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Comment Re:Everevolving technologies? (Score 3, Insightful) 122

There really should be no expectation of privacy in e-mail.

Who are you to decide that? Like I said in a post on a similar topic:

"...the canonical user interface icon for e-mail is... a sealed envelope. Even ISPs will present their e-mail services with such an image.

In other words, the snagging point is the definition of "expectation of privacy" -- but the situation is really quite simple: The average user simply expects privacy, but the government is trying to force them to abandon that expectation, so they can then go and install ubiquitous e-mail surveillance without violating the letter of the US Constitution. The government is trying to win by arguing semantics, so what I find hardest to believe is that anyone is taking all this blatant skullduggery seriously.

... It's not like mailing a postcard, it's like sending an electrically encoded text message over a packet-switched data network where the only expected viewing point is at the intended recipient's terminal; this is how the e-mail protocol was designed to work. Sure, a malicious party can read it because it's not encrypted, but someone can easily slice open a postal mail envelope and read the contents of that, too.

The bottom line is, since a non-trivial effort has to be made to read the contents, and since the service has always been presented as a "sealed letter", the average user is not unreasonable in expecting privacy."

The Dangers of Hugging 1

In a disgusting display of public affection dozens of East Valley students in Mesa Arizona, participated in a group hug to protest a school ban on hugs lasting more than 2 secs. The district said a list of acceptable and non-acceptable behaviors will be handed out to students and that they are simply trying to save the children from the horror of human contact.
The Courts

Submission + - Encrypted Laptop Poses Legal Dilemma 1

Reservoir Hill writes: "When Sebastien Boucher stopped at the U.S.-Canadian border, agents who inspected his laptop said they found files containing child pornography but when they tried to examine the images after his arrest, they were stymied by PGP's password-protected encryption program. The government wants Boucher to give up the password, but doing so could violate his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination by revealing the contents of the files. "This has been the case we've all been expecting," says Michael Froomkin, a professor at the University of Miami School of Law. "As encryption grows, it was inevitable there'd be a case where the government wants someone's keys." A grand jury subpoena to force Boucher to reveal the password was quashed by federal Magistrate Jerome Niedermeier. The government has appealed the ruling and law professor Orin Kerr says the distinction that favors the government in Boucher's case is that he initially cooperated and let the agent look at some of the laptop's contents. "The government can't make you give up your encryption password in most cases. But if you tell them you have a password and that it unlocks that computer, then at that point you no longer have the privilege," says Kerr."
United States

Submission + - Habeas Corpus is GONE (senate.gov) 2

Khyber writes: "In a vote of 56 yeas to 43 nays, with one abstaining, the Cloture Motion to restore Habeas Corpus has been halted, with a 3/5 majority vote unable to be attained. Article 6 states their oath to uphold the constitution, Article 4 states that habeas corpus shall not be suspended unless in cases of rebellion and invasion when the public safety may require it. It's becoming a very dark age, indeed."
Google

Submission + - Wikipedia removes Daniel Brandt (wikipedia.org)

An anonymous reader writes: After years of Daniel Brandt lobbying Wikipedia for it's removal, Brandt's biography page has been removed from Wikipedia, leaving behind a redirect to one of his projects, NameBase. The decision came after the 14th discussion of the article and partly in response to stricter policies on dealing with living people.

Brandt lobbies for the accountability of online organizations through his Wikipedia Watch, Google Watch and Yahoo Watch websites.

It's funny.  Laugh.

Submission + - The sun revolves around the earth?!? (wordpress.com)

lantastik writes: "I have always considered myself a Christian. One who thinks that both God and science have their place in the universe. It is when I read items like this that I am embarassed to be associated with other members of the Christian community. According to the story, physicists have it all wrong, the Earth does not revolve around the sun, using quoted passages that are taken out of context as proof. Apparently some people take the stories and passages in the bible a little too literally."
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft May Be Investigated By Attorneys General (cnn.com)

Null Nihils writes: "Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has announced that a group of state attorneys general will decide later this week whether to pursue legal action against Microsoft over allegations of anticompetitive conduct that were brought on by Google.

From the article: "Google has complained that Microsoft's new operating system puts it, and other rivals, at a disadvantage. Google said that Vista makes it harder for consumers to use non-Microsoft versions of a desktop search function, which enables users to search the contents of their hard drives.

A group of state attorneys general including Connecticut and California is now determining how to react to the claims made by Google.""

Programming

Submission + - Who gets the unfinished software?

zaunuz writes: What happends to unfinished software, mainly consisting of bits and pieces of perl-code, if the company you wrote it for goes bankrupt? This might be the case where i currently work. For the past year i have been in charge of a fairly big project, but due to poor economical planning higher up in the system, it is quite possible that the company will die before me and my team are finished. If this happends, we would like to continue the project on our own, since it is fairly close to completion, and it would suck to just scrap what we've invested so many hours and cups of coffee into. The creditors are most likely to be the new owners of the code, however, do the creditors care about unfinished code? Afterall, first they'd have to understand what it does. After they've done that, they'd have to finish it themselves. Has anyone else experienced a similar situation?
Software

Submission + - A stunning 2D and 3D image demo from Microsoft (ted.com)

gwait writes: Here is a stunning demo from Microsoft showing two killer apps, Seadragon, and Photosynth.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/129
Seadragon knits together gigabytes of images into a blazing fast collage, The presenter zoomed in and out several orders of magnitude instantly. They then tie Seadragon into a second app (Photosynth), which collates a series of digital images in 3D space, and you can scan and scroll thru a 3d view that's apparently generated automatically from the 2D photos you feed it. It's a 3D version of your photo stich application, which you can scroll thru, zoom in and out just as fast as the Seadragon application.
Absolutely amazing stuff.

Patents

Submission + - New Patent for keyboard video game control

deathy_epl+ccs writes: It's not real clear whether this guy's patent on controlling a video game using nothing but a keyboard's arrow keys is just a protest, a statement against the broken nature of the USPTO, or whether he genuinely believes he's managed to get a license to print money with the award of the patent, but we can at least take comfort that it wouldn't be likely to survive being challenged.

I first read about this over at GameSetWatch
Software

Submission + - Selling a software company

TogetherGirl writes: I'm a partner in a small software company that sells 7 software products worldwide. We have been in business for about 5 years and each year sales have increased nicely.

Because of different philosophies / interests / opinions, we have decided to part ways. We have all agreed that it is best to sell the company or all products to a third party and hence, distribute the proceeds according to share ownership.

Since there is interest in our products by our competitors, we are trying to determine what is the best multiple of gross product sales to be used in calculating the 'selling price' of the company or all of the products.

I know there is no exact science but what is the average multiple (of gross sales) used to determine the asking / selling price of a software company?

Can anyone point out some good examples of companies being bought for around $1 million USD?

Thanks
Programming

Submission + - C vs. C++/OOP Paradigm

An anonymous reader writes: I just started work for a small start-up company that does R&D software for media. I quickly discovered that my boss is very resistant to using C++ and object-oriented programming; he insists that we standardize on using C. This goes against the last eight years of my education in being trained to use OOP and also arises concerns for the company in creating and maintaining reusable and scalable software. My boss states that he had bad experiences at previous companies that used C++ and OOP that resulted in less readable code. I suspect that he has little knowledge of the OOP paradigm and its advantages in writing good software. I'm wondering if the Slashdot community can provide some suggestions on how to approach a boss with strong convictions on this issue. Why should we be using C++ vs. C? What are the benefits of OOP? Why is it important for a start-up company to address these issues early on in order to develop good coding practices?
Censorship

Submission + - News must be at least 50% Doubleplusgood

Nymz writes: Russian journalists today learned of new rules regarding free speech (the acceptable type). Namely that 50% of reports about Russia must be positive (the government perspective type), and that criticism of Putin is considered extremism (the land you in jail type), and that America must be portrayed as an enemy (the elimination of free speech type). Expect these new rules to be applied liberally (the coming soon to online speech type). New York Times article.
Censorship

Submission + - Canada's Wayne Crookes sues Google, Wikipedia

newtley writes: "Wayne Crookes, the Green Party of Canada's ex-financier, is in effect trying to sue the Net. He's going after the Wikiedia, Google and openpolitics.ca, run up by federal Green Party activist Michael Pilling, claiming he's suffered, "an immense amount of frustration and emotional distress" over postings. Some 15 others may also have been targeted. "Mr Crookes seems to be trying to unwrite history," Pilling says. "He was a central figure in the growth of the Green Party. His actions were highly controversial and if we have freedom of speech in this country, people should be allowed to talk about them.""

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