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Best Use of DMCA Yet: Aliens Sue USAF 68

Posted by Hemos from the rare-funny-gem dept.
A reader writes "BBspot, the most reliable source of news in the universe, is reporting that several aliens are suing the USAF over the reverse-engineering of their UFO technology."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Best Use of DMCA Yet: Aliens Sue USAF More

Best Use of DMCA Yet: Aliens Sue USAF

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  • AYBABTU (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ophia Vinogradov Sophia Vinogradov was born in Chicago, and has lived in Canada, Connecticut, New York, Michigan, and France. She actually started her medical studies at the Universite Louis Pasteur in Strasbourg, France and then returned to the United States, where she received her M.D. degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Since she has always enjoyed people and their life stories as much as she enjoys science (maybe even more!), psychiatry was a natural choice. Sophia completed her psychiatry residence at Stanford University School of Medicine, where she was Chief Resident. While at Stanford, she did a research fellowship in Biological Psychiatry. Sophia has worked as a psychiatrist in community mental health settings with children, adolescents, and adults; she has run in-patient and out-patient units in a non-profit medical center; and has been a section chief in a VA medical center. Currently, Sophia is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at a university on the West Coast. Currently, Sophia runs a clinical research laboratory, works with patients, and teaches medical students, residents, and fellows. She is married, has a 5-year-old daughter, and enjoys spending time with her family, gardening, reading novels, yoga, and Pilates training

  • Important question (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Did the aliens have a copy-prevention device that was circumvented?

    I think not!

  • important (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 08, 2001 @09:28AM (#307167)
    I have a very serious matter with which to take up the listening audience.

    The former Soviet Union collapsed in the Summer of 1991. It is well known that the Communist hard liners fled the country in search of safer soil. Many ended up in Finland, and took up residence in the universities.

    Anyone who knows the history of Linux also knows the Summer of '91 was when Linux first started working on his project.

    It would not have been much of a stretch for the Communist party members to start conversations with Linux. The Communists wanted to regain their control, and decided to win their war not on the streets, but through a long term disinformation campaign. They saw the forthcoming technological revolution as their wargrounds, and what better catalyst to world domination than through this medium.

    Perhaps seeing the great success US software companies such as IBM were having, they decided to apply their Communist ideals to this arena. The long term plan was to destroy the American economy through any means possible. What could be more Communist than giving away something for free for everybody, and something that everybody had worked on no less! Why is this not at the heart of Communist ideals? Everybody gets an equal share and contributes to the project! Since the computing industry was about to take off, why not give away something that runs on computers?

    Seeing promise in the young Linux Torvoldes, the Communist party recruited him and his software. The software was to be given away for free, and the entire "commun"ity of developers the world over (including the despised USA) would help with the project. Clearly after time, this software would rival anything put out by US corporations, and since technology was to be the leading sector of the economy, the entire US economic system would be thrown into a tailspin. In addition to this, the brainwashing of the US developers would persuade the USA's own government to take action against its great national treasures, the giant software companies (now is this sounding familiar?).

    The spawn of the Communist leaders would become the so called leaders of the open source movement. They were to carry on the ideals of their forefathers and bring the US to its knees by turning its own government against its corporations and trying to provide a better product for free.

    These ideas manifest themselves today in the GPL (Gorbachev's Public License), the GNU (Gorbachev's Not a Unich ) Project, amongst others.

    It isn't too late. America, upon realizing this sinister plot, can stop prosecuting its pride and joy and instead rejoice that the best software companies reside here. Also, with this plot exposed, it might finally be proven:

    ALL LINUX USERS ARE COMMUNISTS.

    Thank you for your time.

  • Region coding (Score:5)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 08, 2001 @09:37AM (#307168)
    They should have implemented a region code protection scheme, so that their technology is unuseable on earth. Tough luck.
  • I dont think any attempts at an ornithopter (flapping winged airplane) got very far. And as far as I know no birds use propellors or jet turbines so I think we are quite safe from being sued by birds. FOD is whole other problem though.....
  • I dont think any attempts at an ornithopter (flapping winged airplane) got very far. And as far as I know no birds use propellors or jet turbines so I think we are quite safe from being sued by birds. FOD is whole other problem though.....
  • WTF a double post? Doesn't slashdot have protection to prevent this happening?
  • Do thermonuclear booby traps count?

  • I wonder (Score:1)

    by jjr ( 6873 )
    If the air force will hire the EFF [eff.org] to help them with the case.
  • while Marlyn Monroe sits with the undead corpse of the late President Kennedy sipping tea with the aliens. The government quickly intervened taking them all back to Area 51.

    Maryln was quoted as saying "This tactics are wrong like Scientology or Cowboy Neal winning all those polls."

    The Church of Scientology then kicked the shit out of her and Cowboy Neal and the undead corpse of the late President Kennedy screaming something like "We kick ass for Hubbard!"

    Elvis, however, intervened taking them all out and quietly retiring back to travelling back to the backwoods and living in a trailer park.

    The Alien lawsuit is still pending.

  • > And where do you think he's gonna get a lawyer from?

    Well, I hear the guy downstairs has a pretty good reputation.

  • Re:important (Score:3)

    by Simon Brooke ( 45012 ) <stillyet@googlemail.com> on Monday April 09, 2001 @02:57AM (#307176) Homepage Journal
    Communism is where you must share what you have produced, with a gun to your head. If you refuse, you are thrown into jail or killed.

    It's amazing how ignorant Americans are about politics. The former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics never claimed to be a Communist state; it claimed to be a state which aspired to, and sought to work towards, Communism. The particular flavour of Communism which it sought to work towards was Marxist, but Marx didn't invent Communism as an idea; it had wide currency in his period (see e.g the Paris Commune [nwu.edu], and comtemporary papers by Anarchist theorist, Peter Kropotkin [pitzer.edu]).

    In Marx's time Communism was already over a thousand years old, and had been a feature of many of the heretical groups [online.no] of the middle ages, and of extreme factions during the English Civil War [britannica.com]

    So, in summary, 'Communism' does not mean the Soviet system; 'Communism' does not mean Marxism-Leninism; and 'Communism' does not mean having a gun held to your head.

    Is Open Source [opensource.org] a communist idea? Yes, I'm perfectly sure it is. But it is most certainly not a Soviet idea or a Marxist idea.

  • People in Babel attempted to build a tower to break into the labratory, the tower was destroyed and the people punished. Confusing Sodom and Gomorra with Babel, are we? The tower at babel was not destroyed. It was left uncompleted.

    God merly changed their languages so they would fail to complete the tower. This left people unable to understand each other. Later, they felt they wouldn't reach the sky right here and building the tower on another place would be easier. Unfortunatly they couln't agree where to build Tower of Babel 2 and so they separted into 4 groups each going into another direction (north, south, west and est)

    "Death is a motherfucker. Death is the end of this known existence."

  • Uh... +1 funny?... about as much as a goatse.cx link. Because if you look in the back of the picture.. oh yeah.. that's about a 100x100 pixel picture of dude's butt. Gross. Do not click.
  • I wonder if you could subpoena God?
  • As ESR put it...

    "I get very angry whenever somebody compares open source to communism!"

    Communism is where you must share what you have produced, with a gun to your head. If you refuse, you are thrown into jail or killed.

    With open source, you have the FREEDOM to share what you make with others, and the FREEDOM to use freely what others have decided to give away.

    Big difference, forced vs. voluntary sharing.
    -----
  • I said in a previous /. post [slashdot.org] that aliens used the DCMA to sue a government scientist for cracking their network protocols, but I was given a funny moderation. Now do you believe me?!?
  • Ever seen the voyager episode "Future's End [swd.net.au]"?

    If you have, you'll know what I mean. If you haven't -- go watch it now!

  • Beat me to it. (Score:4)

    by e-Motion ( 126926 ) on Sunday April 08, 2001 @10:05AM (#307183)

    Well, you beat me to it, but here's what I was going to write. I was writing this when you posted you comment.

    Recently, God himself has begun a DMCA-based lawsuit against practicers of genetic research.

    "I have been disturbed by the lack of respect for my intellectual property. I spent long hours working on an encryption scheme for my 'life' technology, and I wish that these 'hackers' would appreciate that. Instead, they have reverse-engineered my genetic source code, claiming that it was all in the name of 'science'. This is piracy, plain and simple."

    God owns several patents concerning this technology, including a method for autonomous reproduction of life forms and a process for imbuing free will into creatures.

    "Now, with this new 'DMCA' law, I can finally put an end to the reverse engineering that threatens to destroy my business. It's obvious that the old standby of 'sin and you go to hell' isn't as effective as it used to be. I'm hoping that this will keep people from stealing my work."

    "I thought that the last representative I sent to Earth made it perfectly clear that this sort of thing would not be tolerated. My next official will be expecting full compensation for any derivative works from my technology."

  • So, are the USAF/CIA/NSA etc. going to sue their Chinese equivalents under the DMCA for "borrowing" technology obtained from the spy plane?
  • "Since copyrights were for the life of the owner plus 50 years, the automatic protection of copyright for god would be in place"

    But you're forgetting, its been more than 50 years since Nitzeche (sp, surely?) declared God dead. Case dismissed.
  • Did the aliens have the technology patented in the US? On Earth? Is the USAF using the technology on the planet of the aliens?

    If the twain never meet, there is no juridiction for any court to find unlawful use. So there.

    DanH
    Cav Pilot's Reference Page [cavalrypilot.com]

  • Trade secret. (Score:5)

    by www.sorehands.com ( 142825 ) on Sunday April 08, 2001 @09:51AM (#307187) Homepage
    God did not have to register patents on the human genome. It was protected by trade secret.

    Adam was instructed not to access the secrets of the genome on the tree of life, he did and he was punished. People in Babel attempted to build a tower to break into the labratory, the tower was destroyed and the people punished.

    Since it took over 5000 years to for man to access the codes in the genome, access would be deemed as sufficently controlled under the DMCA.

    Since copyrights were for the life of the owner plus 50 years, the automatic protection of copyright for god would be in place. Even new version of the genome is copyrightable as a derivitive work of the earlier version.

    A note for trial strategy, if the case is appealled sufficiently, it ends up being tried before God.

  • but wouldn't He already be there?


    --
  • But, but...as Independence Day showed us, all aliens use Macs. There's no way we'll break MacOS encryption!
  • I'm pretty sure its National Enquirer, and you have to admit, Weekly World News is much more funny.
  • CRAP and I thought it was OK to call them EBEs. No wonder everytime I go up with them they stick stuff up my @$$!!!!!!! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!
  • Your a bolt! Your don;t even rise to the level of tool.

  • Re:Trade secret. (Score:3)

    by Dyolf Knip ( 165446 ) on Sunday April 08, 2001 @01:22PM (#307193) Homepage
    God did not have to register patents on the human genome. It was protected by trade secret.

    Err, trade secrets aren't 'protected' by anything. It's up to the holder to keep it a secret. You'll notice that Coca-Cola hasn't patented its recipe since once it expired they'd have no control over it.

    Since it took over 5000 years to for man to access the codes in the genome, access would be deemed as sufficently controlled under the DMCA

    Doesn't matter how sufficiently controlled it is. Just look at CSS. Effectively controlled? I think not, yet the MPAA is moving heaven and earth to keep it from being public. And even if that were the case, all Adam had to do was eat an piece of fruit and all was revealed to him.

    A note for trial strategy, if the case is appealled sufficiently, it ends up being tried before God

    Conflict of interest. He can't be both judge and plaintiff. And where do you think he's gonna get a lawyer from?

    --

  • IANAL, but since the dod is part of the federal government, doesn't it get sovereign immunity on this matter?

  • And in other news ... (Score:5)

    by John Jorsett ( 171560 ) on Sunday April 08, 2001 @09:33AM (#307195)
    God sues the U.S. Human Genome Project under the DMCA.
  • You are a very very sick person...

    ------
    C'mon, flame me!

  • And I wonder who'll win that one? :)
    Let's see... God has juristiction over the universe... but some athiest defence attorney may argue God's non-existance... but knowing our Judeo-Christian domiance in the USA, God will win ;)

  • Slashdot using disparaging terms (Score:4)

    by krystal_blade ( 188089 ) on Sunday April 08, 2001 @09:47AM (#307198)
    This just in from CNN...

    "The dot com Andover, owner of the website www.slashdot.org, is being sued by several entities of unkown origin. In their public announcement, which was peiced together over the SETI@home program, these entities stated the following...

    "We do not appreciate being called ALIENS. The misuse of this term has become apparent as of late, especially with our lawsuit over the United States of America, Planet Earth, Air Force. We prefer to be called ENTITIES OF OTHERWORLDLY ORIGIN, with no acronym of EOOO acceptable. EOOO is the name of another such entity, wich slashdot has foolishly called ALIENS."

    Also added were the following statements/threats

    "This Andover entity might do well to heed our demands, and to stop stereotyping us. Else we will be forced to unleash our 31337 H4X0R $KI11$ against them. That is all... Fist Prost, and goodbye."

    "Jon Katz was unavailable for comment at this time."

    krystal_blade

  • Still, nothing on BBSpot beats the Slashdot Story Generator [bbspot.com].

  • This is labelled "Informative"?! Damn, you people are more paraniod than I thought...
  • Kinda like the GPL?

    Sanchi
  • Seriously, this is one of the more obscure ones in a while. Just 'cause people here think DMCA sux doesn't necessarily mean that any old joke about it even makes sense... Oh well, I had a little chuckle anyway.
  • This is nothing. Just wait till the aliens come to blow us up after the RIAA pisses them off and sues them under the same statute. The talk that I've heard in the alien chat room was that the Napster persecution was "grexnor", and "furkel das RIAA".
  • Communism is where you must share what you have produced, with a gun to your head. If you refuse, you are thrown into jail or killed.

    Bullshit. Communism is the collective ownership of ressources and means of production, which are availiable to all. Transforming something that is free doesn't make it proprietary. So yes, you have to share what you produce, but not with a gun to your head. It's simply that you can't take what belongs to all and claim it solely yours. So it will be taken back if you try. But this doesn't prevent possession in all of it's meanings. For exemple, your clothing is yours to keep, the clothing manifacture is everyone's.

    A communism system has never existed, yet. Not in Rusia, not in Cuba or anywhere else. And a communist government is an oxymoron.

    Yes, OSS is what resembles the most to communism in this world. And that is a GOOD THING! It's why I like so much!

    My country is under siege [wtoaction.org]! Help [a20.org] us [sommetdespeuples.org] stop [indymedia.org] them [americascanada.org] !! It will affect you, as well.

  • Oh, and by the way, only in capitalism will you be thrown to jail for taking food to survive because "it doesn't belong to you" but to that big corporation that keeps exending and cunsuming all of the earth's resources untill there is no more for posterity.
  • Copyright is life plus 70 years now. And you can be sure that in twenty years, it will be life plus 90 years...
  • Well, mark it in the books. This is the first time I've ever fowarded a joke to Senator Orrin Hatch. I wonder if I'll get a reply....




    Viv
    -----------
  • Yes, but only because you said booby.
  • His 1997 conviction for hacker their ship control systems with a powerbook.


    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    ~~ the real world is much simpler ~~
  • This guy should write for slashdot! He reminds me of Katz. I was laughing my ass off reading this. Some people will go to any lengths when thinking of conspiracy theories.

    Oh, and you know what else? Linus' father helped VP Lyndon Johnson assasinate John F Kennedy. It was an attempt to highten the Vietnam war, so that many of our men would die and allow the Soviets to conquer us that much easier.

  • I'm very glad that most of you humans still do not actualy belive in us aliens it is making our takeover of earth much more easy. WW1 made people fear/hate everyone who wasn't like them. and WW2 made everyone else hate them, and now soon to come WW3 where everyone who hates everyone who hates everyone will kill almost everyone. Then we will have nice planet with alot of monkeys running around to enslave or zap with our 'Omega BFG 3'

  • Just thinking aloud....

    Reverse Engineering is illegal under the DMCA.

    In international law a air-plane is considered sovereign territory.

    US law applies onboard the electronic warfare plane being held in China.

    The Chinese military are reverse engineering the equipment.

    The Chinese military are therefore breaking the DMCA.

    Um, send in the Lawyers...

  • If we steal (or graciously recieve) any more of their MIG fighters and what not, and Russia sues, this could get interesting.
  • I am sure that all of you are well aware that the entire notion of sentient extraterrestrial life visiting earth is improbable to a very high degree.

    The notion of reverse engineered alien technology is laughable, of course,

    they put it under the Monty Python foot and all that.

    However, do remember that many people, geeks among them, feel that alien visitation is a credible excuse for much of the malicious government activity out there.

    This is misinformation, propaganda, a straw man that isn't scientifically supportable and that plays directly into the interests of the Air Force and other government agencies. These interests are the groups that divert much of the technological and scientific knowledge and energy on this earth to destructive and controlling means.

    It is in our interest to ignore the "aliens" and to engage those who run around proselytizing about them in debate

    .
  • Aliens : All your reverse engineering of alien technology are belong to us (under the DMCA).

    US Air Force : What you say!!

  • Now all we've got to do is get in a coupla' them and put 'em up against RIAA et al :-)

    *Now* that's what I call out of this world... oh yeah, known devil maybe better than unknown anegl, but hey! anybody's better than RIAA, MPAA, blah blah...

    "...Fear the people who fear your computer"
  • I don't know which part is funnier, that Linus became Linux or that free software will be the fall of capitalism.

    I'm not a communist, but I believe good things should be free (state funded):School, Healthcare, Software. Socialism 2.0!

    Hey really - what about that sweet Yahoo (YHOO) stock which runs BSD right? Or the rest of those dot com's (I hate that term) who are making a fortune while running 'free' software.

    When I bought Linux-Mandrake in the store people all over were getting paid.

    LINUX, THE PEOPLE'S OS.

    The OS is just a tool, Microsoft made it a Rip-Off.

    The author of the post is a tool.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • but then they couldn't take us over...

    -----

  • This suit is so bogus hopefully whatever judge in the Hague that get's it will throw the aliens lawyer in jail.
  • Well funny thing is that also a lot of inventions came from reverse engineering nature. in example example: birds -> airplanes So if birds would have "patented" their technology to fly in the intergelactig patent office, we weren't allowe to build airplanes :) For 20 pluto years :)
  • This isn't just off topic, it's off planet.
  • Now we know what OS They use to run the avionics of the Black Helicoptors [zapatopi.net]. ;)
  • ... but running stories like this every Sunday? Ick.
    "News for Geeks" does not mean "National Inquirer level humour."

  • hahahahahaha...bonk (man laughing head off)

  • and next on the list... (Score:4)

    by JiffyPop ( 318506 ) on Sunday April 08, 2001 @09:39AM (#307227)
    they should sue SETI@Home while they're at it for trying to break their encryption (of course i guess they would have to wait until it produced some result)
  • .. that 'rare funny gem' isn't a swipe at BBspot, which I personally think is one of the funnier sites in the linux/whatever corner of the net. They're quite good at the Onionesque style fake news reporting, and they seem to have a good sense of what's actually funny, unlike (IMO, no flames) sites like segfault.

  • Re:And in other news ... (Score:3)

    by Space Coyote ( 413320 ) on Sunday April 08, 2001 @09:34AM (#307229) Homepage
    Although I'll bet Celera sues God, since he forgot to register the patents before they did :)
  • What model powerbook was it? Probably the NSA "special" model, reverse enginered of couse
  • hey how about my PDC gets with your BDC and does some replicating?
  • Ahh, damn. Thanks for the hint.

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