Actually what he did was write senior management about the illegal and immoral practices he had discovered in the company, in private, in the hopes they would put their foot down. Instead, they sicked the police on him.
Could I have predicted the outcome? Yes, but that's only because I'm a cynic, and we're rarely wrong. Any idealists left in the audience should definately be up in arms over this.
I'm sick and tired of people like you thinking they have a right to make my choices for me.
If I choose to take something and it doesn't work out and I die, you might say I killed myself.
If I choose to take something that would have saved my life, but you step in by force to stop me from taking it because in your opinion it's not been proven safe and effective, then you killed me.
The big issue here is that law enforcement has the guns, they come in and take what they want.
There are legal challenges here, and they may lose them. But they still took the server and got what they wanted.
Strong encryption on the file system means it takes them more time to get what they want, which means there's a possibility that the legal process can be meaningful again.
I agree with the OP, it's absurd that IndyMedia isn't strongly encrypting their file systems, given that they've been subject to this abuse before.
The guy I responded to placed a stereotype on 300 million so called "Merkins" that smacks of either arrogance or bigotry.
Sounds like simple realism to me. Go check our test scores on geography sometime.
It's no stereotype, but a simple fact of life, that a great many college graduates in this country lack the basic geographical knowledge held by every 10 year old child in many other lands. It's no stereotype, but a sad fact of life, that a great many of us are not only nearly completely ignorant of everything beyond our borders, but even seem proud of that fact.
It's no accident, that, for instance, when US troops invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, every television network saw the need to give basic geography lessons several times a day for the first few weeks - they know that a large portion of their viewers couldn't have placed these countries on a map if their lives depended on it.
You can have a problem with the terms all you like, but they aren't going away unless we come up with something better. And 'Americans' isn't and will never be acceptable, because, despite what the majority of us believe, there IS a world out there, and it happens to include a whole heck of a lot of Americans who are not part of these United States.
I'll ignore your baiting and rambling and respond to the part of this that seems to actually attempt to make a point.
So in your theoretical world they will all still be using Word (and thus likely Windows). Okay, then that will just destroy Microsoft's business, you're right.
What I'm saying is that they can quit putting out documents in proprietary formats while still using the same software. They can, and they should, and the costs of doing so are, if not non-existent, certainly miniscule.
Would that behaviour be entirely harmless from Microsofts point of view? No, it would not. Because now citizens would be able to count on reading the documents of their government even if they (the citizens) did not buy Microsoft products to read them with. This would be a serious blow to Microsofts lock-in strategy. It would certainly result in people feeling more free to buy the software they choose, rather than feeling like it's impossible for them to use the computer for simple tasks without first buying Microsoft. This is the short-term benefit, or, from the point of view of MS, detriment, of this decision.
Now, I also posit a threat to direct revenue from the state agencies as well, in the longer term. Because the next time these state agencies would otherwise have sent money to MS for licensing, at least some of them may start asking 'just what are we sending them money for? Everything we do in Word we could do with Free Software instead.' In the long run this could lead to reduced demand for MS software inside the government as well as the broader populace. But it doesn't mean that they have to convert everything to GNU/Linux overnight, in fact it doesn't mean they have to do that conversion period, ever.
I suspect if it holds up, they will, but only because it will save them a lot of money in the long run.
I don't think so because of the costs involved in converting.
Another stupid argument, honestly. The costs of converting are pretty miniscule, and conversion enables significant cost reduction on the other side.
You're putting out Microsoft Word documents and you now have a mandate to produce the information in a standard readable format instead? So you hit 'save as' and choose 'rtf.' How's that such an incredibly costly procedure?
An Italian is a European, but also an Italian. A German is a European, but also a German. That could be by way of EU affiliation or when referring to which continent they live in.
And I'm a Virginian, and also an American. How is that any different again?
The guy you responded to didn't say anything insulting. You're sure baiting for it though. The sad thing is, you probably don't even realise it.
And Americans don't refer to themselves as USians:)
And yet again, many of us do. Personally I prefer to be a bit more specific and say 'Virginian' but that term, again, is far too specific to serve in the context above...
It's not rude, it's simply the most accurate word I could think of.
'American' won't work, because it's much too broad. There are plenty of Americans that aren't from the USA. Canadians, Mexicans, Peruvians, Brazilians, etc. etc.
Nah, US will forget any treaty obligation big campaign donors don't find convenient.
Rest of NATO might just get involved though... and if it bogs down into occupation freedom-lovers from around the world will be infiltrating that long Swedish border with arms and ammunition.
It's also per-capita on of the richest nations in the world, with plenty of high tech business. And did I mention oil?
She also punches far above her weight class in international affairs with a long and distinguished history of diplomatic intercession and hosting, and could serve as a shining example to many other nations, particularly her European neighbors.
So, of course, it's easy to make disparaging remarks about a small nation, particularly posting on a site like this where the readership is predominantly USian (and, geeky or not, still subject to that typically USian fault of not knowing or caring about the rest of the world) but in fact this is a fairly prominent nation with some real influence, and it could be a turning point for MS dominance in other areas as well.
BT has no more or less 'legitimate' uses than any other peer to peer system. They all simply allow the sharing of files, nothing more, nothing less. You can share the same file through BT, Emule, Kazaa, etc.
As for stifling innovation, the sad irony is that patents were intended to *promote* innovation, by allowing inventors to invent and then profit from their invention.
Close, but not quite. It was supposed to promote innovation, by getting inventors to disclose their secrets technological advances instead of treating them as trade secrets.
Now how many recent patents can you think of that disclosed any cutting edge technological secrets?
I think you're wrong. The purported purpose of patents would be to promote the arts and sciences by granting a limited time monopoly in exchange for important disclosures.
The patent application makes no disclosures that advance the state of the art that I can see. And anytime you have a completely independent invention (which this seems to be) forced off the market by a patent holder, the purpose patents are supposed to serve is clearly not being served.
It's still a distro issue. Distro makers select a kernel, test it, and alter it to their own specifications and tolerances before shipping it in their OS. The kernel hackers' audience is the distributer, not the end-user.
You see, that's *why* it's not in stable. In BSD, something has to work properly before it moves from current to stable.
OTOH, Linux pushes things in as soon as possible, without extensive testing. That's not necessarily a bad thing, it's just a different attitude.
And this is why some of us risk being seen as overly pedantic by insisting on using words properly. Linux is not an OS, it's a kernel.
What OS you're referring to with the word Linux I can only guess, but I can tell you right now that, for instance, when features go into Debian 'stable' there's a damn good chance they really are stable.
Bennie Smith is entirely correct -- if ad blocking becomes standard in popular browsers, that will be the end of free content on the web.
There was free content on the web long before there was Bennie Smith on the web, long before Doubleclick existed, and there will be long after both of them have shrivelled up and died.
Widespread use of ad-blocking would certainly result in the elimination of "content" that's only purpose is to fool search engines and serve ads while wasting the viewers time. But that's no loss so far as I'm concerned.
Well, perhaps you are only interested in a "browser that doesn't suck", but other people (i.e. me) may be interested in how well a browser supports web standards, whether it is open source, and how many platforms it runs on.
Exactly. If it doesn't support html, it sucks. If it's not Free Software, it sucks. If it isn't cross-platform, it sucks.
Looks like you set up a false dichotomy there, to me.
Well I got the page with installation instructions to open. It's not as bad as the slashdot blurb made it sound. It's not a standard.app folder, but it's not an MS style installer either. Sounds like it's a.pkg, that's a file for the Macs built-in package management tool, similar to an.deb or an.rpm. A reasonable way to go about it - is still considered better to do a proper.app but if for some reason it's absolutely essential that the install spread files around the filesystem this is the way to do it - registers them all in the database for a clean uninstall. That's the way *nix programs for the mac are usually packaged... so nice. One of these days I'll actually get the whole package downloaded, and then we'll see how it runs.;)
Slashdot Mirror
Actually what he did was write senior management about the illegal and immoral practices he had discovered in the company, in private, in the hopes they would put their foot down. Instead, they sicked the police on him.
Could I have predicted the outcome? Yes, but that's only because I'm a cynic, and we're rarely wrong. Any idealists left in the audience should definately be up in arms over this.
Hackers and geeks do.
Script-kiddies and nerds don't.
I'm sick and tired of people like you thinking they have a right to make my choices for me.
If I choose to take something and it doesn't work out and I die, you might say I killed myself.
If I choose to take something that would have saved my life, but you step in by force to stop me from taking it because in your opinion it's not been proven safe and effective, then you killed me.
Not necessarily.
The big issue here is that law enforcement has the guns, they come in and take what they want.
There are legal challenges here, and they may lose them. But they still took the server and got what they wanted.
Strong encryption on the file system means it takes them more time to get what they want, which means there's a possibility that the legal process can be meaningful again.
I agree with the OP, it's absurd that IndyMedia isn't strongly encrypting their file systems, given that they've been subject to this abuse before.
Sounds like simple realism to me. Go check our test scores on geography sometime.
It's no stereotype, but a simple fact of life, that a great many college graduates in this country lack the basic geographical knowledge held by every 10 year old child in many other lands. It's no stereotype, but a sad fact of life, that a great many of us are not only nearly completely ignorant of everything beyond our borders, but even seem proud of that fact.
It's no accident, that, for instance, when US troops invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, every television network saw the need to give basic geography lessons several times a day for the first few weeks - they know that a large portion of their viewers couldn't have placed these countries on a map if their lives depended on it.
You can have a problem with the terms all you like, but they aren't going away unless we come up with something better. And 'Americans' isn't and will never be acceptable, because, despite what the majority of us believe, there IS a world out there, and it happens to include a whole heck of a lot of Americans who are not part of these United States.
I'll ignore your baiting and rambling and respond to the part of this that seems to actually attempt to make a point.
What I'm saying is that they can quit putting out documents in proprietary formats while still using the same software. They can, and they should, and the costs of doing so are, if not non-existent, certainly miniscule.
Would that behaviour be entirely harmless from Microsofts point of view? No, it would not. Because now citizens would be able to count on reading the documents of their government even if they (the citizens) did not buy Microsoft products to read them with. This would be a serious blow to Microsofts lock-in strategy. It would certainly result in people feeling more free to buy the software they choose, rather than feeling like it's impossible for them to use the computer for simple tasks without first buying Microsoft. This is the short-term benefit, or, from the point of view of MS, detriment, of this decision.
Now, I also posit a threat to direct revenue from the state agencies as well, in the longer term. Because the next time these state agencies would otherwise have sent money to MS for licensing, at least some of them may start asking 'just what are we sending them money for? Everything we do in Word we could do with Free Software instead.' In the long run this could lead to reduced demand for MS software inside the government as well as the broader populace. But it doesn't mean that they have to convert everything to GNU/Linux overnight, in fact it doesn't mean they have to do that conversion period, ever.
I suspect if it holds up, they will, but only because it will save them a lot of money in the long run.
Another stupid argument, honestly. The costs of converting are pretty miniscule, and conversion enables significant cost reduction on the other side.
You're putting out Microsoft Word documents and you now have a mandate to produce the information in a standard readable format instead? So you hit 'save as' and choose 'rtf.' How's that such an incredibly costly procedure?
And I'm a Virginian, and also an American. How is that any different again?
The guy you responded to didn't say anything insulting. You're sure baiting for it though. The sad thing is, you probably don't even realise it.
Actually many do.
And yet again, many of us do. Personally I prefer to be a bit more specific and say 'Virginian' but that term, again, is far too specific to serve in the context above...
What would you suggest using instead?
It's not rude, it's simply the most accurate word I could think of.
'American' won't work, because it's much too broad. There are plenty of Americans that aren't from the USA. Canadians, Mexicans, Peruvians, Brazilians, etc. etc.
Nah, US will forget any treaty obligation big campaign donors don't find convenient.
Rest of NATO might just get involved though... and if it bogs down into occupation freedom-lovers from around the world will be infiltrating that long Swedish border with arms and ammunition.
Sure, Norway is small.
It's also per-capita on of the richest nations in the world, with plenty of high tech business. And did I mention oil?
She also punches far above her weight class in international affairs with a long and distinguished history of diplomatic intercession and hosting, and could serve as a shining example to many other nations, particularly her European neighbors.
So, of course, it's easy to make disparaging remarks about a small nation, particularly posting on a site like this where the readership is predominantly USian (and, geeky or not, still subject to that typically USian fault of not knowing or caring about the rest of the world) but in fact this is a fairly prominent nation with some real influence, and it could be a turning point for MS dominance in other areas as well.
BT has no more or less 'legitimate' uses than any other peer to peer system. They all simply allow the sharing of files, nothing more, nothing less. You can share the same file through BT, Emule, Kazaa, etc.
It is in many cases perfectly legal to distribute copyrighted material.
Close, but not quite. It was supposed to promote innovation, by getting inventors to disclose their secrets technological advances instead of treating them as trade secrets.
Now how many recent patents can you think of that disclosed any cutting edge technological secrets?
I think you're wrong. The purported purpose of patents would be to promote the arts and sciences by granting a limited time monopoly in exchange for important disclosures.
The patent application makes no disclosures that advance the state of the art that I can see. And anytime you have a completely independent invention (which this seems to be) forced off the market by a patent holder, the purpose patents are supposed to serve is clearly not being served.
Ok, I agree, but not for the bogus reasons you gave.
Not all UCE is spam, but it's gotta be over 99%. Spam is UBE. Unsolicited Bulk Email. Doesn't matter if it's commercial or not (although most is.)
Particularly when it's being sold for the exact same price. Now if people could save money on it...
It's still a distro issue. Distro makers select a kernel, test it, and alter it to their own specifications and tolerances before shipping it in their OS. The kernel hackers' audience is the distributer, not the end-user.
Now you're just being mean :P
And this is why some of us risk being seen as overly pedantic by insisting on using words properly. Linux is not an OS, it's a kernel.
What OS you're referring to with the word Linux I can only guess, but I can tell you right now that, for instance, when features go into Debian 'stable' there's a damn good chance they really are stable.
This is utter nonsense.
There was free content on the web long before there was Bennie Smith on the web, long before Doubleclick existed, and there will be long after both of them have shrivelled up and died.
Widespread use of ad-blocking would certainly result in the elimination of "content" that's only purpose is to fool search engines and serve ads while wasting the viewers time. But that's no loss so far as I'm concerned.
Exactly. If it doesn't support html, it sucks. If it's not Free Software, it sucks. If it isn't cross-platform, it sucks.
Looks like you set up a false dichotomy there, to me.
True, it doesn't ship with the OS, but OSXPM is an easy add-on and does the job fine.
Well I got the page with installation instructions to open. It's not as bad as the slashdot blurb made it sound. It's not a standard .app folder, but it's not an MS style installer either. Sounds like it's a .pkg, that's a file for the Macs built-in package management tool, similar to an .deb or an .rpm. A reasonable way to go about it - is still considered better to do a proper .app but if for some reason it's absolutely essential that the install spread files around the filesystem this is the way to do it - registers them all in the database for a clean uninstall. That's the way *nix programs for the mac are usually packaged... so nice. One of these days I'll actually get the whole package downloaded, and then we'll see how it runs. ;)