Forum Hacking?

[LosT]

Perspective...

On a lighter note, too much time is spent making stupid laws. For instance, South Carolina has just passed a law that makes it illegal to braid hair without a license. The law sat in the state house for 5 months waiting for approval...5 months!

Five months is flying through legislation, relatively speaking-

LosT

[jesse]

but whose going to watch over those tech workers, huuuuuuuuuh?

shut up, canadian. Since your country has no crime, you have nothing to say about the police.

[TheCotMan]

Law enforcement, The Legislature, and You

(Moderators: request to have this "law" portion of this thread moved to a new thread to be on topic like "Laws, Legislation, and Law Enforcement", even if it must be /dev/null)

What gripes? People have broken the law. The specific law my be stupid in your eyes (or mine), but honestly, that doesn't really matter. It's the law.

OK. A better example.

You are traveling on a well built single lane road at the speed limit of 45 MPH and you have 8 people following you very closely. You get a ticket for impeding the flow of traffic even though you were traveling the speed limit. You can obey several laws at the same time but still be in violation of other laws and yet get a ticket. (This happens) The police officer could choose to give tickets to people for tailgating, but some instead choose to give a ticket for impeding the flow of traffic.

Is a speed limit a dumb law? No.
Is a law for tailgating dumb? No.
Is a law against impeding the flow of traffic dumb? No.

Are there stupid ways to prioritize enforcement of these laws? Yes.

There are other cases where action or inaction can be a violation of different laws.

Cases in development of land where one part of the government tells you you must drain the standing waters on your land as they are a breeding ground for a disease vector (like some mosquitoes which carry West Nile Virus) and you are told that draining the water on your land will be a violation of another law set to ensure breeding grounds exist for an endangered speices or cause eliminations of wetlands which are used to refill underground wells.

There are even cases where you can be in violation for the same law if you take action, or do not take action, and either way, you will need to spend your own money for a lawyer, and have no opportunity to sue the government for your lost revenues. (Another thing which is stupid: If laws are in conflict, the police should be able to choose to not enforce any of the laws in conflict until the government government is able to specify which is most important, and then let you know which one you should follow, or risk consequences.)

I have gripes. I don't like this. Others may find it to be fine for this kind of stupidity, but not me. Laws exist, and it is up to law enforcement to decide which laws to be enforced. This is a fact, and I will offer and example and then a proof:

US History has examples of the President (that part of the US government which is expected to enforce laws) has ignored findings from the US Supreme court! The US Supreme court (good examples exist with Union workers going on strike but being ordered back to work with force and threats from the US military, on US soil! Precedence does exist from the lowest level of local enforcement all the way up to the presidency for law enforcement officers to make choices on what laws should be enforced. Was the president arrested or impeached for acting in an unconstitutional way (according to the U.S. supreme court) ? Nope.

They get paid to enforce the it. They don't get paid to judge what is "good" or "bad", and really, I don't want them doing that anyway.

People in law enforcement make these decisions daily. There is a cyclic effect in police departments where they target specific types of crime with high intensity-- sometimes based on political pressure. (They may go one month looking hard for DUI, and another looking for stop-sign runners, and next to searching for abandoned cars and cars with expired tags.)

Consider the simple case of opportunity cost with finite resources: Making a decision to allocate time to enforce certain laws mean that you can't spend that time enforcing other laws. Eventually, the decision of which laws to enforce at any given time is atomic. As a result, logic dictates that Police officers and departments necessarily must decide which laws to enforce. Someone has to make a decision on which laws are "better" than other laws for enforcement. How do people decide which item (when they have many from which to choose) is better? Simple, they make a judgment call by evaluation what is good and what is not as good.

So in a few, isolated cases they're capricious about it; welcome to the human race. It's everywhere--not just the cops.

Its existence "everywhere" does not make me like it any more. It is still a gripe, and something I do not like:

" Frequency of an event does not justify persistence. "

Another example becomes more interesting when you examine inmates in prisons across the US based on breakdown in race by percentages vs. breakdowns of race in the general population. Some use such statistics as a kind of "proof" for racial profiling. If we assume this is true (for sake of argument) that this is a result of racial profiling, just because it exists everywhere does not mean I should accept it.

You need look no further than this forum for evidence that even intelligent people are subject to this. Established users openly disregard the stated forum rules, while noobs are blasted for slight deviations. It's not just the cops.

I accept that. I see the costs of posting on this forum, and find the cost worth it. When the costs are no longer worth it, I can choose to stop using it. However, I cannot choose to live in the US and avoid stupid laws. Stupid laws exist everywhere there is society, but I can still complain about them and offer my own insight as to why some people become police officers.

(Snip example of ticket.)

Bad example. Consider it from the cop's perspective.

I did. I Do. Go talk to cops and see if you can get them to tell you stories. I talk with criminals. I talk with prison guards. I talk with politicians. When you talk to cops, get them to offer you stories and listen to where emphasis is placed in these stories and see if you don't come to the same conclusions on why different people become police officers. (I also have opinions on why people become teachers, but that is for another day.)

When we have issues on our networks with laws being broken, and letter from lawyers representing RIAA, we must deal with people from law enforcement. As a result, I have opportunity to work with them in a professional capacity.

From a sample examination of the kinds of people who have gone into a "local" law enforcement, I see two groups who are most fascinated.
1) People who were jocks, bullies (without criminal records) and intimidators
2) People who believe they were wronged in life and who want to see justice prevail.
It looks like an inverted bell curve with both extremes included.
When you look at those who are Feds, you see a different clustering. You see people who generally have college degrees and generally demonstrate a significant level of organization and self regulation when it comes to following rules. They generally are effective with communication and skills associated with managers. The kinds of people who become feds is a bit more balanced.

Our society (or any society) doesn't work without adherence to laws, and it's his responsibility to enforce them. A good cop understands that if he can't do his job, shit breaks down. When you're talking about an entire society, shit breaking down at this level is a pretty bad thing (been to Philly or Detroit lately?).

Things are bad in these locations as well as many others and I will agree that laws generally help to add structure and stability to society. I do not see laws against rape, murder, and burglary as stupid.

I find laws suggesting government control of all crypto in the US and use of a "key escrow system" Sooooooo STUPID!

You want examples of another law which seem to be stupid to me?

Preventing Police from being able to engage in high speed chases. This is a law which is being considered in many large cities. What will be the effect over a long period of time? Criminals will receive positive feedback for fleeing police. There will be a perception that driving fast to outrun police will help you to avoid prosecution
. Anyone should be able to see the risks for a negative feedback loop WRT society. The present laws hold those who flee as being responsible for any property damage, injury or damage created during or as a result of the pursuit. However, the taxpayers have more money than the criminal who is fleeing, and the taxpayers can afford to pay victims when the government is sued for accidents caused by high speed chases.

So if someone says, "You can't give me a ticket," what they're really saying is, "I'm too important to be bothered by being a part of society, fuck everyone else." That person should get a ticket as a reminder that they're not the only kid in the sandbox. It has nothing to do with power."

Could it be the person who is complaining believes they are too powerful to be ticketed? (I'm too important.) Could the police officer's ticket be a reality check for who is "really in power" in your example? (Saying, "You are not as powerful as me.")

(Quote about becoming a cop for Chevrolet and apple pie)

I am also sold on this idea. And I'm not a cop. Never have been. Don't know any.

There is a difference between doing something for image, and doing something to make a better world. When your [cop's] motivation is for image, you [cop] may only tend to do it when "people are watching." If you [cop] are doing it to try to "make the world a better place" you [cop] are partly being delusional (and let me explain why.)

A police officer is not actually "making their neighborhood a better place" so much as they are "enforcing laws created by the legislature" or "interpreted by the courts." These items are not always the same thing. The conservative Christian Right wing would like you to believe that elimination of X-rated material (note I did not write "pornography") will make a better America. Based on traffic on the network, and searches on search engines (per IP) many Americans seem to want X-Rated material...

When trivial things like this are made illegal, sufficient numbers of people will elect to break these laws. Trivialization of a few laws makes breaking other laws easier (but does not mean everyone will start robbing banks or that there will be escalation.) Examine the effect of Prohibition on the numbers of Americans (by percent) who drank alcohol and smoked. Prohibition helped to create a whole new group of addicts and fuel the Alcohol and Tobacco industries.

In the U.S. police have existed to "pick up the pieces after a crime has been committed." Their job (in a free society) is not to "prevent crimes from being committed."

As of late, their roles are being changes from law enforcement (detention and tickets for violation of laws) to preventing people from breaking laws. This is a scary direction to take, as there are risks for loss to freedoms, and police will be the ones who will be responsible for enforcing these laws.

Computer crime work is working towards running client software which will ask other machines for specific files to see if they can download titles requested, and then go after those people who share such files. This sounds like entrapment to me, and I do not like this kind of behavior from law enforcement.

Does enforcement of Copyright laws improve our neighborhoods as much as finding and prosecuting violent criminals? Remember, resources are finite. When Police choose to enforce one law, they are doing it as the cost of *not* enforcing another law with that same resource at that time.

(And, before you ask, I do not use P2P software, and actually have legal copies of all software, movies, and songs in my collections; no, I am not a goodie-goodie; I like to support the artists who create what I like in hopes that they will see my "vote" (money) as a request for them to make more of what I like. This does not make me any better than anyone who does not, all it says is that I was willing and able to afford such things.)

[highwizard]

Bitter, Bitching, Crap (should have been the title of this thread)

(Moderators: request to have this "law" portion of this thread moved to a new thread to be on topic like "Laws, Legislation, and Law Enforcement", even if it must be /dev/null)

<snip useless meandering crap>

Apparently you haven't talked to enough LEO's throughout this country.

[TheCotMan]

Apparently you haven't talked to enough LEO's throughout this country.

What do you find wrong with the take on LEO?

[Edit: Added content below here]
Your title is more appropriate than mine. It looks like I had a lot to complain about.


NEW:

Bad example. Consider it from the cop's perspective.

I did. I Do. Go talk to cops and see if you can get them to tell you stories. I talk with criminals. I talk with prison guards. I talk with politicians....(CHOP)

Aparently, there are officers who work in computer crime who have advanced degrees. My experience before recent, only included people working for the federal government with advanced degrees, but none at local or state. The local/state police groups had (at best) a person with a BS in CS or MIS.

As a result, there are holes in my experience, and "posting what I know" has offended some people.

There are people from law enforcement who appear to have a genuine feeling that what they do is improving the community. This means that you should consider the opinons above incomplete and biased, as they are written from the perspective of someone who is not in law enforcement.

To make matters worse, the previous posts have been taken as a verbal attack on people's professions, and this was a rat-bastard thing for me to do. Even though I do did not demonstrate my respect for people of law enforcement, as I did not see any motivation for their work beyond the few empty examples, I have respect for what they do for our society. They do work which I do not think I ever could do. And to kill a person (even in self defense) is unfathomable to me. (I have no idea if I could do it, and do not want to be in a situation where I would have to choose.)

So, I appologize for the harmful opinions in the post, but will stick by the examples and facts.

Abridged revision based on recent OOB dialog:

If there are problems with laws that suck, complaining about law enforcement's choice on laws to enforce is a short-sighted "solution."

If a genuine, long term solution is to be found, it is through dealing with the legislature and courts to eliminate stupid laws so that they are not even in the scope of choices for law enforcement.

I'll talk to more people who are officers and see if I can expand on the motivation list. It seems I have overlooked a number of things in formulating my opinions.

Ooops and apologies to those I have offended.

Feel free to flame me here
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[lil_freak]

I personally admire all law enforcement and their ability to respond to crimes, however i find a lot of doubt in their ability to prevent crimes. Instead of the higher powers taking action to better prevent crimes, they would rather spend money on laws that punish those that do wrong.

While it is easy to teach crime prevention it is not always easy to prevent crime.

Most Law Enforcement Agencies get funding thru federal grants, because of this they must do what the grant guidelines state in order to keep the appropriated monies. (ie: DUI grant = Moines that can only be spent on laws obtaining to Driving Under the Influence.)

On a lighter note, too much time is spent making stupid laws. For instance, South Carolina has just passed a law that makes it illegal to braid hair without a license. The law sat in the state house for 5 months waiting for approval...5 months!

What happens if you want to braid your own hair?

[TheCotMan]

What happens if you want to braid your own hair?

[joke]
The same thing that happens if you get found guilty of premeditated attempted suicide... You get the death penalty.
[/joke]

[lil_freak]

I'll talk to more people who are officers and see if I can expand on the motivation list. It seems I have overlooked a number of things in formulating my opinions.

I would also recommend taking the opportunity to see if you could do a shadow or ride along with an officer. It might change your veiws on quite a few things.



*Think about it, those in Law Enforcement/Government are just like the rest of us.*

[themusicsheep]

TheCotMan
(And, before you ask, I do not use P2P software, and actually have legal copies of all software, movies, and songs in my collections; ...)

You haven't got a single 'illegal' (read, 'borrowed') MP3 on your comp? Not one?

[edit:quote didn't work]

[TheCotMan]

You haven't got a single 'illegal' (read, 'borrowed') MP3 on your comp? Not one?

Zero. There have been times where I have found partial songs (clips) online for music that I did not have, but it was only to identify the song as the one I really wanted, and these were provided by commercial sites.

I have songs from mp3.com, but I think those were legal to download without purchase. (Like an LA band: TFPM and some from CoSV)

There was a time (back in the 80s) where breaking copy protection on Apple ][ software was a great way to spend an afternoon. I don't even have these disks anymore.

I even own 2 copies of "23 - Nichts is so wie es Scheint", and multiples copies of Riget and Riget 2 since one of the copies I bought on ebay was obviously a rip-off. There was a time when I had a lot of money coming in to buy things like this. I actually own a copy of "The KGB, The Computer and Me" and other productions from PBS at the really high rates charged through PBS's WGBH service.

At my job, I cannot set a bad example and do things I tell others not to do...

Have you heard this story about Ghandi/Buddah/Famous-person? :
(I've heard it with various people as the "wise" person)
Famous-person is asked by a mother to tell her child to stop eating candy.
Famous-person tell mother to bring back her child in one week.
When child is brought back, Famous-person tells the child, "Don't eat candy."
Mother asks Famous-person, "Why wait so long? You could have told him this when I was here last time."
Famous-person says, "Ahh, but a week ago, I was eating candy, but then I stopped, and have not touched any candy for a week."

[phobal]

On a lighter note, too much time is spent making stupid laws. For instance, South Carolina has just passed a law that makes it illegal to braid hair without a license. The law sat in the state house for 5 months waiting for approval...5 months!

by lawmaking standards, 5 months is NOTHING.

[yankee]

If a genuine, long term solution is to be found, it is through dealing with the legislature and courts to eliminate stupid laws so that they are not even in the scope of choices for law enforcement.

...and

by lawmaking standards, 5 months is NOTHING.

Now we get to the real problem.

[phobal]

Now we get to the real problem.

problem? what fucking problem? it's generally accepted in western society for laws to take months or even years to pass. do you want regulations that dictate the way your life is lived passed with only a day of debate and thought?

[yankee]

problem? what fucking problem? it's generally accepted in western society for laws to take months or even years to pass. do you want regulations that dictate the way your life is lived passed with only a day of debate and thought?

There's quite a bit that's generally accepted in Western Society. Are you proposing that just because something is accepted by the masses that it's necessarily a good thing?

[TheCotMan]

I would also recommend taking the opportunity to see if you could do a shadow or ride along with an officer. It might change your veiws on quite a few things.

I've been on several of these, and have toured prisons, and even talked an officer in showing me his new 4-way radar (in car) which allows him to pull up to a 4-way stop or intersection to tag people in all directions. Sherrif, Highway Patrol, Local and state Police, etc. (No feds though. Never been on a ridealong with any feds yet.)

I have many opinions, but now, I want to talk with some new people on this subject. I was recently given an opportunity to do just this, and I'll rethink my opinions after I talk to more people.

If any LEO would like to "set me straight" I'll be at the con this year and am open to dialog. You can let me know in PM if you want to spend your time this way. Anyone else (is of course) welcome to join me during these chat sessions.

In addition, I'd like to discuss things like, the effect of officers in the field continuously surrounded by people who lie (to get out of tickets, in court, to avoid arrest, to avoid detention, to help their "buddy" stay out of jail, etc) and how this does or does not fuel the theorized "Us" (officer) vs. "Them" (suspects/civillians.)

I'm open to hearing your arguements as well. Ex-officers and people who plan to be officers are also welcome. Unlike some, I am open to learning and it is possible to change my mind. I have little problem admitting being incorrect.

TIA