David Gerard - Slashdot User

Submission + - Internet user may get 3-yr in jail for viewing torrent site/blocked URL in India (intoday.in)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21, 2016 @05:31AM

Submission + - The Big Driver of Mass Incarceration That Nobody Talks About (the-american-interest.com) 1

Submitted by schwit1 on Saturday August 20, 2016 @10:56PM

schwit1 writes: If you follow media coverage of America’s mass incarceration problem, you are likely to hear a lot about unscrupulous police officers, mandatory minimums, and drug laws. But you are unlikely to hear these two words that have probably played a larger role in producing the excesses of the American criminal justice system than anything else: plea coercion.

The number of criminal cases that actually go to trial in America is steadily dwindling. That’s because prosecutors have so much leverage during plea bargaining that most defendants take an offer—in particular, defendants who are held on bail, and who might need to wait in jail for months or even years before standing trial and facing an uncertain outcome.

We reported last week on a study from Columbia showing that all things being equal, defendants in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia who were made to pay bail are much more likely to plead guilty. Since then, a separate study from researchers at Harvard, Princeton and Stanford has come out that reaches a similar conclusion. . . .

Of course, bail remains a vital tool for judges, and some defendants are too dangerous to be let out before their trial, period. But there are ways we might be able to reform the pre-trial detention system so as to reduce the number of defendants who simply resign themselves to a guilty plea out of desperation since they can’t come up with the money to buy their temporary freedom. For example, the average amount of money bail assessed should be reduced (it has risen exponentially over the last several decades) and courts should experiment with ankle bracelets and home visits to monitor defendants rather than holding them in a jail cell before they have been convicted of a crime.

The focus on policing and minimum sentences and drug laws in the public discourse is all well and good. But if they are serious about making our justice system more fair and less arbitrary, criminal justice reformers should devote more of their efforts to reforming what happens in the period after arrest and before sentencing. That’s an area where big progress can be made with relatively straightforward, and politically palatable reforms.

Submission + - New Linux Trojan Is All-Around Threat: DDoS Tool, Bitcoin Miner, Web Ransomware (softpedia.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20, 2016 @03:27PM

Submission + - Is KDE Dying? 2

Submitted by fwells on Saturday August 20, 2016 @03:14PM

fwells writes: I have to confess that I've been a loyal KDE user and fan from day one. I've always felt that it was the more complete and integrated of the many Linux desktop environments and generally the most familiar to the broader user base. Thus having the most potential to win over new Linux converts. For whatever reason, that clearly hasn't happened. Nonetheless, lately I'm really starting to feel that KDE has become rather stale and stagnant. While the underling KDE technologies may (?or may not?) be advancing, as a user I just don't feel it the way I once did.

KDE-Look.org, once a fairly vibrant and active contributory site, has become a virtual ghost town. Perhaps the same might be said for its GNOME-look.org counterpart, which I honestly don't know since, as a KDE user, I rarely have the need visit GNOME anything. Perhaps that will change.

Various core KDE components and features are quite broken and have been so for some time. One simple and frustrating example is Recent Items (aka Application Launcher History), which works only on occasion with no clear rhyme or reason as to why. KDEPIM/KMail frankly seems targeted specifically at the poweruser, maintaining over many years its rather plain and arguably retro interface. The Konqueror web browser has been a virtual carcus for several years, yet it mysteriously remains an integral component. I honestly wonder if even a single KDE user uses it over any of the other popular browsers. The KDE theming engine seems disjoint and rather non-intuitive. The default Application Launcher and Task Manager widgets are also starting to feel quite old and stale as well.

Now, having said all that, I confess that I continue to use KDE exclusively and have no major functional issues with it. It does serve my needs from a practical perspective. But I can't help but feel like I do when I'm cruising accross town in my 12 year old Chevy truck, feature rich for its time, which I keep for similarly practical reasons. Solid and reliable, but definitely starting to fade and certainly lacking some modern creature comforts.

I do recognize that Desktop development has largely been sidelined by the more sexy and lucrative mobile platform development. However, the Desktop is certainly here to stay for the foreseeable future and users really are paying attention to its evolution — as seemingly evidenced by the gleeful adoption of Windows 10, which arguably has quite an impressively polished user interface (finally). And I say that as a religiously staunch and loyal opponent to virtualy anything coming out of Redmond (rationality notwithstanding).

I've thought for many years that what the Linux desktop (and for that matter open source in general) fundamentally lacks is basic curb appeal. Developers must be willing to accept that the larger user community actually does prefer form over function and then develop accordingly. We're drawn to what looks and smells good. Substance is secondary as unfortunate as that may seem. Ignoring this, however technically principled, I feel has innevitably led to the questionable demise I'm rasing here.

So, back to my opening question... Is KDE Dying? Has innovation and development evaporated in a development world dominated by the mobile device? And, if so, can it be reinvogorated? Will the pendulum ever swing back? Can it? Should it?

Submission + - Recording Industry: Copyright Terms At Life+50, instead of Life+70 is too costly (techdirt.com)

Submitted by schwit1 on Saturday August 20, 2016 @02:46PM

schwit1 writes: Okay. I've heard lots of crazy arguments from the record labels, but I may have found the craziest. We've discussed how ridiculous it is that the TPP includes a provision saying that every country that signs on must make sure the minimum copyright term is life plus 70 years. This will impact many of the countries that negotiated the agreement, which currently have terms set at life plus 50. This was a key point that the recording industry and Hollywood fought hard for. When even the Copyright Office recognizes that life plus 70 is too long in many cases, the legacy industries recognized that getting copyright term extension through Congress in the US might be difficult — so why not lock stuff in via international agreements?

And, of course, the USTR was fine with this, because the USTR goes along with basically everything that Hollywood asks for. But here's the crazy part: having gotten such a ridiculous thing, the recording industry is whining about its own victory. As Kimberlee Weatherall points out, the recording industry in New Zealand is bitching about the fact that the change doesn't go into effect immediately because it's "too costly" for copyright holders.

That's because the TPP has a "phase-in period" that allows countries to adjust and gradually move copyright terms upwards. But the record labels are having none of that:
Meeting before a parliamentary committee this week, Recorded Music chief executive Damian Vaughan said his advocacy group supports an article in the TPP deal that standardizes the terms of protection of a work to the life of an author plus 70 years. (New Zealand is one of several participating nations that currently has a term of 50 years after death.) However, Vaughan thinks a proposed phase-in period for nations upgrading to 70 years is unnecessary and a costly burden for rights holders.

"It's not making copyright simple or easy to understand to the music user or the public whatsoever," he said, according to RadioNZ. "It is making the process significantly more complicated, and it's the rights organizations and the copyright holders who will be forced to administer this We note the cost we incur will be far higher than any perceived cost savings."