TIL, "In fact, the famous five and six-digit number tattooed on the arms of Auschwitz inmates began as a punch card system identification number."
EFF Files Brief in Case to Hold IBM Responsible for Facilitating Apartheid
21–30 of 96 posts
Re: EFF Files Brief in Case to Hold IBM Responsible for Facilitating Apartheid
#22i'm sorry but this is utterly ridiculous. IBM is a company, an entity. it is made of people, but it is not a person (although americans might try to disagree..). it is a paper-clip maximiser, only instead of paperclips, it's cash. it does not have morals, it does not have a conscience, irrelevant of the fact that the people that make it up do. to blame a company for doing exactly what it was made to do is madness. if…
While I'm not sure I agree with your overall thesis (a company is made up of people at the end of the day), I do feel there is a point to be made here: Is the IBM of today the IBM of 20-40 years ago? A person is not controlled by different beings at different times of their life, a corporation is.
The legal brief, from a quick skim, appear to reference actions taken in the 70's and 80's.
Is the IBM of today the same one that existed in the 70's? The same people running it and making the same decisions?
If the answer is no, I'm not sure what significance this lawsuit holds, other than a symbolic "sticking it to the corporations" one. The only people being punished in such a case are those that had nothing to do with the original wrongdoing.
Re: EFF Files Brief in Case to Hold IBM Responsible for Facilitating Apartheid
#23i'm sorry but this is utterly ridiculous. IBM is a company, an entity. it is made of people, but it is not a person (although americans might try to disagree..). it is a paper-clip maximiser, only instead of paperclips, it's cash. it does not have morals, it does not have a conscience, irrelevant of the fact that the people that make it up do. to blame a company for doing exactly what it was made to do is madness. if…
This is the most absurd, depressing thing that I've read in a while.
The point of a corporation is not to have a legal person without morals.
The point of a corporation is to allocate resources more efficiently than could be done by legal individuals.
We can expect corporations not to facilitate mass murder. We should expect corporations not to facilitate mass murder.
The argument that we should not punish transgressions just because some corporations are not punished for transgressions is cowardice in the highest degree.
Take back your agency and your humanity and stand for something.
Re: EFF Files Brief in Case to Hold IBM Responsible for Facilitating Apartheid
#24There might be some network equipment vendors nervously observing this case. They probably haven't done anything as awful as building a bespoke apparatus of apartheid, and arguably they've done nothing technically different than Room 641A. However, there are probably some dissidents who would make convincing plaintiff's witnesses, were they ever to get out of the dungeons and into an American courtroom.
Cisco is probably feeling pretty nervous about this. Some may say "but why does this matter now ? It's all in the past." The problem is I think we're going to see many more such cases in the next couple of decades (at least). There are already companies that knowingly help governments spy on their citizens and help them catch dissidents or even kill journalists (think the self-driving cars of the future or cars that…
I am really not sure why you are being downvoted.
You expressed your opinion eloquently, and well within the rules of good discourse.
Downvoters, you should reply to this post explaining what you find wrong with it, rather than simply downvoting in silence.
Re: EFF Files Brief in Case to Hold IBM Responsible for Facilitating Apartheid
#25i'm sorry but this is utterly ridiculous. IBM is a company, an entity. it is made of people, but it is not a person (although americans might try to disagree..). it is a paper-clip maximiser, only instead of paperclips, it's cash. it does not have morals, it does not have a conscience, irrelevant of the fact that the people that make it up do. to blame a company for doing exactly what it was made to do is madness. if…
While I'm not sure I agree with your overall thesis (a company is made up of people at the end of the day), I do feel there is a point to be made here: Is the IBM of today the IBM of 20-40 years ago? A person is not controlled by different beings at different times of their life, a corporation is. The legal brief, from a quick skim, appear to reference actions taken in the 70's and 80's. Is the IBM of today the same…
So, by your logic, if evidence surfaces after 30 years that solves an open murder case, we shouldn't prosecute the suspect, because they've changed a lot in that time?
Re: EFF Files Brief in Case to Hold IBM Responsible for Facilitating Apartheid
#26Re: EFF Files Brief in Case to Hold IBM Responsible for Facilitating Apartheid
#27I think the writing on the wall is this: we're all in some database, somewhere, which can be used to exterminate us from the face of the planet. Someone gets into power, they don't like those 'upstart hackers' .. well then, HN seems like a pretty good resource for who goes up against the wall, then ..
I wrote an outline for a short story that begins with the drone extermination of all dissident hackers.
Re: EFF Files Brief in Case to Hold IBM Responsible for Facilitating Apartheid
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's legal today might be illegal tomorrow. And even the question of legality is hugely dependent on location.
Apartheid has been illegal the whole time.
Once again, depends on who you ask.
By international laws (Universal Declaration of Human Rights) it has been illegal starting 19481[1].
USA, however, still struggled with racial segregation until the 1960s and until then wasn't really illegal in the States. In South Africa, it probably wasn't illegal either as the government made the law themselves.
[1]Or 1976
Re: EFF Files Brief in Case to Hold IBM Responsible for Facilitating Apartheid
#29i'm sorry but this is utterly ridiculous. IBM is a company, an entity. it is made of people, but it is not a person (although americans might try to disagree..). it is a paper-clip maximiser, only instead of paperclips, it's cash. it does not have morals, it does not have a conscience, irrelevant of the fact that the people that make it up do. to blame a company for doing exactly what it was made to do is madness. if…
> IBM is a company, an entity. it is made of people, but it is not a person (although americans might try to disagree..)
Neither the American legal system, nor most Americans actually treat corporations as people or believe they should be treated like people. The fact that people regurgitate this falsehood is utterly ridiculous.
Our legal system uses a construct called legal fiction (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_fiction) as a convenient scaffold to extend existing laws to new domains (sort of like subclassing from a base class). In most of modern economies corporations have many, but not all, of the same properties as persons (they can own property, have to pay taxes, etc.) We use the legal fiction of corporate personhood as a structural aspect of the legal system to make this work.
Nobody actually believes corporations are people.
Re: EFF Files Brief in Case to Hold IBM Responsible for Facilitating Apartheid
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you build a tool _for explicit illegal purposes_, ... well that's not really the same as building tools that can be used for illegal purposes, is it?
What's legal today might be illegal tomorrow. And even the question of legality is hugely dependent on location.
Wiggle how you want, but it's still not the same thing, is it?