I give credit to Atkins for promptly responding to my expression of concern by agreeing to limit his initial discovery efforts directed to Amazon;
He is under no obligation to do so. He has a broad warrant that doesn't require him to do this. Therefore why would he?
Also, even if he does limit his initial discovery efforts, what about tomorrow? This is like the NSA doublespeak, "under this order we have not done so."
e-mail conversations with certain classes of professional - physicians and church pastors
and lawyers.
Going by this warrant, if you want to know a defendants legal strategy, just ask for a warrant for all their emails, then read all their emails between them and their lawyers.
Re: Question: What is a Generic computer function?
Also, what is a generic computer? One that does not have a brand like Lenovo, Dell, HP, etc? Or does it mean something different? Or does it mean anything?
(IANAL)
A specific(or limited)-purpose manufacturing machine with computerised controls would be an example of a non-generic computer.
e.g. robotic arms used in car assembly plants. They have computers buit into them who's sole purpose is controlling/manipulating the arm, go forward/back, up/down, place weld 10degress to the left and 245mm forward, verifying the positional accuracy by combining positional data from onboard laser sensors etc.
The computerisation is not general, it is very specifically tied to that machine (even tho it may be made of generic computer chips, e.g. a motorola 68000 CPU may be the chip doing the calculations on how to manipulate the arm) for a limited purpose, controlling the motion of the arm.
Therefore the software that runs on the robotic arm to control it is not the whole patent, not the sole purpose of the patent, it is a part of the patent. The patent would be on the complete package, the robotic arm and it's controlling soft/firmware.
A more everyday example would be the software on your digital camera that controls the working of the camera as being a non-generic computer. Or the embedded controller in a stereo.
But a software calculator that just performs pen-and-paper calculations, but much faster, on your dekstop PC that also runs spreadsheets, word processors, image editing, games, i.e. general tasks, wouldn't (or at least shouldn 't) be patentable (although it would still have copyright protection).
If, however, you built an electronic calculator (I remember HP reverse polish notation caculators being all the rage amongst the well-to-do maths nerds in the late 80's early 90's) then the software that controls it could be patentable as a part of 'the machine', the calculator.
It is not a given that BND is much better covered in legislation than US intelligence. Very few countries have a better protection.
Level of protection provided by the constitution and/or legislation means nothing when everyone in power (courts, legislature, executive, even the press in many instances) conspire to keep any breaches (or potential breaches) from ever reaching the light of day.
Press keep it secret. Executive keep it secret. Legislature keep it secret. Courts keep it secret.
What can't be kept secret is either covered up by the press, legislated around by the legislature, pardoned by the executive, dismissed by the courts.
IANAL, but my understanding is that DMCA takedown notices are issued under "penalty of perjury". I.e. it's a affidavit/stat dec.
I thought there were penalties for false statements made under "penalty of perjury". So while there is no specific penalty for issuing a false/wrong DMCA notice, surely the damaged parties could fall back on using making false statements under penalty of perjury complaints against the issuer?
I thought one of the 'canned' statements in the DMCA takedown was something along the lines of "I declare under penalty of perjury that the requested takedown material breaches copyrights".
Therefore when it is used to takedown trademarked material, they have outright lied on signing their name to the DMCA notice. They have perjured themselves.
I think an argument could also be made for perjury when the issuer issues a takedown for copyrights they don't own or that don't exist. Surely there is a duty of care when swearing under penalty of perjury that at least a valid copyright exists, otherwise on what basis is the belief that a copyright is being infringed made on?
Again, IANAL, but surely even if there are no specific penalties for issuing a false DMCA notice, there are penalties for perjury that could be applied?
1) It was an email that was SUPPOSED to be destined for another GS employee being sent from a GS employee.
2) Most medium/large (and small) organisations have their own, internal, email servers, such that if an employee sends an email to another employee, that email never leaves the departmental network to go over 'the internet', therefore doesn't need encryption.
3) In most large organisations that are multi-site (e.g. banks with many remote branches etc), or that closely deal with other organisations interchanging sensitive data (e.g. government departments communicating with other government departments), there are internal routing policies that send, say, emails destined for particular endpoints to hardware VPN routers, that have encrypted secure VPNs to the other organisation/office, therefore the data is fully encrypted before it leaves the organisation, sends it across the internet fully encrypted, till it hits the destination organisation/office, which routes it to its own internal hardware VPN encrypting service based on the source, then decrypts it before putting it into the receipients mailbox. All fully/highly encrypted, all transparent to the end-users.
4) There is no protecting against a stupid f*ckup by an obviously incompetent moron who manages to bypass all that encryption by sending it to gmail which would not be in the "forward to encrypting VPN service to use secure tunnel to other office" routing rules.
This f*ckup shows that no matter how you try to insulate the 'dumb average' user from the complexities of technology (in this case encryption) by putting in transparent encryption systems, in the end if you want a (relatively) secure system, you should't be insulating the user and relying on transparent VPN'ing, you should be teaching them how to encrypt their emails 'manually', thus teaching them to always manually encrypt any email they think is sensitive (but then you've gotta train them on identifying what is sensitive too!), or any email they aren't sure whether it's sensitive or not, before sending. Thus if it's sent to the right place it get's a 2nd level of encryption via the VPN, or if it's sent to the wrong place then at least the receipient can't open it due to the manual encryption.
But as we all know, the average user is either too f*king stupid (abot 30% of the users out there) or too f*king lazy (about 68% of the users out there) to learn and do this.
Umm, that is sorta the WHOLE POINT of the suit, to determine if what they are doing in this case is legal or not.
Under the way the law/legal systems work in (nominally) free societies, ANYTHING you do IS legal unless/until a law against it is passed and/or the activity is challenged in court to get a ruling on it.
Therefore what GCHQ is doing is, nominally, legal, until it is ruled as illegal. And the way to test if it is illegal is to take it to court and get a ruling. Which is what is being attempted here. If the courts agree that it is legal, then there will be no repurcussions on GCHQ. If, however, the court declares it illegal, then there will (or may be, assuming its not all swept under the rug/pardoned) repurcussions on GCHQ.
And relying on the government, the instigators, hell, the cheerleaders and enablers of this activity, to be the ones to bring it up before the courts in criminal proceedings is not just naive, its f*cking stupid. It's the attitute of someone who believes the phrase "I'm from the government, I'm here to help you." You may care to abdicate yourself from your civil duty of always questioning the government's actions and motivations, of being coddled and accepting the government can do no wrong, but others don't.
Or that I'm not American so don't get US news outside of what I read on techdirt and similiar special interest news/blogs therefore don't really give a damn...
The "private security" contractor formerly known as Blackwater has often been accused of being engaged in what might normally be seen as a level of evil and depravity normally reserved for over-the-top movie villains...
That is, did they gather data from the game AS IS and use that, or did they specifically manipulate the game to test various theories?
Being part of a study where they don't manipulate the environment, just gather data from the environment, is different and less intrusive than being experimented on by being manipulated.
Also, personally, I feel there is a difference between playing a game that is supposed to manipulate you for your entertainment (e.g. questing for items, getting experience to level and become stronger, earning money to again become 'better' in some way is all a form of manipulatoin by the game designers to encourage certain activities), and participating in 'real life' social interactions that are being deliberately manipulated by a non-involved 3rd party for research.
But then again, I suppose Facebook is about as real life as Days of our lives...
most people are default evil and are mindless sheep in need of a Shepard.
This is not true. Most people obey what they view as fair, sensible laws, not making waves, fitting in, treating others how you want to be treated. There has been much study on this, especially where sentencing guildelines are being determined.
Examples of this are the steady ratcheting up of penalties for copyright infringement (piracy!). Many people do not view the extreme maximalist copyright position as reasonable. Therefore even with the escalation in penalties, copyright infringement is increasing.
And for other laws, say murder and so on, that most people generally agree with, often increasing penalties has little to no effect because most people just don't agree with committing murder, most people just don't do it. The sort of people who do commit murder, do believe it is a viable option, will commit the murder whether the penalty is 15 years, 30 years or even execution.
This is why all of those child day cares have "Share your Toys" reminders on the walls and not "Be Greedy with your Toys" reminders. Our Selfishness comes natural, too bad this shit does not go away with age!
err, selfishness != evil. I think you are confusing self-interest, selfishness, with evil.
Selfishness is more along the lines of not being nice, kind, etc. Just because someone is a selfish b@st@rd doesn't make them evil.
Just because I don't want to share my toys doesn't mean I'm going to go and steal someone else's.
And the reminders to share toys and so on are reminders about being nice and kind to others. To make the environment more peaceful. To make it less stressful for the staff so they don't have upset kids throwing temper tanti's because they can't get their favourite toy. They are not about good and evil.
What the hell do you mean it is legal That been proven in a court of law yet?
If it has not been declared illegal in a court of law then ipso facto it is legal.
Witness all the actions of the NSA that are defended as legal because no court of law has found those activities illegal. Of course, the Government is doing it's best song-and-dance act to prevent these activities from being brought before the courts, thus avoiding a finding of illegality.
However, I am not aware of any large state that has ever had "real" democracy. Not even ancient Athens had real democracy, as they had limits on who could vote: No slaves, no women, etc.
Even our current nation-states do not have real democracy, US, UK, France, Germany, Australia, Canada, etc etc. None of them are Democracies, they are all Representative Democracies. The closest thing to a democracy in recent historic times is Switzerland.
On the post: Yet Another Court Rules That Digital Data Is Not Property
Re: Re:
On the post: Judge's Overly Broad Discovery Order About Online Critics Allows Ubervita To Bully More Authors Of Critical Reviews
And you believed him?
He is under no obligation to do so. He has a broad warrant that doesn't require him to do this. Therefore why would he?
Also, even if he does limit his initial discovery efforts, what about tomorrow? This is like the NSA doublespeak, "under this order we have not done so."
On the post: Federal Judge Gives Government Open-Ended Access To All Content In A Suspect's Gmail Account
Re: Re:
Going by this warrant, if you want to know a defendants legal strategy, just ask for a warrant for all their emails, then read all their emails between them and their lawyers.
On the post: Ex-State Department Official Reveals That Everyone's Focused On The Wrong NSA Surveillance Programs
Re: He should enter Witness Protection...
If he entered Witness Protection, then the government and it's agencies would absolutely know where to find him to silence him.
On the post: Latest CAFC Ruling Suggests A Whole Lot Of Software Patents Are Likely Invalid
Re: Question: What is a Generic computer function?
(IANAL)
A specific(or limited)-purpose manufacturing machine with computerised controls would be an example of a non-generic computer.
e.g. robotic arms used in car assembly plants. They have computers buit into them who's sole purpose is controlling/manipulating the arm, go forward/back, up/down, place weld 10degress to the left and 245mm forward, verifying the positional accuracy by combining positional data from onboard laser sensors etc.
The computerisation is not general, it is very specifically tied to that machine (even tho it may be made of generic computer chips, e.g. a motorola 68000 CPU may be the chip doing the calculations on how to manipulate the arm) for a limited purpose, controlling the motion of the arm.
Therefore the software that runs on the robotic arm to control it is not the whole patent, not the sole purpose of the patent, it is a part of the patent. The patent would be on the complete package, the robotic arm and it's controlling soft/firmware.
A more everyday example would be the software on your digital camera that controls the working of the camera as being a non-generic computer. Or the embedded controller in a stereo.
But a software calculator that just performs pen-and-paper calculations, but much faster, on your dekstop PC that also runs spreadsheets, word processors, image editing, games, i.e. general tasks, wouldn't (or at least shouldn
't) be patentable (although it would still have copyright protection).
If, however, you built an electronic calculator (I remember HP reverse polish notation caculators being all the rage amongst the well-to-do maths nerds in the late 80's early 90's) then the software that controls it could be patentable as a part of 'the machine', the calculator.
On the post: Germany Expels Top US Intelligence Official, Says It Will (Officially) Spy Back On US And UK
Re: Re: Re:
Level of protection provided by the constitution and/or legislation means nothing when everyone in power (courts, legislature, executive, even the press in many instances) conspire to keep any breaches (or potential breaches) from ever reaching the light of day.
Press keep it secret.
Executive keep it secret.
Legislature keep it secret.
Courts keep it secret.
What can't be kept secret is either covered up by the press, legislated around by the legislature, pardoned by the executive, dismissed by the courts.
On the post: Files About UK's Role In CIA Renditions 'Accidentally' Destroyed
Re: Well
On the post: Qualcomm Uses DMCA To Shut Down Its Own GitHub Repository (Plus A Bunch Of Others)
Perjury?
I thought there were penalties for false statements made under "penalty of perjury". So while there is no specific penalty for issuing a false/wrong DMCA notice, surely the damaged parties could fall back on using making false statements under penalty of perjury complaints against the issuer?
I thought one of the 'canned' statements in the DMCA takedown was something along the lines of "I declare under penalty of perjury that the requested takedown material breaches copyrights".
Therefore when it is used to takedown trademarked material, they have outright lied on signing their name to the DMCA notice. They have perjured themselves.
I think an argument could also be made for perjury when the issuer issues a takedown for copyrights they don't own or that don't exist. Surely there is a duty of care when swearing under penalty of perjury that at least a valid copyright exists, otherwise on what basis is the belief that a copyright is being infringed made on?
Again, IANAL, but surely even if there are no specific penalties for issuing a false DMCA notice, there are penalties for perjury that could be applied?
On the post: Goldman Sachs Asks Court To Have Google Delete An Email With Client Info; Google Blocks Access To The Email
Re: Recklessness
2) Most medium/large (and small) organisations have their own, internal, email servers, such that if an employee sends an email to another employee, that email never leaves the departmental network to go over 'the internet', therefore doesn't need encryption.
3) In most large organisations that are multi-site (e.g. banks with many remote branches etc), or that closely deal with other organisations interchanging sensitive data (e.g. government departments communicating with other government departments), there are internal routing policies that send, say, emails destined for particular endpoints to hardware VPN routers, that have encrypted secure VPNs to the other organisation/office, therefore the data is fully encrypted before it leaves the organisation, sends it across the internet fully encrypted, till it hits the destination organisation/office, which routes it to its own internal hardware VPN encrypting service based on the source, then decrypts it before putting it into the receipients mailbox. All fully/highly encrypted, all transparent to the end-users.
4) There is no protecting against a stupid f*ckup by an obviously incompetent moron who manages to bypass all that encryption by sending it to gmail which would not be in the "forward to encrypting VPN service to use secure tunnel to other office" routing rules.
This f*ckup shows that no matter how you try to insulate the 'dumb average' user from the complexities of technology (in this case encryption) by putting in transparent encryption systems, in the end if you want a (relatively) secure system, you should't be insulating the user and relying on transparent VPN'ing, you should be teaching them how to encrypt their emails 'manually', thus teaching them to always manually encrypt any email they think is sensitive (but then you've gotta train them on identifying what is sensitive too!), or any email they aren't sure whether it's sensitive or not, before sending. Thus if it's sent to the right place it get's a 2nd level of encryption via the VPN, or if it's sent to the wrong place then at least the receipient can't open it due to the manual encryption.
But as we all know, the average user is either too f*king stupid (abot 30% of the users out there) or too f*king lazy (about 68% of the users out there) to learn and do this.
On the post: International Service Providers Sue GCHQ For Potentially Hacking Their Networks
Re: Re: Re:
Under the way the law/legal systems work in (nominally) free societies, ANYTHING you do IS legal unless/until a law against it is passed and/or the activity is challenged in court to get a ruling on it.
Therefore what GCHQ is doing is, nominally, legal, until it is ruled as illegal. And the way to test if it is illegal is to take it to court and get a ruling. Which is what is being attempted here. If the courts agree that it is legal, then there will be no repurcussions on GCHQ. If, however, the court declares it illegal, then there will (or may be, assuming its not all swept under the rug/pardoned) repurcussions on GCHQ.
And relying on the government, the instigators, hell, the cheerleaders and enablers of this activity, to be the ones to bring it up before the courts in criminal proceedings is not just naive, its f*cking stupid. It's the attitute of someone who believes the phrase "I'm from the government, I'm here to help you." You may care to abdicate yourself from your civil duty of always questioning the government's actions and motivations, of being coddled and accepting the government can do no wrong, but others don't.
On the post: NSA's XKeyscore Source Code Leaked! Shows Tor Users Classified As 'Extremists'
Re: Re: Re:
On the post: International Service Providers Sue GCHQ For Potentially Hacking Their Networks
Re:
When the MEANS it uses to do it's job breach the law and/or constitutional protections, then definitely YES.
The ends do NOT justify the means.
The security agencies are not above the law, no matter how much they and the executive wish they are.
And while legally they are not above the law, the way things seem to be heading it is looking more and more like in practice they are above the law.
On the post: SCOTUSblog's Best Trolling Of People Who Think Its Twitter Account Is The Supreme Court Itself
Living under a rock...
On the post: US Embassy Blamed State Dept Investigator For Upsetting Its Relationship With Blackwater After Investigator Complained About Death Threat
Re: Re:
On the post: US Embassy Blamed State Dept Investigator For Upsetting Its Relationship With Blackwater After Investigator Complained About Death Threat
On the post: Facebook Messed With The Emotions Of 689,003 Users... For Science
Re: Been a guinee-pig before
That is, did they gather data from the game AS IS and use that, or did they specifically manipulate the game to test various theories?
Being part of a study where they don't manipulate the environment, just gather data from the environment, is different and less intrusive than being experimented on by being manipulated.
Also, personally, I feel there is a difference between playing a game that is supposed to manipulate you for your entertainment (e.g. questing for items, getting experience to level and become stronger, earning money to again become 'better' in some way is all a form of manipulatoin by the game designers to encourage certain activities), and participating in 'real life' social interactions that are being deliberately manipulated by a non-involved 3rd party for research.
But then again, I suppose Facebook is about as real life as Days of our lives...
On the post: Facebook Messed With The Emotions Of 689,003 Users... For Science
Re: Whatever!
This is not true. Most people obey what they view as fair, sensible laws, not making waves, fitting in, treating others how you want to be treated. There has been much study on this, especially where sentencing guildelines are being determined.
Examples of this are the steady ratcheting up of penalties for copyright infringement (piracy!). Many people do not view the extreme maximalist copyright position as reasonable. Therefore even with the escalation in penalties, copyright infringement is increasing.
And for other laws, say murder and so on, that most people generally agree with, often increasing penalties has little to no effect because most people just don't agree with committing murder, most people just don't do it. The sort of people who do commit murder, do believe it is a viable option, will commit the murder whether the penalty is 15 years, 30 years or even execution.
err, selfishness != evil. I think you are confusing self-interest, selfishness, with evil.
Selfishness is more along the lines of not being nice, kind, etc. Just because someone is a selfish b@st@rd doesn't make them evil.
Just because I don't want to share my toys doesn't mean I'm going to go and steal someone else's.
And the reminders to share toys and so on are reminders about being nice and kind to others. To make the environment more peaceful. To make it less stressful for the staff so they don't have upset kids throwing temper tanti's because they can't get their favourite toy. They are not about good and evil.
On the post: Security Researchers Expose New Gold Standard In Government/Law Enforcement Spyware
Re: What the hell do you mean it is legal
If it has not been declared illegal in a court of law then ipso facto it is legal.
Witness all the actions of the NSA that are defended as legal because no court of law has found those activities illegal. Of course, the Government is doing it's best song-and-dance act to prevent these activities from being brought before the courts, thus avoiding a finding of illegality.
On the post: Texas Deputy Displays Ignorance Of Laws He's 'Enforcing' While Trying To Shut Down A Citizen's Recording
Re: Re: Re: Re: How much training do the cops get?
On the post: Awesome Stuff: Crowdfunding To Get Money Out Of Politics... Now With Steve Wozniak!
Re: Re: I'm not really liking this
However, I am not aware of any large state that has ever had "real" democracy. Not even ancient Athens had real democracy, as they had limits on who could vote: No slaves, no women, etc.
Even our current nation-states do not have real democracy, US, UK, France, Germany, Australia, Canada, etc etc. None of them are Democracies, they are all Representative Democracies. The closest thing to a democracy in recent historic times is Switzerland.
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