"DHS is proposing to limit the official purposes of a REAL ID license to those listed by Congress in the law: accessing a Federal facility; boarding Federally-regulated commercial aircraft; and entering nuclear power plants. DHS may consider expanding these official purposes through future rulemakings....."
Yeah. That's a loophole on a par with those job descriptions that end with the phrase "and such other duties as may be required..."
"In the proposed rule, DHS is proposing to limit the official purposes of a REAL ID license to those listed by Congress in the law: accessing a Federal facility; boarding Federally-regulated commercial aircraft; and entering nuclear power plants."
Let's see, I don't fly, don't have any reason to be anywhere near a nuke plant.....that leaves only "accessing a federal facility."
So, if I don't have a REAL ID, and the feds arrest, try, and convict me for some crime, does that mean they can't put me in a federal prison?
What kills small-time eBay sellers isn't income tax -- it's Self-Employment Tax.
I'm a perfect example. I am a caretaker for my elderly mother. While she doesn't require constant 24/7 care, for a variety of reasons, I can't spend more than a few hours at a time away from her. Holding down a legit job under this situation is impractical. So, we live primarily off her Social Security and a modest pension from her old job. Just enough to pay rent and utilities and keep us from living on the street.
I scrape together a little extra money selling on eBay. My net profits for this amount to just a few thou a year -- if I clear $5000, that's a good year for me. With the standard deduction and exemption, I owe nothing, zero in income taxes. BUT, I am still obligated to pay 15.3% in SE tax. So, on that $5000 amount, that's a $750 bite. If I earned that same amount working a p/t "job," I would be home-free.
I don't care what your source of income is -- anyone earning so little shouldn't owe a dime in taxes. If I had a home business that cleared $100K a year, I would gladly fork over $15K of that to the government -- I have no expensive tastes, and could still live like a prince on what's left. But when every dollar is critical, and I can barely cover my own food and transportation and other expenses, that 15% looms large.
Nothing can replace the book -- you can devise something more efficient, perhaps, but you can't duplicate the aesthetic part of the experience. The look, the feel of a book, even the smell of a new book when you crack it open (or for that matter, the mustiness of a quaint old well-read volume), the physical act of turning the pages -- it's all very comforting. I think electronic means of delivering text are fine, even superior for reference and technical tomes, especially having a search function and so on. But for sheer pleasure reading, low tech will always be best.
Kinda like when I was in High School and they banned backpacks (but not purses, which is a whole other story) from classrooms because bombs could be hidden in them, which, according to the administration, would make for a lot more effort for a bomb squad to find a bomb in case a bomb threat was called in. Of course, this just meant that the bombs would be left in lockers for the bomb squad to search, which I don't see as making things any easier. The high school wasn't being cautious, it was being retarded.
See, it's not about making things safer -- it's about making gullible, naive people (i.e., a good majority of the population) THINK that things are safer.
Makes me think of the USPS instituting that "packages over one pound can no longer be put in mailboxes -- they must be brought to the counter" garbage. Never mind that the incident that prompted the rule (TWA 800) had nothing whatsoever to do with explosive packages, or that much less than a pound of C4 could do some serious damage. As I commented to a postal clerk in the wake of the change: "Yeah, so instead of the bomb blowing up a mailbox out on the street, it'll blow up inside the post office. Sounds a LOT safer to me....."
What a neat idea! Putting flashing lights and cartoon characters on bombs! What will those silly jihadists think of next? (Hey, can I get some of those, but with Scooby Doo taking a dump on them?)
Someone had to be first to stand up to this. (I was betting on New Hampshire, which has been very vocal about their opposition, or Vermont based on their general countercultural eccentricties. But they all share a remnant of that good old Yankee stubborness.) Other states have voiced their concerns, but now that someone had the balls to be first, maybe more states will make their opinions known through their own legislatures.
Or maybe it means nothing at all, and all the states will eventually kowtow to their federal masters like they always do. Yeah....that's probably the way to bet.
Have we really become so damn busy (or lazy) in today's society that we can't work a trip to the bank into our day? Sorry, but I would never do online banking -- too many pitfalls, too many points in the system where someone can hack in, too much agony trying to clean up your account afterwards. I don't care what kind of security is put in place -- sooner or later, someone will figure a way around it. If I need to transfer, withdraw, or pay out any significant amount of money above a typical ATM withdrawal, it's damn sure worth my time and effort to physically travel to the bank. In fact, I insist on it -- and insist that they verify my identity in person before they start manipulating my money.
Damn! Should the Fed have the right to open your snail mail, too?
They did with US Mail before they passed a bunch of laws making it illegal.
Actually, that only applies to 1st class mail, and even then it can be opened or monitored with a proper warrant. Every other class of USPS mail, however, is subject to opening and inspection at the whim of any Postal Inspector or other law-enforcement agent, and always has been.
The potential for misuse and abuse of such an ID by the guvmint is rife, but what no one mentions is the sheer ridiculous logistics of this system. Have you actually read the requirements? First of all, this means no more automatic renewal, no renew by mail or Net, everyone will have to physically go to the DMV and stand in line, probably at least doubling or tripling the foot traffic in those already overworked, slow-as-fucking-molasses dens of bureaucracy. You need a birth certificate -- so older folks who don't have one and were born in East Podunk, North Dakota where the old records were wiped away decades ago when the flood happened -- well, you're shit out of luck. You will now need to use a verifiable physical address -- no more P.O. Boxes or mail drops on your ID. Great, now if someone is stalking you, they'll know exactly where to find you. And the most absurd requirement is that you must present some sort of photo ID. Um...excuse me...my driver's license IS my photo ID. How many people in this country don't have some sort of second photo ID? And even if they do (school, work, etc.), since those IDs don't have the same level of security and documentation as this supposedly uber-secure RealID, then what's the point? You're using documents that are insecure and easily forged to verify your identity for an allegedly secure ID. Anyone see the fallcy here?
RealID will not make ANYONE safer. But it will inconvenience millions of Americans, logistically and financially (I've heard talk of these things costing as much as $90-100 to cover the vastly increased costs -- how many poor people have that much to spare on an average day?); it will grind the machinery of state DMV departments to a halt (yes, even slower than now, if that is imaginable); it is an unfunded mandate that will cause states to either raise our taxes to pay for, or take money away from existing programs of far more benefit; it will leave millions in a legal limbo when they can't meet every stupid requirement; normal, everyday people who are not even remotely a threat to anyone will have their lives disrupted, maybe lose jobs or have bank accounts closed or be unable to travel on a plane or train, all because they cannot meet every jot and tittle of the requirements for an ID that won't do a dad-gumned thing to protect them from terrorism or ID theft.
I have often seen signs advertising something on special for ".99 cents" and the like. One of these days, when I'm feeling cocky, I'm going to ask for one, lay a penny on the counter, and insist that I get my 1/100 of a cent change back.....
Innumeracy is rampant, and I don't even mean advanced algebra or calculus -- I mean simple, basic arithmetic. I guarantee you that if the machines go down, most retail clerks couldn't make correct change to save their lives.
People in the U.S. will likely refer to any mobile phone-like device as a "cellphone" for a long time. (Not in the U.K., however, where are they are already traditionally referred to as "mobiles.") The terminology of technology often hangs on long after the original item has mutated or been superseded. Videotape has been around for half a century, yet many people still refer to something being "filmed" rather than "taped." (If it involves a camera, that is -- folks still refer to "taping" a show off TV.) And in the latest generation, in which video is recorded on discs, chips, HDDs, etc., people will still say something like "I taped it on my TiVO," even though no tape is involved.
....doesn't know about DRM and doesn't care. The average consumer has never used a P2P network, never ripped or copied CDs or DVDs, never format-shifted, never even heard of alternate OS, etc. Until and unless it keeps average people from doing normal, everyday things with media, no one will care. And I mean a major percentage of people having problems doing everyday things -- there are so many glitches and problems that affect M$ computers in so many ways that folks are almost used to it. (I've always said that if your stove, oven, and toaster worked as reliably as a Windows machine, we'd all be eating out all the time.) Vista is a mass-market product aimed at the average consumer -- not geeks,/.ers, and the like. They don't give a rat's ass about what the sort of people on this site care about.
Programming errors and inexperience dealing with electronic voting machines frustrated poll workers in hundreds of precincts early Tuesday, delaying voters in Indiana, Ohio and Florida and leaving some with little choice but to use paper ballots instead.
Well, I guess this eliminates the hacking option.;)
Unless using a paper shredder falls under the definition of "hacking..."
....but in a rather inept manner that gets the perpetrators caught with their hands in the cybercookie jar. It will take a major scandal, on the order of Watergate -- one in which a number of people are caught and charged with defrauding the vote and linked with high GOP administration officials -- to wake up the American cattle to the subversion of democracy that is taking place right under their noses. Theory (like this article) means diddly-squat to folks -- a few odd anomalies in a few isolated precincts isn't going to impress anyone -- statistical analyses might as well be written in Swahili or Klingon given the mathematical illiteracy of most Americans. No, ironically, most folks will not believe the vote can be hacked and stolen until the vote IS hacked and stolen -- but in a big way that can be proven in a court of law and not just theorized in a web article. Given the poll numbers, I think it will take a lot of major screwing around in a lot of places for the GOP to be assured of retaining Congress. And the more hacking that has to be done, the greater the liklihood that someone, somewhere will either screw-up big time or get caught by someone who blows the whistle.
So, we're talking about 8K filesharers out of, what, how many MILLIONS of people worlwide use P2P services to trade music files? That's a drop in the bucket. No "AA" organization has the resources to go after ALL file swappers, or anything more than a tiny percentage of them. They just hit some of the higher profile guys, hit a few grandmas and teens at random, and then hope it will be a deterrent to the other umpteen million.
It's very much like speeding on the highway. 98% of drivers speed at least some of the time. And they do it because they know that as long as they avoid reported speed traps they probably have a 1 in 10,000 chance of getting a ticket on any given day. Maybe 1 in 100,000. Oh, the cops will periodically set up on some busy stretch of road and write a few dozen tickets and hope that acts as a deterrent. It doesn't. And neither will a handful of extortions....ERRR....lawsuits against filesharers. There are just way too many of them.
....even if Wayback did respect the robots.txt (which I was under the impression that they generally do), any pages archived before the robots.txt was placed on the server aren't going to automatically disappear -- they are still there. You have to directly ask them to remove the previously arvhived pages if you don't want them to be accessible.
I used to have a friend who was a very active Amateur Radio operator ("ham"). He had rooms full of equipment and operated just about every mode available (AM, FM, SSB, SSTV, TV, Packet, Satellite, etc.). Anyway, his philosophy was that if a certain piece of equipment failed to function properly, and nothing seemed to work, the thing to do was shut it off, call your friends, go out and have a good meal and some brewskis, get a good night's sleep, then wake up the next morning and switch the thing back on. Chances are, he said, it would work just fine. "This is what we hams call 'FM'" he told me. "'FM?'" "Yeah, 'FM' -- 'Fucking Magic.'"
Forgive my ignorance if it turns out that there is an obvious answer.....
For some time now, I have been reacking my feeble brain wondering.....what is the legal basis for the RIAA to file these lawsuits in the first place?
I was always under the impression that a case for copyright infringement needed to be brought by the actual copyright holder. There are probably many thousands of copyright holders, both individual and corporate, represented by the files flinging their way through cyberspace on the P2P nets. And, to the best of my knowledge, the RIAA doesn't actually hold any copyrights.
So, why are they even a party in these lawsuits? I understand they are representing the alleged interests of the recording companies -- fair enough. But are they legally entitled to sue on behalf of each and every copyright holder in their fold? Is there some blanket legal agreement that allows them to do this, with or without the permission, cooperation, or even knowledge of the concerns whose copyrights are being "defended?"
I can see a smart judge asking the RIAA, "exactly which copyrights to which of the songs at issue does your organization hold?" Well, none, your honor. He should ask exactly which specific songs have been illegaly distributed by the defendant, who holds the copyrights of each of those tracks, and then insist that they themselves must individually bring suit in this matter, then throw the RIAA case out of court.
So, how exactly does this work? I've never studied law, so perhaps my assumptions are pure bullshit and you will mock my ignorance.
.....to ever, ever, EVER open any attachment that came via e-mail unless you are (a) expecting it, (b) know what it is, and (c) know who it came from.
Since all these factors can be spoofed, insist that anyone who is sending you an attachment first send you a plain text e-mail advising you that he/she is about to send the attachment. This message should include your name in the body in the text, a brief description of what is being sent, and maybe even a worded statement of the date and time to confirm the time stamp. You could even establish a code word or phrase with regular correspondents and ask that they include that in both subject line and text body. Conversely, if you do receive an unexpected attachment, but it appears to be from a known correspondent, e-mail them and ask if they sent you a message with attachment with subject line XXX at such and such a date and time.
Seem like a lot of trouble to go through? Compare the momentary annoyance to the time and cost of ridding your machine of a nasty virus. I've known people who are well aware of the ticks and trades of virus sending assholes who get infected simply because they get careless or lazy and don't take steps such as the above.
Almost all the issues discussed on Slashdot that really raise our hackles have little to no effect on the average citizen. Slashdotters, I find, are a distinct minority -- very intelligent and perceptive, able to reason and think multi-dimensionally, very aware of all the potential dangers and threats to our freedoms that lurk behind the acts of our government.
Most Americans these days are shallow, ignorant, and think very one-dimensionally (if at all). They operate in their own little psychic bubble, and are only tenuously connected to anything outside their own narrow world. Unless the issue at hand is something that IMMEDIATELY affects them in a NEGATIVE and TANGIBLE way, they couldn't care less. They do not care about principles or theories. They do not consider unintended consequences or possible secondary and tertiary effects. They cannot extrapolate and understand how something MIGHT be so abused as to affect them in the future. If what is being done does not, at this moment, take money out of their pockets or food off their table; if it does not immediately affect the quality of their lives; if it does not present an imminent and tangible threat to their children, homes, or jobs; then it is nothing of concern to them.
See, tyranny gains a foothold in small, incremental, almost inperceptible ways. It depends on the disinterest and distraction of the multitudes to slowly, bit by bit, eat away at freedom. Even when some act or shift in policy may cause a momentary reaction of concern amongst the multitudes of sheep, it will be sufficiently well-couched in fearmongering, doublespeak, and appeals to patriotism to quickly allay those thoughts and allow a quick retreat back into the bubble of self-deception. By the time things get so bad that even the average dolt understands what is happening, it is already far too late.
When I saw the headline, I thought sure this HAD to be a hose. Is it any wonder April 1st isn't as big a deal as it used to be -- what with reality becoming more and more absurd, satire just can't compete any more.
I wonder, do the dogs give a stronger reaction to movies like Gigli, Waterworld, or The Postman? Hell, you don't need dogs -- I could smell those stinkers a mile away.
Just goes to show to how great a degree private industry and big corporations have this administration in their back pocket. I mean, think of the cost and expense of training these dogs, the man-hours involved, the delay of legitimate shipments, the questionable nature of the searches, and all at the behest of a PRIVATE industry trade group. It boggles the mind.
All the more imperative that the master geeks get cracking on that Star Trek Transporter techonology, so you can beam your contraband directly to the recipient.
Slashdot Mirror
The guy is single handedly responsible for 78% of the anti- american sentiment in Canada.
"78%"? Not 75%, or 70%, or some rough guess like "three-fourths" or "two-thirds?" You actually sat down and calculated this??
"DHS is proposing to limit the official purposes of a REAL ID license to those listed by Congress in the law: accessing a Federal facility; boarding Federally-regulated commercial aircraft; and entering nuclear power plants. DHS may consider expanding these official purposes through future rulemakings....."
Yeah. That's a loophole on a par with those job descriptions that end with the phrase "and such other duties as may be required..."
"In the proposed rule, DHS is proposing to limit the official purposes of a REAL ID license to those listed by Congress in the law: accessing a Federal facility; boarding Federally-regulated commercial aircraft; and entering nuclear power plants."
Let's see, I don't fly, don't have any reason to be anywhere near a nuke plant.....that leaves only "accessing a federal facility."
So, if I don't have a REAL ID, and the feds arrest, try, and convict me for some crime, does that mean they can't put me in a federal prison?
What kills small-time eBay sellers isn't income tax -- it's Self-Employment Tax.
I'm a perfect example. I am a caretaker for my elderly mother. While she doesn't require constant 24/7 care, for a variety of reasons, I can't spend more than a few hours at a time away from her. Holding down a legit job under this situation is impractical. So, we live primarily off her Social Security and a modest pension from her old job. Just enough to pay rent and utilities and keep us from living on the street.
I scrape together a little extra money selling on eBay. My net profits for this amount to just a few thou a year -- if I clear $5000, that's a good year for me. With the standard deduction and exemption, I owe nothing, zero in income taxes. BUT, I am still obligated to pay 15.3% in SE tax. So, on that $5000 amount, that's a $750 bite. If I earned that same amount working a p/t "job," I would be home-free.
I don't care what your source of income is -- anyone earning so little shouldn't owe a dime in taxes. If I had a home business that cleared $100K a year, I would gladly fork over $15K of that to the government -- I have no expensive tastes, and could still live like a prince on what's left. But when every dollar is critical, and I can barely cover my own food and transportation and other expenses, that 15% looms large.
Nothing can replace the book -- you can devise something more efficient, perhaps, but you can't duplicate the aesthetic part of the experience. The look, the feel of a book, even the smell of a new book when you crack it open (or for that matter, the mustiness of a quaint old well-read volume), the physical act of turning the pages -- it's all very comforting. I think electronic means of delivering text are fine, even superior for reference and technical tomes, especially having a search function and so on. But for sheer pleasure reading, low tech will always be best.
Kinda like when I was in High School and they banned backpacks (but not purses, which is a whole other story) from classrooms because bombs could be hidden in them, which, according to the administration, would make for a lot more effort for a bomb squad to find a bomb in case a bomb threat was called in. Of course, this just meant that the bombs would be left in lockers for the bomb squad to search, which I don't see as making things any easier. The high school wasn't being cautious, it was being retarded.
See, it's not about making things safer -- it's about making gullible, naive people (i.e., a good majority of the population) THINK that things are safer.
Makes me think of the USPS instituting that "packages over one pound can no longer be put in mailboxes -- they must be brought to the counter" garbage. Never mind that the incident that prompted the rule (TWA 800) had nothing whatsoever to do with explosive packages, or that much less than a pound of C4 could do some serious damage. As I commented to a postal clerk in the wake of the change: "Yeah, so instead of the bomb blowing up a mailbox out on the street, it'll blow up inside the post office. Sounds a LOT safer to me....."
What a neat idea! Putting flashing lights and cartoon characters on bombs! What will those silly jihadists think of next? (Hey, can I get some of those, but with Scooby Doo taking a dump on them?)
if privacy isn't important, why do homes have curtains?
Or, for that matter, why do bathrooms have doors? I mean.....God only knows what you might be doing in there that is illegal or immoral (or both!).
Someone had to be first to stand up to this. (I was betting on New Hampshire, which has been very vocal about their opposition, or Vermont based on their general countercultural eccentricties. But they all share a remnant of that good old Yankee stubborness.) Other states have voiced their concerns, but now that someone had the balls to be first, maybe more states will make their opinions known through their own legislatures.
Or maybe it means nothing at all, and all the states will eventually kowtow to their federal masters like they always do. Yeah....that's probably the way to bet.
Have we really become so damn busy (or lazy) in today's society that we can't work a trip to the bank into our day? Sorry, but I would never do online banking -- too many pitfalls, too many points in the system where someone can hack in, too much agony trying to clean up your account afterwards. I don't care what kind of security is put in place -- sooner or later, someone will figure a way around it. If I need to transfer, withdraw, or pay out any significant amount of money above a typical ATM withdrawal, it's damn sure worth my time and effort to physically travel to the bank. In fact, I insist on it -- and insist that they verify my identity in person before they start manipulating my money.
Damn! Should the Fed have the right to open your snail mail, too?
They did with US Mail before they passed a bunch of laws making it illegal.
Actually, that only applies to 1st class mail, and even then it can be opened or monitored with a proper warrant. Every other class of USPS mail, however, is subject to opening and inspection at the whim of any Postal Inspector or other law-enforcement agent, and always has been.
The potential for misuse and abuse of such an ID by the guvmint is rife, but what no one mentions is the sheer ridiculous logistics of this system. Have you actually read the requirements? First of all, this means no more automatic renewal, no renew by mail or Net, everyone will have to physically go to the DMV and stand in line, probably at least doubling or tripling the foot traffic in those already overworked, slow-as-fucking-molasses dens of bureaucracy. You need a birth certificate -- so older folks who don't have one and were born in East Podunk, North Dakota where the old records were wiped away decades ago when the flood happened -- well, you're shit out of luck. You will now need to use a verifiable physical address -- no more P.O. Boxes or mail drops on your ID. Great, now if someone is stalking you, they'll know exactly where to find you. And the most absurd requirement is that you must present some sort of photo ID. Um...excuse me...my driver's license IS my photo ID. How many people in this country don't have some sort of second photo ID? And even if they do (school, work, etc.), since those IDs don't have the same level of security and documentation as this supposedly uber-secure RealID, then what's the point? You're using documents that are insecure and easily forged to verify your identity for an allegedly secure ID. Anyone see the fallcy here?
RealID will not make ANYONE safer. But it will inconvenience millions of Americans, logistically and financially (I've heard talk of these things costing as much as $90-100 to cover the vastly increased costs -- how many poor people have that much to spare on an average day?); it will grind the machinery of state DMV departments to a halt (yes, even slower than now, if that is imaginable); it is an unfunded mandate that will cause states to either raise our taxes to pay for, or take money away from existing programs of far more benefit; it will leave millions in a legal limbo when they can't meet every stupid requirement; normal, everyday people who are not even remotely a threat to anyone will have their lives disrupted, maybe lose jobs or have bank accounts closed or be unable to travel on a plane or train, all because they cannot meet every jot and tittle of the requirements for an ID that won't do a dad-gumned thing to protect them from terrorism or ID theft.
Ah, America...land that I love.
I have often seen signs advertising something on special for ".99 cents" and the like. One of these days, when I'm feeling cocky, I'm going to ask for one, lay a penny on the counter, and insist that I get my 1/100 of a cent change back.....
Innumeracy is rampant, and I don't even mean advanced algebra or calculus -- I mean simple, basic arithmetic. I guarantee you that if the machines go down, most retail clerks couldn't make correct change to save their lives.
People in the U.S. will likely refer to any mobile phone-like device as a "cellphone" for a long time. (Not in the U.K., however, where are they are already traditionally referred to as "mobiles.") The terminology of technology often hangs on long after the original item has mutated or been superseded. Videotape has been around for half a century, yet many people still refer to something being "filmed" rather than "taped." (If it involves a camera, that is -- folks still refer to "taping" a show off TV.) And in the latest generation, in which video is recorded on discs, chips, HDDs, etc., people will still say something like "I taped it on my TiVO," even though no tape is involved.
Those situations would fall under the jurisdiction of law enforcement, not Microsoft.
Once Billy Boy is President, they will be one and the same....
....doesn't know about DRM and doesn't care. The average consumer has never used a P2P network, never ripped or copied CDs or DVDs, never format-shifted, never even heard of alternate OS, etc. Until and unless it keeps average people from doing normal, everyday things with media, no one will care. And I mean a major percentage of people having problems doing everyday things -- there are so many glitches and problems that affect M$ computers in so many ways that folks are almost used to it. (I've always said that if your stove, oven, and toaster worked as reliably as a Windows machine, we'd all be eating out all the time.) Vista is a mass-market product aimed at the average consumer -- not geeks, /.ers, and the like. They don't give a rat's ass about what the sort of people on this site care about.
Programming errors and inexperience dealing with electronic voting machines frustrated poll workers in hundreds of precincts early Tuesday, delaying voters in Indiana, Ohio and Florida and leaving some with little choice but to use paper ballots instead.
Well, I guess this eliminates the hacking option. ;)
Unless using a paper shredder falls under the definition of "hacking..."
....but in a rather inept manner that gets the perpetrators caught with their hands in the cybercookie jar. It will take a major scandal, on the order of Watergate -- one in which a number of people are caught and charged with defrauding the vote and linked with high GOP administration officials -- to wake up the American cattle to the subversion of democracy that is taking place right under their noses. Theory (like this article) means diddly-squat to folks -- a few odd anomalies in a few isolated precincts isn't going to impress anyone -- statistical analyses might as well be written in Swahili or Klingon given the mathematical illiteracy of most Americans. No, ironically, most folks will not believe the vote can be hacked and stolen until the vote IS hacked and stolen -- but in a big way that can be proven in a court of law and not just theorized in a web article. Given the poll numbers, I think it will take a lot of major screwing around in a lot of places for the GOP to be assured of retaining Congress. And the more hacking that has to be done, the greater the liklihood that someone, somewhere will either screw-up big time or get caught by someone who blows the whistle.
So, we're talking about 8K filesharers out of, what, how many MILLIONS of people worlwide use P2P services to trade music files? That's a drop in the bucket. No "AA" organization has the resources to go after ALL file swappers, or anything more than a tiny percentage of them. They just hit some of the higher profile guys, hit a few grandmas and teens at random, and then hope it will be a deterrent to the other umpteen million.
It's very much like speeding on the highway. 98% of drivers speed at least some of the time. And they do it because they know that as long as they avoid reported speed traps they probably have a 1 in 10,000 chance of getting a ticket on any given day. Maybe 1 in 100,000. Oh, the cops will periodically set up on some busy stretch of road and write a few dozen tickets and hope that acts as a deterrent. It doesn't. And neither will a handful of extortions....ERRR....lawsuits against filesharers. There are just way too many of them.
....even if Wayback did respect the robots.txt (which I was under the impression that they generally do), any pages archived before the robots.txt was placed on the server aren't going to automatically disappear -- they are still there. You have to directly ask them to remove the previously arvhived pages if you don't want them to be accessible.
I used to have a friend who was a very active Amateur Radio operator ("ham"). He had rooms full of equipment and operated just about every mode available (AM, FM, SSB, SSTV, TV, Packet, Satellite, etc.). Anyway, his philosophy was that if a certain piece of equipment failed to function properly, and nothing seemed to work, the thing to do was shut it off, call your friends, go out and have a good meal and some brewskis, get a good night's sleep, then wake up the next morning and switch the thing back on. Chances are, he said, it would work just fine. "This is what we hams call 'FM'" he told me. "'FM?'" "Yeah, 'FM' -- 'Fucking Magic.'"
Forgive my ignorance if it turns out that there is an obvious answer.....
For some time now, I have been reacking my feeble brain wondering.....what is the legal basis for the RIAA to file these lawsuits in the first place?
I was always under the impression that a case for copyright infringement needed to be brought by the actual copyright holder. There are probably many thousands of copyright holders, both individual and corporate, represented by the files flinging their way through cyberspace on the P2P nets. And, to the best of my knowledge, the RIAA doesn't actually hold any copyrights.
So, why are they even a party in these lawsuits? I understand they are representing the alleged interests of the recording companies -- fair enough. But are they legally entitled to sue on behalf of each and every copyright holder in their fold? Is there some blanket legal agreement that allows them to do this, with or without the permission, cooperation, or even knowledge of the concerns whose copyrights are being "defended?"
I can see a smart judge asking the RIAA, "exactly which copyrights to which of the songs at issue does your organization hold?" Well, none, your honor. He should ask exactly which specific songs have been illegaly distributed by the defendant, who holds the copyrights of each of those tracks, and then insist that they themselves must individually bring suit in this matter, then throw the RIAA case out of court.
So, how exactly does this work? I've never studied law, so perhaps my assumptions are pure bullshit and you will mock my ignorance.
Since all these factors can be spoofed, insist that anyone who is sending you an attachment first send you a plain text e-mail advising you that he/she is about to send the attachment. This message should include your name in the body in the text, a brief description of what is being sent, and maybe even a worded statement of the date and time to confirm the time stamp. You could even establish a code word or phrase with regular correspondents and ask that they include that in both subject line and text body. Conversely, if you do receive an unexpected attachment, but it appears to be from a known correspondent, e-mail them and ask if they sent you a message with attachment with subject line XXX at such and such a date and time.
Seem like a lot of trouble to go through? Compare the momentary annoyance to the time and cost of ridding your machine of a nasty virus. I've known people who are well aware of the ticks and trades of virus sending assholes who get infected simply because they get careless or lazy and don't take steps such as the above.
Most Americans these days are shallow, ignorant, and think very one-dimensionally (if at all). They operate in their own little psychic bubble, and are only tenuously connected to anything outside their own narrow world. Unless the issue at hand is something that IMMEDIATELY affects them in a NEGATIVE and TANGIBLE way, they couldn't care less. They do not care about principles or theories. They do not consider unintended consequences or possible secondary and tertiary effects. They cannot extrapolate and understand how something MIGHT be so abused as to affect them in the future. If what is being done does not, at this moment, take money out of their pockets or food off their table; if it does not immediately affect the quality of their lives; if it does not present an imminent and tangible threat to their children, homes, or jobs; then it is nothing of concern to them.
See, tyranny gains a foothold in small, incremental, almost inperceptible ways. It depends on the disinterest and distraction of the multitudes to slowly, bit by bit, eat away at freedom. Even when some act or shift in policy may cause a momentary reaction of concern amongst the multitudes of sheep, it will be sufficiently well-couched in fearmongering, doublespeak, and appeals to patriotism to quickly allay those thoughts and allow a quick retreat back into the bubble of self-deception. By the time things get so bad that even the average dolt understands what is happening, it is already far too late.
I wonder, do the dogs give a stronger reaction to movies like Gigli, Waterworld, or The Postman? Hell, you don't need dogs -- I could smell those stinkers a mile away.
Just goes to show to how great a degree private industry and big corporations have this administration in their back pocket. I mean, think of the cost and expense of training these dogs, the man-hours involved, the delay of legitimate shipments, the questionable nature of the searches, and all at the behest of a PRIVATE industry trade group. It boggles the mind.
All the more imperative that the master geeks get cracking on that Star Trek Transporter techonology, so you can beam your contraband directly to the recipient.