This issue is almost as simple as people make it seem; It boils down to this:
This type of law exists in almost every country but the US and Canada.
Search engines make money off of selling rights to trademarked and registered trademarks (when used as "keywords") and the trademark owners get no license fees from this
All international search engines already comply with these laws (in countries that have them)
All major search engines already resolve IP-to-geography information, so complying with only Utah results is a trivial issue
Mazda has no right to use the Pontiac trademarks without prior consent from Pontiac (or the company that runs Pontiac) in print; why should it be different on the web?
The law is not flawed. It does have some issues because it is a state law trying to regulate on the internet, but that will always be the case (at least for a while) with law (in any jurisdiction) and the internet.
The law was, in fact, an update of paper-and-pen trademark registration laws (which are in every state) that have been around for hundreds of years. The new law inherits all of the problems built into the old laws (i.e.:
What happens if a company registers a trademark legitimately owned by another company?
How does a 3rd party company (in this example, a search engine) comply with this system?
How does a trademark owner specify who is allowed to use their term and who is not?
The Interstate Commerce Act does not apply if the regulation is only done within the jurisdiction of the state in question (Utah). If a Utah resident is in Utah and visits a search engine, the search engine is required to comply with the law. If it turns out that Utah is trying to govern search results for the entire country (or the world), there will be ICA issues. AFAIK, that is not what the law dictates or allows. Someone who can actually read legalease would be helpful here.
The First Amendment does not grant the same freedoms of speech to commercial organizations as it does to individuals. Search results containing trademarked keywords are very likely to be considered commercial speech (like all corporate advertising). I don't see First Amendment arguments holding up in court.
There is going to be a service set up by the state to allow trademark owners to "license" the use of their keywords to other companies. If a company doesn't receive permission from a trademark owner to use that trademark, they are diluting the brand and infringing on the value of the trademark. They are effectively benefiting from another company's capital spent to build up a trademark and paying a 3rd party (who does not then compensate the trademark owner).
Google, MSN, and Yahoo! are already fighting it. They have hired one of the best lobbyists in Utah and one of the best law firms too. They aren't worried so much about losing Utah-based, but they are very worried about other states trying to enact similar laws (and the Federal government, too).
Any company with a strong brand (especially "Big Businesses") will be in favor of this legislation. If this law made it on the national stage, the search engines will have no pull in comparison with the "Big Business" conglomerates who want to protect the brands they pump so much capital into.
I know all of the major pharmaceutical companies are just dying to protect their drug names online. How many times have you seen ads online containing the word "Viagra"paid for by a company other than Pfizer? The Canadian drug retailers and the "herbal substitutes" don't pay Pfizer to use their registered trademarks, but they profit from the use of the keyword.
Personally, I don't think there is a legal case against the law. There might be a case against the system that is built to enable the law, but we will have to see when that system is in place.
assuming that the original web deisgners weren't completely retarded when the designed the site. Simply create an HTML-only version and use alt-tags.
I'm glad you think HTML designers at multinational corporations have so much power. I would think their bosses (middle management) give them the specs and they have to follow orders. Middle management isn't known for being the most knowledgable.
And this isn't entirely about what the designers WANTED to do, sometimes it's about what their bosses ALLOWED them to do (scarcity of resources and all).
Since there is no "university" for HTML designers, learning things like alternate CSS sheets for screenreaders is up to the designers themselves. If this lawsuit is won, then all large website companies will have to ensure that every HTML designer that works for them knows how to comply to these standards.
That being said, I think accessibility requirements have always cost more to comply with than the additional profits brought by the few extra consumers, but it is the cost of doing business where theose laws are in effect. Eventually the cost to comply drops as companies are more familiar with standards and employ them into their day-to-day business (as will be the case with HTML designers if the ADA is required by all online merchants).
@GrandParent: hrmm Social Security? Medicare? Gym membership?
@Parent: I'm an American. I'm not stupid; my country's been hijacked and I am the victim. My country's president has needlessly invaded another country, lowered my taxes, and increased the country's expenses drastically (among other things) - all against my will. BTW - This tax is within Germany, not the EU. They are only victims to what their own government is taxing them for.
This seems to me to very nearly mirror Canada's blank CD tax to reimburse media copyright owners. It seems to me that it will increase the useage of computers to access TV and radio online as people will feel they need to get their money's worth if they are being taxed for it... not unlike people taking advantage of Social Security and disability benefits.
It's unfortunate that you live in a rural area. In South Korea and Japan, you would have little to no access to broadband even though the urban and suburban parts of those countries has a MUCH better (more thruput, much faster peak upload, more reliable uptime, superior infrastructure, much cheaper access, "contracts" not usually required) broadband than the US.
Co-ops are common in rural areas and they typically provide the same service for about the same price. Telephone and cable co-ops are commonplace is many parts of the US.
The truth is that while large TelCos are government regulated monopolies (protected from competitors and somewhat free to pricegauge their customers), they are corporations first and foremost. That means that profits and shareholder satisfaction are the most influential items in making decisions (and most of the time - the only things involved). They will run away with money if governments give it to them (residential fiber subsidies) and they will overcharge customers every chance they get.
I read a few articles on this subject a month or two ago and got so frustrated with it that I couldn't concentrate for the rest of the day. It's not bad enough that the Federal government seems incompetent and thieverous, but they pumped up to $200 Billion into the major telcos without bothering to ensure the telcos followed up on their end of the deal.
I hate Stevens for this (among other things he says/does). He probably has the most to lose from the American public seeing what earmarks he has received for being such a senior Senator.
I hate the fact that the White House is sponsoring the bill too. Obama and one other came up with the bill - the White House just sees this as a cheap way to gain some credibility if it passes... and lose nothing if it doesn't pass.
Mod the parent up and the grandparent down (a little).
There are only 2 (two) ways to be arrested by a foreign country: (1) visiting that country or (2) being in a country that will extradite you for the crime. The Brits who are in US jail had to be in the US or had to be extradited from the country they were in at the time of arrest.
It is extremely unlikely that the US (or most Western democratic countries) would extradite a citizen to China because we celebrate those freedoms which China supresses. You can post all you want on your blog (or comment on Slashdot) about your criticizms of the Chinese government, but I would think long and hard before visiting Bejing on vacation afterwords.
It would be extremely unlikely that any person in any country could abide by all laws of all countries. If you are not in a particular jurisdiction, you are not subject to that jurisdiction's laws, but you can be prosecuted if you are ever in that jurisdiction (by your own volition or by extradition).
IDK about how the black box / collision issues affect renters, but I have read a few stories about car rentals equipped with GPS that was used for nefarious purposes (blackmail, loss of employment, etc.) by private detectives when the renters claim they didn't know the car was being monitored/tracked by GPS.
The parent does make some valid points, but I strongly disagree with the following:
I like all of the above because they could drastically reduce the number of accidents and make car insurance completely uneeded.
If all new cars are equipped with high-tech safety/monitoring equipment, it will not drastically affect the way people drive across the board. Quite a few cards have a form of black box installed in their cars already. Has there been a noticeable trend to safer driving in the last two years? Consciously (when they are lucid and sober), people might drive better, but it does not affect how people think when they are tipsy/drunk/sleepy. Those drivers always cause the most damage. Insurance will change as the total cost to pay out claims decreases, not when people realize that there is some hidden box in their car. While this may reduce the premiums for new car insurance (in the long run), it will not change the premiums for existing cars without black boxes.
All of the above tech is passive and only interfere when you are driving recklessly.
The box will never "interfere" with you. It can't really help you, unless you are charged with something like "wreckless endangerment" and it somehow miraculously proves that you were not breaking the speed limit. Failure analysis and forensic science already can do these, they simply cost (much) more and take longer to analyze. My fear is that investigators will skip the forensics once black boxes are standard and we will have no choice but to assume that the black box is completely accurate. I am a (skeptical) programmer, so I assume that nothing is absolutely accurate and that nothing is failproof.
So yes driving becomes less thrilling for you with the flip side of you and I are more safe. Systems like this and the fact that computers have system logs and cell phones have usage records could potentially deal with poster rkcallaghan's point about the shortcomings of EDR.
We are only more safe IF drivers become better drivers through the use of this technology. History shows that Americans like their cars and don't like the goverment telling them to drive safer. Funny statistic: 80+% of all Americans think they drive better than half of the driving population. Changing this statistic will make the population safer on the road, not putting evidence collectors in all new cars.
Nothing is foolproof and you could I suppose build your own car from scratch to circumvent this system. You'd still probably have a few accidents because someone ran/biked in front of a very fast moving car and the elctronics worked but simply couldn't beat the vehicles inertia. Better than nothing though.
You are obviously overthinking it with the "build your own car from scratch". Buy a used car. 15 years ago, an ECU wasn't available in most any car. 35 years ago, smog emissions equipment wasn't available. 70 years ago sealt belts weren't required. Until every low-tech car is off the road, there will still be ways to circumvent this.
The biggest problem I see is that you can't easily turn off a black box. Car manufacturers go to great pains to keep the information about the black boxes very tight-lipped. Very few companies can reverse engineer ECUs (only Dinan comes to mind), so finding equipment that will be able to disable features of the black box without fully disabling the ECU. If you try to wipe its storage after-the-fact, you are guilty of destroying evidence. If you try and disable it ahead of time, you could potentially face charges along the lines of "wreckless endangerment" unless you can prove that the disabling did not affect the reliability of the car's ECU. If you can't replace it and you can't disable it, you are essentially buying evidence against yourself. I would prefer to use the 5th Ammendment (do those "Ammendment" thingies still work for us the
I don't have anything against the caps-lock key. It's useful for gaming (think: voice chat trigger always down with very little effort).
But seriously, my work box is that much more productive because I have an extra modifier key that no Linux programs (I have installed) use by default: the Winblows key. [windows]+[left arrow] => go back one virtual desktop. [windows]+[right arrow] => go forward one virtual desktop. Don't be throwing away keys that I can rebind for useful functionality.
Hell, I'd even propose a new [caps lock] type key: the [1337 lock] key.
If the judge of such cases (and/or jury depending on how the case works) does not understand the issues, then they should not preside over it.
Do not write off the intelligence of a judge or the judge's willingness to learn about the impact of a case simply because we do so with legislators and most of the Exectutive. Judges are very capable of reading amicus briefs. It a judge's business to learn about the relevant facets of their case before a ruling is issued. You aren't implying that all judges know about everything except DRM/technology are you? Judges are expected to learn during their cases.
I am much more worried about legislators with precious little understanding of technology that is affected by the laws they create. A law is expensive and time-consuming to turn-over (the process of which is undesirable for most any individual/special interest).
The *IAAs' tactics sound eerily similar to what I know about the SCO case... unwilling to reveal key tidbits of evidence. Perhaps they are just trying to stall long enough to drive the defendant into the poorhouse (or use that image as leverage to settle). I hope someone makes a massive countersuit.
The fact is that they do count the sugical tools... but not after EVERY surgery. Hospitals set up their own policies regarding which surgeries require a tool count and how often (every surgery, every other sugery, etc.). I think it's a shame that this is even necessary. You would think that a surgeon would care enough about the patient to oversee the sutures... not rush off to his tee-time (the stereotype was used purely for effect).
I think it's funny that this story was published so soon after "when surgical tools go missing... 2" was shown on TDC/TLC (with a title and content much like the old Fox shows: "^When * go(es)? (missing|bad|rabid|etc)( [0-9]+)?$").
I'm sorry, but if someone's not convicted, they're sure as hell not a cybercriminal.
I hate this law to death (and this may be one of the reasons the US has a Second Ammendment), but I don't think your wording was quite correct.
You can be a criminal and not convicted. (At least in the US) the justice system (as it is supposed to work) requires a certain amount of evidence to convict a suspect. Without that threshold, a person can be guilty of committing a crime without the court being able to convict/sentence them. To say that you are not a criminal because you are not yet behind bars is a logically fallacy (unless I don't understand the definition of criminal). That is to say: you can be aquitted for reasons other than being innocent of the crime for which you were arrested.
If we are trying to win the "hearts and minds" of those innocents in the Middle East (who may or may not hate us or our foreign policies), I don't think that preventing their friends/relatives in the US from sending home money that they probably need to survive.
Why don't they try something useful like requiring these financial institutions to scrub a list of specific names (first and last) of actual people (or actual aliases) which are known, or at least strongly suspected, of having terrorist ties (other than having a Muslim name). Also, a "mule" (as in the drug traffiking sense of the word) with an Anglo (or simply non-muslim) name in a country in the Middle East could be used to clear the transaction then pass off the money once it's in the country, bypassing the name thing altogether.
I don't think there's an easy solution to "the war on terror", but we certainly aren't going to make things any better for our kids if we isolate all Muslims (with blanket policies like these).
So one frat on campus gets a place to put a rotten couch and louunge in front of the frat house drinking beer because the college bought into a massive Microsoft software license?
Wouldn't a free Porsche be more of an enticement/bribe? And what exactly can a school do with an expensive car that seats 2 (maybe 4). I'm thinking that one of the on-campus frats should fill a balloon with shaving cream and hang it from a light post above the car ("Scent of a Woman"-style).
For future reference, "Porsche" has an "s" in the middle and is always capitalized (as it is a brand... which is a proper noun).
Now, I wonder if that verdict can be applied to the hassle around Windows and Media Player/IE...
Not to be too argumentative, but if this decision was applied directly to the bundling of IE/MediaPlayer/MSN Messenger/Outlook Express, etc., this law WOULD NOT prevent bundling, it would simply say that other companies should have the right to develop competing products (i.e. (Firefox, Mozilla, Opera)/(MediaPlayerClassic or any other codec-compliant video player)/(YIM, AIM, ICQ)/(any email/calendar/contact client)). On a tangental note, I would love to see a 'lite' version of Windows come with a barebones installation that allows the user to select which additional services/applications to install, but for the purposes of this article: that is simply not what the law would equate to.
Unfortunately, it seems that Microsoft's attempts to move into nearly every application field on desktop computers is solified partly because the ordinary computer user will tend to use the 'free' software that comes with their computer, rather than purchase a new program to do nearly the same task. I would rather pay less for Windows and not have to clean off all the 'free' bundled programs that come preinstalled on every installation of Windows, but (in the words of Ron White) "I'm only one man".
Cupertino, CA (home of Apple Computer, not far from San Jose) has buried phone and power lines for almost evey major street (for almost purely aesthetic reasons). The city counsil is very conscious about keeping up the land value so buring the lines, in some perverted way, actually retains land values better - which in turn pay for city services.
Mind you, most residential streets still have overhead lines, but the large arteries are the ones that are buried. Interestingly enough, this setup prevents weather from shutting down the arteries (under all but freak-accident circumstances), but does nothing to prevent building contractors from digging into the line and killing power delivery to Cupertino all the surrounding cities (as happened about two years ago).
One other factor in underground lines: earthquakes. In areas where earthquakes are a concern, underground lines can be hell to repair. Granted, big earthquakes don't have mercy on any utility... and I imagine overhead lines falling is a worse concern.
There aren't a lot of elegant technological implementations these days, but this seems extremely simple. If they were to require a credit card entry every time you called, this technology would have been a waste of both the consumer's and the invetor's time.
On the other hand, there is a huge problem with this (at least in the US). The technology to spoof caller id is widespread (and AFAIK - IANAL - caller id spoofing is legal in the US). If they are depending on the same caller id implementation we here in the US have, I can foresee fraudulent caller id spoofing to offload the fess to innocent phone-owners.
Re:A big waste, considering the commodity...
on
Encrypted Ammunition?
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· Score: 2, Interesting
This is maybe the right place to start in reforming arms for civilian use in the modern age, but there are a number of glaring flaws with this technology.
First, I would have to agree with the parent that a dual-id system would improve the "security" involved in firing one of these guns.
I would think that we don't want to give these to the military though (at the very least not without a biometric feature). The only reason these should be deployed for military combat would be in case they are stolen or otherwise "procured" by enemies/civilians. This RFID system better be damn reliable, though, or the troops will drop guns with this "DRM" in the mud and pick up AK47s (like stories I've heard from Vietnam). It's absolutely useless to equip your soldiers with an additional reason for the gun to malfunction unless there is a compelling reason to implement it (especially when the most prevelant assault rifle in non-friendly countries, the AK47, is notably more reliable than most other assault rifles -- even without an additional trigger-guard).
I would think the same would apply to Police - if an officer's life is at stake (which I hope is the only reason he/she would contemplate pulling the trigger), he/she wants a gun that will fire without a hitch.
The RFID lifespans I've read about are in the 3-5 year range, so organizations which use guns equipped with this technology will have to invest in inventory control to ensure that only reliably bullets with strong RFID "battery" life are distributed for use. Also, when the top bullet in the magazine fails to activate, does the bullet get expelled from the chamber or does it require the operator to clear the "jam"?
This is really an expansion of DRM (all negative Slashdot connotations aside) into an area that probably doesn't need it. Until the government forces ALL "lo-tech" bullets off the market, this has no chance of outlawing criminals from stepping aside the DRM by using lo-tech solutions.
If it was being snuck in how'd you all find out about it?
"Sneaking in" doesn't mean it will never be found and announced. It means that the INTENT is to keep press coverage and word-of-mouth to a minimum in an effort to sneak the bill/rider through quietly.
Not letting people watch TV or listen to Radio can only server to raise the average national IQ.
I might ordinarily agree with you here, but I don't. A broadcast flag will in NO WAY prevent people from watching TV altogether. It will likely annoy those who keep ahead of the tech curve in regards to A/V equipment ("early adopters"). IMHO, these people are typically smarter than the average and they are more likely to stay smarter if they can avoid the brain-rotting advertising and speed through those few shows they do watch.
A broadcast flag does not prevent your average American from continuing to watch Jerry Springer, infomericals, or anything "Fair and Balanced".
-- And I quit watching CSI after they past over Johnny Drama for CSI Minnesota.
I am not really impressed with his reasons. This page is more of an excuse not to put any effort into making the page appealing (through graphics or design elements).
Quotes from Jakob Nielson's "Why No Graphics" page:
Download times rule the Web.
They did when I was downloading 100kB+ images on my 14.4 modem back in '98 (I never went 28.8 or 56). Dial-up users today are used to waiting for massive DHTML pages that include flash and other media (even though I admit, they should be able to disable downloading of rich media if they want).
... most users have access speeds on the order of 28.8 kbps...
Maybe a few years ago. I don't know ANYONE who still uses dial-up (although that probably says more about me than "most users"). I would argue that over 50% of households that have internet access use a broadband connection (I have heard figures of 70-80%, bit I am skeptical).
Users do not keep their attention on the page if downloading exceeds 10 seconds
Users keep their attention if they know/think there will be useful/relevant/desirable content on the page. No one expects a large, high-resolution image to take 1 second to download.
While I do agree that sub-second response times are impressive, I would argue that a minimal amount of CSS touch-up would improve the appeal to his site. Also, users don't come to a site for the response time, they come for the content. Page design that optimizes layout rendering helps to make the page appear to load much quicker (when you wait for optional images to load after text content is already loaded).
On another note, I rather like Nielson's favicon: a yellow background with a dark red "u" in the foreground. From a design standpoint, it's bold and is rather elegant. Too bad the website looks nothing like it.
On another positive note, it looks as though his page would be extremely accessible from my Sidekick's browser.
Does anyone know of an idiot lawmaker blacklist? If none exists, I propose starting one.
It should have convenient features like queries by bill, by category (IP issues, Privacy issues), by supported judges and judgements, etc.
Most importantly, it should be able to narrow down the canidates on your electoral balot to only those whom have not signed on with idiotic bills and then email your phone or make a nice printable page that you can bring with you to the polling place.
Accountability is nothing if the average voter can't remember which way his/her representatives actually voted in the past. Making an easy accesspoint for the average voter to filter through canidates by actual vote history (not proposed platform) would be an incredible asset to the republic.
In the words of Lewis Black, "The Republicans are a party of bad ideas and the Democrats are a party of no ideas". We need a way to get past the party affiliations and get pick canidates as individuals. If nothing more, this would make sure elected officials don't pull the high incumbent retainment rates they are are used to.
I would rather my elected officials vote "no" for every bad bill than to vote "yes" for any bill he/she did not whole-heartedly support. Then again, I am still an idealist.
Slashdot Mirror
This issue is almost as simple as people make it seem; It boils down to this:
The law is not flawed. It does have some issues because it is a state law trying to regulate on the internet, but that will always be the case (at least for a while) with law (in any jurisdiction) and the internet.
The law was, in fact, an update of paper-and-pen trademark registration laws (which are in every state) that have been around for hundreds of years. The new law inherits all of the problems built into the old laws (i.e.:
The Interstate Commerce Act does not apply if the regulation is only done within the jurisdiction of the state in question (Utah). If a Utah resident is in Utah and visits a search engine, the search engine is required to comply with the law. If it turns out that Utah is trying to govern search results for the entire country (or the world), there will be ICA issues. AFAIK, that is not what the law dictates or allows. Someone who can actually read legalease would be helpful here.
The First Amendment does not grant the same freedoms of speech to commercial organizations as it does to individuals. Search results containing trademarked keywords are very likely to be considered commercial speech (like all corporate advertising). I don't see First Amendment arguments holding up in court.
There is going to be a service set up by the state to allow trademark owners to "license" the use of their keywords to other companies. If a company doesn't receive permission from a trademark owner to use that trademark, they are diluting the brand and infringing on the value of the trademark. They are effectively benefiting from another company's capital spent to build up a trademark and paying a 3rd party (who does not then compensate the trademark owner).
Google, MSN, and Yahoo! are already fighting it. They have hired one of the best lobbyists in Utah and one of the best law firms too. They aren't worried so much about losing Utah-based, but they are very worried about other states trying to enact similar laws (and the Federal government, too).
Any company with a strong brand (especially "Big Businesses") will be in favor of this legislation. If this law made it on the national stage, the search engines will have no pull in comparison with the "Big Business" conglomerates who want to protect the brands they pump so much capital into.
I know all of the major pharmaceutical companies are just dying to protect their drug names online. How many times have you seen ads online containing the word "Viagra"paid for by a company other than Pfizer? The Canadian drug retailers and the "herbal substitutes" don't pay Pfizer to use their registered trademarks, but they profit from the use of the keyword.
Personally, I don't think there is a legal case against the law. There might be a case against the system that is built to enable the law, but we will have to see when that system is in place.
I'm glad you think HTML designers at multinational corporations have so much power. I would think their bosses (middle management) give them the specs and they have to follow orders. Middle management isn't known for being the most knowledgable.
And this isn't entirely about what the designers WANTED to do, sometimes it's about what their bosses ALLOWED them to do (scarcity of resources and all).
Since there is no "university" for HTML designers, learning things like alternate CSS sheets for screenreaders is up to the designers themselves. If this lawsuit is won, then all large website companies will have to ensure that every HTML designer that works for them knows how to comply to these standards.
That being said, I think accessibility requirements have always cost more to comply with than the additional profits brought by the few extra consumers, but it is the cost of doing business where theose laws are in effect. Eventually the cost to comply drops as companies are more familiar with standards and employ them into their day-to-day business (as will be the case with HTML designers if the ADA is required by all online merchants).
@GrandParent: hrmm Social Security? Medicare? Gym membership?
@Parent: I'm an American. I'm not stupid; my country's been hijacked and I am the victim. My country's president has needlessly invaded another country, lowered my taxes, and increased the country's expenses drastically (among other things) - all against my will.
BTW - This tax is within Germany, not the EU. They are only victims to what their own government is taxing them for.
This seems to me to very nearly mirror Canada's blank CD tax to reimburse media copyright owners. It seems to me that it will increase the useage of computers to access TV and radio online as people will feel they need to get their money's worth if they are being taxed for it... not unlike people taking advantage of Social Security and disability benefits.
It's unfortunate that you live in a rural area. In South Korea and Japan, you would have little to no access to broadband even though the urban and suburban parts of those countries has a MUCH better (more thruput, much faster peak upload, more reliable uptime, superior infrastructure, much cheaper access, "contracts" not usually required) broadband than the US.
Co-ops are common in rural areas and they typically provide the same service for about the same price. Telephone and cable co-ops are commonplace is many parts of the US.
The truth is that while large TelCos are government regulated monopolies (protected from competitors and somewhat free to pricegauge their customers), they are corporations first and foremost. That means that profits and shareholder satisfaction are the most influential items in making decisions (and most of the time - the only things involved). They will run away with money if governments give it to them (residential fiber subsidies) and they will overcharge customers every chance they get.
I read a few articles on this subject a month or two ago and got so frustrated with it that I couldn't concentrate for the rest of the day. It's not bad enough that the Federal government seems incompetent and thieverous, but they pumped up to $200 Billion into the major telcos without bothering to ensure the telcos followed up on their end of the deal.
/RANT
I hate Stevens for this (among other things he says/does). He probably has the most to lose from the American public seeing what earmarks he has received for being such a senior Senator.
I hate the fact that the White House is sponsoring the bill too. Obama and one other came up with the bill - the White House just sees this as a cheap way to gain some credibility if it passes... and lose nothing if it doesn't pass.
Mod the parent up and the grandparent down (a little).
There are only 2 (two) ways to be arrested by a foreign country: (1) visiting that country or (2) being in a country that will extradite you for the crime. The Brits who are in US jail had to be in the US or had to be extradited from the country they were in at the time of arrest.
It is extremely unlikely that the US (or most Western democratic countries) would extradite a citizen to China because we celebrate those freedoms which China supresses. You can post all you want on your blog (or comment on Slashdot) about your criticizms of the Chinese government, but I would think long and hard before visiting Bejing on vacation afterwords.
It would be extremely unlikely that any person in any country could abide by all laws of all countries. If you are not in a particular jurisdiction, you are not subject to that jurisdiction's laws, but you can be prosecuted if you are ever in that jurisdiction (by your own volition or by extradition).
IDK about how the black box / collision issues affect renters, but I have read a few stories about car rentals equipped with GPS that was used for nefarious purposes (blackmail, loss of employment, etc.) by private detectives when the renters claim they didn't know the car was being monitored/tracked by GPS.
The parent does make some valid points, but I strongly disagree with the following:
If all new cars are equipped with high-tech safety/monitoring equipment, it will not drastically affect the way people drive across the board. Quite a few cards have a form of black box installed in their cars already. Has there been a noticeable trend to safer driving in the last two years? Consciously (when they are lucid and sober), people might drive better, but it does not affect how people think when they are tipsy/drunk/sleepy. Those drivers always cause the most damage. Insurance will change as the total cost to pay out claims decreases, not when people realize that there is some hidden box in their car. While this may reduce the premiums for new car insurance (in the long run), it will not change the premiums for existing cars without black boxes.
The box will never "interfere" with you. It can't really help you, unless you are charged with something like "wreckless endangerment" and it somehow miraculously proves that you were not breaking the speed limit. Failure analysis and forensic science already can do these, they simply cost (much) more and take longer to analyze. My fear is that investigators will skip the forensics once black boxes are standard and we will have no choice but to assume that the black box is completely accurate. I am a (skeptical) programmer, so I assume that nothing is absolutely accurate and that nothing is failproof.
We are only more safe IF drivers become better drivers through the use of this technology. History shows that Americans like their cars and don't like the goverment telling them to drive safer. Funny statistic: 80+% of all Americans think they drive better than half of the driving population. Changing this statistic will make the population safer on the road, not putting evidence collectors in all new cars.
You are obviously overthinking it with the "build your own car from scratch". Buy a used car. 15 years ago, an ECU wasn't available in most any car. 35 years ago, smog emissions equipment wasn't available. 70 years ago sealt belts weren't required. Until every low-tech car is off the road, there will still be ways to circumvent this.
The biggest problem I see is that you can't easily turn off a black box. Car manufacturers go to great pains to keep the information about the black boxes very tight-lipped. Very few companies can reverse engineer ECUs (only Dinan comes to mind), so finding equipment that will be able to disable features of the black box without fully disabling the ECU. If you try to wipe its storage after-the-fact, you are guilty of destroying evidence. If you try and disable it ahead of time, you could potentially face charges along the lines of "wreckless endangerment" unless you can prove that the disabling did not affect the reliability of the car's ECU. If you can't replace it and you can't disable it, you are essentially buying evidence against yourself. I would prefer to use the 5th Ammendment (do those "Ammendment" thingies still work for us the
I don't have anything against the caps-lock key. It's useful for gaming (think: voice chat trigger always down with very little effort).
But seriously, my work box is that much more productive because I have an extra modifier key that no Linux programs (I have installed) use by default: the Winblows key. [windows]+[left arrow] => go back one virtual desktop. [windows]+[right arrow] => go forward one virtual desktop. Don't be throwing away keys that I can rebind for useful functionality.
Hell, I'd even propose a new [caps lock] type key: the [1337 lock] key.
Do not write off the intelligence of a judge or the judge's willingness to learn about the impact of a case simply because we do so with legislators and most of the Exectutive. Judges are very capable of reading amicus briefs. It a judge's business to learn about the relevant facets of their case before a ruling is issued. You aren't implying that all judges know about everything except DRM/technology are you? Judges are expected to learn during their cases.
I am much more worried about legislators with precious little understanding of technology that is affected by the laws they create. A law is expensive and time-consuming to turn-over (the process of which is undesirable for most any individual/special interest).
The *IAAs' tactics sound eerily similar to what I know about the SCO case... unwilling to reveal key tidbits of evidence. Perhaps they are just trying to stall long enough to drive the defendant into the poorhouse (or use that image as leverage to settle). I hope someone makes a massive countersuit.
If I could give you karma points, I would have already. Anyone to quote a Cohen movie (especially THE Lebowsky) is certainly worthy.
The fact is that they do count the sugical tools... but not after EVERY surgery. Hospitals set up their own policies regarding which surgeries require a tool count and how often (every surgery, every other sugery, etc.). I think it's a shame that this is even necessary. You would think that a surgeon would care enough about the patient to oversee the sutures... not rush off to his tee-time (the stereotype was used purely for effect).
I think it's funny that this story was published so soon after "when surgical tools go missing... 2" was shown on TDC/TLC (with a title and content much like the old Fox shows: "^When * go(es)? (missing|bad|rabid|etc)( [0-9]+)?$").
I hate this law to death (and this may be one of the reasons the US has a Second Ammendment), but I don't think your wording was quite correct.
You can be a criminal and not convicted. (At least in the US) the justice system (as it is supposed to work) requires a certain amount of evidence to convict a suspect. Without that threshold, a person can be guilty of committing a crime without the court being able to convict/sentence them. To say that you are not a criminal because you are not yet behind bars is a logically fallacy (unless I don't understand the definition of criminal). That is to say: you can be aquitted for reasons other than being innocent of the crime for which you were arrested.
If we are trying to win the "hearts and minds" of those innocents in the Middle East (who may or may not hate us or our foreign policies), I don't think that preventing their friends/relatives in the US from sending home money that they probably need to survive. Why don't they try something useful like requiring these financial institutions to scrub a list of specific names (first and last) of actual people (or actual aliases) which are known, or at least strongly suspected, of having terrorist ties (other than having a Muslim name). Also, a "mule" (as in the drug traffiking sense of the word) with an Anglo (or simply non-muslim) name in a country in the Middle East could be used to clear the transaction then pass off the money once it's in the country, bypassing the name thing altogether. I don't think there's an easy solution to "the war on terror", but we certainly aren't going to make things any better for our kids if we isolate all Muslims (with blanket policies like these).
This service doesn't provide free anything. It is trialware and from the descriptions, it sounds like crapware.
So one frat on campus gets a place to put a rotten couch and louunge in front of the frat house drinking beer because the college bought into a massive Microsoft software license? Wouldn't a free Porsche be more of an enticement/bribe? And what exactly can a school do with an expensive car that seats 2 (maybe 4). I'm thinking that one of the on-campus frats should fill a balloon with shaving cream and hang it from a light post above the car ("Scent of a Woman"-style). For future reference, "Porsche" has an "s" in the middle and is always capitalized (as it is a brand... which is a proper noun).
Not to be too argumentative, but if this decision was applied directly to the bundling of IE/MediaPlayer/MSN Messenger/Outlook Express, etc., this law WOULD NOT prevent bundling, it would simply say that other companies should have the right to develop competing products (i.e. (Firefox, Mozilla, Opera)/(MediaPlayerClassic or any other codec-compliant video player)/(YIM, AIM, ICQ)/(any email/calendar/contact client)). On a tangental note, I would love to see a 'lite' version of Windows come with a barebones installation that allows the user to select which additional services/applications to install, but for the purposes of this article: that is simply not what the law would equate to.
Unfortunately, it seems that Microsoft's attempts to move into nearly every application field on desktop computers is solified partly because the ordinary computer user will tend to use the 'free' software that comes with their computer, rather than purchase a new program to do nearly the same task. I would rather pay less for Windows and not have to clean off all the 'free' bundled programs that come preinstalled on every installation of Windows, but (in the words of Ron White) "I'm only one man".
Cupertino, CA (home of Apple Computer, not far from San Jose) has buried phone and power lines for almost evey major street (for almost purely aesthetic reasons). The city counsil is very conscious about keeping up the land value so buring the lines, in some perverted way, actually retains land values better - which in turn pay for city services.
Mind you, most residential streets still have overhead lines, but the large arteries are the ones that are buried. Interestingly enough, this setup prevents weather from shutting down the arteries (under all but freak-accident circumstances), but does nothing to prevent building contractors from digging into the line and killing power delivery to Cupertino all the surrounding cities (as happened about two years ago).
One other factor in underground lines: earthquakes. In areas where earthquakes are a concern, underground lines can be hell to repair. Granted, big earthquakes don't have mercy on any utility... and I imagine overhead lines falling is a worse concern.
Just my $0.02
There aren't a lot of elegant technological implementations these days, but this seems extremely simple. If they were to require a credit card entry every time you called, this technology would have been a waste of both the consumer's and the invetor's time.
On the other hand, there is a huge problem with this (at least in the US). The technology to spoof caller id is widespread (and AFAIK - IANAL - caller id spoofing is legal in the US). If they are depending on the same caller id implementation we here in the US have, I can foresee fraudulent caller id spoofing to offload the fess to innocent phone-owners.
This is maybe the right place to start in reforming arms for civilian use in the modern age, but there are a number of glaring flaws with this technology.
First, I would have to agree with the parent that a dual-id system would improve the "security" involved in firing one of these guns.
I would think that we don't want to give these to the military though (at the very least not without a biometric feature). The only reason these should be deployed for military combat would be in case they are stolen or otherwise "procured" by enemies/civilians. This RFID system better be damn reliable, though, or the troops will drop guns with this "DRM" in the mud and pick up AK47s (like stories I've heard from Vietnam). It's absolutely useless to equip your soldiers with an additional reason for the gun to malfunction unless there is a compelling reason to implement it (especially when the most prevelant assault rifle in non-friendly countries, the AK47, is notably more reliable than most other assault rifles -- even without an additional trigger-guard).
I would think the same would apply to Police - if an officer's life is at stake (which I hope is the only reason he/she would contemplate pulling the trigger), he/she wants a gun that will fire without a hitch.
The RFID lifespans I've read about are in the 3-5 year range, so organizations which use guns equipped with this technology will have to invest in inventory control to ensure that only reliably bullets with strong RFID "battery" life are distributed for use. Also, when the top bullet in the magazine fails to activate, does the bullet get expelled from the chamber or does it require the operator to clear the "jam"?
This is really an expansion of DRM (all negative Slashdot connotations aside) into an area that probably doesn't need it. Until the government forces ALL "lo-tech" bullets off the market, this has no chance of outlawing criminals from stepping aside the DRM by using lo-tech solutions.
I believe the first post was referring to this (even though he/she didn't explain it very clearly).
A broadcast flag does not prevent your average American from continuing to watch Jerry Springer, infomericals, or anything "Fair and Balanced".
-- And I quit watching CSI after they past over Johnny Drama for CSI Minnesota.
Quotes from Jakob Nielson's "Why No Graphics" page:
They did when I was downloading 100kB+ images on my 14.4 modem back in '98 (I never went 28.8 or 56). Dial-up users today are used to waiting for massive DHTML pages that include flash and other media (even though I admit, they should be able to disable downloading of rich media if they want). Maybe a few years ago. I don't know ANYONE who still uses dial-up (although that probably says more about me than "most users"). I would argue that over 50% of households that have internet access use a broadband connection (I have heard figures of 70-80%, bit I am skeptical). Users keep their attention if they know/think there will be useful/relevant/desirable content on the page. No one expects a large, high-resolution image to take 1 second to download.
While I do agree that sub-second response times are impressive, I would argue that a minimal amount of CSS touch-up would improve the appeal to his site. Also, users don't come to a site for the response time, they come for the content. Page design that optimizes layout rendering helps to make the page appear to load much quicker (when you wait for optional images to load after text content is already loaded).
On another note, I rather like Nielson's favicon: a yellow background with a dark red "u" in the foreground. From a design standpoint, it's bold and is rather elegant. Too bad the website looks nothing like it.
On another positive note, it looks as though his page would be extremely accessible from my Sidekick's browser.
Does anyone know of an idiot lawmaker blacklist? If none exists, I propose starting one.
It should have convenient features like queries by bill, by category (IP issues, Privacy issues), by supported judges and judgements, etc.
Most importantly, it should be able to narrow down the canidates on your electoral balot to only those whom have not signed on with idiotic bills and then email your phone or make a nice printable page that you can bring with you to the polling place.
Accountability is nothing if the average voter can't remember which way his/her representatives actually voted in the past. Making an easy accesspoint for the average voter to filter through canidates by actual vote history (not proposed platform) would be an incredible asset to the republic.
In the words of Lewis Black, "The Republicans are a party of bad ideas and the Democrats are a party of no ideas". We need a way to get past the party affiliations and get pick canidates as individuals. If nothing more, this would make sure elected officials don't pull the high incumbent retainment rates they are are used to.
I would rather my elected officials vote "no" for every bad bill than to vote "yes" for any bill he/she did not whole-heartedly support. Then again, I am still an idealist.