This was not the point of our protest in DC. The point was to talk about the DMCA as a whole, and use DVDs as an example. The fact that the article which appeared on CNN (but came from IDG?) completely missed the point is, well... besides the point. Even if such a DVD player product exist, it is not Free and even if such a product was released under the Free Software Guidelines, it still wouldn't change the law, which was what the protest was about. I realize this post itself may be off topic, but I thought it important that this clarification be made. - Serge Wroclawski
Though cost isn't really that big a difference if you go with a small shop like Patmos International. http://www.patmos-international.com
If you call them, you can customize a rather cheap and very powerful machine at a cost:performance ratio far beyond anything those 32 bit processors can do.
First, I want to thank everyone who showed up. Tim and Declean are right, fewer people did show up than hoped- but we raised awareness and that's what counts.
The original posts about how small the protest was and how pointless it is to have a small protest only futher emphasize that it's up to you, the invididual to show up to these kinds of events. If more people would have showed up, then we wouldn't be getting this "no one showed up" feedback. If you care about the issue, go out and make yourself heard.
For most of the event, I handed out flyers with two or three people holding signs. Some people were interested in what I had to say, others not. But I was able to gain attention with only three people. If everyone contributes and makes thier presence known to another event of this nature, then it will be more difficult to ignore us.
I hope to be putting up a web page on the event as a whole by the day's end (I'm collecting media coverage and images and whatnot), so if anyone has any which haven't been mentioned yet, send them along to me.
As the other reply said, this is about dressing nice not about dressing as penguins. The idea behind this protest is that the members are well dressed and respectful. The people and press will judge us based on how we appear. If we look professional then they'll treat the issue seriously. If we look like we don't "care about how we look" then neither will they. There isn't a dress "code", but it's a strong recommendation to look clean and well dressed. I will be there in black jeans and a white shirt (though maybe a clean t-shirt). I don't dress in suits, and neither do many of the other people organizaing this protest. If you go- please do try to put on a good face for the public and press, it will help get our point across. - Serge Wroclawski
This is the fault of the people planning the protest. We all have full time jobs and school etc. To make a really detailed planned protest takes a lot of time, and by that time, the DMCA would already be old news.
But if someone wants to make _another_ protest, go ahead.
What's more helpful now is to make signs etc though so we can pass them out.
I strongly suggest other cities do similiar events. The nice part about being in DC is that we're so close to the "impoortant" buildings and people, but that doesn't mean that protests in New York, LA, Chicago etc won't matter.
And I especially encourage people in other countries protest as well. This is a US law, but I fear and suspect that it will become an international problem.
This reminds me of what happened to Tim Leary. As most of you probably know, Mr. Leary was a professor of psychology in Harvard and was eventually arrested for his controversial message telling the youth to drop out of school, doubt the messages of the elders and to do drugs.
Oh, and I believe he had possession of LSD...
The important part comes when they had him take a psycholoical profile for his sentancing.
He came out of the profiling as "Meek" and "Easily Lead". So they put him in minimim security prision, where in few weeks, he climbed a tree, jumped over a fence and left.
The profile he'd taken was the standard at the time, the "Leary Personality Profile".
Any psychological test can be worked around with by someone who is clever. And even if the test is built to try to reduce false negatives, you can still overcome it by making the results unusable.
Just thought I'd post this cute story as it seemed relevant.
Slashdot Mirror
Check your local laws.
Honeypots can be a form of entrapment.
Also, one might argue:
1) A bad honeypot can be detremental (ie if the user really does have control over the system)
2) Honeypots encourage the hacker, while a closed door might frustrate them and they'd go away.
Anyway- just some things to keep in mind.
This was not the point of our protest in DC. The point was to talk about the DMCA as a whole, and use DVDs as an example. The fact that the article which appeared on CNN (but came from IDG?) completely missed the point is, well... besides the point. Even if such a DVD player product exist, it is not Free and even if such a product was released under the Free Software Guidelines, it still wouldn't change the law, which was what the protest was about. I realize this post itself may be off topic, but I thought it important that this clarification be made. - Serge Wroclawski
Though cost isn't really that big a difference if you go with a small shop like Patmos International. http://www.patmos-international.com
If you call them, you can customize a rather cheap and very powerful machine at a cost:performance ratio far beyond anything those 32 bit processors can do.
We were on the street, as close to the Capital Building as we could legally be.
- Serge Wroclawski
First, I want to thank everyone who showed up. Tim and Declean are right, fewer people did show up than hoped- but we raised awareness and that's what counts.
The original posts about how small the protest was and how pointless it is to have a small protest only futher emphasize that it's up to you, the invididual to show up to these kinds of events. If more people would have showed up, then we wouldn't be getting this "no one showed up" feedback. If you care about the issue, go out and make yourself heard.
For most of the event, I handed out flyers with two or three people holding signs. Some people were interested in what I had to say, others not. But I was able to gain attention with only three people. If everyone contributes and makes thier presence known to another event of this nature, then it will be more difficult to ignore us.
I hope to be putting up a web page on the event as a whole by the day's end (I'm collecting media coverage and images and whatnot), so if anyone has any which haven't been mentioned yet, send them along to me.
Thank you all again for your support,
- Serge Wroclawski
As the other reply said, this is about dressing nice not about dressing as penguins. The idea behind this protest is that the members are well dressed and respectful. The people and press will judge us based on how we appear. If we look professional then they'll treat the issue seriously. If we look like we don't "care about how we look" then neither will they. There isn't a dress "code", but it's a strong recommendation to look clean and well dressed. I will be there in black jeans and a white shirt (though maybe a clean t-shirt). I don't dress in suits, and neither do many of the other people organizaing this protest. If you go- please do try to put on a good face for the public and press, it will help get our point across. - Serge Wroclawski
This is the fault of the people planning the protest. We all have full time jobs and school etc. To make a really detailed planned protest takes a lot of time, and by that time, the DMCA would already be old news.
But if someone wants to make _another_ protest, go ahead.
What's more helpful now is to make signs etc though so we can pass them out.
- Serge Wroclawski
Absolutely,
I strongly suggest other cities do similiar events. The nice part about being in DC is that we're so close to the "impoortant" buildings and people, but that doesn't mean that protests in New York, LA, Chicago etc won't matter.
And I especially encourage people in other countries protest as well. This is a US law, but I fear and suspect that it will become an international problem.
This reminds me of what happened to Tim Leary. As most of you probably know, Mr. Leary was a professor of psychology in Harvard and was eventually arrested for his controversial message telling the youth to drop out of school, doubt the messages of the elders and to do drugs.
Oh, and I believe he had possession of LSD...
The important part comes when they had him take a psycholoical profile for his sentancing.
He came out of the profiling as "Meek" and "Easily Lead". So they put him in minimim security prision, where in few weeks, he climbed a tree, jumped over a fence and left.
The profile he'd taken was the standard at the time, the "Leary Personality Profile".
Any psychological test can be worked around with by someone who is clever. And even if the test is built to try to reduce false negatives, you can still overcome it by making the results unusable.
Just thought I'd post this cute story as it seemed relevant.
- Serge Wroclawski
I know it's not relevant to this thread, but it reminded me...
A few nights ago on NPR there was mention that M$ was activly developing a console game system.
Does anyone know of this?