unexpected result

[Jordan Abel]

Re: unexpected result

On 2006-03-14, Walter Roberson <roberson@ibd.n rc-cnrc.gc.ca> wrote:[color=blue]
> In article <slrne1e0or.jqh .random832@rand om.yi.org>,
> Jordan Abel <random832@gmai l.com> wrote:
>[color=green]
>>I've heard that in most sane parts of the world, if something can be
>>shown to be sufficiently unlikely to be taken seriously by any third
>>party as to not do actual damage to the "victim"'s reputation, that is a
>>sufficient defense in a libel case. Unfortunately, for these purposes
>>I'm told that the UK's legal system is not as 'sane' as those in most
>>other parts of the world.[/color]
>[color=green]
>>So, as long as he never actually visits there, he should be fine.[/color]
>
> [OT]
>
> Disclaimer: IANAL
>
> UK law can be used to sue for "publicatio n" in the UK,
> even if neither party is a UK resident. A previous case has -already-
> established that posting to a newsgroup that is available in the UK
> qualifies as "publishing " in the UK, and the third-party libel
> lawsuit scenario has -already- happened and was successful.
>
> If a libel lawsuit is filed against someone in the UK and that
> person choses not to defend against it (e.g. because they don't
> want to bother with the expense of travelling and staying in the UK),
> then the most likely result (for a properly-filed suit) would be
> a default judgement. If the person then choose not to travel to the UK
> in order to avoid collection upon the judgement, then the person
> would also have to avoid doing business in the UK (even as simple
> as ordering a CD from a UK distributor), as any funds or property
> of theirs that enters UK jurisdiction would be subject to seizure.
> {I don't have any information about other possible consequences.}[/color]

Say both parties are citizens of the US. Could the one who sued for
libel then, subsequently, be sued in the US for malicious prosecution,
barratry, or something like that? [they sued in UK jurisdiction,
presumably, because they knew that what was done was not in fact libel,
and were taking advantage of the lax standards of proof in the UK, or
even of the likelihood of a default judgement.]

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

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

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

[Walter Roberson]

Re: unexpected result

In article <slrne1e4v5.jqh .random832@rand om.yi.org>,
Jordan Abel <random832@gmai l.com> wrote:
[still OT]
[color=blue]
>Say both parties are citizens of the US. Could the one who sued for
>libel then, subsequently, be sued in the US for malicious prosecution,
>barratry, or something like that? [they sued in UK jurisdiction,
>presumably, because they knew that what was done was not in fact libel,
>and were taking advantage of the lax standards of proof in the UK, or
>even of the likelihood of a default judgement.][/color]

There's a maxim that goes something like "Anyone can be sued for any
reason" with its addendum "The difficulty is getting it to stick."


The foundation of libel (and slander and defamation) is that
there is damage (or attempted damage) to someone's reputation.

Defence against libel lies in showing that the circumstances did not
give rise to damage to the reputation, or in showing that the damage
was lawful within the constraints of the relevant law.

It is entirely possible for a court to rule that libel (damage to
reputation) has occured, but that the defendant had a lawful excuse and
so cannot be punished for the libelous act. Judges have been known to
issue harsh scoldings in cases where the circumstances do not permit
them to convict; in many countries, those scoldings become matters of
public record.

The UK does not have lax standards of proof for libel: what it
has is a different set of lawful excuses.

In USA law, if a libelous statement is found to be true,
then the truth of that statement is considered an "absolute defence".
That would not stop the judge from ruling that a statement was
indeed shamefully libelous: it just stops them from doing anything about it.

Also, the USA has a relatively new law of "criminal libel", in
which the truth of the statement is NOT a defence, if the courts are
satisfied that the statement was made "in reckless disregard for the truth".
Thus if a tabloid publishes a shopping list of invented attacks on
a celeb, one of which happpens by accident to be true, then the
celeb can sue on the whole without having to implicitly admit the
truth of the one portion by -not- sueing about the one.

In Canadian federal law, the truth of a statement is not a defence --
though in some circumstances, a reasonable -belief- in the truth of the
statement is. -Every- available defence is qualified by the requirement
that the statements did not go too far beyond what was "reasonable "
under the circumstances. Thus slagging someone a little is sometimes
excusable, but slagging them a lot is not, even if everything said was
true.

UK law (or precident) goes further and [if I understand correctly]
basically says, "If you don't have a good reason to actively say
these things, then don't say them." What qualifies as a good enough
reason has been evolving over the last decade or so, with more
"public interest" allowances being accepted.


I would -think- that in order for someone in the US to prove
malicious prosecution or barratry with respect to a libel suit
that was run in the UK, it would probably have to be proved
that there was no -reasonable- chance that the original libel
lawsuit could succeed there, or that there were ulterior motives
behind the filing of the suit. But court rulings continually
surprise me...
--
I was very young in those days, but I was also rather dim.
-- Christopher Priest

[Jordan Abel]

Re: unexpected result

On 2006-03-14, Walter Roberson <roberson@ibd.n rc-cnrc.gc.ca> wrote:[color=blue]
> In article <slrne1e4v5.jqh .random832@rand om.yi.org>,
> Jordan Abel <random832@gmai l.com> wrote:
> [still OT]
>
> It is entirely possible for a court to rule that libel (damage to
> reputation) has occured, but that the defendant had a lawful excuse and
> so cannot be punished for the libelous act. Judges have been known to
> issue harsh scoldings in cases where the circumstances do not permit
> them to convict; in many countries, those scoldings become matters of
> public record.
>
> The UK does not have lax standards of proof for libel: what it
> has is a different set of lawful excuses.[/color]

There is, however, the fact that you don't have to prove it at all if
the defendant can't or won't travel to the UK.
[color=blue]
> In USA law, if a libelous statement is found to be true, then the
> truth of that statement is considered an "absolute defence". That
> would not stop the judge from ruling that a statement was indeed
> shamefully libelous: it just stops them from doing anything about it.[/color]

What I meant is that if one US citizen sues another in the UK for libel
[as described in previous posts], can the defendant sue the plaintiff
back in US court for malicious prosecution, either purely on the grounds
that (even though it would have succeeded in either jurisdiction) the
plaintiff was attempting to pile the additional expense of travel on top
of the damages; or based on the attempt by the plaintiff to find a more
favorable, or at least more difficult to avoid default judgement, venue?
[color=blue]
> I would -think- that in order for someone in the US to prove malicious
> prosecution or barratry with respect to a libel suit that was run in
> the UK, it would probably have to be proved that there was no
> -reasonable- chance that the original libel lawsuit could succeed
> there, or that there were ulterior motives behind the filing of the
> suit. But court rulings continually surprise me...[/color]

And that answers my question, basically.

Though, what's still not clear to me is whether it would have to be no
reasonable chance that the original lawsuit could succeed in the UK, or
no reasonable chance that it could succeed in the US? I.e., does the US
even recognize that UK law applies to such a case [where both parties
are resident US citizens and the allegedly libelous writing is posted in
an international forum]?

[Ben Pfaff]

Re: unexpected result

Jordan Abel <random832@gmai l.com> writes:[color=blue]
> [stuff about libel][/color]

Surely there must be some better place to conduct this
discussion.
--
"The lusers I know are so clueless, that if they were dipped in clue
musk and dropped in the middle of pack of horny clues, on clue prom
night during clue happy hour, they still couldn't get a clue."
--Michael Girdwood, in the monastery

[Jordan Abel]

Re: unexpected result

On 2006-03-14, Ben Pfaff <blp@cs.stanfor d.edu> wrote:[color=blue]
> Jordan Abel <random832@gmai l.com> writes:[color=green]
>> [stuff about libel][/color]
>
> Surely there must be some better place to conduct this
> discussion.[/color]

Probably, but it came up in here, and the discussion was between people
who are regulars in here. I'm pretty much satisfied with the answers I
got.

[Old Wolf]

Re: unexpected result

manochavishal@g mail.com wrote:[color=blue]
> That guy advocating buffer overflows wrote:
> I suspect Richard is big and ugly enough to do that himself.
>
> This is really not in a good taste. I expect lot of professional
> attitude from people posting in here. Words like *ugly* and
> pointing to someone personally really puts me off.[/color]

In my area, "is big enough and ugly enough" is slang for
"is experienced enough", and it has no negative
connotations whatsoever.

[John Smith]

Re: unexpected result

Richard Heathfield wrote:
[color=blue]
> In 1989, I was learning C. The guy sitting next to me was learning C too. He
> omitted to provide sufficient storage for a string. (He was just one byte
> short.) When the program ran, he saw pretty much what he expected to see,
> just general student-program output, you know the stuff - and then, at the
> bottom there, it said something like:
>
> "Do you really want to format C: (Y/N)?"
>
> He was *very* fortunate. The result of this particular instance of undefined
> behaviour appears to have been a jump into "the system" - and if it had
> jumped just a bit further, he could well have had his hard drive formatted
> without being asked. No, I'm not making this up.[/color]

Are you aware of a case where a software error or undefined
behavior caused actual physical damage to hardware?

JS

[Jalapeno]

Re: unexpected result


John Smith wrote:[color=blue]
> Richard Heathfield wrote:
>[color=green]
> > In 1989, I was learning C. The guy sitting next to me was learning C too. He
> > omitted to provide sufficient storage for a string. (He was just one byte
> > short.) When the program ran, he saw pretty much what he expected to see,
> > just general student-program output, you know the stuff - and then, at the
> > bottom there, it said something like:
> >
> > "Do you really want to format C: (Y/N)?"
> >
> > He was *very* fortunate. The result of this particular instance of undefined
> > behaviour appears to have been a jump into "the system" - and if it had
> > jumped just a bit further, he could well have had his hard drive formatted
> > without being asked. No, I'm not making this up.[/color]
>
> Are you aware of a case where a software error or undefined
> behavior caused actual physical damage to hardware?
>
> JS[/color]

http://www.ima.umn.edu/~arnold/disasters/ariane.html

[Richard Heathfield]

Re: unexpected result

John Smith said:
[color=blue]
> Are you aware of a case where a software error or undefined
> behavior caused actual physical damage to hardware?[/color]

If you're old enough, you may recall the Amiga home computer. IIRC some
idiot once wrote a virus "for" it, which could play a tune on the disk
drive! (I think it mucked about with the stepper motor.) This did the drive
no good whatsoever.

Admittedly, this was deliberate and malicious damage. But what can be done
through malice can also be done through incompetence. If a computer is
physically capable of damaging hardware, then yes, undefined behaviour can
certainly have that result.

--
Richard Heathfield
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29/7/1999

http://www.cpax.org.uk

email: rjh at above domain (but drop the www, obviously)

[Richard Heathfield]

Re: unexpected result

Jalapeno said:
[color=blue]
>
> John Smith wrote:[color=green]
>>
>> Are you aware of a case where a software error or undefined
>> behavior caused actual physical damage to hardware?
>>
>> JS[/color]
>
> http://www.ima.umn.edu/~arnold/disasters/ariane.html[/color]

Oh yeah - I didn't think of that. :-)

Also, let us not forget Therac-25, which, admittedly, didn't damage the
hardware. "Just" the wetware.

--
Richard Heathfield
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29/7/1999

http://www.cpax.org.uk

email: rjh at above domain (but drop the www, obviously)

[Rod Pemberton]

Re: unexpected result


"Richard Heathfield" <invalid@invali d.invalid> wrote in message
news:dvc44s$nvc $2@nwrdmz02.dmz .ncs.ea.ibs-infra.bt.com...[color=blue]
> Jalapeno said:
>[color=green]
> >
> > John Smith wrote:[color=darkred]
> >>
> >> Are you aware of a case where a software error or undefined
> >> behavior caused actual physical damage to hardware?
> >>
> >> JS[/color]
> >
> > http://www.ima.umn.edu/~arnold/disasters/ariane.html[/color]
>
> Oh yeah - I didn't think of that. :-)
>
> Also, let us not forget Therac-25, which, admittedly, didn't damage the
> hardware. "Just" the wetware.
>[/color]

The just had a special on this on the History channel in the US, and showed
well over a dozen examples. They were predominantly rocketry of course, but
had non-rocketry examples too, from trains to nuclear plants, etc...

The one I remember was setting incorrect VGA modes on early PC's would blow
a fuse in the monitor because it couldn't handle the sync voltages for that
mode. Why do I remember that? Because, I specifically told a friend that
it was impossible for software to damage PC hardware... Live and learn!


Rod Pemberton

[lawrence.jones@ugs.com]

Re: unexpected result

John Smith <JSmith@mail.ne t> wrote:[color=blue]
>
> Are you aware of a case where a software error or undefined
> behavior caused actual physical damage to hardware?[/color]

Yes. The most common example is early PCs that used a combination of
hardware and software to generate their video output signals. Incorrect
code and/or data could result in wildly out-of-spec video signals that
would damage (possibly spectacularly) the monitors of the time, which
were not protected against such abuse.

Another example I am personally familiar with was a graphics computer
where the assembly language was more like microcode -- there were no op
codes, per se, rather the bits in the instruction specified the source
and destination of the data, the logical operation to perform on the
source and target data (assign, negate, AND, OR, XOR), an optional
rotation to be performed, etc. The standard calling conventions for the
system had argument lists inline with the code, so a call to a
subroutine consisted of the call instruction, followed by the first
argument, the second argument, etc., then the next instruction to be
executed on return from the subroutine. There was no argument count, so
variable length argument lists were, by convention, terminated by a word
with all bits set.

There was a bug in one of the standard libraries that resulted in
variable argument subroutines returning to the all ones terminator
rather than the following instruction as it should. An instruction with
all bits set was not a well-defined operation, it truely resulted in
undefined behavior, although the bit mapped nature of the instructions
made it fairly obvious what should happen. The result was mostly
innocuous, although it did have the potentially "interestin g" side
effect of incrementing the very last word in memory. However, because
that particular combination of operations was not useful (hence the lack
of a defined instruction), it had never been tested, and it resulted in
a short-circuit in the processor. Since the short circuit only existed
for the duration of the instruction execution, it was not immediately
fatal, but if it happend frequently enough, it would eventually cause a
transistor to overheat and fail. It took years to figure out why one
particular transistor on one particular card in the processor had an
abnormally high failure rate.

-Larry Jones

My dreams are getting way too literal. -- Calvin

[Mark McIntyre]

Re: unexpected result

On Thu, 16 Mar 2006 14:54:04 GMT, in comp.lang.c , John Smith
<JSmith@mail.ne t> wrote:
[color=blue]
>Are you aware of a case where a software error or undefined
>behavior caused actual physical damage to hardware?[/color]

I broke a chain printer once by sending bad data. Caused it to try to
wind forward and back simultaneously or something.

Badly written drivers for a Matrox display card once fried my monitor.
And the original Apple had an opcode which translated into "connect
+12V rail to ground, via the CPU core".



Mark McIntyre
--
"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place.
Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are,
by definition, not smart enough to debug it."
--Brian Kernighan

[Keith Thompson]

Re: unexpected result

lawrence.jones@ ugs.com writes:[color=blue]
> John Smith <JSmith@mail.ne t> wrote:[color=green]
>> Are you aware of a case where a software error or undefined
>> behavior caused actual physical damage to hardware?[/color]
>
> Yes. The most common example is early PCs that used a combination of
> hardware and software to generate their video output signals. Incorrect
> code and/or data could result in wildly out-of-spec video signals that
> would damage (possibly spectacularly) the monitors of the time, which
> were not protected against such abuse.[/color]
[snip]

On computers with old-style ferrite core memory, a tight loop that
repeatedly accessed one word of memory could cause the cores to
overheat. In extreme cases, it could literally cause a core meltdown.

On another old system, I wrote a program that attempted to do a seek
beyond the size of the disk (it was an 8-inch floppy disk). I don't
think I actually damaged the hardware, but it caused some very loud
banging.

And, of course, some embedded systems are *intended* to cause damage;
when the software detects that a timer or altimeter has reached a
specified value, the CPU gets blown up along with the bomb.

--
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keit h) kst-u@mib.org <http://www.ghoti.net/~kst>
San Diego Supercomputer Center <*> <http://users.sdsc.edu/~kst>
We must do something. This is something. Therefore, we must do this.

[Flash Gordon]

Re: unexpected result

Mark McIntyre wrote:[color=blue]
> On Thu, 16 Mar 2006 14:54:04 GMT, in comp.lang.c , John Smith
> <JSmith@mail.ne t> wrote:
>[color=green]
>> Are you aware of a case where a software error or undefined
>> behavior caused actual physical damage to hardware?[/color]
>
> I broke a chain printer once by sending bad data. Caused it to try to
> wind forward and back simultaneously or something.
>
> Badly written drivers for a Matrox display card once fried my monitor.
> And the original Apple had an opcode which translated into "connect
> +12V rail to ground, via the CPU core".[/color]

IIRC the Camputers Lynx (which I had) warned you in the manuals that
address 0xFFFF was the paging register and writing the wrong value to it
would cause a bus clash that would damage the computer. I don't know if
it had a C implementation the following could easily cause real damage...
unsigned char *p = 0;
p--;
*p = 255;

Or writing through an uninitialised pointer that happened to point to
that address by chance...
--
Flash Gordon, living in interesting times.
Web site - http://home.flash-gordon.me.uk/
comp.lang.c posting guidelines and intro:

http://clc-wiki.net/wiki/Intro_to_clc