The sort of encryption needed was illegal to export from the USA during most of that time. And USA was driving or pushing adoption of the internet, the web, the browser, email, AOL keywords...

Business made a concerted effort to make putting credit card info into a website look secure. But no one ever questioned if putting their mails to friends and relatives required the same protection.

No demand meant early providers of paid services and clients did not put effort into encryption. Then people grew up in that world, and it seems normal.

Now, encrypted mail is reported with news of terrosts and pedo rings and drug cartels, so it is not just "not normal" - it is "abnormal" to encrypt.

Assuming your question wasn't rhetoric, I hope that helps.

The latter, and Lessig explains it well. http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/March-April-2004/story_lessig_marapr04.msp

"Sure, but can it substitute feet for meters?"

No, It's a copier, not rocket science.

I resent your characterization of unfairness - if not for that I might have not posted what I prepared. Which is why I post this here. The remainder of the "you" references are aimed at the author of the article (that's what you see if people here would read and critically think about the page that appears after clicking). Apologies for slashdot's pasting being retarded.

"This article in Wired advances the idea that humans are losing the copyright battle against machines because the fair use laws are tilted against them. The writer wanted to include photos in his book, but the licensing fees were too high. The aggregators, though, like Google, are building their own content by scraping all of the photos they can find. If anyone complains, they just say, 'Fill out a DMCA form.' Can humans compete against the machines? Should humans be able to use the DMCA to avoid copyright fees too? Should web sites be able to shrug and say, 'Hey, we just scraped it?'"

Because many of those people â" and websites â" are notoriously loose with reusing images, and they like to hide behind the blithe view that itâ(TM)s all âoefair use.â

Fair use is fairly clearly laid out, and things like lolcats or other image macros can be considered parody. There is an article in Ars Technica which reproduces the image to illustrate what is the subject of the lawsuit. The lawsuit was ridiculous because the plaintiff had followed proper DMCA takedown, the site complied, then the plaintiff registered the copyright formally and sued Buzzfeed for the infringement of other sites that had subsequently used the photo. In other words the lead-off of this paragraph points to a baseless suit.

This example also shoots the argument in the head. BuzzFeed might as well be a web site with a single editor, author, owner, creator, and janitor. DMCA takedown would have been just as effective, unless the janitor AKA DMCA contact was out that day.

Was BuzzFeed a machine that included the image? Or was the article written by a human? The answer is that this is an exceptional case, and it makes no difference, because the plaintiff wrote the lawsuit and filed it with no legal advice. I can be sued for farting in the state of Wisconsin, despite never having set foot there. The case will likely be thrown out as soon as I submit my response to being served, which is "I was never there, and plaintiff will have to prove that I was, so good luck with that"

Some algorithm assembled the photos and itâ(TM)s enjoying a nice little loophole.

Okay, support that statement.

If I included photos, I needed to share my royalties with the photographers or risk a punitive copyright lawsuit. As a creative worker, I understood sharing with the photographers. And the pictures would really add depth to the book.

You're writing a book? That will be published and people will maybe pay money for? DMCA offers no protection for that. Is that your point, that DMCA offers safe harbor for individuals OR machines, but not for book authors?

one friend told me flat out that if he wanted the pictures, he would just go to Google. And he was right: All the photos were there.

Oh, the book is online, and your book isn't.

The automated machines have me and the photographers beat. Aggregators â" whether listmakers, search engines, online curation boards, content farms, and other sites â" can scrape them from the web and claim that posting these images is fair use

Nope, not even correct. BuzzFeed claims its use is transformative, but that doesn't mean they can scrape them and call them fair use. They have a DMCA waiver, and a baseless lawsuit to defend. How much in legal fees will it cost them? More than your royalty fees of $10,000? Probably, if they want to go with that argument. They will likely go with the DMCA takedown request and response, and spend a few hundred. An automated machine did not create buzzfeed's 30 funniest headers, and you can't support your argument on horseshit.

Anyone who searches for âoeDeath of a Salesmanâ gets search results with a nice sidebar filled with a few facts and some images that Google scraped from websites under fair use. In this way, they can do things that I, a lowly human, canâ(TM)t do. And while I had to pay $10,000, they could âoegetâ them for free.

Google did not write a book and select specific images to illustrate the points made. Google is not reproducing images in print, which was kind of important when you look back at copyright law. I think your complaint is that being in print makes you subject to the laws of print, and being online makes people subject to online laws where things happen more quickly and more easily.

The market therefore punishes the people who try to do the right thing by the photographers. If I raised the price of my book to pay for the images, even more people would choose the book âoewrittenâ by Googleâ(TM)s computers

Do you see now how that conclusion is oh, so very wrong?

Is there recourse? Well, if the algorithm violates a copyright, owners can fill out DMCA takedown forms. But itâ(TM)s an onerous process that canâ(TM)t match the scale of the breach, because it pits human against machine. The aggregatorsâ(TM) machines scrape the web day and night but humans need to fill out the forms in their waking hours.

No, you clearly don't. Because if a human violates a copyright, the DMCA is still an option. In fact, it will offer relief much more quickly than getting a settlement from you and/or blocking publication of your books.

Is it possible that a port to a Windows phone environment is easier than rewriting it in java aka dalvik? That maybe it is a barely funded trial balloon?

The typical Microsoft approach at play is getting in late and screwing up the first version. Two options now - double down and fix it, or claim lack of interest and abandon the project.

This is not about making office a selling point yet, offering a crippled version for Android. That will make office a non starter, and any other suite wins. Clearly not how Microsoft wants to play it. Late to the game, but they have made up ground when they decided it was worth spending to win.

Please do get it straight. Why do you build the straw man if copyright violation, and attack that, when the obvious block and replacement is at the end of your rant?

With the inserted advertising of a few years ago, it is much more likely that providers would avoid that trap.

Popup, the magic word that produces an irrational knee jerk response. When can we go back to pointing out shitty journalism instead of being baited by it?

I already have a Google OS on my phone, and a Google Mail account specifically tied to just that phone. I'd rather trust Google (and the NSA) than give info to yet another third party (and the NSA).

I see no downside to trusting Google in this situation, and more downside to trusting a third party.

I thought I was alone in this until a few weeks ago I found a site called xkcdsucks, and it appears I'm not alone in thinking this.

I'm going to blow your mind right now. I mean seriously mind-fuck material. Want to know how to earn a bazillion dollars? I'll tell you. It takes work, and it won't happen overnight, but it is like printing your own money, only legally.

Take one idea that seems to have a fan base. One single thing that a large group of people agree is a good thing. Any group of people, any object of affection.

Make a web site dedicated to pointing out all of the flaws, inconsistencies, errors, fails, and general pointlessness of that thing. You don't even have to agree with yourself. Just hate something - vehemently and consistently, except for a few occasions when you pay a back-handed compliment.

And the magical part - allow comments.

People who don't agree will post raging apoplectic fits on how wrong you are. Your fans will post raging apoplectic fits on how wrong your haters are. Non-participants will hit your page daily just to see their "avatars" fight, regardless of their chosen side. Through all of this, you will get PAGE VIEWS which turn into ad revenue. You will have eyeballs, and dollars.

Cafe Press will have "Joining Yet Again is retarded" coffee mugs, and "Joining Yet Again is the new Christ" napkin holders, under your control and out of your control. You will be the messiah and the anti-christ, and rich beyond your wildest dreams.

And you don't have to be honest once.

Here's another tip that will blow your already blown mind. Other people have figured this out already.

And finally, since I'm basically retirement planning for you now, doing it on Slashdot earns dollars for Dice, not for you. How did you earn two replies today? You are a spectacular idiot - a shining example of how not to think, and how not to post. The rarest of the rare, a genuine failure pile. And I stopped to help you be less failtastic, or at least encourage you to be failtastic somewhere else, like in a closet with no internet connection.

And how long has writing existed for?

That's not even remotely the question. Writing is a red herring - it is just a qualifier to the assertion that civilizations appear to have a limited shelf life. Maybe the current global civilization will exceed that, but one out of the many that have existed, is optimistic.

Every civilization [with written records] has existed for less than 5,000 years; it seems optimistic to hope that the current one will last for 10,000 more .

While everyone else hates on your for your personal taste, I merely want to point out how you failed to parse grammar.

God dammit, you retarded sack of monkey shit. If there was any possibility of bin Laden being other than dead, it would destabilize the entire US of A to the point of people actually revolting.

The amount of outrage people felt for him was enough to give up civil liberties continuously for a decade, and feel good about it. If, 20 years from now, bin Laden poked his head out from under a rock and gave an interview, or said a word, or farted, the American people would riot in the streets. The coverage of his killing (alleged, for your sake) was so complete and his death was so final that any variation from the truth would be more outrageous than failure to capture him.

There is only one thing at this time that would unite the American people to overthrow the government, and that is bin Laden being alive. Nothing threatens the life of a soccer mom - financial crises, food chain shortages, coastal real estate being lost - nothing that she would give up the SUV and life of relative luxury, other than bin Laden being alive.

Take every violation of the constitution, put it in one place, and soccer mom says "if it helps keep the terrorists away, I'm all for it." Do you know what the opposite of that is? Literally the one thing that is the complete antithesis to every justification anyone anywhere has put forth for anything done since 2001?

Keeping the terrorists not only the opposite of "away", but alive. Lying about having killed him, and having him turn up somewhere on a video with a newspaper dated today. The SINGLE thing that could turn America into a rioting cesspool of VERY angry people, and you think that somehow the government thought it would be a good idea to lie about THAT?

If he turned up somewhere, it would defeat every justification, every court decision, every individual's belief that the government is doing things for the people. Not just that they lied - that happens all the time and no one bats an eye. But they lied about the number one terrorist in the world - the one person who can scare every average person just by appearing on TV - being killed. Not by some random ass clown in a desert, but by America's most elite using America's latest technology. A fucking stealth-coptor dropped out of the sky and put an end to America's long national nightmare.

And you think not just a few people but every person on record so far would be stupid enough to lie about it? I am all for caution, and have repeatedly posted such. But this is completely, unforgivably ignorant to even mention.

I can go with you on the long thought train to thermite and faked moon landings and the grassy knoll and whatever other lunacy you want to repeat. But this is simply knee-jerk contrarianism.

"What if it were true"? What if 9/11 was an inside job? Patriot act. What if there was more than a lone gunman? Plenty. What if the moon was faked? We beat Russia. What if everything Snowden leaked was true? Assumptions confirmed.

What if bin Laden were alive? What purpose would that serve? A political boost for Obama, to give him an easy ride to a second term? We can eliminate every Republican ever, and every closeted racist as beneficiaries. Who has anything at all to gain? No one has ever justified anything by saying "It helped us get bin Laden". No secret court, spy program, political organization has ever seen benefit. There is nothing to gain, and everything to lose. Americans had forgotten about him nearly completely, and if he disappeared into the sunset few would have noticed other than Bush haters who liked to point out the shift from "number one priority" to "not a priority".

Do you still think it is even a possibility that this did not happen?

I wonder how well that would go over with them?

You know the answer to that, and that answer is why you post meaningless rhetoric from the safety of your basement. Set up an ISP, get backbone access through a peering agreement, figure out how to isolate TLA activity, and go do it. Have your door kicked in, your pets killed, and be thrown in jail for massive breaches of wire tapping and whatever other laws they can find to overwhelm your legal team. And rot in jail for forever.

You would be a martyr for the cause, if you believe in it, but you might just affect public sentiment enough to make a small dent. Everything Snowden released so far? Much more sympathy for that guy than you using the tricks of your enemy to defeat them.

Now that you have thought about it some, I'm sure you will agree that you either posted meaningless rhetoric, or a poorly considered action plan. You will go to jail and effect no change whatsoever. If that is your plan, do continue. Otherwise actually think about what you are typing, and fix it before you hit submit.

See?

No?

The largest third party got 1 percent of the last vote. How are you going to magically get the other 32 percent needed to make any difference at all? Especially when twice as many people voted libertarian as are registered libertarian. At one percent, the vote is already straining the bounds of membership.

Do a membership drive, get all third parties behind one candidate, get more than one percent of the vote committed, and maybe the smart people will vote that way.

Meanwhile, the rest of us are trying to keep people like Palin and Romney out of office. Not because they are Republicans, but because they are dangerous to the country. Obama won 53 to 46 percent of the popular vote - unbelievably close for a team consisting of a once war veteran turned party traitor, and a vapid twat. And a black man and a doofus won by just barely 10 percent of the votes. Which was far from certain at the time.

Come back to the big boy table when you have something to show for yourself - we're fighting real battles here.

I have a rare condition, Crohn's disease, which required emergency removal of most of my colon. I therefore have little room for normal bowel evacuation storage - it sometimes presents with an unpleasant urgency.

As it was, I found myself in the Australian outback (Kiwiville, though I doubt the Aussies would claim it), and having urges that I ignored as long as possible.

Upon returning to the mainland, as soon as I saw some brush, I announced my intention to "acquaint myself with the local herbiculture". Those among my party took my meaning - and those otherwise not did not. That was my intent of course.

I shat on a bush, to make a long story short. And my options as far as bathroom tissue were concerned included:

1) A very large, and ivy-looking, leaf
2) A very large, and lethal-looking, spider
3) My pants. While not an option, I should mention that these were not an option. American pants or British pants, they were not an option. I would like to appear in public as if I had not shat myself.
4) A baby koala, who seemed to notice my excrement the way I would that of a neutron, which is to say nearly not at all.

I must confess at this point, that there now lies in Australia, a, if you will, "sanitary napkin", whose fur should be cleansed, if not thoroughly exchanged.

I hate to be a karma whore, but your employer was the one monitoring, and raising red flags.

Sucks to be all you knee-jerk reactionaries who don't bother to read, or follow up on news.

I lied. I enjoy karma whoring when my cautionary nature is right.

Jesus fucked a monkey!

Moses on a giant boat, we need to get a handle on this. We have to delete four years worth of memories. Plus however long it takes you to figure out how to delete memories. Plus however long it takes to figure out who leaked this. Get fecking started, you ass-bastards!

Oh, and the deleting of memories and independent learning need not coincide. So get something on my desk yesterday. Other than your ass gasses. We know how to create a false memory now - can we create the memory that you never invented something that you invented?