theage.com.au · Domains · Slashdot Mirror

Re:With vaporware by puggsincyberspace · 2005-02-23 08:57 · Score: 1 · on Australian ISPs Required To Report Child Porn

is he allowed to judge if the content actually is child pornography

from http://www.theage.com.au/news/Breaking/ISPs-forced -to-join-child-porn-crackdown/2005/02/23/110904695 1674.html

It will also be a federal offence, carrying a penalty of 10 years' jail, for a person to use the internet to access , transmit or make available child pornography or child abuse material.

It is illegal for him to access it, so he can't do any judging.

The UN? The most corrupt buerocracy on the planet? by mrright · 2005-02-22 13:17 · Score: 0, Flamebait · on Should the UN Replace ICANN?

The UN has got to be the most currupt buerocracy on the planet. They just had the biggest corruption scandal ever. Bigger than ENRON and WorldCom combined.

Oh, and their peacekeepers are busy abusing children.

With the tsunami aid effort, they were mostly concerned with holding meetings in 5 star hotels while other people did the real work.

They also constantly bash israel without ever mentioning that the palestinean side is not exactly peaceful either.

And they have recently decided that what is happening in sudan is not genocide. I guess they will decide it was genocide after all when everybody is dead. Like they did in ruanda.

The UN should be dismantled or at least seriously reformed. They should not get any more responsibilities, since they are obviously unable to cope with the responsibilities they have in an ethical manner.

Re:Legal protection by Anonymous Coward · 2005-02-18 15:28 · Score: 0 · on Norrathian Pizza Delivery

Your link is broken (due to a space), here it is repaired:
Link

Re:Raise your hands... by cheezedawg · 2005-02-13 08:22 · Score: 1 · on North Korea Admits to Having Nuclear Weapons

I am not going to respond to everything to try to keep this from ballooning into a gigantic post, but I'll respond to some of your points.

Our involvement in that area was nothing more than an excuse to follow the rules of McArthiesm.

Why don't you ask the South Koreans if they feel the same? Or maybe they prefer scraping bark off of trees for dinner like their counterparts to the north?

Communism is a great theory, however no one yet has managed to implement it correctly.

That's about the same thing as saying "A perpetual motion engine is a great theory, just nobody has implemented it correctly yet." Sure- the ideas behind communism are great, but there is a reason why nobody has been able to implement it correctly (on a large scale, at least).

If we had kept our noses out of their business, perhaps there would be a few hundred thousand people enjoying life today.

Perhaps if we had ignored it, there would be hundreds of millions of people living under oppressive totalitarian regimes without basic freedom of speech or freedom of religion.

If we're out to take out dictatorships, why is Cuba still around? Putin has repealed most of the democratic reforms in Russia and implemented some highly questionable practices. Why aren't we marching our armies through Moscow?

We are not out to "take out" dictatorships- we are out to address threats to our security. This really isn't very hard to understand.

I don't know if you missed it, but the US invaded Iraq without the approval of the UN.

Wrong. The US invaded Iraq using the direct authorization for military force that was unanimously granted in resolution 687 and reaffirmed 16 times after that, including resolution 1441 that gave Saddam one final chance to comply.

You see a country that doesn't like you threaten and beat the shit out of another country and you expect them to NOT TO DEVELOPE DETERRENTS?!?

I expect countries to live up to their international obligations. North Korea has had a secret uranium enrichment program for the past decade in violation of both the NPT and our 1994 bilateral framework.

If Iran is also developing nuclear weapons, it is in violation of the NPT as well.

Now, I believe that our action in Iraq will help resolve these situations peacefully for several reasons:
- The Shia majority in Iraq (led by Sistani) is very pro-democracy, and they are also friendly with Iran. This will have a big influence on the pro-democracy movements inside Iran. Just look at the number of reformist candidates that are running for President in Iran's July election to see this. There will be big changes in Iran this year!
- Iran, Germany, France, and the UK are VERY motivated to succeed in their talks to resolve these issues.
- North Korea is also motivated to resolve this crisis. Their comments this week were a transparent attempt to get back to bilateral talks with us because they feel this will give them legitimacy and prompt concessions and aid from us (like we gave them in 1994). The 6-party talks are the most likely way to resolve this peacefully.

Ah the Washinton Post. No that's an unbiased source of information right there.

What a weak-minded response. This was widely reported last summer (1, 2, 3, 4).

Are we talking about the same country? Even if they had plans, their infrastructure was so wrecked they were barely maintaining electricty and clean water.

All I can say is, read the ISG reports, because it is obvious that you haven't.

PLANS!= WMD. We have thousands of military plans to inva

Re:It's the automated transactions I'm worried abo by D.+Book · 2005-02-03 02:27 · Score: 3, Interesting · on Fingerprints Replace Credit Cards in Seattle

Well, severed fingers don't work on optic fingerprint readers, so it doesn't really matter if the clerk is an idiot.

From an article (reg req'd) on identity theft:

But hardcore criminals are already trying to get around biometrics. At a security conference last week, the director of investigations and forensic services at PricewaterhouseCoopers, Richard Batten, related a gruesome anecdote from a bank official he met recently.

The banker had told Batten that the bank's fingerprint identification had been compromised after a criminal chopped the finger off a wealthy individual. While heat-sensitive devices should have been alert, the criminal had warmed the finger before applying it to access the person's account.

Batten ponders: "How effective is it if villains are prepared to go to such lengths?"

True story? Who knows, but the moral of it is not to put all your faith in technology, and never underestimate criminals. Some may not be very bright, but that's more than made up for by their cunning.

It's not the first time by Billby · 2005-01-20 09:36 · Score: 1 · on Microsoft to Sell Outlook Subscription Service

Microsoft has trialled subscriptions services in the past.

Here's a story I wrote for the Sydney Morning Herald trumpting the intial success of the project in Australia and a couple of other markets: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/04/20/10192332 87444.html

The trial finished a Microsoft dropped the program, again I wrote about this for the Sydney Morning Herald and the Melbourne Age: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/11/19/10374 90107674.html

Of course, these weren't online subscriptions.

Don Watson's Death Sentence by Anthony · 2005-01-16 15:22 · Score: 4, Informative · on Scalable Enterprise Buzzword Solutions

I read his book a few months ago. He talks of the death of public language, how it has been pervaded by words and phrases that have no real power or truth - dead language.

To quote from the following article Fighting the Death Sentence

"To provide outcome-related research and consultancy services that address real-world issues" - shrieks of laughter. The university's "approach to quality management is underpinned by a strong commitment to continuous improvement and a whole-of-organisation framework" - uproar in the room. The university in question was RMIT but it could have been any of them. Go to your website and read the language, Watson urged guests at a recent Deans of Education dinner. That made people laugh even more. They worked at universities; they knew what he was talking about. Some of them probably even wrote this stuff. It was a surreal moment. But to Watson the joke has a sting. It is funny and it is awful. A terrible thing is happening to the language, he believes, and at the end of the day, in a globalised world, it is not a positive communications outcome. In other words, there is a pox upon our public speech.

Re:Beating MS Office != Trivial by J.+Random+Luser · 2005-01-03 08:52 · Score: 1 · on Apple's Rumored Office Suite

Office is the standard, and for 99% of people that use it, it's flawless.

Great to know MS Office isn't responsible for all these problems

Re:Spinning disk anyone? by orthogonal · 2005-01-01 16:46 · Score: 1 · on UK Freedom of Information Act Comes Into Force

This is going to mean a boom for the storage industry

Well it would be except the UK government just coincidently ordered that government agencies purge all old email -- nothing to do with this law, you see, just a desire to keep everything tidy!

Whilst "deleted emails will be stored on back-up systems, these have been declared off limits to freedom of information requests because of the cost of accessing them".

Tony Blair and David Blunkett: Labour's way of emulating Dubya Bush and John Ashcroft.

Earlier earthquake of 8.1 by Devar · 2004-12-26 04:12 · Score: 4, Interesting · on Quake and Tsunami Devastate South Asia

What is interesting is that there was another quake on the 24th of 8.1 off the coast of Tasmania, the other side of the continential plate that caused this one ( AFAIK). That end of the plate gave way and that affected this one? A warning? I don't know, but it might have been related.

Massive earthquake felt in Tasmania
December 24, 2004 - 7:55AM

The world's biggest earthquake in almost four years has struck 800 km
off the coast of Tasmania, Australian seismological officials said.

Geoscience Australia said the quake, measuring 8.1 on the Richter Scale
hit the Macquarie Rise, in the Pacific Ocean, at 1.59am. [...]

Re:Really? by marshall_j · 2004-12-19 12:31 · Score: 1 · on Linux To Ring Up $35B By 2008

why not?

ibm generates about 20B a quarter. this is revenue not profit. (note i realise all 20B is not linux, just an example of a huge amount of money going through a company who happens to promote and use linux)

Nothing, but.... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-16 02:21 · Score: 5, Informative · on U.S. Makes Plans for GPS Shutdown

Imagine some terrorist group is launching a dozen of home-made of cruise missile towards Washington. Bush has every reason to shut down the GPS. It makes sense to ask EU for a favour to shut down Galileo temporarily.

The problem is the Bush Administration is just so arrogant. The Pentagon has plan to do whatever, regardless of what they say they would or wouldn't do. I don't have a problem with this. But, that does not mean it is rational to threat the supposely allied EU countries for an attack of Galileo... Let's turn the table around. Imagine what would be Bush's reaction if the French Government say that kind of crap first....

I don't even need to mention other sovereignty countries... It is clear why Bush is hated by so many people around the world.