Revenue source? Board of directors? How does any of that have anything to do with how people use the university network? I do not know what sort of a fascist institutions you have experience with, but around here the rules are straightforward:
Disrupting any other person's use of the network is prohibited
Illegal activity (including copyright infringement) is prohibited; since this is a state school and I am therefore a state employee, certain laws regarding the use of state computers also apply to me, but these are not hard to follow.
Attaching any device other than a personal computer/computing device (e.g. video game systems, phones, etc.) is only allowed if the network administrator approves it -- and that is the approval I received, since this setup will involve the use of a WiFi repeater.
You are bartering
Bartering? I am installing a repeater on someone's roof, with their permission. There is no bartering occurring; they are friendly neighbors who do not mind a small pole being attached to their house and who are willing to lend me a few watts of power. If they demanded it, I would even compensate them for that power, but they made no such demand.
Now, it is understandable how you might have been confused, since elsewhere I encouraged someone else to set up a wireless coop. That is separate from what I am doing here; my operation is small scale and only covers my apartment. I would like to create a wireless coop some day, especially when 700MHz gear becomes more available, but for the time being I am just concerned with getting access for myself.
that it is illegal
No, it is not illegal, and to be honest I have been more concerned with complying with FCC regulations on radio than anything else -- that is actually something that I could violate if I am not careful about power levels (though I generally keep my transmitter power as low as possible).
it is also immoral
Immoral? It is immoral to connect to a wireless network that I have legal access to because I happen to be a particular distance from the network? Please, there is no moral argument here -- people make use of university networks in a variety on non-professional contexts. There are thousands of people who live on this university's campus. There is a strip of bars right across the street, where people use the university's connection to log on to Facebook and post messages about how drunk they are. There are a number of student residences near enough to the university that a typical laptop can connect to the network. The only thing that makes my situation different is that I have to traverse a half mile, and there are trees and buildings in the way -- thus I am forced to use less common equipment.
Aside from rounded rectangles, is there anything else that looks similar to an Apple product in the picture? Has Apple been marketing truncated-pyramid shaped computers lately?
Here is an idea for evolution: stop treating bachelor's (and increasingly master's) degrees as professional certifications. People who want an in-depth understanding of a given field should major in that field, but for people who just want to get a job, how about this plan:
Go to a trade school and get a professional certification.
At night, take interesting courses at a university -- in particular, courses in political science, economics, basics about technology (not those courses about how to use Word and Excel -- courses about how computers work, how the Internet works, etc.), courses in science, etc.
Be an educated citizen who can identify politicians that support the things you support, now that you understand the issues facing our society
Profit (for society, now that democracy works because people know what they want)
Universities should become friendlier to part-time and non-matriculated students, working people who want to get a decent educated while support a family. Rather than being institutions where kids can party at their parents' expense, they should be institutions where adults can be serious about scholarship.
High school is supposed to prepare you for entry into the workforce, and get you ready to maintain regular schedules and routines, and working to a goal. Given this, why is college regarded by society so highly? To go into the workforce? Isn't that what high school is for?
That depends on whether or not our high school education system is actually teaching people how to read, write, and perform basic arithmetic. Unfortunately, it is not, and moreover jobs in America are becoming so demanding that people require additional training just to perform their job.
My view is this: the focus on vocational training has to become secondary. America is supposed to be a democracy, and in order for a democracy to function we need people who can read newspapers and understand important political issues. College should be about educating our citizens and making our democracy strong, not just about training people for high tech jobs. People can go to technical schools to get technical training, and the entire college system should be restructured to be friendlier to non-matriculated and part-time students.
Why should mechanics and truck drivers be less educated than investors and managers? We need people to do all of the above, and in theory we want people from all walks of life to be able to participate in democratic processes in a meaningful way.
Why in CS is there a BIG GAP from what you learn in college and the real job? tech schools have alot more real job skills.
This is the way it is supposed to be. Universities are not vocational schools, and a degree in computer science is not a professional certification. People forgot that a long time ago...
You must be thinking of a single, specific brand of shoes; as I said, you probably had one bad experience. I have not been offered a warranty on the shoes that I am wearing right now, and have not heard of warranties on any other articles of clothing.
This is still a red herring. If someone thinks that they will get a warranty on goods they bought from a street vendor, then they are simply naive.
I have yet to see a warranty on sneakers, handbags, cosmetics, toys, etc. That is a complete red herring -- it may be applicable to certain high-tech components or machines, but the vast majority of consumer goods come with no warranty.
Actually, my experience has been that knock-offs are roughly the same quality as most brand name consumer goods. I think you just had one bad experience.
I'm fairly sure the factories are not that incompetent, they'd know when inventory went missing
What makes you think anything went missing? What stops a factory from ordering more supplies than would be needed for the official order size?
Yet I had dozens of friends in high school who bought "counterfeit" handbags in Chinatown without any problem. The bags performed just as well as the officially sanction bags for a fraction of the cost.
Sure you can buy a PC that looks like an Apple, but it isn't an Apple
Right, it will cost hundreds of dollars less than the Apple product for the same hardware. Software is not hardware and SOPA has little to do with software.
If someone puts an Apple sticker on a PC and sells it as an Apple, that's FRAUD
Actually it is trademark infringement.
The difference isn't a trick by the brand to get you to buy it
No, the value of the brand is propped up by the law, which allows people to sue for trademark infringement and thus create value where there would otherwise be none.
The brand is there so you know it's a legit product
In theory, yes, that is what trademarks are supposed to do. In practice, however, consumer products are of such low quality (regardless of the price range) that the trademark is irrelevant for any purpose other than marketing. You know that Coca Cola is a soft drink you like, but most people would have trouble distinguishing Coca Cola from competing brands. While there are still a few brands that really are distinguished by quality, they tend to be in niche markets. For the most part, most of the brands you buy have artificially inflated prices that have little to do with the quality of the goods.
What makes you think that a "fake" handbag was not produced in the same sweatshop as a "real" handbag? It is not as if some people in China came to the United States, purchased a pair of Nike sneakers, went back to China with them and tried to copy the design. There is nothing "fake" about it -- it is made using the same designs, same materials, and in some cases the same labor force as what you might buy in a mall.
Net neutrality is not about regulating the Internet, it is about ensuring that ISPs do not try to fracture the Internet for their own benefit. Net neutrality protects the Internet from the sort of thing that SOPA is meant to establish.
You say this as if FidoNet were a thing of the past. FidoNet is still out there, there are lots of Internet/FidoNet gateways, and FidoNet nodes still communicate using dialup modems.
Can't drop Time Warner, as they're the ONLY cable internet provider here
This might be a good time to talk to your neighbors about starting a WISP coop. I have been working on establishing a wireless connection from my house to a nearby university, and the equipment costs are not too high. The biggest issue so far has been establishing a decent line of sight, which has led me to talk to my neighbors about placing repeaters on their property -- and they have not rejected the idea outright.
Depending on where you live, you might be able to do something even grander: you might be able to set up a coop with a couple dozen people and share a T3 connection. The up-front costs will be a little high, in the hundreds or low thousands of dollars depending on your specific needs, and the monthly cost will probably be in the low to mid thousands -- split up among enough households, this may be less than Time Warner.
This assumes that your neighbors are friendly like mine.
You should now throw away anything you wear that has Adidas or Nike on it, cut your Comcast connections, stop listening to country music (okay, no great loss there), take all the Estee Lauder gear back that you bought your girlfriend for Christmas, sell any Ford you might have, start returning your photocopiers, etc.
Actually, I am not terribly far from that:
Shoes are a bit tough, it is not very easy to find off-brand shoes. I can make the pledge now, however: when my current pair of boots needs replacing, I will find a pair made by a small, local business.
My landlord provided service through Comcast until recently...because Comcast cut off our service. I have been working on setting up a wireless connection to the nearby university campus (I work there, so that helps), at which point my landlord agree to cut the rent in exchange for my use of that connection (as it turns out, this is a hard thing to do -- I am working on an agreement with some neighbors to put a repeater on their roof).
I have not listened to mainstream music in many years, and I never listen to music recorded by an RIAA company.
I would not spend the money on brand name cosmetics and my girlfriends both knows and supports that position.
I do not drive a car (I know this is not going to work for most people and I would not expect them to follow suit).
I only use photocopiers/printers on rare occasions and only those provided by my employer. Who spends time and money printing things on paper, except as required by their employer?
If you want to boycott, then you can't selectively boycott. And then you will realise that virtually all profit-making companies would support something that you would want to boycott
Which is why, when possible, I try not to buy things made by megacorp. Living one's life in the modern world makes it pretty hard to avoid megacorp entirely, but one can reduce their dependence on megacorp to some degree without too much pain.
AFL-CIO is a political organization; sometimes they do things that legitimately help the working class, other times they do things that they can claim help the working class. SOPA is squarely in the second category: labor organizations can point to it and say, "We are helping protect your job by supporting this legislation!"
Our current extreme [copyright/trademark/patent/trade secrets enforcement regime] inhibits economic growth
Only over the long term. In the short term, the fat cats get to report big profits and continue to buy yachts and mansions. Over the long term, consumers are forced to wait longer for new products and technologies, pay more for existing products and technologies, and forced to turn over their own profits to the entrenched businesses and trolls. Eventually the rest of the world will start ignoring American demands about trademarks and copyrights, and then the system's hollow core will be exposed and the fat cats will abandon ship and leave the rest of us to our fate.
When the design of a logo or the composition of a soft drink is considered to be a major economic issue, you know the system is destined to fail. We still have a chance to turn things around...but not with the current set of politicians.
You are being hopelessly optimistic. Not only do most people not care at all about SOPA, even if they did care they would forget about it by the time election season rolled around. Politicians know this, and that is why the DMCA was passed, the Mickey Mouse bill was passed, the PATRIOT act, etc. That is why I have little hope for SOPA or PIPA being defeated; I wrote to my representatives in the House and the Senate, and I have told everyone I know that these bills are bad and why they are bad, but I doubt there will be much of an effect.
Ten years from now, when the Internet has been conquered by old media interests and there are toll booths and walls everywhere, people will start to get annoyed -- and by then, it will be too late. People are annoyed by the DMCA now, but there is little hope of getting it overturned. SOPA will be no different.
What does the Democrat party have to do with progressive liberalism? When last I checked, they were just as pro-business as the Republican party, only they favor a different set of businesses (but not entirely disjoint).
I thought we were already boycotting Comcast for the way they interfered with BitTorrent traffic?
Really though, with the coming of 700MHz unlicensed networks and the widespread availability of 2.4GHz and 5.8GHz equipment, people could create WISP coops if they really wanted to. Unless you live somewhere really isolated, you could probably find enough people in your area willing to split the cost of a T3 line and some directional antennas and routers.
Of course, that means talking to your neighbors, getting organized, and dealing with the inevitable lawsuits from companies like Comcast.
Have you ever gone to Chinatown and seen all the "fake" handbags (it is hard to call them "fake" when they are probably produced by the same people who make "genuine" handbags)? Online, there are plenty of websites that will sell you a bag or a shoe that looks just like an expensive brand for a fraction of the cost. SOPA is meant to block access to such websites, which are often hosted offshore where US law enforcement agencies cannot touch them.
Frankly, given the line of business he was in -- rapid news delivery to investors -- I am inclined to agree with him about the Internet. Delays on the network could translate into millions of dollars in losses for Bloomberg's customers, which could translate to millions in losses for Bloomberg. From a business perspective it made sense.
Slashdot Mirror
You are bartering
Bartering? I am installing a repeater on someone's roof, with their permission. There is no bartering occurring; they are friendly neighbors who do not mind a small pole being attached to their house and who are willing to lend me a few watts of power. If they demanded it, I would even compensate them for that power, but they made no such demand.
Now, it is understandable how you might have been confused, since elsewhere I encouraged someone else to set up a wireless coop. That is separate from what I am doing here; my operation is small scale and only covers my apartment. I would like to create a wireless coop some day, especially when 700MHz gear becomes more available, but for the time being I am just concerned with getting access for myself.
that it is illegal
No, it is not illegal, and to be honest I have been more concerned with complying with FCC regulations on radio than anything else -- that is actually something that I could violate if I am not careful about power levels (though I generally keep my transmitter power as low as possible).
it is also immoral
Immoral? It is immoral to connect to a wireless network that I have legal access to because I happen to be a particular distance from the network? Please, there is no moral argument here -- people make use of university networks in a variety on non-professional contexts. There are thousands of people who live on this university's campus. There is a strip of bars right across the street, where people use the university's connection to log on to Facebook and post messages about how drunk they are. There are a number of student residences near enough to the university that a typical laptop can connect to the network. The only thing that makes my situation different is that I have to traverse a half mile, and there are trees and buildings in the way -- thus I am forced to use less common equipment.
It helps in the sense that I have the permission of the IT staff.
Aside from rounded rectangles, is there anything else that looks similar to an Apple product in the picture? Has Apple been marketing truncated-pyramid shaped computers lately?
Universities should become friendlier to part-time and non-matriculated students, working people who want to get a decent educated while support a family. Rather than being institutions where kids can party at their parents' expense, they should be institutions where adults can be serious about scholarship.
High school is supposed to prepare you for entry into the workforce, and get you ready to maintain regular schedules and routines, and working to a goal. Given this, why is college regarded by society so highly? To go into the workforce? Isn't that what high school is for?
That depends on whether or not our high school education system is actually teaching people how to read, write, and perform basic arithmetic. Unfortunately, it is not, and moreover jobs in America are becoming so demanding that people require additional training just to perform their job.
My view is this: the focus on vocational training has to become secondary. America is supposed to be a democracy, and in order for a democracy to function we need people who can read newspapers and understand important political issues. College should be about educating our citizens and making our democracy strong, not just about training people for high tech jobs. People can go to technical schools to get technical training, and the entire college system should be restructured to be friendlier to non-matriculated and part-time students.
Why should mechanics and truck drivers be less educated than investors and managers? We need people to do all of the above, and in theory we want people from all walks of life to be able to participate in democratic processes in a meaningful way.
Why in CS is there a BIG GAP from what you learn in college and the real job? tech schools have alot more real job skills.
This is the way it is supposed to be. Universities are not vocational schools, and a degree in computer science is not a professional certification. People forgot that a long time ago...
You must be thinking of a single, specific brand of shoes; as I said, you probably had one bad experience. I have not been offered a warranty on the shoes that I am wearing right now, and have not heard of warranties on any other articles of clothing.
This is still a red herring. If someone thinks that they will get a warranty on goods they bought from a street vendor, then they are simply naive.
I have yet to see a warranty on sneakers, handbags, cosmetics, toys, etc. That is a complete red herring -- it may be applicable to certain high-tech components or machines, but the vast majority of consumer goods come with no warranty.
I'm fairly sure the factories are not that incompetent, they'd know when inventory went missing
What makes you think anything went missing? What stops a factory from ordering more supplies than would be needed for the official order size?
Sure you can buy a PC that looks like an Apple, but it isn't an Apple
Right, it will cost hundreds of dollars less than the Apple product for the same hardware. Software is not hardware and SOPA has little to do with software.
If someone puts an Apple sticker on a PC and sells it as an Apple, that's FRAUD
Actually it is trademark infringement.
The difference isn't a trick by the brand to get you to buy it
No, the value of the brand is propped up by the law, which allows people to sue for trademark infringement and thus create value where there would otherwise be none.
The brand is there so you know it's a legit product
In theory, yes, that is what trademarks are supposed to do. In practice, however, consumer products are of such low quality (regardless of the price range) that the trademark is irrelevant for any purpose other than marketing. You know that Coca Cola is a soft drink you like, but most people would have trouble distinguishing Coca Cola from competing brands. While there are still a few brands that really are distinguished by quality, they tend to be in niche markets. For the most part, most of the brands you buy have artificially inflated prices that have little to do with the quality of the goods.
FidoNet is still around; the implementation today is identical to the implementation of 20 years ago.
What makes you think that a "fake" handbag was not produced in the same sweatshop as a "real" handbag? It is not as if some people in China came to the United States, purchased a pair of Nike sneakers, went back to China with them and tried to copy the design. There is nothing "fake" about it -- it is made using the same designs, same materials, and in some cases the same labor force as what you might buy in a mall.
Net neutrality is not about regulating the Internet, it is about ensuring that ISPs do not try to fracture the Internet for their own benefit. Net neutrality protects the Internet from the sort of thing that SOPA is meant to establish.
Who all here remembers BBSs and FidoNet?
You say this as if FidoNet were a thing of the past. FidoNet is still out there, there are lots of Internet/FidoNet gateways, and FidoNet nodes still communicate using dialup modems.
Can't drop Time Warner, as they're the ONLY cable internet provider here
This might be a good time to talk to your neighbors about starting a WISP coop. I have been working on establishing a wireless connection from my house to a nearby university, and the equipment costs are not too high. The biggest issue so far has been establishing a decent line of sight, which has led me to talk to my neighbors about placing repeaters on their property -- and they have not rejected the idea outright.
Depending on where you live, you might be able to do something even grander: you might be able to set up a coop with a couple dozen people and share a T3 connection. The up-front costs will be a little high, in the hundreds or low thousands of dollars depending on your specific needs, and the monthly cost will probably be in the low to mid thousands -- split up among enough households, this may be less than Time Warner.
This assumes that your neighbors are friendly like mine.
Quality is no longer the differentiation though - price is
Bingo. This is the problem with the current legal framework and enforcement regime.
You should now throw away anything you wear that has Adidas or Nike on it, cut your Comcast connections, stop listening to country music (okay, no great loss there), take all the Estee Lauder gear back that you bought your girlfriend for Christmas, sell any Ford you might have, start returning your photocopiers, etc.
Actually, I am not terribly far from that:
If you want to boycott, then you can't selectively boycott. And then you will realise that virtually all profit-making companies would support something that you would want to boycott
Which is why, when possible, I try not to buy things made by megacorp. Living one's life in the modern world makes it pretty hard to avoid megacorp entirely, but one can reduce their dependence on megacorp to some degree without too much pain.
I don't understand why unions...support it
"It protects American jobs!"
AFL-CIO is a political organization; sometimes they do things that legitimately help the working class, other times they do things that they can claim help the working class. SOPA is squarely in the second category: labor organizations can point to it and say, "We are helping protect your job by supporting this legislation!"
Our current extreme [copyright/trademark/patent/trade secrets enforcement regime] inhibits economic growth
Only over the long term. In the short term, the fat cats get to report big profits and continue to buy yachts and mansions. Over the long term, consumers are forced to wait longer for new products and technologies, pay more for existing products and technologies, and forced to turn over their own profits to the entrenched businesses and trolls. Eventually the rest of the world will start ignoring American demands about trademarks and copyrights, and then the system's hollow core will be exposed and the fat cats will abandon ship and leave the rest of us to our fate.
When the design of a logo or the composition of a soft drink is considered to be a major economic issue, you know the system is destined to fail. We still have a chance to turn things around...but not with the current set of politicians.
You are being hopelessly optimistic. Not only do most people not care at all about SOPA, even if they did care they would forget about it by the time election season rolled around. Politicians know this, and that is why the DMCA was passed, the Mickey Mouse bill was passed, the PATRIOT act, etc. That is why I have little hope for SOPA or PIPA being defeated; I wrote to my representatives in the House and the Senate, and I have told everyone I know that these bills are bad and why they are bad, but I doubt there will be much of an effect.
Ten years from now, when the Internet has been conquered by old media interests and there are toll booths and walls everywhere, people will start to get annoyed -- and by then, it will be too late. People are annoyed by the DMCA now, but there is little hope of getting it overturned. SOPA will be no different.
What does the Democrat party have to do with progressive liberalism? When last I checked, they were just as pro-business as the Republican party, only they favor a different set of businesses (but not entirely disjoint).
I thought we were already boycotting Comcast for the way they interfered with BitTorrent traffic?
Really though, with the coming of 700MHz unlicensed networks and the widespread availability of 2.4GHz and 5.8GHz equipment, people could create WISP coops if they really wanted to. Unless you live somewhere really isolated, you could probably find enough people in your area willing to split the cost of a T3 line and some directional antennas and routers.
Of course, that means talking to your neighbors, getting organized, and dealing with the inevitable lawsuits from companies like Comcast.
That is why we install the OS ourselves.
This bill WILL get passed regardless of whether we make our position clear to elected officials!
FTFY. When congressmen will not even listen to expert testimony on these matters, what makes you think they will listen to their constituents?
Have you ever gone to Chinatown and seen all the "fake" handbags (it is hard to call them "fake" when they are probably produced by the same people who make "genuine" handbags)? Online, there are plenty of websites that will sell you a bag or a shoe that looks just like an expensive brand for a fraction of the cost. SOPA is meant to block access to such websites, which are often hosted offshore where US law enforcement agencies cannot touch them.
Frankly, given the line of business he was in -- rapid news delivery to investors -- I am inclined to agree with him about the Internet. Delays on the network could translate into millions of dollars in losses for Bloomberg's customers, which could translate to millions in losses for Bloomberg. From a business perspective it made sense.