[ale] Linux apparently illegal in MA

[tom]

On Sat, 18 Apr 2009, Richard Bronosky wrote:

I shouldn't, but ...

And how is that different in any significant way from having the 
healthcare, financial institutions, and CEOs of major corporations in 
charge of choosing the government decision apparatus? We are in the later 
stages (possibly) of saddling ourselves with an oligarchy masquarding as a 
republican democracy.

Except for the removal of execs, the economic stimulus efforts were 
designed by the Bush admin.

As for health care, I fail to see a difference between being told my care 
options by a private insurance clerk chosen by somebody else and a 
government insurance clerk chosen by somebody else. Either way, my options 
are pretty much chosen by somebody else. As it is, our current system 
skims the affordable health care for private, for-profit organizations, 
and dumps the expensive, actually sick people (or older individuals) on 
the government and blames the government for not reigning in the cost of 
treating the sicker, no profit available, part of society. (Ok. counter 
example to my own argument: OctoMom being medically supported by public 
funds.)

Consider Grandmom in her nursing home. If/when her private funding runs 
out, they don't carry her existance as overhead and charge everybodyelse, 
nor do they tip her bed up and slide her out the window and get rid of 
her. I should point out that the law requires full and proper care of such 
a person regardless of their ability to pay. They can not be given second 
rate care. Which means heroic (and expensive) life support measures unless 
a legally competent instrument is executed before hand. And _somebody_ has 
to pay for it. That somebody is you, whether by higher fees, higher 
insurance rates, or taxes. That cost will be paid. And that discussion is 
shuffeled off into obscurity by the current mixed system so that no real 
discussion is possible.

IMHO, IANAL, and so forth.

Plus I need to appologise to the list for being so horridly off topic. I 
tire of religious miracle discussions, whether the issue if vi - emacs or 
the One-True-Operating-System (TM).

> Hey, why don't we put the government in charge of our healthcare,
> financial institutions, and choosing the CEOs of major corporations?!
>
> On 4/18/09, Michael B. Trausch <mbt at zest.trausch.us> wrote:
>> On Sat, 18 Apr 2009 02:09:35 -0400
>> Robert Reese~ <ale at sixit.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Clearly he had enough sh!t to know how to do the effort defined in
>>>> the allegation.  The fact that he fixes computers (even ones
>>>> suggested to be Linux) suggest that he knows more than the average
>>>> joe (or jane). So he would be in my top ten list of suspects.
>>>
>>> Are you suggesting he's in the top 10 people in the entire Boston
>>> area, including those enrolled in CS majors?  And exactly what is he
>>> accused of that was illegal?  Sending a mass email to the student
>>> population outing his roommate is not illegal.  Stupid, and probably
>>> actionable, but not illegal.  Based on the word of the victim
>>> spouting unsupported allegations, the detective in the case decided
>>> that a decade of weekend classes needed to finally be put to use in
>>> this case.  And succeeded in using a bazooka to hunt a squirrel.
>>
>> Pretty much.  There was pretty good indication in the application that
>> the officer really didn't like the alleged criminal, either.  The fact
>> that some stupid clerk thought that the warrant application was proof of
>> probable cause is absolutely terrifying, I think.  The bar is
>> apparently so low that it doesn't much matter who you allege did what,
>> minor modifications to that application could single a warrant out for
>> probably any of us on this list.
>>
>> The parts that angered me the most were the ones that indicated that
>> use of non-FAT file systems, encryption, password protection, etc.,
>> were signs that one had something to hide and must be trying to make
>> life difficult for law enforcement.  I mean, seriously; I see nothing
>> wrong with someone securing their computer down to the firmware if it
>> can be done.  Often it can't, which is pretty sad, but it'd be nice if
>> it were possible.  Hell, I think it'd be nice for there to be some way
>> to re-flash firmware such that you had to supply a key just to decrypt
>> the firmware to be able to boot the system, say, by having just enough
>> firmware on-board to load a firmware image from some storage device
>> that would have to be provided by the user.  At least then a computer
>> is worthless to anyone else in the event that it is stolen, whether by
>> a criminal or by LEOs.
>>
>>> All I can see that he might be nicked for would be the movies and
>>> probably music, neither of which are included in the charges for
>>> which the warrant was issued, and if he indeed hacked into the
>>> grading system and changed grades which is by far the most serious
>>> offense he may have committed.  However, all of that was on the word
>>> of a disgruntled roommate.  Interestingly, the self-professed trained
>>> and experienced "Cyber Crime Investigator" (not to mention the fact
>>> that he's chatted, emailed, and bought stuff online) believes that
>>> jail-breaking iPhones is illegal as well as "fixing" computers to use
>>> encryption.
>>
>> Yep.  The only thing that was confirmed by staff at BC being that those
>> emails were sent, makes this whole thing look like it's sitting on
>> nothing at all.  I really don't know how that wasn't caught before the
>> thing was executed.  The thing even read like the cop had an agenda
>> being furthered by the roommate's agenda.
>>
>> And even if the alleged criminal _did_ change grades in the system,
>> that is for BC to file complaints for/fire him for/handle
>> internally/whatever.  Obviously the staff would have to be involved in
>> that.  It'd be like me calling up the police and saying that my
>> girlfriend was involved in something at work of which I had no proof
>> and the police carrying it all the way somewhere.  The only way I can
>> think of that the roommate would have any proof is if his grades were
>> altered by the accused, and then he'd be just as culpable for
>> requesting it.  And yet, no mention of that in the warrant application.
>>
>>> And Det. 'Ricky Ranger', who has served just TEN warrants in sixteen
>>> years, charges the kid with "Obtaining computer services by Fraud or
>>> Misrepresentation".   Huh?  Where is THAT alleged??  He did charge
>>> the kid with "Unauthorized access to a computer System", a
>>> nefariously vague charge, but doesn't specify what computer system.
>>> If it is the grading system, I find it interesting that during the
>>> detective's interaction with the Director of Security for I.T. at BC
>>> they go into great depth of how the kid visited a gay website and
>>> accessed the email system from his dorm but there is nary a word from
>>> the security honcho about a break-in of the grading system.  Hmmm....
>>> I guess accessing gay porn is much worse than changing grades.
>>
>> I am fairly convinced that the officer tried to paint as dark a picture
>> as he could to the probably relatively closed-minded court clerk.  The
>> only things I see that stand out in the warrant is homosexuality,
>> hidden files, multiple operating systems, and encryption.  Well, shit,
>> call me guilty on 75% of the above, I must be doing something nasty.
>>
>> I mean, yeah, he _must_ have something to hide if he's using an
>> operating system that is rare (oh, nevermind the fact that it's only
>> "rare" for this cop's purposes, and that companies ranging from Apple
>> to IBM to Symantec to Microsoft all are aware of it; rare, indeed).
>> And nevermind the fact that, well, Linux is what, the continuation of
>> but one line in 40 years of development of UNIX-like systems, being the
>> oldest truly common operating system family over the decades.
>>
>> Hey, copper-boy could extend the "multiple operating systems" argument
>> to IBM and say that they must be doing something horribly wrong; they
>> probably encrypt a good lot of their data, too, all over the place.
>> Maybe this officer should ask his buddy at the MA State Police to raid
>> the IBM buildings in the area.  There's sure to be at least one.  And
>> hey, they can probably find a gay man, some dot files, at least four
>> operating systems, and a good lot of encrypted data.  Maybe even more
>> than four operating systems; how many operating systems _has_ IBM
>> developed over the years?
>>
>> Someday, some idiot will think that "OMG opaque bit stream" will be
>> enough to request a warrant, and some other idiot will grant it.
>>
>>>> Were you paying attention back then?  It was perceived as a bomb
>>>> threat in a post-9/11 world.  Granted these days it would probably
>>>> go unnoticed, but back then it was touch-n-go....and not just in
>>>> Boston (a city that lost two originating planes that hit and
>>>> destroyed the twin towers...unless you are one of those loonies
>>>> that believes it was an inside job.....).
>>>
>>> Yes, I was paying attention, perhaps more than the average person
>>> (but for different reasons).  And it was absolutely moronic back
>>> then; as if a terrorist would plant a brightly-lit, colorful cartoon
>>> bomb that screamed, "Hey, look at me!".  It was absurdity bordering
>>> on lunacy.  A person can almost see how they lost those two planes in
>>> the first place.
>>
>> Indeed.  I don't know how they didn't lose their job then, and I don't
>> know how they won't lose their job now.  Police are supposed to be
>> knowledgeable and observant, lest they be shown to lack credibility.
>> Hopefully, the EFF can mop the floor with these dolts.  They claim to
>> be experts, yet know nothing, and the technical claims in the
>> application---if they can even be called technical---are so inaccurate
>> that by themselves I cannot see how these idiots have any remaining
>> credibility.  If the BCPD officer is supposedly an expert, I don't know
>> how he couldn't sniff the bullshit coming from the MA State Police
>> officer, who was clearly also clueless.
>>
>>>>  Also note: that the "two
>>>> guys" associated with the LED cartoon characters months later
>>>> "showed much more remorse, acknowledged their roles, and
>>>> apologized" according to the URL that you posted.
>>>
>>> Sure, after relentless persecution and extended stays in jail.  There
>>> is little doubt the apologies were coerced.  Also look at the source.
>>
>> And yet, people will continue to claim that "the system works."  After
>> all, what's a few innocent people when we catch so many _real_
>> criminals, right?
>>
>>>> Back to Maybe-We-Need-Another-Tea-Party.. we do, but not for a BC
>>>> student, but rather for the original reason that tea was thrown
>>>> into Boston Harbor.
>>>
>>> Not for the constitutional violations but for taxes?  I don't
>>> disagree we need to wipe out the current tax structure (and IRS) and
>>> go with a Fair Tax solution, but I do see the spirited relentless
>>> attacks on Constitutional liberties by Boston and Massachusetts to be
>>> enough reason for another Tea Party.
>>
>> We certainly need _something_.  The level of incompetence in government
>> continues to rise, and the people don't care.  The amount of trust I've
>> had in government for years to actually serve me or protect squat hasn't
>> been raised from nil as far back as I can remember, years spent as a
>> brainwashed youth in that regard notwithstanding.
>>
>> 	--- Mike
>>
>> --
>> The number of UNIX installations has grown to 10, with more
>> expected.
>>                             --- Ritchie & Thompson, June 1972
>>
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