Sovereign immunity blocks DMCA suit against Air Force - Page 2

CptSimFreak · 07-30-08, 01:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by August

Quote:

Originally Posted by CptSimFreak

....yes I have. And they provided cheaper service than a regular contractors and actually accomplished things.

I find that hard to believe. Please provide an example.

Ok, conference equipment setup. If some airman's company competes and wins, why is it wrong?

SUBMAN1 · 07-30-08, 01:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by August

Apparently the courts do not agree with your assessment...

That is not true. They said nothing about my assesment. They took it from a National Security standpoint - Air Force immunity.

-S

August · 07-30-08, 01:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CptSimFreak

Quote:

Originally Posted by August

Quote:

Originally Posted by CptSimFreak

....yes I have. And they provided cheaper service than a regular contractors and actually accomplished things.

I find that hard to believe. Please provide an example.

Ok, conference equipment setup. If some airman's company competes and wins, why is it wrong?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_of_interest

CptSimFreak · 07-30-08, 01:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by August

Quote:

Originally Posted by CptSimFreak

Quote:

Originally Posted by August

Quote:

Originally Posted by CptSimFreak

....yes I have. And they provided cheaper service than a regular contractors and actually accomplished things.

I find that hard to believe. Please provide an example.

Ok, conference equipment setup. If some airman's company competes and wins, why is it wrong?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_of_interest

.....just keep drinking coolaid.

August · 07-30-08, 01:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CptSimFreak

Quote:

Originally Posted by August

Quote:

Originally Posted by CptSimFreak

Quote:

Originally Posted by August

Quote:

Originally Posted by CptSimFreak

....yes I have. And they provided cheaper service than a regular contractors and actually accomplished things.

I find that hard to believe. Please provide an example.

Ok, conference equipment setup. If some airman's company competes and wins, why is it wrong?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_of_interest

.....just keep drinking coolaid.

What's with you and coolaid anyways? BTW nice dodge...

jumpy · 07-30-08, 01:57 PM

Sucks to be that guy... bullyboy tactics from the air force... I bet they don't hack civilian contractors software, large companies with interests and backing. They pay for it instead. Come to think of it, how many government officials have been involved with the process of bringing hackers to justice? iirc one of my countrymen has just lost a high court case to prevent him being extradited to the US for computer hacking. When did a US citizen last get extradited to the UK for anything less than murder?

Seems to me that the guy did something good and when he tried to keep in the loop as the creator of this new better way of doing his software thing, someone got on a power trip and it finally ended up in court where unsurprisingly the state used a convenient 'loophole' - you know, the 'ooh, we'll keep that one, just in case..' - to avoid any further hindrance to its agenda.

At face value, they could have handled it so much better.

Platapus · 07-30-08, 01:58 PM

"...the senior brass approved of its use..."

There is a whole lot of information not in this article.

Brass can't just "approve" software, there are formal steps that need to be followed. Were these steps followed? Did Davenport follow the rules?

"...demoted him when he didn't turn it over,..."

Unless Davenport was stupid enough to take an Article 15, demoting him requires some level of Courts Marshal. There has to be a regulation he broke or a lawful order he refused to follow that would justify this action. I am sure that if this went to Court Marshal, the ADC would have reviewed the legality of any orders.

"Sergeant Mark Davenport, in his spare time..."

There is no spare time when you are in the military. There is no "off-duty".

To quote a favourite military movie: "Your heart may belong to jesus but your ass belongs to the corp!" Or in this case the Air Force.

I think the article left out some critical information here. Not that I would ever accuse a media source from selectively filtering the facts in order to further an agenda.

I would need a lot more detail before I can take sides with this issue.

UnderseaLcpl · 07-30-08, 02:19 PM

I sympathize with Sgt. Davenport on this one. I have an allegorical example to explain my sympathy.

My unit, which shall remain nameless due to fear that this will come back to haunt me should I re-enlist, is an artillery regiment. As such, communications are of paramount importance to us. Even moreso, the speed with which comms can be established is a priority.

The S.O.P. (standard operating procedure for those lucky ones who don't feel the need to have an acronym for everything) for artillery command in my HQ battery is that should be two element; a forward C.O.C.(command operations center) and a main C.O.C. (yes I have heard all the jokes about who is the main C.O.C. around here and every imaginable variation of "that's what SHE said" jokes)

In the aforementioned S.O.P. the "forward" would establish a postion within comms range of the firing batteries and control them. The "main" element would then move to the forward position, set up, and assume control. Then the forward would jump to a new position and assume control once the batteries moved outside the main's comm range. The premise of this technique is fairly sound; constant command and control whilst continuing to advance at the exhaustive pace of forward combat units. However, it suffered from one major flaw; in many instances, communications can take so long to properly establish (especially when one considers the ancient equipment allocated to Marine reserve units) that rapidly advancing artillery batteries often outpace the regimental heaquarters' communication radii.

In response to this problem several radio techs and operators from my unit decided to circumvent this problem by vastly reducing the set-up time needed for effective communications. This was acheived by several ad-hoc modifications to vehicles (HMMVW M-145's) that allowed them to travel with fully extended and operational OE-254 long range VHF antennae erected. In this fashion, we all but eliminated set-up times for communications and reduced the average "transfer-of-control" time from one and a half hours to 30 seconds. We even expedited set up of remote antennae emplacement (to prevent RDF targetting of radio vehicles) to a mere 10 minutes, as the OE-254 anttenae were detachable and could be carried by two Marines to a position 500m distant in a matter of minutes.

The USMC's response to this approach was to take our designs and simply give them to General Motors without any compensation, awards, or even a "thank you" to us. Inexplicably, General Motors ruled it an "illegal modification" and subsequently voided the warranties on the converted vehicles. To add insult to injury, we had to dismantle all of our modifications and answer to an investigative commitee to explain why we felt it necessary to disobey established USMC doctrine.

In summation, not only can the military take your ideas without compensating you, they can also eat you alive for daring to have some initiative.

Despite these setbacks we have converted two new M-998 HMMVWs to what we have designated as the "Super-Vehicle" configuration. I can only hope these will escape the attention of our "superiors".

Just my two-cents!

SUBMAN1 · 07-30-08, 02:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by August

Quote:

Originally Posted by CptSimFreak

.....just keep drinking coolaid.

What's with you and coolaid anyways? BTW nice dodge...

I agree! It was an excellent dodge!

-S

CptSimFreak · 07-30-08, 03:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SUBMAN1

Quote:

Originally Posted by August

Quote:

Originally Posted by CptSimFreak

.....just keep drinking coolaid.

What's with you and coolaid anyways? BTW nice dodge...

I agree! It was an excellent dodge!

-S

It was not a dodge. I know from my prior experience that once person drinks military coolaid and actually believes in "Service before self" there is no turning back regardless of what arguments I provide.

baggygreen · 07-30-08, 08:26 PM

he constructed his program using insider knowledge, which noone outside in the corporate world would've known about... As best as i can tell he wrote the program specifically for the air force and then went on to give it to some friends, who ised it on USAF property (computers, servers, whatever).

I see completely where they're coming from then, becuase if it was installed without the USAF paying for it then it was firstly against the rules, no doubt, and secondly, if he distributed it to other usaf personnel and then wanted exclusive rights...

he did stuff in the wrong order, voided his claims to ownership imo.

07-30-08, 01:57 PM	#21
jumpy Admiral Join Date: May 2003 Location: Midlands, UK Posts: 2,139 Downloads: 22 Uploads: 0	Sucks to be that guy... bullyboy tactics from the air force... I bet they don't hack civilian contractors software, large companies with interests and backing. They pay for it instead. Come to think of it, how many government officials have been involved with the process of bringing hackers to justice? iirc one of my countrymen has just lost a high court case to prevent him being extradited to the US for computer hacking. When did a US citizen last get extradited to the UK for anything less than murder? Seems to me that the guy did something good and when he tried to keep in the loop as the creator of this new better way of doing his software thing, someone got on a power trip and it finally ended up in court where unsurprisingly the state used a convenient 'loophole' - you know, the 'ooh, we'll keep that one, just in case..' - to avoid any further hindrance to its agenda. At face value, they could have handled it so much better. __________________ when you’ve been so long in the desert, any water, no matter how brackish, looks like life

07-30-08, 01:58 PM	#22
Platapus Fleet Admiral Join Date: Oct 2006 Posts: 19,375 Downloads: 63 Uploads: 0	"...the senior brass approved of its use..." There is a whole lot of information not in this article. Brass can't just "approve" software, there are formal steps that need to be followed. Were these steps followed? Did Davenport follow the rules? "...demoted him when he didn't turn it over,..." Unless Davenport was stupid enough to take an Article 15, demoting him requires some level of Courts Marshal. There has to be a regulation he broke or a lawful order he refused to follow that would justify this action. I am sure that if this went to Court Marshal, the ADC would have reviewed the legality of any orders. "Sergeant Mark Davenport, in his spare time..." There is no spare time when you are in the military. There is no "off-duty". To quote a favourite military movie: "Your heart may belong to jesus but your ass belongs to the corp!" Or in this case the Air Force. I think the article left out some critical information here. Not that I would ever accuse a media source from selectively filtering the facts in order to further an agenda. I would need a lot more detail before I can take sides with this issue. __________________ abusus non tollit usum - A right should NOT be withheld from people on the basis that some tend to abuse that right.

07-30-08, 02:19 PM	#23
UnderseaLcpl Silent Hunter Join Date: May 2008 Location: Storming the beaches! Posts: 4,254 Downloads: 0 Uploads: 0	I sympathize with Sgt. Davenport on this one. I have an allegorical example to explain my sympathy. My unit, which shall remain nameless due to fear that this will come back to haunt me should I re-enlist, is an artillery regiment. As such, communications are of paramount importance to us. Even moreso, the speed with which comms can be established is a priority. The S.O.P. (standard operating procedure for those lucky ones who don't feel the need to have an acronym for everything) for artillery command in my HQ battery is that should be two element; a forward C.O.C.(command operations center) and a main C.O.C. (yes I have heard all the jokes about who is the main C.O.C. around here and every imaginable variation of "that's what SHE said" jokes) In the aforementioned S.O.P. the "forward" would establish a postion within comms range of the firing batteries and control them. The "main" element would then move to the forward position, set up, and assume control. Then the forward would jump to a new position and assume control once the batteries moved outside the main's comm range. The premise of this technique is fairly sound; constant command and control whilst continuing to advance at the exhaustive pace of forward combat units. However, it suffered from one major flaw; in many instances, communications can take so long to properly establish (especially when one considers the ancient equipment allocated to Marine reserve units) that rapidly advancing artillery batteries often outpace the regimental heaquarters' communication radii. In response to this problem several radio techs and operators from my unit decided to circumvent this problem by vastly reducing the set-up time needed for effective communications. This was acheived by several ad-hoc modifications to vehicles (HMMVW M-145's) that allowed them to travel with fully extended and operational OE-254 long range VHF antennae erected. In this fashion, we all but eliminated set-up times for communications and reduced the average "transfer-of-control" time from one and a half hours to 30 seconds. We even expedited set up of remote antennae emplacement (to prevent RDF targetting of radio vehicles) to a mere 10 minutes, as the OE-254 anttenae were detachable and could be carried by two Marines to a position 500m distant in a matter of minutes. The USMC's response to this approach was to take our designs and simply give them to General Motors without any compensation, awards, or even a "thank you" to us. Inexplicably, General Motors ruled it an "illegal modification" and subsequently voided the warranties on the converted vehicles. To add insult to injury, we had to dismantle all of our modifications and answer to an investigative commitee to explain why we felt it necessary to disobey established USMC doctrine. In summation, not only can the military take your ideas without compensating you, they can also eat you alive for daring to have some initiative. Despite these setbacks we have converted two new M-998 HMMVWs to what we have designated as the "Super-Vehicle" configuration. I can only hope these will escape the attention of our "superiors". Just my two-cents! __________________ I stole this sig from Task Force

07-30-08, 08:26 PM	#26
baggygreen Sea Lord Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Canberra, ACT, Down Under (really On Top) Posts: 1,880 Downloads: 7 Uploads: 0	he constructed his program using insider knowledge, which noone outside in the corporate world would've known about... As best as i can tell he wrote the program specifically for the air force and then went on to give it to some friends, who ised it on USAF property (computers, servers, whatever). I see completely where they're coming from then, becuase if it was installed without the USAF paying for it then it was firstly against the rules, no doubt, and secondly, if he distributed it to other usaf personnel and then wanted exclusive rights... he did stuff in the wrong order, voided his claims to ownership imo.