probably (technically) no, for two or more reasons:
1) you agreed to it. somewhere in the 20 pages of 3pt fine print that came with your card was a statement that by use you allowed them to share information with "concerned partners" or perhaps "authorized third party representatives". Of course, its buried in legal talk so you're going to need a lawyer to figure out that they Might, Possibly be able to use that clause in such a way.
2) its not "Your" data. Perhaps the information is carefully anonymised, so all that anyone could tell is that you are a white male between 23 and 25 with income between X and Y, who lives in area code Z, and shops at stores alpha through gamma. See, no personal info at all! a totally perfect anonymous dataset that, once generated, is the property of the card company (or more likely one of those "authorized third party representatives") to be sold, resold, upsold and downsold and mysteriously have your name added to it.
the point is that the varied involved parties would much rather sue J. Doe then an actual person. What if alice shows up in court with a pack of lawyers?
much easier to file paperwork (paperwork based on laws that have no real understanding of electronic communication systems), wait a while, then skip straight to getting a court order to force Alice's service provider to do things.
"remove people, cars, or anything easily identified"
first, remove? as in perform massive-scale image editing to untold millions of images, on a much greater and more intrusive scale then blanking Lic# plates (which seems to be a matter of recognizing the shape of strings of numbers) and faces?
Next they will invent matter transmission and just beam people instantly through their computers to let you view the street first-hand.
Technical and usability hurdles aside ("what is this view of?" "I cant tell, its all blanked out cars, blanked out houses and blanked out road signs")bowing down to these mindless "save the children" mouthbreathers without a shred of law or, goodness help me, Reason just encourages them while doing nothing to make anyone safer, wiser or kinder.
and i think we all know that had Street View been launched by a homegrown swiss company (Blick auf die Strasse?), then these problems would automagically disappear.
"remove people, cars, or anything easily identified"
first, remove? as in perform massive-scale image editing to untold millions of images, on a much greater and more intrusive scale then blanking Lic# plates (which seems to be a matter of recognizing the shape of strings of numbers) and faces?
Next they will invent matter transmission and just beam people instantly through their computers to let you view the street first-hand.
Technical and usability hurdles aside ("what is this view of?" "I cant tell, its all blanked out cars, blanked out houses and blanked out road signs")bowing down to these mindless "save the children" mouthbreathers without a shred of law or, goodness help me, Reason just encourages them while doing nothing to make anyone safer, wiser or kinder.
and i think we all know that had Street View been launched by a homegrown swiss company (Blick auf die Strasse?), then these problems would automagically disappear.
You have to carefully consider who/what is being blamed here.
If I hack someone to bits with a hatchet, no-one cries foul on the hatchet manufacturers.
"How dare you let that person misuse a tool like that! Sure, I know they ignored the warning label, the warning sign, the warning safety-cap and the warning Wacky-Waving-Inflatable-Arm-Man, but I think we all know who was responsible here" : This message brought to you by the Anti-Hatchet/Pro-Chainsaw Alliance
you seem to be conflating different terms in your eager bid to send grandmothers to jail for buying medicine.
What happened in your case, it it happened at all, was corruption and abuse of power. Likely some bribery, etc. There is a world of difference between a dumb cop easily awed by a big name and a smart law enforcement officer who knows when it would be against the best interests of the public to follow the letter of the law.
do you think that simply dropping your name off will keep people from recognizing you?
More to the point, if you truly cant see the difference between actual theft of a design/patent and the over-written and overreaching patents that are the roots of the need for reform.. well, I am surprised you can string words together.
Or copy them off a website.
For an example of an overly broad patent, lets look at the one being challenged related to this article.
"A system of distributing video and/or audio information employs digital signal processing to achieve high rates of data compression. The compressed and encoded audio and/or video information is sent over standard telephone, cable or satellite broadcast channels to a receiver specified by a subscriber of the service, preferably in less than real time, for later playback and optional recording on standard audio and/or video tape"
The patent goes on to amend a dozen or more times, each time claiming another vague category, such as "Also to include digital transmission, and also to include transmission involving a computer"
There is no formula, no diagram or circuit. In truth, there is no system outlined in the patent at all, merely a claim against the IDEA of a system, broadly drawn out with a paint-roller to include any vaguely similar concept involving transmitting.. anything ever. This patent is held by a company that does not do any kind of business related to "distribution of video and/or audio" or any type of activity at all outside of sending legal notices.
Huzzah, Augmented Reality. Now i just need my rigger implants.
More.. i mean, Less to the point RJR, These guys are real inventors. that means that they are actually creating something and improving on it. See you back here later when a larger firm buys the tech (legally) and suddenly gets sued by someone owning an ancient patent on "System of displaying images".
Not because that person has anything to do with this development, but simply because they were waiting for a target with more money then a university.
boo bad lawsuits that could stifle innovation.
Hooray cyberpunk future!
really kid, get a horse and buggy and learn to drive for real.
really kid, get a stick and learn to hunt for real.
really kid, put down that brush and come learn to spit paint on the cave wall for real.
congrats, Flyfish, you managed to miss the point of Games And act condescending towards anyone who ever touched one.. at the same time! While entirely missing the point of the article as well.. golly.. well done. well done.
re: Elderly Classic Rock Musicians Don't Like Music Video Games
by Bugsy
re: Gotta agree with the musicians
by Gryffin
we get it, pops. really, we get it. You don't like these newfangled toys them dang kids have today, but try a little harder to know what you are waving your cane at.
Just like no-one assumes HALO will teach them how to be a cyber-enhanced super soldier in the future, no-one assumes Guitar hero or Rock Band or anything else will teach them how to play an instrument. They are timing and reflex games, for goodness sake, that happen to be put to music and use a fancy controller.
Playing Pac-Man didn't make an entire generation run around in dark hallways eating pills and hiding from ghosts, and Guitar Hero wont somehow convince that button-pounding is the same thing as playing a guitar. Of course, a large and growing number of people, after enjoying these "hollow" games, are going out, buying real instruments and really learning them.. what do you say to that?
Or the increase in classic rocker record sales after they are experienced through this new media, helping a new generation connect with the music that came before them.. I guess none of these creaking old billionaires really care about all that..
Say the check claims to be a direct cashiers check from First Bank Of Mumbai on third street or some other far away place. You deposit it and your bank, assuming that you want that money right away, makes the funds available to you (after all, you have never been this dumb before).
You send the check, more often a wire transfer or bank draft Back to them, or cash, goods, etc, back to mr scammer. All this time you bank has been sitting on this check, waiting to process it in bulk with all its other checks for overseas or that country. Tick tock, tick tock, still waiting. You sent the goods, made the transfer or whatever. Now, Finally, your bank gets around to sending some stuff around.. Oops, they got a message back that, not only does that account not exist, the Bank does not even exist.
Quicker to cover their mistake then take measures earlier, they snap all the money back out of your account. If you already did something with it.. well, too bad. Its all slurped back out, in theory to be returned once this little snafu is fixed.. but it wont be fixed, because..
The authorities (if there are any this week) in the "responsible" area don't really care about this, so any business complaints from your bank fall on deaf ears. If you manage to get the FBI involved.. well, the country still does not care (and the FBI wouldn't be that eager to try helping anyhow, because you are the hundredth shmuck this week to call them about this)
So now you are minus money or goods, And, fun enough, the bank will keep you on their records of trying to cash bad overseas checks, the kind of record that will linger.
The other ways this scam works are worse, of course. "oh i just need a couple of those numbers off the bottom of your check so i can wire the money to your bank account for that laptop" means "Give me your account information and my totally corrupted friend will use his bank (that exists only on paper) to register a transfer from your account to a few hundred fake accounts and then to me.. thanks. and while I'm at it, I'm going to take out a few dozen student loans, car applications and mortgages in your name with the other info you gave me.. plus, thanks for the new laptop"
Depending on the agreement between authors and the publisher, they may in fact not have the Right, as laid down in contract, to take that manuscript to anyone else for a certain time period or until certain conditions are met.
So in this case the authors could be trying to preserve their work with IP laws because other functions of law and contract make it difficult to find satisfaction in any other way.
Bill, too many of those "consumer groups" and farm groups, when you start poking at them, fall over and reveal that they are, in essence, subunits who take their cues directly from Connected Nation.
Think of it like a puppet master waving about marionettes who sing his praises, then citing his puppets as proof of how wonderful he is.
If, for example, you make your money by producing.. oooh.. custom artwork for a variety of things, would it be..
A) Better to have older work spread wide, with plenty of attribution so people know where to find more.. and Pay you for new things.
B) Better to keep every scrap of paper locked in a vault. After all, Everyone knows you, right? you don't need any kind of free publicity and advertisement.
but even the most devious hacker has no way to hijack an Internet and crash it into a building.
Air Traffic Groundstop =/= Internet Communications Stop
Utility infrastructure online?
Medical records without a thousand offline and onlined backups?
I would support bills to force utilities to keep their systems tight, and systems in place to force Them off the net when compromised, and accountability/backup requirement for medical records storage.
Any mythical superhackers with their supervirus would have compromised systems and planted timed packages long before their "Cyber 9/11 Scenario" went into effect, and a POTUS-initiated "Internet Shutdown" could only have the effect of slowing/stopping detection and reaction to threats.
Think of it like closing all roads to all traffic, even police and fire teams, AFTER the criminals have left. Or locking the gate after the horses have all been stolen. Its reactionary in the worst ways.
This is of course assuming that, even after chopping fiber hardlines with an axe or something, you could really kill all network connections between the US and anywhere else.
Crime, violent and otherwise, is falling in many countries and cities, and, gasp, they are managing to do so without recording every motion made by every single supposedly free citizen.
funny enough, i tend to agree with this to a degree.
The growing irrelevance of hourly work, if its happening, is happening in a comparatively small section of the workforce. This is the domain of management or upper levels in most firms, where the rest of us poor schmoes, if i may use the term, are down here at the bottom. We work to a clock because its not like i can count inventory or handle checkouts from home(waiting on surrogates)
If i was somehow getting calls and emails that involved my job while off-clock but was expected to handle them Now, i think i would be right up there.. well, not making the lawsuits, but at least checking on the outcome. So i would expect anyone who is getting Paid for a number of hours but is expected to Work beyond that to feel somewhat the same way.
if you want to own my life, you are going to have to work out a better contract for that in advance. and toss in a new work-paid super-ultra-data-computer-phone.
card processors are not in the business of screening people and imagining theoretical futures where they are responsible for the actions of others.
I would assume that the only liability, if any at All for a processing company is in making sure they have factual information and keep records on who they do business with to avoid fraud, and thats it.
If you allow this wooly-minded and backwards thinking, what will be next?
"Bed, Bath and So-on is responsible for this murder, because they sold a knife set that the killer received as a wedding present"
"Radio-Hovel should have known.. only a Terrorist would buy a pair of alligator clips and a pack of AA batteries. Officer, round up these clerks, they obviously knew exactly what the madman had planned all along"
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Re: Re: Re: "sells my individual purchasing history.." (as Tek'a R)
probably (technically) no, for two or more reasons:
1) you agreed to it. somewhere in the 20 pages of 3pt fine print that came with your card was a statement that by use you allowed them to share information with "concerned partners" or perhaps "authorized third party representatives". Of course, its buried in legal talk so you're going to need a lawyer to figure out that they Might, Possibly be able to use that clause in such a way.
2) its not "Your" data. Perhaps the information is carefully anonymised, so all that anyone could tell is that you are a white male between 23 and 25 with income between X and Y, who lives in area code Z, and shops at stores alpha through gamma. See, no personal info at all! a totally perfect anonymous dataset that, once generated, is the property of the card company (or more likely one of those "authorized third party representatives") to be sold, resold, upsold and downsold and mysteriously have your name added to it.
its a load of excrement.
Re: Re: (as Tek'a R)
the point is that the varied involved parties would much rather sue J. Doe then an actual person. What if alice shows up in court with a pack of lawyers?
much easier to file paperwork (paperwork based on laws that have no real understanding of electronic communication systems), wait a while, then skip straight to getting a court order to force Alice's service provider to do things.
Re: "i dont understand why.." (as Tek'a R)
"remove people, cars, or anything easily identified"
first, remove? as in perform massive-scale image editing to untold millions of images, on a much greater and more intrusive scale then blanking Lic# plates (which seems to be a matter of recognizing the shape of strings of numbers) and faces?
Next they will invent matter transmission and just beam people instantly through their computers to let you view the street first-hand.
Technical and usability hurdles aside ("what is this view of?" "I cant tell, its all blanked out cars, blanked out houses and blanked out road signs")bowing down to these mindless "save the children" mouthbreathers without a shred of law or, goodness help me, Reason just encourages them while doing nothing to make anyone safer, wiser or kinder.
and i think we all know that had Street View been launched by a homegrown swiss company (Blick auf die Strasse?), then these problems would automagically disappear.
Re: "i dont understand why.." (as Tek'a R)
"remove people, cars, or anything easily identified"
first, remove? as in perform massive-scale image editing to untold millions of images, on a much greater and more intrusive scale then blanking Lic# plates (which seems to be a matter of recognizing the shape of strings of numbers) and faces?
Next they will invent matter transmission and just beam people instantly through their computers to let you view the street first-hand.
Technical and usability hurdles aside ("what is this view of?" "I cant tell, its all blanked out cars, blanked out houses and blanked out road signs")bowing down to these mindless "save the children" mouthbreathers without a shred of law or, goodness help me, Reason just encourages them while doing nothing to make anyone safer, wiser or kinder.
and i think we all know that had Street View been launched by a homegrown swiss company (Blick auf die Strasse?), then these problems would automagically disappear.
Re: (as Tek'a R)
You have to carefully consider who/what is being blamed here.
If I hack someone to bits with a hatchet, no-one cries foul on the hatchet manufacturers.
"How dare you let that person misuse a tool like that! Sure, I know they ignored the warning label, the warning sign, the warning safety-cap and the warning Wacky-Waving-Inflatable-Arm-Man, but I think we all know who was responsible here" : This message brought to you by the Anti-Hatchet/Pro-Chainsaw Alliance
Re: No ads no content; No JS no content (as Tek'a R)
Then I wont stop by and interact with your product and/or service or create ad revenue.
Gee.. you sure showed me! Golly, too bad there isn't a billion other webpages out there ready to accept my interest and money.
Re: Re: Common Sense (as Tek'a R)
you seem to be conflating different terms in your eager bid to send grandmothers to jail for buying medicine.
What happened in your case, it it happened at all, was corruption and abuse of power. Likely some bribery, etc. There is a world of difference between a dumb cop easily awed by a big name and a smart law enforcement officer who knows when it would be against the best interests of the public to follow the letter of the law.
think before you make foolish statements, please.
Re: stop the shilling!!! (as Tek'a R)
oh Ronald, you silly man..
do you think that simply dropping your name off will keep people from recognizing you?
More to the point, if you truly cant see the difference between actual theft of a design/patent and the over-written and overreaching patents that are the roots of the need for reform.. well, I am surprised you can string words together.
Or copy them off a website.
For an example of an overly broad patent, lets look at the one being challenged related to this article.
"A system of distributing video and/or audio information employs digital signal processing to achieve high rates of data compression. The compressed and encoded audio and/or video information is sent over standard telephone, cable or satellite broadcast channels to a receiver specified by a subscriber of the service, preferably in less than real time, for later playback and optional recording on standard audio and/or video tape"
The patent goes on to amend a dozen or more times, each time claiming another vague category, such as "Also to include digital transmission, and also to include transmission involving a computer"
There is no formula, no diagram or circuit. In truth, there is no system outlined in the patent at all, merely a claim against the IDEA of a system, broadly drawn out with a paint-roller to include any vaguely similar concept involving transmitting.. anything ever. This patent is held by a company that does not do any kind of business related to "distribution of video and/or audio" or any type of activity at all outside of sending legal notices.
try harder, RJR
(as Tek'a R)
I especially love a line that sticks out of the snippet.
"People aren't fooled by false interaction.."
One hundred percent this.
(as Tek'a R)
Huzzah, Augmented Reality. Now i just need my rigger implants.
More.. i mean, Less to the point RJR, These guys are real inventors. that means that they are actually creating something and improving on it. See you back here later when a larger firm buys the tech (legally) and suddenly gets sued by someone owning an ancient patent on "System of displaying images".
Not because that person has anything to do with this development, but simply because they were waiting for a target with more money then a university.
boo bad lawsuits that could stifle innovation.
Hooray cyberpunk future!
Re: really kid (as Tek'a R)
really kid, get a horse and buggy and learn to drive for real.
really kid, get a stick and learn to hunt for real.
really kid, put down that brush and come learn to spit paint on the cave wall for real.
congrats, Flyfish, you managed to miss the point of Games And act condescending towards anyone who ever touched one.. at the same time! While entirely missing the point of the article as well.. golly.. well done. well done.
(as Tek'a R)
re: Elderly Classic Rock Musicians Don't Like Music Video Games
by Bugsy
re: Gotta agree with the musicians
by Gryffin
we get it, pops. really, we get it. You don't like these newfangled toys them dang kids have today, but try a little harder to know what you are waving your cane at.
Just like no-one assumes HALO will teach them how to be a cyber-enhanced super soldier in the future, no-one assumes Guitar hero or Rock Band or anything else will teach them how to play an instrument. They are timing and reflex games, for goodness sake, that happen to be put to music and use a fancy controller.
Playing Pac-Man didn't make an entire generation run around in dark hallways eating pills and hiding from ghosts, and Guitar Hero wont somehow convince that button-pounding is the same thing as playing a guitar. Of course, a large and growing number of people, after enjoying these "hollow" games, are going out, buying real instruments and really learning them.. what do you say to that?
Or the increase in classic rocker record sales after they are experienced through this new media, helping a new generation connect with the music that came before them.. I guess none of these creaking old billionaires really care about all that..
Re: (check scam) (as Tek'a R)
its even simpler, and more complex then that.
Say the check claims to be a direct cashiers check from First Bank Of Mumbai on third street or some other far away place. You deposit it and your bank, assuming that you want that money right away, makes the funds available to you (after all, you have never been this dumb before).
You send the check, more often a wire transfer or bank draft Back to them, or cash, goods, etc, back to mr scammer. All this time you bank has been sitting on this check, waiting to process it in bulk with all its other checks for overseas or that country. Tick tock, tick tock, still waiting. You sent the goods, made the transfer or whatever. Now, Finally, your bank gets around to sending some stuff around.. Oops, they got a message back that, not only does that account not exist, the Bank does not even exist.
Quicker to cover their mistake then take measures earlier, they snap all the money back out of your account. If you already did something with it.. well, too bad. Its all slurped back out, in theory to be returned once this little snafu is fixed.. but it wont be fixed, because..
The authorities (if there are any this week) in the "responsible" area don't really care about this, so any business complaints from your bank fall on deaf ears. If you manage to get the FBI involved.. well, the country still does not care (and the FBI wouldn't be that eager to try helping anyhow, because you are the hundredth shmuck this week to call them about this)
So now you are minus money or goods, And, fun enough, the bank will keep you on their records of trying to cash bad overseas checks, the kind of record that will linger.
The other ways this scam works are worse, of course. "oh i just need a couple of those numbers off the bottom of your check so i can wire the money to your bank account for that laptop" means "Give me your account information and my totally corrupted friend will use his bank (that exists only on paper) to register a transfer from your account to a few hundred fake accounts and then to me.. thanks. and while I'm at it, I'm going to take out a few dozen student loans, car applications and mortgages in your name with the other info you gave me.. plus, thanks for the new laptop"
Re: (*THEN* release the original) (as Tek'a R)
Depending on the agreement between authors and the publisher, they may in fact not have the Right, as laid down in contract, to take that manuscript to anyone else for a certain time period or until certain conditions are met.
So in this case the authors could be trying to preserve their work with IP laws because other functions of law and contract make it difficult to find satisfaction in any other way.
Re: Can someone explain to me.. (as Tek'a R)
Bill, too many of those "consumer groups" and farm groups, when you start poking at them, fall over and reveal that they are, in essence, subunits who take their cues directly from Connected Nation.
Think of it like a puppet master waving about marionettes who sing his praises, then citing his puppets as proof of how wonderful he is.
Re: "free isnt always the answer" (as Tek'a R)
Congratulations! you missed the point entirely.
If, for example, you make your money by producing.. oooh.. custom artwork for a variety of things, would it be..
A) Better to have older work spread wide, with plenty of attribution so people know where to find more.. and Pay you for new things.
B) Better to keep every scrap of paper locked in a vault. After all, Everyone knows you, right? you don't need any kind of free publicity and advertisement.
Think it over, anon.
Re: Ummm...The President already can shut down the Internet... (as Tek'a R)
but even the most devious hacker has no way to hijack an Internet and crash it into a building.
Air Traffic Groundstop =/= Internet Communications Stop
Utility infrastructure online?
Medical records without a thousand offline and onlined backups?
I would support bills to force utilities to keep their systems tight, and systems in place to force Them off the net when compromised, and accountability/backup requirement for medical records storage.
Any mythical superhackers with their supervirus would have compromised systems and planted timed packages long before their "Cyber 9/11 Scenario" went into effect, and a POTUS-initiated "Internet Shutdown" could only have the effect of slowing/stopping detection and reaction to threats.
Think of it like closing all roads to all traffic, even police and fire teams, AFTER the criminals have left. Or locking the gate after the horses have all been stolen. Its reactionary in the worst ways.
This is of course assuming that, even after chopping fiber hardlines with an axe or something, you could really kill all network connections between the US and anywhere else.
Re: Re: Question of efficacy or question of privacy? (as Tek'a R)
Crime, violent and otherwise, is falling in many countries and cities, and, gasp, they are managing to do so without recording every motion made by every single supposedly free citizen.
Re: tech industry assumptions. (as Tek'a R)
funny enough, i tend to agree with this to a degree.
The growing irrelevance of hourly work, if its happening, is happening in a comparatively small section of the workforce. This is the domain of management or upper levels in most firms, where the rest of us poor schmoes, if i may use the term, are down here at the bottom. We work to a clock because its not like i can count inventory or handle checkouts from home(waiting on surrogates)
If i was somehow getting calls and emails that involved my job while off-clock but was expected to handle them Now, i think i would be right up there.. well, not making the lawsuits, but at least checking on the outcome. So i would expect anyone who is getting Paid for a number of hours but is expected to Work beyond that to feel somewhat the same way.
if you want to own my life, you are going to have to work out a better contract for that in advance. and toss in a new work-paid super-ultra-data-computer-phone.
Re: Re: Re: (as Tek'a R)
card processors are not in the business of screening people and imagining theoretical futures where they are responsible for the actions of others.
I would assume that the only liability, if any at All for a processing company is in making sure they have factual information and keep records on who they do business with to avoid fraud, and thats it.
If you allow this wooly-minded and backwards thinking, what will be next?
"Bed, Bath and So-on is responsible for this murder, because they sold a knife set that the killer received as a wedding present"
"Radio-Hovel should have known.. only a Terrorist would buy a pair of alligator clips and a pack of AA batteries. Officer, round up these clerks, they obviously knew exactly what the madman had planned all along"