ToS Violations No Longer a Crime (On Their Own) 162
nonprofiteer writes "The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act previously made 'unauthorized access to a computer system' a crime — meant to apply to hackers, it also criminalized violations of a website's ToS or of a workplace's computer policies. The law is being changed to make the crime a felony rather than a misdemeanor, which led some to worry about the potential for its abuse. However, Senators Franken and Grassley added an amendment (PDF) to exempt violations of ToS and employer policies from the lists of felony activity. w00t for common sense."
Still crimes, even on their own (Score:3, Insightful)
A misdemeanor is still a crime, just a less serious crime. The amendment exempts ToS violations from being felonies, but does not stop them from being misdemeanors, then they are still crimes.
Re:Still crimes, even on their own (Score:4, Informative)
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So a troll that just keeps making new id's on a forum to harass forum members, after being banned permanently, would be breaking the law, however a troll that hasn't been banned yet, who is violating the ToS isn't yet breaking the law?
IANAL and it'd be good to understand th
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Re:Still crimes, even on their own (Score:5, Informative)
Here's the text of the current law:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/1030.html [cornell.edu]
(go yell at Cornell if you think it is not an accurate reflection of the current U.S. code, I don't care)
Section 1030(e)(6) defines the term âoeexceeds authorized accessâ as used in the law. The amendment to the proposed bill changes the definition explicitly to exclude TOS violations as a sole basis for determining unauthorized access.
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And here is the text of the bill in question S.1151 [loc.gov].
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i like how the submitter w00ted despite there being no common sense involved with the entire ordeal.
Still is a crime (Score:2)
Adding an amendment does not mean it's been passed and is in effect. If this were true, then we would have gotten rid of the patriot act, withdrawn from foreign deployment, made smoking illegal, beefed up the patriot act, and given every person in america free tacos and jailtime. Here is the current status: http://politics.nytimes.com/congress/bills/112/s1151 [nytimes.com]
*nod nod nod* (Score:2)
....However, Senators Franken and Grassley added an amendment (PDF) to exempt violations of ToS and employer policies from the lists of felony activity. w00t for common sense.
Excellent. This really made me blink and re-read many times to ensure the post and all of the articles referenced were actually what I thought I read.
Hopefully this will prevent scare-suit tactics from large companies that aren't "making enough money this quarter". :)
I'm referencing activities from the past, not trollin'.
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I'm referencing activities from the past, not trollin'.
No, you're trolling.
Referencing actually requires references that SOMEONE recognizes.
What large companies have sued people over ToS violations because they aren't "making enough money this quarter".
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Too bad we don't have some sort of connected computational system we could use to house and find reference to thing we don't remember clearly.
Oh well.
If there where companies sued because they didn't have enough money this quarter, it would be trivial to find.
As a rule, it's a topic that doesn't interest you, then don't post nonsense on a thread about said topic.
And this is a troll statement :
"Hopefully this will prevent scare-suit tactics from large companies that aren't "making enough money this quarter".
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How is not remembering details and citing examples "distorting reality"?
You don't have all of the details and examples to cite on how weather works, but you are aware that sunshine generally makes you feel warm due to radiation (insolation [not insulation]), right? Message got across. You can agree or disagree, but if you want to dig and dig to find that the examples to affirm the idea exist, you can. If you choose to find details that negate it exists, you can. That's called "opinion".
Last I checked, y
Troll business model. (Score:2)
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4. Invest in new prison construction.
Thanks for finally revealing what ??? means. Now we know that the penultimate step in every business venture is "Invest in new prison construction." Imagine the effect those stolen underpants will have!
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4. Invest in new prison construction.
Thanks for finally revealing what ??? means. Now we know that the penultimate step in every business venture is "Invest in new prison construction." Imagine the effect those stolen underpants will have!
Now you had to start running your mouth and training the other "x" percentage of readers that wouldn't have gotten it. Now it's ruined. Forever.
??? is investment in prison construction.
Thanks a lot, thanks.. a... lot. /humor :)
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In one case, a company set up a website whose terms of use prohibited visiting the website. When their competitor visited, they sued. In another case, someone put a fake profile picture on MySpace and was charged with a crime. You can be sued for checking personal email at work or visiting Facebook.This is law made by people who don't understand co
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You can be sued for checking personal email at work or visiting Facebook.
Yes, you can, and for good reason. There are times when those are actually a crime, just like how in certain circumstances you really CAN sue someone because YOU spilled hot coffee on YOURSELF.
Its not always cut and dried 'checking personal email' ... sometimes its 'emailing company documents to corp spies using personal email' or 'making death threats on facebook'.
These stupid laws exist because of lawyers who will use any twisting thing they can to win a case, right or wrong.
You make things like ToS viol
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1. Register commonly mis-spelled domain names.
2. Make ToS "Any access to this website is prohibited."
3. Report all website accesses to the authorities.
4. Invest in new prison construction.
5. PROFIT.
It may sound far-fetched, but your step four is a well-proven business model. It made a lot of people rich in Arizona [npr.org]. But it didn't turn out so well for this guy [wikipedia.org].
ToS - Works both ways (Score:5, Interesting)
I use the "Modify Headers" FF extension to add the following to all my browser requests:
X-Terms-Of-Service: By responding to this request, you agree to place no restrictions on the requesting user's use of the data you send, and that no subsequent terms of service may modify this provision.
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I use the "Modify Headers" FF extension to add the following to all my browser requests:
X-Terms-Of-Service: By responding to this request, you agree to place no restrictions on the requesting user's use of the data you send, and that no subsequent terms of service may modify this provision.
Lolzers. Awesome.
Now make that header an RFC. Then, get a new random lawsuit filed, processed, and won. Get another suit and _use case law_ to win it.
Success. :)
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Won't do you any good because no human has agreed to your terms of service as you did to access the service in the first place. You have a computer agreeing not to place any restrictions, a computer with no authority to make such an agreement.
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How is that different from a web site's ToS which binds me to something simply by downloading their page?
I don't know how the response is being formed. Maybe it IS by a human. Certainly could be. And certainly, any *client* might be a computer and not a human as well, which would nullify any web site ToS ever.
Basically, I agree with you that my "ToS" is stupid and useless, except to illustrate that web site ToSes are *also* stupid and useless.
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It is different because, you, a person are making the agreement, an agreement presented by computer, but written by human.
You are using false dichotomy, a fallacy, to demonstrate something. That makes your demonstration fallacious.
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I think you misunderstand what sort of ToS he is talking about. A real contract signed with cable company, or a EULA that you agree to when installing software or a ToS that you agree to when creating an account at a website are almost always valid and enforcable. However, he is talking about the blanket ToS that you can find linked in small print at the bottom of almost any corporate website. Companies act like they are legally binding even though visitors of the site were never shown the ToS, never agreed
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The law has concepts like 'expectations' and 'reasonable' and 'opportunity'. There is no reasonable expectation that anyone will ever see his supposed TOS, or that any human would ever be involved on the server side. Therefore, he has no claim. On the other hand, it is reasonable to expect that a human is on the client side, and was presented with the opportunity to see a TOS. The fact that the human choose to use a machine as his agent does not absolve him of responsibility.
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Walking through an open door is not.
Sure it is - illegal entry. Drop the 'breaking' part of 'breaking and entering'. Especially if there's a no-trespassing sign.
Just because you can physically go inside doesn't mean you're allowed to.
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Oh, unless you're a government employee. The courts have recently ruled that they can enter unless there's a physical barrier (gated driveway, for instance).
Rich-protection rules.
At least their server has downloaded the ToS (Score:2)
The average user never sees the ToS for a site.
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When you buy a game console you don't sign any TOS, you just pay. So you could legally hack it before clicking any ACCEPT buttons, and you are golden, right?? Tell that to geohotz
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Um, no. Geohotz did not get sued for violating TOS, he got sued for violating a law (DMCA). You don't have to agree to anything to be bound by a law.
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IANAL, but...
1. You're not providing a service, therefore you can't offer terms of that service.
2. You know that a human will never be reading that header. It probably won't even be found in logs. It's like whispering under your breath when you sign a contract.
Yeah. Agreed. That's different from the daily cheat schemes from not-so-hot companies..... how?
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That's different from the daily cheat schemes from not-so-hot companies..... how?
The company forces you to see the ToS in order for it to be binding. They are required to put it in front of your eye balls in a way that you can not have missed it, only chosen to ignore it in order for it to be legally binding.
And then you fucking click next or I agree or whatever. THATS the difference.
They never get the option to look at your terms, and you are willfully ignoring to read theirs so you can claim ignorance later.
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When I visit most websites I am indeed providing a service by looking at their advertisments. You think I do this crap for fun?
Post title wrong (Score:2)
We don't need these amendments. (Score:2, Flamebait)
I don't understand why they added these amendments. If we're going to maintain a proper police state, we need to make as many of our citizen's actions illegal as possible. This makes it easier for our brave and glorious men and women in uniform to keep the peace and protect our precious homeland from all those who would threaten it, or disagree with it, or who just look funny.
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"I don't understand why they added these amendments. If we're going to maintain a proper police state, we need to make as many of our citizen's actions illegal as possible. This makes it easier for our brave and glorious men and women in uniform to keep the peace and protect our precious fatherland from all those who would threaten it, or disagree with it, or who just look funny"
FTFY. Really, how is violating a ToS a crime in any way? At best the user should get suspended or in more serious cases banned from the site for a ToS violation not charged with a f'n crime. This is just another dumbass law to give the appearance of the asshated politicians doing something.
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Inaccurate story/summary (Score:3)
This submission and/or the story is a troll. The referenced act only applies to a restricted set of systems. Roughly speaking it applies to non-public government systems and financial/bank computers. It does not apply to typical websites, nor does it apply to typical workplaces. But don't take my word for it, read the law http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/1030.html [cornell.edu]
Didn't we just... (Score:2)
So what? (Score:2)
An unenforced law is still something to be ridiculed and laughed at.
Every day just about everyone with any sort of server experiences "intrusions" which, if successfull, would result in significant harm to the server. Every day the administrators for these servers shrug it off and say it is just part of the Internet today. What this means is that we have people trying to do harm but in one way or another being blocked from doing it.
Every once in a while some server fails to block one of these and we have
slashdot is run by sheep (Score:2)
look. the CFAA is not 'meant to target hackers'. it is meant to target dissent. the last high profile CFAA case was Thomas Drake, a --whistleblower--.
then there is Bradley Manning, a dozen or so counts under CFAA... for stuff like the collateral murder video and the Reyjkavic 13 email. innocuous information about government abuse,,,, now a felony to even tell a reporter about.
congrats sheep. you get the dictatorship you so richly deserve.
no go back to reading news about the new iPad
Remember Lori Drew? (Score:2)
Boy people here have short memories. The most highly-publicized recent prosecution under this law was that of Lori Drew [wikipedia.org], the woman who impersonated a boy on MySpace to harass an acquaintance of her daughter. After the target committed suicide, Drew was indicated in 2008 by a Federal grand jury in California (where MySpace is located) and charged under the CFAA with one count of criminal conspiracy and three counts of violating the MySpace TOS.
Whatever legal standing terms-of-service might have, they should
Sony ToS Violation (Score:2)
Good luck getting a jury to under stand a TOS in a (Score:2)
Good luck getting a jury to under stand a TOS in a fed case much less the courts, jails , and prosecutors to have the time or room to fit all the cases in.
Sci Five if you read TOS as "The Original Series" (Score:2)
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And that's related to this bill about criminal law how?
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Do you know what a loss leader is? Stores will sell a popular item slightly below cost so that customers will come to the store for the discount, and while they're there they buy other stuff which the store profits from. The item won't stay on sale below cost for very long. So the competitor can come in, buy your entire supply of them (which will cause your customers to be angry that they came for the discount and it's sold out), then as soon as your sale is over, sell them for the normal retail price.
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(usually when they're selling below cost and don't want their competitor to use them as a supplier)
Why would they care if their customers are doing that? There's no fiscal reason for do that.
For a storable good, if I can buy all your stock at below cost, then I can sell it (either immediately while you're out of stock or later when the price rises) at a higher price.
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For a storable good, if I can buy all your stock at below cost, then I can sell it (either immediately while you're out of stock or later when the price rises) at a higher price.
Okay. So now you're sitting on all this inventory you're not selling. You now have a reduced cash flow because your money is tied up in these parts that aren't moving. In the mean time the lower priced stores reaps a short term cash flow increase, with no impact on the long term cash flow, while continuing to sell at their current pricing.
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Okay. So now you're sitting on all this inventory you're not selling. You now have a reduced cash flow because your money is tied up in these parts that aren't moving. In the mean time the lower priced stores reaps a short term cash flow increase, with no impact on the long term cash flow, while continuing to sell at their current pricing.
Really?
Supplier S has a large stock of widgets. It sells them, wholesale, for $1 each (in large lots but who cares).
Retailer A buys some from S at $1/each and advertises them for sale at $.9 each in order to drive traffic to their store.
Now let's say that Retailer B wants to sell some widgets themselves at the normal price of $2. They have a choice to make:
- Option 1 : buy them from S at $1 each. No impact on Retailer A
- Option 2 : buy them from A at $.9 each. This is cheaper for Retailer B and a guaran
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Re:Sorry but.... (Score:5, Informative)
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But has not problem with them being a misdemeanor apparently and hence doesn't deserve any cheering.
Re:Sorry but.... (Score:4, Informative)
The law that mad it a misdemeanor was already on the books. Did Franken vote for it? I rather doubt it, he hasn't been in office all that long, and the act is rather old. When you get elected to a senatorial post you don't get to review all the old laws on the books and call for a revote.
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But when making changes that involve that law surely you should introduce the changes you think should be made?
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He did (well, they did). This law replaces the old law, and they have changed the definition of the crime to include a caveat about TOS and employment contracts. Assuming this law passes, it will not longer be any sort of crime to violate a TOS or employment contract (at least in so far as this law is concerned, if you violate your employment contract by stealing a few hundred grand, I suspect they still arrest you)
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You may want to add in the ones from the democratic corporate whores to, unless you are ignorant and think only one party does the bidding of rich corporations.
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Re:Sorry but.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds like a plan. Revoke all laws 10-20 years after they are passed, unless they can pass again.
Give the congresscritters something to do, so they can feel useful.
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I've been in favor of this as a constitutional amendment for years. No law should stand for more than a generation without a reexamination of content, context, and applicability.
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Unfortunately, it'd take a major overhaul of our justice system to do this in America: We use a common law system, with history back to English common law from before the revolution. This means that a case that happened before America was discovered can be cited as precedent, as long as it hasn't been overruled since.
Countries that use a civil law system would be much more able to pull it off. (But then everything has to be decided by legislature, or on a case-by-case basis. You can't say 'well, last tim
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That'd be more of a reasonable objection if laws didn't get updated and repealed occasionally. Precedent is important in the fair application of law, but it isn't required for every ruling.
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5 years for the first pass.
10 years for the second pass.
20 years for the third pass.
50 years for each subsequent pass.
That way, even a law that seems obviously like a good idea can be reevaluated or revised if circumstances change. Suppose for example that we developed the technology to clone a deceased person and copy over the memories from their original brain. That would allow people to perhaps "recover" from being murdered. Would the punishments proscribed by law for murder need to change? Perhaps we wo
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Sounds like a plan. Revoke all laws 10-20 years after they are passed, unless they can pass again.
Give the congresscritters something to do, so they can feel useful.
Hasn't been working with the PATRIOT act crap.
It may even be that the sunset provisions are essentially guaranteeing renewal because all the politicians are afraid that if they do not renew the law and some terrorist somewhere pulls off an attack then anyone running for the same office will be able to say that the incumbent let the terrorist kill people by not voting to renew the law.
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The point is to keep them busy, so they don't feel like they need to write new stupid laws. It's not a complete solution.
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The point is to keep them busy, so they don't feel like they need to write new stupid laws. It's not a complete solution.
They'll just cut-n-paste.
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Sounds like a plan. Revoke all laws 10-20 years after they are passed, unless they can pass again.
Give the congresscritters something to do, so they can feel useful.
Maybe just something to do for ten minutes every year. That's how long it would take to vote through an omnibus bill renewing all legislation which was to expire that year. Attempts at debate would be sidestepped by invoking whatever rules are necessary (even if it involves misapplication of said rules). And the bill would likely be passed "by acclamation" or on "show of hands" or other means of avoiding documented responsibility by individual legislators.
If you want to get a sunset rule for legislation,
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First good post in this thread. Yes, most of the laws on our books today should be stricken. We have outrageously stupid laws that simply don't apply anymore, we have outrageously stupid laws that never did apply, we still have racist laws, we have some less stupid laws that have simply outlived their usefulness, and we even have laws that are blatantly unconstitutional.
Yes, laws should age. Around ten years, they should be reviewed, then again at twenty years, and scheduled to be stricken unless they ac
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At current number (including all the treaties and other crap within) the world's strongest man couldn't carry it.
Of course that's because our law, thanks to the Republicans, is so fucking byzantine that even the government themselves can't tell us how many federal felonies are possible - let alone state felonies and misdemeanors of all levels.
Here you go: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4097602514885833865 [google.com]
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Of course that's because our law, thanks to the Republicans, ...
FFS, stop doing this crap! Republicans blame everything on Democrats, and Democrats blame everything on Republicans. They're both to blame! Damn, I'm sick of this rose coloured glasses political polarization you fools keep dragging out.
Here's a couple for you. Democrats got us into VietNam. Republicans got us out of VietNam! On the other side, Republicans got us into Iraq and Afghanistan. On the other side, Obama is keeping us in Afghanistan! Mix in the fact that both Republicans and Democrats voted
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Don't forget the Bull Moose Bull... um... uh... yeah.
Re:Sorry but.... (Score:4, Informative)
Franken might be against the whole damned thing, but in favor of putting in the amendment because he thinks the entire bill will likely pass and he wants to make it suck less.
And the whole point of the amendment is that TOS violations won't be a felony.
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And the whole point of the amendment is that TOS violations won't be a felony.
But are they still a misdemeanor? ToS Violations might still be a crime even with this ammendment despite what the title here says.
Re:Sorry but.... (Score:4, Informative)
No, they changed the definition of the crime itself to exclude violations of TOSes and similar. Read the amendment, it's like a whole paragraph of reading.. Or, ya know, just scream and cry that your rights are being violated reflexively.
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Well, to be honest it is a well-serving reflex. I'm sure it has a very high hit-rate.
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You forgot the second sentence in my reply.
Hint: The Boy Who Cried Wolf would be a very different story if there was actually a wolf 95% of the time he sounded the alarm...
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No, they changed the definition of the crime itself to exclude violations of TOSes and similar. Read the amendment, it's like a whole paragraph of reading.. Or, ya know, just scream and cry that your rights are being violated reflexively.
I see nothing in the amendment that completely nixes violation of ToS from any and all lists of criminal activity found in the bill, only from the list of felony activities. Nor did I scream and cry like you believe I did; I posed a question, and expected a reasoned response. There is no legal version of justfinggoogleit.
Or, ya know, just reflexively scream and cry that others just scream and cry about their rights being violated.
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It says right in the amendment that they are altering the definition of the crime. Since this law is replacing the old law, it will replace the definition in the old law with the new definition. Essentially everything that used to be a misdemeanor will now be a felony, but now with the caveat about TOS and Employment contract violations inserted. Assuming of course that the law gets passed at all; it seems that the whole thing is rather premature, because the bill hasn't even been voted on.
I apologize fo
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Dont cheer franken, he should be against the whole damn thing. TOS violations a felony? What complete idiot can stand by any part of that bill? So now I can make a TOS for my website or my home and declare laws that are not laws of the land and they become felonies...
Oh wait, this is only for the rich and the corperations... Must be a fucking republican law.
From the summary above:
However, Senators Franken and Grassley added an amendment (PDF) to exempt violations of ToS and employer policies from the lists of felony activity. w00t for common sense.
Reading is fundamental.
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If those politicians had their choice, everybody would be a felon, finger printed and bar coded. They fear the computer and fear makes people do stupid things. And fear they should, ignorance is not bliss on the net.
Why are there never any names associated with these kinds of things? I really want to know who not to vote for just in case they are in my state, then again I don't vote, but my internet posts have the potential to :)
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Why are there never any names associated with these kinds of things? I really want to know who not to vote for just in case they are in my state, then again I don't vote, but my internet posts have the potential to :)
Well, I know reading is hard ... but ... if you had bothered to read THE SUMMARY AT THE TOP OF THIS PAGE it attached two names itself ...
Senators Franken and Grassley put their names on it.
The problem is, as you've already pointed out, you don't care enough to vote, just enough to rant on the Internet and expect a different outcome. That makes you insane, as well as stupid. But if you actually cared enough to do something about it, you might pay attention to the news and notice which laws are being passed
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Actually, upgrading the crime to a felony was an Obama administration directive. Guess he's a Republican, now?
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Actually, upgrading the crime to a felony was an Obama administration directive. Guess he's a Republican, now?
Unfortunately, he's been a Republican since his first day in office. :(
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There is little difference between the far left and far right - they both want to force their dogma and agenda down your throat and don't care that 99% of the population disagrees with them. It is hard to believe extremist nutbags get into office, but when you look at their competition it usually was one nutjob at one extreme or another at the other. You'd think we'd then favor a 3rd party, but when you look at them, they are almost all variants of the Green party, which is a bunch of tree hugging hippies a
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Um. Depends on what computer and the consequences of tampering. That is, after all, the point of the original, existing law that may be being amended here.
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You are asking the wrong question. The question should be "Is breaking into someones computer really worth getting smacked...". If the answer is NO, then don't break into someones computer.
'breaking into someons computer' = whistleblowing (Score:2)
CFAA has been used to go after everyone from whistleblowers to people sending hateful messages over facebook.
take 5 minutes and read the wikipedia article
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No, but by invoking apple, you can use the ensuing flames as a heat source for your power plant.
hay bob why is the core playing music? (Score:2)
hay bob why is the core playing music?
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Do politicians, and corporations really expect us to live under the guise that we really have anything left to lose to them? Liberty and freedom are all we have here folks.
It blows me away that people can make such statements. I get your point and all that, but perhaps you should live in Somalia for a while to see just how much you can lose.