They violated the ECPA according to the court when they went beyond recording the location of the laptop and went on to intercept communications for which the person had a reasonable expectation of privacy.
This isn't a case of state law, they fucked up by committing a crime across state lines without bothering to comply with federal law relevant to this type of investigation.
Right, but this was a federal offense, the wiretapping was done across state lines making it a federal offense rather than a state offense. On top of that, the judge already ruled that the woman had a reasonable expectation of privacy in both the objective and subjective meanings and came down hard on them for knowingly violating federal wiretap law.
It's perfectly accurate. The woman was acting as owner. It turned out later that the item had been stolen and as such she wasn't the owner. However, the court did rule that the normal expectations of privacy were reasonable in both the objective and subjective sense.
As such it's a perfectly reasonable analogy to draw. In both cases you have an illegal wiretap operation going in a place where one has a reasonable expectation of privacy and in both cases there is a violation of wiretap laws. The only significant difference is that in this case it's governed by federal wiretap law whereas in my example it would be state wiretap law.
However, in both cases you'd expect to go to prison, it's just a question of state or federal prison.
And note, that's the conclusion that the judge in the case came to that there was a clear violation of federal wiretap laws.
I agree, $60 for a broken laptop is most likely too little, but by the same token, it's not something I would personally know had I not sold a previous laptop off piece by piece.
Which is excellent if you don't mind doing time for contempt of court and evidence tampering. Not to mention wiretap violations. When it comes to matters like this, you have to turn over all the evidence, not just the subset that makes your client look good.
Doesn't matter, it's still a violation of her rights. Just because the original owner authorized it, does not mean that they have the right to violate the wiretap laws involved. And in a case like this, the employees that opted to obtain the extra images ought to be prosecuted for doing the illegal wiretapping. Had they just stopped with the location of the device, they would be fine legally.
I realize that people don't understand that, but this isn't any different than if a landlord puts a secret camera in an apartment. Just because it's your property doesn't mean that you get to wiretap it all you like.
That's not true, while the 4th amendment only prevents the government from doing it, every state in the union has its own wiretap law on the books which bars this sort of covert surveillance.
It's questionable to me as to why precisely the company isn't being prosecuted for that violation.
Not really, if she genuinely didn't know that the laptop was stolen, then there's no crime so long as she returns the goods when notified. Granted it's stupid to buy a laptop for $60 from a boyfriend.
The photos themselves are evidence of illegal wiretapping, so they ultimately should have been provided to the police, so that the police could prosecute the company for the illegal wiretap.
Right, that being said, if you're a home user and you have the means, it's definitely a wise idea to contribute something to at least some of the products you're using. Even if it's only a fraction of the ones you use.
Unfortunately, for some types of contributions, you aren't likely to get somebody to contribute the code for free. Usually it's something that's tedious or not particularly flashy. Sometimes it's an issue that only affects a small number of people.
Good, the last thing we need is more incompetent business people in the US. In fact you've just convinced me that I need to do whatever I need to do to ensure that Ron Paul loses. Perhaps all those business people that ran their businesses into the ground will leave for some other nation.
We're not bankrupt, we're just spending more than we're taking it. We definitely can balance the budget, it's just that the partisans on the right don't want to do the cutting of military expenses or raise taxes on the wealthy that would be required to make it happen. The spending on unemployment and social programs is really what we need to do to pul ourselves out of this current economic malaise. Corporations aren't going to create jobs if there isn't demand for their products and services.
But, we've still got plenty of cash flow to service our debt. Or at least we do presently until folks like the TEA partiers manage to force us to default on our debts.
Which is a large part of why I still reside in the US. As bad as things have been in some areas, it still beats the hell out of much of the world. Personally, I think we're doing enough right that we're better off fixing the things that aren't working than junking the entire system.
That's not to say that the President hasn't been a major let down with regards to progress on GITMO and fixing the tax problem.
That's because you're a paranoid wingnut. Believe it or not there are some jobs best left to the government. If you genuinely feel that way, Somalia is =========> that away.
Right and while we're at it, they should be subject to random security audits. Given that the signing key doesn't need to be present on a network to work, I'm not really sure I understand how a breach like this couldn't have been prevented.
Windows has been able to do mount them since at least XP. The only difference here is that they're including the utility in default installs. Which is hardly news at all as far as that goes, it's the same situation with Linux except that rather than making folks download the utility, most distros just include it
And considering how rarely most folks need to do that, I don't personally see any reason why they should have included it earlier. These days things are changing and it's more common to want to do that, but for those that need the functionality it doesn't take long to find the utility..
If 50+ people died in this storm, then it's pretty clear that something went horribly wrong. Events like this are relatively common on the West Coast, and we rarely if ever see more than a couple fatalities. We've had a spate of hundred year floods the last few winters and our death tolls for those events have never been anywhere near what this even was. We also get winds in excess of this, again without death tolls in this range.
What's worse is that most of those deaths shouldn't have happened. Flooding is pretty predictable when you're timeline is only a week or two out tops.
It's not just a matter of cost it's a matter of public safety. Paying people to rebuild in areas that are known to be flood prone and do get flooded most years just makes matters worse. Around here we've been revising the flood planes to better reflect modern knowledge.It doesn't make folks happy to know that they can't be insured, but it will make a difference in the future.
People tend to hate what good building codes and enforcement do to the cost of building, but the alternatives are at least as bad.
Precisely, we fairly regularly get storms bigger than that in WA state and really, building codes ought to be able to handle it regardless of whether it's expected, Winds in that range aren't really that significant.
As far as I can tell, the rain fall was significant, but shouldn't have been an issue in most of those areas because that aspect is a lot easier to plan for.
As far as the earthquake goes, I hope you're kidding, a building code that can't handle a mere 5.8 magnitude quake needs to be fixed.
I disagree. It's quick if what you want to do is one of the most commonly used tasks, but it's a real bitch if it's something that most folks don't do. For those that don't use MS Office constantly or who only need to perform a particular task a few times a year, it can take a really long time to find it.
And really, this is just another example of why I think that MS should be paying people to use their software. If MS had to pay for the losses in productivity from their half baked UI decisions then they'd probably be a bit more mindful about these sorts of changes.
I could be wrong, but doesn't that have something to do with Apple's UI requirements? One thing that I always liked about OSX was that there was some consistency from program to program as to where certain things would be found. In Windows, you can generally find the preferences button in 3 different places depending upon where the UI designer felt like putting it.
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They violated the ECPA according to the court when they went beyond recording the location of the laptop and went on to intercept communications for which the person had a reasonable expectation of privacy.
This isn't a case of state law, they fucked up by committing a crime across state lines without bothering to comply with federal law relevant to this type of investigation.
Right, but this was a federal offense, the wiretapping was done across state lines making it a federal offense rather than a state offense. On top of that, the judge already ruled that the woman had a reasonable expectation of privacy in both the objective and subjective meanings and came down hard on them for knowingly violating federal wiretap law.
That was from the federal judge in the case.
It's perfectly accurate. The woman was acting as owner. It turned out later that the item had been stolen and as such she wasn't the owner. However, the court did rule that the normal expectations of privacy were reasonable in both the objective and subjective sense.
As such it's a perfectly reasonable analogy to draw. In both cases you have an illegal wiretap operation going in a place where one has a reasonable expectation of privacy and in both cases there is a violation of wiretap laws. The only significant difference is that in this case it's governed by federal wiretap law whereas in my example it would be state wiretap law.
However, in both cases you'd expect to go to prison, it's just a question of state or federal prison.
And note, that's the conclusion that the judge in the case came to that there was a clear violation of federal wiretap laws.
I agree, $60 for a broken laptop is most likely too little, but by the same token, it's not something I would personally know had I not sold a previous laptop off piece by piece.
Which is excellent if you don't mind doing time for contempt of court and evidence tampering. Not to mention wiretap violations. When it comes to matters like this, you have to turn over all the evidence, not just the subset that makes your client look good.
Doesn't matter, it's still a violation of her rights. Just because the original owner authorized it, does not mean that they have the right to violate the wiretap laws involved. And in a case like this, the employees that opted to obtain the extra images ought to be prosecuted for doing the illegal wiretapping. Had they just stopped with the location of the device, they would be fine legally.
I realize that people don't understand that, but this isn't any different than if a landlord puts a secret camera in an apartment. Just because it's your property doesn't mean that you get to wiretap it all you like.
That's not true, while the 4th amendment only prevents the government from doing it, every state in the union has its own wiretap law on the books which bars this sort of covert surveillance.
It's questionable to me as to why precisely the company isn't being prosecuted for that violation.
Not really, if she genuinely didn't know that the laptop was stolen, then there's no crime so long as she returns the goods when notified. Granted it's stupid to buy a laptop for $60 from a boyfriend.
The photos themselves are evidence of illegal wiretapping, so they ultimately should have been provided to the police, so that the police could prosecute the company for the illegal wiretap.
Except Ubuntu, which can best contribute by keeping unity contained to it's own OS.
Right, that being said, if you're a home user and you have the means, it's definitely a wise idea to contribute something to at least some of the products you're using. Even if it's only a fraction of the ones you use.
Unfortunately, for some types of contributions, you aren't likely to get somebody to contribute the code for free. Usually it's something that's tedious or not particularly flashy. Sometimes it's an issue that only affects a small number of people.
Good, the last thing we need is more incompetent business people in the US. In fact you've just convinced me that I need to do whatever I need to do to ensure that Ron Paul loses. Perhaps all those business people that ran their businesses into the ground will leave for some other nation.
We're not bankrupt, we're just spending more than we're taking it. We definitely can balance the budget, it's just that the partisans on the right don't want to do the cutting of military expenses or raise taxes on the wealthy that would be required to make it happen. The spending on unemployment and social programs is really what we need to do to pul ourselves out of this current economic malaise. Corporations aren't going to create jobs if there isn't demand for their products and services.
But, we've still got plenty of cash flow to service our debt. Or at least we do presently until folks like the TEA partiers manage to force us to default on our debts.
Which is a large part of why I still reside in the US. As bad as things have been in some areas, it still beats the hell out of much of the world. Personally, I think we're doing enough right that we're better off fixing the things that aren't working than junking the entire system.
That's not to say that the President hasn't been a major let down with regards to progress on GITMO and fixing the tax problem.
Iran is excluded because they're not to be trusted. The real question is why we trust the Israelis and some of the other folks we trust.
That's because you're a paranoid wingnut. Believe it or not there are some jobs best left to the government. If you genuinely feel that way, Somalia is =========> that away.
Right and while we're at it, they should be subject to random security audits. Given that the signing key doesn't need to be present on a network to work, I'm not really sure I understand how a breach like this couldn't have been prevented.
That's blatantly untrue, MS released a utility that does just that years ago. As much as I personally dislike MS, in this case they actually handled it sensibly. Their utility is small and efficient and like a 5 second search away. http://blog.godshell.com/blog/index.php?/archives/26-Windows-XP-ISO-Mount-Utility.html
MS implemented it at least 5 years ago, the only difference is that it's now going to be included in the base install by default.
Windows has been able to do mount them since at least XP. The only difference here is that they're including the utility in default installs. Which is hardly news at all as far as that goes, it's the same situation with Linux except that rather than making folks download the utility, most distros just include it
And considering how rarely most folks need to do that, I don't personally see any reason why they should have included it earlier. These days things are changing and it's more common to want to do that, but for those that need the functionality it doesn't take long to find the utility..
If 50+ people died in this storm, then it's pretty clear that something went horribly wrong. Events like this are relatively common on the West Coast, and we rarely if ever see more than a couple fatalities. We've had a spate of hundred year floods the last few winters and our death tolls for those events have never been anywhere near what this even was. We also get winds in excess of this, again without death tolls in this range.
What's worse is that most of those deaths shouldn't have happened. Flooding is pretty predictable when you're timeline is only a week or two out tops.
That's the solution to that.
It's not just a matter of cost it's a matter of public safety. Paying people to rebuild in areas that are known to be flood prone and do get flooded most years just makes matters worse. Around here we've been revising the flood planes to better reflect modern knowledge.It doesn't make folks happy to know that they can't be insured, but it will make a difference in the future.
People tend to hate what good building codes and enforcement do to the cost of building, but the alternatives are at least as bad.
Precisely, we fairly regularly get storms bigger than that in WA state and really, building codes ought to be able to handle it regardless of whether it's expected, Winds in that range aren't really that significant.
As far as I can tell, the rain fall was significant, but shouldn't have been an issue in most of those areas because that aspect is a lot easier to plan for.
As far as the earthquake goes, I hope you're kidding, a building code that can't handle a mere 5.8 magnitude quake needs to be fixed.
No, but if it wasn't a hurricane then there are implications for planning for the future.
I disagree. It's quick if what you want to do is one of the most commonly used tasks, but it's a real bitch if it's something that most folks don't do. For those that don't use MS Office constantly or who only need to perform a particular task a few times a year, it can take a really long time to find it.
And really, this is just another example of why I think that MS should be paying people to use their software. If MS had to pay for the losses in productivity from their half baked UI decisions then they'd probably be a bit more mindful about these sorts of changes.
I could be wrong, but doesn't that have something to do with Apple's UI requirements? One thing that I always liked about OSX was that there was some consistency from program to program as to where certain things would be found. In Windows, you can generally find the preferences button in 3 different places depending upon where the UI designer felt like putting it.