Where I work, I get written up if I do not report a SOX compliance issue that I come across. We have employees whose sole job is to ensure SOX compliance within the company, and it's not seen as "making waves" it's seen as making sure the company is compliant with government legislation that would otherwise shut the company down PDQ.
Only if the people you're reporting aren't corporate officers, a.k.a. the people who facilitate/actually perpetrate most major FRAUDULENT activities.:P
Your assumption is pretty off base. I think if you dug into it you would find that most accounting practices that causes problems aren't intentional and certainly aren't caused by upper management. As a company grows larger and consequently more complex, things will pop up in the books that would get the Feds to sock you even if it wasn't malicious.
Nice straw man you built there, but I was actually responding to the ENRON reference in the original post by ArhcAngel by making the point that a good IT staff ensures compliance but ideally not at the expense of the major efficiency losses incurred by saddling the employees with technology that inhibits their ability to do their job.
To be clear, as somebody who has done consulting for various IT compliance regulation auditing preparations in the past, I completely understand that companies have to do it, despite the idiocy of the fact that if you try to reprimand a corporate officer that way, you're pretty much guaranteed to get canned so it really doesn't do anything except give the federal government a reason to come down on you for the stupid little things you mention while most of the time the higher level management who facilitate the major FRAUDLENT activities are guaranteed to be able to keep going until a news report comes out, the stock price tanks and the feds show up.:P
All that aside, however, what I have absolutely no patience/sympathy for are the admins who try to blame SOX and other compliance standards for not doing their primary job effectively, which is ensuring that they provide and implement the best technical solutions to meet as many of the individual needs of their fellow employees as they can as efficiently as possible.
When I see violations to SOX or corporate policy I make it a point to inform the person violating the policy and their supervisor. I also send an email to my supervisor with the details of my observations and subsequent actions so there is a record that I did not turn a blind eye to the infraction.
How it is handled from there is up to the person violating the policy and their superiors.
Wow, I'm honestly surprised they haven't let you go already for making waves, but I suppose since it sounds like it doesn't happen that often at the company you're employed at, it's probably taking them longer to build a solid documentation case against you.
I can't speak for other IT "dictators" but the way I look at it is if you get this office shut down it affects my job too @ss hole. As it happens I can see the old Enron building (now owned by Chevron) from my office. A constant reminder of just why SOX exists in the first place.
So just to be sure I understand this correctly, you're arguing that inconveniencing people by placing restrictions that prevent them from getting their work done as efficiently as they could be by facilitating their use of devices and technologies of their choosing is supposed to be a safeguard against fraudulent accounting and business practices which are almost always perpetrated by top management?;)
Without patents, there would be far more trade secrets. Patents make inventions public, not private. That's the whole purpose of patents: to promote the spread of ideas by making them public.
Really? Wow, and here I thought they're solely a means for companies that don't actually produce anything except lawsuits to make money via protectionist licensing schemes!:P
Make it so a patent is as easy and inexpensive as registering a copyright ($30 iinm), and don't allow trivial or obvious patents.
Yeah, but how do you define what's "trivial or obvious" and who defines it?
As to lawsuits, perhaps they could replace that with some sort of board, like many union-management contracts use rather than suing.
Yeah, but there's two problems with that idea:
1. Board Officials: State your case and know that we're not going corporate shills!
Freedomworks Rep: "We'll give you $250k each and pay your union election fees if you agree to deny any patent cases that help develop and maintain net neutrality."
Board Officials: "On the other hand, net neutrality doesn't pay the bills, so we're fine with that as long as you don't take it personally when we insult on our campaign trail!"
Freedomworks Rep: "We have a deal then, you corporate shills!"
2. Big Corporation Patent Lawyers: "We're against this patent because if it goes through, we'll have to lay off thousands of our workers."
Union Officials: Who will then blame us for being fired by failing to capitulate to your demands. "Your request for patenting this technology is designed."
Tech Innovator: "Can't I appeal your decision?"
Union Officials: "No."
...Seeing as how I've been getting e-mails from all over the world for years now telling me that if I reply back with my credit card information I can get thousands of dollars from overseas bank accounts, but I never have, no matter how many times I reply telling them I've never had a credit card and never will!;)
It's also magnified by the fact that the wider press don't understand technology so they'll take their cues from whoever happens to be the IT flavour of the day because it's easier to steal their ideas than to do genuine research. That means it only needs a few key figures sporting trendy gadgets for them to sink into the wider public consciousness.
Agreed, although I don't think it's a problem that's necessarily limited to just the wider press, as I've seen a lot of IT trade publications going more and more downhill in the past decade or so.
Honestly though, I think that's more tied into the long slow death of expertise based management which has resulted in more and more businesses hiring people with absolutely no technical aptitude for Engineering and IT positions who make purchasing decisions based on trends and buzzwords, not on technical merit and since those are the people making the purchasing decisions, a lot of the trade magazines have shifted their focus to match their new target audience.
Indeed. And they get to follow Apple's lead in getting users the world over to accept DRM'd hardware and walled gardens. They can convince users that mobile devices need to be meticulously managed by the OS vendor, and allowing you access of any kind below the shiny, barred exterior is bad and will lead only to bad things.
I think I'd be happier if there was a middle ground between the two, but right now the two largest install bases are iOS and Android; both are extremes at opposite ends of the spectrum from each other.
Right now, I'll take iOS over Android any time because it means having to avoid recommending to Clients to get a freaking anti-malware software installed on their phones!:P
This is something Microsoft has dreamed of for years. Apple beat them to the punch with iOS, and now Microsoft is following along. I expect the restrictions being placed on access to Metro will grow and eventually encompass all software that touches the Windows platform. Much like drivers, you will eventually be unable to install software without getting a Microsoft signature (for $hundreds) and you'll only be able to sell through Microsoft's app store.
For me the real issue here isn't Open vs. Closed it's the fact that Google needs to make at least some sort of token effort to crack down on their Marketplace to enforce the because it's been filled with Malware pretty much since they started opening up the payment system!
Say what you want about Apple, at least they make a concerted effort to weed their closed wall garden!
After Ribbons, it has become extremely difficult to think up ways to make MS Office worse. Continuing to do so shows an unbelievable level of commitment and effort.
Yes, no matter how low Microsoft sets the bar for themselves, if there was one thing that Vista taught us all, it's that they can always go lower!
Ok, ask yourself this question. What would motivate China to toss counterfeiters in jail for PR in the first place? If they do not care about it, then what would motivate them other then compliance with international treaties and trade favors?
I'm not saying they don't care about it completely, but the art of diplomacy is leveraging perception to gain the advantage.
As long as China can point to some very loud domestic media coverage of a measly few people getting tossed into prison for infringement, they can maintain the appearance both at home and abroad of doing something about it without potentially rocking the boat as far the domestic population is concerned by instituting a massive crackdown on manufacturing and use of counterfeit items.
While China is taking a token appearance of action for diplomatic reasons for all intents and purposes it basically amounts to nothing as they've never made the slightest actual effort to reform and crack down on counterfeit and pirated goods and services beyond raising the arrest quota.
The treaties spell out terms and conditions the laws need to meet. They do not spell out punishment or fines and such, but the laws created have to be strong enough to meet the spirit of the treaty.
That's my whole point! The thing that laws, treaties and (especially;) UN resolutions have in common is that they are all just words on paper without a means of enforcement to back them up with, thereby ensuring that people abide by them!
If the UK all the sudden decided the penalty for piracy was a $10 fine plus court costs, they would receive trade sanctions or lose trade benefits from other countries that are part of the treaty.
Yes, but to be fair, that's not really a valid example in this case for two reasons:
1. As much as I love the Old Country, I'm afraid that Great Britain is an empire no more, hence they would have little diplomatic leverage internationally to allow other countries to overlook what they were doing in that regard, versus China, which while currently experiencing an (IMO) unsustainable level of economic growth coupled with the fact that they own a great deal of the US's national debt, means that they can get away with (in effect basically) ignoring the international outcry as long as they make a token effort for appearances.
2. I'm hard pressed to think of a change in a country's policies that major occurring in history regarding copyright. Generally as far as I'm aware off the top of my head, most countries have either tightened their laws or maintained the status quo after signing.
Some countries only make the laws because of the treaties in hopes that trade favors help their economy. I'm not sure how you can claim that's not taking it seriously.
Because talk is cheap and so is making a bunch of laws purely for the sake of appearances. It's the effort that you put into creating and enforcing those laws that matters.
lol.. nice troll there. I see how it is now. You want me to validate your point that you cannot validate.. I think this conversation is about over.
No, I can certainly validate it, I was just being lazy and hoping you'd do it yourself thereby saving me the trouble;) : http://yro.slashdot.org/tag/mpaa
Then please, in clear and concise wording, without all the evil dribble, explain to me exactly what it is you are trying to say. I mean is it government creating the laws and treaties or is it RIAA a
I'm not saying that they don't toss a few counterfeiters in jail occasionally to fill a PR quota (not to mention the fact that it's just one of several convient excuses Beijing has to draw upon if they want to jail dissidents), but my point is that it's so prevalent in Asia that when you factor in the fact that the majority of the world's population is there, a few arrests means very little in the grand scheme of things.
Not really, my point was that national security was the driving concern regarding the adoption of Linux, however as I stated earlier:
Microsoft made some back door concessions to Beijing regarding source code inspection but it became pretty clear to both parties that it was never going to be to the extent the Chinese government wanted, so the fact that Beijing could trumpet it as a local national brand while diplomatically leveraging it as a major conciliatory effort regarding piracy without having to actively crack down on the local Windows users who were (and are) pretty much all pirated versions was just icing on the cake as far as they were concerned.
Again, they were able to kill three birds with one stone but since to date Beijing has never made any effort to seriously enact copyright reform (or curtail their sponsoring of crackers and counterfeiting organizations) or enact any kind of legislation banning non-Red Linux operating systems from being used in China, I'm not sure why you would view this whole issue as anything more than a political gesture that they used (in addition to other diplomatic mesures) to pressure the WTO into giving them membership status?
Well, lets stick with what I said and the context of what it was said in.
Countries take copyright seriously enough that they have made international agreements over it. Local enforcement is meaningless in that context as countries do not make treaties pertaining to right turns on red or rolling stops at traffic devices. But they do make treaties on things important enough to effect trade and copyright is seen as one of them.
I'm not disputing that. I'm just saying that the treaties are for the most part meaningless because the actual laws that are made and enforced are done so by each country so the treaty is in
One or two countries out of the 170 some recognized in the world today does not invalidate what I said.
Yeah, but China is just one example amongst many that I chose to bring up regarding how blatantly widespread piracy is overlooked by other countries if they have resources that other countries (but mostly the US) need.
Speaking from personal experience I can tell you that pretty much every country in Asia has vendors hawking pirated DVDs on every street corner so that kind of shoots the number up quite a bit from your claim of "one or two," not to mention a lot of countries in both the Middle East and South American countries that I could bring up as well.;)
China was denied a seat at the WTO 4 times after they became eligible based on their inability to enforce anti-piracy measures pertaining to copyright. China announced a custom version of Linux (red linux??) to be the country's official operating system because of sanctions surrounding copyright violations with Microsoft's operating systems. I'm not sure that history and the facts line up with your world views.
Hmm, given that China was eventually given a WTO membership, despite the fact that besides making a bunch of noise over tossing a few of the usual politically dissident suspects in prison for infringement they've never undertaken any serious efforts to crack down and reform on this issue, I kinda tend to think that history actually proves me right here.;)
In regards to Microsoft, sanctions had pretty much nothing to do with China's decision to endorse Red Linux. The reason the Chinese government was pushing Red Linux to become so prevalent (nationalist attitudes aside;) was that Beijing wanted an open source OS that they could see every line of code in, as they were very concerned about potential back doors being built in that could be accessible by foreign governments.
Microsoft made some back door concessions to Beijing regarding source code inspection but it became pretty clear to both parties that it was never going to be to the extent the Chinese government wanted, so the fact that Beijing could trumpet it as a local national brand while diplomatically leveraging it as a major conciliatory effort regarding piracy without having to actively crack down on the local Windows users who were (and are) pretty much all pirated versions was just icing on the cake as far as they were concerned.
Sigh... We are talking about interactions between countries and you are focuses on a single political ideal within a country.
Yes, because even in the context of theory rather than how these treaties are applied in practice, individual countries shape their legislation and enforcement efforts on the framework of treaties that they are signatories of.
Another country has no power (basically) to prosecute a person for violating a treaty through the person's country justice system. They can extradite that person for trial and they can put pressure on the government to prosecute him for violating local laws that may have been enacted so as a result ultimately a treaty is secondary to local laws of each country.
Hence my reason for focusing on local law is that it's far more paramount to how copyright legislation and enforcement efforts are enacted and implemented then treaties are.
Sort of.. But you are missing key issues here. A treaty on something like the terms of copyright actually does get made into law because the treaties spell out a term and generally that each signatory needs to honor the copyright terms of the other. So in this context, it's more then just a public facade showing an agreement to be best friends for 20 years or something of the sort.
Evidently someone forgot to tell that to the Chinese...;)
I'm, not sure what your point is here. It doesn't seems to disprove or counter anything i have said other then you saying "umm no". Perhaps if your comment wasn't riddled with so much other tripe, you point would be more clear.
My point was in response to your view as stated in your previous post that nations are somehow going to restrict trade because of something as trivial as copyright infringement considering that nations freely overlook other countries blatant violations of laws and treaties if the other country provides them something that they need badly enough.
In the context of this discussion, I would point out that the US constantly overlooks China's blatant hypocrisy regarding the state and nature of piracy in their country because they own a great deal of US's national debt.
What is has to do with things is that it's prevalent in every type of government. They are concerned with copyright, even the communist countries are concerned with copyright.
You do understand that the whole concept of communism is based on the idea that (basically) the government owns everything and runs all business and means of consumption, right? So you see how the whole concept of a patent system and copyright in general could be kind of antithetical to that given that the government is (in effect) the only business allowed to operate in communism?;)
I really don't care about the mafIAA or most businesses. I'm talking about the governments of the countries and how they consider copyright to be something serious.
Yes, I can sure see how seriously the US government takes it, given how patent reform has been such a huge priority for us for the past 10 years now, despite never being able to pass any legislation to that effect.;)
Seriously though, given the fact that the MPAA and RIAA (and their affiliate lobbying offices in other countries) have been the driving force behind pretty much all the major copyright legislation and enforcement crackdowns and "reforms" internationally in the last 10+ years, I don't see how you can view them as irrelevant in this issue?
As for copyright infringement, yes, it is so serious of a crime that international treaties have been created around it that give beneficial or detrimental trade preferences depending on how copyright is handled.
That's kind of dodging the question though, as the legality of copyright infringement is related to the establishment of those political treaties but is not contingent upon them.
Some of these treaties have been around longer then anyone you know was alive or anyone they could have known was alive.
That's an interesting point, but how old a law is usually only comes into play when looking at the history of how the courts have ruled it to apply in different situations when discussing matters of law, not treaties.
When looking at how diplomacy is actually practiced, treaties are generally more for political/public/perceptual leverage in dealings between different countries than they are inviolable laws.
In the small scheme of things, you giving or receiving a music recording or copying a book and passing it to a couple friends is meaningless. In the grand scheme of things, too much of that means other countries will restrict trade (even in non-related areas) and disregard the copyright of your county and possibly more.
Um...No...Because often other countries have things that your country doesn't (such as Oil from the Middle East) or if they own a great deal of your debt (as is the case with China). Setting aside the copyright issue, the western world has stepped over the bodies of countless thousands murdered by dictators for decades (incidentally, that's not even counting the genocide done by those dictators that we help put into power) because they have something that we need.
The thing to remember when learning about history/politics/international studies is, to paraphrase Kissinger, that countries don't have laws when dealing with each other, instead, they have interests.
Whether we want to think it is a big deal or not, it has been for over 150 years. At least it has with almost every tin pot dictator or elected body of government the western world has seen in that time. Copyright promotes the influx of ideas and content from other areas while exporting wealth and values.
While I have no idea what the existence of despotism in the world has to do with copyright policy, I would say that if the Arab Spring has taught us anything it's that the free (as in Freedom;) flow of information allows the overthrow of dictatorships, not restrictions (such as copyright).
What the mafiAA (and most other businesses) fail to grasp is that the majority of people in other countries simply cannot afford to pay $10-15 for a movie ticket when the average income is $3,000 a year, so of course piracy is going to be prevalent in a lot of countries!
Microsoft needs to go back to their roots and remember that their success in the PC market these days can largely (but of course, not entirely) be attributed to the fact that many younger people pirated their OS and used it a lot.
Actually what I think a lot of people forget is that things have shifted substantially from where they used to be as Microsoft started out by following more of an Open Source model of development and Apple used to be the major proponent of the merits of proprietary software.
However recent debates regarding the merits of iOS aside, for the most part, Apple started going more in the direction of incorporating Open Source technologies by making the decision to incorporate the GCC for development on OS X which has made it very easy to port and develop for various FLOSS projects (it's all *NIX after all;) while Microsoft has maintained it's efforts in supporting FUD studies, lawsuits and "shared patent agreements" amongst other scare tactics to keep pressure on businesses to prevent them from jumping ship to other platforms/solutions.
I'm not saying it's black or white by any means, but I just think it's interesting to see how things have changed in the Valley since the 80s whenever I get the chance to talk to people who were around then to get their perspective on current events/trends in IT.
Question is: if a citizen of a European nation travels to USA and happens to use one of those illegal channels, will his device be confiscated?
My guess would be it depend on the extent of the usage as I'm not clear on how spectrum use is monitored/enforced but it seems unlikely to me that anyone would care about non-emergency band spectrum use to go to the trouble of tracking you down and arresting you.
I suspect the phone simply wouldn't be able to communicate with the tower successfully and (depending on the model) it would automatically switch channels until it was able to successfully establish a connection but if someone knows for sure, feel free to chime in!
Because they treat everyone with a complete lack of respect, they earn the same treatment from everyone else, and that leads to their job being more dangerous.
Actually IMO I'd say it's more the reverse.
They do a thankless job for very minimal pay which because of the powers they are granted by people to enforce the laws also causes those same people who entrust them to fear and vilify them which tends to cause them to become very jaded and insular in nature.
Teachers are pretty much the same way as they get shit from parents administrators and have to deal with kids as well which tends to lead to a very closed 'us versus them' mentality which while unfortunate is also, in my view, understandable.
If they were nice to everyone at all times, then they'd earn some respect and their job would be easier and safer.
You've got to be kidding me; for the average law abiding citizen, yeah, sure, but what happens when they're dealing with a dangerous criminal who tries to kill them during a routine traffic stop with little or no warning?!
I mean it's easy for you and me to discuss this as an academic exercise but you should probably remember that why I've described an everyday job hazard for police officers everywhere so given what they have to deal with they need to be alert to avoid getting caught off guard and killed.
Cops can't tell just from appearances who is and isn't a criminal (although sadly many convince themselves that they can which certainly contributes to several problems that I have with the Justice system in this country) and considering the fact that they have to deal with the very real possibility of getting killed by some criminal every day, I'm usually inclined to cut them a bit of slack in my dealings with them if they are a bit short with me due to the stress of the job that they do and maybe you should consider looking at it from their perspective as well.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying they're all saints but I tend to look at these incidents on a case by case basis but if you don't want cops looking at you and everyone else who isn't a cop as being a criminal, maybe you should set the example first by not generalizing every police officer as being a criminal?
I gotta agree with Lysander7 here. The first thing I thought when I read the title was, "Holy shit, Apple put out a gaming system?" But no, they haven't. Wake me up whenever the Android/iPhone can play Doom with controls that don't make me want to stab myself or a developer puts out games with the length and plot complexity of Chrono Trigger. Until then, well, iPhone's a great system for casual gamers. Then again, so is Facebook.
Only if you wake me up when Nintendo or one of the 3rd party developers for their systems does the same.
Frankly, I think the point that's lost on a lot of people (but mainly Nintendo) is that the real issue for most of us in choosing to buy a system is software not hardware and more specifically the lack of good games on all their consoles, not just handhelds.
I agree there's a lot of shovelware games on the App store but the biggest problem is mainly just sorting the sheer NUMBER of them, whereas one of my biggest complaints about Nintendo in recent years has been that they've been killing 3rd party support for their consoles since the N64 came out, which wouldn't have been so bad had they not also become more and more unwilling to do anything remotely innovative with their games/franchises outside of the Zelda series.
The Wii was the last straw for me, I'm not interested in investing another couple of hundred dollars for hardware if the vast majority of what I'm going to be able to play is a bunch of remakes/rereleases of titles that I've been playing since middle school which I could've instead put towards buying new games for my 360!
Not really; I actually sympathize heavily with the easy to use viewpoint seeing as how if I wanted to have to hack everything just to get it to work I'd be using Windows instead of *NIX as my OS of choice!;)
Which is why most serious gamers have taken the time and energy not only to install it for their use, but written and configured complex authentication mechanisms for it as well. Just because something doesn't swim past your armchair doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
- Dan.
Just because it exists though, doesn't mean it will ever be remotely mainstream unless it's designed to be easy to use...
When they had a superior product they were on top. They failed to realize the threat the iPhone presented, and Google saw the potential of touch interfaces and joined the race on time.
RIM thought they were untouchable and when they decided to move it was a rushed response that came too late.
The only salvation I see for RIM is to embrace Android.
Port the encryption and infrastructure, along with the marvelous keyboards they make to Android and I'm sure they'll survive. Or even grow. Nothing is stopping them from trying and remember that they could even skin android to look like a blackberry. But it'd run aps and have an awesome browser and all the google utilities...
I think what you're forgetting here that a lot of their business sales revenue results from using their mobile platform to leverage their proprietary BlackBerry Enterprise Server sales so I find it pretty unlikely that RIM would choose to suddenly discard that higher-margin strategy in favor of choosing to go to Android which is already overcrowded with handset vendors churning out cheap low-margin phones.
Honestly, while I think RIM's attitude towards developers really hasn't done them in any favors in recent years, I think the biggest thing that's been killing them is one of pitfalls that Google is starting to fall into, which is having numerous channels of software sales distribution which makes application installation and deployment way, WAY more complicated then it's worth compared to iOS devices.
They have carrier specific stores, handset specific stores, and more recently even device specific stores, so let's face it, if most SysAdmins have to do a bunch of research just to figure out where to get applications from and how to deploy said applications on a specific series of devices, few consumers (no matter how tech-savy) are going to be prepared to put with all the confusion which is why I think migration on both the consumer and corporate side will continue to steadily head away from RIM to other mobile operating systems until RIM's management FINALLY figures out that the mobile market has changed greatly and they can grow a pair to enable them to finally stand up to the carriers when they try to dictate separate stores and what features should be included in the hardware design (case in point on that was letting Verizon kill wi-fi on the Storm)!
For those that didn't get the GP, it's an in-joke about the odd terminology used by politicians in the UK's House of Commons. Roughly speaking, I think "right honourable gentlemen" translates to "assholes", "misinforming" is a way of saying "I think you're lying through your teeth", and "with respect" means "I have no respect for you whatsoever".
While I certainly appreciate all the various translation efforts made on my behalf, I should probably clarify that when I made my earlier posting I was actually making a facetiously off the wall reference to that old quote about how "England and America are two countries separated by the same language," when I put in my request for a translator!
Just Zuckerberg following the usual FaceBook PR strategy which is to make a lesser precursory announcement so after the controversy of the initial announcement dies down he can finally disclose what happened to all those interns who mysteriously vanished to "cut costs" when it was being debated to start charging for the free cafeteria food!
...who seem to be omnipresent on/. will be thrilled at this news!
[DucksFlyingChair] To be fair though, I suspect it's more due to Ballmer's incompetence than any real indication of success on IBM's part! [/DucksFlyingChair];)
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Where I work, I get written up if I do not report a SOX compliance issue that I come across. We have employees whose sole job is to ensure SOX compliance within the company, and it's not seen as "making waves" it's seen as making sure the company is compliant with government legislation that would otherwise shut the company down PDQ.
Only if the people you're reporting aren't corporate officers, a.k.a. the people who facilitate/actually perpetrate most major FRAUDULENT activities. :P
Your assumption is pretty off base. I think if you dug into it you would find that most accounting practices that causes problems aren't intentional and certainly aren't caused by upper management. As a company grows larger and consequently more complex, things will pop up in the books that would get the Feds to sock you even if it wasn't malicious.
Nice straw man you built there, but I was actually responding to the ENRON reference in the original post by ArhcAngel by making the point that a good IT staff ensures compliance but ideally not at the expense of the major efficiency losses incurred by saddling the employees with technology that inhibits their ability to do their job.
To be clear, as somebody who has done consulting for various IT compliance regulation auditing preparations in the past, I completely understand that companies have to do it, despite the idiocy of the fact that if you try to reprimand a corporate officer that way, you're pretty much guaranteed to get canned so it really doesn't do anything except give the federal government a reason to come down on you for the stupid little things you mention while most of the time the higher level management who facilitate the major FRAUDLENT activities are guaranteed to be able to keep going until a news report comes out, the stock price tanks and the feds show up. :P
All that aside, however, what I have absolutely no patience/sympathy for are the admins who try to blame SOX and other compliance standards for not doing their primary job effectively, which is ensuring that they provide and implement the best technical solutions to meet as many of the individual needs of their fellow employees as they can as efficiently as possible.
When I see violations to SOX or corporate policy I make it a point to inform the person violating the policy and their supervisor. I also send an email to my supervisor with the details of my observations and subsequent actions so there is a record that I did not turn a blind eye to the infraction.
How it is handled from there is up to the person violating the policy and their superiors.
Wow, I'm honestly surprised they haven't let you go already for making waves, but I suppose since it sounds like it doesn't happen that often at the company you're employed at, it's probably taking them longer to build a solid documentation case against you.
I can't speak for other IT "dictators" but the way I look at it is if you get this office shut down it affects my job too @ss hole. As it happens I can see the old Enron building (now owned by Chevron) from my office. A constant reminder of just why SOX exists in the first place.
So just to be sure I understand this correctly, you're arguing that inconveniencing people by placing restrictions that prevent them from getting their work done as efficiently as they could be by facilitating their use of devices and technologies of their choosing is supposed to be a safeguard against fraudulent accounting and business practices which are almost always perpetrated by top management? ;)
Without patents, there would be far more trade secrets. Patents make inventions public, not private. That's the whole purpose of patents: to promote the spread of ideas by making them public.
Really? Wow, and here I thought they're solely a means for companies that don't actually produce anything except lawsuits to make money via protectionist licensing schemes! :P
Make it so a patent is as easy and inexpensive as registering a copyright ($30 iinm), and don't allow trivial or obvious patents.
Yeah, but how do you define what's "trivial or obvious" and who defines it?
As to lawsuits, perhaps they could replace that with some sort of board, like many union-management contracts use rather than suing.
Yeah, but there's two problems with that idea:
1. Board Officials: State your case and know that we're not going corporate shills! Freedomworks Rep: "We'll give you $250k each and pay your union election fees if you agree to deny any patent cases that help develop and maintain net neutrality." Board Officials: "On the other hand, net neutrality doesn't pay the bills, so we're fine with that as long as you don't take it personally when we insult on our campaign trail!" Freedomworks Rep: "We have a deal then, you corporate shills!"
2. Big Corporation Patent Lawyers: "We're against this patent because if it goes through, we'll have to lay off thousands of our workers." Union Officials: Who will then blame us for being fired by failing to capitulate to your demands. "Your request for patenting this technology is designed." Tech Innovator: "Can't I appeal your decision?" Union Officials: "No."
...Seeing as how I've been getting e-mails from all over the world for years now telling me that if I reply back with my credit card information I can get thousands of dollars from overseas bank accounts, but I never have, no matter how many times I reply telling them I've never had a credit card and never will! ;)
It's also magnified by the fact that the wider press don't understand technology so they'll take their cues from whoever happens to be the IT flavour of the day because it's easier to steal their ideas than to do genuine research. That means it only needs a few key figures sporting trendy gadgets for them to sink into the wider public consciousness.
Agreed, although I don't think it's a problem that's necessarily limited to just the wider press, as I've seen a lot of IT trade publications going more and more downhill in the past decade or so.
Honestly though, I think that's more tied into the long slow death of expertise based management which has resulted in more and more businesses hiring people with absolutely no technical aptitude for Engineering and IT positions who make purchasing decisions based on trends and buzzwords, not on technical merit and since those are the people making the purchasing decisions, a lot of the trade magazines have shifted their focus to match their new target audience.
Indeed. And they get to follow Apple's lead in getting users the world over to accept DRM'd hardware and walled gardens. They can convince users that mobile devices need to be meticulously managed by the OS vendor, and allowing you access of any kind below the shiny, barred exterior is bad and will lead only to bad things.
I think I'd be happier if there was a middle ground between the two, but right now the two largest install bases are iOS and Android; both are extremes at opposite ends of the spectrum from each other.
Right now, I'll take iOS over Android any time because it means having to avoid recommending to Clients to get a freaking anti-malware software installed on their phones! :P
This is something Microsoft has dreamed of for years. Apple beat them to the punch with iOS, and now Microsoft is following along. I expect the restrictions being placed on access to Metro will grow and eventually encompass all software that touches the Windows platform. Much like drivers, you will eventually be unable to install software without getting a Microsoft signature (for $hundreds) and you'll only be able to sell through Microsoft's app store.
For me the real issue here isn't Open vs. Closed it's the fact that Google needs to make at least some sort of token effort to crack down on their Marketplace to enforce the because it's been filled with Malware pretty much since they started opening up the payment system!
Say what you want about Apple, at least they make a concerted effort to weed their closed wall garden!
After Ribbons, it has become extremely difficult to think up ways to make MS Office worse. Continuing to do so shows an unbelievable level of commitment and effort.
Yes, no matter how low Microsoft sets the bar for themselves, if there was one thing that Vista taught us all, it's that they can always go lower!
You do understand that apparel and accessories are not copyright right?
You do understand that deliberately knocking off a brand generally involves some sort of IP infringement, right? ;)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterfeit_consumer_goods#General_description
Ok, ask yourself this question. What would motivate China to toss counterfeiters in jail for PR in the first place? If they do not care about it, then what would motivate them other then compliance with international treaties and trade favors?
I'm not saying they don't care about it completely, but the art of diplomacy is leveraging perception to gain the advantage.
As long as China can point to some very loud domestic media coverage of a measly few people getting tossed into prison for infringement, they can maintain the appearance both at home and abroad of doing something about it without potentially rocking the boat as far the domestic population is concerned by instituting a massive crackdown on manufacturing and use of counterfeit items.
While China is taking a token appearance of action for diplomatic reasons for all intents and purposes it basically amounts to nothing as they've never made the slightest actual effort to reform and crack down on counterfeit and pirated goods and services beyond raising the arrest quota.
The treaties spell out terms and conditions the laws need to meet. They do not spell out punishment or fines and such, but the laws created have to be strong enough to meet the spirit of the treaty.
That's my whole point! The thing that laws, treaties and (especially ;) UN resolutions have in common is that they are all just words on paper without a means of enforcement to back them up with, thereby ensuring that people abide by them!
If the UK all the sudden decided the penalty for piracy was a $10 fine plus court costs, they would receive trade sanctions or lose trade benefits from other countries that are part of the treaty.
Yes, but to be fair, that's not really a valid example in this case for two reasons:
1. As much as I love the Old Country, I'm afraid that Great Britain is an empire no more, hence they would have little diplomatic leverage internationally to allow other countries to overlook what they were doing in that regard, versus China, which while currently experiencing an (IMO) unsustainable level of economic growth coupled with the fact that they own a great deal of the US's national debt, means that they can get away with (in effect basically) ignoring the international outcry as long as they make a token effort for appearances.
2. I'm hard pressed to think of a change in a country's policies that major occurring in history regarding copyright. Generally as far as I'm aware off the top of my head, most countries have either tightened their laws or maintained the status quo after signing.
Some countries only make the laws because of the treaties in hopes that trade favors help their economy. I'm not sure how you can claim that's not taking it seriously.
Because talk is cheap and so is making a bunch of laws purely for the sake of appearances. It's the effort that you put into creating and enforcing those laws that matters.
lol.. nice troll there. I see how it is now. You want me to validate your point that you cannot validate.. I think this conversation is about over.
No, I can certainly validate it, I was just being lazy and hoping you'd do it yourself thereby saving me the trouble ;) : http://yro.slashdot.org/tag/mpaa
Then please, in clear and concise wording, without all the evil dribble, explain to me exactly what it is you are trying to say. I mean is it government creating the laws and treaties or is it RIAA a
And a quick google search shows that China is not really even a good good example. That seems to paint a different picture then your describing.
FYI, I don't generally favor Google as a research tool (beyond troubleshooting computers) but by following your link one of the first results that came up seems to validate my "picture:" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterfeit_consumer_goods#Apparel_and_accessories
I'm not saying that they don't toss a few counterfeiters in jail occasionally to fill a PR quota (not to mention the fact that it's just one of several convient excuses Beijing has to draw upon if they want to jail dissidents), but my point is that it's so prevalent in Asia that when you factor in the fact that the majority of the world's population is there, a few arrests means very little in the grand scheme of things.
actually, the decision to go with their own operating system was made largely in part to show they were doing something about copyright to gain entrance in the WTO. For many years, the same was true of China. But today China's principal reason for adopting Linux is membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO). As a condition of being admitted to the WTO in 2001, and in return for the trading and tariff advantages that WTO membership offers, China agreed to consistently crack down on software piracy and comply with international agreements protecting intellectual property. Again, a simple google search paints a different picture then you are describing.
Not really, my point was that national security was the driving concern regarding the adoption of Linux, however as I stated earlier:
Microsoft made some back door concessions to Beijing regarding source code inspection but it became pretty clear to both parties that it was never going to be to the extent the Chinese government wanted, so the fact that Beijing could trumpet it as a local national brand while diplomatically leveraging it as a major conciliatory effort regarding piracy without having to actively crack down on the local Windows users who were (and are) pretty much all pirated versions was just icing on the cake as far as they were concerned.
Again, they were able to kill three birds with one stone but since to date Beijing has never made any effort to seriously enact copyright reform (or curtail their sponsoring of crackers and counterfeiting organizations) or enact any kind of legislation banning non-Red Linux operating systems from being used in China, I'm not sure why you would view this whole issue as anything more than a political gesture that they used (in addition to other diplomatic mesures) to pressure the WTO into giving them membership status?
Well, lets stick with what I said and the context of what it was said in.
Countries take copyright seriously enough that they have made international agreements over it. Local enforcement is meaningless in that context as countries do not make treaties pertaining to right turns on red or rolling stops at traffic devices. But they do make treaties on things important enough to effect trade and copyright is seen as one of them.
I'm not disputing that. I'm just saying that the treaties are for the most part meaningless because the actual laws that are made and enforced are done so by each country so the treaty is in
One or two countries out of the 170 some recognized in the world today does not invalidate what I said.
Yeah, but China is just one example amongst many that I chose to bring up regarding how blatantly widespread piracy is overlooked by other countries if they have resources that other countries (but mostly the US) need.
Speaking from personal experience I can tell you that pretty much every country in Asia has vendors hawking pirated DVDs on every street corner so that kind of shoots the number up quite a bit from your claim of "one or two," not to mention a lot of countries in both the Middle East and South American countries that I could bring up as well. ;)
China was denied a seat at the WTO 4 times after they became eligible based on their inability to enforce anti-piracy measures pertaining to copyright. China announced a custom version of Linux (red linux??) to be the country's official operating system because of sanctions surrounding copyright violations with Microsoft's operating systems. I'm not sure that history and the facts line up with your world views.
Hmm, given that China was eventually given a WTO membership, despite the fact that besides making a bunch of noise over tossing a few of the usual politically dissident suspects in prison for infringement they've never undertaken any serious efforts to crack down and reform on this issue, I kinda tend to think that history actually proves me right here. ;)
In regards to Microsoft, sanctions had pretty much nothing to do with China's decision to endorse Red Linux. The reason the Chinese government was pushing Red Linux to become so prevalent (nationalist attitudes aside ;) was that Beijing wanted an open source OS that they could see every line of code in, as they were very concerned about potential back doors being built in that could be accessible by foreign governments.
Microsoft made some back door concessions to Beijing regarding source code inspection but it became pretty clear to both parties that it was never going to be to the extent the Chinese government wanted, so the fact that Beijing could trumpet it as a local national brand while diplomatically leveraging it as a major conciliatory effort regarding piracy without having to actively crack down on the local Windows users who were (and are) pretty much all pirated versions was just icing on the cake as far as they were concerned.
Sigh... We are talking about interactions between countries and you are focuses on a single political ideal within a country.
Yes, because even in the context of theory rather than how these treaties are applied in practice, individual countries shape their legislation and enforcement efforts on the framework of treaties that they are signatories of.
Another country has no power (basically) to prosecute a person for violating a treaty through the person's country justice system. They can extradite that person for trial and they can put pressure on the government to prosecute him for violating local laws that may have been enacted so as a result ultimately a treaty is secondary to local laws of each country.
Hence my reason for focusing on local law is that it's far more paramount to how copyright legislation and enforcement efforts are enacted and implemented then treaties are.
The wiki article on it spells it out pretty well though. Copyright in communist systems become another form of censorship and control. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_copyright_law#Copyright_in_communist_countries
Hmm, so I guess that resolves our earlier discussion about copyright helping to facilitate despotism then? ;)
They are not relevant because they are not a country and the country makes
Sort of.. But you are missing key issues here. A treaty on something like the terms of copyright actually does get made into law because the treaties spell out a term and generally that each signatory needs to honor the copyright terms of the other. So in this context, it's more then just a public facade showing an agreement to be best friends for 20 years or something of the sort.
Evidently someone forgot to tell that to the Chinese... ;)
I'm, not sure what your point is here. It doesn't seems to disprove or counter anything i have said other then you saying "umm no". Perhaps if your comment wasn't riddled with so much other tripe, you point would be more clear.
My point was in response to your view as stated in your previous post that nations are somehow going to restrict trade because of something as trivial as copyright infringement considering that nations freely overlook other countries blatant violations of laws and treaties if the other country provides them something that they need badly enough.
In the context of this discussion, I would point out that the US constantly overlooks China's blatant hypocrisy regarding the state and nature of piracy in their country because they own a great deal of US's national debt.
What is has to do with things is that it's prevalent in every type of government. They are concerned with copyright, even the communist countries are concerned with copyright.
You do understand that the whole concept of communism is based on the idea that (basically) the government owns everything and runs all business and means of consumption, right? So you see how the whole concept of a patent system and copyright in general could be kind of antithetical to that given that the government is (in effect) the only business allowed to operate in communism? ;)
I really don't care about the mafIAA or most businesses. I'm talking about the governments of the countries and how they consider copyright to be something serious.
Yes, I can sure see how seriously the US government takes it, given how patent reform has been such a huge priority for us for the past 10 years now, despite never being able to pass any legislation to that effect. ;)
Seriously though, given the fact that the MPAA and RIAA (and their affiliate lobbying offices in other countries) have been the driving force behind pretty much all the major copyright legislation and enforcement crackdowns and "reforms" internationally in the last 10+ years, I don't see how you can view them as irrelevant in this issue?
As for copyright infringement, yes, it is so serious of a crime that international treaties have been created around it that give beneficial or detrimental trade preferences depending on how copyright is handled.
That's kind of dodging the question though, as the legality of copyright infringement is related to the establishment of those political treaties but is not contingent upon them.
Some of these treaties have been around longer then anyone you know was alive or anyone they could have known was alive.
That's an interesting point, but how old a law is usually only comes into play when looking at the history of how the courts have ruled it to apply in different situations when discussing matters of law, not treaties.
When looking at how diplomacy is actually practiced, treaties are generally more for political/public/perceptual leverage in dealings between different countries than they are inviolable laws.
In the small scheme of things, you giving or receiving a music recording or copying a book and passing it to a couple friends is meaningless. In the grand scheme of things, too much of that means other countries will restrict trade (even in non-related areas) and disregard the copyright of your county and possibly more.
Um...No...Because often other countries have things that your country doesn't (such as Oil from the Middle East) or if they own a great deal of your debt (as is the case with China). Setting aside the copyright issue, the western world has stepped over the bodies of countless thousands murdered by dictators for decades (incidentally, that's not even counting the genocide done by those dictators that we help put into power) because they have something that we need.
The thing to remember when learning about history/politics/international studies is, to paraphrase Kissinger, that countries don't have laws when dealing with each other, instead, they have interests.
Whether we want to think it is a big deal or not, it has been for over 150 years. At least it has with almost every tin pot dictator or elected body of government the western world has seen in that time. Copyright promotes the influx of ideas and content from other areas while exporting wealth and values.
While I have no idea what the existence of despotism in the world has to do with copyright policy, I would say that if the Arab Spring has taught us anything it's that the free (as in Freedom ;) flow of information allows the overthrow of dictatorships, not restrictions (such as copyright).
What the mafiAA (and most other businesses) fail to grasp is that the majority of people in other countries simply cannot afford to pay $10-15 for a movie ticket when the average income is $3,000 a year, so of course piracy is going to be prevalent in a lot of countries!
Microsoft needs to go back to their roots and remember that their success in the PC market these days can largely (but of course, not entirely) be attributed to the fact that many younger people pirated their OS and used it a lot.
Actually what I think a lot of people forget is that things have shifted substantially from where they used to be as Microsoft started out by following more of an Open Source model of development and Apple used to be the major proponent of the merits of proprietary software.
However recent debates regarding the merits of iOS aside, for the most part, Apple started going more in the direction of incorporating Open Source technologies by making the decision to incorporate the GCC for development on OS X which has made it very easy to port and develop for various FLOSS projects (it's all *NIX after all ;) while Microsoft has maintained it's efforts in supporting FUD studies, lawsuits and "shared patent agreements" amongst other scare tactics to keep pressure on businesses to prevent them from jumping ship to other platforms/solutions.
I'm not saying it's black or white by any means, but I just think it's interesting to see how things have changed in the Valley since the 80s whenever I get the chance to talk to people who were around then to get their perspective on current events/trends in IT.
Question is: if a citizen of a European nation travels to USA and happens to use one of those illegal channels, will his device be confiscated?
My guess would be it depend on the extent of the usage as I'm not clear on how spectrum use is monitored/enforced but it seems unlikely to me that anyone would care about non-emergency band spectrum use to go to the trouble of tracking you down and arresting you.
I suspect the phone simply wouldn't be able to communicate with the tower successfully and (depending on the model) it would automatically switch channels until it was able to successfully establish a connection but if someone knows for sure, feel free to chime in!
Because they treat everyone with a complete lack of respect, they earn the same treatment from everyone else, and that leads to their job being more dangerous.
Actually IMO I'd say it's more the reverse.
They do a thankless job for very minimal pay which because of the powers they are granted by people to enforce the laws also causes those same people who entrust them to fear and vilify them which tends to cause them to become very jaded and insular in nature.
Teachers are pretty much the same way as they get shit from parents administrators and have to deal with kids as well which tends to lead to a very closed 'us versus them' mentality which while unfortunate is also, in my view, understandable.
If they were nice to everyone at all times, then they'd earn some respect and their job would be easier and safer.
You've got to be kidding me; for the average law abiding citizen, yeah, sure, but what happens when they're dealing with a dangerous criminal who tries to kill them during a routine traffic stop with little or no warning?!
I mean it's easy for you and me to discuss this as an academic exercise but you should probably remember that why I've described an everyday job hazard for police officers everywhere so given what they have to deal with they need to be alert to avoid getting caught off guard and killed.
Cops can't tell just from appearances who is and isn't a criminal (although sadly many convince themselves that they can which certainly contributes to several problems that I have with the Justice system in this country) and considering the fact that they have to deal with the very real possibility of getting killed by some criminal every day, I'm usually inclined to cut them a bit of slack in my dealings with them if they are a bit short with me due to the stress of the job that they do and maybe you should consider looking at it from their perspective as well.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying they're all saints but I tend to look at these incidents on a case by case basis but if you don't want cops looking at you and everyone else who isn't a cop as being a criminal, maybe you should set the example first by not generalizing every police officer as being a criminal?
I gotta agree with Lysander7 here. The first thing I thought when I read the title was, "Holy shit, Apple put out a gaming system?" But no, they haven't. Wake me up whenever the Android/iPhone can play Doom with controls that don't make me want to stab myself or a developer puts out games with the length and plot complexity of Chrono Trigger. Until then, well, iPhone's a great system for casual gamers. Then again, so is Facebook.
Only if you wake me up when Nintendo or one of the 3rd party developers for their systems does the same.
Frankly, I think the point that's lost on a lot of people (but mainly Nintendo) is that the real issue for most of us in choosing to buy a system is software not hardware and more specifically the lack of good games on all their consoles, not just handhelds.
I agree there's a lot of shovelware games on the App store but the biggest problem is mainly just sorting the sheer NUMBER of them, whereas one of my biggest complaints about Nintendo in recent years has been that they've been killing 3rd party support for their consoles since the N64 came out, which wouldn't have been so bad had they not also become more and more unwilling to do anything remotely innovative with their games/franchises outside of the Zelda series.
The Wii was the last straw for me, I'm not interested in investing another couple of hundred dollars for hardware if the vast majority of what I'm going to be able to play is a bunch of remakes/rereleases of titles that I've been playing since middle school which I could've instead put towards buying new games for my 360!
And Thank God for that.
- Dan.
Not really; I actually sympathize heavily with the easy to use viewpoint seeing as how if I wanted to have to hack everything just to get it to work I'd be using Windows instead of *NIX as my OS of choice! ;)
Which is why most serious gamers have taken the time and energy not only to install it for their use, but written and configured complex authentication mechanisms for it as well. Just because something doesn't swim past your armchair doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
- Dan.
Just because it exists though, doesn't mean it will ever be remotely mainstream unless it's designed to be easy to use...
When they had a superior product they were on top. They failed to realize the threat the iPhone presented, and Google saw the potential of touch interfaces and joined the race on time.
RIM thought they were untouchable and when they decided to move it was a rushed response that came too late.
The only salvation I see for RIM is to embrace Android.
Port the encryption and infrastructure, along with the marvelous keyboards they make to Android and I'm sure they'll survive. Or even grow. Nothing is stopping them from trying and remember that they could even skin android to look like a blackberry. But it'd run aps and have an awesome browser and all the google utilities...
I think what you're forgetting here that a lot of their business sales revenue results from using their mobile platform to leverage their proprietary BlackBerry Enterprise Server sales so I find it pretty unlikely that RIM would choose to suddenly discard that higher-margin strategy in favor of choosing to go to Android which is already overcrowded with handset vendors churning out cheap low-margin phones.
Honestly, while I think RIM's attitude towards developers really hasn't done them in any favors in recent years, I think the biggest thing that's been killing them is one of pitfalls that Google is starting to fall into, which is having numerous channels of software sales distribution which makes application installation and deployment way, WAY more complicated then it's worth compared to iOS devices.
They have carrier specific stores, handset specific stores, and more recently even device specific stores, so let's face it, if most SysAdmins have to do a bunch of research just to figure out where to get applications from and how to deploy said applications on a specific series of devices, few consumers (no matter how tech-savy) are going to be prepared to put with all the confusion which is why I think migration on both the consumer and corporate side will continue to steadily head away from RIM to other mobile operating systems until RIM's management FINALLY figures out that the mobile market has changed greatly and they can grow a pair to enable them to finally stand up to the carriers when they try to dictate separate stores and what features should be included in the hardware design (case in point on that was letting Verizon kill wi-fi on the Storm)!
For those that didn't get the GP, it's an in-joke about the odd terminology used by politicians in the UK's House of Commons. Roughly speaking, I think "right honourable gentlemen" translates to "assholes", "misinforming" is a way of saying "I think you're lying through your teeth", and "with respect" means "I have no respect for you whatsoever".
While I certainly appreciate all the various translation efforts made on my behalf, I should probably clarify that when I made my earlier posting I was actually making a facetiously off the wall reference to that old quote about how "England and America are two countries separated by the same language," when I put in my request for a translator!
Sorry about the confusion!
Its the UK, a different culture. There they believe its the governments right to totally control how you live...
With respect, that's horse-shit.
The Right Honourable Gentleman is misinforming the thread. With respect the Right Honourable Gentleman means bull.
Could somebody here please translate all this into American so the rest of us can understand it?!
Just Zuckerberg following the usual FaceBook PR strategy which is to make a lesser precursory announcement so after the controversy of the initial announcement dies down he can finally disclose what happened to all those interns who mysteriously vanished to "cut costs" when it was being debated to start charging for the free cafeteria food!
...who seem to be omnipresent on /. will be thrilled at this news!
[DucksFlyingChair] To be fair though, I suspect it's more due to Ballmer's incompetence than any real indication of success on IBM's part! [/DucksFlyingChair] ;)