Re: The trend toward "signing away rights"
On Tuesday, December 10, 2002, at 07:03 AM, Trei, Peter wrote:
Reality precedes fiction. Around Boston I sometimes see
cars with an odd little sticker in the back window, white, round,
with a stylized blue car in the top half (it can also be read as
the face of someone wearing a fedora, peering out from under the
brim).
If you put one of these stickers on your car, you are giving the
police permission to pull the car over without probable cause if
they find it on the road late at night (1am-5am, or something like
that), just to check that all is in order.
I think it's being promoted as an anti-theft tool.
This figures, that Boston is involved, as "The Practice" is set in
Boston. The writers try to use local news to shape the stories they
tell, as with the "ripped from the headlines" themes of other programs.
And this really does raise some interesting issues which need
exploration, here as well as on t.v.
For example, to a kind of pure libertarian, signing away rights is
permissible. Employees at corporations do it every day, and always
have. Many libertarians would even support selling oneself into slavery
(perhaps to pay for some operation or to provide for one's children.)
And indentured servitude is easy to support.
Signing away rights is also common in certain residential communities,
where the local rules ("CC&Rs") may restrict all sort of activities.
However, when it is government one signs rights away to, and when there
are issues of what happens to those who DON'T have the "Mr. Policeman
is Your Friend!" sticker on their cars, the issues are no longer about
voluntarism.
Vernor Vinge could probably write some good stories around these themes.
--Tim May
Re: Photographer Arrested For Taking Pictures Of Vice President'S Hotel
On Tuesday, December 10, 2002, at 01:37 AM, Lucky Green wrote: James A. Donald wrote: In general wars lead to a major temporary reduction in liberty, but a smaller permanent reduction in liberty. Unfortunately the war on terror will probably never end, so there will be no recovery. I heard some governmental official on the radio the other day (I paid attention too late to catch the name) (Sidebar: I often wish for TIVO radio. I use my personal video recorder (PVR) features extensively to rewind through a story, to see what I came in late on, to catch a name. Great invention. Until Jack Valenti and his crowd have it declared a hacker tool, my Ultimate TV PVR is my favorite tool. I often find myself mentally thinking "hit the backup button.") that the War on Terrorism should be won in about 60 years, at which point the American citizens would see their civil liberties returned. Obviously, only traitors, agitators, and other enemy combatants would make the outrageous claim that this war will likely last perpetually. I would never say such a treasonous thing. As a liberal chick here in Santa Cruz once said at a public meeting, "The Constitution says people can have incorrect thoughts, but it doesn't say they can express them out loud if it's hate speech." Besides, I don't have any desire to visit Camp X-Ray. I have always loved Big Brother! --Tim May "To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists." --John Ashcroft, U.S. Attorney General
Re: The trend toward "signing away rights"
At 08:24 PM 12/9/2002 -0800, Tim May wrote: Last night had a plot device on "The Practice" (a generally bad show...I ought to stop watching) where nearly all residents in an upscale burbclave had signed a pledge--reminiscent of my opening point--where owners of cars would invite the police to stop their cars and search them without a warrant of any kind, without even today's lax probable cause. Obedient citizen-units would place a bumper sticker on their vehicles giving up their Fourth Amendment expectations of being secure in their papers and possessions. I had a somewhat heated discussion with an HR person at a former company. She was explaining the federal laws regarding harassment. I found at least one aspect untenable: jokes. As I understand the current laws, its actionable for "offending" jokes to be made on the workplace premises or other places where company business is being conducted. The regulations made it incumbent that the teller determine prior to the joke whether any within earshot might potentially be offended. Sine this might be problematic, given the difficulty of gauging a priori any particular person's sensitivities, the HR person said to be safe, no jokes with sexual, racial, etc. content should be told. (I knew of one incident at this company where an employee was given a stern warning and pressured to offer up a formal apology, for what seemed to me to be a rather innocuous comment.) Anyway, I offered what seemed to me to be a good "libertarian" solution: an opt-in humor group. Employees who had preferences regarding particular humor could display a color coded "Joker's Club" badge. Tellers could now quickly glance around and know if an intended utterance would offend. The HR person became almost uncontrollable incensed, saying such an approach could stigmatize those who decided not to display a badge and was therefore discriminatory and illegal. Sheesh! If I ever start a US-based company, it will definitely include a Joker's Club. steve
Re: [2600.com] Update On The Mike Maginnis Story
eJazeera, Baby! That guy should have had a tiny laptop or something that could wisk those images off the moment an 802.l1 port was detected. (Actually, it should wisk off a copy of the photos EVERY time an 802.11 port is detected!) In addition, wouldn't it be great if he had actually had a digital camera that had the capability to auto-upload the images when sensing a WiFi link? (And since I'm wishing, perhaps it could take photographs automatically when handled...) This could result in the ironic possibility that the authorities themselves might (inadvertantly) cause the uploads, perhaps even with photos of their faces staring into the (live) camera they are examining. From: Myers Carpenter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: cypherpunks <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [2600.com] Update On The Mike Maginnis Story Date: 10 Dec 2002 11:35:30 -0500 [ the radio interview with this guy can be found here: http://www.2600.com/offthehook/rafiles/2002/120402.mp3 ] http://www.2600.com/news/display/display.shtml?id=1455 UPDATE ON THE MIKE MAGINNIS STORY Posted 10 Dec 2002 08:15:20 UTC 2600 has received a tremendous amount of correspondence regarding the December 4th edition of "Off The Hook," and the news article that followed, in which Mike Maginnis told his story of harassment by the Secret Service. Although many readers find Maginnis's story highly believable, others have criticized the article due to a lack of corroborating evidence. It is true that Maginnis was given no paperwork in relation to his ordeal, and so far no one has come forward as a witness to Maginnis's arrest across from the Adams Mark Hotel in Denver. Quite a number of people have written in with similar stories of harassment for taking pictures of everything from trains to motorcades to public buildings. Others have expressed a degree of skepticism, some even accusing us of all kinds of things from being anti-American to engaging in shoddy journalism. As much as we disagree and find offense in such statements, we actually understand much of the feeling behind such anger. We believe this outrage is a not-so-distant relative of the outrage that we feel when we report on stories like the Maginnis case. In this instance, those who chose not to believe the story aimed their anger at us for saying something they found offensive. And that's something we can agree with - it WAS offensive. The difference is that we also believe it was real. We think it's right to be skeptical when reading any news account and that we should be treated no differently. We'd like to think that every story reported on in the mainstream media is questioned thoroughly, although we all know this is rarely the case. In the end, whether it's 2600 or Time, the decision on whether there is truth in a report lies with the reader. This story has been frustrating for us because - like those who have sent us mail - we want there to be a smoking gun, some way of proving beyond any reasonable doubt that the events told to us by Mike Maginnis were completely accurate. As is often the case in a story of injustice, particularly when that injustice involves law enforcement, we're often left with a solitary voice calling attention to it. When that happens, we're faced with a difficult decision - do we not devote any attention at all to what happened because there wasn't a crowd of witnesses? Or do we give the person an opportunity to be heard and base our conclusions on what they say and how they respond to questions, along with some rudimentary fact checking? In this instance, we chose the latter and we have no regrets at all for doing so. We believe the story is accurate for a number of reasons. * First off, very little can be gained from making such accusations against law enforcement in the town where you live. It's almost literally like painting a big target on your back. And we all know what happens when you piss off the Secret Service. It's unlikely someone would put themselves in this position unless they were either completely insane or telling the truth. At the very least, Maginnis stands to be ridiculed for claiming to be detained by police when they deny ever having had him in custody. * We were unable to find any holes or inconsistencies in the story as Maginnis told it when interviewed on our radio program. Not one person who has written in has been able to either. In his firsthand account of his experience, Maginnis comes across as highly credible. We encourage all readers to listen to the December 4th edition of "Off The Hook," and make a personal judgment as to his credibility. Maginnis was also completely up front about previously getting into trouble for trespassing. That admission alone could risk his being labeled as a troublemaker who deserved what he got. But if he wasn't telling the truth about what happened last week, why make that admission in the first place? * Maginnis has intentionally not spoken to other news media. If he was serious
Re: The trend toward "signing away rights"
> If you put one of these stickers on your car, you are giving the > police permission to pull the car over without probable cause if > they find it on the road late at night (1am-5am, or something like > that), just to check that all is in order. > > I think it's being promoted as an anti-theft tool. I once bought an old black Ford LTD that already had one of these stickers on it. And driving the thing to/from graduate school in Harlem for several years, I had never been stopped once. (Though the drug dealers over on East 143rd Street would scatter when I drove down the block.) _ The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail
Re: Supreme Court Refuses to Intervene in Money Laundering Disput e. Also Moving on (fwd)
On Tue, Dec 10, 2002 at 10:04:09AM -0500, Trei, Peter wrote: > > Jim Choate[SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] wrote: > > > > On Mon, 9 Dec 2002, Harmon Seaver wrote: > > > > >These ap.tbo.com links don't work. I get ap.tbo.com can't be found. I > > > mentioned this a few days ago. I can do a whois on tbo.com alright, but > > a lookup > > > on ap.tbo.com says non-existant host/domain > > > > They work fine for me at every site (machines at three different domains) > > I tested. Which seems rather obvious since I'm finding them to forward > > them. > > > > Whatever the resolution problem is, it's on your end or some > > betwix the two. Sorry you're having the problem but there is nothing I can > > do about it. Perhaps you should talk to your nameserver operator(s). > > > Just another data point: They work fine for me as well. > > Peter Trei And it works okay here now too. Don't know why their DNS wasn't getting propagated everywhere, although I used to see that a bit with USWest up in MN. Maybe I'll change nameservers -- gave up on ameritech's quite awhile ago. Ameritech, BTW, is a seriously bad ISP. Their mail servers and dns servers are down an awful lot, and apparantly now they frown on dsl users setting up their own smtp servers -- I can no longer mail to other ameritech accounts, it gets rejected with a "Use your local ameritech mail server" message. PITA -- Harmon Seaver CyberShamanix http://www.cybershamanix.com
RE: The trend toward "signing away rights"
> Tim May[SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] wrote [...] > Last night had a plot device on "The Practice" (a generally bad > show...I ought to stop watching) where nearly all residents in an > upscale burbclave had signed a pledge--reminiscent of my opening > point--where owners of cars would invite the police to stop their cars > and search them without a warrant of any kind, without even today's lax > probable cause. Obedient citizen-units would place a bumper sticker on > their vehicles giving up their Fourth Amendment expectations of being > secure in their papers and possessions. Those who didn't have the > bumper sticker, well, there are a _lot_ of cops out there with nothing > better to do between donut breaks than to stop cars without stickers > for "suspicious reasons." > > (I wonder what would happen if a bumper sticker said "I support the > Fourth Amendment. Just in case you don't, I have a gun.") > Reality precedes fiction. Around Boston I sometimes see cars with an odd little sticker in the back window, white, round, with a stylized blue car in the top half (it can also be read as the face of someone wearing a fedora, peering out from under the brim). If you put one of these stickers on your car, you are giving the police permission to pull the car over without probable cause if they find it on the road late at night (1am-5am, or something like that), just to check that all is in order. I think it's being promoted as an anti-theft tool. I prefer the "This car protected by Smith & Wesson" stickers. "They that give up essential liberties to obtain temporary safety will soon have neither libery or safety." Peter Trei
Re: The trend toward "signing away rights"
> Trei, Peter" wrote: > > If you put one of these stickers on your car, you are giving the > police permission to pull the car over without probable cause if > they find it on the road late at night (1am-5am, or something like > that), just to check that all is in order. > > I think it's being promoted as an anti-theft tool. This is parents using the police to control their own children.
RE: CDR: Re: ...(one of them about Completeness)
Title: RE: CDR: Re: ...(one of them about Completeness) > Mathametics is incomplete,other wise we would have > known every thing about every thing. From our Popping in without the relevant background, I'm afraid, but I'll give my view on this long lasting thread anyway: Mathematics do not have to be incomplete for this reason (note that I only say for this reason). Mathematics are only rules applying on a set of facts (and, arguably, the facts themselves). I would argue that your point would rather imply that other things (eg physics, chemistry) are incomplete. -- Vincent Penquerc'h
RE: Supreme Court Refuses to Intervene in Money Laundering Dispute. Also Moving on (fwd)
> Jim Choate[SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] wrote: > > On Mon, 9 Dec 2002, Harmon Seaver wrote: > > >These ap.tbo.com links don't work. I get ap.tbo.com can't be found. I > > mentioned this a few days ago. I can do a whois on tbo.com alright, but > a lookup > > on ap.tbo.com says non-existant host/domain > > They work fine for me at every site (machines at three different domains) > I tested. Which seems rather obvious since I'm finding them to forward > them. > > Whatever the resolution problem is, it's on your end or some > betwix the two. Sorry you're having the problem but there is nothing I can > do about it. Perhaps you should talk to your nameserver operator(s). > Just another data point: They work fine for me as well. Peter Trei
Re: Money is about expected future value....nothing more, nothing less
From: "Tim May" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Isn't this what I said? Yes, I agreed with you with regard to the law as it is in the UK. I corrected my mistake. Mark
RE: Photographer Arrested For Taking Pictures Of Vice President'S Hotel
James A. Donald wrote: > In general wars lead to a major temporary reduction in liberty, > but a smaller permanent reduction in liberty. Unfortunately > the war on terror will probably never end, so there will be no > recovery. I heard some governmental official on the radio the other day (I paid attention too late to catch the name) that the War on Terrorism should be won in about 60 years, at which point the American citizens would see their civil liberties returned. Obviously, only traitors, agitators, and other enemy combatants would make the outrageous claim that this war will likely last perpetually. --Lucky
RE: Money is about expected future value....nothing more, nothi ng less
> Yep. If I owe you 100 quid, and I give you that value of English bank > notes, and you sue me in an English court saying I haven't paid, you > will lose. Which is fair enough - it is the state's court so > why should > they help you if you don't like the state's money? > > If I offer you 100 pounds worth of cowrie shells, then they > might take a > different view. It all boils down to the ease that you can then trade afterwards with what you've been given as money, and to a lesser extent the ease of keeping it. Ease of trading includes both the amount of people likely to accept it in turn as payment, and the "value" that they will agree to put on the money you give. "Legal" money is good on both: people accept it, and they don't bicker over its value to gain a cent on a dollar. -- Vincent Penquerc'h
The trend toward "signing away rights"
I'm watching a New York television news show reporting on one of the recent cases where people sign away their rights. This is about requests sent out by schools that parents of students sign a pledge that alcohol, loud parties, and late night activities will not be permitted at their homes and that schools and local police will be permitted to inspect the houses without warrants for violations. The news report says that most parents have signed the pledge. So, what of parents who don't? What of parents who send back the note with a "FUCK YOU!" message? Probable cause? The kid faces hassles in the state-run school? (Voluntarism is not the issue, as there is no voluntariness involved when a state-financed, state-run school, working with the police, sends out such notices.) For several weeks I have seen television shows--usually on the NBC fascist network, but sometimes on ABC--where it is assumed that "9/11 changed everything," that the Fourth Amendment no longer applies, that the 5th and 6th Amendments no longer are what they were. (The First is not mentioned, I expect because even television liberal whores know this is important to them. The Second is treated as having been defunct since Colonial times, with only criminals having guns.) Last night had a plot device on "The Practice" (a generally bad show...I ought to stop watching) where nearly all residents in an upscale burbclave had signed a pledge--reminiscent of my opening point--where owners of cars would invite the police to stop their cars and search them without a warrant of any kind, without even today's lax probable cause. Obedient citizen-units would place a bumper sticker on their vehicles giving up their Fourth Amendment expectations of being secure in their papers and possessions. Those who didn't have the bumper sticker, well, there are a _lot_ of cops out there with nothing better to do between donut breaks than to stop cars without stickers for "suspicious reasons." (I wonder what would happen if a bumper sticker said "I support the Fourth Amendment. Just in case you don't, I have a gun.") --Tim May "They played all kinds of games, kept the House in session all night, and it was a very complicated bill. Maybe a handful of staffers actually read it, but the bill definitely was not available to members before the vote." --Rep. Ron Paul, TX, on how few Congresscritters saw the USA-PATRIOT Bill before voting overwhelmingly to impose a police state
Re: CDR: Re: ...(one of them about Completeness)
hi, > > > Jim Choate says: > > > > > Godel's does -not- say mathematics is > incomplete, it says we can't prove > > > completeness -within- mathematics proper. To do > so requires a > > > meta-mathematics of some sort. Mathametics is incomplete,other wise we would have known every thing about every thing. From our observation and experience we know that we don't know every thing about every thing.Mathametics always has to be incomplete. Showing that a set of mathametics as complete does not mean that the whole of math is complete. Regards Sarath. __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com
Re: Digital Bearer Settlements Wiki
At 10:29 PM 12/9/2002 -0500, R. A. Hettinga wrote: At 4:52 PM -0800 on 12/9/02, Steve Schear wrote: > Haven't seen this discussed here. Meaning there is one, or you want to start one? Sorry I wasn't more clear. I meant I haven't seen this site discussed before. steve
Re: The trend toward "signing away rights"
> I'm watching a New York television news show reporting on one of the > recent cases where people sign away their rights. This is about > requests sent out by schools that parents of students sign a pledge > that alcohol, loud parties, and late night activities will not be > permitted at their homes and that schools and local police will be > permitted to inspect the houses without warrants for violations. The > news report says that most parents have signed the pledge. So, what of Sooner or later you'll figure out that there are no "rights" without appropriate defenses. You only own what you can defend. If you are dumb enough to believe that some document is your defense, you are in for a surprise. Compare this to issuing cat-repellant charms to mice. Call them "constitutions". See mouse walking bravely. See cat feed. On the other hand, observe a mouse with a .50 catgun. = end (of original message) Y-a*h*o-o (yes, they scan for this) spam follows: Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com
Re: Supreme Court Refuses to Intervene in Money Laundering Dispute. Also Moving on (fwd)
Jim; These ap.tbo.com links don't work. I get ap.tbo.com can't be found. I mentioned this a few days ago. I can do a whois on tbo.com alright, but a lookup on ap.tbo.com says non-existant host/domain On Mon, Dec 09, 2002 at 08:04:57PM -0600, Jim Choate wrote: > http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGALT3CKI9D.html > > > -- > > > We don't see things as they are, [EMAIL PROTECTED] > we see them as we are. www.ssz.com > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Anais Nin www.open-forge.org > > -- Harmon Seaver CyberShamanix http://www.cybershamanix.com
Re: Photographer Arrested For Taking Pictures Of Vice President'S Hotel
On Mon, 9 Dec 2002, Anonymous wrote: > > It already has. And the hell with the horses -- tie the other end of the rope > to a fast car. That would give a new meaning to "drawn and quartered". There's a lot of bureaucrats who need that performed on them. Patience, persistence, truth, Dr. mike
Re: Akamai
At 08:52 AM 12/09/2002 -0600, Harmon Seaver wrote: Anyone know anything about Akamai (www.akamai.com, also akamaitechnologies.com)? I was getting about a zillion hits on my web server from them this morning. They seem to offer services to gov't agencies according to their website. Akamai's been introducing new business models lately, so perhaps there's something else going on, but Akamai's basic business model is that they've got about 10,000 caching servers spread around the net and they sell caching service to web content providers. The basic trick is that the content provider replaces their regular web pages with pages on Akamai servers, and Akamai uses various DNS and routing tricks to point you to the nearest Akamai server, so instead of getting a picture from CNN.com's server in Atlanta on their ISP, you're getting it from an Akamai server near you that's either on your ISP or one of their upstreams. This means that there's typically 30-60ms less propagation delay, depending on where you and the content provider are, plus the server capacity scales very well, so instead of CNN.com needing a huge server which gets overloaded when there's an interesting event, Akamai has 10,000 smaller servers which are sharing loads between their customers, who probably aren't all bursting at once. There are a lot of variations on this - the content provider can cache their front page, or just cache the pictures and articles, and methods for handling dynamic content and banner ads vary. There are also competing providers, including (insert disclaimers here) AT&T, Speedera, and whatever's left of Digital Island. They've got different balances between how many servers they have, how big they are, and how they find the closest one, plus what continents they're on. Some of the companies also provide servers for corporate intranets as well as the public internet. The original pricing models were pretty simple - either you pay by the peak data rate, or you pay by the total gigabytes delivered (which is more typical for software distribution such as anti-virus updates.) None of this explains why they're hitting *your* web site. Perhaps you've been mentioned in a news story on CNN.com and their caching servers are sucking in your content? Perhaps they're doing some kind of search engine, either for their own use or OEMed to a better-known search engine company? The only government stuff I saw on their website was that they've sold some service to the USGS (distributing earthquake maps, which have a really immense demand right after a quake and a low demand otherwise) and that they've got a GSA Schedule contract, so government web sites can use their caching and consultants. There's some hype about continuity of e-government after disasters and cyberterorista DDOS attacks, but that's just saying that if your agency hosts with them instead of doing it yourselves, it's much more resilient to single-point failures, plus a DDOS attack by 10,000 zombies causes a lot less damage to a system of 10,000 servers than to a single server.
