France Passes Harsh Three-Strikes Legislation, Again 207
shrik writes "After having it struck down as 'unconstitutional' by the Conseil Constitutionnel once, Sarkozy's controversial 'three-strikes' law (known as HADOPI) was once again passed by the French National Assembly, this time allowing for a judge to order the disconnection (without requiring the presence of the accused party!), thus placating some of the administrative concerns. Opponents say they will 'challenge the law again in front of the Constitutional Council because it deprives the accused of being able to defend themselves properly.' Coverage at Ars also points out a provision that says, 'all Internet users must keep their connections 'secure' and are responsible for what happens on them.'"
Oh no! (Score:5, Funny)
Windows users..... RUN!
We all have broken the law (Score:5, Insightful)
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Our only protections are the state's lack of interest in us as individuals, or aggressive protesting by the mob if we are visible enough.
Soapbox, ballot box, jury box, ammo box. Use in that order.
Re:We all have broken the law (Score:5, Funny)
I personally would use the soap and ammo boxes as long range weapons, the ballot box as my preferred melee weapon and the jury box I'd probably class as a weapon of mass destruction. Bloody heavy things though and not that easy to find and carry and to be honest I still prefer the old torch and Molotov for most of my "angry mob" duties, but I admire your attempt to innovate.
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Short of pluggin people fulla lead, the summary provides a possible solution to this law:
I wonder how secure the Internet connections owned by the members of the French National Assembly are. Maybe a tracker could be set up on Sarkozy's Minitel terminal.
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I wonder how secure the Internet connections owned by the members of the French National Assembly are. Maybe a tracker could be set up on Sarkozy's Minitel terminal.
Considering that the French president has apparently gotten off scott-free for actual copyright infringement [slashdot.org] (I say apparently because I've not heard anything about the infringement since that story in 2008), I suspect it doesn't matter how secure or insecure it is, nothing would happen.
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WTF? (Score:4, Informative)
Um, you're replying to a comment about France's legislature passing a very enforceable law. They are defining liability: if your agent (computer) does something, you are responsible for what it did.
This is almost the exact opposite of the phenomenon that you're talking about. It simplifies law immensely (assuming they wrote it generally enough) and on top of that..
People say users can't deal with security issues, and maybe they are right, but it's also true that users are the best and only people who even have the slightest chance. Users don't, but nobody else can. Saying their computers are their computers, is a damn good step on the road to progress.
Of course, you can't have the principle in place that users are responsible for their computers, without also making sure they have the power to control their computers. If your computer is doing things that you don't like, and if you are responsible for whatever it does do, then it's a requirement that you be able to maintain it.
There are some rather obvious implications, and we should expect a lot of complaining about such a principle from the very parties that bought this law. They are this close [imagine me holding my finger and thumb close together] to outlawing DRM, since no computer can serve two masters.
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President Sarkozy - "Yes what do you want?"
Aide - "It's come to our attention that people are unhappy with you. We advise turning-off their internet access to silence them."
Sarkozy-"We can do that?"
Aide - "We can now."
Sarkozy-"Alright but only target the key offenders. We don't want another storming of the bastille, do we? But if we only target a hundred of so key leaders, then nobody will care."
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I see your point. In theory, I covered that with the "assuming they wrote it generally enough" disclaimer, but it's so understated and unlikely, that it's likely you're right and I'm wrong.
If this new law does (or rather, if we fantasize that it does) encode the general principle that people are responsible for their agents, then it wouldn't be a hundred dissidents; it would be tens of thousands of people having to answer for the actions of their agents. I think that would increase the chances of Bastille
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In france if someone steals your car and runs down a nun are you charged with murder? If someone hacks into your computer and does something illegal why should you be responsible for it? If someone breaks into your house and steals all your stuff are you arrested for stealing stuff? I mean you should have secured your home better.
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My thinking is that it's a lot harder to physically secure your home (there's always someone with a bigger gun that you) than securing your computer. Nobody says you have to click on "install this malware."
There's something repugnant about the phrase "someone hacks into your computer." You're casting it as though it were a thing where the user was passive and had something done to them. In real life, the user is almost always complicit. They usually do something they should have known better than to do,
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Exactly! I don't have any email accounts from my provider, so they cannot contact me via email since they don't know my address.
The law is an ass and the lawmakers are ... (Score:2)
Corporations are (supposed to be!) held in check by government, but who holds the government in check? Ah, the government itself does, you say. In the U.S., the three co-equal branches are supposed to hold each other in check. Yeah, right. What you get is stupid, arrogant, self-righteous, pompous, hypocritical, contemptuous corruptocracy of which this law is evidence in France. It is to be assumed that no one will need me to provide evidence of the pinnacle of all corruptocracies which we see in the U.
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Re:Oh no! (Score:4, Interesting)
It also raises the question of whether an organisation becomes responsible for any piracy which occurs as a result of a thirdparty sneaking onto their network. Say, the French government being responsible if a bunch of hackers start downloading pirated material using their network. Wouldn't a judge be obliged to cut that network off immediately?
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My completely humble suggestion that has absolutely nothing to do with my age would be 27 ;)
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At what age do you suggest the law should no longer apply?
A few decades after you're dead, perhaps. Just like copyrights.
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Actually that's a pretty good answer.
"You just lost your RIAA case and owe 1 million dollars. When do you plan to pay that fine?"
"One day before the copyrights expire on these songs."
"So basically never."
"Correct."
Actually a 1 million dollar fine is ridiculous, especially if they keep adding interest to the total. I could work the rest of my life and never get it paid off. How can sentencing a citizen to a lifetime of servitude to RIAA be called justice? It isn't. Last time I checked involuntary servit
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In the spirit of providing a car analogy, if a dealership sells you a car as being street-legal, and a police officer later pulls you over about some aftermarket street-illegal modifications that were already present prior to the sale, why should you be thrown in jail for it?
Short answer: yes (Score:3, Insightful)
Long answer: this is the death of non-corporate backed hotspots.
Thankfully this piece of shit is 99% guaranteed to be blocked by the Constitutional Council.
But it's typical of Sarkoleon's governance. The media coverage of this whole thing has been almost as sickening as that of Fox wrt Obama's health care plan: unashamedly ignorant propaganda, ridiculous talking points, and Godwin galore. Did you know that opponents of the law were Nazi collaborators? That's what the head of a local Mafiaa repeated on the m
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I was feeling alone in the intarweb surrounded on nearly every website buy Naboleon or Calritard supporters.
On a side note this retard actually in the Elysee is pushing for a second time a law that as been considered against the constitution. Isn't that a felony ?
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That's what I'm wondering, but I don't know how it works in France.
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...as sickening as that of Fox wrt Obama's health care plan: unashamedly ignorant propaganda, ridiculous talking points, and Godwin galore.
Please, Fox is just voicing the "other opinion". They aren't even that far right, on a whole the news organization is just right of center. They just look "far right" because every other news org is so far left. Instead of looking at Obama as if he can do no wrong, they actually think about what his plan might take to accomplish. And for the record, the plan he espoused last week is not on anybody's agenda, the only bill out there right now he would be unable to sign if he were to keep his word, becaus
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Actually Congress has often resurrected old laws that were declared unconstitutional. For example the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional for Congress to order the States to lay claim to spent nuclear fuel (per amendment 10). So Congress simply revived the law but used bribery instead: "Take the nuclear fuel, or else you'll only get 90% of your highway funds." So the States take the spend fuel.
Another example is the Betamax case where the Supreme Court legalized the right to record television and
Fox News isn't far right? (Score:2)
They couldn't be broadcast anywhere in Europe lest they get instantly sued and convicted under hate speech laws.
Not that I like hate speech laws -- I'm a fan of the 1st amendment (in its modern interpretation). I oppose them because they are useless and have nasty side effects that end up stifling worthwhile speech.
However, if we have them, it's precisely because of and against inflammatory, racist, hate-mongering, war-mongering and plain lying messages routinely found on Fox. Just like while I am against t
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>>>Fox wrt Obama's health care plan: unashamedly ignorant propaganda, ridiculous talking points, and Godwin galore
And the other news organizations act as if Obamacare has no flaws. Why are ABC, CBS, MSNBC silent? Clearly it does have flaws, like the idea I'm going to be fined $1500 if I don't buy health insurance. (scours Constitution). I can not find the clause that grants Congress the power to fine citizens for not buying a product. What's next? I'll be fined because I bought a normal Civic
"Troll", but quite right (Score:4, Insightful)
You've been marked troll, but you're quite right. The idea that the an average windows user can keep a PC secure, keep their wireless network secure, etc. is right up there with expecting the poor to get a fair trial in court. Admin is a day-in-day-out job of constant vigilence and few missteps -- by a professional-level definition of misstep. The average user probably makes their PC vulnerable in about 5 different ways for every new day they use it.
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Why just the poor? i don't think there's really such a thing as "A fair" trial.
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I'm french, and have been following this law with attention (and disgust).
They threw in this provision because they'll prosecute people based on IP adresses collected on BT trackers and filesharing programs by private firms. When opponents of the law pointed out that it's trivial to gain access to a private wifi network, the ministry of culture decided to patch the law with this provision.
The "funny" thing is that in order to prove you've secured your network, you'll have to buy and install a non-free,
Already done? (Score:3, Interesting)
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That was private company suing people by using bended law.
We are talking government agency doing prosecution in France and government-supervised and enforced internet disconnection as punishment backed by law that was crafted only to support their actions. Only hope here is that it will be like all governments agencies - bureaucratic hell that does not manage to do anything, because otherwise, they can quite a lot of power in their hands.
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How is being sued by a private company without your knowledge any better than what is being proposed here? In both cases the actual punishment is handed out by a court, and in both cases it is 'backed by law'.
Private companies work better than governments when you have a choice over which private company you use. Unfortunately you can't choose which private company you would like to be sued by.
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Government agency is more powerful, and does not need to bother with suing you, it can be investigator-judge-jury-executioner mix.
If you have to pay fine for something (say, overdue taxes; errors in tax form), government agency does not have to bother with convicting you of your misconduct, they do simply send you "you are guilty of X, pay Y.". Count and suing happens only when you attempt to defend yourself and resist.
Private company has to sue you and has to win first. Govt agency does not have to. Unless
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The government can hand you all the fines it wants, but if you refuse to pay they eventually have to go through the legal system. It's the same for private companies, who can send you bills, and can offer legal settlements but have to involve the courts if you don't cooperate. Not defending yourself won't get you off the ho
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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Im fed up with every government trying to legislate safety and functionality
Fixed that for you. You had three extra words on the end of that sentence..
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I wonder if there's a provision (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder if they included a provision that excludes French National Assembly members from the three strikes.
Given enough time any connection can be compromised and if France's script kiddies are like all the others I wouldn't put it past them to pwn a couple of assembly member's connections. Since you are responsible for what happens on your connection...
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And the what will happen, indeed... Script kiddie will be found and prosecuted, politician unharmed (on contrary, getting easy sympathy/hero points for being insidiously attacked by some basement dweller that is pissed off because he can not get his dose of hentai. Word terrorist will be passed along and will not be off mark - point of terrorism is to inspire 'terror' to pressure opposition to change their politics. And this would fit perfectly, now wouldn't it.). Lets face it, for doing something as dumb a
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Where is France Pirate Party when you need one?
We have one, slowing getting into shape. It doesn't matter anyway, as all the consumer and internet defense groups have been ignored by the government.
Where is population support against this law?
The law isn't popular, but again that doesn't matter. And the general public doesn't really care anyway.
Sarkozy and his singer wife decided that this law should be passed, so it will be passed. He already sacrificed a minister to it, had the 1st version of it re-voted by the assembly when they voted against it, and hastily patched it when the constitutional
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And the general public doesn't really care anyway.
And filesharing will just move over to out-of-country VPN points of presence and/or f2f darknets. The enforcement capacity will quickly disappear if it ever goes all the way into actual law.
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Since most of the politicians who think they absolutely must regulate that lawless space, the Intartubes know next to nothing about it - what do you think the chances are that they'd even notice ?
Heck, what's the chances they even have a net connection at home?
Merde! (Score:4, Interesting)
If at first you don't succeed, bribe and bribe again.
How will this pass the European Unions "right to free speech" when you have no internet connection to communicate with anyone? Oh silly me, it's the French we're talking about, they never did give a cr@p about European laws unless it was in their favour.
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While i agree that this is bad, you are talking shit, "free speech" doesn't guarantee you an internet connection any more than it guarantees you a phone.
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"Free speech" doesn't guarantee you a phone or a network connection, but it most assuredly SHOULD prevent the government from having such devices or services forcibly removed from your possession so that you can no longer communicate with them.
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Blaming it on nonexistent bribery trivialises the issue. If it were down to a bunch of scheming, cash-hungry corrupt politicians, you could just replace them with good, honest politicians and be done. The fact is that in reality they all think they're good, honest politicians standing up for what's right for the people they represent.
Sad trend (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Sad trend (Score:4, Interesting)
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Capitalism works very well on small individual items but clearly cannot deal with massive projects.
What does this have to do with capitalism? It's a government action not something having to deal with private ownership of capital. It just bugs me how so many government actions are blamed on private entities. Especially when the solution to the alleged "capitalist" or "corporatist" harm is more government action or regulation. That's fighting fire by throwing some gasoline on.
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I got cable almost 10years ago my speed and capacity has dropped, reliability has dropped massively and is going to take another hit
Funny I got Cable almost 10 years ago too... And my reliability and speed has increased massively. I Get about 20Mbs Down and 1Mbs Up. (even though it has been consistent for the past 10 years)
Perhaps it is because there are about 3 or 4 different DSL companies competing for my business in my area so they are sure to offer as good service as possible. Capitalism does work, Wh
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It depresses me that since I got cable almost 10years ago my speed and capacity has dropped, reliability has dropped massively and is going to take another hit.
Did you sometime in the last ten years move from a very high-tech country to some third world country? Ten years ago I was on 64kbps ISDN. Now I'm on 20Mbit cable and yes, I do hit 2.2 MB/s in actual downloads. In another ten years I expect to be on fiber or next gen cable with 100-1000Mbit somewhere.
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Probably not, he could have been a student. 10 years ago many colleges around here had 10Mbit fiber-connections, today they have 100Mbit, but if you graduated and moved off campus it is more likely you only have 2 or 4Mbit today.
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Don't get too worked up (Score:5, Informative)
It passed, but with a 285-225 vote, there's noticeably significant opposition. And that's just the lower house; it still has to go to a "parliamentary commission of seven senators and seven members of the lower house to pen a final draft that's acceptable to both houses". And that's if it's not blocked by another constitutional appeal.
So, just typical politicking bullshit you'd see across the pond over here, or really anywhere, nowadays, so that Jack can say he was for it and accuse Jane of being against it, to further some hatespeech... er, campaigning. I can't get too worked up until it's actually for real; there's just too much of this nonsense nowadays.
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like fo rreal , rapists , murderers and other real crime that hurts people?
I think you'll find that laws are already in place to deal with such crimes.
3 strikes on 3 strikes (Score:5, Insightful)
All countries should have a law that prevents their governments from being allowed to repeatedly reattempt to pass a law the got turned down once already. Especially when the law has already been found to be unconstitutional.
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Yeah, too bad our modern democracies haven't implemented an idea that's almost 2500 years old. The ancient greek Graphe Paranomon [wikipedia.org]. In short: The penalty for repeatedly introducing unconstitutional laws would be the end of your political career.
Three strikes sounds about right in that context.
Re:3 strikes on 3 strikes (Score:4, Insightful)
well have a time limit. So you can only submit a law for (re)consideration say once every 3 years.
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The whole world perfectly understands that having guns & ammo in your home (sorry, should I say "arms") in not the way a society should be run
Why posit your off-topic bias as if it were fact? You were doing so well until then. Short reply: there are good reasons why law-abiding folks have every right to own and bear arms, none of which are directly related to the original topic.
Longer reply: However, the longer I considered your post, the more parallels I saw between government restriction of internet access (freedom of speech, essentially), and government restriction of firearms. I suppose for the sake of argument and relevance , I wil
I know that sounds appealing (Score:5, Insightful)
Coverage at Ars also points out a provision that says, 'all Internet users must keep their connections "secure" and are responsible for what happens on them.
That sounds great, especially to those of us who have to deal with the Great Unwashed Masses PC problems, but most users are doing good to find the power switch. Making them responsible for what happens to the internals of their PC without their knowledge in a rapidly evolving threat landscape that even security professionals struggle with at times is blaming the victim. It's not their fault Windows is a highly porkable product.
They're teaching young people how to use computers in school but, with few exceptions, they're not teaching them how to use them safely. In many schools it would be the blind leading the blind in security education. Most teachers don't know enough about PC security to make any relevant contribution to solving the bigger problem. Ultimately, it's like trying to fight a fully involved house fire with a garden hose.
I'm not sure what the answer is, but I am glad that it's someone else being heavy-handed and dickish for a change.
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That sounds great, especially to those of us who have to deal with the Great Unwashed Masses PC problems, but most users are doing good to find the power switch.
So?
Most drivers are doing good remembering which of the controls does what. Nevertheless, cars in general are pretty safe (airbags, ABS, seat belts, etc.) and safe driving is one of the things that you get hammered in at every opportunity. It also has some laws and controls (speed limits, etc.) that many of us hate at times, but we generally agree that they're a solid idea and things would be much worse without.
Enforcing some security in home computers might make it more likely that people spend a few more
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They're teaching young people how to use computers in school but, with few exceptions, they're not teaching them how to use them safely. In many schools it would be the blind leading the blind in security education. Most teachers don't know enough about PC security to make any relevant contribution to solving the bigger problem. Ultimately, it's like trying to fight a fully involved house fire with a garden hose.
Moreover, and this is silly in a machiavellian way, mastering safe computing would help them a few years down the line. Can you teach sex ed without talking about sex? Yes, you can!
Secure? (Score:5, Insightful)
So saying that a connection must be secure immediately raises the question: how secure?
Are they responsible if a neighbor guesses a WEP password and downloads kiddie porn?
Are they responsible if they have a fully patched Windows box, with virus checking, but get compromised by a virus missed by those safeguards and become part of a botnet?
If a criminal breaks into the house while they're on vacation and makes a bunch of purchases with fraudulent credit card numbers, are they still responsible?
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Correction. I read the Ars article, and the trouble you can get into is regarding copyright violations that occur on your connection.
So all of my examples in the parent post should be modified to talk about copyright infringement as the illegal activity.
My analogy... (Score:5, Insightful)
So the copyright industry wants you kicked off the net for three mere accusations of copyright infringement. That could be as little as three songs. The songs sell for a buck on Amazon and iTunes. So for a mere three bucks the copyright industry wants you banned from the net for eternity.
Let's imagine a different law. Let's imagine that the banking industry gets fed up with people stealing pens out of their lobbies. These pens are expensive, a buck each. Imagine that a law is enacted stating that any person merely accused by a bank of stealing three pens is banned from the entire banking industry for the rest of his or her life.
Does anyone think such a law has any chance to be passed? Does anyone seriously think that such a law makes sense? Of course it would not and of course it does not. But in the crazy world of copyrights, people actually take the proposed three strikes law seriously.
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So the copyright industry wants you kicked off the net for three mere accusations of copyright infringement. That could be as little as three songs.
Not quite, it is worse than that. You can be found guilty under this law with as little as ZERO songs.
Watch.
I accuse you of infringing my copyright.
There. Unless you coincidentally are pirating music right now (lets assume not for this example), I have just accused you and thus you are guilty. Every requirement of the law has been met.
Infringing copyright is not needed. Thus no sort of proof is required since that aspect is irrelevant.
Get two more people to copy my statement above, and by law your ISP m
This is not unsurprising. (Score:2)
As your friendly conservative I must insist everyone stop picking on France!
France has always had a huge tradition of strong copyright law that in their mind, protects the artist. They foisted the Bern convention on the world and would probably make it so that the artist and his family would have copyrights for all eternity if they could. It's entirely different set of values that drives this. Even though the piece of it may not seem logical, we need to be culturally aware. We as American (and the Briti
I wonder how... (Score:3, Interesting)
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Conservatives never learn (Score:4, Insightful)
You don't treat the symptom, you treat the cause. Otherwise you may as well be jerking off. What causes crime? Poverty, lack of prospects for a future, and ignorance. You may deter one individual from committing more crimes by putting him in jail for life but that does nothing to dissuade the one after him and the one after that. Yes, there will always be the bad seeds, the one no amount of opportunity and guidance will help. But there will be fewer of them than what we have now if we address the causes.
Want to know how to set the drug problems straight in this country? Legalize and regulate the shit. Those who are hooked on the hard shit like heroin will get their maintenance dose from a government clinic for free. Those who aren't yet hooked will find it harder to score in the first place as the street supply dries up. And pot? For fuck's sake, give the growers licenses and let them operate like micro-breweries. Keep big business out of it, don't let their marketing departments start trying to manipulate public demand. Can you imagine how much peace would be had in Mexico if illicit drug money from the US dried up? Hell, just imagine knowing your flat won't get broken into by a junkie looking for shit to fence.
Politicians don't have the fucking stones to put forward this kind of legislation.
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Can you imagine how much peace would be had in Mexico if illicit drug money from the US dried up?
I'm just trying to imagine what the thousands upon thousands of people working drug-related jobs would do instead. We've seen thousands of soldiers defecting to the drug lords at once, and the like.
Re:Conservatives never learn (Score:4, Insightful)
What causes crime? Poverty, lack of prospects for a future, and ignorance.
Setting aside for now the issue of whether downloading copyrighted material is a crime, etc. etc., do you really think that *poverty, lack of prospects for a future, and ignorance* is what drives leechers to download bluray rips ?!
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The first one has obvious implications; Poverty.
While most of your people who pirate aren't exactly "impoverished", (actually, working poor to middle class mostly) they DO have a very limited economy for purchasing luxury goods.
What causes a person to suffer the ill effects of poverty, is a physical need, or want, for various goods and services (Such as food, water, electricity, clothing, etc.) without the required resources to obtain them all. This gives incentive to get those resources through less legal
Re:Conservatives never learn (Score:4, Interesting)
No, piracy is widespread because it's easier to download than going to a shop to buy a real product.
As long as the pirated product is equivalent to a real product (and in some cases, it's worse due to the protection), I don't see why I should buy a product, except encouraging its creators.
Politicians don't have the fucking stones to put forward this kind of legislation.
No, the politicians know very well from where the money comes.
They are elected by people, but they can punish them as long as they can get a few bucks for themselves.
Politicians have renounced to care for their voters, and this is especially true for the french president.
I'm a french guy, and I can only notice that Sarkozy just runs for himself, as most of the french society now.
He dreams about the 'american model', where only money matters, where there is no social insurance and where the employees can be fired without notice.
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You don't treat the symptom, you treat the cause
After an auto accident about fifteen years ago I was X-Rayed to check for fractures. The radiologist said I had no fractures but "that arthritis in your spine probably hurts pretty bad right now, doesn't it?"
I asked when researchers were going to find a cure for arthritis.
"We don't do cures, we do treatment. There's no money to be made in cures".
Same goes for poverty, lack of prospects, and ignorance. There's no profit in curing them, and in a society that wor
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And who will pay for the clandestine operations by the CIA when you legalize drugs?
So I can have Windows Zombies unhooked in France? (Score:2)
So I can have Windows Zombies unhooked in France?
Great. Used correctly this law could raise the bar for internet security and security awarenes on behalf of the end-user.
Nobody cares about French law (Score:2)
Article 6.1
In the determination of his civil rights and obligations or of any criminal charge against him, everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law.
Article 6.2
Everyone charged with a criminal offence shall be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law.
Article 6.3
Everyone charged with a criminal offence has the following minimum rights:
(a) to be in
Why is anyone surprised? (Score:2)
They're just doing what their employers want them to, jeez.
Gentlemen, start up your encryptors... (Score:2)
In other words, we should always use encryption, and be sure it has no backdoors for untrusted entities like governments? Sounds good to me!
The next step is clear... (Score:2)
Someone, somewhere will create something which messes up the logs made by this spy-software which is supposed to be used as proof of innocence. It will prove everybody is guilty of the most heinous crimes like downloading Britney 24x365 or images of Sarko standing next to tall women. Good luck prosecuting that...
I can't believe ISPs allowed this (Score:2)
That means ISPs are legally responsible for their clients misbehaviour!!!
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Of course, it is quite entertaining when I am on my Linux box and a Windows looking "Warning" comes up saying the my "C:" drive is infected and that I need to run the "anti-virus" that has popped up.
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Don't browse porn sites without noscript
Fixed that for you ;)
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I'm pretty much in the same boat. My Windows box has gone for years without an infection, and without running active virus protection (I do weekly on-demand scans to ensure that it's clean, but nothing running in the background).
Windows is a dangerous thing in the hands of a novice, but if you're used to computers (which MOST people who would be willing to install and run Linux are), it's feasible to surf on a Windows machine without hosing it up.
And in reality, the primary concern about the matter here is
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I'd probably switch to MacOS. Even though the ~$50 per year upgrades from 10.4 to 10.5 to 10.6 is annoying and expensive, the Macintosh OS is a heck of a lot easier to use than Linux. Also it's easier to find programs. For example my Netscape ISP's Web Accelerator works with the Mac, but not with Linux.
But for now I'll just stick with the cheap Windows system. (I haven't spent a dime since I got XP in 2002.)
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Uhh, it might not be law, but you do realise that you're on a network will millions of other people, and that you have a responsibility to do your part in keeping everyone safe from hackers, identity theft, spam, etc. right?
If you don't realise that your system is insecure, that's one thing. But knowing it's insecure, that something needs to be changed, and not changing or hiring someone to take steps to help you, is just irresponsible.
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Stop Microsoft's monopole
Down with Microsoft's evil magnets! Dipole magnets for everybody!
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