Paramount Sues Ohio Man For $100,000 724
ematic writes "A hapless tech-novice finds himself in a US$100,000 lawsuit with Paramount Pictures for allegedly uploading the movie, Coach Carter, to eDonkey. Paramount had the police seize his four computers, but nothing was found. The tech-novice maintains his innocence, and contends that he is a victim of a drive-by upload. According to the ChannelCincinnati story, the victim 'is either a slick film pirate or an unwitting victim of someone who fits that description.'"
Tech Novice? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Tech Novice? (Score:5, Funny)
Er... someone just broke in and left them here. What are those things anyway? I thought they were modern art.
Re:Tech Novice? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the moral here is that the argument/alibi for excusable irresponsibility because the network was unsecured probably isn't working so well.
Re:Tech Novice? (Score:5, Insightful)
Amazing how the law bends when huge corporations are involved...
Welcome to the land of the free and the home of the paranoid!
Re:Tech Novice? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Tech Novice? (Score:3, Insightful)
No it doesn't.
"begs the question" has more than one meaning.
Get over it.
Some people just waste money (Score:5, Insightful)
Piece of cake ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Then figure out that persons MAC address, and spoof it with MAC change on ur router/firewall .
Upload ur movie, reset, adios .
Odds are it isn't even that brilliant, the guy with the router prolly picked a MAC address
assigned to a NIC type that he does not even own, as the list is published .
He prolly picked the last few hex digits at random .
Alot of dorm ppl are doing this to ppl that have their computers direct connected ,
and the Uni is too cheap to replace the hubs at the edge of the network .
So they don't get fried for doing p2p over their dorm connect .
If they had managed switches at the edge of their network they could stop this behaviour .
Not all Uni's have switches at the edge of their network yet, ones where sports is
more important often neglect the tech/sci to spend multiple millions on chasing sewn
together animal skin, aka baseball, volleyball, football, basketball .
Stadiums and Arenas that could house all the US homeless 10 times over are left empty
more days than they are full, pathetic .
We wonder why other parts of the world are starting to pass us by
Rome...Bread and Circuses...
Ex-MislTech
Re:Piece of cake ... (Score:3)
more important often neglect the tech/sci to spend multiple millions on chasing sewn
together animal skin, aka baseball, volleyball, football, basketball
At many schools the money made from sports actually subsidizes the rest of the school's activities. If the university wasn't making a killing on advertizing, merchandise, game tickets, alumni donations that only happen because the alumni are sports fans, etc., then they would
MAC addresses don't work that way. (Score:4, Informative)
Then figure out that persons MAC address, and spoof it with MAC change on ur router/firewall
Instead, I'll just point out the flaw in your plan. MAC addresses don't traverse over routers. If there are any routers between your workstation and a server, the server sees "your" MAC address as the router on the same subnet as that server. Your spoofing trick would be a colossal waste of time.
I advise you to study the ARP protocol and really learn what a MAC address is and how it works.
Re:MAC addresses don't work that way. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Piece of cake ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Suppose you do have a point, and I don't normally get at people. I really couldn't care less if people misspell long, technical words, but the "lazyspeak" gets to a very irritating point after a while.
I guess I'm not the only one, I was expecting to burn karma on that one. I definitely was not expecting to see it -up-modded, just got to the point something had to be said.
Re:Piece of cake ... (Score:3, Funny)
probably -> prolly
probable -> prol
probability -> prolity
Re:Piece of cake ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Failure to do this last bit indicates contempt for your audience -- and a general lack of class on your own part. Think
Re:Piece of cake ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah um no... Maybe thats what YOU think slashdot is but not everyone is exactly like YOU, now are they?
To me slashdot is a tech oriented daycare where there are 10 000 people all saying "notice me" or "i have something to contribute" or "in soviet russia..." etc. Most people are generally ignored. People are generally here from 9am to 5pm EST, work in some IT related industry and basically come becua
Re:Piece of cake ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Well then, since it's so easy, let's have a bit of a challenge here.
Throw away your ID, birth certificate, social security card, credit cards, and any other documents or identification. You won't be needing them for this challenge-for the homeless, they're long since lost or stolen.
Throw away any cash you have on hand, your car keys, your checkbook, your ATM card, and any other access to currency. If you want money, you will have to go hold out a sign, perform on the street, or otherwise get hold of it
Re:Some people just waste money (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Some people just waste money (Score:5, Funny)
> "What's the right term for someone who uses computers, but knows basically nothing about them?"
Don't know about you, but round here we call them 'managers'...
Re:Tech Novice? (Score:5, Funny)
Motive? (Score:5, Insightful)
There are a lot of unanswered questions here. This is typical of the big media companies now, just like the Mafia: shake down the little people and get the word out that you should toe the line and pay your protection money, or we'll get you.
I do agree that circumstantial evidence seems to suggest he's a bit more tech savvy than one might think, but on the other hand, a tech-savvy person can also get their network broken into or their password stolen. Basically, this company doesn't have a leg to stand on. Maybe that's why they're shaking him down for so much money, to make him feel he has no choice but to settle.
Re:Motive? (Score:5, Interesting)
I had a relative that needed to 'wipe' his computer fairly regularly. (no, not for anything illegal.) He had an app that would go through each sector of a hard drive and 0 it out repeatedly. As I understand it, and no I'm not an expert, just formatting a drive won't necessarily clear the data off it. Even if it did 0 out all the data, it would still be recoverable by a professional service. I believe tihs worked by reading some sort of residual that could indicate whether that bit was a 1 or a 0. This app was supposed to be so thorough that even the professional services couldn't read the data. (this was the sort of thing the gov't would use for classified computers.)
I may not have all the details 100% right (... corrections gratefully welcomed!) but the gist of my point is this: If they took his computer, noticed the HD was totally blank even though it looked like it should at least have an OS on it, and they analyzed and found out that something more serious than a basic format had occured, they'd have justifiable reasons to believe that he blanked it intentionally to remove incriminating evidence. To the best of my knowledge, though, they wouldn't be able to prove that he did it as a result of their arrival. Circumstantial at best. Personally, I could see an innocent man OR a guilty man doing the exact same thing.
Re:Motive? (Score:5, Informative)
This is especially when I am about to make full image backups of my drives. If you zero out the unused regions the drive image compresses much better.
Otherwise you end up using space to backup up deleted data. In some cases you do want to do that, but not always.
Re:Motive? (Score:3, Informative)
I use partimage [partimage.org] off a CD [sysresccd.org] for Windows or Linux partitions.
Zeroing or randomizing unused drive space is for privacy only.
partimage has limited FS support (Score:4, Informative)
Given that, according to the link you gave, partimage's support for NTFS is experimental and for HFS beta, the grandparent's method of zeroing, dd'ing and compressing seems a safer bet if it's not one of the stable supported file systems.
Yes, yes, I'm sure that it will probably work, but sometimes you need to be sure. After all, a backup that won't restore properly isn't a lot of good.
Re:Motive? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Motive? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Motive? (Score:5, Insightful)
You'd have to be savvy enough to know you need to secure erase, paranoid enough to think you might be nailed at any time, and proactive enough to schedule erasure for every night at 5:00am (Bedtime).
It's not that I don't think that a person could be those things. I do think, however, that a person who is ALL of those things would be unlikely to be mistaken for a neophyte by anyone.
Re:Motive? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Motive? (Score:3, Interesting)
With software, yes. With a big magnet about 5 seconds.
Dead Man Switch
Three-phase 30amp degaussing coil rigged around non-metallic drive enclosure, connected to relay and microswitch attached to non-accidentally-accessible desk underside. In event of catastrophic law enforcement condition, broil at 1.8 teslas for 15 seconds, season to taste and serve.
Re:Motive? (Score:5, Insightful)
This reminds me of the "you have encryption tools, you must have something to hide" bit from a couple of months ago...
There is absolutely nothing illegal about having encryption tools, or having wiped your HDD with something stronger than a format.
Try:
He is cleaning an axe: he must be an axe murderer.
She has covered a car: the car underneath must be stolen.
He paid cash: he must be engaged in tax evasion.
There are lots of activities that honest people engage in every day for reasons that are their own ... I think the reason we see this is because poeple don't understand technology, and so anything can be considered dangerous, malicious or evidence of illegal activity.
Re:Motive? (Score:4, Informative)
Deleting a file doesn't actually get rid of the info. I believe it simply rids the FAT (File Allocation Table) of the entry for that file.
In the case of FAT it doesn't even do that. Get any decent filesystem editor and you will see that only the first letter in the filename has been replaced by another character telling the OS to ignore the entry. That's why you had to provide the first letter in the filename when undeleting with any given recovery tool back in the DOS days.
In the case of NTFS, I do believe that the actual filesystem-entry is removed. Because undelete in NTFS takes freakin' decades. Even for small amounts of data.
Re:Tech Novice? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Tech Novice? (Score:2, Insightful)
Family Laptop
Kid's Computer
Work Laptop
Family Desktop
Kid's Computer
Other Kid's Computer
Work Laptop
Family Desktop
Kid's Desktop
Work Laptop
Wife's Work Laptop
Family Desktop
Kid's Desktop
Old Family Desktop Collecting Dust in Storage
Work Laptop
etc... etc...
Re:Tech Novice? (Score:5, Insightful)
Knowing the MPAA/RIAA and their tactics, the definition of "four computers" was probably more like:
He should count himself lucky if they didn't take his cell phone and wristwatch.
What I'm curious about is this: How the hell did Paramount have the police seize four of his computers? IANAL, but last time I checked, that would have required a search warrant obtained by a judge with probable cause that he commited a crime. Even assuming that they went through that trouble, it would be law enforcement officers who would investigate the computers, not Paramount. But TFA specifically says, "Paramount has looked at all four computers in Lee's home..." Hmmm...
I figure the more likely scenario is that Paramount told the guy, "If you let us have your computers, we won't sue you." The guy, not being a lawyer and thinking that was a good deal, said, "Okay," then erased one of his hard drives, since he was at least smart enough to know that if Paramount found what they were looking for they would have sued him anyway. (Or maybe he's innocent and just didn't want them to see his downloaded porn collection; either way doesn't matter.) Then Paramount, mad, sued him anyway.
The guy needs to go get a really lawyer pronto. Whether he's innocent or guilty, Paramount is going to do their best to screw him, and personally, even if he's guilty, I hope he comes out of this clean. Not because I think that sharing files illegally is okay, but becuase they (Paramount) are using crooked tactics that are much worse than the crimes this guy may or may not have committed.
Re:Tech Novice? What's screwed up about this is (Score:5, Insightful)
With digital content being wrung harder for profits and with the studios and others hell-bent to make examples of others, and with the police needing to show the public its money is being well spent, it's probably inevitable that more people will be pulled into the hollywood/content provider dragnet.
The best thing WE can do is to archive ALL our work and make SO many identical copies that it would be PROFOUNDLY egregious (in the eyes of a FAIR judge AND in the eyes of the public) for ANY police or complainant to say "give us ALLLLL of your archives, no matter how redundant they are".
What the law enforcement agencies need to do or be FORCED to do is this:
Perform NO search and NO seizure unless the party asking for the warrant provides forensic and archival equipment to protect the accused from suffering work stoppage, psychological damage (hey, I'd go goddam ballistic if my shit were seized, as I PAY for my DVDs and music, even if it costs $15-$30-- I don't even really lament not copying music from amaroK), and to keep unnecessary eyes from prying too deeply and too long at stuff on the seized machines that is NOT their business (business plans, school work, love letters, research...), not of danger value and probably would take them YEARS just to sort out before even reading the multiple versions and revisions of endless stuff.
Nice police will insist the accusers not run all over the accused. We're supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. With abuse of unsecure (not INsecure) internet access, poorly protected windoze boxes, ignorant users, and a lot of greedy or lazy pirates and "fair-use" abusers, it's just a matter of time before almost ANYone with a computer connected to the Net is a recipient of a boilerplate letter.
SCARY.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Tech Novice? What's screwed up about this is (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Simplify that list (Score:5, Interesting)
He had his "new" computer, which actually worked.
He had his "old" computer, which worked but was really slow.
He had a much older computer, that was dead. Bad hard drive, flaky memory, and it was only 133Mhz.
And finally, he had another computer, a friend brought over and abandon, that was in unknown operational order, and he didn't care to find out.
It took me three days to talk him into changing the memory in it, which I picked out specifically for that machine. He didn't want to, because he had never opened a computer before. He doesn't deal with installing many softwares, because he doesn't understand how they all work. He uses his mail client, his web browser, and that's about it. Completely not technical, and he "owns" 4 computers.
If his house was raided tomorrow, of course he'd get the same report of having four computers. He doesn't do anything illegal, immoral, or questionable, but that fourth abandon computer may have something on it. How responsible can he be for it? He can't even finger the friend who had it. They were on a first name basis, and the friend moved out of state. "That computer? Oh that was Joe's. He lives in some other state now. I haven't heard from him in a year."
If *MY* house was ever raided, they'd just shit themselves. I have roughly two dozen computers. Most of them are non-working workstations from an old office. Others are old servers, and lots of old parts. I don't throw much of anything away, because I know there will always be something useful. I grabbed a 20Gb drive from the pile, for someone who needed a drive, and didn't have money for a new drive. It was an identical match, and she didn't do much of anything with it other than check Email. It formatted, it didn't click or whine, and they're happy to have a working computer again.
Now, the question would be, would they find anything illegal? Nope. They'd spend weeks searching through the 100+ hard drives until they found the worst thing I have is ISO's of Linux distributions, and possibly they could recover some old web sites from drives that go "click". Maybe the BSA could get me, because I don't have the Windows licenses associated with the old parts.
I know I should destroy the clicking drives, but sometimes they're entertaining to take the top off, and watch the platters spin while I grind them down with a screwdriver. Wheeeeee... The magnets make cool things to stick to light switch screws, and the bearings bounce really well on hard surfaces. Ya, I've made some very unrecoverable drives.
Re:Tech Novice? (Score:3, Insightful)
You can have four cars and still don't know how an engine actually works
Re:Tech Novice? (Score:3, Funny)
No, no, no! He just had a very fast processor. That would then be the *equivalency* of 4 computers. You must learn the correct mathematics.
Re:Tech Novice? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Tech Novice? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nope. Don't forget the Patriot Act. You're guilty until trial, which may happen at an undetermined time, without a lawyer, in a closed court of the government's choosing. If the government things you did something against it, you'll find yourself rotting in Southeast Cuba, or any number of non-existant prisons in countries where they'll ignore the happenings of non-existant front companies who happen to own prisons in remote areas.
[knock][knock]
Who's at my door?
Re:Tech Novice? (Score:5, Insightful)
I find it bizarre that, just because certain people are not fans of the concept of intellectual property as it applies to movie downloads, they automatically assume that someone who is accused of breaking these laws is innocent.
I find it bizarre that you would assume he is guilty. What ever happened to "Innocent until proven guilty"? If he is guilty, let the evidence speak to that fact. The burden should be on the prosecution to prove that he in fact did commit the crime.
Re:Tech Novice? (Score:5, Funny)
They found a file with "12345" in it, which is the combination to the President' luggage. So, he's busted.
Re:Tech Novice? (Score:3, Interesting)
Is it that it is potentially criminal, so they raid on the criminal angle, then it is easier to punish by the civil route so they sue on the civil angle?
all the best,
drew
---
http://www.ourmedia.org/node/111123 [ourmedia.org]
Tings - A CC BY-SA NaNoWriMo 2005 winning novel.
Re:Tech Novice? (Score:3, Funny)
Slick Film Pirate... (Score:5, Funny)
Indeed... (Score:4, Insightful)
Which is of course why these kinds of tactics don't, and won't, work in the long run. All the unwitting victims just net you bad publicity, while the slick file pirates just sit and laugh.
The first test of my theory (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The first test of my theory (Score:2)
That is to say, OFF.
Re:The first test of my theory (Score:3, Insightful)
Another reason for using WPA wireless (Score:2)
Plausible deniability (Score:4, Interesting)
dupe, dump, deny, and divide.
Re:Plausible deniability (Score:2)
Would that even work? Suppose I leave my apartment unlocked and some drug dealers leave a stash there, then I'm busted with it. Plausible deniability?
(Note: Yes, this is a very inadequate example. No problemo. I'm still curious what would happen, so it's not a total loss...)
Re:Plausible deniability (Score:5, Interesting)
Additionally, courts are aware that defendants may engage in behavior, knowing what the outcome is likely to be. Willful blindness, such as you suggest, is pretty obvious and does not help people get off the hook.
It's possible that you are thinking of the legal system as a mechanism that is not intelligent, and can be gotten around through cleverness. That is not the case. People are involved in the system at every step, and often they are more clever than you, and have a dim view of amateurs trying to manipulate them. Basically, if you would see through such a ploy, or if you think other intelligent people would, you should expect that your opponents in a legal battle would.
Re:Plausible deniability (Score:4, Insightful)
As someone living in the third world, I am constantly amazed at how little protection is afforded the average American by their laws. Obviously, I am not refering to O.J.Simpson or Michael Jackson.
And yet the death penalty has pretty much universal support!
Not only is it shocking that these Corporations seem to be all-powerful and there seems nothing that ordinary Americans can do against them, but they seem to have sanction from every section of your community.
Everybody here seems to be saying: "Well, I believe he did it, he should hang". Nobody seems to think how ludicrous it is to pursue ordinary citizens for these kind of punative damages.
Wow.
Re:Plausible deniability (Score:3, Insightful)
If you believe this to be true, I recommend you seek out other media sources for your news about American affairs, as we are FAR from unified in our views about the death penalty.
Re:Plausible deniability (Score:4, Informative)
The legal system expects everyone to abide by the law. If they do not, ignorance of the law is no defense.
In a case where A sets up an open WAP, and B uses it in an illegal fashion, then the appropriate defendant is B; A hasn't done anything wrong. However, where enough evidence points to A as more likely being the culprit than B, A is the one that is liable for what has happened. This is because as far as the courts can figure out, A actually did it. Remember, the courts aren't perfect and they aren't psychic. Sometimes they punish the wrong person.
So yes, if you have an open WAP, you are exposing yourself to liability because it generally appears that traffic to that WAP from the ISP is your traffic, and not someone else's. You certainly are not protecting yourself; that comes from locking it down so that the only person using it is yourself, and you then don't break the law.
I think your confidence in the decision of factfinders in civil trials is utterly misplaced. They have to do the best with what they have, and the standard is low, and quite friendly to the plaintiff. A mere 51% chance that it was the WAP owner and not someone else, and that's sufficent.
Re:Plausible deniability (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Plausible deniability (Score:3, Funny)
What the... (Score:5, Insightful)
Movie companies have the right to look at all the computers in your house, because you allegedly commited *copyright infringement*.
Wow.
Re:What the... (Score:2)
Re:What the... (Score:3, Informative)
In this case, it would certainly cover examining computers for evidence of copyright infringement.
Re:What the... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What the... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What the... (Score:3, Insightful)
You can't afford the legal fees to get you the same rights as the MPAA. You're legally classified as a nobody. Bill Gates, however, is a respected member of the community - respect in the order of several billions I believe. The courts won't even be interested in anything you have to
$100,000? (Score:3, Interesting)
there are thousands of variables that go into the calculated 'loss'.
- would all the downloaders actually buy the dvd?
- would the dvd stay on sale until all those would be customers buy it?
- would the dvd price stay the same?
more importantly, why does the law accept take their word on it?
Re:$100,000? (Score:2)
Re:type? (Score:3, Funny)
Still, it can't be a good point for the plaintiff.
"Your honor, we stand before you with our dicks in our hands, since we found no evidence. We move for a change of venue."
Next Door (Score:2, Funny)
2 things: (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously? $100,000? Quick math tells me that he would have had to share the movie 4,547 and 1/2 times to have shared enough copies to equal that price tag. I get the idea of a deterent but man. Side note even if the film was compressed to around 700 megs or so (to fit on a CD) that would take 3,183,265 and some change megabyes of bandwidth (3 terabytes if my late nite mind is still working at all) to share that file that many times. Seems a little unlikely the punishment fits the crime.
2) Isn't there a burden of proof on the prosecution in this case? Don't they have to show he was the one responsible for uploading the file? If someone steals my car then commits a drive by shooting, I can't be held responsible, can I? To me, having an open wireless access point seems perfectly reasonable (if that is your preference) and it would seem to be a tough sell to get a judge to fine this guy when there's no evidence he did anything wrong and he can produce a line of reasonable doubt.
I'm not up to date on case law in the US, so maybe I'm wrong but seems really shaky at first glance.
Re:2 things: (Score:5, Informative)
In fact, statutory damages for copyright infringement in the US are arbitrary. They range from $750 - $30,000 ordinarily, rarely go as low as $200, and can fairly easily go as high as $150,000. And that's per work infringed, not the number of infringements (i.e. make a million copies of a movie, and it only counts once; make one copy each of two movies, and it counts twice).
Even where only the minimum amount (almost inevitably $750 per work) is claimed by the plaintiff, multiplying this by a large number of works (e.g. 100 songs is $75,000) can still be very significant to individuals.
Regarding proof, this is a civil case, not a criminal one. While the plaintiff (not prosecutor) has to prove that the defendant infringed, he merely has to show that it is more likely than not that the defendant infringed. Open WAPs aside, the person who uses your WAP most is likely to be you, especially if you don't show that it was in fact someone else, that the files were never on your system, etc. I'm plenty sympathetic here, but honestly, I think the odds are at least marginally in favor of the perpetrator not being a third party, and that's all it takes to satisfy the relevant standard.
Re:2 things: (Score:3, Informative)
It doesn't change; that would be silly.
Rather, some minor infringement is only civil, and then above a certain threshold, it becomes both a civil and criminal offense (much in the same way that going around hitting people with a stick is both kinds of offense).
The thresholds are:
1) Willful infringement of a copyright for commercial advantage or financial gain (inclu
Happened to a friend (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Happened to a friend (Score:2)
One of the *main* reasons to not use most cable ISP's. At least Verizon defended it's users ID's.
http://www.eff.org/legal/cases/RIAA_v_Verizon/ [eff.org]
Well that makes sense (Score:2, Insightful)
Ignorance of the law is not innocence (Score:5, Funny)
-Grobo, Son of Chinea in the Tenth Dynasty of Koll
Police Priorities? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Police Priorities? (Score:5, Interesting)
Its right there, the police were wasting time on this case.
its Stupid.
"Drive-by"? (Score:5, Insightful)
I admit I haven't seen "Coach Carter", and I'm not using hard numbers here, but I estimate that uploading an entire motion picture at any worthwhile quality would take at least six hours, maybe twelve. That's not a drive-by, that's your next-door neighbor using your bandwidth all day long.
most likely the guy is lying (Score:5, Interesting)
Paramount has looked at all four computers in Lee's home, alleging he had one of them cleaned to erase evidence. The company has filed a federal lawsuit against the Blue Ash man.
But Lee claims that because his wireless connection was unsecured at the time, anyone could have parked near or in front of his home, tapped in and then driven off.
"If I can do anything to make people understand that please, if you're using wireless Internet, have somebody install it that knows what they're doing," he said. "Because if you don't, they could get in trouble just like me."
nice attempt at defence: but it wasn't me, it was someone else who used my unsecured connection.
Who the hell wants to 'share' a movie with others of p2p networks so much that they would go war-driving? I have a very strong feeling that this guy is lying. Of-course this will have to be proven in court, but it is just a gut feeling. In the case he actually did this, he deserves what is coming to him.
Re:most likely the guy is lying (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:most likely the guy is lying (Score:3, Insightful)
From time to time I can see my neighbors wireless connection. If I so desired I imagine I could mount an antenna and use it with with great reliability... granted that would be wrong but the fact of the mat
Re:most likely the guy is lying (Score:3, Insightful)
Marketing Ploy (Score:3, Funny)
What did he expect? (Score:3, Funny)
You know... (Score:5, Interesting)
Coach Carter (Score:5, Funny)
I hadn't heard of this movie until this story. Further proof that piracy helps the movie industry.
More information needed... (Score:5, Insightful)
This guy I know has a lot of guns. He also makes a lot of his own ammo. Recently, he *gasp* cleaned his pistol. Clearly he is hiding evidence and he is the killer we are looking for.
Seriously (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Seriously (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, thanks to the new bankruptcy laws that went into effect on October 17th, he would most likely be forced into a chapter 13 where he would be required to make payments on possibly the entire amount through the courts for the next seven years. If I were the target of this sort of corporate oppression, I would seriously consider moving my family to a different country.
Paramont Bin Laden (Score:3, Interesting)
He believes that he has the authority to do anything to these 'criminals', including the most extreme and gruesome murder and maiming.
But there are just too many Americans around, and Osama is just one man. So he randomly selects 'criminals' to be 'punished' in the horrible ways imaginable.
Paramount is a wealthy corporation that believes that all of the Westerners and most of all young Americans are 'criminals'. They bought the laws from politicians to ensure the legal details were in order from their perspective. They believe that all of these criminals should be punished. But they aren't Arabs, so instead of blowing people up, they just take everything that a person has ever owned and get a legal warrant to take from the person everything that they will own in the future. All for their 'crimes'.
But there are too many young Americans, and Paramount is only one legal person. So they randomly select people to be punished in the most spectacular fashion. Criminals are punished: all is in order in the world.
Osama is a terrorist; hunted by all civilized people on earth and protected by the uncivilized.
Paramount is a respected corporation owned by General Electric.
But they both operate in exactly the same fashion!
Multiculturalism (Score:4, Insightful)
"But they aren't Arabs, so instead of blowing people up..."
Shame on you.
Multiculturalism is a good thing. But it is basically an illusion because it assumes that all cultures are equal and that people are basically good.
However, we owe it to the thousands of people who have been randomly murdered by the adherents of a specific culture that there is the possiblity that certain cultures may be disfunctional and therefore be unable to be able to understand and follow the ideals of multiculturalism.
I deliberately chose to emphasize the fact that since the beginning of the modern age of terrorism, it has been the Arabs that have consistently and deliberately blown up random non-Arabs to bring world attention to their issues. No other people have done this to the extent that the Arabs have. I therefore am compelled in the memory of the people randomly and horribly murdered to call attention to the possiblity that it is the Arab culture that is unable to function within the ideals of multiculturalism. I should be ashamed and would be ashamed to say that this particular culture is disfunctional in the modern world, were it not for all the blood and body parts lying in the street whereever Arabs feel that they have been mistreated or slighted by either history or the modern world.
Re:Perjury is a Crime (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Perjury is a Crime (Score:5, Interesting)
Um... ME? I help friends all the time with their computers. In fact I am about to help a friend set up the fourth computer in his house. He has one, and all 3 of his kids have their own computers. Guess what? They are all networked and they use WiFi to do it.
Why am I doing that? Because he and his family are novices when it comes to networking.
As for the clean machine? First thing I do is wipe the drive and reset it up to get rid of all the preloaded crap from the factory. Guess I'm trying to hide something too...
Guilty until proven innocent where you come from? (Score:5, Interesting)
The article didn't say they were networked. The article said, "Paramount has looked at all four computers in Lee's home, alleging he had one of them cleaned to erase evidence."
And what does cleaned mean, really? The article doesn't clarify. Does cleaned mean he got so sick of Windows running slow from spyware that he reinstalled his operating system, formatting the drive in the process because his friend told him to do so? Do you think that might be possible, mister guilty-until-proven-innocent with your snarky little perjury-is-a-crime comment bullshit?
Do you know how many people have wireless set up because their "Home DSL/Cable Gateway" that the man at bestbuy/circuitcity/compusa sold them on the pretense that "wireless is the future" and "if you get a laptop you can roam your house and always be on the internet." Care to venture a guess at how many stupid consumers get duped into that one? That's right I said stupid consumers, people who don't know how to secure the WAP they just bought "to keep the hackers out of [his] computer."
And before you go on the "why would a computer novice have FOUR computers?" rant, I offer you this: It's 1990, a man gets a computer. It's 1994, the man's computer stops working, he puts it in the closet, he gets another computer. It's 2000, his second computer stops working, he puts it and the first out in the garage and gets a new one. I'm sure you can guess where the fourth computer came from unless you are actually as stupid as your comment would lead me to believe.
Really, I don't know how you got modded insightful at all, because you lend no insight to the conversation, only FUD.
Re:Perjury is a Crime (Score:5, Interesting)
In any case, the guy may still be guilty, but I'm just saying that basic knowledge of some aspects of computing does not necessarily mean that he has ANY knowledge of network security, and he may well consider himself a novice in part because of his lack of knowledge in that area.
Re:Perjury is a Crime (Score:3, Insightful)
My wife took the course and it certainly helped her a great deal. My friend stop
Re:Yeah right, in your dreams (Score:4, Interesting)
That's not so far fetched, actually. Around here, Cox Cable would come out and install a home network package for you, with cable modem and multiport firewall/router. I didn't read TFA, but 4 computers could easily be one each for him, his wife, and 2 kids. Or one or more might be virus-ridden junk that were "upgraded" rather than being wiped. The one that was wiped could have been taken back to the store for reinstallation.
Computers have approached commodity status these days - you can get a reasonable PC for around $300 and non-tech-savvy folks wouldn't necessarily know that they get dog slow when loaded with viruses and spyware. They'd assume that, just like a fridge or TV or cooker, the PC is wearing out...