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Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

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Re: Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

#311

Post by throw0101c »

peyton wrote: post #159
wkat4242 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the whole concept of "carrying guns to prevent a police state from taking over our country" is a bit outdated. These days this is not done with bullets but with carefully planned public manipulation through media and social networks. And if it really comes down to bullets, the government owns a lot bigger guns than you do.

I think you’re missing the nuance here. If I can protect myself using a weapon, I don’t need to vote for mass surveillance to protect me. The ability to engage in shootouts with the police isn’t what prevents the formation of a police state. The problem with a police state is that state violence becomes a way to exercise political power.

> The problem with a police state is that state violence becomes a way to exercise political power.

The historical evidence shows that countering a police state / authoritative government with violence/force is less effect than with non-violence:

* https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/44096650

Since 1900, if a movement used violence in their methods for change they had a success rate of 25%; movements with non-violence had success 40% of the time. Further, most movements who did use violence to have a 'change of government' were much more likely to end up with authoritative government.

Re: Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

#312

Post by marcus0x62 »

UweSchmidt wrote: post #173
tzs wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is defined as theft under the laws of several states. Here are links to a few states' theft of services statutes. Pennsylvania: https://www.legis.state.pa.us/WU01/LI/LI/CT/HTM/18/00.039.02... Texas: https://codes.findlaw.com/tx/penal-code/penal-sect-31-04/ New York: https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/PEN/165.15 Oregon: https://oregon.public.law/statutes/ors_164.125

As the other commenter said, "private company gets to deputize the state legal apparatus".

You could make that argument about almost any criminal statute where the victim is a corporation of some sort. Another way to describe it is "private company gets a mechanism to deter people from taking the value they create without paying for it."

Re: Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

#313

Post by seabass-labrax »

This was a fascinating read; good on the author for not losing her cool in that absurd two months. As a British citizen, though, there were a number of things that piqued my interest about the proceedings as described in Maryland and the USA in general.

- Why was the Maryland State Attorney so keen to continue with the prosecution, despite a hostile witness? In general, why do individuals and companies appear (to an outsider) to have so much influence in the USA to 'press charges'? From a theoretical perspective, it doesn't seem like there is any advantage to the criminal justice system in allowing people to persuade the prosecutors to open a case, since a large company like Comcast could churn out hundreds of vaguely plausible but socially inconsequential claims of fraud, when the prosecutors could surely find better things to spend their time on.

- Why is it possible to attempt to 'avoid being served' at all? I can't see anything wrong with receiving the notice by mail like any other correspondence. Are police officers in the USA really expected to just drive around as glorified (and armed, for that matter) postmen for the prosecutor's notices of petty criminal charges?

- Finally, and, for me, most importantly, how could the author have acquired a criminal record from a case that was dropped prior to a trial, let alone a conviction? It seems really dodgy that, in order to 'expunge' the record of a crime that the state doesn't necessarily think occurred, you have to agree to indemnify a third party from your claims of damages when that third party had no involvement originally except to initially report the 'crime', and even more so in this case, as the author opens by noting that there wasn't even a contractual relationship between them!

I'm under no pretence that my own country's judiciary is perfect, but it appears to me that the USA has a number of bizarre procedural bottlenecks that could be fixed with little more than a stroke of a pen. That begs the question: who stands to gain from this? Eagerly awaiting responses from knowledgable and/or wise Americans!

Re: Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

#314

Post by seabass-labrax »

b112 wrote: post #250
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many years ago the house I was living in had cable (foxtel, Australia) connected, but the residents who had paid for it had moved out and were no longer paying for it, therefore it sat as an unused plug in the wall for a good couple of years. I got one of those old "TV cards", so you could hook up an antenna and have TV on your computer (yeah, this was before "internet" was better than TV for moving picture entertain…

A good story, the only interest was in the hack. A lot of older sci-fi books, eg Heinlein, had hacker types discovering some highly profitable thing, but being uninterested except it was fun to figure out. This was often to the mystification of "normal" people, who would plead for them to work the idea into profit. Often they were tricked into making the process profitable, by being told how impossible it was. I resp…

Would you please inform me, if you can, as to which books are you thinking of? I have read a few Heinlein novels but would like to know if I'm missing a classic in your eyes.

Re: Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

#315

Post by bombcar »

throw0101c wrote: post #307
noduerme wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fairness, everyone I know in the US who owns firearms - which is basically everyone I know here - takes safety and knowledge of the laws around storing/carrying/brandishing/firing them very seriously. But the sheer scale of the US population and the absolute number of guns is just difficult to conceive of from a European perspective. We have something like 60 privately owned guns in this country for every person i…

> In fairness, everyone I know in the US who owns firearms - which is basically everyone I know here You are not representative, as only one-third of individuals, and 42% of US households, own a firearm: * https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2017/06/22/the-dem... * https://news.gallup.com/poll/264932/percentage-americans-own... Gun owners are in the minority of the population.

Drill down to state levels, or further to local areas, and those numbers change tremendously. In many parts of the country gun ownership is almost universal.

And you might not even know; not everyone tells everyone that they own a gun.

Re: Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

#316

Post by throw0101c »

Cyphase wrote: post #184
euroderf wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The invisible hand of the free market has clearly worked to perfection.

Whatever else you think on these topics, government-enforced utility monopolies aren't the free market.

> Whatever else you think on these topics, government-enforced utility monopolies aren't the free market.

They tried non-monopoly power and wireline phone markets in their early history and they didn't work.

A lot of times a company would go bankrupt, but their wires would be on the poles and would degrade to the point of falling apart and dangling, which would then make contact with a live wire and folks would get electrocuted when they touched it.

Re: Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

#317

Post by bombcar »

rootw0rm wrote: post #301
midasuni wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Switzerland isn’t in the EU. Include non EU countries and the population and number of guns is even larger, but gun homicides don’t change much. Even gun suicides are far higher in the US per capita and per gun than in the EU. The US has a gun fetish. People sleep with them for crying out loud!

hey now, if i don't sleep with the thing, how am i gonna grab it when i'm asleep?

I took “sleep with” as a sexual thing but you’re right, it’s probably referring to nightstand guns or the famous bedshotty.

Re: Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

#318

Post by bombcar »

kelnos wrote: post #146
noduerme wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fairness, everyone I know in the US who owns firearms - which is basically everyone I know here - takes safety and knowledge of the laws around storing/carrying/brandishing/firing them very seriously. But the sheer scale of the US population and the absolute number of guns is just difficult to conceive of from a European perspective. We have something like 60 privately owned guns in this country for every person i…

Same, but I suspect there's a bit of selection bias going on there in both our cases. I just don't think I'd be able to sustain a friendship with the kind of person who owns guns and handles them irresponsibly, and I expect the same might be true of you.

You’re spot on - everyone who I know who “does gun” has an extremely hostile reaction to people who handle them irresponsibly.

And those people are often irresponsible in many other ways, too.

Re: Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

#319

Post by Doxin »

iotku wrote: post #292
Doxin wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you're not going to accidentally forget to disengage a safety at the worst possible time That's much better than the opposite problem: forgetting to engage the safety and accidentally discharging. > it does increase the risk when improperly handling the firearm I just feel like having to toggle a switch before killing a man is the least you can do to avoid accidents.

>That's much better than the opposite problem: forgetting to engage the safety and accidentally discharging. If you're following the firearm safety rules you're not pointed at anything/anybody you don't wish to destroy so it's a moot point. (yourself included, though at least in that case nobody else was harmed needlessly) A safety lockout (or lacktherof) shouldn't be a factor in your pointing of a gun at someone and…

I'm aware of firearm safety rules and all that. That's not my problem with this. My problem is that the safety on a firearm is part of a defense-in-depth type situation. Removing the safety switch removes a layer of that defense. I hope I don't need to explain why that's a bad thing on this forum.

Re: Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

#320

Post by wheybags »

cortesoft wrote: post #130
cogman10 wrote: post #17

I thought this might be fiction because the amount of time for pirating cable seemed crazy.. However [1] there are indeed up to 6 month penalties for stealing cable. That's just ludicrous. How could copyright theft ever be anything other than a civil action? Jail time for stealing cable, that's just insane. Nobody gets hurt from stolen cable. We really need to look long and hard at what we allow jail time for. Jail t…

I was thinking about this. It is crazy that a private company gets to deputize the state legal apparatus to enable their business model. They want to be able to sell something that is very difficult to restrict access to, so they use the legal system to make sure it stays restricted. They want to be able to install a cable all the way to someone’s house, and then have the state prosecute them if they dare touch it.

> It is crazy that a private company gets to deputize the state legal apparatus to enable their business model.

One could argue this is a major purpose of the state. When you can't deputize the state to resolve disputes, you get gang violence (see the drugs trade for more examples than you can count)

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