Slashdot Mirror

Yep - that was my first thoughts too. Driving with an unreadable license plate, though, is grounds to get you pulled over anyway.

In case you didn't know, most toll booth places have:

    Cameras front-mounted to take a picture of YOU or passengers...

    Cameras in the back to take a picture of your plate...

    Occasional cops sitting at the side of the road that are ready to pull you over.

It's academically interesting (and it should be) but not useful for the criminal. You can always simply drive through a checkpoint without an ez-pass, and most likely nothing will happen for a long time. Is it worth it? Nope.

Police in general seem to be completely unable to gauge the gravity of situations.

This happened around here recently:
http://www.nbc4.com/news/8703066/detail.html

Should a teenager be shot for trying to leave a restaurant without paying the check?!

If you've ever watched COPS, you know exactly how this went down. The kid was leaving, perhaps even unintentionally forgetting to pay the check, a guy jumps out right in front of his car, no uniform or ID, and before the kid even has a chance to figure out what the hell is going on, bullets are flying thru the window.

The cop of course says that he was in fear for his life because the SUV was going to run him down.

News flash. Its a parking lot. STEP OUT OF THE FRIGGIN' WAY!

Sometimes *ITS OK* for the bad-boy teenager to get away. TAKE HIS FRIGGIN PLATE AND FILE A REPORT!!!!

It IS NOT acceptable to stand in the way of a car full of teenagers, draw your piece and blaze away just so "the bad guy won't get away"! This is doubly true when OFF DUTY.

Sometimes in the name of public safety, its just better to chill out and LET IT GO, dude.

Sorry about the rant here but I just see more and more of this out of control escalation with power-drunk authorities who seem to think 100-mph chases, tasers, tear-gas, guns, dogs, and god knows what all else are perfectly acceptable to deploy at any time in the middle of suburban neighborhoods, simply as long as there's a (likely minority) fellow running from them.

Incidentally, I mentioned those articles -- here's my collection. Let's get them out there to help build our industry.

They range in subject matters that assist me, with the majority being security related.

http://www.nbc4.com/money/11588165/detail.html
http://www.nbc4.com/money/11588165/detail.html
http://www.wired.com/news/columns/0,71032-0.html
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pag ename=thestar/Layout/Article_PrintFriendly&c=Artic le&cid=1135552209280&call_pageid=971358637177
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM .20050704.gtkirwanjul4/BNStory/specialScienceandHe alth/
http://www.redorbit.com/news/display/?id=176198
http://www.livescience.com/scienceoffiction/060619 _hyperactive_bob.html
http://www.labour.gov.on.ca/english/es/factsheets/ fs_faq.html
http://www.e.govt.nz/policy/open-source/open-sourc e-legal
http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/securi ty/privacy/story/0,10801,108101,00.html
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?com mand=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=storage&article Id=9004274&taxonomyId=19&intsrc=kc_feat
http://www.canada.com/components/print.aspx?id=f6f 548f7-9dfd-49f4-9ff8-8ae8f4a2e2fd
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/apr 2006/tc20060417_996365.htm?campaign_id=bier_tca
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_37 /b4000401.htm?chan=tc&campaign_id=bier_tcst0
http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1 781895,00.html
http://panko.cba.hawaii.edu/ssr/Mypapers/whatknow. htm

Incidentally, I mentioned those articles -- here's my collection. Let's get them out there to help build our industry.

They range in subject matters that assist me, with the majority being security related.

http://www.nbc4.com/money/11588165/detail.html
http://www.nbc4.com/money/11588165/detail.html
http://www.wired.com/news/columns/0,71032-0.html
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pag ename=thestar/Layout/Article_PrintFriendly&c=Artic le&cid=1135552209280&call_pageid=971358637177
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM .20050704.gtkirwanjul4/BNStory/specialScienceandHe alth/
http://www.redorbit.com/news/display/?id=176198
http://www.livescience.com/scienceoffiction/060619 _hyperactive_bob.html
http://www.labour.gov.on.ca/english/es/factsheets/ fs_faq.html
http://www.e.govt.nz/policy/open-source/open-sourc e-legal
http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/securi ty/privacy/story/0,10801,108101,00.html
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?com mand=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=storage&article Id=9004274&taxonomyId=19&intsrc=kc_feat
http://www.canada.com/components/print.aspx?id=f6f 548f7-9dfd-49f4-9ff8-8ae8f4a2e2fd
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/apr 2006/tc20060417_996365.htm?campaign_id=bier_tca
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_37 /b4000401.htm?chan=tc&campaign_id=bier_tcst0
http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1 781895,00.html
http://panko.cba.hawaii.edu/ssr/Mypapers/whatknow. htm

Finally, I say that war will go either in our favor or yours. If it is the former, it means your loss and your shame forever, and it is headed in this course. If it is the latter, read history! We are people who do not stand for injustice and we will seek revenge all our lives. The nights and days will not pass without us taking vengeance like on Sept. 11, God permitting. Your minds will be troubled and your lives embittered. As for us, we have nothing to lose. A swimmer in the ocean does not fear the rain. You have occupied our lands, offended our honor and dignity and let out our blood and stolen our money and destroyed our houses and played with our security and we will give you the same treatment.

http://www.dcexaminer.com/articles/2005/10/14/news /maryland_news/03newsmd14burning.txt http://www.nbc4.com/news/5097879/detail.html?subid =10101441

Summary of case: a woman went before a judge and asked him to extend a restraining order against her estranged husband, who had made several threats against her life. Against all sense of good judgment, the judge lifted the restraining order. The husband subsequently set the woman on fire, leaving her with burns over 60% of her body. A weapon could easily have helped here.

The judge, of course, has been demoted and justice is "served" from a statistical perspective. But the woman ... she's in the hospital.

The right to carry a weapon is the right to protect yourself from becoming a statistic -- precisely because we don't trust the law enforcement system in *any* country.

Sometimes I forget how naive and trusting the average bloke is in America. Thanks for reminding me. Let me return the favor by opening your eyes just a little bit to how the world really works.

Also, establishments that might ask yuo for your ID are doing so for both your protection as well as there own.

I know that's the company line, what they tell you tell the customers, but you should exercise some critical thinking before just blindly repeating it. Verification of ID for credit card purchases is NEVER for the customer's protection -- they are already protected by federal law which makes them liable for no more than $50 of charges on a stolen card and 99% of the issuing banks waive even that $50. Essentially ZERO risk. The store on the other hand generally has to "eat" the cost of a fraudulent transaction and thus it is in their best interest to reduce risk as much as possible. Thus there is no benefit to the customer to having to provide ID, but there is increased risk of identity theft and who knows what else. In other words, the company line is a flat out, bald-faced lie -- Safeway is trying to shift the risk of fraud onto their customers, they should at least be honest about it.

I work for Safeway (grocery store) and it is company policy that all credit card transactions we check for valid ID.

Then Safeway better get ready to lose their merchant account. Such policy is in clear violation of both Visa and Mastercard merchant policies. If Visa and MC get enough complaints, they will eventually cancel the contract. Rather than dig up an online merchant contract - read this soundbite summary. The reasoning behind these contractual clauses is that MC and Visa want their cards to be as easy to use as cash. Cash rarely needs an ID, thus credit cards must also rarely require an ID else they aren't as easy to use. Think of the policy what you will, but that is contract Safeway signed, if they don't like the burden of risk, they are free not to accept credit cards.

Either way it is not done to gather information about our shops for business statistics but rather to make sure whoever is claiming to be you, is in fact you. Also, when many establishments collect information about you through various methods (grocery stores all you club cards now, at least Safeway, Krugers, and Albertson's).

More rote recitation of the company line without the application of critical thinking.

1) Unless you are close to the CIO at Safeway, you have no idea what happens to the data once it is put into the system. No matter what they are doing with it, they would never admit to anything unless caught red handed. Thus such reassurances are meaningless (at least in America, the UK and Europe they have extremely strict data protection laws that would prevent Safeway from lying about it over there).

2) There are data-mining companies that vendors, grocery stores in particular, can get a subscription to where they feed all the information they gather (DL info, CC#, shopping lists, etc) to the data-mining company which then cross-corelates as much of that information as possible among all the subscribing merchants. So, you may avoid using those "club cards" at the grocery store, but if you pay with a credit card they can associate your purchases with your CC# and if you have an account at another subscriber like say, Blockbuster Video, where they require a credit card and personal details then viola! "they" now can connect your personal details to your purchases. They find out that you just rented Shrek 2, so they send you a coupon (only good at the groecery store) for Shrek Cereal. Or maybe the local pharamcy reports that you just filled a subsrcription for a herpes medicine, so the next week you get a coupon for condoms in the mail. At what point does "marketing" cross the line and become invasion of privacy? Or maybe Corporate stalking would be a more

I've seen the disabled woman who rides the DC Metrorail who used a Segway until it was banned, which I think is sad.

You can't buy them ala' cart anymore? I don't know anything about the Satalite providers, but I know that, at least here in Florida, the cable company's at least, and I thought all television signal carriers were required to offer ala' cart prices by law. I always figured that that requirement imposed on cable companies also held for satalite companies.

I can't say whether you can select channels a la carte there where you are in Florida - I don't have that information. What I can respond to is the statement that law requires it.

The Cable Act of 1992 actually says that they cannot link "premium" channels, such as HBO, Cinemax, etc., to a specific "tier" of programming. That is - you cannot be required to buy the "expanded" package just to get HBO. The law also says that they cannot require you to buy a package of premium channels - you can pick and choose which premium channel you want.

The law does NOT say anything about picking and choosing your standard channels a la carte. If your cable provider allows you to do this - which I highly doubt - it's not because it's required by law, it's just because the provider either wants to be nice or feels that it's a business advantage to do so.

Here's a transcript of a television news story that talks about this.

Haven't they heard the news? Some dude already confessed to faking Bigfoot tracks.

No, wait! That's what the government wants us to believe! Where's my tin-foil hat?!!

Evolution Data Only will be over 2 Megabits.. currently in testing in the beltline area of Washington State..

Also by Verizon Wireless not to be confused with Verizon :)

You can get info here

That's an interesting state you've got there. Georgia and a few other states (IIRC) suspend your drivers license if you go driving off, although with varying levels of prosecution. Maryland is among the states considering this (although since Feburary that may have changed).

So instead of charging $30 more, they suspended someone's driver license for being a bit absentminded, would you consider that a fair deal?

(The one that always gets me is when my state sends their "random" insurance check letters via first class mail. If you fail to reply to one, you lose your license, but is there any guarantee that you received it in the first place? Other states do similar things...)

According to this article Michael doesn't want music downloaders to recieve jail time for downloading music.

maybe you should read this

Yes, it is intriguing with great potential. But it also is a double-edge sword.
Starbucks is installing WAPS - wireless access points using 802.11b. Many corporations or their employees have used 802.11b to extend the company LAN to lunchrooms, and even deli's across the street.
The problem is that the implementation of 802.11b hasn't been very secure. Often defaults are excepted that open up everything to anyone who has a properly configured laptop and, in many instances, surf the company's files.
What you suggest in terms of a neighborhood access would be great. And if everyone knew the rules and limitations, it could be great.
I'll take a closer look at the article and make some calls. Perhaps some of the folks who have set up those systems have already develop some additional protocols that both of us sue[sic] the wireless system without exposing the data on each other's hard drive.
Thanks for the note. Your suggestion may turn into a tv piece in the near future.
I.J.

Nonetheless, I think that the DC area has maybe a few nodes here and there, but they're just not publicized.