4 ms·

Yes, like the sun coming up in the morning, now that the Internet is important, the lawyers and lawyer legislators have goals. The candidates are, make the Int

by graycat 13y ago

Yes, like the sun coming up in the morning, now that the Internet is important, the lawyers and lawyer legislators have goals. The candidates are, make the Internet faster, make it more secure, improve the quality of the content, lower the costs, improve access to it, write laws about it, bring legal cases about it, and tax it. May I have the envelope, please? The the winner is (drum roll), tax it. First runner up is write laws about it. And second runner up is bring legal cases about it. The way of the world. If a child has only a hammer, then each time they see something, they want to hit it. So, lawyers want to pass laws, raise taxes, and bring legal cases. Improve things? No. Be a leach on society? Yes. Here's the most astounding, incongruous thing of all: How did the Internet get so far without lawyers?

NN88 13y ago
Your point might even include the rise of the Dark Web...
mindslight 13y ago
I can only wonder at what doomsday scenario the lawlyers think would occur if this access wasn't a crime. Anything that could happen can already happen from foreign or anonymous addresses without recourse. I can only come to the conclusion that by not understanding or even shunning how the Internet works on a technical level, they can't appreciate that it actually already is just a system of rules. So they think it naturally needs to be "improved" with rules of the style they're used to working with (centrally dictated, overreaching, ill-specified, and inefficiently enforced).
- graycat 13y ago
  Yes, nicely put. Since the only tool they have is a hammer, they see everything as a nail. And, as legislators, judges, prosecutors, and litigators, they like to see 'problems' everywhere; like some English major, and many lawyers were, who looks at formula fiction and sees good against evil, white hats against black hats, where the point of the story is for good to defeat evil and get the girl. Here as often elsewhere in our society, the lawyers should just go drink something sickening and just get the hack out of our lives, out of our way, and quit being dangerous, destructive leaches on the work of good and productive people. Time for a lawyer joke: Q. On the highway is a dead skunk and a dead lawyer. What is the difference? A. There are tire tracks ahead of the dead skunk. No one wants to run over a skunk; they are cute, sweet, harmless little animals and fun until threatened and turn and raise their tails. Lawyers, however, .... Lawyers, just quit causing trouble for normal, harmless people. Stop it. Please, just stop it. Go do something else. I'm putting this nicely. However, if I win a big bundle in the lottery, maybe I'll fund the ACLU, EFF, and even more aggressive legal organizations to go after any lawyers making trouble for harmless people, e.g., Aaron Swartz. Lawyers need some insight into people. Well, here's one: From grade school, high school, and college, it's not good to have everyone else in school think of you as worse than a rabid dog. And if people think of you this way, then there's nothing the school principal, teachers, and rules can do really to protect you. Instead, you can get hit in the back on the playground, on the way home find some tough, angry kids who don't like you, never get invited to parties, lose your homework and find it in the toilet, etc. Adults don't do such things, but the feelings can be the same and still you can be ostracized, rejected, hated, pushed out, scorned, avoided, friendless, etc. Really, you can be alone and learn what essentially every baby mammal knows from birth -- it's not good to be alone. Net, again, once again, either be hated or just quit, stop it, hurting harmless people. Dutch uncle advice. Word to the wise. I know; I know; in law school you were proud to be taught how to "think like a lawyer". Now, out in the real world with normal humans, you need to learn again how to think like a human. Again, yet again, just for you, quit hurting harmless people; this advice is good for both the harmless people and you. Are you getting this? Got it? Right, you noticed that this is not a legal issue. Right; in strong contradiction to what you learned in law school, not everything in life is a legal issue. Beginning to understand now?
  - mindslight 13y ago
    Hey hey, no need to preach to me. > if I win a big bundle in the lottery, maybe I'll fund the ACLU, EFF, and even more aggressive legal organizations to go after any lawyers making trouble for harmless people By saying this, you're tacitly admitting that some lawyers are fighting the good fight. And above, there's plenty of non-lawyers proposing broken analogies with trespassing, even though one can't prevent access to their house with certainty nor easily mitigate damages. So "lawyers" aren't the root problem, but the general dislike of them certainly points to it - legal complexity that grows without bounds. And while this is fueled by lawyers (and others) tending to want the world to work the way they already understand, channeling rage at them only obscures the actual problems.
    - graycat 13y ago
      I believe that the situation of the Internet and what I mentioned are simpler than your remarks. First, for my remarks, I concentrated on asking lawyers -- legislators, prosecutors, judges, and litigators -- to quit hurting harmless people. Simple. Nothing about legal "complexity" can argue against this. Second, for the Internet, lawyers should mostly just f'get about it. Just ignore it. Don't make or prosecute laws about it. Don't have civil suits about it. F'get about computer industry patents. Just go do something else. In particular, again, no problems with legal "complexity". For "private property" and what's on Web sites, just f'get about it. It's simple, dirt simple: (A) The Internet is new and different and nothing like much of anything before. It's not like a house, storefront, bookstore, front yard, newspaper, etc., and trying to force the Internet onto some such Procrustean bed is just destructive nonsense. (B) If an owner of a Web site has some data they don't want spread around, then they should not put it on their Web site. Just don't do it. If they do, then their ability to 'protect' their data is zip, zilch, and zero. Both technically, for reasons simple to deep and profound, and legally, in practice, they can't protect such data and likely never will be able to. So, don't put the data out there. If they do, then f'get about the lawyers and protecting that data. Sorry 'bout that, but copyright laws were not designed for the Internet and digital data. A Web site owner can try to be like the MPAA and RIAA and try to hold on to the past, but, for many reasons lawyers can't effectively stop, it won't work. That's just the way it is, no matter what laws get passed, no matter how many wacko, paranoid, OCD, Boston federal prosecutors grit their teeth and think that they see monsters in closets, how many confused, ill-informed SCOTUS decisions there are, etc. It's tilting against windmills. In the meantime, lots of lawyers will be causing lots of damage and doing nearly no good, all for no good reason. The Internet was just fine before the CFAA. And we don't need SOPA or PIPA. Sure, a citizen should make his views known to Congress. Alas, Congress is full of lawyers, and it's tough to break through to them; could use 1000 board-feed of 2 x 4's to break over their heads to see if they are just resting or deep into some profound legal thinking. Gotta wake them up and have them get their hands off the Internet, and keep the NSA off the Internet. I can't turn Congress, but I can guarantee Congress that via technical means the Internet can circumvent nearly any laws they pass. So, f'get about the Internet.

by graycat 13y ago

NN88 13y ago

Your point might even include the rise of the Dark Web...

mindslight 13y ago

I can only wonder at what doomsday scenario the lawlyers think would occur if this access wasn't a crime. Anything that could happen can already happen from foreign or anonymous addresses without recourse. I can only come to the conclusion that by not understanding or even shunning how the Internet works on a technical level, they can't appreciate that it actually already is just a system of rules. So they think it naturally needs to be "improved" with rules of the style they're used to working with (centrally dictated, overreaching, ill-specified, and inefficiently enforced).

graycat 13y ago
Yes, nicely put. Since the only tool they have is a hammer, they see everything as a nail. And, as legislators, judges, prosecutors, and litigators, they like to see 'problems' everywhere; like some English major, and many lawyers were, who looks at formula fiction and sees good against evil, white hats against black hats, where the point of the story is for good to defeat evil and get the girl. Here as often elsewhere in our society, the lawyers should just go drink something sickening and just get the hack out of our lives, out of our way, and quit being dangerous, destructive leaches on the work of good and productive people. Time for a lawyer joke: Q. On the highway is a dead skunk and a dead lawyer. What is the difference? A. There are tire tracks ahead of the dead skunk. No one wants to run over a skunk; they are cute, sweet, harmless little animals and fun until threatened and turn and raise their tails. Lawyers, however, .... Lawyers, just quit causing trouble for normal, harmless people. Stop it. Please, just stop it. Go do something else. I'm putting this nicely. However, if I win a big bundle in the lottery, maybe I'll fund the ACLU, EFF, and even more aggressive legal organizations to go after any lawyers making trouble for harmless people, e.g., Aaron Swartz. Lawyers need some insight into people. Well, here's one: From grade school, high school, and college, it's not good to have everyone else in school think of you as worse than a rabid dog. And if people think of you this way, then there's nothing the school principal, teachers, and rules can do really to protect you. Instead, you can get hit in the back on the playground, on the way home find some tough, angry kids who don't like you, never get invited to parties, lose your homework and find it in the toilet, etc. Adults don't do such things, but the feelings can be the same and still you can be ostracized, rejected, hated, pushed out, scorned, avoided, friendless, etc. Really, you can be alone and learn what essentially every baby mammal knows from birth -- it's not good to be alone. Net, again, once again, either be hated or just quit, stop it, hurting harmless people. Dutch uncle advice. Word to the wise. I know; I know; in law school you were proud to be taught how to "think like a lawyer". Now, out in the real world with normal humans, you need to learn again how to think like a human. Again, yet again, just for you, quit hurting harmless people; this advice is good for both the harmless people and you. Are you getting this? Got it? Right, you noticed that this is not a legal issue. Right; in strong contradiction to what you learned in law school, not everything in life is a legal issue. Beginning to understand now?
- mindslight 13y ago
  Hey hey, no need to preach to me. > if I win a big bundle in the lottery, maybe I'll fund the ACLU, EFF, and even more aggressive legal organizations to go after any lawyers making trouble for harmless people By saying this, you're tacitly admitting that some lawyers are fighting the good fight. And above, there's plenty of non-lawyers proposing broken analogies with trespassing, even though one can't prevent access to their house with certainty nor easily mitigate damages. So "lawyers" aren't the root problem, but the general dislike of them certainly points to it - legal complexity that grows without bounds. And while this is fueled by lawyers (and others) tending to want the world to work the way they already understand, channeling rage at them only obscures the actual problems.
  - graycat 13y ago
    I believe that the situation of the Internet and what I mentioned are simpler than your remarks. First, for my remarks, I concentrated on asking lawyers -- legislators, prosecutors, judges, and litigators -- to quit hurting harmless people. Simple. Nothing about legal "complexity" can argue against this. Second, for the Internet, lawyers should mostly just f'get about it. Just ignore it. Don't make or prosecute laws about it. Don't have civil suits about it. F'get about computer industry patents. Just go do something else. In particular, again, no problems with legal "complexity". For "private property" and what's on Web sites, just f'get about it. It's simple, dirt simple: (A) The Internet is new and different and nothing like much of anything before. It's not like a house, storefront, bookstore, front yard, newspaper, etc., and trying to force the Internet onto some such Procrustean bed is just destructive nonsense. (B) If an owner of a Web site has some data they don't want spread around, then they should not put it on their Web site. Just don't do it. If they do, then their ability to 'protect' their data is zip, zilch, and zero. Both technically, for reasons simple to deep and profound, and legally, in practice, they can't protect such data and likely never will be able to. So, don't put the data out there. If they do, then f'get about the lawyers and protecting that data. Sorry 'bout that, but copyright laws were not designed for the Internet and digital data. A Web site owner can try to be like the MPAA and RIAA and try to hold on to the past, but, for many reasons lawyers can't effectively stop, it won't work. That's just the way it is, no matter what laws get passed, no matter how many wacko, paranoid, OCD, Boston federal prosecutors grit their teeth and think that they see monsters in closets, how many confused, ill-informed SCOTUS decisions there are, etc. It's tilting against windmills. In the meantime, lots of lawyers will be causing lots of damage and doing nearly no good, all for no good reason. The Internet was just fine before the CFAA. And we don't need SOPA or PIPA. Sure, a citizen should make his views known to Congress. Alas, Congress is full of lawyers, and it's tough to break through to them; could use 1000 board-feed of 2 x 4's to break over their heads to see if they are just resting or deep into some profound legal thinking. Gotta wake them up and have them get their hands off the Internet, and keep the NSA off the Internet. I can't turn Congress, but I can guarantee Congress that via technical means the Internet can circumvent nearly any laws they pass. So, f'get about the Internet.