibly a garden path for the mailman to walk on, but it is not trespass. If you tell the mailman to stop delivering then he will. You will not receive junk-mail. However, you want your legitimate mail, so you implicitly invite the mailman (is he trespassing? I think you'll find that hard to support) to deliver the mail. It is not his responsibility to vet the mail to see whether you approve of it or not. He is just a service provider.
It's the same with email. The service - which you pay for, true, and which is open to abuse - is not trespassing when it delivers the email as you invite it in. If the service were not impartial, we would not be talking about the internet (though that's a discussion for another article, I suspect). Why is this any different from junk-mail in your mail box? How can one be trespass, warranting physical retaliation, and the other not be?
Look, I appreciate that this is an emotive issue, especially for those who have dealt with a lot of spam and such, but ineffective application of perfectly suitable laws does not warrant additional laws. That way lies judicial ruin and opressive over-regulation.
If the current laws are not being enforced, why bother creating more laws? Once again, I have no problem at all with the ruling - just the ill-informed statement that followed it. It displays a fundamental lack of understanding of the issues.
I work for a small Local Education Authority where all secondary schools use interactive whiteboards, as do the majority of primaries.
There is a school in London that uses fingerprint-scanners at the classroom entrances instead of registers (a little more reliable than a perfectly portable ID card? I dunno.), and there are numerous examples of the effective use of decent technology to impact attendance and learning. Automatic texts to parents' mobiles or emails to their work accounts when the kids don't show in the morning is a pretty effective one that's gaining momentum.
And no books, just laptops? Look, I don't know about you, but that sounds like a really bad idea to me. I've heard of pilot "one laptop per child" schemes that came unstuck within weeks, because there is nothing that can prevent an army of bored, intelligent kids from completely hijacking and abusing any technology you care to give them. Now that may not necessarily be a bad thing in more more libertarian concepts of learning, but I really don't think it helps the class teachers one bit.
So what's really unique about this school? Apart from that it's a white building in Philly, I mean. It's the management system. Which comes from Microsoft. I don't need to add anything M$-bashy here, surely...
Prestigious this may be, but what a fucking awful idea of how to run a school! The use of technology in education is often a good thing, sometimes indifferent, occasionally bad, but certainly not new.
The only actual news here is that it's been designed by M$, and for that reason, I fear for the future of Philadelphia more than I ever did.