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Gator CPO at the Department of Homeland Security
pcidevel writes "D. Reed Freeman, the "Chief Privacy Officer" of Claria Networks (formerly Gator), the creators of the pervasive spyware package GAIN, has been appointed to the Department of Homeland Security's "Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee"."
Really. Spyware? You dont read ALL the license agreement?
Are you fucking shitting me?
Jeez, with a headline like that I thought I was on the Onion for a second there...
I have nothing more to say.
First Post BTW, This is really ironic. How can the person most affiliated with privacy invasion be good at data integrity?
In other news, Dr. Jack Kevorkian has been appointed National Director of Health and Human Services, Kenneth Lay was appointed Director of the Treasury and Bill Gates was appointed CIO of the whole Federal Government.
M
Who is responsible for this appointment? This is just ... wow.
Isn't this like putting a fox in charge of the security for a henhouse?
Honestly... DHS doesn't need to be worrying about this sort of tripe- they've got bigger fish to fry. Why in the HELL are they bothering with this when the things they're doing right at the moment wouldn't have done a damn thing to prevent 9/11 from occuring and wouldn't prevent a repeat?
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Ex-GAIN employees in the "Integrity Advisory Committee"??? That's like Richard Stallman working for the Patent Office!
... it was one heck of a smile ...
Governor of New Jersey to head Environmental Protection Agency
Oh, wait...
-- I prefer the term "karma escort."
Yet another front page ./ story of massive importance to the whole world!
Who knows more about data privacy than somebody who has compromised the privacy of millions?
=\/\/= If it's too loud, turn it down.
"Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee"
"War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength."
For the first time in quite a while I am speechless (and those that know me know I do not know how to shut up) :)
...and call them brilliant. Any guesses as to whom will be invited to help co-author the next version of the DMCA or USAPATRIOT act?
Isn't this like putting a fox in charge of the security for a henhouse?
No, it's more like putting Bill Clinton in charge of a whorehouse.
Just another "DOJ fascist authoritarian totalitarian bootlicker" -- Zeio
I don't know if this should make me afriad that such people are advsing the DHS(see also: Gestapo) or laugh that they can't find someone better stuited to the position?
Well, I can't think of anyone better qualified to invade the privacy of the American Public.
He was probably appointed because of the vast amount of data they already have.
And people still laugh in ignorance when they here the term CEO President when talking about Bush.
I can't imagine the pool of hires they had to be looking at for the position that would make any of GAIN's employees be the ideal candidate for any position in Homeland Security.
the terrorists have won.
Hey! What happened to march!?
Adolfo
I do have to wonder... what on earth does the word "privacy" have to do with this? I've seen some bad misnomers before, but not so bad as this.
He seems like the perfect choice for me for this administration. After all, he can do with technology what the government has been trying to do through legislation - making it easy for the government to spy on people.
I'm much more funny, interesting and insightful than the moderators think
Maybe we should title this story as "Gator at the gate"?
If this is for real (and I do trust Salon) this falls into the O.M.F.G. category. Someone slap me.
I recently listened to a documentary on CBC radio about pervasive irony in today's world. It was an interesting program because they were suggesting that the political scene these days is like a living satire. It's just too weird... and this news about a spyware marketer being appointed to a privacy committee is just insane. I see four fingers!
"you have got to be effin' kidding me."
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
I miss those heady days of yore, when there was still room for more outrage in my life. When I could stil be surprised by new examples of indifference, incompetence, and outright evil.
These days, I am no longer surprised at no longer being surprised by the ghastly things this Administration routinely does.
and this seems like a joke.. A very stupid joke......
Can someone tell me what this "Sig" box is for??
the Administration thinks that keeping her out of the marketplace is the best thing they can do for data privacy. Or maybe this is a dream.
Salon.com requires a soul-sucking registration link.
Here's CNET News.com's version of the story:
Adware maker joins federal privacy board
Published: February 23, 2005, 5:19 PM PST
By Declan McCullagh
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
TrackBack Print E-mail TalkBack
An executive from Claria, formerly called Gator, will be one of 20 members of the committee, the department said Wednesday.
"This committee will provide the department with important recommendations on how to further the department's mission while protecting the privacy of personally identifiable information of citizens and visitors of the United States," Nuala O'Connor Kelly, the department's chief privacy officer, said in a statement.
Claria bundles its pop-up advertising software with ad-supported networks such as Kazaa. Recently, the privately held company has been trying to seek credibility by following stricter privacy guidelines and offering behavioral profiling services to its partners.
In an e-mail message to CNET News.com, Kelly defended the inclusion of a Claria representative on the committee. "I am proud of, supportive of and grateful for those individuals in the public and private sector who are willing to take on the hard tasks, fight the good fight, and who surprise us with creative, fresh and unconventional thinking, and who make change where change is needed through their hard work and personal dedication," Kelly said.
In the past, Claria's pop-up ad software has riled some users who claimed it was annoying, installed without permission, and not easy to delete. Publishers also were irked about pop-up ads for a rival's product appearing next to their own Web sites. Catalog retailer L.L. Bean sued Gator for alleged trademark infringement.
Claria's representative on the Homeland Security privacy board is company Vice President D. Reed Freeman, a former Federal Trade Commission staff attorney. Other members include executives from Intel, Computer Associates International, IBM, Oracle and the Cato Institute.
Kelly said Freeman will "bring his courage and conviction to the board, and will contribute productively--and constructively--to the board's and the public's dialogue on privacy and homeland security."
The committee is tasked with providing "external expert advice to the secretary and the chief privacy officer on programmatic, policy, operational and technological issues that affect privacy, data integrity and data interoperability."
In February 2003, Gator settled a high-profile case brought by The Washington Post, The New York Times, Dow Jones and other media companies. Terms of that deal were quiet, but Claria appears to have stopped delivering pop-ups to those publishers' sites.
Claria did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
CNET News.com's Stefanie Olsen contributed to this report.
Just another "DOJ fascist authoritarian totalitarian bootlicker" -- Zeio
"Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee"
AKA: The Department of Homeland Security wants to invade the Privacy of the American Citizens to collect Private/secret data on American's Private lives. All this to Strengthen the Integrity of of US Spying on it's citizens. To be advised by the people who know most about invading privacy.
Have a happy 4 years.
someone will make John Aschcroft Attorney General
George Bush re-elected president. Ha ha ha ha. Oh wait...
I will NEVER trust my computer to keep anything safe. I can see homeland security buying Google just to do data mining.
Actually, "Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee" sounds much more like Ministry of Truth.
The government's gotten all paranoid about this kind of stuff recently, what with the very recent and very publicized hacker attacks.
And although your analogy is for the most part valid, wouldn't a fox know how another fox would get into the henhouse? Where do you think we get most 'security analysts'?
Soon, he'll be able to run for President, if you use the current intellect climate as a gauge for next election's candidates. This is absolutely rediculous; Someone who can invade millions of computers in wonderfully covert ways under buckets of guises is appointed a chair in the government as a data securitist? Disgusting.
What's next? I'll be appointed "National Operation Flashpoint Advisor" simply because I'm slightly good at something completely unproductive and irritating to others?
So this is how they've decided to find would-be terrorists.
I assume there's a nice Gator surfing profile available for each 911 attacker. If you happen to fit it, be prepared for a nasty surprise visit in the middle of the night.
If your hobbies include steganography or encryption, think about switching to an abacus quick.
If the goal of the appointment was to find someone ineffective, then this is the guy to appoint. I'm only sorry that he was appointed to the position of Federal Bureau of Outsourcing or Department of Squashing Consumer Rights.
Anybody can work under ideal circumstances. -- Jeff K. (January 4, 2001)
A spyware company has a "chief privacy officer?!" What's next, a security-obssessed government that makes us less secure? Oh, wait...
Seriously, though, I can almost see the logic in this appointment. One thing spyware companies know is computer security. They defeat it all the time. I'm surprised the fine folks from Cool Web Search weren't appointed.
On the other hand, the more cynical side of me sees how reminiscent this is of early 20th century American politics, when the government appointed Big Business leaders to commitees on workers' rights. Money and connections will buy you anything.
All your base are belong to Claria.
StrayByte.Net
All I see posted are stupid remarks about how ironic this is... but nobody seems to want to do anything about it.
/. has enough people reading it to destroy the bandwidth of half the servers out there, but it looks like nobody is going to take this as a serious threat to privacy and call up their congressman or write a letter/email to major news networks, or anything else that will change things...
It's a sad day seeing this article exist, but it will be an even sadder day when 90% of these comments are scored "Funny" and we are doomed to sit idly by our world is taken away from us... thanks guys, i appreciate it.
under irony it says "see irony."
Romana: "How did you know?" Doctor Who: "Ah, well, knowing is easy. Everyone does THAT ad nauseum. I just sort of hope"
As incredulous as it may sound, this appears to be an asinine (sub)cabinet appointment.
Maybe it takes a spy-meister to sit on the other side of the table to deal with this illusive dilemna.
On a slight off-topic (and a risk of karma-whoring...) Simply put, if the software industry only (and only if) just tighten up their security vulnerabilities to the point of "none.", then (and only if then) we wouldn't need this haberdashers.
(sigh).
---
Make software industry accountable; abolish click-thru EULA that gets automatically enforced once the shrinkwrap is removed. How can one read this EULA before opening it?
Okay, who's gonna be the first to install Gator on Freeman's office computer?
"The newly born animals are then whisked off for a quick run through a giant baking oven." --heard on Food Network
What's next? Bill Gates joining the Free Software Foundation and Steve Jobs becoming a model for plaid work shirts?
He who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
What do you expect? George Tenet got a medal for being wrong about WMDs in Iraq; Paul Bremer got one for ignoring warnings about the Iraqi insurgency; and Condaleeza Rice got promoted for ignoring warnings about Al Qaeda and being wrong about Iraq. This administration rewards incompetence and duplicity while punishing competence and honesty.
"If it's real, then it gets more interesting the closer you examine it. If it's not real, just the opposite is true." -
Preventing things like terrorism is basically impossible. One can try to make the probability of success low with many methods, starting at international politics and ending with properly trained policeforces.
April Fool's isn't for a few more weeks. The ed's need to check their calendars.
At least they're being up front about this. They back the companies that are screwing us out of our privacy over the consumers every chance they get. That's what they stand for.
As outrageous as this is, it's not nearly as bad as the prescription drug bill that prevents them from pushing the pharmaceutical companies for better prices.
I hope the story is big enough to be spun by the talk radio crowd. I'd love to hear how they'd defend it.
Mr freeman probably thinks he's arrived in heaven. he gets to keep on doing what he's best at, the spyware business, but this time it's for the government, so no more hassles from all those pathetic anti-spyware whiners.
My university totally beat the government on this one. We hired the dude from Doubleclick to be chief privacy officer on campus. I believe all the same ironies apply equally well.
Just wow. That's it. Wow.
This administration is pure dag-nasty evil.
You either voted for it, or you rolled over like a puppy with a milkbone when the election was stolen again.
You have forgotten what revolution is.
So what does this make? Like bonehead Bush manuever # 385? If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and smells like a duck.. then its a bonehead president who is either a) clueless b) willfully seliing out c) doesn't care as long as his 'chosen folk' are unaffected.
All the Bush apologists wanna come out and start screaming everyone here is biased again?
The D.H.S.'s own "chief privacy officer" used to work for DoubleClick.
... Dracula has been put in charge of the blood bank
"An executive from Claria, formerly called Gator, will be one of 20 members of the committee, the department said Wednesday." http://news.com.com/Adware+maker+joins+federal+pri vacy+board/2100-1028_3-5587653.html
How long untill we hear "Gator must be installed on all PCs before they are shipped so we can check for terrorist activity"?
I mean could you pick a worse guy to be in control of this sort of information!?
I like muppets.
They hired a deputy CIO who did not have a degree. More accurately she had a degree from on a non accredited diploma mill check it out it looks like a church.
Normally I'd have no problems with a deputy CIO not having a degree but apparently the dept of homeland security did not check out their deputy CIO carefully enough and now they had to "put her on leave".
Now we find out they are putting the fox in charge of the hen house.
Something is seriously askew at this dept. How can we trust these guys to safeguard our country when they have shown such awful judgement?
evil is as evil does
Bonzi Buddy is soon to be carved into Mt. Rushmore.
is the mandate of "Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee" is keeping this information from the public, not protecting the public's information.
Living in Canada, it's like you guys are an evil siamese twin we can't get rid of. Now elect Bill Gates as President so we can all get armageddon over with.
That's awesome. Part of a group that is considered one of the worst spyware/adware companies ever, and give him a nice fat cushy government job "protecting" americans' privacy. I am in the wrong fucking line of work.
Guess my biological clock runs wrong, must be the first of april... Though Holland plays a somewhat dubious role in the European patent-schandal I am really glad my privacy isn't accounted for by spyware-makers....
Didn't you read the dept of this post bitch?
Mr. Osamma Bin Ladin is appointed the head of the homeland defence department.... I mean, who better to tell us how a terrorist thinks?
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
...since he already knows where WE live.
...who this guy actually is:
http://profs.lp.findlaw.com/privacy/freeman.html
Looks like this guy is a well established lawyer with alot of FTC connections. He also specializes in privacy law, which means his job is to figure out every loophole available to help his clients exploit it thouroughly. ;)
- sigs are stupid
Usually I'd expect at least one attention seeking asshole saying "Well, this is actually a good thing because "
Not only the story itself, but...
But even though the original Gator software can be considered one of the original plague carriers of the spyware blight -- be careful about calling it that. The company has repeatedly threatened its critics with libel lawsuits for dubbing it "spyware."
Guess what? GATOR IS SPYWARE!!!
Guess what else? I FEAR MY PRIVACY EVEN MORE!!!
How are they going to sneak into my house now? Mail? Phone? TV? Oh wait, they already have.
Unfortunately, I think quite a lot of patent applications cover ideas that any expert can think of in three hours but were never used before because no one apart from the applicant bothered to use them, which means they probably have no prior art. A patent examiner cannot do much more than an ordinary citizen when the problem lies in the law itself rather than its enforcement.
All the Iran Contra guys like Poindexter were complicit the in the deaths of many many people. As unbelievable as this is, I find some of his past appointments to be much much worse.
...history's first corporatocracy
vomits
--
GAIN IS SPYWARE
Members appointed for the inaugural term of the DHS Privacy Advisory Committee are:
Joseph Alhadeff, Vice President and Chief Privacy Officer, Oracle Corporation, Washington, DC
Ramon Barquin, President, Barquin International, Bethesda, MD
J. Howard Beales, Associate Professor, The George Washington University, Arlington, VA
D. Reed Freeman, Chief Privacy Officer and Vice President, Claria Corporation, Arlington, VA
James W. Harper, Editor/Executive Director, Privacilla.org & Director of Information Policy Studies, Cato Institute, Washington, DC
Kirk Herath, Chief Privacy Officer & Associate General Counsel, Nationwide, Columbus, OH
David A. Hoffman, Group Counsel and Director of Privacy, Intel Corporation, Hillsboro, OR
Lance Hoffman, Distinguished Research Professor, The George Washington University, Washington, DC
Tara Lemmey, Chief Executive Officer, Lens Ventures, San Francisco, CA
Joseph Leo, Vice President, SAIC, Vienna, VA
John Marsh, Distinguished Professor of Law, George Mason University School of Law, Winchester, VA
Joanne McNabb, Chief, Office of Privacy Protection, California Department of Consumer Affairs, Sacramento, CA
Charles Palmer, Department Group Manager, Security, Networking & Privacy, IBM Corporation, Yorktown Heights, NY
Richard Purcell, Chief Executive Officer, Corporate Privacy Group, Nordland, WA
Paul Samuel Rosenzweig, Senior Legal Research Fellow, The Heritage Foundation, Washington, DC
John Thomas Sabo, Manager, Security, Privacy, and Trust Initiatives, Computer Associates, Herndon, VA
James Sheehan, General Counsel, Milton Hershey School, Hershey, PA
Lisa Sotto, Partner, Head of Regulatory Privacy & Information Management Practice Group, Hunton & Williams, New York, NY
Michael Turner, President and Senior Scholar, Information Policy Institute, New York, NY
Samuel Wright, Senior Vice President, Government Relations, Cendant Corporation, Washington, DC
I can't say I like Freeman being on the committee, but a quick glance at the rest of the list makes me feel a lot better.
"The newly born animals are then whisked off for a quick run through a giant baking oven." --heard on Food Network
This is what you get for not rioting in the streets when they announced that companies like Diebold were 'counting' your stinking votes.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
America is f*ked if smart people dont stand up for their country.
Very stupid people are calling the shots
Stallman working for the Patent Office would be preventing stupid software and business process Patents- it wouldn't be preventing Patents in general.
The better analogies would be putting a fox in charge of the henhouse or of putting the wolf to shepherding the sheep- if you're talking about the Spyware people in charge of privacy and private information security.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Recruiting Flaw, big time. Heard of false positives?
GAIN was successful in many ways in sleezing information, but accuracy was never an attribute.
But many wisecracks populated its database(s) with false and crazy data that even Nigerian scam artists would laugh at. For marketing and spam, this was good enough.
DHS would be criminal to act on data from such notoriously bad sources, if that is an objective. Sounds like ther new motto is "more is more, and bugger quality"
Longer term, whatever scam they are aiming at, there is a growing core of P2P private virtual nets, and competent firewalls, meaning bulk harvesting of trends is getting harder.
If OTOH , said person will be hunting spammers, go for it. If DHS fined the spammers, and kept the loot, their budget worries would be over, and could afford a minister of Funny Walks.
The stated goal is to prevent them. One can largely prevent them from happing by raising the bar on the overall cost to achive their goals so that they'll pick easier targets other than the US. What the DHS is currently doing doesn't even touch on making soft targets hard ones. And they seem to be overly focused on things that plain flat don't matter in the overall scheme of things. It's disturbing to say the least that they're worrying about a "virtual border" and pissing away 2 billion on this boondoggle that won't do anything to deter attacks. What would happen if they, say struck at an oil refinery instead- pretty damn spectacular and high overall payoff for a low cost to them right at the moment- and these places tend to have security like the Keystone Kops. You don't see the DHS worrying about those sorts of things right at them moment.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
"...even though the original Gator software can be considered one of the original plague carriers of the spyware blight -- be careful about calling it that. The company has repeatedly threatened its critics with libel lawsuits for dubbing it "spyware.""
Of course Gator isn't "spyware!!!" It is a perfectly fine way of business. Excuse me, I'm off to break into homes, hide, and pop up out of nowhere to sell viagra and insurance. Maybe I'll bug some phones for marketing information while I'm there.
Whatever you may be sure of, be sure of this: that you are dreadfully like other people. - James Russell Lowell
I have hired the local foxes to guard my henhouse.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
D. Reed Freeman, the "Chief Privacy Officer" of Claria Networks (formerly Gator), the creators of the pervasive spyware package GAIN, has been appointed to the Department of Homeland Security's "Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee"
I IIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeee!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
*thud*
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
or putting George Dubya Bush in charge of a crackhouse.
I have something in common with Stephen Hawking...
A fox in the henhouse is one thing.
Putting it in charge of it is a completely different ballgame.
If you can't tell the difference, I suggest you leave off posting because you're not smart enough for it.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
I don't know if it would be enough to embarass Bush into backing down from having someone like this as part of DHS but it would, at least, make me feel better.
This news seems to have reduced me to a ranting maniac.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
That sounds like a great idea to me. Who wouldn't go want to go to a whorehouse run by a former president?
Then again, I guess things wouldn't be so great if he were in charge of hiring.
I get it. It's like when a company hires a black hat to help them figure out where the holes are so they can plug them...
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
I'm sure you'll appreciate the opportunity to abandon 'community' for 'market', once you see the incredible opportunity it affords for profits! Besides, we have already managed the deal for you!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
he fits right in with rice and gonzales and the rest of the bush crew of evil incompetents. after all, if a man who endorses torture can be attorney general, why not a spyware criminal in charge of computer privacy. if you voted for bush, you deserve everything you're getting. if you did't, you shouldn't be surprised anymore. just wait until he repacks the supreme court and illegalizes abortion again.
In related news, Osama bin Laden was appointed Secretary of Homeland Security and the Department of Labor has announced that Walmart CEOs will be in charge of all new labor regulations. When the fox runs the hen house, you're life becomes easier. You don't have to feed the chickens anymore right?
Why single out FOX? CBS, ABC, NBC, they're just as reckless.
And people wonder why HST blew his brains out.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Are you FUCKING INSANE? department.
Setting his threshold to 5, Sparky eliminated most of the trolls on /.
So, for those who would like to take the initiative to tell these fuckers something: Email: privacy@dhs.gov Phone: 202-772-9848 Fax: 202-772-5036 It might matter, it might not. But writing an email and picking up the phone is easy as hell. I'll take both, thank you.
sounds like a normal govt bureaucracy to me.
I know what you mean, but there's also something else that doesn't make too much sense. Why put the Vice pres of a company on this committee, what would he know about security anyways? (I'm not talking about the double standard of hiring some one from a company that we all would like to see burnt to the ground, rather I'm unclear on his specialization and what the hell that would do in a Homeland security committee).
Posting with out proof reading since 2001.
Are /. headers broken or is it just this NAV or XP?
/. does not degrade gracefully with css missing
btw.
Maybe this could be a good thing. Hiring ex-hackers/virus writers seems to work for security companies. The idea could possibly transfer to other fields.
Hikery.net - The best hiking site ever. Made by yours truly.
"I am proud of, supportive of and grateful for those individuals in the public and private sector who are willing to take on the hard tasks, fight the good fight, and who surprise us with creative, fresh and unconventional thinking, and who make change where change is needed through their hard work and personal dedication," Kelly said. Kelly said Freeman will "bring his courage and conviction to the board, and will contribute productively--and constructively--to the board's and the public's dialogue on privacy and homeland security."
What I find most outrageous is such talk typical of this administration to lie, and lie, and lie; So now a software that installed itself without permission, was not easy to delete, and annoyed the hell out of people is something to be praised for and proud of as testimony of "courage and conviction", "willingness to take on the hard tasks", "willingness to fight the good fight", "creative, fresh and unconventional thinking"?
What about thieves? They're pretty much the same; are we going to admire trespassers and looters?
Damn this kleptocracy; damn it!
Why it makes perfect sense.
its all done for your own good! for freedom!
actual freedom may not be exactly as shown. privacy not included.
air and light and time and space
Privacy is a privilege temporarily granted by the State in times of peace, and may be rescinded at any time the State deems appropriate.
The appointment of a Gator executive is a perfect fit.
Computer users in the US be warned - any attempt to remove the new HomeSecure WebAssist software from your PC will be viewed as an act of terrorism. You will be arrested as an enemy combatant and incarcerated at Guatanemo Bay.
-- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
Ahmed Chalabi as finance minister.
Oh.. nevermind.
but you will be secure with the gouvernment in every machine on the planet as long as you agree to said gouvernment's policies and the next one that will follow it.
What gives?
So to anyone who has been paying attention to conservative thought for the last couple years, an appointment like this makes perfect sense - it is intended to further erode privacy rights in the US. The belief that only the rich and powerful have a right to privacy has become a neo-con article of faith.
Sadly not enough people realize this.
All your base are belong to Google.
Who knows more than him about the various ways to infringe on people's privacy and data integrity?
We hear about (in)famous [h|cr]ackers being hired as security consultants from time to time, which is generally lauded as being a good idea due to their experience on the other side of the fight. How is this any different?
He may not have any technical skills (although of course he may), but if anyone knows the law, the loopholes and how to push the legality of this sort of thing right to the line and beyond, it'll be him.
I'd rather he were being paid to enforce the law than skirt around it...
It's official. Most of you are morons.
That fucker [Reed Freeman] ought to be in jail, not running a high position post in our government. It seems that the U.S. government continues to take the country down the toilet...
Where does information go after it has been erased?
You be one big fag. Do you always take it the rump?
Crackhouse? I thought it was a liquor store. Oh well, at least Jesus saved me.
That gives me the right to lauugh in your faces for not doing anything about it. 40% of you voted your gouvernement in power (or was it 30%, the rest could not be bothered to vote).
:)
Now learn up on how you can influence your gouvernment and do it! write to congres(wo)men, vote for parties that favour election reform.
It is the only chance you have.
Maybe I will send a card to prison america soon
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
I will grant the right of Slaon to supply content under terms of their own choosing. I will grant that if we dislike those terms we are free to go elsewhere instead - as in fact I do.
However I do not enjoy registration pages, and see no reason I should be required to enjoy them. Nor do I see any reason why any of us should be required or even expected to approve of a business model that is based upon supplying personal information to spammers, mass-marketers and other spies.
The issue of "hyper rich media congolmerates" is a red herring. there are many sites that provide qualiy content without requiring registration. Others (the New York Times springs to mind) undoubtedly fall into that cateory and yet still collect such information. I do wonder why anyone would spread such FUD. I can only assume that given the topic of the OP, the shills and astroturfers are out in force today.
To summarise: I don't like registration screens, I am never going to like registration screens, and I shall continue to publicly disapprove of them as I see fit.
Maybe you should learn to deal with it.
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
well, this way they get to see all the private data of anyone who is both clueless and looking for pron on the net(and everybody is so..). and they think that they could prevent something if they could magic mine that somehow.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
No matter what, I can't convince him to: ban marriages between cousins (I live in a red state), admit he is gay, pimp slap Rice like a ghetto ho, attend AA meetings, resign due to lack of intelligence, and visit the Iraqi frontlines.
GAIN acually happens to be one of the less malevolent pieces of adware. It does not install itself, it doesn't do pop-ups, it doesn't hijack your machine. It's a legit piece of advertising that software authors use to make money off their programs. (Kazaa for example) If you don't want it, read your EULA's before installing those free screen savers.
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
Donations buy TV time. TV time may or may not translate into votes.
If a congresscritter suddenly gets ten or twenty obviously independent letters on the same subject, don't you think s/he will realize that it may matter next Election Day? They're pretty immune to "click to send this letter" campaigns but if you've written a letter instead of copying it, somebody will read it.
Money only works if the voters don't care. Campaign money can prevail over a bunch of cynics who stay at home, but it's no match for the villagers when they organize and storm the castle.
Americans, RISE UP!!! YOUR COUNTRY IS BEING USURPED FROM WITHIN!!!
Silence is What They Want.
Note to Mods: NOT A FLAME, NOT A TROLL!!!!!!
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Not as a prank, but as a way to make sure that people know about this guy. I nominate "federal pop-up man."
-- . . ramblin' . . .
Conflict of Interest: Two men, whose family and business associates and friends have extensive investments in global oil businesses, are president and vice-president of the entire U.S. government.
Using dishonest means, these men convinced U.S. taxpayers to pay for killing people in Iraq. What has been accomplished there? The killing under Saddam was less than the killing under George Bush.
One thing that has been accomplished, however, is that the profit from oil contracts involving Iraq has been shifted from Saddam to U.S. companies. This was accomplished while minimizing the support for U.S. troops.
More about the extreme conflict of interest in the U.S. government: Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government.
"If Bush is so concerned about catching terrorists, why is bin Ladin still at large while Bush to taking an easy trip to Europe?"
Why did Bush's father have a business relationship with one of bin Laden's brothers? Why did Bush invade Iraq, when most of the attackers were Saudis, like the bin Laden family?
Sheez... Is the grand ole US turning into the biggest banana republic of the planet? These people should be the ones in the crosshairs of any 'data privbacy and integrity' related governmental body, not at the helm of it! So what shiny new laws are these fine folks going to create I wonder?
Why can't anyone here in the Uk get slashdot frontpage articles, numerous people are complaining.
I have also noticed lately that no matter how many times you try to go to google.com it keeps going to google.co.uk, is it a homeland security, anti-terrorism thing or are we just becoming like China or is it some darkforce from beyond?
You should have gone with the AIDS joke instead...it hasn't been 22.3 years since HST died yet.
Help us build a better map!
Paris Hilton appointed on the "Departement to revise Sexual Education". From the words of Clarissa Biggot, "Paris is well known for it's commitment to keep her body a sanctuary that no-one but her beloved (and caring) husband might see. We are sure she will be able to transmit her beliefs to the young americans".
Orwell's not spinning in his grave, he knew it was coming.
Ministry of Love?
No, Ministry of Data Privacy. What a fucked up country we (some of us, anyway) have.
1. 2.
Mail room, or something, at DHLS. Last place anyone would find him, it seems.
In todays Berlin Post, Herr Heinrich Himmler has accepted a post as US government secretary of petting zoos and kindergarteners. In a way I can only hope that Bush is this malicious, If he isn't this only furthers the idea that he is completely oblivious of what is going on around him.
meh
is that not the old saying ? how totally appropriate that he actually ends up at the top - Homeland Security for you, our southern neighbours ...
Question Authority before IT questions You
What do you think the chances of this guy selling sensitive homeland security secrets and private data on citizens to Claria?
After all many companies would pay a premium price for such data mining information.
http://saveie6.com/
The resume's for our top leaders look something like this: George W. Bush: Served one term as the THIRD most powerful man in Texas politics and his dad was president..............elected president Dick Cheney: Former CEO and adviser during the NIXION years......elected vice president Personally I'd think these two are alittle more of a worry than them letting the a spyware guru into office. You're not going to change the minds of your politicans, how about you smack the hell out of the people who voted for Bush????? If 50% of the people think he's qualified to be president than I'm willing to bet that we have bigger problems than who he's appointing.
No, no, this is the attitude they want you to have. Apathy. The basic strategy is simple: scare and discourage. Scare the people who don't think. Discourage the people who do. The more apathetic the thinking people get, the farther they can stretch the bucks they spend to lead the sheep to the slaughterhouse.
At the very least, stand up and make them spend a little more money and work a little harder. Don't whine, find a way to stick a thumb in their eye when they're leading you to the gallows.
The great thing about money is that it gets fast results. But it is not invincible. Sometimes, the people will just stop believing. It may take time, but, the opinion manufacturers know it will take much longer if they can expunge the kernels of doubt from the population -- kernels around which opposition can crystalize.
We, few, we band of brothers. If you're the kind of person who is daydreaming about running to Canada, I don't want you on my side in this fight.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I don't like registration screens either, but I've never had to register to read Salon ... I just have to look at an ad for 20 seconds then I get to read all I want on their site for free.
Have you ever even gone to Salon.com?
Here's all my information, government. I trust that you will keep this information private.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Honestly i wouldn't care if all the ad-supported content left the internet.
I'm not sure I could handle a life where ALL of the ad-supported (ie Slashdot) content left the internet...
For instance... People with Philosophy degrees are often hired as "Ethicists" for corporations. Their job is to interpret ethics for the company. In some cases, this means keeping the company on the right side of the line. However, for some companies, it simply means finding ways to justify what the company wants to do to begin with. Guidance, or spin.
So, take a look at the Department of Homeland Security. Do you think this is the kind of honest-natured ministry that wants to make sure it does the right thing regarding our privacy? Or the kind of Orwellian agency that wants to have a way to say it respects privacy, and does whatever it wants?
Guidance, or spin?
This guy is there to help teach the feds how to lie to us about how much our privacy is respected in this country. All of the sudden, it makes sense.
My Photography - http://ian-x.com
The Deathlings (comic) - http://thedeathlings.com
I'm trying to decide whether this is brilliant (as in "it takes a thief to catch a thief") or sheer stupidity (as in a "fox guarding the henhouse").
but after standing in the middle of the street yelling at the capital for hours, I began to think my riot might have more affect if someone else joined me.
...merely aggresive entrepeneurs.
Because this has got to be a fscking joke..
This one event reflects the entire Bush presidency in microcosm - wrong-headed, stupid, happy to put the interests of business over people, and utterly oblivious.
I think I express the collective opinion of slashdot when I say WTF SOMEBODY SHOOT THESE IDIOTS!
Give my girl Lindsay an email
...is our loss.
this is brilliant (as in "it takes a thief to catch a thief") or sheer stupidity (as in a "fox guarding the henhouse").
Assume latter.
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
Its called NORAD, & its been in place since the early 70's
However, on the morning of sept 11 2001, NORAD was given orders to stand down for some sort of "military excercises" which is unprecedented.
Strange coincidence wouldnt you say?
Has anyone stopped and considered the possibility that they might have appointed Gator's CPO so that they can more efficiently collect more information about people and actually harm people's piracy? I mean, the "Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee" might actually be formed to spy on US people's lives. Kinda like calling DRM, Digital Rights Management instead of Digital Restrictions Management.
...And your comments make me more sad than the original news.
It looks like the Americans have been seriously insulted. So sad, that the only post here calling for positive action was drowned in stupid jokes and whining. Sorry guys, but those who hopelessly whined are already demoralized into Bush's puppets...
For a tutorial about dealing with election cheating, look to Ukraine. Things _can_ be changed. Camping in Washington, anyone?
(INaA - I'm Not an American)
I have been in the 'anti spyware business' for well over 2 years, this isn't the worst i've seen but it's damn bad. Whats next? Does the NSA Plan on hiring Louise Vitte, Alex S. Hatkinson and Serge Stepantsov -- the guys who made CoolWebSearch? By far the most annoying piece of spyware on the planet that has kept coders hard at work trynig to slve the hundreds of exploits they employ. This just in, people suck.
No the Secret Service will stop you if you try that.
Slashdot, home of supporters of free software, free music, and free speech.Except for Moderators that disagree with you.
You need a thief to catch a thief.
Hmm a partisan flunkie appointment of a spyware maker to guard our privacy.
Excuse me while me and Julia make love one last time before the Inner Party members come to put the rats on us.
Not customer, consumer. A customer expects service. A consumer just devourers whatever is shoved down his throat.
Why do you whiny liberals keep pathetically harping on the same tired issues that have no effect on current events rather than trying to morph your political goals into something more agreeable to the majority of the population for next time?
Beating a dead horse doesnt count.
Here is what I sent mine...
/ gator/index.html?source=RSS on how D. Reed Freeman, the "Chief Privacy Officer" of Claria Networks (formerly Gator), the creators of the pervasive spyware package GAIN, has been appointed to the Department of Homeland Security's "Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee".
Dear Congressman Pearce;
I came across the article at http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2005/02/23
I find this of extreme concern for the security of the citizens of our country. It is also a concern that the 'privacy officer' for the DHS is a former minion of Doubleclick which is also a spyware company. This is like appointing David Duke to a committee on minority rights, Mike Tyson appointed to a committee on womans right, Michael Jackson appointed to a committee on childrens rights, or the proverbial fox being in charge of the henhouse. Can we now expect DHS to craft sofware that installs itself on our machines without or knowledge? Can we expect our data privacy to be safe from unlawfull government search? This is a real and present concern. The last thing the citizenry needs is for people with a known track record of being involved in privacy violations to be in such positions. The very fact that these people are where they are now within the DHS points to the process being broken, and perhaps it can also be said that the DHS has been infiltrated by persons without the citizens best interests in mind. In advance, your attention to this matter is greatly appreciated.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
Wow, Spammers have now gone into gov...
we are all so fucking screwed.
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
The 2nd amendment was intended to provide arms for State Militia. The States had the right to leave the Union and they had the right have State run armies to protect us from the Federal Government. Lincoln's illegal war changed that.
Slashdot, home of supporters of free software, free music, and free speech.Except for Moderators that disagree with you.
appointing a lit match to be in charge of fire control?
... and how do we get them sacked / made into a laughing stock?
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
This is like Larry Flynt of Hustler fame joining a federal board on decency policy.
D. Reed Freeman, are you a White Hat hacker or a Black Hat hacker?
...Frank Abagnale for check fraud detection at the FBI?
Oh, wait...
I don't have a sig.
That George W is an Anti-Christ....
not THE anti-christ, but a forerunner, kind of a prototype.
So Long and Thanks for all the Fish.
[i]Wouldn't prevent a repeat?[/i]
With the laws passed over the last few years, A repeat would only give them more power, physically and politically.
Do you think they actually care about preventing a repeat?
Especially when they took out so many stops the first time around.
Seriously, this country is so fucked. There are so many people, mostly pretty extreme religious folk, who listen to anything Bush says as long as he sprinkles his speaches with the words "God," "Faith," etc. Oh, and don't forget, "crusade!"
It doesn't matter that he's lied. It doesn't matter that the VP's former company is given illegal no-bid contracts. It doesn't matter that the new AG is a supports the use of torture. There is nothing they can do that is evil enough to make the religious right turn away.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Beating a dead horse doesnt count. So you accept the parent posters points, you just don't want to hear them anymore?
Now who's whining?
Oh and beating a dead horse is perfectly reasonable if he's still in the Oval Office...
Larry Flint was appointed today to the Department of Decency and Family Values.
"His dedication and hard work makes him the perfect choice for this position. Sometimes he even worked on Saturdays."
i guess on the one hand you can take the argument "it takes one to know one" in that who better to know what to watch out for than someone who's made a career out of invading people's privacy. but, thenm if that was the case, why not appoint kevin mitnik to this position?
on the other hand (and i imagine this is the most prevalent on slashdot), isn't this a bit like making the fox the keeper of the henhouse? wouldn't it be a bit *too* easy to (since he's in a position of influence) lobby for looser (or no) restrictions on spyware and adware?
[move
Of course, the anti-spyware laws will now die before coming to a vote, as spyware is the new way to protect our safety.
Now I understand what the government meant by increasing the data they gather.
Linux probably WILL become illegal soon, as it's very nature means you could remove the government back doors if you wanted to.
I'm not sure The Shrub could have come up with a more effective way of announcing what he thinks of privacy concerns without installing two way TV sets in every home and declaring himself the be our big brother.
Crap.
Time to move to Canada.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
What are any of us going to do about it? We log on to slash dot, complain and whine about the undermining of our rights and security, but do we vote? Do we write to congress? Do we call our senator to voice our opinion? Do we do ANYTHING other then moan and complain and then say "oh-well, back to HALO"
I recently read that most congressmen consider one letter from a constituent to represent 1000 opinions from their district.
Guess how many congressmen probably read Slashdot...
Clinton and his associates who were always embroiled in legal or ethical battles. It's not just Bush. It's every career politician.
Shouldn't this one be put into the "Humor" section?
-- The reason it's called the right wing? Irony.
Sorta like hiring a hacker to build your security policy?
Ever read "The Art of the Steal" or "Catch me if you Can"? Great books, even if the movie made on the latter was kinda blah.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
Wait a second...
the Marriages described in The Bible allow men to have as many wives as they can afford, concubines, especially if they can't get an acceptable heir out of one of the wives, and the women are treated as property with no rights of their own.
So I guess if I wanted to have a "Biblical" marriage, I'd have to be a particularly unpleasant polygamist Mormon.
Oh, and kick each wife out of the house while she's having her period, because she's unclean.
And kill any of them who cheat on me.
Man, this "Biblical Marriage" thing sounds like far too much work, expense and surveillance. I'll stick with my current marriage. This whole "Equal Partner" thing works much better in my opinion.
And as a side note, in my experience, Lesbian couples have FUN weddings. Far less stuffy and more fun than the normal "Church, white wedding, reception at a bad event center".
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
WTF!?!?!
There is nothing inherently safe about liberty. That's why so many people died protecting it.
Whoa whoa, hang on. It's easy for an uppity European (was that redundant?) or other outsider to make remarks on our political system and dismiss the voters as "irresponsible low-tech conservative christians with a penchant for NASCAR."
That said, I agree that Bush is a money-grubbing puppet of a human being. But they ALL are. Look at what our choices were this past year. Bush 2.0 or John-frickin'-Kerry. An even richer man who couldn't stand solidly on any position; he flip-flopped time and again just to secure votes.
The REAL problem is with our system, and I emphasize this strongly. First and foremost, we have no control over who decides who the candidates for presidency are. And, truth be told, to run independent, you have to be rich to afford a campaign, and that would be little more than voting directly for the special interest group itself. So we're left with rich white guys or rich white guys hand-picked by rich white guys.
And don't forget that we're not voting for the candidate in reality. We're voting for the majority vote in our state, which in turn is a suggestion for our representatives in an elite Electoral College (an unnecessary institution IMHO). While you would assume that said representatives would vote accordingly based on this information, this is not always the case, nor is it required. (Granted in this last election, THAT would have been a benefit)
But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
It's funny. Geeks will donate $300,000 to advertise thier web browser... But they can't organize a lobbying group to represent them in washington. Sure, the EFF tries to do good things, but mostly after there is a problem. The FSF only tries to stay afloat and stop GPL violators. Where is the free software political action in America? The money is there.
at how consistantly this Administration can hire the absolute "wrong" person for a given job.
I couldn't agree more. I think a major problem is that this country is too big. It is too big to comprehend for most people. We don't ever have to leave our comfort zone. Many people rarely leave their state, let alone their country. They don't see the rest of the world, and rely on TV to feed them their information. Or they just don't receive any information at all.
We have been taught to just care about ourselves. Therefore, if something doesn't greatly affect us, it is not worth our time to worry about it, let alone do anything about it. We are a sound-bite, fast-food nation. We are more concerned about who is dating who in Hollywood than what our government is doing. The things you point out (SUV, big houses, TV) are all bad, but they wouldn't be if we balanced it with an ounce of intelligence about the outside world. These will not be our downfall, it will be our ignorance, apathy, hubris, and general disdain for those who are not from the US. It isn't about what we have - it is about what we don't have.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
He must say "Hmmm! Look at all the chickens, ripe for the plucking"...
Exactly. I was reading Texas HB 789 last night trying to figure it out, and nowhere in the text does the word citizen appear. It's always consumer.
@#$%&!@*!@&&#&@!!$&@!#$!&#@$*$%)*@$%*@$&%(@$*&%,.. .
Damnit. That's like hiring crackheads to work to bust crackwhores.
-- Liberalism is a mental disorder.
We have a Republican President and a Republican House, and a Republican Senate. They don't give a rip about things like civil rights or privacy. As long as someone can make a buck, it's allright by them. Unless of course, it costs them money.
Dr. Troll, paging Dr. Troll, please pick up the green courtesy phone.
Honestly, sweetie, have you been keeping tabs on your recommended Prozac dosage?
I'd prefer a whiny post to that of a raving maniac. There's a reality check for ya.
If all the Slashdot readers called or filled out a form, we might make a difference. Even if nothing changes, at least DHS will know people are aware of this ridiculous act.
ACK!
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Having a spyware master in charge of DHA Privacy?
That's as absurd as having a terrorist sponsoring country such as Syria on the UN Security Council!
Oh wait a minute, that's already been done....
Um because the war on terror is not about getting terrorists but terrorizing the American people?
Conflict of Interest: Two men, whose family and business associates and friends have extensive investments in global oil businesses, are president and vice-president of the entire U.S. government. Using dishonest means, these men convinced U.S. taxpayers to pay for killing people in Iraq. What has been accomplished there? The killing under Saddam was less than the killing under George Bush. One thing that has been accomplished, however, is that the profit from oil contracts involving Iraq has been shifted from Saddam to U.S. companies. This was accomplished while minimizing the support for U.S. troops. I don't see how that comment has anything to do with adware... A guy that worked for an internet company that used adware gets to be on a homeland security board... How is that corrupt? The guy knows a lot about the internet and internet advertising. He could definitely provide insight into more malicious forms of web advertising. Maybe people should look at both sides of an issue before accusing the current administration of various misdeeds and acts of tyranny. "These dollars don't make cents to me no more"
From the FA, it is made clear that this guy is just one of twenty people appointed to be on a committee.
Hopefully it will be an opportunity for the bastard to be allowed just enough rope to hang himself. In other words, the more visible he is while being an idiot, the more people know he is an idiot.
Love your sig!
Contact your elected representatives
Press release:
The Department of Homeland Security Corporation has recently released new Terror Alert (tm) software, which all U.S. citizens must mandatorily install on their home computers. This software monitors a users' browsing habits to determine what type of scare tactics are best appropriate for that user.
For the user's convenience, any browsing to terrorist-affiliated websites (like salon.com) will be reported instantly to the government, and the user will be notified that they must remain still until police arrive, cannot call the media, and have no rights under the PATRIOT act, and to have a nice day.
Some Free Software and Open Source advocates were complaining, "Hey wait, I run GNU/Linux! This software only works for Mac and Windows!" Department of Homeland Security Co. officially responds, "Oh yeah? Go get an operating system not run by communists!"
----
*bangs head against wall*
WHY? WHY DO WE LET THESE THINGS HAPPEN TO US?
http://mediagoblin.org/
Doesn't this sound more like Homeland Security trying to break into everyone's computer to spy on possible "terrorist" activities using spyware. This may sound like nice fit maybe because of the knowledge of computer vulnerabilities that Freeman knows privacy. But that's the thing -- he knows privacy, and how to get around them.
In a properly run government, even the appearance of conflict of interest would be avoided.
Fox, meet Hen-house...
So we need a new dictionary:
Privacy=Observation
Good=Bad
Sane=Insane
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
Maybe the Dept. of Homeland Security should hire Osama Bin Laden to learn how to prevent another 9/11.
Idiots.
wtf, man?! i guess you really do have to be a complete arse-monkey to get ahead.
- Mozilla Junglecow
Are you using an outdated version of official Firefox that lacks the latest security fixes, or has Firesomething been updated to work with fox 1.0?
Where do you think we get most 'security analysts'?
From a grad school class where they got their first real look at a computer. They were trained in some basic social engineering techniques, given a few automated root kits, put in a nice suit and sent out.
At least that describes the ones I've seen coming into the financial institution I work at to do penetraton testing.
Surely it is not a shock to you that a Republican administration would favor a corporate view point by appointing corporate voice on such a panel. Such cases of appointing the fox to guard the hen house is much more common among Republican administrations. It is hardly partisan to point out that the current administration is acting consistently with its historically stated policies. If you voted for this adminstration, you should have expected to see such appointments.
Maybe Tunisia heading the UN Human Rights Committe?
Dude, I didn't see any ads to click on.. at least, they're not showing up in Safari. :|
The killing under Saddam was less than the killing under George Bush.
You sir, are an idiot; or a teen who gets his political info from MTV.
"You are a true believer. Blessings of the State; blessings of the
masses. Thou art a subject of the Divine, created in the image of
Man, by the masses, for the masses. Let us be thankful we have
commerce. Buy more. Buy more now. Buy. And be happy."
-- Confession booth blessing, _THX-1138_
Slightly OT.
I don't understand if you realized, but that particular Simpsons eps was to showcase that people were stupid enough not to vote for a third candidate instead of Kodos and Kang. That line "Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos" just shows that they were really stupid into thinking a vote for Kodos would have change anything.
So, yes, you are to blame, whether you voted for republicans or democrats. Don't try to make yourself feel better because you didn't voted for Bush, but voted for the democrats.
Had to let it out, sorry, heh.
Hope you don't mind, but I'm using your sig over on Groklaw.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
These guys aren't liberal, they're not politicians, and nobody really knows what the majority of the population agrees with, so don't spout of as if you do.
Notice that agreement from the majority of the voting population is not the same as the population in general. Besides that, it is far more respectful to have your own opinions and actually base them on facts, even if they have been known for a while, than to preach your blinded, pseudo-conservative, distracted, herd mentality.
silly ac. To suggest that past events have no affect on the future...
You are checking your backups, aren't you?
...to the term "spyware."
Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
This reminds me of the time in middle school, the girl's gym teacher was named "Mr Raper".
FLR
This can only be a joke. D. Reed Freeman was helping run an organization that violated data privacy by any standards and was involved in major bribery.
Has our government turned from covertly to overtly corrupt? What a shame for our once truly free and democratic country!
I wouldn't mind having any long-run successful CEO like Bill Gates become president. I do however mind having an unsuccesful CEO as the current president.
$8.95/mo web hosting
This is an official announcement that the DHS has won my highly-coveted 'Dumbass of the Day' award for 2-24-05. This distinction is usually awarded to random fellow drivers I encounter on my often death-defying commute home. If you ever get to feeling stupid, just hop in your car and drive around for a confidence booster. More on topic (moron topic?) - Awarding scum-bag adware jerks with high paying govt. jobs is not why I pay my taxes. I guess the right-wingers in charge like to surround themselves with like-thinking individuals. In any case, the award still stands - congratulations.
... Henry Kissinger will be awarded the Nobel Peace Pri ... oh, wait. :-(
I was feeling that exhilirating whoosh of wind going through your stomach and out your back that you get when you are flying downwards in a roller coaster. Another poster said it, I miss being surprisable.
But on the other hand now it is easy to understand why people in other countries talk about a decaying American empire.
At first reading the thread I thought "Well, maybe if you are thieving the Bad Guys then you are a hero". Then I revised that, and imagined a post saying "The world will be saved by a keylogger built into tetris (or minesweeper, or solitaire) that you keep on the screen all the time".
But now I think it has come full circle and I think I "get it".
This is the government the American people asked for. The system is built so that the guy with the biggest moneybags wins the election, and when you go about as far as you can go up the slope with that metaphor, you get a demagogue like George Bush.
(I never met him, but I just don't trust his smile, even if he is sincere sometimes and playing a ruthless game like lots of politicians. Nothing against republicans or even rich guys, or Bush personally, he's very successful in terms of surviving and winning evolutionarily speaking, but it just seems like a bad example.)
Flash back to 2003, when the "Signs of the Times" were clear.
You see, with Bush at the top and people he likes set up around him, with "team players" rewarded regardless of merit, this general nudge-nudge wink-wink cronyism idea must percolate down the ranks progressively. Their staff hires people according to the same concept. You can read more:
"This is Bush's America, the Peter Principle writ large: not so much an avoidance as a hatred of competence -- a culture and a national economy of meritopathy..." quoted from skimble in 2003. Search google for "Peter Principle" and "cronyism".
I think this is where the tire hits the road, so to speak, and anyone who cares about reality is roadkill. The reality seems to be that there is no defense against funded jihadists or bioweapons, and the purpose of gaining power is to make tons of money and dish out tasty PR. This is the government the American people wanted.
The voting majority currently is a bit more numerous than those who think like typical slashdot posters. Whether they have been fooled, fooled themselves, just love the best looking smile, or honestly think they need a guy who goes for the jugular regardless of what it may cost (I think this last one is a biggie in post-9/11), this is how the dice fell and the system has been well engineered to be frictionless for whomever is currently in power.
I'm not sure it will be easy to fix although conceivably this could be a cyclic thing, but it is just as likely that the buck will stop here, Asian economies will stop buying U.S. debt, China and India will get richer, and the general U.S. populace will wait like mute cows to be fed more pap whether it is by the corporate media machine directed by their own elected representatives or the one purchased by those to whom they sold out. I keep imagining good old American can-do will win out when nanotech really takes off but you know what? Other countries learn real fast and the only thing going for the U.S. is a relatively good-sized population.. more Nobel laureates and Olympic medals that way. But my stomach is telling me the roller coaster is still accelerating.
But (assuming the election weren't rigged), the American people voted this administration into power again.
Do you claim that Kerry wouldn't have done the same thing? Fritz Hollings, the Senator from Disney, is a Democrat, and President Clinton's administration is said to have written the DMCA that the 105th Congress passed.
Or are you talking about a third party? When was the last non-Republican non-Democrat elected as POTUS?
...The killing under Saddam was less than the killing under George Bush...
You are kidding right? Saddam killed hundreds of thousands of his own people, and tens of thousands from neighboring countries.
Get your facts straight.
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
I don't see how adware and internet advertising has any relation to homeland security. Care to expound on this?
But "bad" customers can be dropped - and some markets considered "not worth servicing".
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Slashdot users collectively shit a brick.
Pickpockets are trying to make a buck too. So that justifies my smashing store windows and taking whatever I want.
> How did she get that job with the Democrats
> and then survive the Republican takeover
>
It's called incompetence. It's the specialty of all U.S. government bureaucrats, and it reigns supreme.
Maybe not under George Bush Jr, but if you include both Senior and Junior, you will get pretty close.
Remember to include the number of Iraqi soldiers and civilians that died in the first and second wars, and the people who died as a result of the sanctions instituted under George Senior. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were killed in the first Gulf war alone.
I really don't believe that the author of that post intended humor...
I'd say something more along the lines of dry cynicism.
RIP Hunter...
THE MAGIC WORDS ARE SQUEAMISH OSSIFRAGE
If Saddam's Iraq and Lybia can serve on the UN's human right committiees this is news worthy because??
Perhaps language is becoming a weapon...
Language has ALWAYS been a weapon, at least for those that know how to wield it effectively.
Best comment EVAR.
sulli
RTFJ.
So they make an income from the registration details they take? By selling them on to marketers, one assumes. I'm afraid that like the GP, I'm no fan of spam-for-content as a business model.
Then don't register.
I just paid my $30 or whatever it was and never see any ads or get any spam. I figured it was worth it, since it's less than a dime a day or so, and I don't simply expect everybody to work for free.
I think this might apply here also.
What?
Referring to torture and the Attorney General
in the same sentence is double-plus ungood.
"What about thieves? They're pretty much the same; are we going to admire trespassers and looters? "
Why not? We admire digital pirates.
His appoointment could easily be more along the line sof CIA/Microsoft collaboration. Consider the position of a company that supports software piracy; who si going to use it? "Criminals"!! If you have an interest in tracking criminal-types, including potential dissidents & terrorist then, gee, do you think they're going to cough up bucks to buy their software from the commercial vendor? No - they're going to download it via a P2P or other sharing network. Regardless of whether you can think of reasons why a 'criminal' wouldn't - the above line of logic is still quite reasonable from the game-theoretical perspective.
I'll punctuate it by sharing that 'terrorists' have already used various forms of spam to communicate. If one controls the biggest spyware house then it may be akin to owning the land that foxholes are built in.
....or I'm reading ahead of the time, and he's just been appointed as a Black-hat.
But to say it again - one can control the illegal trafficking venues by becoming the "Master Criminal." The CIA did this with heroin / cocaine in the earlier half of the 20th century just as the British did it with tobacco.
Really - it's not even a quiet pattern.
.
-shpoffo
Man, with Mr. Freeman on the Department of Homeland Security's docket, simply disappearing back to MEATSPACE just became a *whole lot* more appealing...
[Now, I'm off to lift my le... Um, visit... at another place.]
That's not a fair comparison. Sadaam had decades of rule. Bush is doing his best to catch up, but he has only had five years.
Whitehouse switchboard: 202 456 1414
U.S. Senate: 202 224 3121
U.S. House of Representatives: 202 225 3121
We can only hope this guy isnt TRULY evil, since before he was being paid to spy, and now he's being paid to find ways to stop spies? The problem is, once a corporate guy always a corporate guy, always looking for the next buck.
Mod Parent -1, Bush apologist who can't respond to valid facts.
-- Having a Creationist Museum is like having an Atheist place of worship
"D. Reed Freeman, the "Chief Privacy Officer" of Claria Networks (formerly Gator), the creators of the pervasive spyware package GAIN, has been appointed to the Department of Homeland Security's "Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee"."
Ahh, good ole' Cronyism. You sure wouldn't want to appoint someone with a legimate, moral background to a government agency.
-- If we don't stand up for our rights, now, there will be no right to stand up for them later.
I'm sorry, were you trying to quote the other AC with additional statements attributed to him that he didn't make? Or are you just too retarded to use an html tag properly?
Let them. Let them do it. It may be the spark needed to push linux developers into makeing something the AOL zombies can use. If you think that's a good thing, you might as well encourge them to do it. There is a principle element that must not be overlooked. Hackers. Hackers will always win. Pass whatever law you like, Rule 1 is "The Hackers will always win." Rule 2 in case you wondered is, "People will always do what they want to with computers." Surge's Rules
(Pan into Claria's Vice President D. Reed Freeman office. He's sitting at his desk putting the finishing touches on Gator II, and looks at his watch.) ...
Boy it's late, look at the
(In a flash G-man from HL2 shows up in front of him and everything freezes.)
Time, Mr. Freeman? Is it really that time again? It seems as if you only just arrived. You've done a great deal in a small time span. You've done so well, in fact, that I've received some interesting offers for your services.
Ordinarily, I wouldn't contemplate them... but these *are* extraordinary times.
Rather than offer you the illusion of free choice, I will take the liberty of choosing for you... if and when your time comes round again. I do apologize for what must seem to you an arbitrary imposition, Mr. Freeman. I trust it will all make sense to you in the course of... well... I'm really not at liberty to say. In the meantime... this is where I get off.
(They both disappear, and are teleported to Homeland Security headquarters.)
Geez, how disturbing is that?
-AlPhAbEt
Don't forget that Diebold ATMs are the ones that caught the Welchia/Nachi worm. I wish I didn't have to trust them, but my bank uses them, and it's not like I have my choice of ATM manufacturers with other banks.
I have not meet anyone yet who has voted for bush? now this leeds me to the big question how the heck he win twice?
Or is this akin to appointing Osama Bin Laden as Secretary of Homeland Security?
You say you want a revolution....
I'm not in any way defending this guy's viewpoints or the spyware he's created, which is one of the most heinous bastardizations of free enterprise I've ever met. Nor am I defending Bush or the Motherland Defense Dept. But - this guy is _not_ in DHS. As the salon article's link to dhs.gov states, he's been chosen to be on a "Federal Advisory Comittee." This is a specific type of group, that when chartered by a Fed. agency, is required to have folks representing all possible stakeholders, and has all sorts of open testimony, rotating membership, and other sorts of rules (see http://www.redlodgeclearinghouse.org/legislation/f aca2.html). He is just one
of many voices (others are from IBM, academia, etc.) that will report the
"public's" point of view on certain issues that will be specified in their
charter.
So... it sucks that they picked *him* from 129 applicants, but it would suck
more if they didn't (pretend to) listen to the public/businesses at all.
PS... what's happening to me!? I've only been in DC for 3 months!
or making Roland Piquepaille a Slashdot Editor...
You're forgetting one other thing that is powerful enough to force a government to change its decision against their will:
The media.
This is an awesome story for the mainstream media. It's one of the most incredibly stupid political decisions this administration has made (and it's sure made a few). How can we get this story into The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and the like, replete with all the irony of this situation? This story could seriously undermind the administration's credibility and cause people to take a much harder look at the people being appointed.
You know, it makes me wonder what purpose consumers actually serve, then?
If all consumers do is funnel their money to big business, why are they needed? They generally work for big business and get their money from big business. Wouldn't it be a lot more efficient if big business just kept all their money and distributed consumables directly? Then they could roll in all their money instead of loaning it out for two week intervals.
We will ALWAYS BE at war ....
...his integrity was misunderestimated.
But Officer, I DID read the f**king article!
You're right, the voting public put their seal of approval on the incompetent bastards. There will however, be payback a.k.a. karma. When the US economy is destroyed, you'll suddenly find out that NO ONE voted for Bush. Just like when Nixon left office.
The Rebublican version of economics is like living off credit cards and assuming you never pay them off. The debt load will not support a working economy and a whole lot of people are going to be unemployed/under-employed with no health care, no law enforcement, fire fighters or public services. Just look at what gets cut in the Bush budget and see if I'm right.
The only question is who will they blame. Do you think that it will work to try pin it on Clinton and the Democrats? Remember, the public has the memory retention of a goldfish. At some level I must admit I'm looking forward to the crows comming home to roost, except that those of us who oppose Bush and all he stands for will still get screwed like everyone else.
to get to the bottom of how this happened.
e _i n_my_bonn/
http://blogs.oc.edu/ee/index.php?/dlovejoy/a_be
Yes, it's a blog. Sorry if that offends you.
That's it....I am moving to Canada. If anymore of the GOP's corporate whores get any more positions, this country might start "downsizing" its population because the country isn't making a profit. The first to go is all the people in the 0 to 10% tax bracket, and since they only think short term, they won't realize that their rich asses don't pay taxes and the US will go bankrupt. Either that or it will be "merged" and disassembled into some kind of Slavic tiny nation region from hell. :D.
However, I don't think it has anything to do with the country making a profit....mostly just the administration. But hey! At least they can't blame the national debt on piracy
We will continue down the drain as long as bush runs this country like a hostile corporation going down in flames, attacking anything that might go against it (SCO)
If you think you have problems now -- just imagine if that mole is able to tap into the database Homeland Security has... Talk about getting the fox to run the chicken coop.
;)
Spam will be the least of your worries when every advertiser with the money to buy it has access to data about you that you may not even know about yourself.
Of course, the US government would > do anything like that (would they)?
I'll try to remember that the next time I'm visiting the USA and need to provide fingerprints, retina scan and details about my personal life -- just for the pleasure of doing some shopping south of the border...
Most citizens of the U.S. don't understand the violence of their government.
If you consider the history of the 24 wars since WW2 the U.S. has started, all of them have resulted in destabilization of the target countries. That destabilization has resulted in more deaths than the U.S. government killed directly.
The U.S. government has killed directly perhaps 3,000,000 people since the beginning of the Vietnam war. However, an informed person comes to the conclusion that the total number of deaths as a result of U.S. government action is perhaps 11,000,000.
The U.S. government is talking about the "end" of its war, but there will be a lot more killing in the next 2 decades that has its root in what is happening now.
Offtopic, big time. Infact, it's a shame there isn't a moderation button for "blast clean off the face of the internet". I could leap into a big spill about how wrong you are, and how skewed your information is, but i think the facts quite well speak for themselves, you should look at them sometime.
Let me guess your position: 1) You are right. 2) But you didn't read any of the 35 books listed in the linked article because you don't need to, you are right. 3) The corruption of hiring someone known to be willing to do things adversarial to the common good has no connection with the corruption of two people with oil interests starting a war in which the major thing accomplished is to shift oil profits from people inside Iraq to people inside the United States.
I hate the way that IRV advocates like to say there should be more than two choices in the voting booth, yet they are only willing to consider two choices for voting systems.
Yes, IRV is slightly better than Plurality. But if you're going to bother with complex ranked ballots, you may as well go whole hog with Condorcet. IMO, Approval Voting beats IRV by a wide margin and is several-fold simpler to implement.
What needs to be measured now is not the number of Iraqis killed, but the average number per year. The U.S. is well on its way to beating Saddam in the long run. Remember, every war causes destabilization that last sometimes a hundred years or more.
Remember that the U.S. government does not keep information about how many people it has killed.