Slashdot Mirror

Interesting time to publish this - right between last week's IIS/IE multiple exploits and this week's Evaman Worm outbreak.

Now that CERT and the Dept. of Homeland Security both recommend consumers abandon Intenet Explorer, can we get them to recommend dropping Outlook Express?

The Coalition Press Information Center in Baghdad said in a statement yesterday that the 122-milimeter rocket rounds, which initially showed traces of sarin, "were all empty and tested negative for any type of chemicals."

bug free. But let's say everyone switched from Wintel PCs to the Mac platform. Wont we be slammed with viruses and spyware again thanks to the commonality of everyone using the same system? Or, is the OS really that much better in terms of security compaired to say.. Windows XP?

You are assuming that OS X is safer simply due to "security through obscurity." That isn't true. OS X really is designed to be more secure. Read this article.

If the user bases were equal, Windows XP would STILL have more malware.

Brokaw: Senator Kerry, what about the French? Are they friends, are they enemies, or something in between at this point?

Kerry: The French are the French. I think there's a . . .

Brokaw: Very profound, Senator.

Kerry: Well, trust me. It has a meaning. And I think most people know exactly what I mean.

citation here

I despise the French but know enough about their ways to have a similarly detached attitude to them. One thing everyone should understand- the recent wave of Franco-phobia in the U.S. has been so visible precisely because the average American- in their good-hearted ignorance- was genuinely shocked and hurt by the way the French turned against us. In their minds Franco-American relations are defined by LaFayette, the Statue of Liberty, and the Normandy landings, not DeGaulle, de Villepin, and amoral, a-ideological back-stabbing.

But since at least DeGaulle France has consistently betrayed the Western Alliance, caring more about "national honor" and grandeur than ideals or decency. I've heard French moans lately about why the President can't be more like FDR, and laugh when I remember that in the latter's time DeGaulle was a constant prick and thorn in the side of Allies, always caring more about France not looking little than winning the war.

French foreign policy has followed this course for the last 50 years, sadly. Automatic opposition to the United States to make itself feel important and relevant; convenient alliances with anti-American states (no matter how repugnant) to have more influence. Do people forget who built Saddam's nuclear reactor at Osirak? Or who gave arms to their Rwandan Hutu clients during their campaign of genocide?

But what makes this truly sad and despicable is that it is done for no larger purpose than self-aggrandizement. German opposition to the Iraq war was at least honorable because it was based on ideals; Joschka Fischer turned to Jurgen Habermas and his neo-Kantian ideal of foreign relations. France, on the other hand, had Napeoloen-worshipping Dominique de Villepen, and it wouldn't have mattered if the government was Socialist, National Front, or Communist- the outcome and selfish, short-sighted reasons for it would have been the same.

France- you were humiliated in WWII and have been trying to regain your national honor ever since. Hint- the way to do it is not through grand-standing, self-involved, perverse behavior on the international stage. Stop being the bitch-nation of Europe.

Now that the Supreme Court (and other Federal judiciary positions) have been packed with "right wing morons" (to quote a National Lampoon skit, Mission Impeachable) by Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II, there's effectively only one branch to the Federal government.

Add to that the cheerleading of the So Called Liberal Media to make sure the people are properly propagandized and pretty soon we won't have a situation much different than the one in China. Except here we serve Freedom fries while the commie Chinese still serve French fries.

It was reported on Slashdot the day after it appeared in this June 26 edition of the Washington Post

Yeah, and they've been in the news a lot lately. I guess everybody picks on you when you're popular.

Else they might lose your laptop, like they recently lost Virginia students' test answers. WHOOPS!

Here are some. Some may be a year or so old, and I don't recall what links I sent as examples. Google should help you find all you need.

Microsoft software "riddled with vulnerabilities", trade body claims
30 unpatched holes in IE, says security researcher
Credit card theft feared in Windows flaw | CNET News.com
Microsoft Issues Five New Security Warnings
Microsoft WinXP Update spies on other PC software
Microsoft issues patch for "serious" XP hole
Microsoft Windows Insecure by Design (TechNews.com)
Server attacks stump Microsoft
Windows flaw threatens PC services
Gartner: Worms Jack Up the Total Cost of Windows
CERT recommends anything but IE
Exploiting design flaws in the Win32 API for privilege escalation
Worm Exploits Multiple Windows Vulnerabilities
Unpatched Internet Explorer Bugs

It tells me that the site is heavily biased (they even describe themselves as "opinionated", and that they "tell you what we really think and believe about what's happening in the world"), and therefore NOT "news". (Yes, by this standard, I would also probably discount FoxNews.) Do you have other sources, or is this the best you can come up with?

How about this interview with David Kay or this overview of his final report or CNN's coverage, or this detailed report that discusses some of the reasoning behind David Kay's findings. I would have gladly linked to Fox News as well, as these official findings are virtually "unspinnable", but I can't find any Fox News coverage of Kay's final report (it may exist, I'm just saying I couldn't find it with Google - please point it out if you come across it). If you'll recall, Kay's initial, interim report also found no evidence of the type of WMD stockpiles or activities that Bush and Powell claimed we would certainly find in Iraq. However, Kay expressed great optimism that the alleged WMD would indeed be found (this was well covered and emphasized on Fox News) and attributed his lack of evidence to, in essence, timing, as there was still much work ahead at that point. Kay later stated that his initial optimism was based on the same erroneous, disproven "intelligence" that was eventually presented as justification for the invasion of Iraq. David Kay was not the only weapons inspector to carry out the task of finding Iraqi WMD. Remember Hans Blix? I've heard quite a bit of typical, hateful, conservative vitriol spewed in his direction, but I have yet to hear a factual criticism of his professional credentials or a substantive accusation of bias against him. Here is a summary of his findings within the rather enlightening context of current events. There are also the findings of Scott Ritter to consider. Even more despised than Hans Blix, the factual content of his work in Iraq and, again, his professional credentials, have not been effectively challenged. Here is an article he wrote in which he mentions his findings on Iraqi WMD among other topics and an interview in Time magazine in which they ask him some of the "tough" questions (i.e. weak and unsupported personal attacks, as is the Republican habit) his critics have raised. If you want more detailed sources on the findings of any of these weapons inspectors, Google is your friend. I challenge - no, I *defy* you to produce even one credible source (judging from your comment about Fox News, I think we more or less agree on the meaning of "credible") that contradicts the findings of these weapons inspectors. If you can't produce such a counterpoint, you are left with no rational conclusion but to accept that the Bush administration either incompetently or willfully misled the American people and the entire world by claiming that Saddam Hussein posed a threat to the United States when, in fact, he literally had no capability to attack us.

Where shall I begin? How about allowing his sons to torture Iraqi citizens? How about re-routing rivers, to punish villages that spawned political enemies? How about using chemical weapons on Kurdish people in the north? If you think for a moment that allowing such actions to go on unchecked is none of our business, then you're more of an animal than the worst Bush-basher thinks of Bush and the rest of his administration. There are, of course, other reasons involved, but if you need me to tell you what they are, then you haven't bo

No. First, you are wrong about the data being "meaningless". Currently, corporations that use this accounting ploy don't give guidance on the cost to the shareholders of issued stock options. Supposedly the shareholder should know from the meager information that these companies give. Second, there's the matter of comparing these companies to companies that do properly account for stock options.

There's another issue here and it's a huge one. The company gets a tax advantage from issuing options. I don't know the full details, but I think the company can claim the value (at expiration) as a tax deduction against current and future tax payments. This is how Microsoft routinely avoided paying taxes during the 90's. The value of any tax deduction not yet claimed can be retained as a sort of asset. In other words, shareholder stake is used to pump up current earnings. I believe that alone accounts for the 60% difference in profit reported by Bear Stearns. All of it taken from shareholders.

This Washington Post story lays it out. Both Yahoo and Cisco claim to made profits in those years, but not when you account for stock options. Instead, both companies made huge losses. Yahoo's "profit" of $71 million turns into a loss of $1.3 billion and Cisco's "profit" of $4.6 billion becomes a loss of $2.7 billion. It's time to end the con games.

Today, the expense for options shows up if and when the options are exercised by the company either diluting the stock pool or buying back shares to compensate. Either way, this shows up in the financial statements. It just shows up at the point the options are exercised, as opposed to the current proposal to guess what their value might be and then stick that guess into the financial statements (and re-do the guesses every quarter).

A guess is better for the books than surprises. I noticed that according to Yahoo, current claimed P/E ratios are around 35 for the "technology" industry. Will small investors still pump these stocks up when these P/E ratios are revealed to be 80 or 90?

That's the issue here. It's not meaningless any more than the usual guesswork about appreciate of assets is. But we have an opportunity to make these companies more honest and straightforward in their accounting.

What's ironic about this whole thing is that even if the FASB rules are overturned by US Congress, capitalism will route around the damage. A number of accounting firms now endorse only option expensing and most companies already do it. The same movement goes on in Europe. Investors will come to associate stock option expensing with reliable, trustworthy companies.

You've got to be kidding. Look at the very page you linked to, willya? A documentary that was made for $6 million, marketed for $10 million, released to a relatively small 868 screens nationwide and has already drawn in $21 million DOMESTIC in box office receipts, selling out many showings, making it NUMBER 1 for the weekend, and you call that 'poor'?

Even if it isn't in a "theater after a couple or three weeks" as you wisely predict, that would be just fine as going by those numbers he'll have broken the $100 million dollar mark handily. It hasn't even gone into wide-release yet.

Oh yes, and to be clear, WE'RE TALKING ABOUT A RATED-R DOCUMENTARY, NOT LORD OF THE RINGS. Let's put that into even more relevant perspective. Bowling for Columbine, Moore's previous documentary, Oscar winner (where Moore delivered his first shot across the bow of the current US administration), took in $21.6 million in its ENTIRE domestic run.

The DVD format had a lot of corporate influences, some through the DVD Consortium (now Forum).
article of Warren Lieberfarb being fired

"If there is a convincing case to be made that Osama is not as estranged from the rest of the bin Ladens as they claim, then the entire picture Moore was trying to paint becomes clear, and the monstrosity meter is pegged. That, for me, is the argument Moore failed to make sufficiently well."

Well, I can point out that Osama isn't just the black sheep of the family. I suggest you look into WAMY, headed by 2 of Osama's relatives. For years they have been considered a terrorist or terrorist sponcering organization, except by the US. They where recently raided by the FBI, and you guessed it: Evidence found indicates they have "ties" to terrorist organizations.

WAMY story broken... in England. (November 2001)

WAMY raided by FBI, terrorist ties found.

"Also, terrorism expert Jean-Charles Brisard implicated WAMY as an al-Qaeda financier in a 2002 report to the United Nations." (page 2)

Just a bit of info to chew on.

Washington Post -- "Moore has publicly indicated his goal is to impact this election."

CNN International -- "Of course it isn't a fair and balanced look at its subject matter, but it is good filmmaking."

The Guardian (UK) -- "According to legend, Fahrenheit 9/11 was made to topple George W Bush and thereby save America from the grip of an evil tyrant."

New York Times -- "Mixing sober outrage with mischievous humor and blithely trampling the boundary between documentary and demagoguery, Mr. Moore takes wholesale aim at the Bush administration, whose tenure has been distinguished, in his view, by unparalleled and unmitigated arrogance, mendacity and incompetence."

MTV -- "Are [the facts Moore presents] impenetrable on their own, or are they manicured to fit Moore's own motivations?"

The one clip of the film I've seen, where he ambushes politicians and asks if they want to "sign their kids up to go to Iraq." This just struck me as dishonest and showy. No one can sign other people up for anything, and I heard that one particular politician answered that he had two nephews in Iraq, but was left out of the film.

From the article
Michael Moore is a dumb [expletive], that's what I think," Bradbury told the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter during a phone interview from Los Angeles.

Well, the guy did say his one purpose with the movie was to unseat George W. Bush. How much more evidence do you need?

Here are some sites/articles that might be helpful:

Bowling For Truth
Washington Post article
Washington Times article

I wouldn't take anything Moore says without a supply of salt. Not that I completely trust the first website, either.

--RJ

"When I become supreme overlord Jack Valenti and Orrin Hatch are the first to be sent to the camps."

Not to be too critical, but political posturing demands that you stay abreast of current events.

The way the US government throws its money around, I see no problem with $10B. It recently approved at $417B defense bill. See here.

Heck, they'll likely build a matching pair of 'em just because they can.

Mod my down if you want to do so, because I am about to complain about submission rejection, but for all I care, the editors are not looking carefully at submissions.

I submitted this at lunch time yesterday (that is about 24 hours ago!), as "Bob Bemer, inventor of ASCII, dead at 84", and included a link to Bob Bemer's web page, and some of the things he said helped create, like:

• helped create COBOL
• coined the words COBOL and CODASYL
• invented the ESCape sequence
• created the PICTURE clause
• helped create and standardize the ASCII character set
• put the backslash into the ASCII set
• helped create the 8-bit per byte standard

The interesting part in my submission wa how some media covered it. A radio station here (Toronto) said: like "made computers understand letters in addition to numbers" (reference to ASCII) and that he invented "the escape key".

Some of the miswording for the non-tech media can be found in Washington Post article that says: "who helped invent the language used by most of the world's computers to translate text to numbers", and "He helped create the standard measurement of eight bits per byte" and "... escape sequence, which allows a computer to break from one language and enter another".

The Register covers his death with an ASCI Art figure. How appropriate.

I think it's really cool that linux is gaining ground in Iraq, but the grandparent poster is correct -- linux isn't going to stop the the looting, it's not going to solve the security situation, it's not going to work without electricity, and it's not going to bring freedom or stability to a nation teetering on the brink of civil war.

You know what always cracks me up about these assertions that people "aren't allowed to talk" about certain things? It's this: if these assertions were true, then people would be put in jail for making them. Whenever you hear someone spout off about how freedom of speech is being suppressed, or how it's a fascist state, or how Bush = Hitler, ask yourself why that person isn't rotting behind bars or in an unmarked mass grave... and then ask yourself if it's just possible that that person might be full of shit and not worth your time and attention.

Here are some more for you:

besonic
mp3.de
soundclick
garageband
france mp3
vitaminic(free + pay)
Washington Post (yup)
Online Rock
Peoplesound
Download.com from the old mp3.com's new owners
Emusic (pay)
Artistlaunch

Or, unless the attackers were really badly trained and led and the defenders were really well trained and led.

The incident happened in Najaf on 5 April, and the contractors were all ex-Special Forces. (Former SEALs, Rangers, Green Berets.) The attackers were apparently part of Muqtada al-Sadr's Madhi Army, which is not terribly well led, organized, or trained: they just have large numbers.

It's covered in this article. (Washington Post, may require soul-sucking registration)

Small, well-trained forces can (and do) defeat much larger, untrained forces. You may wish to read up on Rorke's Drift. (If you want an entertianing, and mostly historically accurate movie on the subject, rent Zulu.

Of course, the four Blackwater contractors murdered and strung up in Fallujah were also all ex-Special Forces. But they got caught by surprise while on the move. The guys in Najaf were in the CPA headquarters there, knew all the approaches, had defenses to fall back on, and were well resupplied, against guys whose tactics were human wave. Eventually, the defenders would have been overwhelmed if it was just them, but from the article, they got reinforced.

The Washington Post - Faces of the Fallen

That's not evidence of Dubya's virtue, that's evidence of the virtue of the US system, which at least makes an attempt at guaranteeing free elections, and prohibits staying in for more than two terms. Saddam racked up the bodycount that he did because he's been in since 1978.

And the US system also ensures that the power is spread across a cabinet. So it's meaningless to compare a US President's criminal record with that of an Iraqi dictator, who has no "last-call" bell when 8 years are up. Rather, the comparison should be between the current cabinet and Saddam: Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Negroponte , etc.

"Last I checked there weren't any mass graves filled with turkish insurgents on GWB's resume."

If you're talking about the Kurds, I would give several people in the current White House full credit for their part in this. And full credit for helping Saddam brutally crush the Shia uprising too, ensuring that he stayed in power.
Saddam couldn't have done it on his own.

As opposed to the nonsense you hear John Gibson spew which has been independently judged to be failing to observe "respect for truth", which you can read about here.

You want evidence? OK how about This and this

Don't believe the stories? Well check out the pictures here and tell me with a straight face that this is not typical of America, especially given the treatment of detainees at Guantanimo bay that was introduced into Abu Ghraib by General Geoffrey Millar here

While the X-Prize is a great thing -- and I'm personally crossing the Pacific this weekend to watch SS1's flight on Monday -- the current and upcoming generation of private spacecraft are still a very long way from being able to visit an orbiting hotel.

The good news though is that some companies do have a business plan for how to get from here to there in incremental, low risk, steps, and while making a profit along the way. XCOR, for example, has such a plan, financing later development with suborbital tourist flights and a few small satellite launches and sounding rocket replacement flights.

Scaled Composites may well have such a plan, though they haven't said yet what it is. But a story in today's Dominion Post (Wellington, NZ) originally from the Washington Post) (free registration required) quotes Burt Rutan as saying that suborbital flights are likely to start at US$30k - US$50k and drop to US$8k - US$12k in a second generation vehicle. That's a) a lot lower than the US$98k Space Adventures is planning to sell XCORs initial flights for, and b) indication that Scaled do in fact have an ongoing plan (d'oh).

...according to this story at washingtonpost.com The story says it was a distributed denial of service attack against Akamai, among others.

...according to this story at washingtonpost.com The story says it was a distributed denial of service attack against Akamai, among others.

I don't think you can safely say that, given the evidence emerging now:

Lt. Gen. Sanchez..borrowed heavily from a list of high-pressure interrogation tactics used at the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and approved letting senior officials at a Baghdad jail use military dogs, temperature extremes, reversed sleep patterns, sensory deprivation, and diets of bread and water on detainees whenever they wished.

The EFF apparently does not realize that the crazy patents are caused by deliberate corruption. Not allowing enough money for an agency to do its job is a deliberate strategy of those who want corruption in the U.S. government. When corrupters don't want government oversight, they just reduce the operating funds. Those who want corruption don't mind if they destroy a thousand things to get one thing they want.

Those who want corruption will introduce bills that, if passed, would give the EFF what it wants, with the secret understanding that the bills won't get passed.

For a disussion of starving the SEC (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, regulates the stock exchange), see this article: Keeping the SEC on a Starvation Diet. The corrupters don't want their stock manipulations discovered. They want more of this: Enron fraud, this: WorldCom fraud and this: Tyco fraud.

They are corrupting the IRS (U.S. Internal Revenue Service, collects taxes), too. The corrupters definitely do NOT want their tax returns to be audited, so they arrange that there is not enough money for audits: Bush Request for IRS Not Enough, Report Says

The Bush administration has been appointing heads of government agencies that have agreed to reduce the role of those agencies. When they have destroyed the agencies, they will go back to running their businesses, and the corruption will give them more profit.

This is all part of extremely widespread corruption in the U.S. government. Even the 3 movies and 34 books linked in this article are not enough to tell the story: Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government.

Compared to his homeland, he'll probably find the weather here pleasantly warm.

Yes. Many people here do not seem to realize that Linus has publicly stated that he never liked the coldness and darkness of Helsinki. And Portland is warmer; compare these statistics, for example.

"The GPL has this sucking effect of grabbing your IP [intellectual property], sucking it in and destroying your property rights," McBride said.

Torvalds, the Linux founder, ridicules that notion.

"Having a hole in your head has this sucking effect," Torvalds said, firing back at McBride. "The GPL doesn't 'grab' any IP at all. The only thing that is desperately trying to grab other people's IP is Darl McBride and company."

You are joking, but you're not far from the truth: quoting a Washington Post article Showdown with the Linux gang (use foobarian@foo.com/foobar to log in):

"We went out one day and our Unix cows were missing," McBride said he told his father in trying to explain the case to him. "We looked in the Linux pen, and there's a bunch of them in there that have our brand on them . . . in this case the copyright. Someone took our cows and we want 'em back -- it's as simple as that."

Yeehaw!

Wow, is this a troll or do you really believe that? If the latter, where were you last summer?

"In the months leading up to the vote, the FCC received hundreds of thousands of postcards and e-mails, urging it to not relax the rules. ... Over the summer, Republicans and Democrats in both houses of Congress moved against the new rules, defying a promised veto from the White House."

Bipartisan defiance in BOTH houses of Congress? Hundreds of thousands of comments from the public? Yeah, Chairman Powell is direcly to blame. Period. He really screwed the pooch on that one. Problem is, we were all the pooch.

This is up there with FBI's alert about people with maps and or almanacs.
And the FBIs' investigation of a book that contained 100yr old smallpox scabs and launched an investigation as to whether or not it was bioterrorism.

The fact is a woman died and the fact is the womans death was ruled "due to natural causes". So pardon me, but I do not see how a jury grand or not could be a better judge than a doctor trained to perform an autopsy and atoxicilogy lab. Perhaps if they ordered a few additional autopsies and toxicology tests... but a grand jury should not be concerned with a procedure so mundane as to have already been done by the police department.

That and the additional fact that no cultures have been found at said lab that pose any threat.

Overall, this does not add up.
It seems once again those who have brains and initiative should bee feared. Why doesn't Ashcroft just come out and say it? "All people with higher education than a highschool degree are a potential threat and should be watched closely".

Next thing you know the DoJ will be demanding the banning of home chemistry sets currently available at Toys 'R' Us and Walmart due to a "A very present and significant threat by educated youngsters against the free people of the world."

Here's a link to a Washinton Post article from January on the Sarasota Segway Tours. Googling for "segway tours" yeilds over 22,000 results from all over the world.

Do any of you ever ask yourselves why now?

Do you trust Sun ? They are excellent at manipulating the media.

Sun is doing this for themselves so they can 'hype' more java news on all the internet news sources(zdnet,cnet,slash) and also pull more people into their language(prosyletize) so that they can cash in.

Microsoft and Sun both proselytize.

• http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A255 64-2004Apr19.html
  
• http://webapp.abclocal.go.com/kabc/health/032304_h s_low_cal_diet.html
  
• http://www.youngagain2000.com/lowcalorie.html
  

I worked years for the IT division of a major city's police department and I can assure you that nothing is a bigger waste of money than such things as visualization systems, etc.

Some of them maybe, but not all - I just listened to one of the chief analysts from Washington talk about their incident room (it was meant for major incidents only, but then they decided why not use it all the other days too) and how this was a key part of reducing their homicide rate by significant amounts (disclaimer: they're using our software).

Day to day police does work with incidents, it's true, but crime pattern analysis can be a good way to show those politicians and bureaucrats why and where extra money needs spending.

The big screens at Washington are used so that they can have dozens of people in the room and not just view a static powerpoint-style presentation, but they can drill-down the data on the fly according to what the major, the chief of police, or anyone else wants to see there and then.

Anyone doubting the use of visualisation of this sort of information might want to check out reports like this or this

"People like us" now include the majority of the US population, so I don't think it's an "elite pastime" anymore. As far as "taking Bush out", we will do that using the standard democratic method this November.

If they were reporting on real atrocities (being humiliated is not an atrocity, at least you're still alive) then they would've covered the beheading a whole helluvalot more than they did.

Being raped by a broomstick is an atrocity. It's more than just humiliating to be beaten with a chair.

Some of them aren't alive anymore, in case you aren't satisfied yet that something more than harmless "humiliation" is occuring.

In case you believed the official excuse, it isn't just a few individuals.

Bias and hate don't mitigate facts. There's a reason this is news.

Apparently, Lindows was guilty of this even more recently than Windows. From a July 21, 2002 Washington Post article:

But the single worst feature of Lindows lurks under its colorful interface. Lindows sets the PC's owner up to run the machine as its "root" user, with unrestricted access to every system command and capability, no matter how potentially damaging. Worse yet, the test system left the root password blank.

However, for the record, I've seen passing references while googling that indicate this has been fixed. But the point still stands that if you're going to criticize Microsoft for doing this in the past, it's only fair to criticize Lindows for also doing this in the past.

The title of the movie (The Day After Tomorrow) struck me as strangely similar to that of The Day After, a TV movie released in 1983 which highlighted the Doomsday consequences of nuclear war. Both movies appear to be highly politicized, anti-GOP movies timed (more or less) to coincide with the election cycle.

Yeah. Clinton had one of those moments too when he blew up an aspirin factory where he thought bin Laden was making chemical weapons. Or the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade.

The administration is gearing up for a new round of fearmongering before the elections.

There is a huge difference. There is also a philosophical difference between how personal information is treated in Europe (and Canada!) versus the USA - in the USA, personal data collected by a company is the property of that company and they can do whatever they like with it. In Europe, personal data remains under the control of the person affected - you don't have the right to pass it on or do anything with it that isn't explicitly authorized by that person.

Well, that is the ideal. The European Commission (probably the most undemocratic body existing in Europe today) has unfortunately rolled over and played dead on a number of occasions, most notably on airline information for example.

the First Congress, on March 26, 1790, approved an act that declared, "The children of citizens of the United States that may be born beyond sea, or outside the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural-born citizens of the United States."