Pedantic, perhaps, but I believe it was not "ordinary crewman", but instead Engineering and Security that wore red shirts, and it was the short lifespans of members of the latter group (mostly on landing parties) that led to the running joke.
TNG changed this by keeping science and medicine in blue, but switching the use of Red and Yellow.
That wouldn't work for people who type two handed, which is much much faster and requires no eye contact with the keyboard.
While touch typing the "right" way (i.e., the way most typing/keyboarding classes will teach you) requires two hands, really, the number of hands used is independent of whether you have the experience with the keyboard not to need to look at the keys to type. I've known people who type one handed without looking at the keyboard, and I've known people who watched their hands even though they used two.
I actually wouldn't be surprised if lots of people these days that keyboard and mouse can type fairly well one-handed by touch (though I'm certainly not one of them, having come to the mouse long after I was set in my typing ways.)
Keep your old Windows XP PC around. Don't buy a new one. That's the only way we have to let Microsoft know Vista is an overhyped, late, and pointless update to XP -- a perfectly fine operating system.
I dunno. I thought replacing your aging Windows XP PC with a PC with no bundled operating system that you load <Non-Windows OS of choice> on was a good way of upgrading hardware to meet new demands, while addressing (and expressing your perception of) the lack of value in Windows Vista. I hardly see sticking with aging hardware and Windows XP as the only way to do that.
The issue here is that Debian cannot legally distribute code that within itself mixes two incompatible licenses.
Neither Debian nor anyone else can do that.
So the problem is not simply that the new cdrtools was something incompatible with Debian, it is that it was (in Debian's opinion) something that was illegal to distribute period.
The copyright for the old GPL-licensed version which they've turned into "cdrkit" is still with Schilling (unless he specifically assigned it to the FSF, which is unlikely), so if he wants to, Schilling can tell Debian to "fork off" too, ie. deny them the right to distribute it as part of the distro.
I'm not really sure that's the case; if he used GPL'd code belonging to someone else in the kit, he'd be violating the terms of his license by doing so. And, as another poster pointed out there are estoppel issues with reasonable reliance.
I am really shocked that almost everyone assumes only HP did it.
I am really shocked that you claim that almost everyone assumes only HP did it. We're talking about HP doing it because we actually have some information about what they did. Yes, its probable other people do similar things but don't announce them to the people that were the subject of the illegal intrusion, or otherwise guarantee that they will get caught. But we can't really discuss the details about what people are doing that doesn't come to light because we don't have information about it.
Folks, there are hundreds of countries and thousands of foreign companies operating in the United States of America. Not all of them are as contrained by American laws as most American corps are. They conduct espionage with covert or overt state sponsorship.
Or just on their own. But, again, accept when details come out because they get caught, there isn't a lot to talk about except vague generalizations and fuzzy speculation.
With politics beign such a high stakes game and digging the dirt on the opponant and negative attack campaigns being so effective, are we really sure such tactics are not being used by the candidates?
I think we can be fairly certain that at least some candidates are using some tactics similar to what has been done here. But, again, unless information becomes public, there are no specifics to discuss.
How many campaign managers say to their investigators "Do whatever it takes to find the dirt. Just make sure it cant be traced back to me."
I don't know. Do you?
It is almost certain underlings of parties (both Democrats and Republicans) do it. Foreign govts do it. Foreign corps do it. Private companies do it. So dont spend all your indignation on HP. Reserve some for future use.
As if indignation were a limited resource. The more upset people get over this, the more upset they'll get over the next time, too; indignation puts a negative moral mark on the act that provoked it.
Further, the more people use their anger over this to push for substantive controls, the more likely people who try to do likewise in the future are to get frustrated and/or caught in their efforts.
Your argument that we shouldn't be that upset at HP because other people also do things that are in some ways similar (but without any concrete details) is, IMO, rather hollow. Sure, other people may do it. That's no reason not to be upset at HP.
Berman and pals were catering to the fans who wanted to know exactly how phasers worked rather than the fans who wanted to see hot Riker/Picard action.
No, I don't think so.
I'm not the most gearheady of Trek fans, but I certainly had that inclination, and that's not why Voyager (particularly; Enterprise was worse than any non-Voyager Trek series, IMO, but better than Voyager) blew, at least for me. I mean, yes, definitely the characters and relationships were handled far worse than prior series, but its not like there was more of a tech focus.
it's HP's entire legal department that endorsed the investigation and use of outside contractors.
Really? The entire legal department signed off on it? More likely, just the head.
The AG is smoking crack, he won't find that any officer, or paid agent of HP did anything illegal.
Yeah, because corporate lawyers never okay anything that turns out to be illegal.
It's a fine line fraud investigation departments walk every day. They may have stepped over a little, but you know it was the outside agency that paid cash for a brown envelope..
If you "step over the line", you've broken the law, whether "a little" or "a lot".
Dunn didn't have any trouble telling the board they got the info because she wanted them to vote the guy off..
So? That doesn't make her action legal. It may be a stunning display of hubris, though.
This is like the wife that hires a PI to track a cheating husband and shows up to the divorce attorney with a "lost" object that could only have been left by the husband where he was cheating on his wife. Sure, it might have been illegal to obtain it, but to admit it's yours means you were lying to the board/cheating on your wife.
So? The point is, its illegal to obtain the records. Its a little bit more serious than "stealing" your spouse's property when you are still married, which probably isn't, generally, a crime at all.
I'll allow that it's conceivable that HP might have had some contractual or moral right to snoop on their board members.
If HP had contractual authorization to obtain this information, they wouldn't have had to use "pretexting" (that is, false personation) in order to get it, they could have provided the documentation of the contractual release to the phone company and gotten the information. The only reason they would have needed to lie is if they didn't have legal authorization.
As an side note, I wonder if these hired guns that HP sicced on the reporters as well as its own people can be charged with identity theft. It seems to me that pretexting is, on a very small scale, stealing another person's identity.
I think so. Depending on the relationship, HP and Dunn may be chargeable with the offense, as well, or solicitation, conspiracy, etc. The main identity theft law in California is Penal Code 530.5:
530.5. (a) Every person who willfully obtains personal identifying
information, as defined in subdivision (b), of another person, and
uses that information for any unlawful purpose, including to obtain,
or attempt to obtain, credit, goods, services, or medical information
in the name of the other person without the consent of that person,
is guilty of a public offense, and upon conviction therefor, shall be
punished either by imprisonment in a county jail not to exceed one
year, a fine not to exceed one thousand dollars ($1,000), or both
that imprisonment and fine, or by imprisonment in the state prison, a
fine not to exceed ten thousand dollars ($10,000), or both that
imprisonment and fine.
(b) "Personal identifying information," as used in this section,
means the name, address, telephone number, health insurance
identification number, taxpayer identification number, school
identification number, state or federal driver's license number, or
identification number, social security number, place of employment,
employee identification number, mother's maiden name, demand deposit
account number, savings account number, checking account number, PIN
(personal identification number) or password, alien registration
number, government passport number, date of birth, unique biometric
data including fingerprint, facial scan identifiers, voiceprint,
retina or iris image, or other unique physical representation, unique
electronic data including identification number, address, or routing
code, telecommunication identifying information or access device,
information contained in a birth or death certificate, or credit card
number of a person, or an equivalent form of identification.
(c) In any case in which a person willfully obtains personal
identifying information of another person, uses that information to
commit a crime in addition to a violation of subdivision (a), and is
convicted of that crime, the court records shall reflect that the
person whose identity was falsely used to commit the crime did not
commit the crime.
(d) Every person who, with the intent to defraud, acquires,
transfers, or retains possession of the personal identifying
information, as defined in subdivision (b), of another person is
guilty of a public offense, and upon conviction therefor, shall be
punished by imprisonment in a county jail not to exceed one year, or
a fine not to exceed one thousand dollars ($1,000), or by both that
imprisonment and fine.
(e) Every person who, with the intent to defraud, acquires,
transfers, or retains possession of the personal identifying
information, as defined in subdivision (b), of another person who is
deployed to a location outside of the state is guilty of a public
offense, and upon conviction therefor, shall be punished by
imprisonment in a county jail not to exceed one year, or a fine not
to exceed one thousand five hundred dollars ($1,500), or by both that
imprisonment and fine.
(f) For purposes of this section, "deployed" means that the person
has been ordered to serve temporary military duty during a period
when a presidential executive order specifies that the United States
is engaged in combat or homeland defense and he or she is either a
member of the armed forces, or is a member of the armed forces
reserve or the National Guard, who has been called to active duty or
active service. It does not include temporary duty for the sole
purpose of training or processing or a permanent change of station.
(g) For purposes of this section, "person" means a natural person,
firm, association, organization, partnership, business trust,
company, corporation, limited liability company, or public entity.
this sympathy martyr who's causing trouble may not like what Dunn did to the board members, but Dunn acted within the companies employee investigation policy..
If the company's "employee investigation policy" sanctioned criminal false impersonation and identity theft under California law of both employees and independent parties somehow connected to employee investigation, well, then I'd say HP is in a world of hurt both from the California Attorney-General's criminal investigation and the private lawsuits that are likely to follow soon once that becomes known.
If it doesn't, then I don't think its at all clear that what you claim is correct.
Fortunately EU politicians aren't as easily swayed by big US businesses as those in the US.
I don't think European politicians are especially virtuous, but they certainly have a lot less motive to help a US-based monopolist milk their monopoly for all its worth.
They didn't do anything that's not done by other investigators.
Well, yeah, lots of private (independent or internal) people doing investigations routinely break the law; the smart ones, though, don't directly provide the information so gained to their bosses without concealing the mechanism used. Ideally, they use the illegally obtained information to figure out how to find legally obtainable confirming information, and provide that, instead.
And if your investigators do tell you how they got their information anyway, you don't trumpet it to the people whose information was illegally obtained unless you are an idiot. Some of them are bound to resent it.
As a rhetorical question, if journalists were renamed terrorists, would the patriot act actually legalize this sort of spying?
Rhetorical or not, the answer is no.
It's not that the act of spying was illegal, it's how they choose to do it. If they would have first called the reporters terrorists, it would have been legal.
No, it wouldn't. It still would have broken laws against identity theft and false personation, even if they'd called the reporters "satan worshipping illegal alien terrorist nazi communist insurgent liberals".
USA PATRIOT Act did not create any federal right trumping state criminal and civil laws for private individuals or organizations to use false pretense to get information from other private individuals or organization on still other private individuals. Nor did it void any of the federal criminal and civil laws that prohibit that sort of activity in certain cases, though I think its less clear that any such federal laws apply here.
No matter what any of those private parties calls the others.
Tell me why anyone would be prosecuted for spying when the patriot act eliminates privacy?
Um, no, because while the USA PATRIOT Act may reduce your practical privacy, particularly against law enforcement, and more particularly against federal law enforcement, it does not, in fact, "eliminate privacy".
If you think it does, please, cite the provision you think accomplishes that result.
There is no way to prosecute this because the patriot act makes it legal.
Again, please cite the particular provision of the USA PATRIOT Act that makes the particular actions at issue here legal (particularly, what provision insulates them against state criminal laws?)
However, I think that when someone needs to investigate an incident that is harmful to them but not criminal (ie no police powers available), they need to be able to do whatever they can to get the answers.
So, you are saying, that as long as someone is pissed off, the laws (like those against false personation and identity theft) shouldn't apply to them?
No, I can't agree that you get a free pass to do something that is criminal because you're upset that something was done to you that is not criminal.
How working on last year's Office suite can curtail Europe's productivity escapes me completely.
How working on an OS without advanced DRM features can curtail Europe's productivity also escapes me, and is more relevant to this article.
(Well, no, its not beyond me in either case: developing apps that work on Microsoft platforms or with Microsoft Office is a big field of endeavor by itself, and delay in access to the newest production version of either would be something of competitive disadvantage for those in those particular fields. Other than that, I don't think that upgrading to Vista at launch is a big competitive advantage issue.)
Um, no one is saying they can't release a product because their competitors don't have "access to these new technologies". Some (Microsoft-friendly) members of the European Parliament are saying the delay by Microsoft will create a disadvantage for Microsoft customers in Europe compared to those in the rest of the world.
This whole maneuver is just an attempt by Microsoft to bully the European Commission.
Slashdot Mirror
Pedantic, perhaps, but I believe it was not "ordinary crewman", but instead Engineering and Security that wore red shirts, and it was the short lifespans of members of the latter group (mostly on landing parties) that led to the running joke.
TNG changed this by keeping science and medicine in blue, but switching the use of Red and Yellow.
While touch typing the "right" way (i.e., the way most typing/keyboarding classes will teach you) requires two hands, really, the number of hands used is independent of whether you have the experience with the keyboard not to need to look at the keys to type. I've known people who type one handed without looking at the keyboard, and I've known people who watched their hands even though they used two.
I actually wouldn't be surprised if lots of people these days that keyboard and mouse can type fairly well one-handed by touch (though I'm certainly not one of them, having come to the mouse long after I was set in my typing ways.)
I dunno. I thought replacing your aging Windows XP PC with a PC with no bundled operating system that you load <Non-Windows OS of choice> on was a good way of upgrading hardware to meet new demands, while addressing (and expressing your perception of) the lack of value in Windows Vista. I hardly see sticking with aging hardware and Windows XP as the only way to do that.
Buh...what?
Look, I'm no Microsoft fan, but that just seems crazy. Better for what?
Neither Debian nor anyone else can do that.
So the problem is not simply that the new cdrtools was something incompatible with Debian, it is that it was (in Debian's opinion) something that was illegal to distribute period.
I am really shocked that you claim that almost everyone assumes only HP did it. We're talking about HP doing it because we actually have some information about what they did. Yes, its probable other people do similar things but don't announce them to the people that were the subject of the illegal intrusion, or otherwise guarantee that they will get caught. But we can't really discuss the details about what people are doing that doesn't come to light because we don't have information about it.
Or just on their own. But, again, accept when details come out because they get caught, there isn't a lot to talk about except vague generalizations and fuzzy speculation.
I think we can be fairly certain that at least some candidates are using some tactics similar to what has been done here. But, again, unless information becomes public, there are no specifics to discuss.
I don't know. Do you?
As if indignation were a limited resource. The more upset people get over this, the more upset they'll get over the next time, too; indignation puts a negative moral mark on the act that provoked it.
Further, the more people use their anger over this to push for substantive controls, the more likely people who try to do likewise in the future are to get frustrated and/or caught in their efforts.
Your argument that we shouldn't be that upset at HP because other people also do things that are in some ways similar (but without any concrete details) is, IMO, rather hollow. Sure, other people may do it. That's no reason not to be upset at HP.
Oh since we're going to do this, I'd have to say:
Captains: Picard > Kirk > Sisco >> Archer > Janeway
Shows: TOS > TNG > DS9 >> Enterprise >> Voyager
But, clearly, YMMV.
Really? The entire legal department signed off on it? More likely, just the head.
Yeah, because corporate lawyers never okay anything that turns out to be illegal.
If you "step over the line", you've broken the law, whether "a little" or "a lot".
So? That doesn't make her action legal. It may be a stunning display of hubris, though.
So? The point is, its illegal to obtain the records. Its a little bit more serious than "stealing" your spouse's property when you are still married, which probably isn't, generally, a crime at all.If HP had contractual authorization to obtain this information, they wouldn't have had to use "pretexting" (that is, false personation) in order to get it, they could have provided the documentation of the contractual release to the phone company and gotten the information. The only reason they would have needed to lie is if they didn't have legal authorization.
I think so. Depending on the relationship, HP and Dunn may be chargeable with the offense, as well, or solicitation, conspiracy, etc. The main identity theft law in California is Penal Code 530.5:
If the company's "employee investigation policy" sanctioned criminal false impersonation and identity theft under California law of both employees and independent parties somehow connected to employee investigation, well, then I'd say HP is in a world of hurt both from the California Attorney-General's criminal investigation and the private lawsuits that are likely to follow soon once that becomes known.
If it doesn't, then I don't think its at all clear that what you claim is correct.
I think you really should say:
Fortunately EU politicians aren't as easily swayed by big US businesses as those in the US.
I don't think European politicians are especially virtuous, but they certainly have a lot less motive to help a US-based monopolist milk their monopoly for all its worth.
Well, yeah, lots of private (independent or internal) people doing investigations routinely break the law; the smart ones, though, don't directly provide the information so gained to their bosses without concealing the mechanism used. Ideally, they use the illegally obtained information to figure out how to find legally obtainable confirming information, and provide that, instead.
And if your investigators do tell you how they got their information anyway, you don't trumpet it to the people whose information was illegally obtained unless you are an idiot. Some of them are bound to resent it.
Rhetorical or not, the answer is no.
No, it wouldn't. It still would have broken laws against identity theft and false personation, even if they'd called the reporters "satan worshipping illegal alien terrorist nazi communist insurgent liberals".
USA PATRIOT Act did not create any federal right trumping state criminal and civil laws for private individuals or organizations to use false pretense to get information from other private individuals or organization on still other private individuals. Nor did it void any of the federal criminal and civil laws that prohibit that sort of activity in certain cases, though I think its less clear that any such federal laws apply here.
No matter what any of those private parties calls the others.
Um, no, because while the USA PATRIOT Act may reduce your practical privacy, particularly against law enforcement, and more particularly against federal law enforcement, it does not, in fact, "eliminate privacy".
If you think it does, please, cite the provision you think accomplishes that result.
Again, please cite the particular provision of the USA PATRIOT Act that makes the particular actions at issue here legal (particularly, what provision insulates them against state criminal laws?)
So, you are saying, that as long as someone is pissed off, the laws (like those against false personation and identity theft) shouldn't apply to them?
No, I can't agree that you get a free pass to do something that is criminal because you're upset that something was done to you that is not criminal.
"Pretexting" is such a cute corporate noun-verbing euphemism.
Um, no one is saying they can't release a product because their competitors don't have "access to these new technologies". Some (Microsoft-friendly) members of the European Parliament are saying the delay by Microsoft will create a disadvantage for Microsoft customers in Europe compared to those in the rest of the world.
This whole maneuver is just an attempt by Microsoft to bully the European Commission.
I actually think that it is neither emphasis nor impetus, but burden, or onus, that is intended here.