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from bash.org:

its me Where can i mk trilogy doiwnload???
  http://www.firstgov.gov/fgsearch/index.jsp?dom0=www.fbi.gov&mw0=warez+sodomy+porn+microsoft+illegal+MORTAL+KOMBAT+TRILOGY+DOWNLOAD+FREE&rn=218&in0=domain&parsed=true&Submit=Go&domain=fbi.gov
  Just go here.
  garret its true or false
  It's true.
  I'm getting it at 400KB/s!
  garret its not true
  You clicked the link?
  yes garret and.....
  You do realize you just searched fbi.gov for warez, porn, sodomy, illegal, microsoft, and mortal kombat right?
  fuck ya all
* Quits: Guest17888 (MKIRCN-003@212.182.122.Kg9=) (QUIT: User exited)

also, from the classic bloodninja
eminemBNJA: Oh I like that Baby. I put on my robe and wizard hat.
BritneySpears14: What the f*ck, I told you not to message me again.
eminemBNJA: Oh ****
BritneySpears14: I swear if you do it one more time I'm gonna report your ISP and say you were sending me kiddie porn you f*ck up.
eminemBNJA: Oh ****
eminemBNJA: damn I gotta write down your names or something

I'm posting this annon as I don't want a knock on the door at 04:00 tomorrow from our esteemed police force.

"Anyone whose data was on that laptop..."

But that's the question, isn't it? How does one know if their information was on that disc? I recieved my letter, from the VA, informing me of the possible exposure in about two weeks after first hearing about it on the news. My Dad, also a veteran, has yet to recieve his. The last paragraph reads as follows:

In accordance with current policy, the Internal Revenue Service has agreed to forward this letter because we do not have current addresses for all affected individuals. The IRS has not disclosed your address or any other tax information to us.

So, by the use of "affected individuals" can one assume that if you didn't get a letter, so kindly forwarded by the IRS, that you're in the clear, or should the fact that tens of millions of veterans and dependants may have been exposed prevail, and you should beware no matter what?

By the way, if you didn't recieve your letter, and you prefer to err on the side of caution, they did say that "...the VA has teamed up with the Federal Trade Commmission and has a Web site...

My data just happened to be on that hard drive, so I am a little upset about it to say the least. We in the armed forces have been told that the individual was definitely NOT supposed to take that data home. It even says so on the VA website reguarding this incident. http://www.firstgov.gov/veteransinfo.shtml If he had written authorization to do so, then that is a completely different story, and all of us that were affected should be even more angry. There are procedures in place for bringing ANY government property home; whether it be DATA or PHYSICAL media. Especially privacy act information.

So which is it? He was or he wasn't allowed to? It is a bit too convenient for my taste that the laptop was recovered so magically and with the data intact.

This kind of back-and-forth "truth" on these kinds of issues gets very old very fast.

Smells fishy...

Firstgov has been serving this function for 6 years. http://firstgov.gov/

FirstGov.gov is an interagency initiative administered by the U.S. General Services Administration. It got its start when Internet entrepreneur Eric Brewer, whose early research was funded by the Department of Defense, offered to donate a powerful search engine to government. That gift helped accelerate the government's earlier work to create a government-wide portal.

In June 2000, the President announced the gift from the Federal Search Foundation, a nonprofit organization established by Brewer, and instructed that FirstGov.gov be launched in 90 days. FirstGov.gov went online on September 22, 2000. The GSA and 22 federal agencies funded the initiative in 2001 and 2002. Since 2002, FirstGov.gov has received an annual appropriation in President Bush's fiscal year budget.

Wow! Your right, it is Independent! So are 62 other agencies (see list below). This seems to strech the seperation of powers beyond the breaking point!

http://www.firstgov.gov/Agencies/Federal/Independe nt.shtml

African Development Foundation
AMTRAK (National Railroad Passenger Corporation)
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
Commission on Civil Rights
Commodity Futures Trading Commission
Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC)
Corporation for National and Community Service
Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board
Election Assistance Commission
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
Export-Import Bank of the United States
Farm Credit Administration
Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)
Federal Election Commission (FEC)
Federal Housing Finance Board
Federal Labor Relations Authority
Federal Maritime Commission
Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service
Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission
Federal Reserve System
Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board
Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
General Services Administration (GSA)
Institute of Museum and Library Services
Inter-American Foundation
International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB)
Merit Systems Protection Board
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)
National Capital Planning Commission
National Council on Disability
National Credit Union Administration (NCUA)
National Endowment for the Arts
National Endowment for the Humanities
National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)
National Mediation Board
National Railroad Passenger Corporation (AMTRAK)
National Science Foundation (NSF)
National Transportation Safety Board
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)
Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission
Office of Compliance
Office of Government Ethics
Office of Personnel Management
Office of Special Counsel
Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive
Overseas Private Investment Corporation
Panama Canal Commission
Peace Corps
Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation
Postal Rate Commission
Railroad Retirement Board
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
Selective Service System
Small Business Administration (SBA)
Social Security Administration (SSA)
Tennessee Valley Authority
Trade and Development Agency
United States Agency for International Development
United States International Trade Commission
United States Postal Service (USPS)

You're forgetting how welfare has completely eliminated poverty! Seriously though. People, we need to see this as an opportunity to contact our represtentatives in Congress. You know what happens when a site gets slashdotted right? Well, imagine if we all made an effort to intelligently and realistically inform our government about this issue. They would be swamped with the facts and backlogged for weeks! That might make a difference. Go here to get started: http://www.firstgov.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml

First... government?

Because, by law the Federal Governement can not hold copyrights. I'm pretty sure they can't get a trademark or patent either.

Examples:

• The federal government copyright the material it produces, but it can certainly own copyrighted material.
• FirstGov is a registered trademark of the US General Services Administration, Registration Number 2490938, Serial Number 7800477.
• Some NSA Patents for you. Heck, the NSA can not only patent, but it can keep the patent secret until someone else tries to patent it.

What's more, it's copyright free, being from the government and all. There, and NationalAtlas.gov are two decent places to start if you're looking for pub-dom maps.

I'd also recommend the FirstGov graphics link list as a starting-point for any manner of public-domain graphics you might be looking for.

(or liter and the like if you're not American)

Excuse me, but the people of every country from Canada to Chile and the Caribbean islands are Americans, and almost all those countries use metric units like liters.

Just because the founders of the United States of America didn't come up with a proper single-word name for the country it doesn't give the USA the right to steal the name of the continent. Which, by the way, had been in use for over 200 years before the USA came to be. This is a remnant of the ill-fated first attempt at a new country, the Articles of Confederation. They had no central authority and tried to maintain a loose "union of states" where each had their own government.

As somebody pointed out in another /. discussion, imagine if Germany called itself Republic of Europe or if China (PRC) chose the name People's Republic of Asia. Would you call those countries Europe and Asia, respectively?

The USA's awkward, inflexible name doesn't even allow for a simple single-word term for its people. Other languages do have it, by the way. In Spanish your incorrect term of "American" is more accurately called "estadounidense".

http://www.firstgov.gov/Espanol/Topics/Recien_LLeg ados/Inmigracion.shtml

And this concludes today's lesson of Geography 101, have a nice weekend.

WTF!!!?? This thread is getting moderated up!?

WHAT IF GOOGLE WAS POWERED BY ALIEN TECHNOLOGY?!? What if they've managed to create a wormhole into the future of a parallel universe and are sucking energy from a dying star to power a massive supercomputer to feed a self-aware program trying to produce offspring that will be fueled by the souls of orphaned children?! What if those orphaned children were the lab-grown offspring of people unwittingly part of a massive government cover-up from 1950's radiation experiments performed on cloned humans kept alive in a cryogenic state for the last 50 years!?

WHAT IF!? DID YOU EVERY THINK OF THAT??!

God. Everyone knows the government is far too incompetent to produce a decent search engine. Compare FirstGov to Google Unclesam. Look at the patent office and their inability to find even the most glaringly obvious prior art.

Any time I get paranoid that the government might be up to something, I'm comforted by the fact that they are just too fucking incompetent to do anything but make roads -- and they kinda suck at that too.

http://www.firstgov.gov/ http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/egov/ How about we create a government project - And hook up everyone securely to it. That way - we can eliminate layers of administration and save money and time. Save time; save money. What all you skeptics are afraid of is like turning from the gold system to the credit system. Relax.

Bill Gates knows they will say this because he (if I may cut you off here) is trying to get whatever profit he can from the country while those evil Communist psychos still let them operate in China in the first place. After all, what semi-sane company wants to disrespect a belligerent, nuke-brandishing government who wants to blow up their corporate country of origin, nevermind extinguish all free speech in their own spaces?

I searched for "Weapons 0f Mass Destruction": not found

I searched for "Prisoners": not found

As a last resort, I searched for "intelligent people": not found

I then saw a croud of what appeared to be relapsed criminals wearing stripes ^H^H^H^H Frenchmen, and looked for Waldo: I found Waldo

I searched for "Weapons 0f Mass Destruction": not found

I searched for "Prisoners": not found

As a last resort, I searched for "intelligent people": not found

I then saw a croud of what appeared to be relapsed criminals wearing stripes ^H^H^H^H Frenchmen, and looked for Waldo: I found Waldo

I searched for "Weapons 0f Mass Destruction": not found

I searched for "Prisoners": not found

As a last resort, I searched for "intelligent people": not found

I then saw a croud of what appeared to be relapsed criminals wearing stripes ^H^H^H^H Frenchmen, and looked for Waldo: I found Waldo

I searched for "Weapons 0f Mass Destruction": not found

I searched for "Prisoners": not found

As a last resort, I searched for "intelligent people": not found

I then saw a croud of what appeared to be relapsed criminals wearing stripes ^H^H^H^H Frenchmen, and looked for Waldo: I found Waldo

application I've, just this morning been reading the USPTO's 'consolidated patent rules. [PDF document].

Thought it might interest folks discussing parent subject matter WRT USA patents.

I say blame the US Congress and President if the tax laws offer agenda opportunities. If you think these deductions just give big corps a tax loophole, tell the government that.

Contact your elected representatives

Here, I'll even make it easy for you to Contact your Elected Officials

forgot to register to vote. Deadline is very close, more info in the linked government website.

Mathematics is not a crime. -- James Turpin (789479)

Mr. Turpin's signature was likely commenting on the right and ability to use 'strong encryption' to secure ones 'thoughts and posessions' at all times.

Here in America, encryption is treated like a weapon instead of a digital envelope. Added to that, 'real encryption' in its purest form is nothing more than grade-school math applied to very large numbers.

So I guess Mr. Turpin is 'asking':

Is it a crime to use math (via strong cryptography) to have privacy and security?

Just 'ask' PGP creator Phil Zimmerman about his experiences with cryptography and the United States Federal Government....

Juichiro Koizumi actually had something like this when he was elected Prime Minister of Japan. I never got to read his email lists (don't speak Japanese, duh) but the idea was to give everyone-and-their-mom who subscribed regular updates as to what was going on. Sort of a "what I did on my summer vacation" for politics. The same goes for the U.S.' FirstGov, to be fair.

The only other people I've seen who tried this consistently are the UK government. Their pages, even the "government for the people" type ones, come across as fairly formal and even a bit propagandistic--i.e. not necessarily something that the average slob just looking for a quick update as to what's going on would turn to. Many friends of mine in the UK also take these efforts with a grain of salt. They also seem to have spent quite a bit of money and time trying to push their pages, as opposed to using something as powerfully simple as a weblog by those-in-charge to get the message across.

While you're at it, why not also suggest that they have their typing classes teach Dvorak? And stop using English, instead have half of the classes taught in Mandarin Chinese! Their maps are North-centric too, why not a little diversity there, as well? The metric system is fine too, but there are some important places that customarily use Imperial units, so there's another place to diversify! Good Luck!

firstgov for seniors(although not quite as good as seniornet.)

There are also several libraries that have very good senior sections, such as Multnomah County Library, and Vancouver Library

Hello, I am living in Canada actually, and I am pretty happy with our current governments, the best they could do is dreg up some slightly flimsy accusations. What the hell is that? The problem is Slashdot News, Does not reach the General Public! But it should. Now my main Point is that if you want your governemnt to behave themselves. Send them MAIL or send them FAXES !! Mass e-mail they have taken to ignoring. But waste their paper!! they will sit up and take notice! I gaurantee. You know how to find your local representative, go to http://www.firstgov.gov/ Find out who to mail or fax and do it!! If this doesn't get slashdot on the news, nothing will!!! Just remember we are dealing with mindless fucks who love to ignore e-mail. Because someone could have sent 10000 e-mails etc etc. This much paper, will not be ignored. I personally gaurantee!

You can sign up to be a beta tester!

When was the last time you saw a Segway zooming around town? (If ever.) I seem to remember Jeff Bezos or someone saying it would "change the way cities are built." Funny, as luck you have it I happen to be in a city right as I'm typing this, and that whole "roads" things looks pretty much the same as it has since the Romans. In fact the only time I've ever seen a Segway was some Fed zooming around on one at the airport, which offers insight into how Kamen et al. plan to ulimately make money off this turkey: sell it to the only buyer in the world with enough money and enough stupidity to be willing.

1. The Department of Commerce; VeriSign's contract to operate .com and .org was originally with them.
2. The Federal Communications Commission, which oversees telecommunications.
3. The Senate Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Communications; contact the committee itself, the chairman, the ranking member, and any of the other members you'd like.
4. The House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, including the committee itself, the chairman, the vice-chairman, and the ranking member. Plus any of the other members you feel like contacting.
5. The Federal Trade Commission, which hears consumer complaints.
6. Your U.S. Representative
7. Your Senators
8. Your Governor
9. Your State Legislators
10. ICANN's wildcard comment address
11. Finally, complain to the media. If they get enough letters on a topic, they'll run stories. Try the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Washington Times, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, Fox News, CBS News, ABC News, NBC News and MSNBC.

Remember, VeriSign is busy telling them its side of the story. We need to tell them ours!

1. The Department of Commerce; VeriSign's contract to operate .com and .org was originally with them.
2. The Federal Communications Commission, which oversees telecommunications.
3. The Senate Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Communications; contact the committee itself, the chairman, the ranking member, and any of the other members you'd like.
4. The House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, including the committee itself, the chairman, the vice-chairman, and the ranking member. Plus any of the other members you feel like contacting.
5. The Federal Trade Commission, which hears consumer complaints.
6. Your U.S. Representative
7. Your Senators
8. Your Governor
9. Your State Legislators
10. ICANN's wildcard comment address
11. VeriSign itself
12. Finally, complain to the media. If they get lots of letters on a topic, they'll run stories. Try the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Washington Times, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, Fox News, CBS News, ABC News, NBC News and MSNBC.

1. The Department of Commerce; VeriSign's contract to operate .com and .org was originally with them.
2. The Federal Communications Commission, which oversees telecommunications.
3. The Senate Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Communications; contact the committee itself, the chairman, the ranking member, and any of the other members you'd like.
4. The House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, including the committee itself, the chairman, the vice-chairman, and the ranking member. Plus any of the other members you feel like contacting.
5. The Federal Trade Commission, which hears consumer complaints.
6. Your U.S. Representative
7. Your Senators
8. Your Governor
9. Your State Legislators
10. ICANN's wildcard comment address
11. VeriSign itself
12. Finally, complain to the media. If they get lots of letters on a topic, they'll run stories. Try the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Washington Times, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, Fox News, CBS News, ABC News, NBC News and MSNBC.

I would suggest you go down to city hall. Just being there will give you a bit more insight of what it is like. It's kind of like installing a new operating system. You can kind of figure out basically what it is like from pictures you have seen and properties you have read about, but you get a better picture from what is going on from trying it out.

Also, government is a huge hierarchy as you might already know, I guess like a filesystem. So you have your local, state, and country.

Cities
Pretty much all large cities have a website where you can download the city code or get information on various meetings and events that will allow you to get involved. Don't bitch about city decisions unless you don't take the effort to acquaint yourselves with current happenings every month or so. To visit your city website alter the "XX" in the following URL to reflect your state abbreviation (ie. ca - california, ny - new york)

http://www.statelocalgov.net/local-XX.htm

State
Your state government is the accumulation of all local governments within a set boundry. Do the same thing with the following URL as the one above.

http://www.statelocalgov.net/state-XX.htm

National
Here we have all those states to create a national charter of if...then statements governing your way of life. These are ultimate and cannot be evaded by each lesser government (local, state). It should be noted that those smaller governments can choose to enact various further restrictions that they see fit, as long as it does not interfere with the national charter.

Here are two portals for the huge national government.

Library of congress portal - Executive (links to the other two branches of government, Legislative, and Judicial are at top the top.)

Official Federal Gov portal site

A bit more on elections specifically
Relatively recently unveiled on slashdot , Project opengov contains a wealth of information. I would recommend spending much of your time here to acquaint yourselves with the people running your government.

Alternatively, enter your zipcode to get quick summary of who's working for you in government. Project vote-smart

There are a few other good sites, one at the tip of my tongue, it features detailed financial recordings of government election campaigns. I'm sure you have enough data to grok though ;)

Knowledge is power.

I just hope Microsoft doesn't get the idea to patent Method and System For Microsoft For Any Reason.

an amusing side note: do a patent search on Reed Solomon

OK, I'll bite... From FirstGov:

The executive branch is responsible for executing and enforcing the laws of the land. The power of the executive branch is vested in the President.

More specifically, from The Consitution, we have Article II, Sections 1-4 describing the Executive Branch... Summed up:

Article II, Section 1: We have a president and here is how he's elected...

Article II, Section 2: He commands the military, militias, makes treaties, appoints ambassadors, judges, and officers of the executive branch.

Article II, Section 3: He needs to inform congress of the state of the union.

Article II, Section 4: He can be impeached for...

So, we can see that there is really no basis in law for why the Executive branch should be involved in the allocation of funding to faith-based organizations anyway. It has nothing to do with the enforcement of law, international affairs, military actions, etc.

This administration, perhaps more than many recently, has gotten into many things it should not.

Basically they just say "hmm...let's just assume it weighs X, delivers power Y, and has lifetime Z" and see what vehicle design is possible.

The folks I talked to basically flat-out said they (NASA) don't do much research into that kind of stuff, and they mostly leave it up to the universities and private industry to come up with the technology. Of course, NASA does shell out mucho $$$ every year to fund research, but they don't participate directly.

If you're interested in what kind of research NASA and other government agencies are funding, you can head over to FirstGov and do a search on SBIR. That doesn't cover ALL of the research or development projects, but there are plenty of cool ones in there (stuff like using mech-like tech to enhance human capabilities).

Basically they just say "hmm...let's just assume it weighs X, delivers power Y, and has lifetime Z" and see what vehicle design is possible.

The folks I talked to basically flat-out said they (NASA) don't do much research into that kind of stuff, and they mostly leave it up to the universities and private industry to come up with the technology. Of course, NASA does shell out mucho $$$ every year to fund research, but they don't participate directly.

If you're interested in what kind of research NASA and other government agencies are funding, you can head over to FirstGov and do a search on SBIR. That doesn't cover ALL of the research or development projects, but there are plenty of cool ones in there (stuff like using mech-like tech to enhance human capabilities).

According to this site, there is more to the government than the FCC.

A few months ago I got a virus infection and the doctor gave me some anti-biotics. Out of curiosity I went to the FDA website and was surprised to learn that the drug companies can do some of things to certify their drugs online.

The US government also has an IP network physically separate for classified information. I have seen a lot of work get done over it.

Well, there is FirstGov (www.firstgov.gov).

The US has had a government portal at firstgov.gov for quite some time.

If you're a USA citizen, you might try emailing your congressional representatives with your opinions. Snail mail used to be considered more valuable, but recently Congress staff members have been encouraging email use.

various research firms and government research organizations (yes, there are people who get paid taxpayer dollars to play around with search engines and 3d engines and stuff) have been trying to come up with an effective method of visualizing information (e.g. text, filesystems, etc) in 3d for many years.

in my opinion, these browsers are neat as a novelty, but beyond that they aren't that useful. if browser people (mozilla team, opera team, konqueror people, microsoft, etc etc etc) worked on improving the user experience in existing products, we'd be doing just fine. having better information to display in the first place would help, too.

here's a link that should give you a good overview of information visualization that the government is sponsoring. this should help, too.

The U.S. Government is powered by Open Source software.

Facts are stupid things. - Ronald Reagan

Shouldn't this one be sued first? www.firstgov.gov

The site www.firstgov.gov provides a central location for finding information from almost all U.S. local, state or federal sites. I have found it to be a well organized and useful site and I have generally been able to find answers, forms or sites that I seek with minimal effort.

In fact, I used it to find a link to the New Jersey Rail Schedules.

Actually, this isn't entirely new.

The website http://www.fedworld.gov/ offers a single search site for hundreds of federal websites. Originally started as a central BBS that let you look at other government BBS systems, it expanded into offerings via FTP and gopher before there was really a web.

Somebody also mentioned http://www.google.com/unclesam [no trailing slash: bad server config!]. (and get a load of the old glory colors on the Google logo: bet you see something similar on the home page by next weekend ...)

Also, http://www.whitehouse.gov/WH/Services/ has been around for a long time.

It sounds like http://www.firstgov.gov/ (which IS live, just a placeholder) will be much more citizen-oriented, that is, getting the services to the people (like Social Security or VA records), rather than being a spreadsheets and reports searching site. I just don't think it's a very good name. help.gov? helpdesk.gov? services.gov? something "nineties" like my.gov? (Somebody else said) first.gov? The repeated G-O-V is silly.
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