Whether it's you misinterpreting them, or them being put badly makes no difference. The fact is that there has never been an issue with apps creating free accounts on services
Again, it sounds like you're just assuming "Oh, they could never do something that stupid, of course that's allowed." When it looks like that's exactly why apple is rejecting apps. The external authentication/creating accounts. And that is why everyone is saying what apple is doing is stupid and going too far.
I'll give you another quote from the dropbox forums.
My app update just got rejected with the old sdk that doesn't have a link to the desktop stuff. It never leaves the app and there is no option to buy anything. They said providing account registration for accounts that may carry a subscription is not appropriate.
Apple is rejecting apps for allowing people to create a free account that may be updated later. Simple as that. And I think the reason you deny that so fiercely is because you realize how stupid that is
The issue was definitely the ability to sign up for a free account. Just read apple's rejection notice that was posted
We found that your app provides access to external mechanisms for purchases or subscriptions to be used in the app, which is not in compliance with the App Store Review Guidelines.
Specifically, your app enables to user to create accounts with Dropbox and Google.
When a user creates an account through the mobile link given, they are not upsold. There are no links to purchase a pro account. They simply enter account details, then they have a free account. No purchasing of any kind goes on in the places where the app links. Apple has stated that this is a problem because of the fact that they can later turn this account into a paid subscription, and apple won't get a cut. Which seems like a giant overreach to me.
Dropbox's statement confirms this
"Apple is rejecting apps that use the Dropbox SDK because we allow users to create accounts,"
The reason the new SDK is fine is that it removes the ability for users to sign up for a dropbox account. If you don't have an account, you're just supposed to figure out on your own that you need to go to dropbox.com and register... And that's stupid. Apple has gone way too far with this one.
Your store lets people come in and play games against each other. Someone comes in and says "Hey, you know, this game can be better if you go to this website and read the strategy there." You kick him out of the store and ban him from ever mentioning the website, because it happens to sell cards on an unrelated section of the website, and selling cards is banned in your store.
That is what apple is doing here. An app has dropbox integration as a feature. The user clicks on that integration and is prompted for a dropbox user name and password. There is also a button if the user does not have a dropbox account. If that button is clicked the app checks to see if the dropbox app is installed, and if not, gives them the url to register for dropbox, which is opened in Safari. This registration is completely free. Apple bans the app because the user could possibly use that dropbox url to make account and then later pay for dropbox pro and apple won't get a cut on that.
This is a major difference between an app skirting the "selling premium content" rule by linking to a url, and an app linking to a registration for a free account that has optional paid extras. Cause i'm pretty sure Apple is now saying that no app is allowed to link to google registration, facebook registration, or anything... That seems pretty absurd to me
The terms quoted are pretty much necessary for any site that allows user submitted content. That's the way copyright law works. If they want to display something on a webpage, they need a license to do it. If they want to convert a word document into a.pdf, that's a derivitave work. Same with showing you a thumbnail of the image you uploaded. I guarantee that 95% of the sites out there have a similar clause in their terms of service. For instance: just take a look at slashdot's own terms of service. Click that terms button down at the bottom of the page and what do you get:
submitting user retains ownership of such Geeknet Public Content; with respect to publicly-available statistical content which is generated by the site to monitor and display content activity, such content is owned by Geeknet. In each such case, the submitting user grants Geeknet the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, transferable license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform, and display such Content (in whole or part) worldwide and/or to incorporate it in other works in any form, media, or technology now known or later developed, all subject to the terms of any applicable license
My main issue with that is viewing this as a private person to person conversation. These are emails that are sent to a completely anonymous email address that the sender has no idea what's going to happen to them.
Say I make a craigslist ad that says, "Hey, I'm looking for sex, call me at +4790369389, and you call that number, and it goes to A loudspeaker that broadcasts your voice to the public. You call that number and yell out that you're looking for sex, and here's your name and email. Am I now liable for broadcasting your public information to the world, or is that your own damn fault for not realizing what that number did.
So what if i make an email address that forwards your email verbatim to an email list? Is that the same, or do you expect more privacy from an anonymous email address than an anonymous phone number?
Look, I have no problem with expecting privacy on person to person conversations. However, I have a very hard time considering an email sent to a completely anonymous email address with which you have had no prior correspondence to be a private person to person conversation.
They can, like anyone else, decide whether you've violated their TOS. If they decide you have, then they either cancel your account or, if you've been doing something blatantly illegal, they can bring it to the attention of the fuzz.
That's the thing. This ruling says that violating the ToS on a website is in itself a federal crime.
The idea is that there is a law saying that "unauthorized access to a computer" is considered hacking and is federal crime. Because Lori Drew violated the Terms of Service, her access to myspace's servers were unauthorized, therefore, she gets convicted of computer hacking.
That's the only thing she was actually convicted of: Violating Myspace's Terms of Service. As various articles have pointed out, treating a terms of service violation as a federal offense is absurd. If someone under 18 does a google search (google's ToS says you need to be 18), do they deserve to spend a year in jail? According to this ruling, they violated the Terms of Service, and that alone is computer abuse, and they're guilty.
Because using a false name on the internet isn't illegal. She's not impersonating someone, just made up a false name and false persona. You have the right to anonymity if you want to. That's a first amendment right.
Hence, the prosecution has to bring into play the fact that you were using a false name to access myspace's servers. And, because that is against the ToS, your access to the servers was "unauthorized." And there's this hacking law that says "unauthorized access to computers is illegal." Therefore breaking the ToS is a felony.
I don't care if you think a site should be able to sue someone for breach of contract for not following the ToS. That's a bit more of a gray area. But there's no way that not following the ToS of a website should be a felony. That is taking the law way too far.
I guess i should get used to people not RTFAing anymore.
The prosecution originally looked for a way to charge her for harassment. However, they realized that under the Missouri law at the time, they didn't have a case. (Since then, the law has been changed so this probably could be prosecuted now)
The indictment they brought against her is not for what she said, it's for the fact that she broke myspace's Terms of Service. The prosecution is using an anti-hacking law that makes "unauthorized computer access" illegal. The argument is that by violating the Myspace ToS, Lori's access to myspace's server is no longer authorized, and therefore, she's a felon.
It's that aspect of the case that has the implications on free speech. If violating the ToS of a company is a felony, that will have far reaching implications, such as making anyone under 18 who googles something a felon. It's that which the EFF is trying to stop.
I think everyone agrees that Lori is a dick, and probably should be punished. However, violating the ToS of a website should not be a criminal offense, which is what this case is trying to turn it into.
Question: Do you think anyone under 18 who uses google should be considered a felon?
Google's ToS actually requires that you be 18 before you can use the service. If i'm a 17 year old who googles something, do you think i'm committing fraud?
According to the argument set forth in the indictment, anyone under 18 using google is a felon.
It seems like most of the replies here aren't fully informed about the issues of the case and are looking at the "free speech" in the subject the wrong way, so here's a brief overview.
Originally the prosecution looked to charge her for harassment and/or threatening behavior. However, under the law at the time, her speech was considered protected speech, and the prosecution decided that they didn't have a case for harassment. (The law has since been amended so if she did that now, she could very easily charged).
The prosecution ultimately decided to indict her using an anti-hacking law that prevents "unauthorized access to a computer." The argument is that by misrepresenting herself on myspace, she violated the Terms of Service. Therefore, her access to Myspace's Servers was unauthorized, and she committed a felony by using myspace while violating their ToS. The indictment is not for harassment/threatening behavior. It's for breaking the ToS of a website, which the hacking law has never been used for before.
As the EFF amicus brief points out, if violating the ToS of a site is criminal behavior, this has far reaching implications. Google has something in their Terms of Service that says you have to be 18 to use google. According to the prosecution in this case, anyone under 18 who does a google search is a felon. Facebook's ToS has a provision that says you must keep all information in your profile up to date. If i change my favorite movie and don't update my facebook account promptly, i'm a felon.
This is not an issue of harassment vs. free speech. I think we all agree that Lori Drew is an ass and ideally, she should be punished. However, don't try and get her on an obscure law that will have far reaching implications. Violating the terms of service on a website (which a large majority of people don't even read fully) should not be a criminal offense. That's what this case is seeking to do
Once again, she is not getting charged with fraud...
She is getting charged under a law that says anyone who "intentionally accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access, and thereby obtains information from any protected computer if the conduct involved an interstate or foreign communication" is a felon. Since she wasn't following the ToS, her access to myspace was unauthorized. The indictment does not use the word "fraud" once.
Again, this is not a case of fraud. She is charged with unauthorized access to a computer because she violated the myspace ToS. That should not be a criminal offense
It's not fraud that's the issue, and injury has nothing to do with it. She's not getting charged with fraud. She's getting charged under an anti-hacking law that makes it a felony to "illegally access a computer." The argument is that by violating myspace's ToS, and then accessing myspace's servers, she's illegally accessing a computer and is therefore, a felon.
Basically, the prosecution is arguing that violating the ToS of a website is a felony that should be punished in criminal court. Hence, if you look at a profile on match.com and are married, you're a felon. If you make an off-topic post on a forum with something in the ToS about posting off-topic, you're a felon. It's an awful precedent and should not be the case.
What if i'm married and want to look at my cousin's profile on match.com?
Should I now be considered a felon? (match.com's ToS says married people aren't allowed on the site).
If i make an off topic post on a forum where there's a line in their ToS about not making off topic posts, should i be criminally liable for that?
There are so many poorly written or overly broad Terms of Services out there for websites that it's ridiculous to make it a felony to violate them. I can see a civil suit possibly. But making it a criminal offense to not follow a website's terms is just absurd.
But she's not getting charged for the harassment. Apparently there's no law saying that that's illegal.
She's getting charged under some computer hacking statute for "Illegally Accessing a Computer." Apparently because when she used a false name in myspace, that violated their ToS, hence, her access to myspace's servers was unauthorized and illegal.
Look, she was an ass, and what she did was completely reprehensible. But if there's no law against what she did (and there should be), you shouldn't go looking for other laws to charge her under that will set a bad precedent.
Violating the Terms of Service of a website should in no way be a criminal offense. It's as simple as that.
I don't think there is anyone here who doesn't think that what the woman did was a complete asshole thing to do, and was morally wrong. However, what you have to ask yourself is, even though this was a horrendous act, did she break any laws? Originally, the state DA said they couldn't prosecute because there was no crime committed. Now, if the government thinks that that is a problem and wants to write a new law to cover situations like that in the future, that's fine. But if you ask me, at the time the act was committed, i don't think it was against the law.
However, what she is being indicted for is breaking the MySpace TOS. Personally, I don't think that breaking the TOS of a website should be considered a criminal action, and if the emotions of this case get in the way, and people let "THIS WOMAN DID SOMETHING AWFUL" get in the way of "wait, we're punishing this woman for violating the TOS of a website" and she gets convicted, I think it will lead to a very dangerous precedent for future cases.
From the article, it looks like the professor has registered a copyright for the lecture, and uses transparencies to show the main points of the lecture. The notes sold copy the transparencies verbatim and are sold for profit. While it may not be 100% clear cut, in my mind I probably side with the professor in this case.
See, I think the quote you quoted really doesn't sum up the article at all, or at least, it's very misleading. The article doesn't say that streaks of 56 games are a common occurrence. What it says is that the fact that baseball history has a record of a 56 game hitting streak isn't that rare, given players historical batting averages.
Think of it this way. I flip a coin 10 million times and find the longest streak of heads. Say it's 50 (I have no idea how likely that is and i'm too lazy to actually simulate it, so i'm just going to make up numbers). I flip another 10 million coins, and find that the longest streak is 53. I flip another 10 million coins and find the longest streak is 40. I do this another 10,000 times and record the record in each case, and get a distribution for the longest streak in any given 10 million flips. Now, i'm not going to claim that 50 heads in a row isn't an extremely rare streak. But i can say what the odds are of getting a streak of at least 50 heads when i flip 10 million coins are.
That's what these researchers did. Simulated 10,000 seasons from 1871-2005 (using players historical batting averages as their likelihood to get a hit) and found what the longest hitting streak in each 'alternate history' is. Their claim is that 56 games is not an unusually high number (in fact It looks to be right about the median.) So sure, DiMaggio's streak was great, and incredibly rare. But it's interesting to see what the odds are of having a hitting streak that long.
By the way, have you ever had an experience in which your opponent was disconnected, and the match never came to fruition? Like when you started with four players, but ended up with only one?
I don't like that feeling, so I've tried to counter it.
If you get cut off, your character will get taken over by the CPU without your opponents even knowing--it pinch hits for you!
And sure, while it might be a neat feature of an online system, I don't like the fact that it doesn't tell you at all if your opponent drops out and you're actually playing an AI. Never really knowing that you are even playing a real person definitely diminishes the impact of a decent online system
Might as well be playing with a half-decent AI then, donchathink?
You will be. If someone drops out of the match, the game won't tell you, and just replace the character with an AI.
Nintendo is touting this as a feature, but if you ask me, "our online multiplayer has so little communication, we can replace someone with an AI and you won't even know" kinda defeats the point of online multiplayer.
Because there is no way to tell what the measurement will be beforehand. If you haven't measured either electron yet, in both locations there's a 50% chance that it's in one state, 50% chance that it's in the other state. However, once one electron's state is measured, the probability that the other electron will be in the same state is 0. So, while the act of measuring the state has an effect on the other measurement, there isn't any way to get information from point to point instantaneously, like the "spooky action at a distance."
Glossing over a lot of details, what "spooky action at a distance" refers to is the fact that in certain situations, when something is measured in one place, you know exactly what is going to be measured at another place.
For instance, say an electron has two states, called up and down. And say it's possible to entangle two electrons so that they will always be in opposite states. You can then send them in two different directions. Before you measure the state of each individual electron, you have no idea whether you will measure its state as up or down. However, at the exact instant that you measure the state it in one location, because they are entangled, you know that the other electron will have the opposite state. Since you can't control what is measured at each location, there's no way to actually send information using "spooky action at a distance."
I have no problem with games being rated AO, and I have no problems with trailers being rated AO. However, given the way in which the AO rating is practically being applied (and quite explicitly here) I believe it needs a new name: NFA (Not for ANYONE).
I completely agree. From TFA, it looks like the ESRB has basically decided to ban the trailer. From the ESRBs statement:
However, the mere presence of an age gate does not permit a publisher to simply put whatever content it wishes into the trailer. All trailers must still conform to ARC's Principles and Guidelines, which prohibit the display of excessively violent content or any content likely to cause serious offense to the average consumer...
When ESRB notifies a publisher that the content in a trailer is in violation of these ARC requirements, or that there is an age gate issue on a third party site, that publisher then must notify third party sites to rectify the problem.
Apparently, The ESRB is saying, "This trailer is inappropriate, you need to go find every third party site that has it up, and tell them to take it down, or we're going to punish you." Frankly, I think that is completely ridiculous. The ESRB is supposed to be a voluntary rating system, and despite the fact that it has become basically mandatory if a company wants to put a game out for a console, it's still supposed to be a set of guidelines saying what age level a game is appropriate for. In this case, they're saying that "The trailer is AO, and therefore appropriate for nobody, take it down and tell third party sites to take it down too." That, IMO, is completely overstepping the bounds of a voluntary rating system, and is censorship in its finest form.
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Whether it's you misinterpreting them, or them being put badly makes no difference. The fact is that there has never been an issue with apps creating free accounts on services
Again, it sounds like you're just assuming "Oh, they could never do something that stupid, of course that's allowed." When it looks like that's exactly why apple is rejecting apps. The external authentication/creating accounts. And that is why everyone is saying what apple is doing is stupid and going too far.
I'll give you another quote from the dropbox forums.
My app update just got rejected with the old sdk that doesn't have a link to the desktop stuff. It never leaves the app and there is no option to buy anything. They said providing account registration for accounts that may carry a subscription is not appropriate.
Apple is rejecting apps for allowing people to create a free account that may be updated later. Simple as that. And I think the reason you deny that so fiercely is because you realize how stupid that is
I'll admit, i don't have a version of the dropbox SDK to check, but i'm going by what the dropbox developers are saying
Here is a version of the iOS SDK trhat removes both the "Desktop Version" link and the create account link.
"Apple is rejecting apps that use the Dropbox SDK because we allow users to create accounts,"
I find it hard to believe i'm misinterpreting those quotes that badly. Because that sounds like the problem is "creating accounts"
The issue was definitely the ability to sign up for a free account. Just read apple's rejection notice that was posted
We found that your app provides access to external mechanisms for purchases or subscriptions to be used in the app, which is not in compliance with the App Store Review Guidelines.
Specifically, your app enables to user to create accounts with Dropbox and Google.
When a user creates an account through the mobile link given, they are not upsold. There are no links to purchase a pro account. They simply enter account details, then they have a free account. No purchasing of any kind goes on in the places where the app links. Apple has stated that this is a problem because of the fact that they can later turn this account into a paid subscription, and apple won't get a cut. Which seems like a giant overreach to me.
Dropbox's statement confirms this
"Apple is rejecting apps that use the Dropbox SDK because we allow users to create accounts,"
The reason the new SDK is fine is that it removes the ability for users to sign up for a dropbox account. If you don't have an account, you're just supposed to figure out on your own that you need to go to dropbox.com and register... And that's stupid. Apple has gone way too far with this one.
Modifying your analogy
Your store lets people come in and play games against each other. Someone comes in and says "Hey, you know, this game can be better if you go to this website and read the strategy there." You kick him out of the store and ban him from ever mentioning the website, because it happens to sell cards on an unrelated section of the website, and selling cards is banned in your store.
That is what apple is doing here. An app has dropbox integration as a feature. The user clicks on that integration and is prompted for a dropbox user name and password. There is also a button if the user does not have a dropbox account. If that button is clicked the app checks to see if the dropbox app is installed, and if not, gives them the url to register for dropbox, which is opened in Safari. This registration is completely free. Apple bans the app because the user could possibly use that dropbox url to make account and then later pay for dropbox pro and apple won't get a cut on that.
This is a major difference between an app skirting the "selling premium content" rule by linking to a url, and an app linking to a registration for a free account that has optional paid extras. Cause i'm pretty sure Apple is now saying that no app is allowed to link to google registration, facebook registration, or anything... That seems pretty absurd to me
Yeah, not really getting the whole uproar here...
The terms quoted are pretty much necessary for any site that allows user submitted content. That's the way copyright law works. If they want to display something on a webpage, they need a license to do it. If they want to convert a word document into a .pdf, that's a derivitave work. Same with showing you a thumbnail of the image you uploaded. I guarantee that 95% of the sites out there have a similar clause in their terms of service. For instance: just take a look at slashdot's own terms of service. Click that terms button down at the bottom of the page and what do you get:
submitting user retains ownership of such Geeknet Public Content; with respect to publicly-available statistical content which is generated by the site to monitor and display content activity, such content is owned by Geeknet. In each such case, the submitting user grants Geeknet the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, transferable license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform, and display such Content (in whole or part) worldwide and/or to incorporate it in other works in any form, media, or technology now known or later developed, all subject to the terms of any applicable license
Looks very similar, doesn't it...
My main issue with that is viewing this as a private person to person conversation. These are emails that are sent to a completely anonymous email address that the sender has no idea what's going to happen to them.
Say I make a craigslist ad that says, "Hey, I'm looking for sex, call me at +4790369389, and you call that number, and it goes to A loudspeaker that broadcasts your voice to the public. You call that number and yell out that you're looking for sex, and here's your name and email. Am I now liable for broadcasting your public information to the world, or is that your own damn fault for not realizing what that number did.
So what if i make an email address that forwards your email verbatim to an email list? Is that the same, or do you expect more privacy from an anonymous email address than an anonymous phone number?
Look, I have no problem with expecting privacy on person to person conversations. However, I have a very hard time considering an email sent to a completely anonymous email address with which you have had no prior correspondence to be a private person to person conversation.
That's the thing. This ruling says that violating the ToS on a website is in itself a federal crime.
The idea is that there is a law saying that "unauthorized access to a computer" is considered hacking and is federal crime. Because Lori Drew violated the Terms of Service, her access to myspace's servers were unauthorized, therefore, she gets convicted of computer hacking.
That's the only thing she was actually convicted of: Violating Myspace's Terms of Service. As various articles have pointed out, treating a terms of service violation as a federal offense is absurd. If someone under 18 does a google search (google's ToS says you need to be 18), do they deserve to spend a year in jail? According to this ruling, they violated the Terms of Service, and that alone is computer abuse, and they're guilty.
Because using a false name on the internet isn't illegal. She's not impersonating someone, just made up a false name and false persona. You have the right to anonymity if you want to. That's a first amendment right.
Hence, the prosecution has to bring into play the fact that you were using a false name to access myspace's servers. And, because that is against the ToS, your access to the servers was "unauthorized." And there's this hacking law that says "unauthorized access to computers is illegal." Therefore breaking the ToS is a felony.
I don't care if you think a site should be able to sue someone for breach of contract for not following the ToS. That's a bit more of a gray area. But there's no way that not following the ToS of a website should be a felony. That is taking the law way too far.
I guess i should get used to people not RTFAing anymore.
The prosecution originally looked for a way to charge her for harassment. However, they realized that under the Missouri law at the time, they didn't have a case. (Since then, the law has been changed so this probably could be prosecuted now)
The indictment they brought against her is not for what she said, it's for the fact that she broke myspace's Terms of Service. The prosecution is using an anti-hacking law that makes "unauthorized computer access" illegal. The argument is that by violating the Myspace ToS, Lori's access to myspace's server is no longer authorized, and therefore, she's a felon.
It's that aspect of the case that has the implications on free speech. If violating the ToS of a company is a felony, that will have far reaching implications, such as making anyone under 18 who googles something a felon. It's that which the EFF is trying to stop.
I think everyone agrees that Lori is a dick, and probably should be punished. However, violating the ToS of a website should not be a criminal offense, which is what this case is trying to turn it into.
Question: Do you think anyone under 18 who uses google should be considered a felon?
Google's ToS actually requires that you be 18 before you can use the service. If i'm a 17 year old who googles something, do you think i'm committing fraud?
According to the argument set forth in the indictment, anyone under 18 using google is a felon.
It seems like most of the replies here aren't fully informed about the issues of the case and are looking at the "free speech" in the subject the wrong way, so here's a brief overview.
Originally the prosecution looked to charge her for harassment and/or threatening behavior. However, under the law at the time, her speech was considered protected speech, and the prosecution decided that they didn't have a case for harassment. (The law has since been amended so if she did that now, she could very easily charged).
The prosecution ultimately decided to indict her using an anti-hacking law that prevents "unauthorized access to a computer." The argument is that by misrepresenting herself on myspace, she violated the Terms of Service. Therefore, her access to Myspace's Servers was unauthorized, and she committed a felony by using myspace while violating their ToS. The indictment is not for harassment/threatening behavior. It's for breaking the ToS of a website, which the hacking law has never been used for before.
As the EFF amicus brief points out, if violating the ToS of a site is criminal behavior, this has far reaching implications. Google has something in their Terms of Service that says you have to be 18 to use google. According to the prosecution in this case, anyone under 18 who does a google search is a felon. Facebook's ToS has a provision that says you must keep all information in your profile up to date. If i change my favorite movie and don't update my facebook account promptly, i'm a felon.
This is not an issue of harassment vs. free speech. I think we all agree that Lori Drew is an ass and ideally, she should be punished. However, don't try and get her on an obscure law that will have far reaching implications. Violating the terms of service on a website (which a large majority of people don't even read fully) should not be a criminal offense. That's what this case is seeking to do
Once again, she is not getting charged with fraud...
She is getting charged under a law that says anyone who "intentionally accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access, and thereby obtains information from any protected computer if the conduct involved an interstate or foreign communication" is a felon. Since she wasn't following the ToS, her access to myspace was unauthorized. The indictment does not use the word "fraud" once.
Again, this is not a case of fraud. She is charged with unauthorized access to a computer because she violated the myspace ToS. That should not be a criminal offense
It's not fraud that's the issue, and injury has nothing to do with it. She's not getting charged with fraud. She's getting charged under an anti-hacking law that makes it a felony to "illegally access a computer." The argument is that by violating myspace's ToS, and then accessing myspace's servers, she's illegally accessing a computer and is therefore, a felon.
Basically, the prosecution is arguing that violating the ToS of a website is a felony that should be punished in criminal court. Hence, if you look at a profile on match.com and are married, you're a felon. If you make an off-topic post on a forum with something in the ToS about posting off-topic, you're a felon. It's an awful precedent and should not be the case.
What if i'm married and want to look at my cousin's profile on match.com?
Should I now be considered a felon? (match.com's ToS says married people aren't allowed on the site).
If i make an off topic post on a forum where there's a line in their ToS about not making off topic posts, should i be criminally liable for that?
There are so many poorly written or overly broad Terms of Services out there for websites that it's ridiculous to make it a felony to violate them. I can see a civil suit possibly. But making it a criminal offense to not follow a website's terms is just absurd.
But she's not getting charged for the harassment. Apparently there's no law saying that that's illegal.
She's getting charged under some computer hacking statute for "Illegally Accessing a Computer." Apparently because when she used a false name in myspace, that violated their ToS, hence, her access to myspace's servers was unauthorized and illegal.
Look, she was an ass, and what she did was completely reprehensible. But if there's no law against what she did (and there should be), you shouldn't go looking for other laws to charge her under that will set a bad precedent.
Violating the Terms of Service of a website should in no way be a criminal offense. It's as simple as that.
I don't think there is anyone here who doesn't think that what the woman did was a complete asshole thing to do, and was morally wrong. However, what you have to ask yourself is, even though this was a horrendous act, did she break any laws? Originally, the state DA said they couldn't prosecute because there was no crime committed. Now, if the government thinks that that is a problem and wants to write a new law to cover situations like that in the future, that's fine. But if you ask me, at the time the act was committed, i don't think it was against the law.
However, what she is being indicted for is breaking the MySpace TOS. Personally, I don't think that breaking the TOS of a website should be considered a criminal action, and if the emotions of this case get in the way, and people let "THIS WOMAN DID SOMETHING AWFUL" get in the way of "wait, we're punishing this woman for violating the TOS of a website" and she gets convicted, I think it will lead to a very dangerous precedent for future cases.
Frisbee is another good example. How many people do you know who say they're going to go throw around a "flying disc."
From the article, it looks like the professor has registered a copyright for the lecture, and uses transparencies to show the main points of the lecture. The notes sold copy the transparencies verbatim and are sold for profit. While it may not be 100% clear cut, in my mind I probably side with the professor in this case.
See, I think the quote you quoted really doesn't sum up the article at all, or at least, it's very misleading. The article doesn't say that streaks of 56 games are a common occurrence. What it says is that the fact that baseball history has a record of a 56 game hitting streak isn't that rare, given players historical batting averages.
Think of it this way. I flip a coin 10 million times and find the longest streak of heads. Say it's 50 (I have no idea how likely that is and i'm too lazy to actually simulate it, so i'm just going to make up numbers). I flip another 10 million coins, and find that the longest streak is 53. I flip another 10 million coins and find the longest streak is 40. I do this another 10,000 times and record the record in each case, and get a distribution for the longest streak in any given 10 million flips. Now, i'm not going to claim that 50 heads in a row isn't an extremely rare streak. But i can say what the odds are of getting a streak of at least 50 heads when i flip 10 million coins are.
That's what these researchers did. Simulated 10,000 seasons from 1871-2005 (using players historical batting averages as their likelihood to get a hit) and found what the longest hitting streak in each 'alternate history' is. Their claim is that 56 games is not an unusually high number (in fact It looks to be right about the median.) So sure, DiMaggio's streak was great, and incredibly rare. But it's interesting to see what the odds are of having a hitting streak that long.
ahem...
sure, that's technically not exactly Bejeweled, but the core gameplay is the same.
About halfway down the page
And sure, while it might be a neat feature of an online system, I don't like the fact that it doesn't tell you at all if your opponent drops out and you're actually playing an AI. Never really knowing that you are even playing a real person definitely diminishes the impact of a decent online system
You will be. If someone drops out of the match, the game won't tell you, and just replace the character with an AI.
Nintendo is touting this as a feature, but if you ask me, "our online multiplayer has so little communication, we can replace someone with an AI and you won't even know" kinda defeats the point of online multiplayer.Because there is no way to tell what the measurement will be beforehand. If you haven't measured either electron yet, in both locations there's a 50% chance that it's in one state, 50% chance that it's in the other state. However, once one electron's state is measured, the probability that the other electron will be in the same state is 0. So, while the act of measuring the state has an effect on the other measurement, there isn't any way to get information from point to point instantaneously, like the "spooky action at a distance."
No, there's no way to transmit information.
Glossing over a lot of details, what "spooky action at a distance" refers to is the fact that in certain situations, when something is measured in one place, you know exactly what is going to be measured at another place.
For instance, say an electron has two states, called up and down. And say it's possible to entangle two electrons so that they will always be in opposite states. You can then send them in two different directions. Before you measure the state of each individual electron, you have no idea whether you will measure its state as up or down. However, at the exact instant that you measure the state it in one location, because they are entangled, you know that the other electron will have the opposite state. Since you can't control what is measured at each location, there's no way to actually send information using "spooky action at a distance."
I completely agree. From TFA, it looks like the ESRB has basically decided to ban the trailer. From the ESRBs statement:
Apparently, The ESRB is saying, "This trailer is inappropriate, you need to go find every third party site that has it up, and tell them to take it down, or we're going to punish you." Frankly, I think that is completely ridiculous. The ESRB is supposed to be a voluntary rating system, and despite the fact that it has become basically mandatory if a company wants to put a game out for a console, it's still supposed to be a set of guidelines saying what age level a game is appropriate for. In this case, they're saying that "The trailer is AO, and therefore appropriate for nobody, take it down and tell third party sites to take it down too." That, IMO, is completely overstepping the bounds of a voluntary rating system, and is censorship in its finest form.