OK, but then again, they most definitively did not need 40-50 people for 14 months to develop that. And you are forgetting we are talking about a single project within a company. They don't need finance, marketing, legal etc. At most they need a little bit of support from those departments, but that's it. All they need is a dozen or so devs and qa engineers, a pair of managers, 2 product/design people, a project manager, and then the equivalent of 2 or 3 other people borrowed from the organization to write the legalese and purchase the equipment. 40 million is overkill.
Now it may not be surprising, but it's still a bit waste of resources.
-It has bogus statistics "The $200 million that pirates pick up represents 10 per cent of total for the music industry". Though the modern pirates have figured out there is no reason to stick with 10% when you can claim several times the size of the US economy in revenue.
-They don't care for customer wishes: "At times legitimate record companies put more than one artist on a record or a tape, but it is rare. [...] These tapes are often called 'The Big Hits' or 'Top 20' etc." Apparently, the modern music industry is getting something for nothing by stealing those ideas from those innovative pirates. 1... 2... 3... Cue lawsuit from original pirates!
-Instead of resorting to courts and due process this Jerry Lee Lewis character declared himself above the law and destroyed private property in order to protect his "copyright." Ah the good old days when artists went and did their blatant lawbreaking themselves instead of outsourcing it to goons... oops, I meant the DHS. Forgive the confusion. It's such an easy mistake.
This statement is incorrect. As the only thing the movie/music industries need to "adapt" to is people taking their product without paying, they are adapting to the situation perfectly: they are insisting law enforcement enforce the law.
How's that working out for them? My impression is that there are still no major movies or pieces of music that cannot be found on the Internet for free and piracy is increasing, not decreasing. So maybe they should consider looking to spend their money on something that will actually have a positive ROI.
Hm no... If I steal a CD/DVD, I have deprived you of said CD or DVD. Sure you may be able to obtain a copy, but you still have lost the thing. If I let you copy a CD that belongs to me, nobody has been deprived of anything without their consent.
Well, except bright criminals can do that whether the government has a DNA database or not. Today, it just means the criminal in question needs a competent lawyer who will request a DNA test. The DNA test comes back and the criminal goes free. And you are right, today if the point is to frame someone specific, you need to plant enough evidence to have the police run a DNA test on that person. But honestly, I don't think that is significantly harder than cultivating the DNA somewhere without getting caught.
OK, first of all, you can't really plant evidence based upon a DNA database. They don't store a little blood sample. What they do is test for a number of genetic markers (which at least for now are not known to correlate with any expressed traits) and then they store the absence or presence of each marker in a database. In order to plant evidence based upon that database, they would have to genetically engineer something to match the same markers. That's not easy to do which means there would be a paper trail a mile long. At which point, you could during your trial request that some non-stored markers also be tested to exonerate you.
In all honesty, I don't see the privacy implications. This can actually only be used for the purposes of identifying you. Yes, there is the remote chance that in the future the selected markers will end up being indicative of some disease we want to keep private, but that seems to be a relatively small risk. The cost of collecting and testing DNA from the environment makes it impractical to implement surveillance on a large scale. So honestly, I am not sure how the government could use such a system in any sort of a way that would expose anything I might want to keep quiet unless it actually was something bad. If someone presents a viable scenario where actual privacy might be violated, I would be very interested.
This is different. Under Bush, it would have been a national security issue and Bush would have fired the guy openly. Today, it's an image security issue and so they won't even admit to firing the guy.
Welcome to Obama's administration. We're just as bad as Bush, but we feel bad about it. We'll also feel bad about lying to you. But it's for the greater good of getting reelected.
Actually, your answer of regulation in this case is absurd. What we are seeing is the government's regulatory process in action. The FDA handed over a monopoly to a private corporation which turned out to be an enormously damaging activity. What sort of evidence do you have that in your preferred future, when the FDA has more power it will use them any more wisely than it did in this case? The same can be said about any regulatory agency. Again and again, the regulatory process is controlled by large corporations that are the targets of those regulations. And your response is: "Let's do it again! I have a good feeling this time it's going to work!"
Actually, as a bona-fide libertarian, I can tell you that you are wrong. Some libertarians may believe in IPR in general, but the retroactive granting of a monopoly would be about as far from libertarian principles as you could get.
"I imagine the motivation is similar to that of a rapist. It's about the exercise of power over others."
When I read that line, my first response was to be annoyed at an exaggeration. Then upon thinking about it some more, I realized that the exaggeration was only slight. And now, all I feel is sadness and anger. There are a lot of people who should go to jail for their abuse of power.
Actually that won't help you. The whole point of the decree is that the service is required to keep your password for the purposes of giving it to the authorities. So keeping it in an encrypted format probably does not discharge your legal obligation. Also, I would use SHA256 myself. ;-)
I hate the whole "intelligent animals" thing. It is about as unrigorous as can be. What does it mean to be intelligent? How do you make it on the list? Some guy just kind of thinks x y or z is intelligent and puts together the list with no regard for validity... Give me the Turing test any day. At least it can be operationalized.
If their actions cannot withstand second-guessing, then, they should take actions that can withstand second-guessing instead. Police officers are not random shumcks who stumbled into a situation they cannot control and are unprepared for. They are trained for their job, they choose to do it and they are vested with significant authority to do it. If that is not enough for them to act irreproachably, well tough. What do they say again? Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.
I think we need a different name for what Manning did. Whistleblower is not appropriate. A whistleblower finds and releases evidence of specific harm. He released a gigantic amount of data with no filtering at to the content. He is not a traitor as traitors generally desire to harm their own side and aid the enemy. Manning was not trying to help the enemy (whoever that is), he was trying to bring greater transparency to the US diplomatic practices. I think transparency activist may be most accurate though it unfortunately sounds somewhat bad.
On the other hand, we don't need a new name for the response of the US Government. Stupid, heavy-handed and oppressive fits the bill quite nicely.
Actually traitors generally are considered people who are attempting to help the enemy whether you succeed or not. Manning may have been reckless in releasing those documents to a foreign national, but there is no evidence he was attempting to aid any enemy. He was attempting to... Well to be completely honest, I think he was seeking personal glory for helping bring greater transparency. Without disputing the illegality of his actions, what he did is most definitely not what most people consider "treachery".
"Revealing information, even really seemingly negligible information about your side's movements, techniques, and actions, can easily cause friendly deaths, because information is precious to the enemy. Remember when people got really upset at an embedded reporter (wolf blitzes?) revealing his platoons position in Iraq? There are reasons for that, and that was just a goof."
Have you read the reports of what he released? What he released was DIPLOMATIC cables. Diplomatic cables deal with political relations with other countries, not troop movements, techniques or actions. This could potentially put sympathetic foreign government officials at risk, not US personnel, military or otherwise.
On the post: Righthaven Sues Reporter Who Wrote About Righthaven For Including Image From Its Lawsuit
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On the post: Good Question: How The Hell Did The NYT Spend $40 Million On That Paywall?
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Now it may not be surprising, but it's still a bit waste of resources.
On the post: Mom Sues Preschool, Claiming It Didn't Prepare Her 4-Year-Old For The Ivy Leagues
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On the post: 8-Track Piracy Is Killing The Music Business.... In 1976
-It has bogus statistics "The $200 million that pirates pick up represents 10 per cent of total for the music industry". Though the modern pirates have figured out there is no reason to stick with 10% when you can claim several times the size of the US economy in revenue.
-They don't care for customer wishes: "At times legitimate record companies put more than one artist on a record or a tape, but it is rare. [...] These tapes are often called 'The Big Hits' or 'Top 20' etc." Apparently, the modern music industry is getting something for nothing by stealing those ideas from those innovative pirates. 1... 2... 3... Cue lawsuit from original pirates!
-Instead of resorting to courts and due process this Jerry Lee Lewis character declared himself above the law and destroyed private property in order to protect his "copyright." Ah the good old days when artists went and did their blatant lawbreaking themselves instead of outsourcing it to goons... oops, I meant the DHS. Forgive the confusion. It's such an easy mistake.
On the post: Inauspicious Start For Chris Dodd At MPAA; Starts Off With 'Infringement No Different Than Theft' Claim
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How's that working out for them? My impression is that there are still no major movies or pieces of music that cannot be found on the Internet for free and piracy is increasing, not decreasing. So maybe they should consider looking to spend their money on something that will actually have a positive ROI.
On the post: Inauspicious Start For Chris Dodd At MPAA; Starts Off With 'Infringement No Different Than Theft' Claim
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On the post: Dutch Chief Of Police Suggests National DNA-Database For All Citizens
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On the post: Dutch Chief Of Police Suggests National DNA-Database For All Citizens
In all honesty, I don't see the privacy implications. This can actually only be used for the purposes of identifying you. Yes, there is the remote chance that in the future the selected markers will end up being indicative of some disease we want to keep private, but that seems to be a relatively small risk. The cost of collecting and testing DNA from the environment makes it impractical to implement surveillance on a large scale. So honestly, I am not sure how the government could use such a system in any sort of a way that would expose anything I might want to keep quiet unless it actually was something bad. If someone presents a viable scenario where actual privacy might be violated, I would be very interested.
On the post: Administration Forces PJ Crowley Out Of The State Dept. After He Admits That Manning Is Being Mistreated
Re: Well
Welcome to Obama's administration. We're just as bad as Bush, but we feel bad about it. We'll also feel bad about lying to you. But it's for the greater good of getting reelected.
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On the post: Retroactive Drug Monopoly Raises Rates From $10... To $1,500
Re: What I love about this
On the post: Retroactive Drug Monopoly Raises Rates From $10... To $1,500
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On the post: State Department Spokesperson Says Bradley Manning Is Being Mistreated
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When I read that line, my first response was to be annoyed at an exaggeration. Then upon thinking about it some more, I realized that the exaggeration was only slight. And now, all I feel is sadness and anger. There are a lot of people who should go to jail for their abuse of power.
On the post: State Department Spokesperson Says Bradley Manning Is Being Mistreated
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On the post: France Goes Overboard In Data Retention: Wants User Passwords Retained
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On the post: DailyDirt: Evolution Made Some Smart Stuff Other Than Us
On the post: New Bill In Connecticut Would Make It Illegal For Police To Stop You From Recording Them
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On the post: Bradley Manning Hit With New Charges; Could Face Death Penalty
Re: Re: name for it other whistleblower..
On the post: Bradley Manning Hit With New Charges; Could Face Death Penalty
On the other hand, we don't need a new name for the response of the US Government. Stupid, heavy-handed and oppressive fits the bill quite nicely.
On the post: Bradley Manning Hit With New Charges; Could Face Death Penalty
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"Revealing information, even really seemingly negligible information about your side's movements, techniques, and actions, can easily cause friendly deaths, because information is precious to the enemy. Remember when people got really upset at an embedded reporter (wolf blitzes?) revealing his platoons position in Iraq? There are reasons for that, and that was just a goof."
Have you read the reports of what he released? What he released was DIPLOMATIC cables. Diplomatic cables deal with political relations with other countries, not troop movements, techniques or actions. This could potentially put sympathetic foreign government officials at risk, not US personnel, military or otherwise.
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