Now, you can say that not enough children will be protected to make it worthwhile. I won't really argue overall effectiveness -- just that the pedos that everyone says are a canard do actually exist. I would say that this information is already stored and kept for reasonably long periods of time by most ISPs, so it seems like a moot point whether or not you mandate that ISPs store it.
Exactly why it's a bad idea to legislate it. Most of the info Is already collected and stored by ISPs. Mandating a retention time and mandating specific information be stored will not help, it just imposes a burden upon the businesses who are in a far better position to determine what info and how long to keep it. It's completely unnecessary and won't help because it doesn't actually improve the ability to "protect children", it's just another pointless legislative burden.
Requiring them to store names, addresses, credit card and banking info, and even phone numbers????? The ONLY thing they should store in the logs are a user account ID, the user's IP address, and maybe the destination IP address. Names, addresses, and phone numbers should be kept completely separate from the logs, not even stored on the same machine, and preferably not on the same network. Storing CC and banking info should be discouraged, or at the very least require that is be stored separately from the previous 2 categories, that it's not accessible from the network, and that it be encrypted all times when stored.
BTW, keeping that information will not protect a single child, ever! This is complete nonsense.
And you've neglected to account for the actual mass of the butane/Li-Ion reactants vs the mass of the reaction chamber and TPV. The Li-ion battery needs only a casing, all the other mass is the anode and cathode. The TPV needs a container for the butane, a reaction chamber, ducting for air to enter the reaction chamber, and the separate TPV cell.
Then, we need to look at volumetric energy density comparisons too, as devising a container strong enough to hold a mass of butane with comparable energy in a similar volume to a Li-ion cell might be too heavy for a portable device. Both volumetric and gravimetric energy density are important in portable devices.
When we see actual efficiency ratings for these TPV devices, then we can evaluate their usefulness.
To make your tug-o-war analogy valid, you have to add a third party searching through your stuff:
For example, you engage in a tug-o-war with another team. While you're busy pulling, their sponsor sends someone to search your duffle bags and car to see what kinds of products you use, what medicines you have, what books and newspapers you read, what radio stations you listen to, etc. and report a summary of that back to the sponsor. All without your knowledge or consent (and probably without the other team's consent or knowledge).
Clearly, that would be a huge violation of privacy, trust, and of the law. What Epic is doing is the exact same thing, just on a computer rather than with searching through your physical bag/car.
Your analogy is flawed, as is your conclusion. In a game of tug of war, you have willing entered into a contest with another team.
In the case of Epic Marketplace, you visited web site X, which could be implied consent to run code from that web site on your computer, so long as that code isn't malicious and doesn't upload information you didn't give it. However, without your knowledge or consent (and likely without the knowledge of the web site operator either), a third party (Epic) runs code on your computer. That alone is enough to sustain a decent "illegal computer access" charge, but they go much farther by taking care to make sure the user sees no evidence that the software in question is running, while it gathers information about what types of sites you've visited and sends that information back to the third party. The web site operator is not directly involved in the running of Epic's software, or the gathering of the results, they're just the agent by which Epic gets access to your computer. Unless that is spelled out in Epic's terms and conditions to the web site using the Epic network, they've also deceived the web site operator, tricking them into providing an access for Epic's malware under the guise of paying them to display ads. Which is yet another example of fraud.
What Epic is doing is wrong, and it's illegal. As an individual, try something like that on a government computer, and you can bet you're heading to jail charged with computer fraud and/or illegal access.
The point is that I didn't have to run a huge array of n-way systems, or a super expensive server to deliver the performance as would have been necessary with other systems. That dramatically lowered the cost of Oracle vs anyone else. And had I outgrown the system I was on, there was a whole lot of room to grow, faster servers, grids, etc. None of the other databases could deliver the performance I needed without spending a ton of money on arrays of faster hardware and the software to allow them to run on such an array. Oracle is faster and more scalable than any of it's competitors, with the possible exception of Teradata.
Apparently you missed the point, that everything they do except their database is questionable at best.
However, what makes their database great it it's reliability and scalability. For example, it's support for bitmap indexes made it the only viable option for some OLTP systems I've worked on. We tried other databases, but couldn't get the performance and uptime necessary unless we threw so much money into hardware and support people that those systems became significantly more costly than Oracle.
The 6th Amendment to the US Constitution states [emphasis added]:
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.
Just how do you confront a video recorder? How do you prove it hasn't been altered? How to you prove the date/time is accurate? How do you prove who was driving?
Can they go back and issue citations for expired registrations based upon these recordings? For how long? What about parking citations?
Will the videos be available via FOIA requests? If so, what's to stop a stalker, spouse, or other individual from using these in civil cases, or even for extortion? What happens when the preacher's/politician's car is spotted parked near an "adult video store", strip club, etc.? Even if they're "not available" via FOIA requests, people are corruptible and someone will get their hands on videos that they can use for criminal purposes.
There are just too many unanswered questions. While they might be able to make a case for keeping the recordings for 3-6 months, anything longer just presents too much potential for misuse/abuse, and even those short periods will allow the unscrupulous the opportunity to steal videos that they can use to blackmail others.
Note to Massachusetts' politicians: Such videos will be used against you at some point. Count on it. If you don't care about the privacy of the citizens, at least think of your self interest before voting for this.
There is a well established concept of treble (triple) damages in cases of willful violation. While that's not a limit, it's a good guideline. Therefore, if they were willing to license it for $100M, then damages of $300M + court costs is not unreasonable. Above that, you better have a really, really strong case. So far, I've not heard anything from Oracle that indicates there was any actual infringement, only an allegation of infringement. So given that, my opinion (and we know how much that's worth) is that Oracle is way out of line on their damages claim.
Yes, but they do make a great database. Their support fees are outrageous, support policies suck, and everything else they do is of questionable value. Did I mention they make a great database?
No. The end user requested information from the web site they were visiting. That a third party is running software on their computer is not an implied or expressed condition of that request.
While it's common for sites to display ads from ad networks, and the simply displaying of an ad could be considered an implied contract of using most web sites, displaying an ad and running software (even javascript) is not an implied contract. In this case, the software goes out of it's way to ensure that it runs without any indication to the user, thus the user is completely unaware that there is even anything to which he should have be asked to consent.
The judge declared that zero-cost is not applicable as their other income (ad-revenue) must be considered as tied in with this. This is very concerning because it would make the likely liability of open-source projects that are sued by patent trolls far higher, if the revenue from the supposedly infringing product is to be expanded to include revenue from any other software, service or product which in some way gets bundled or shared on that product then many open-source companies face a far higher risk in patents than they previously did.
Imagine if a company sued wordpress for patent infringement and then claimed that every ad shown on their commercial wordpress.com free blog hosting site is revenue that should count toward the calculation of patent damages ?
There is serious flaw in that logic. First, your wordpress example is flawed because the wordpress software is the basis for the ad revenue. Without wordpress, there would be no ad revenue. However, in Google's case (and assuming for this example that there is some infringement, which has yet to be determined), it should not include all of Google's advertising, only that which is driven by Android devices. Only the ads driven by (delivered to?) Android devices should be considered.
Epic has no contract, expressed or implied, with the end user to run software on their computer. They have only an agreement with the website operator, who has no authority to grant Epic the right to execute any software on the end user's computer. That said software actually examines the users browsing history to determine if they have visited specific pages, should be considered illegal, even if they only send back a de-identified list of segments represented by those links. Until Epic has received user consent, their actions should be considered computer fraud.
And you're apparently the idiot who's to cowardly to post using a real account, and too idiotic to understand that I don't care about the stupid penny. As it would take around 10,000 views for me to earn a dollar, clearly I didn't post my blog to make money, I posted it to save people time. And my blog clearly links to the original source for anyone who wants the full version with all the detail, so clearly I wasn't trying to take credit for anyone's work or mislead anyone.
Forget you and your misguided attempts to prevent me from saving people time, because I might make $0.0001 per person who reads it.
It doesn't make flying any safer. The TSA fails to detect 80%-90% of the contraband every time they're tested. And only 10% of cargo is scanned, so a cargo bomb has at least a 90% chance of making it onto a plane. And that doesn't even address all the other ways something can get onto a plane (airport employees, TSA screener, etc.)
It's not just about privacy, it's invasive and ineffective, and an unconstitutional search of your person, something prohibited by the 4th Amendment. Even if you don't care about privacy, you should care about your rights, and about it's ineffectiveness, and about all the easier ways an attacker could get something onto a plane.
It's security theater, nothing more. It's completely ineffective, costly, invasive, and unconstitutional. Everyone should care about at least two of those problems.
Not a triopoly, but a single nationwide GSM carrier. Sure, there are regional GSM carriers in some locations, but AT&T will be the only nationwide GSM carrier. That's a problem.
They're not pressing felony charges, although they may still charge her with a misdemeanor. Of course, she shouldn't be charged with anything, and if she is, she should demand a jury trial.
I'm aware of MMW/THz radiation. However, your statement is not accurate for the following reasons:
The TSA is using both MMW and x-ray scanners. While this article is about software for the MMW scanners, it also mentions they're developing similar software for the x-ray scanners
There are no KNOWN health issues from THz radiation, however, no one has been exposed to it for any significant duration because it doesn't occur naturally on earth and we've only been able to generate it in quantity in the last 20 years. While it's probably safe, "probably" still leaves room for plenty of minor health concerns.
Fliers don't get to choose between MMW or x-ray scanners, you either go through the scanner at your airport, whichever type they're using, or you opt out and get groped, which has it's own health concerns.
Most fliers don't know the difference between MMW or x-ray scanners
Any way you look at it, there are still health concerns
While it's slightly less of an invasion, it doesn't change the invasive nature of these scans, nor does it address the possible health concerns. It's still an invasive search of your person without probable cause, and they're still ineffective at detecting even known types of dangerous items. Ineffective, invasive, (violating the conditions for a legal administrative airport security search) and without probable cause, that means they're still prohibited by the 4th Amendment to the US Constitution.
It's a question of balance. Cameras lie, all the time, and people overreact all the time.
That's all misplaced blame. Your comments/complaints aren't related to the use of camera. That people overreact is not related to being recorded. A camera did not cause the Rodney King riots, the officers beating the crap out of him did that. The camera just exposed how brutal that beating really was. Those cops belong in jail, they broke the law. If a civilian were seen/filmed beating someone that severely, you can bet they would end up in jail, and their careers would be ruined. The police shouldn't be protected from that just because they're police. While the police must be given some leeway due to the risks and stresses associated with their jobs, they are not above the law and must be held accountable for their actions.
Cameras do not lie, people do. Cameras don't paint a full picture and should not be the only testimony, but they're far more reliable than eyewitness testimony. If you have a problem with police (or other authorities) being held accountable for their actions, then you should find another job. Good luck finding a job where you're not held accountable for your actions and the quality or legality of your work.
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Now, you can say that not enough children will be protected to make it worthwhile. I won't really argue overall effectiveness -- just that the pedos that everyone says are a canard do actually exist. I would say that this information is already stored and kept for reasonably long periods of time by most ISPs, so it seems like a moot point whether or not you mandate that ISPs store it.
Exactly why it's a bad idea to legislate it. Most of the info Is already collected and stored by ISPs. Mandating a retention time and mandating specific information be stored will not help, it just imposes a burden upon the businesses who are in a far better position to determine what info and how long to keep it. It's completely unnecessary and won't help because it doesn't actually improve the ability to "protect children", it's just another pointless legislative burden.
Requiring them to store names, addresses, credit card and banking info, and even phone numbers????? The ONLY thing they should store in the logs are a user account ID, the user's IP address, and maybe the destination IP address. Names, addresses, and phone numbers should be kept completely separate from the logs, not even stored on the same machine, and preferably not on the same network. Storing CC and banking info should be discouraged, or at the very least require that is be stored separately from the previous 2 categories, that it's not accessible from the network, and that it be encrypted all times when stored.
BTW, keeping that information will not protect a single child, ever! This is complete nonsense.
And you've neglected to account for the actual mass of the butane/Li-Ion reactants vs the mass of the reaction chamber and TPV. The Li-ion battery needs only a casing, all the other mass is the anode and cathode. The TPV needs a container for the butane, a reaction chamber, ducting for air to enter the reaction chamber, and the separate TPV cell.
Then, we need to look at volumetric energy density comparisons too, as devising a container strong enough to hold a mass of butane with comparable energy in a similar volume to a Li-ion cell might be too heavy for a portable device. Both volumetric and gravimetric energy density are important in portable devices.
When we see actual efficiency ratings for these TPV devices, then we can evaluate their usefulness.
To make your tug-o-war analogy valid, you have to add a third party searching through your stuff:
For example, you engage in a tug-o-war with another team. While you're busy pulling, their sponsor sends someone to search your duffle bags and car to see what kinds of products you use, what medicines you have, what books and newspapers you read, what radio stations you listen to, etc. and report a summary of that back to the sponsor. All without your knowledge or consent (and probably without the other team's consent or knowledge).
Clearly, that would be a huge violation of privacy, trust, and of the law. What Epic is doing is the exact same thing, just on a computer rather than with searching through your physical bag/car.
Your analogy is flawed, as is your conclusion. In a game of tug of war, you have willing entered into a contest with another team.
In the case of Epic Marketplace, you visited web site X, which could be implied consent to run code from that web site on your computer, so long as that code isn't malicious and doesn't upload information you didn't give it. However, without your knowledge or consent (and likely without the knowledge of the web site operator either), a third party (Epic) runs code on your computer. That alone is enough to sustain a decent "illegal computer access" charge, but they go much farther by taking care to make sure the user sees no evidence that the software in question is running, while it gathers information about what types of sites you've visited and sends that information back to the third party. The web site operator is not directly involved in the running of Epic's software, or the gathering of the results, they're just the agent by which Epic gets access to your computer. Unless that is spelled out in Epic's terms and conditions to the web site using the Epic network, they've also deceived the web site operator, tricking them into providing an access for Epic's malware under the guise of paying them to display ads. Which is yet another example of fraud.
What Epic is doing is wrong, and it's illegal. As an individual, try something like that on a government computer, and you can bet you're heading to jail charged with computer fraud and/or illegal access.
The point is that I didn't have to run a huge array of n-way systems, or a super expensive server to deliver the performance as would have been necessary with other systems. That dramatically lowered the cost of Oracle vs anyone else. And had I outgrown the system I was on, there was a whole lot of room to grow, faster servers, grids, etc. None of the other databases could deliver the performance I needed without spending a ton of money on arrays of faster hardware and the software to allow them to run on such an array. Oracle is faster and more scalable than any of it's competitors, with the possible exception of Teradata.
Apparently you missed the point, that everything they do except their database is questionable at best.
However, what makes their database great it it's reliability and scalability. For example, it's support for bitmap indexes made it the only viable option for some OLTP systems I've worked on. We tried other databases, but couldn't get the performance and uptime necessary unless we threw so much money into hardware and support people that those systems became significantly more costly than Oracle.
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.
Just how do you confront a video recorder? How do you prove it hasn't been altered? How to you prove the date/time is accurate? How do you prove who was driving?
Can they go back and issue citations for expired registrations based upon these recordings? For how long? What about parking citations?
Will the videos be available via FOIA requests? If so, what's to stop a stalker, spouse, or other individual from using these in civil cases, or even for extortion? What happens when the preacher's/politician's car is spotted parked near an "adult video store", strip club, etc.? Even if they're "not available" via FOIA requests, people are corruptible and someone will get their hands on videos that they can use for criminal purposes.
There are just too many unanswered questions. While they might be able to make a case for keeping the recordings for 3-6 months, anything longer just presents too much potential for misuse/abuse, and even those short periods will allow the unscrupulous the opportunity to steal videos that they can use to blackmail others.
Note to Massachusetts' politicians: Such videos will be used against you at some point. Count on it. If you don't care about the privacy of the citizens, at least think of your self interest before voting for this.
There is a well established concept of treble (triple) damages in cases of willful violation. While that's not a limit, it's a good guideline. Therefore, if they were willing to license it for $100M, then damages of $300M + court costs is not unreasonable. Above that, you better have a really, really strong case. So far, I've not heard anything from Oracle that indicates there was any actual infringement, only an allegation of infringement. So given that, my opinion (and we know how much that's worth) is that Oracle is way out of line on their damages claim.
Yes, but they do make a great database. Their support fees are outrageous, support policies suck, and everything else they do is of questionable value. Did I mention they make a great database?
See my reply to the above commenter.
No. The end user requested information from the web site they were visiting. That a third party is running software on their computer is not an implied or expressed condition of that request.
While it's common for sites to display ads from ad networks, and the simply displaying of an ad could be considered an implied contract of using most web sites, displaying an ad and running software (even javascript) is not an implied contract. In this case, the software goes out of it's way to ensure that it runs without any indication to the user, thus the user is completely unaware that there is even anything to which he should have be asked to consent.
The judge declared that zero-cost is not applicable as their other income (ad-revenue) must be considered as tied in with this. This is very concerning because it would make the likely liability of open-source projects that are sued by patent trolls far higher, if the revenue from the supposedly infringing product is to be expanded to include revenue from any other software, service or product which in some way gets bundled or shared on that product then many open-source companies face a far higher risk in patents than they previously did.
Imagine if a company sued wordpress for patent infringement and then claimed that every ad shown on their commercial wordpress.com free blog hosting site is revenue that should count toward the calculation of patent damages ?
There is serious flaw in that logic. First, your wordpress example is flawed because the wordpress software is the basis for the ad revenue. Without wordpress, there would be no ad revenue. However, in Google's case (and assuming for this example that there is some infringement, which has yet to be determined), it should not include all of Google's advertising, only that which is driven by Android devices. Only the ads driven by (delivered to?) Android devices should be considered.
Epic has no contract, expressed or implied, with the end user to run software on their computer. They have only an agreement with the website operator, who has no authority to grant Epic the right to execute any software on the end user's computer. That said software actually examines the users browsing history to determine if they have visited specific pages, should be considered illegal, even if they only send back a de-identified list of segments represented by those links. Until Epic has received user consent, their actions should be considered computer fraud.
Cisco - you can buy better, but you can't pay more.
Highway sign - US Interstate 70 in Utah, exit 214 says:
Cisco
No Services
And you're apparently the idiot who's to cowardly to post using a real account, and too idiotic to understand that I don't care about the stupid penny. As it would take around 10,000 views for me to earn a dollar, clearly I didn't post my blog to make money, I posted it to save people time. And my blog clearly links to the original source for anyone who wants the full version with all the detail, so clearly I wasn't trying to take credit for anyone's work or mislead anyone.
Forget you and your misguided attempts to prevent me from saving people time, because I might make $0.0001 per person who reads it.
It doesn't make flying any safer. The TSA fails to detect 80%-90% of the contraband every time they're tested. And only 10% of cargo is scanned, so a cargo bomb has at least a 90% chance of making it onto a plane. And that doesn't even address all the other ways something can get onto a plane (airport employees, TSA screener, etc.)
It's not just about privacy, it's invasive and ineffective, and an unconstitutional search of your person, something prohibited by the 4th Amendment. Even if you don't care about privacy, you should care about your rights, and about it's ineffectiveness, and about all the easier ways an attacker could get something onto a plane.
It's security theater, nothing more. It's completely ineffective, costly, invasive, and unconstitutional. Everyone should care about at least two of those problems.
Not a triopoly, but a single nationwide GSM carrier. Sure, there are regional GSM carriers in some locations, but AT&T will be the only nationwide GSM carrier. That's a problem.
They're not pressing felony charges, although they may still charge her with a misdemeanor. Of course, she shouldn't be charged with anything, and if she is, she should demand a jury trial.
You do have a right to travel by air, 49 USC 40103:
(a) Sovereignty and Public Right of Transit.—
(1) The United States Government has exclusive sovereignty of airspace of the United States.
(2) A citizen of the United States has a public right of transit through the navigable airspace. ...
I'm aware of MMW/THz radiation. However, your statement is not accurate for the following reasons:
Any way you look at it, there are still health concerns
Where you can read 20x as much to get the relevant info, and deprive me of the $0.01 ad revenue the above has earned.
For those who want to see the criteria for an administrative search to be legal, see my blog
While it's slightly less of an invasion, it doesn't change the invasive nature of these scans, nor does it address the possible health concerns. It's still an invasive search of your person without probable cause, and they're still ineffective at detecting even known types of dangerous items. Ineffective, invasive, (violating the conditions for a legal administrative airport security search) and without probable cause, that means they're still prohibited by the 4th Amendment to the US Constitution.
It's a question of balance. Cameras lie, all the time, and people overreact all the time.
That's all misplaced blame. Your comments/complaints aren't related to the use of camera. That people overreact is not related to being recorded. A camera did not cause the Rodney King riots, the officers beating the crap out of him did that. The camera just exposed how brutal that beating really was. Those cops belong in jail, they broke the law. If a civilian were seen/filmed beating someone that severely, you can bet they would end up in jail, and their careers would be ruined. The police shouldn't be protected from that just because they're police. While the police must be given some leeway due to the risks and stresses associated with their jobs, they are not above the law and must be held accountable for their actions.
Cameras do not lie, people do. Cameras don't paint a full picture and should not be the only testimony, but they're far more reliable than eyewitness testimony. If you have a problem with police (or other authorities) being held accountable for their actions, then you should find another job. Good luck finding a job where you're not held accountable for your actions and the quality or legality of your work.