Slashback: Hollywood, Commons, Misidentification

A handful of updates, corrections and further thoughts on recent Slashdot stories follow; read on for updates on the Real-ID Act, Hollywood consultant math professor Jonathan Farley, the real first losers (and winners of the U.S. Open's Aibo League) at the 2005 Robo-Cup, and more. Details below.

Keeping America strong by making mislabeling the problem! It really isn't too late to avoid the worst of the Real-ID Act, and Bruce Scheier's essay on it should be required reading.

Needs more cowbell! c1one writes "In an update to the story Trent Reznor Challenges Music Norms, there has been an "Unofficial The Hand that Feeds Remix Contest." The contest has produced an extreme range of styles, from Hip-Hop to HeeHaw and even a few lounge versions, to name a few. The point though, is that after listening to almost 400 remixes, some of the tracks rival the level of professionalism and creativity found on some of the "official" halo releases. The contest deadline was 5/5/05 and voting by 20 appointed international judges ranging from a Berklee College of Music graduate and various studio engineers to a former Nothing Studio's intern has commenced. They will determine a top ten list using the "nine inch rating scale" that should be available to entertain and to vote on soon."

Graceful reactions are worth emulating. Author Will Iverson writes with a reaction to Simon Chappell's review of his book Apache Jakarta Commons :

"Hi Guys!

I would just like to respond regarding the Slashdot review as posted:

1. The book itself is published under an open license - the material in the book will be available as a free electronic download in a few months.
2. Yes, the last 125 pages *is* (for all intents and purposes) the printed javadoc. This was included at the request of the publisher, and it is valuable for some people.

So... I don't know how negatively the review was influenced by the inclusion of the Apache material, but it is entirely above-board per the Apache license and essentially reciprocal - I'm giving the material in the book back to the community via a free license to download the material.

Oh, and as an FYI, book writing is hardly a cash cow - I only wish. ;)

Cheers & best wishes,

Will Iverson

A classic case of Americans all looking alike. Of the post "German Robot Dogs Dominate 2005 RoboCup U.S. Open," Ethan Tira-Thompson writes "The linked article has it wrong -- the German team played CMU, not UT Austin. Major screwup on the AP's part, but they don't say who wrote the original article! "

Here's an excerpt from the team's CMU team's announcement:

From: Manuela Veloso Date: May 10, 2005 2:51:14 PM EDT To: scs-all@cs.cmu.edu Subject: US Open Champs :-)

Hi,

We won the RoboCup US Open, in the AIBO league. We played UPenn in the final and won 2-1 in overtime. UPenn (Dan Lee) and UT Austin (Peter Stone) came second and third, playing very well and very close to us. They are great teams. Our team, CMDash'05 still has a long way to go to better prepare for the Internationl RoboCup in Japan in July :-)

Please congratulate the complete team for the USOpen victory:

Sonia Chernova, team leader, CSD PhD student, robot behaviors, motion learning Colin McMillen, CSD PhD student, teamwork, networking, goalie Paul Rybski, RI PostDoc, state estimation, multi-robot world modeling, behaviors Juan Fasola, CSD junior, vision, defender, behaviors, motion Felix vonHundelshausen, CSD PostDoc, vision Alex Trevor, CSD senior, vision Sabine Hauert, exchange CS Master student from Switzerland, localization, behaviors Raquel Ros Espinoza, visitor from Barcelona, behaviors, vision

and with the help at the Open of the veterans: Doug Vail, CSD PhD student, vision James Bruce, CSD PhD student, vision, motion"

Hey, they got most of it right. A Harvard Crimson story linked from a Slashdot post headlined "Mathematicians Become Hollywood Consultants" described Jonathan Farley, a math professor who co-founded a consulting agency to help Hollywood get mathematics right in movies an television shows. Farley wrote to point out that his neither a Harvard post-doctoral fellow nor a professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo, writing "I am not and never have been either. (I am a tenured professor elsewhere and have been for several years.) This was an incorrect statement initially made by poor reporters at the Harvard University student newspaper. " Farley points to this Boston Globe story which gets it right.

Comments

-1, REDUNDANT

[Seumas]

A handful of updates, corrections and further thoughts on recent Slashdot stories follow; read on for updates on the Real-ID Act, Hollywood consultant math professor Jonathan Farley, the real first losers (and winners of the U.S. Open's Aibo League) at the 2005 Robo-Cup, and more. Details below.A handful of updates, corrections and further thoughts on recent Slashdot stories follow; read on for updates on the Real-ID Act, Hollywood consultant math professor Jonathan Farley, the real first losers (and winners of the U.S. Open's Aibo League) at the 2005 Robo-Cup, and more. Details below.

WAY TO GO SLASHDOT!

No longer are duplicate stories enough. Nor are duplicate stories on the same day or within the same hour. No, NOW WE DUPLICATE THE STORY WITHIN ITSELF!

Congratulations!

Re:-1, REDUNDANT

[Anonymous Coward]

Well since this blurb isn't really about anything in particular, the post I'm writing right now can't be offtopic, right?

Re:-1, REDUNDANT

[thinkliberty]

They did this dupe so they would not have to dupe the article later.

If they can keep the dupes down to a single post it's a start!

Re:-1, REDUNDANT

[isomeme]

Haven't you ever heard of signal redundancy? Clearly the /. editors consider the web (or readers' brains) to be a lossy transmission medium, and are taking appropropriate steps to insure successful transmission.

Re:-1, REDUNDANT

[mangu]

NOW WE DUPLICATE THE STORY WITHIN ITSELF!

No, the answer is simpler than that. You see, they are running Linux, which runs X-Window. In X, you select some text and click the middle mouse button on another window to paste your selection. However, the mid-button is less used than the left one, so the contacts get dirty. When they clicked the mid button, the dirty contacts bounced and registered two clicks, so the selected text was pasted twice.

Re:-1, REDUNDANT

[GrassMunk]

You know what. We're not retarded. We all read and saw that it was a mistake. We dont need 700 threads about how this was a dupe. 1 will do. Infact, 1 is to many, i dont read the comments to hear people bitch about slashdot, im interested in the tidbits of info in the comments.

You're like the spazz kid at the movie who gets pissed cause his free movie pass was to Electra. Yes its shitty. Don't like it? Don't come here. Maybe if everyone shutup for once we could actually have some decent discussions.

All US base are...

[Moray_Reef]

Please lets keep down the "your papers please" posts, these ID's will have RFID, 'they' will be able to check you papers anytime, anyplace. I'm sure putting your ID in an anti-static bag to prevent reading will not be very popular with 'the man.'

And by the way, I grow more fond of my sig at every posting. ;)

Re:All US base are...

[t_allardyce]

Exactly! In Soviet Russia you show your papers, in George Bush's America, papers show you!

In the old days you would be asked for your papers and then told to move along, but now they can just tell you to move along, much more efficient.

Re:All US base are...

[John Hasler]

> I'm sure putting your ID in an anti-static bag
> to prevent reading will not be very popular with
> 'the man.'

An antistatic bag won't do the job. You really do need tinfoil.

Re:All US base are...

[rusty0101]

Duct tape wallets lined with aluminized mylar should have the desired effect. You will probalby want to drop it into the x-ray basket as you go through airport security, but that's your decision. Besides you already know they are going to ask to see some identification there, so it sholud not be 'unexpected'.

It's the pulling you off into a dark alley to ask for your papers because they couldn't rf-scan you as you were walking down the street that will probably be the greatest pain.

-Rusty

Re:All US base are...

[jc42]

putting your ID in an anti-static bag to prevent reading will not be very popular with 'the man.'

Probably not. But they'll have to put up with it, for the same reason that they were forced to allow general use of encryption. RealID is an open invitation to identity theft, as is any ID based on RFID. It can be read without you knowing any time you get close to a hidden RFID reader.

Carrying a RealID card around unshielded makes about as much sense as sending your login/password across the Net in the clear. Anyone with any sense will shield the former, just as they encrypt the latter. No amount of intoning "National Security" will change this.

Sure, we'll hear lots of reassuring words. But all it'll take is a few reports of stolen RealID info, and reassuring words simply won't work.

We might note that there are already several RF-shielded wallets for sale in the US. I'll bet that sales will soon increase. And, y'know, my wallet is getting a bit old and worn ...

Re:All US base are...

[Almost-Retired]

Well, I've worked around tv transmitters with leakage fields that probably have exceeded fcc specs by a factor of 100x when in test config as opposed to on air config. Never lost a credit cards data yet.

But, this rfid thing, with its capability to read this crap while its still in my pocket, without my knowledge, strikes me as a serious invasion of privacy I would druther not have.

The possibility that someone with a portable reader could walk down a busy street and get all the data that would allow an identity theft to be done to hundreds of people in a single 10 minute walk just plain scares the crap out of me.

I had enough of a row with bill collectors in past years, who thought I was my worthless alky son (I was dumb enough to name him Jr.) and he convieniently leaves that off his signature when he signs up for a charge account. I've had to use my SS number to prove they had the wrong person as the target of their collection efforts on 3 occasions now because of that.

Haveing that data effectively posted for the whole world to read at their command should scare the hell out of everybody. It would certainly be poetic justice if the first 600 people to suffer the pain of that were our combined congressional houses congresscritters & the shrubs in the white house. And any SCOTUS judges who think its ok when it comes up for the 'is it constitutional' test when that case comes up. It will you know. The question is not IF, but WHEN.

--
No Cheers on this one, Gene

Real-ID Act

[alexandreracine]

Sooooooo... is this the thing that will take a lot of money from the US tax payers to identify 12 persons per 30 years instead of looking the reports that you will be attacked by some people in planes that you knew all along?

REAL ID

[Xeroc]

"It really isn't too late to avoid the worst of the Real-ID Act, and Bruce Scheier's essay on it should be required reading."

Yes, definitely! I really like the points he makes, such as that REAL ID is bad because:

- Real addresses on all cards, even for undercover police officers
- Insecure RFID technology allowing unauthorized access
- Machine readable = ATM > 7-11's Database > Choicepoint > Spammers and Identity Theifs
- Expensive ($120 million estimated per state!) and unfunded! The last thing we need are more deficits!
- Power grab by national government

And the best of all, besides it probably decreasing security:

- Polls overwhelmingly show no one wants it! And over 600 organizations oppose it!

Now, if that doesn't sound like a completely botched-up job, I don't know what is.

Re:REAL ID

[Anonymous Coward]

besides it probably decreasing security:

Tell me about it. I recently had to get cleared to work at a federal site. The first thing I get is an email request for Name, SSN, place of birth, etc. I told the guy I wasn't stupid enough to send that over plaintext email. I didn't bother to ask how many of my coworker's data had already been forwarded. Since then he has accumulated a huge stack of information on all of us, which will all be sent to someone, who will send it to someone else, who will do who knows what. My personal information was never so much at risk until the Department of Homeland Security got involved.

On the other hand, five minutes alone in my manager's office, and I could sign up for a dozen Real-ID cards. It pays to have backups, you know.

Re:REAL ID

[Caseyscrib]

- Real addresses on all cards, even for undercover police officers

I suspect this is going to be a problem for repo and tow-truck guys. I have spoken with a few of them and they all say rule #1 is never give out your address. They put their PO Box on their license, but some don't even like to give that out. They do this because there are some crazy people who shoot at them and all sorts of stuff.

Re:REAL ID

[Caseyscrib]

From his article on Identity Cards:

My argument may not be obvious, but it's not hard to follow, either. It centers around the notion that security must be evaluated not based on how it works, but on how it fails.

It doesn't really matter how well an ID card works when used by the hundreds of millions of honest people that would carry it. What matters is how the system might fail when used by someone intent on subverting that system: how it fails naturally, how it can be made to fail, and how failures might be exploited.

I thought it was worth repeating.

Schneider on REAL ID

[GQuon]

REAL ID requires that driver's licenses contain actual addresses, and no post office boxes. There are no exceptions made for judges or police -- even undercover police officers. This seems like a major unnecessary security risk.

Yeah, because everybody know that undercover police officers take their real ID papers with them under cover. [/sarcasm]
If there's a need to keep the address of judges and police officers secret, then allow them to list FAKE addresses, or rather an address that is re-routed through a mail screening service. Don't allow any Tom, Dick, and Harry to list their address as
Box 5, Jean Climax' Barber, Maildrop and Internet Café.

REAL ID also prohibits states from issuing driver's licenses to illegal aliens. This makes no sense, and will only result in these illegal aliens driving without licenses -- which isn't going to help anyone's security.

How does that make no sense? Like, knowing who people are before giving them identification? If they drive so horribly without a license, what would make them try to get one?

Re:Schneider on REAL ID

[Locke2005]

Most police officers already using the address of their precinct office instead of their home address whenever they give out an address, precisely to keep perps from tracking down where they live.

Re:Schneider on REAL ID

[oirtemed]

Because judges and polices officers are entitled to more rights and protection than regular people? I don't think so..... And this is coming from someone who aspires to be a judge, or atleast be in the legal field. When the priveleged have more rights and the misbalance is there, that's when it falls aparts.

Re:Schneider on REAL ID

[Trepalium]

There is a difference between your postal address, and physical address. The idea is that it's not for sending you mail, but to find YOU.

Incorrect reporting

[jlowery]

This was an incorrect statement initially made by poor reporters at the Harvard University student newspaper.

Which is why one should never assume anything from a student newspaper (or Slashdot) is fact.

Just a Comment

[serutan]

Just a comment. I wanted to say how much I enjoy reading the stories posted on Slashdot, and participating in the interesting discussions. People express lot of different points of view that I never would have thought of on my own.

Just a comment. I wanted to say how much I enjoy reading the stories posted on Slashdot, and participating in the interesting discussions. People express lot of different points of view that I never would have thought of on my own.

REAL ID

[Seumas]

I presume that all of the REAL ID attributes that are applied to driver's licenses are also applied to state identifications? I have not seen that addressed anywhere.

See, I have a problem with that. Driving is a privilege and not a right. If you don't want to participate, just don't get a license and don't drive. However, existing is not an option and to do anything (get a library card, bank account, internet access, rent an apartment, get a job) you have to have an identification card.

So the only way to avoid the requirements of this REAL ID thing is to remove yourself entirely from the technological, social and economic grids. You won't be able to live anywhere, buy anything or work anywhere. So as long as you can do without that, you'll be okay.

Schneier

[smittyoneeach]

REAL ID is expensive. It's an unfunded mandate: the federal government is forcing the states to spend their own money to comply with the act.

This is one of the more interesting surrealities of US public discourse.
It's really, ultimately, taxpayer dollars, right? Or can someone school me on the point, preferrable in an Alan Greenspan mumble?

Re:Schneier

[rafimg]

Yes, states and the federal government are both funded by taxes, but they are different pools of money from different sources. The federal tax base consists primarily of funds collected via the federal income tax, with small amounts coming from import tariffs and the like. States each choose how to raise money and usually have their own income taxes, but those are usually much lower and supplemented by sales taxes and possibly property taxes (although property tax tends to go to municipalities, at least it does where I'm from).

In any case, the reason unfunded mandates matter is because the federal government effectively tells the states how to spend their money, irrespective of any budgetary plans each state might have. In effect, the federal government gets to claim it's being more fiscally responsible than it really is because these expenditures aren't showing up on its balance sheet, while the states incur extra debt. Worse, the burden of a program like REAL ID will vary by state; those states with relatively sophisticated driver licenses probably won't have to spend as much on compliance as other states.

Re:Schneier

[cmburns69]

But what can the federal government do if the state refuses to comply/implement the RealID card? Generally, the feds threaten to remove funding for roads, infrastructure, etc..

Couldn't states just give the bird to the feds on this? If no consequence is spelled out in the bill, no consequence can be pushed on the state. If the feds pass this, I can see a lot of states passing their own legislation declaring their ID "good enough" (similar to Utah's reaction to "No child left behind").

I'm Bizarro-Harvard!

[monkease]

Okay, I do not get this at all...

From the post:

Farley wrote to point out that his[sic] neither a Harvard post-doctoral fellow nor a professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo, writing "I am not and never have been either. (I am a tenured professor elsewhere and have been for several years.)

FTA:

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Harvard professor Jonathan Farley is an award-winning scholar, but he wouldn't mind being known as a Hollywood mathematician.

So I thought to myself, couldn't he just come out & say he's a Harvard prof., not a grad student? But then, I googled, & lo & behold:

http://math.mit.edu/people/faculty/farley.html

Is he the male equivalent to prime-time Alias? A doppelganger? An elaborate hoax?

Huh?

[l00sr]

A handful of updates, corrections and further thoughts on recent Slashdot stories follow; read on for updates on the Real-ID Act, Hollywood consultant math professor Jonathan Farley, the real first losers (and winners of the U.S. Open's Aibo League) at the 2005 Robo-Cup, and more. Details below.A handful of updates, corrections and further thoughts on recent Slashdot stories follow; read on for updates on the Real-ID Act, Hollywood consultant math professor Jonathan Farley, the real first losers (and winners of the U.S. Open's Aibo League) at the 2005 Robo-Cup, and more. Details below.

The dupes just keep getting closer together, don't they? The dupes just keep getting closer together, don't they?

Re:-2, REDUNDANT

[Anonymous Coward]

NOW WE DUPLICATE THE STORY WITHIN ITSELF!

No, the answer is simpler than that. You see, they are running Linux, which runs X-Window. In X, you select some text and click the middle mouse button on another window to paste your selection. However, the mid-button is less used than the left one, so the contacts get dirty. When they clicked the mid button, the dirty contacts bounced and registered two clicks, so the selected text was pasted twice.

YOU CAN STILL FIGHT THE REAL ID

[hsmith]

Write your GOVERNORS people! The national association of governors isn't a fan of the act and they want to protest it. WRITE YOUR GOVERNOR!!!!! it may still be able to be stopped

Holy crap.

[StikyPad]

It's the first dupe in one post. We've all just seen history folks. In 20 years, your kids (or clones, for those of you who don't/can't breed) will ask you about this moment. Remember it well.

Let me get this one...

[sik0fewl]

Dupe!

Occam's Razor to the rescue!

[zanderredux]

Nah! 8^)

Actually, see, they pasted once, picked up the ringing telephone, and after they ended the conversation, they pasted again, thinking they didn't do it before.

Since it was already 6PM, they never minded checking the text after it was ready, because this Slashback is a lengthy, worksome article that gets little of the usual user input and ended with this unique paragraph-dupe specimen.

See? Occam's Razor! This doesn't require the intricacies of the middle-click-bounces-on-tennis-balls-which-bounces -in-two-separate-walls-boucing-back -into-the-coffee-table-which-in-turn-hits-the-penc il-holder-in-the-desk-that-falls-over-the-middle-b utton-again-trick explanation!

(However, I'm waiting for the day we'll get the dupe-within-dupe story. That day I'll KNOW something is wrong with the Matrix!!!!!)

Re:In principle is national ID a bad idea?

[richmaine]

I tried to use my passport instead of my driver's license to get onto an air force base (where I work). Didn't work. I was amused that the US air force wouldn't accept a US passport as adequate identification, but would accept a state driver's license. It wasn't just one guard either; they had specific instructions that passprts weren't acceptable.

Not Just Soviet Russia

[BSDevil]

I got back from modern Russia yesterday (literally - I was there on holiday for a week) and on four different ocassions I was stopped and asked for my "papers" (AKA my passport).

The first was walking down the street in St. Petersburg - a pair of cops stopped me, and demanded "papers".

The second was as I was getting onto the St. Petersburg metro (I think the station was Moskovstaya). There were a whole bunch of OMON soldiers around, and a pair (and a cop) stopped me and asked for my papers.

The third was when my taxi got pulled over (in a nice part of Moscow) and the cops checked my and the driver's papers.

The fourth was as I was taking a picture of a convoy of important people (I guess they were inportant - they had one hell of an escort) leaving the VE-Day celebrations. As I raised my camera, a passer-by stepped in front of me, pushed me against the nearby wall, showed me his ID (with the cyrilic letters FSB and the shield on it) and demanded my papers in awful english. I pretended to not understand, and after a few tries he lost interest in me and ran to go stop an old lady who crossed the security perimeter.

So it's not only in Soviet Russia - it's in Putin's Russia as well.