Bomb Explodes At PayPal Headquarters

Pooua writes to tell us that an explosive device left outside of PayPal headquarters exploded last night. The explosion was powerful enough to knock out one of their plate glass windows but thankfully that was the only casualty of the blast. Perhaps they should have offered employee protection instead?

Comments

Shouldn't be too difficult..

[ackthpt]

Shouldn't be too difficult to find the culprit, just look for someone extremely dissatisfied with their service.

Seriously, anyone who thought they were having a bad time of it with PayPal will find that experience pales compared to the bad time they'll have for planting a bomb.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[Suzumushi]

Chargeback my account eh!!?

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[wizbit]

Shouldn't be too difficult to find the culprit, just look for someone extremely dissatisfied with their service.

Great, that narrowed down the list by about two. Any other ideas?

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[MyLongNickName]

Thanks. You narrowed the field down to five hundred million people.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[Anonymous Coward]

On the other hand, it might just be a Halloween prank by some disgruntled high school kids.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[Jestrzcap]

My understanding is that this is a significantly large number of people. I imagine they can narrow it down a bit, but I'm betting this still leaves them with hundreds of people on their potential perp list.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[amcdiarmid]

I see that you have never tried to actually use "Safe Harbor" provisions. Lucky you. Paypal operates as a wire transfer service, and as a bank - with the regulations of neither.

I actually tried to use the "Safe Harbor" once. First they told me that I had to wait for the account to be cleaned out. Then they told me to file with my credit card company. Some "Safe Harbor" I'm actually surprised it did not happen sooner, they really have screwed a lot of people along the way.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[joshetc]

From what I've seen a large portion of their customers are extremely dissatisfied with their service. I have been with them for ~7 years and have never had an issue yet I'm still somewhat dissatisfied simply based on what they have done to some of my friends. It seems they are always way too buyer friendly until one of your friends get scammed for nothing and left with the bill. Funny how that works I guess..

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[Frymaster]

Great, that narrowed down the list by about two. Any other ideas?

yeah. paypal set the bomb off themselves. now, if anyone complains about paypal's service, they instantly become a suspect in a 'terrorist' act.

great way to guarantee customer satisfaction!

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[ackthpt]

Great, that narrowed down the list by about two. Any other ideas?

While the first part of the post was in jest, that's probably exactly how the investigation will procede. Investigators will likely request PayPal turn over letters from irate customers. I certainly hope most slashdotters maintained their cool enough not to send threats.

The news on KCBS was a bit more detailed than what the link told of. It's a four storey building in downtown San Jose. One plate-glass window was shattered, these windows are designed to withstand minor earthquakes, so it was said the explosion was powerful, not just a hand full of M-80's.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[Amouth]

that my friend is very evil.. and yet wise at the same time..

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[jimstapleton]

Shouldn't be too difficult to find the culprit, just look for someone extremely dissatisfied with their service. That narrows it down to... What, 9/10ths of their customers? Anyway, it could also be the result of someone who was phished and misguidedly plamed PP, or someone who thinks PP is just an unpleasant company, even if they had never dealt with them...

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[Anonymous Coward]

Disgruntled high schoolers who plant bombs should be shot. All "disgruntled" people who plant bombs should be shot anyway. There's a fine line between terrorism and protest and while we all know how misused the label terrorism is, but I think if actual explosives are involved, it definetly qualifies for a big T label. I don't care if they managed to kill 3'000 or just bombed some glass, the only reward for these "lesser" terrorists is being spared by the Chair or the Injection. Anyway, off to gitmo with these clowns or save money and shoot them at the scene, I don't care. When you plant explosives, you deserve anything you get. And yes, an attempt is sufficient. Thanks for playing.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[Ron Bennett]

One will find lots of them over at http://www.paypalsucks.com/

Ron

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[Richard_at_work]

In the UK they are regulated as a 'electronic money institution' under the Financial Services Authority, so Im happy. These regulations cover Paypals entire European business arm.

Also, I must be one of their rare happy customers - two weeks ago somehow my Paypal account was compromised and several thousand USD was transfered around, with no fuss at all every single one of those transactions have been reversed at no cost to myself. All it took was 20 minutes to a local rate number, no queues, very helpful Irish call handlers.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Ok, that's overkill. I'd suspect strongly this was a basic dry ice, mentos, and diet coke bomb.....that's certainly enough to take out a window (and not much else).

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[WoLpH]

Who says it's intentional? Perhaps someone just parked his Dell laptop there (those 20" laptops are heavy you know!).

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[Em Adespoton]

If you read the thread above, you'll notice that these were earthquake-rated windows... it would take quite a blast to take out one of those.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[squiggleslash]

Shouldn't be too difficult to find the culprit, just look for someone extremely dissatisfied with their service.

There is absolutely no way that a customer could have planted this bomb. Nobody who has ever been a PayPal customer has any idea how to contact PayPal, let alone their actual physical address...

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[Anonymous Coward]

I was the one who modded this 'overrated'. I logged out to explain why. You see, I am tired of all the exaggeration on Slashdot. There aren't even that many account holders on Paypal, thus no way that many people are angry. The fact is, most people who use Paypal (like me) are happy with it. I modded 'overrated' instead of 'flamebait' because I know you Slashdot zealots all think alike and would metamod me down.

So suck it, Slashbots.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[Anonymous Coward]

That's just what I would expect from someone called "Marxist Hacker 42": "hey, they didn't hurt somebody, cut'em some slack, mmkay?". Dear Sir, whether you are a Marxist or not, bombing populated buildings is no joke, no fun and no small deal but terrorism, the real deal. It starts exactly there. The fact that these scumbags didn't have the resources to build up a bigger bang won't be honored by the police, I hope.

Sometimes I question the sanity of this world and mine, when dozens of people here on Slashdot consider a bomb to be a legitimate means of protest or even funny when exploded on disliked entities. Thank you all, but we civilized people don't kill, maim or bomb anyone who we don't like. If you try anyway, prepare for the worst.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[drinkypoo]

Disgruntled high schoolers who plant bombs should be shot. All "disgruntled" people who plant bombs should be shot anyway.

"Don't kill people, or we'll kill you." Doesn't it strike you as being hypocritical to have a death penalty when there's a law against killing people? Not to mention that in our system it actually costs more to kill someone than to keep them in prison for life.

There's a fine line between terrorism and protest and while we all know how misused the label terrorism is, but I think if actual explosives are involved, it definetly qualifies for a big T label.

You said it, kiddo: "label". Terrorism is a label. If you bomb the living fuck out of a country full of people you consider to be inferior to you, indiscriminately killing both soldiers and civilians, that's war; but if you deliver one bomb to a key location, that's terrorism. That's all bullshit. War is hell no matter what you call it. These bombers are using the only delivery method they have available - themselves. It doesn't make it right but it's important to understand that these people don't just get a stick up their ass and decide they don't like us one day. We carry out a systematic program of control over a lot of these people and when they realize it sometimes they become angry. We also have a long history of exterminating the civilians in countries that later on, for "some reason", become breeding grounds for terrorism. Frequently, we have set up a puppet government in these places long before any of this stuff happens, as well. In almost all cases we have provided the perpetrators with the training and often even the equipment used in the so-called "terrorist" attacks. Speaking of that label, don't you think people are terrified when we're saturation bombing their countries?

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[Shawn is an Asshole]

PayPal Inc.
2211 North First Street
San Jose, CA 95131
(402) 935-2050 (thanks for the 1-800...)

At least that's what the WHOIS record says. It's also buried in different places around the site.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[Anonymous Coward]

People who mod a comment down because they disagree with it are assholes.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[Gilmoure]

Evil wisdom? At last I know how to properly play my lawful evil half-elf/ gnome cleric/ranger/illusionist!

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[Pharmboy]

Of course, the admins here KNOW you moderated then posted this rant as AC as a way to circumvent the system, and I would hope they would catch that to disallow you to moderate any more.

We already have enough moderators with an axe to grind or a personal point to prove, we don't need you.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[SillyNickName4me]

When you plant explosives, you deserve anything you get. And yes, an attempt is sufficient. Thanks for playing.

Hmm, it has been argued that those who founded the USA were in fact terrorists. I'm sure the Brits saw it that way back then, and I'd hope you are consistant enough to apply your argument to them as well?

For that matter, the current government of the USA, as well as that of many other countries, seem to be terrorists and should be shot on the spot according to your argument..

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[mzwaterski]

He had to log out so his moderation would not be removed. You can't mod and post with your username in this same story. I have no comment on the rest of the comment, I just wanted to point out that his posting as AC does not make him a coward per se.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[malsdavis]

It's scarey now that something like this - which is obviously a purely criminal act (one of vandalism and possibly GBH or even murder) - can now be called a "terrorist act". With all the negative connotations which are implied. I wonder what else our government will start declaring as "terrorism", surely any malicious act could ultimately fall under the government's ever widening definition of the word.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[leshert]

Tom Clancy called. He wants the inciting incident for Red Storm Rising back.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[Marxist Hacker 42]

I once saw a bomb of the type I just mentioned (dry ice, diet coke, mentos) take a steel door right off it's hinges, placed right. It still ain't terrorism- it's little more than vandalism.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[smokin_juan]

Why? Because you're a coward.

Well, no... because you can't moderate and post in the same thread under the same login.
OK, he may be a coward, but I don't know how many times I've moderated and the wanted to give someone a good what for.
Hmm, come to think of it I rarely mod down.

I'm just bored. Ignore this, but I'm posting it anyways 'cause I've never used this fancy blockquote tag.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[cshark]

Or how about this:
Since we're talking about hypothetical conspiracies.

Paypal is owned by Ebay, who is largely controlled by the Saudis (don't actually know that, but it sounds good). The Bush Administration needed to demonstrate that we are still not safe in this country to the voting public (after all, it is an election year). So a call was placed to management at Ebay. Anyway, the Saudis worked with their contacts to find a bomber, who was more than happy to place the bomb (after all everyone knows there's no such thing as domestic terrorism, doncha know). And a deal was made, a bomb was placed, and a justification for ever more strict legislation was offered. Now to see if we take the bait as voters and elect more Republicans in California. Moo hah hah...

I think it all comes down to this:
Will Paypal start selling pie?
I believe they will.
But only apple, and you will be required to like it.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[smokin_juan]

A bank! holy shit...

The first rule of fightclub is you never talk about fightclub.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[LunaticTippy]

I was a terrorist in my youth. I'd blow up army men with firecrackers, filled tennis balls with gasoline, even constructed solid fuel rockets with an explosive payload. Of course terrorism was a lot more popular in the 70s than it is now.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[Marxist Hacker 42]

That's just what I would expect from someone called "Marxist Hacker 42": "hey, they didn't hurt somebody, cut'em some slack, mmkay?". Dear Sir, whether you are a Marxist or not, bombing populated buildings is no joke, no fun and no small deal but terrorism, the real deal. It starts exactly there. The fact that these scumbags didn't have the resources to build up a bigger bang won't be honored by the police, I hope.

This is barely VANDALISM- nothing close to REAL terrorism. I had a similar incident, using what I would believe to be a similar device, knock a steel door off of it's hinges when I was a college student in the dorms. The perp paid for the damages and went into counseling for anger management, andthat was the end of it.

REAL terrorism, I guarantee you, will be accompanied by body bags, hopefully at random. The Chechnyans had an adequate method a few centuries ago that used a single man, with a knife, running through an enemy camp at night and slicing every 3rd throat- so that no matter who you were,if you were still alive, you woke up next to a corpse. Now THAT'S terrorism.

Sometimes I question the sanity of this world and mine, when dozens of people here on Slashdot consider a bomb to be a legitimate means of protest or even funny when exploded on disliked entities. Thank you all, but we civilized people don't kill, maim or bomb anyone who we don't like. If you try anyway, prepare for the worst.

And that's why civilization will lose the war on terrorism- and lets economic terrorists in the corporations walk all over them with no protest.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[shaitand]

I hope not. The whole point of AC posting is that the admins don't know whether the person who posted that message really moderated or not. If actions are taken in this case then it opens the window for AC's to hurt moderators simply by claiming they are the moderator and they mod'd like they did for 'insert bad reason here'.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[OriginalArlen]

hard to bring this up without being seen as flamebait, but... I noticed US military using the term "terrorists" to describe what the BBC might call "militants" or "insurgents" (or possibly "fighters") - that is, people attacking US military forces. Now I want to be clear that in general I think killing people is BAD, be they civilian, soldier, Iraqi, American, whatever. I have no problem with the term 'terrorist' to describe those people involved in the deathsquads kidnapping random people and torturing them with electric drills, or planting bombs in mosques, or blowing themselves up in a market square. But if the word is to mean anything, it must be a definition that is consistent across many times, places, and situations. Consider the French anti-nazi resistance in WW2. What about the killing of Heinrich Heydrich in Prague? If you say "Ah, but those people in iraq are leaving IEDs beside roads and detonating them by remote control" -- you are defining your word by dint of a particular method of killing people; how are IEDs different from zapping targets with laser guided bombs designated by a drone? Come to that (going back to WW2) what about the German blitz on London? What about the Allied thousand-bomber raids? What about Hiroshima, Nagasaki? "They were military targets!" - so are Coalition soldiers. "They (the attackers) were wearing uniform!" the French resistance (and special forces all over the world) weren't. And so on.

Anyone like to descend into this maelstrom of semantics? ;)

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[voice_of_all_reason]

Thank you all, but we civilized people don't kill, maim or bomb anyone who we don't like for the last 50 out of ~8000 years.

Fixed.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[cshark]

Just to point something out, I didn't see anything especially Marxist about that post other than the poster's screen name. Do you judge the content of everyone on Slashdot based on what they call themselves? Not that I disagree with either of you, but if you're using Slashdot as your baromerter for sanity, then there's something seriously wrong. That said, there was an article a couple weeks ago here on /. about the first documented case of Web rage. Could this be a second?

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[harks]

"Don't kill people, or we'll kill you." Doesn't it strike you as being hypocritical to have a death penalty when there's a law against killing people?"

Though I disagree with the death penalty for a variety of reasons, no, it doesn't strike me as hypocritical. We have prison when there's laws against kidnapping. We have taxes when there's laws against extortion. We have the lottery when there's laws against gambling. It's one of the features of government to be able to do things that are forbidden to individuals.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[OriginalArlen]

Corollary to the old saw about "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter". Call it Arlen's Corollary... "Today's terrorist might be tomorrow's government". Witness the IRA, the ANC, Danny whatsisname who ended up in the Bundestag, and then there's Israel... (Enough, already! ;)

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[GrayCalx]

I just found it interesting how the OP was talking about internal acts of terrorism. ie, high-school shooting rampages, the Unabomber, and someone bombing a paypal store. You took that and ran with it all the way to a comparison to the war in Iraq, perhaps the war in Afghanistan, and who knows, maybe all wars that were, are and will be.

While you sarcastically used the word "label", thats exactly what words are. I don't see how you can disagree with the fact that a military based operation of ground forces and/or bombings can be described with the same word as an anonymous individual or group planting a bomb or mailing out bombs. Not to say either one is right or wrong. Just as you wouldn't call an assasin a war. Just as you wouldn't call a man killing his wife a terrorist, though I'm sure both attacks would inspire terror in the victim.

I realize all you see and hear are horror stories of a war gone wrong. Of innocent deaths and mistakes being made. The media pushes what sells I guess... but have hope that their is still good in the world, most likely in those very civilians that are being killed, and also in those who are doing the bombing but have simply been misled. If you let horror and hate and terror get to you, it will eat you up and spawn only more hatred within you which will then be directed outwards, in attitudes and judgements of those who may have a different opinion. And once that happens then the war-mongers/terrorists really have won.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[Digital Vomit]

"Don't kill people, or we'll kill you." Doesn't it strike you as being hypocritical to have a death penalty when there's a law against killing people?

Not unless I was so obtuse as to think the two kinds of killing you describe are morally equivalent. Do you also have trouble distinguishing the contextual meaning of other words, e.g. do you love your daughter in the exact same way you love your wife or your dog?

There's a world of difference between execution by society as punishment for an act that is recognized as extremely wrong by pretty much every culture on earth and plain-old, selfish murder.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[finity]

In the case of Iraq, many of the same folks that kill soldiers with roadside bombs kill civilians indiscriminately. I think targeting civilians is what most people consider the definition of terrorism. At the same time, some of the reports I've seen on the news recently indicate that it is not one group of people that are attacking the troops, so different ones may or may not attack civilians. I don't know. The whole damn thing is pretty confusing.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[Pharmboy]

It's called an IP address and rest assured, /. logs all IP addresses, like every other website. A website MUST know your IP, or there is nothing to route the packets to...

So yes, if you moderate, then post as AC (or just post logged in, then logout and post as AC) they know it is you. Obviously, proxies and private networks muddy this, but that is not an issue 99% of the time. The purpose of AC is so you and I don't know who the AC is, but much of the time, /. does.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[soft_guy]

Shouldn't be too difficult to find the culprit, just look for someone extremely dissatisfied with their service.

I think you would need to narrow the group of suspects just a bit. You just described almost anyone who ever used their service.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[MaWeiTao]

History is written by the victor, not the loser. The American founding fathers are not considered terrorists, but freedom fighters because they won the Revolutionary War. There is another distinction here. Their target was the British. Civilians weren't their target, they were primarily engaged in conventional warfare. Psychology is certainly one aspect of warfare, but simply because it is applied in conflict doesn't automatically make it terrorism.

Terrorism is generally a tactic used by a weaker force, arguably the losing force. The goal isn't to meet the enemy soldier in battle, but rather to specifically target the civilian population in order to instill fear. The two goals are to force the populace to bend to the will of terrorists or, especially in the case of Iraq, to decimate public support for the conflict. They create a sense of hopelessness by dragging on a conflict and blend into the civilian population in order to make it difficult for the superior force to effectively engage them. It's basically a public relations campaign conducted in the worst imaginable way. And they can only operate effectively when the superior force is forced to exercise restraint. If the US swept through Iraq with impunity the terrorists would be forced into a conventional war.

So, by that specific definition the US is not a terrorist state. It may make for potent soundbites, but it's not the truth. The US is trying to engage in conventional warfare, which is probably a losing proposition in this case. They aren't intentionally targeting them; accidental killings don't qualify as terrorism. You may not like what the US is doing, but it's a far cry from what terrorists do.

Back to my original point, if the terrorists win this conflict then they will indeed be considered freedom fighters. They will have repelled the invading "evil empire". Interestingly, they likely wouldn't refer to Americans as terrorists because it would devalue the victory. A victory over terrorists isn't particularly impressive, when that's what they themselves are.

Like I said, history is on the side of the victor. Although even that seems to be changing in the Western world, but that's another story.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[palantir0]

"Don't kill people, or we'll kill you."

Taking out people that don't fit into the society because the kill people is quite different than the trite statement above. The only issue I have with the death penalty is deaths of innocent people (hence the long delay in carrying out the death sentence). Keeping them in jail for life would be better.

The fact that people would sing a different tune had there actually been WMD in iraq of any significant portions would have drastically changed the war outlook but not the outcome, it was botched from the beginning.

Terrorism usually defined as delivering a bomb to a key location that happens to be civilians for the sake of random killing (terrorizing the populus) rather that trying to kill military targets; manufacturing facilities, etc. Most people I know don't consider Iraq and other countries inferior but simply behind the industrialization curve.
You also use indiscriminate killing of soldiers and civilians. No, I think its purposefull killing of soldiers with innocents getting killed because the soldiers being bombed like to hide behind the civilian shield and obviously intel mistakes happen. That's the unforunate reality of war.

But back to the topic at hand, I really hope the bomber does get his life sentence. I have no issue with protesting even typically civil disobedience, too bad people feel like bombing someone for something that was likely their mistake in the first place. People get burned, not because of paypal but because they didn't verify the end person. Don't use paypal may be the result. It's not paypal's fault that you used their service. I've heard of some lousy tactics by paypal and I avoid using the service in all but specific cases but take responsibility for one's actions. Paypal didn't screw you, they guy on the end did. Sadly, responsibility seems to be played on everyone else except the people actually involved.

Similar to spilling hot coffee into ones lap and suing. Stupid crap like that. Sry, rambling now.... Cheers

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[shaitand]

I agree entirely with the rest of your post but I'll comment on this part:

'"Don't kill people, or we'll kill you." Doesn't it strike you as being hypocritical to have a death penalty when there's a law against killing people?'

You could say the same about imprisonment. Doesn't it strike you as being hypocritical to force people into cages at gunpoint when there are laws against kidnapping and aggravated assault?

If you have anarchy, everyone who is strong enough has the right to kill or imprison. That right is more natural and 'god given' than any of the more noble pretend rights we wrote into our constitution. We have societies and government to allow us to collectively band together and form a force that we transfer some of our individual rights to. This is born of the fear that there are those stronger than you who will dominate you in ways that are worse than the collective authority's abuse of power.

'Not to mention that in our system it actually costs more to kill someone than to keep them in prison for life.'

You are right. Either we have a death penalty or not. If we are going to have a death penalty then we need to grow some balls and kill the prisoners. It shouldn't cost any more to house the prisoners during the appeals process than it does to house any other prisoner. The current method of execution is both overpriced and more cruel than anything else we could have devised. It is ridiculous to nitpick over the cruelty of a method of execution, as long as torture is not being employed. Extended imprisonment is far more cruel than feeling a few moments of physical pain. Put a razor sharp blade on a 20 ton hydraulic press and you will have a 100% success rate in first cut be-headings. If honest prices are to be had the machine will cost less than $5,000/ea and the price to run it is just a few dollars per execution.

None of that is to say that there should or should not be a death penalty, just logistics around the issue. Personally I do not believe in a deity or magical afterlife and I do not hold any form of life innately more sacred than another. It seems reasonable to me to pull the weeds from the garden that are draining the life from the flowers. If the people are the flowers and weeds than I would rather concentrate on working toward a garden that suits my vision than disputing the need to pull weeds rather than transplant them to another garden.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually I use AC due to the fact that /. won't accept a registration from my email address.
And no I'm not about to go and get new ones hoping to find a host they might accept.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[funfail]

No, no... Somebody set up them the bomb. For great justice.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[SillyNickName4me]

History is written by the victor, not the loser.

1. Only on the short term.
2. Being the victor in no way changes the facts.
3. The label terrorist is often used before there is a victor.

The American founding fathers are not considered terrorists, but freedom fighters because they won the Revolutionary War.

What they are is a matter of perspective. To the Brittish at the time, they were terrorists. To those who supported their cause they were definitely not terrorists.

There is another distinction here. Their target was the British. Civilians weren't their target, they were primarily engaged in conventional warfare.

That is a relevant point, but you can commit terrorism without directly attacking civilians, as long as your actions still cause 'terror' for those civilians.

Psychology is certainly one aspect of warfare, but simply because it is applied in conflict doesn't automatically make it terrorism.

It depends on how it is applied.

Terrorism is generally a tactic used by a weaker force, arguably the losing force.

Uh no, if something is terrorism in no way depends on who commits it or what their position is. It depends on what they do.

The goal isn't to meet the enemy soldier in battle, but rather to specifically target the civilian population in order to instill fear.

The word says it all, it is about spreading terror.

The two goals are to force the populace to bend to the will of terrorists or, especially in the case of Iraq, to decimate public support for the conflict.

Similar to how the USA government has been trying to decimate public support for any movement they did not like in the southern Americas and for example Vietnam? Their methods were pretty much the same as well, but on a much larger scale.

They create a sense of hopelessness by dragging on a conflict and blend into the civilian population in order to make it difficult for the superior force to effectively engage them.

That is one specific technique, not a definition.

It's basically a public relations campaign conducted in the worst imaginable way. And they can only operate effectively when the superior force is forced to exercise restraint. If the US swept through Iraq with impunity the terrorists would be forced into a conventional war.

Hahaha, if you really believe that, please go learn something about the situations where the USA or any other country tried that.

The biggest problem the USA faced in for example Vietnam is not being able to engage in conventional warfare no matter how hard they tried, and no matter how much resources and lack of rules they threw at it. Maybe pay a bit of attention there...

So, by that specific definition the US is not a terrorist state.

Yeah, by some definition specifically made to ensure it only applies to those you regard as 'evil'...
Changing definitions to suit your argument does not make for having a good argument however.

It may make for potent soundbites, but it's not the truth. The US is trying to engage in conventional warfare, which is probably a losing proposition in this case. They aren't intentionally targeting them; accidental killings don't qualify as terrorism. You may not like what the US is doing, but it's a far cry from what terrorists do.

You see, ETA generally warns about bombings beforehand. Whenever they explicitly target someone it is always either policemen, military or politicians, never civilians. Of course civilians do get caught up by accident at times.

So by your definition, ETA are not terrorists.

Threatening to bomb a country back into the stoneage, and thereby hoping to press the population of that country into overthrowing their own government does make for terrorism in your definition. Why are you ignoring that this is exactly what the USA has tried? Why doesn't this make for terrorism?

You see, you are not only changing the definition to suit your argument, you are also inconsistent in applying it.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[pla]

Thank you all, but we civilized people don't kill, maim or bomb anyone who we don't like for the last 50 out of ~8000 years, unless they have sufficiently large oil reserves.

Fixed.

Sorry, you had still missed a spot. Better now.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[davecb]

Earthquakes produce slow pressing, shifting and twisting forces, while explosions produce very very rapid pressure rises. The latter are quite a bit better at breaking glass than the former.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[Anonymous Coward]

You repeated the joke, haha!

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[Iron Condor]

Great, that narrowed down the list by about two.

Oh, there's someone else other than myself who's perfectly satisfied with their service? I had almost given up hope.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[Andrew Kismet]

You just defined "munchkin".

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[Inverted Intellect]

great way to guarantee customer satisfaction!

For both of them?

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[uhlume]

Regardless what you think of the underlying argument, this is a poor analogy. The linguistic ambiguity surrounding the word 'love' is directly rooted in the fact that it's used broadly to describe an entire suite of closely related but distinct emotions. Metaphoric and idiomatic usage notwithstanding, 'killing' suffers no such inherent ambiguity: to kill means only one thing, and that's deprivation of life.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[ottothecow]

you forgot about the part where paypal was trying to replace that window with something more ornamental anyways. Might as well have insurance pay for it.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[fitteschleiker]

Terrorism is performing acts designed to instill fear in a population in order to get that population to bow to the demands of the "terrorists"
ie. It is better to do what they want than to live with such fear.

The september 11 hijackers don't really fit this mold. What exactly are their demands? Is it for the US to stop interfering with their countries? Are their aims simply to convert the world to islam by force? I dont know, or really care what their aims are, but while the small amount of moderately powerful attacks have instilled fear in a small subset of the population of the US, britain and others, its far from the widespread fear a terrorist would hope to generate. I think most of these attacks, (of course they aren't all directly controlled by one organization) are really done with the simple aim of two things.

1. Demonstrate that as powerful as these countries may be, they are not invulnerable.
2. Because of point one, draw the attention that has been lacking for many many years to the things these powerful governments have been doing to other countries, in the name of protecting the priveledges of their relatively wealthy population.

They have already succeeded in both these aims. but the message hasn't got through, and never will.

Don't attack me personally as a sympathizer because I really couldn't give a shit either way

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think you are moderating posts, or logging in or out to post, so what does that have to do with the thread? Oh, nothing.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[RKBA]

Just curious, what's the domain name for the email address that Slashdot won't accept?

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Terrorism is performing acts designed to instill fear in a population in order to get that population to bow to the demands of the "terrorists" ie. It is better to do what they want than to live with such fear.

True. Of course, against a free people they most likely will fail- because it is easier to genocide the terrorists than to do what they want.

The september 11 hijackers don't really fit this mold. What exactly are their demands?

I disagree- but that's because I KNOW their 4 main demands: 1. That the United States military has no business on the Holy Peninsula. 2. That the United States should stop funding the Zionists. 3. That the world needs to establish Justice as deliniated in the Koran. 4. To provide one world government from Mecca as foretold in the Koran.

Is it for the US to stop interfering with their countries?

In the immediate future yes- oddly enough the specific country they wanted us out of (Saudi Arabia), the bases became obsolete upon the invasion of Iraq.

Are their aims simply to convert the world to islam by force?

Also in part- but this is a longer term goal.

I dont know, or really care what their aims are, but while the small amount of moderately powerful attacks have instilled fear in a small subset of the population of the US, britain and others, its far from the widespread fear a terrorist would hope to generate.

Actually, it's been wildly successfull, for it has triggered WWIII.

I think most of these attacks, (of course they aren't all directly controlled by one organization) are really done with the simple aim of two things.

Then you've never bothered to learn the theology- or even listen to your enemy.

1. Demonstrate that as powerful as these countries may be, they are not invulnerable.

Nope- has nothing to do with that.

2. Because of point one, draw the attention that has been lacking for many many years to the things these powerful governments have been doing to other countries, in the name of protecting the priveledges of their relatively wealthy population.

Strike two. Go and actually *read the Koran*. Learn some Arabic.

They have already succeeded in both these aims. but the message hasn't got through, and never will.

Well, considering that neither one of those was among the stated aims of the Jihad, and has never actually been voiced by any Islamic terrorist, I'd say you're way off.

Don't attack me personally as a sympathizer because I really couldn't give a shit either way

You aren't intelligent enough to be a sympathizer- you don't know the first thing about what semitic cultures value, the theology behind the reformation, or any of the motives of the terrorists.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[Kong the Medium]

Its Daniel Cohn Bendit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dany_Cohn-Bendit), you're mentioned. He's just a Member of the European parliament( for France IIRC), not the Bundestag. You might have misplaced him with Joschka Fischer(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joschka_Fisch er), the Ex Secretary of State from FRG. And yes, both where members of the APO in the early seventies and then become leaders or members of goverment.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[Loether]

'Not to mention that in our system it actually costs more to kill someone than to keep them in prison for life.'

The increased cost associated with killing someone is not due to the method of execution. It's the increased cost to house them in a separate more secure part of the prison, "Death row". Not to mention the automatic appeals process that is not afforded to a "normal" prisoner.

A link about death row costs in California: http://www.deathpenalty.org/index.php?pid=cost&men u=1%22

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[drinkypoo]

He had to log out so his moderation would not be removed. You can't mod and post with your username in this same story.

Sorry, I guess I didn't make myself clear. It wasn't necessary to moderate in the first place. If he had something to say, he should have said it as himself, instead of moderating. If he weren't a coward, he would have provided us with his slashdot handle in his anonymously-posted comment.

The fact that I can't read and moderate in the same stories is the reason I marked myself unwilling to moderate. The system ensures that people will only moderate in stories they aren't actually interested in - the stories they're least qualified to moderate. Just another example of how the slashdot moderation system is broken by design.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[Walt Dismal]

The TSA goons will now immediately ban diet coke and Mentos from flights. And if you've been drinking diet coke and eating Mentos, they'll stomach pump you. And if you've even LOOKED at Mentos, they'll have weasels rip your eyeballs out. But at least it keeps Joe Sixpack feeling safer. I, for one, salute our bomb-discouraging, brown-shirted overlords! Who needs that Constitution, it's just a piece of paper anyway.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[Marxist Hacker 42]

And if you've been drinking diet coke and eating Mentos, they'll stomach pump you.

Given what the mythbusters found out about this combination alone, I think that part is chemically automatic- the TSA doesn't need to do that for you (ingredients in the diet coke, mixed with the mentos, will create an automatic and total release of CO2- think HUGE burp).

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[Digital Vomit]

On the contrary, the analogy is quite apt. The linguistic ambiguity surrounding the word 'kill' is also directly rooted in the fact that it's used broadly to describe an entire suite of closely related but distinct actions. The word 'kill' has multiple, diverse meanings, just like the word 'love'.

To rob the meaning of the word "kill" of a proper context is an intellectually dishonest tactic in debating issues like capital punishment. There many orders of mangnitude worth of differences between the following kinds of killing, for example:

• Killing one's spouse because he/she cheated on you
• Killing a mosquito that bit you
• Killing a serial rapist
• Killing a sick, old dog
• Killing an unborn child
• Killing an armed robber

One does not (or, at least, should not) love an infant the same way one loves a spouse. Both people are loved, and the love expressed is fundamentally identical, but the expression of it is different.

Similarly, in the case of the killing an innocent child versus the killing of the person guilty of murdering that same child, both people are killed, and the end result is fundamentally identical, but the reasons for and morality of the two actions are worlds apart.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[drinkypoo]

I just found it interesting how the OP was talking about internal acts of terrorism. ie, high-school shooting rampages, the Unabomber, and someone bombing a paypal store. You took that and ran with it all the way to a comparison to the war in Iraq, perhaps the war in Afghanistan, and who knows, maybe all wars that were, are and will be.

Uh, the GP was also talking about this bomb, which you may notice is the current topic of conversation, and was probably (though not definitely) not planted by a teenager.

We were discussing the use of the word "Terrorism" - He referred to it as a label, and I expounded on the fact that yes, it is in fact a label and may or may not actually mean anything. So I was right on topic and you are not paying attention.

While you sarcastically used the word "label", thats exactly what words are. I don't see how you can disagree with the fact that a military based operation of ground forces and/or bombings can be described with the same word as an anonymous individual or group planting a bomb or mailing out bombs.

So much for reading comprehension. I was disagreeing with the fact that a military based operation of ground forces and/or bombings is not described with the same word as an anonymous individual or group blah blah blah. Actually I didn't say anonymous, nor did I imply it, because many groups take credit for their so-called terrorist actions, but I guess you feel free to infer anything you want from my comments, even if I didn't say it. When will people learn to take me at face value?

I realize all you see and hear are horror stories of a war gone wrong. Of innocent deaths and mistakes being made. The media pushes what sells I guess... but have hope that their is still good in the world, most likely in those very civilians that are being killed, and also in those who are doing the bombing but have simply been misled.

Misled? You've missed the point of their actions entirely. You are the one that has been misled and, while I do not agree with their methods of doing so, this is the message that they are trying to bring to you. Our supposedly civilized nations are parties to genocide and some of those people are upset about it and are willing to kill our civilians to make a point - that is how strongly they feel about it. In the end, what have you got to lose? If you're likely to be killed anyway, you might as well go die for a cause rather than dying as a victim of capitalism.

If you let horror and hate and terror get to you, it will eat you up and spawn only more hatred within you which will then be directed outwards, in attitudes and judgements of those who may have a different opinion. And once that happens then the war-mongers/terrorists really have won.

Obviously, they have already won, because we went to war over it (mind you that's afghanistan, iraq is another matter), we have deprived one another of freedom over it, and we have persecuted our own citizens over it. I mean, people who just look racially ambiguous are getting singled out for cavity searches when they fly and shit like that. Does that really help anyone?

Frankly I'm starting to get paranoid beyond my usual. We have excellent evidence that the federal government knew that 9/11 was being planned but did nothing, and our federal government is doing precisely what "the terrorists" would want them to do - cracking down on our own citizenry. Is it really unreasonably paranoid to believe that just maybe certain elements decided to allow the 9/11 attack to take place when it could have been prevented so that we could institute a social order that is the next closest thing to martial law? I'm not suggesting that this is what happened [yet] but I'm simply saying that the scenario is sounding more and more plausible to me as time passes.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[ackthpt]

Earthquakes produce slow pressing, shifting and twisting forces, while explosions produce very very rapid pressure rises. The latter are quite a bit better at breaking glass than the former.

You haven't experienced the sudden-jolt type, I take it.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[drinkypoo]

There's a world of difference between execution by society as punishment for an act that is recognized as extremely wrong by pretty much every culture on earth and plain-old, selfish murder.

Says you.

Some people [not me] think that all life is sacred and to take any life is wrong.

Some people [like me] think that if you say that people should not kill people it's because you think it's wrong to kill people, and if you think it's wrong to kill people then you yourself should not kill people. Thus killing people for killing people is the classic eye for an eye and we know what that does to the world's vision.

I object to the death penalty only for two reasons: One, we know beyond any doubt that we have executed innocent men; Two, that I find it to be hypocritical to say "it is wrong to kill - and if you do, we will kill you". I don't know how you can find that statement to not be hypocritical, but perhaps you don't know what the word means. The meaning "a pretense of having some desirable or publicly approved attitude" will do nicely here. Is the attitude of it being wrong to kill people publicly approved? Yes. Is the belief only a pretense when you yourself are killing people? Yes. Thus: It is hypocrisy. The dictionary strikes again!

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[fitteschleiker]

Actually, it's been wildly successfull, for it has triggered WWIII.

Hahahaha Enabling a president who resembles an ape, to attack any country that he cannot force to bow to his demands by threat alone is hardly world war three.

Then you've never bothered to learn the theology- or even listen to your enemy.

thats because as I said before, i don't give a shit. They are not my enemy. I don't care if they managed to destroy the Us with millions of suicide bombers, I don't care if the US turns the whole of arabia into one big sheet of glass with a nuke. I just couldn't give a fuck less.

Well, considering that neither one of those was among the stated aims of the Jihad, and has never actually been voiced by any Islamic terrorist, I'd say you're way off.

actually my second point, that of drawing attention to the activities of the US government in those countries, (by attention i was referring to the attention of the non-comatose portion of the US population, sorry for not being more specific), indeed seems to be having some effect towards the first two of the four goals you claim the "terrorists" to have. A lot of US citizens might indeed be wondering what business their military has there, and why they should be in the firing line for their governments insistence on protecting and arming israel

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[drinkypoo]

Similar to spilling hot coffee into ones lap and suing. Stupid crap like that. Sry, rambling now.... Cheers

Sigh.

1. The coffee was over 20 degrees hotter than McDonald's own procedures mandate.
2. The coffee was served in a styrofoam cup. Styrofoam becomes more easily deformable when it is hotter. At the temperature at which the coffee was served, the cup had basically no resistance to being squished sideways.
3. The coffee was also well over the temperatures suggested by basically every culinary organization in existence.

The McDonald's situation is that the woman was served a beverage far in excess of reasonable or reasonably expected temperature, in a vessel unsuitable for the temperature of the beverage contained within it. The woman was awarded damages because it was determined that McDonalds was negligent in protection of their customers. This was a right and correct verdict. They had deliberately raised their coffee to a temperature that they knew was unsafe to improve the pot life to save money, and they absolutely deserved to lose their case.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[drinkypoo]

You could say the same about imprisonment. Doesn't it strike you as being hypocritical to force people into cages at gunpoint when there are laws against kidnapping and aggravated assault?

Sure - but we don't have another way that is effective in preventing them from committing additional crimes that is not more severe. It is the least of evils, and thus the only reasonable path.

Actually, we do have an effective way to reduce the rate of incidence of crime, but we'd actually have to fix some of the problems in our society, and our "leaders" are not interested in that because the government keeps us fighting with each other so we're too busy to fight them. So the corrections system as we know it today is basically one of the great evils of our time.

You are right. Either we have a death penalty or not. If we are going to have a death penalty then we need to grow some balls and kill the prisoners.

We know beyond any doubt that we have in the past executed people for crimes that we did not commit, for example some people who have been executed have recently been exonerated by DNA evidence. It's terrible to put a man in prison for life for a crime he did not commit, but some people do find peace in prison. Everyone finds peace in death, but it's a pretty different thing - it might be more accurate to say that peace finds them. It is not appropriate to kill people when you might kill an innocent man, which is yet another reason to be against the death penalty. The only argument for it is fear - fear that they will kill again. Fear is not a good reason to take action, and in fact it is one of the worst reasons.

If the people are the flowers and weeds than I would rather concentrate on working toward a garden that suits my vision than disputing the need to pull weeds rather than transplant them to another garden.

However that is just laziness! It's the idea that it's too hard or too much effort, but we're not talking about plants here, we're talking about human life, and basically everyone who's less than a level five vegan is a plant killer, but pretty much everyone thinks that killing people is wrong (unless they're afraid that that person will hurt them.)

Too much of human behavior is motivated by fear.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[Anonymous Coward]

Throw in the Gnomes of Zurich and you'll have yourself a rip-roarin' game of illuminati!

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Hahahaha Enabling a president who resembles an ape, to attack any country that he cannot force to bow to his demands by threat alone is hardly world war three.

Correct- but attacks in (last time I counted) 35 separate countries by 18 different sects of Islam in a theological war of reformation certainly counts. You really weren't stupid enough to think that our little adventures in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and North Korea were the *only* violence going on related to this, were you?

thats because as I said before, i don't give a shit. They are not my enemy. I don't care if they managed to destroy the Us with millions of suicide bombers, I don't care if the US turns the whole of arabia into one big sheet of glass with a nuke. I just couldn't give a fuck less.

Would you care if the religious police came to your house five times a day to collect you to go to the Mosque and pray while facing mecca? That's a far more likely ending to this than the other two- because the actual militants are a minority (only 10 million of them- 990 million of the other type of Islamics in this war of reformation) and because the United States is a cowardly nation that will never be able to bring itself to pull the nuclear trigger again.

actually my second point, that of drawing attention to the activities of the US government in those countries, (by attention i was referring to the attention of the non-comatose portion of the US population, sorry for not being more specific), indeed seems to be having some effect towards the first two of the four goals you claim the "terrorists" to have.

Yes, but in a half-assed way that has just made the United States appear weak and ineffectual and attracted *more* people to the theology of independant Jihad (which is the novel new theological theory that bin Laden created all by his lonesome- and which makes al Qaeda hard to track, but nearly impossible to actually control).

A lot of US citizens might indeed be wondering what business their military has there, and why they should be in the firing line for their governments insistence on protecting and arming israel

We aren't- we're an incidental side target in the larger war which has been going on for the last 75 years and has now escalated into a World War. Terrorism of New York City was just a single battle- the real battle is still going on in Paris, London, Madrid, Rome, Indonesia, Sudan, Chad, Nigeria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Chechnya, Kazakstan, Kashmir, Sydney, Nagasaki, Berlin, Moscow, Iran, Syria, South Africa, Serbia, Bosnia, Jerusalem, Jordan, and Bethleham; and now that they've proven that the United States is ineffectual and cowardly and won't use nukes, side distrubances are cropping up in Oxacca, Bolivia, Argentina, North Korea, Venezula, Taiwan, Nuevo Loredo, and Columbia (isn't it interesting how once what was a sect-based religious war escalates to include quite a bit of the world, other justice-based problems crop up). If you didn't notice, two of that later set are in our neighbor to the south, and fighting has grown quite fierce there.

Based on your lack of knowledge of current world politics and the true range of the fighting, I'd have to say that you're just another blind American.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[binarybum]

how about these folks? or these? or perhaps this group or maybe one of the paypal horror-story contributors on this site?

but chances are it was probably just this guy.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

It IS a reaction of the otherwise powerless to the effacement of globalization and the supremacy of capital over people, culture and state. The crime of Israeli statehood in 1948 also provides an ongoing irritant.

Ultimately tho' "terror" is also almost statistically non-existant, but for media furore - exploted by the super-state. In a western, 'liberal democracy' it is more prudent to worry about traffic accidents, than concern oneself with radical terrorism.

I remember traveling in Ital and France in '85-'86. There was a tremendous scare that kept Americans at home - but travel became cheap! Other than the Carbinieri slinging automatic weapons in Rome, there was little to worry about. It is more so today.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[goodtim]

There is absolutely no way that a customer could have planted this bomb. Nobody who has ever been a PayPal customer has any idea how to contact PayPal, let alone their actual physical address...

I would like to introduce you to Google Maps

The Intra-Web is Amazing!!!!!!111!

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[RobertLTux]

its missing part of the MAddress (no elevation)

[note to Humour impaired TLA types this is a JOKE]

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[uhlume]

"Kill" has one accepted meaning: to deprive of life. You can only kill in one way, and with one immediate result. Motive/rationalization is an entirely separate question.

The same cannot be said of love, which renders your analogy tenuous at best. Love is abstract; death, concrete. To claim otherwise would cheapen the meanings of both love and death.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[RobertLTux]

and i would bet that

1 getting the plate to resonate at its natural frequency (think glass + opera star)

2 getting the force on the right vector (on edge)

would reduce the force needed a great amount

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[Aarondeep]

Doesn't seem like an incorrect use of the word. It's just now something that has been overused by the current administration.
Definition of terrorism from websters dictionary.

Main Entry: terrorism
: the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion

Main Entry: terror
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French terrour, from Latin terror, from terrEre to frighten; akin to Greek trein to be afraid, flee, tremein to tremble -- more at TREMBLE
1 : a state of intense fear
2 a : one that inspires fear : SCOURGE b : a frightening aspect c : a cause of anxiety : WORRY d : an appalling person or thing; especially : BRAT
3 : REIGN OF TERROR
4 : violent or destructive acts (as bombing) committed by groups in order to intimidate a population or government into granting their demands

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[Anonymous Coward]

It's scarey now that something like this - which is obviously a purely criminal act (one of vandalism and possibly GBH or even murder) - can now be called a "terrorist act". With all the negative connotations which are implied. I wonder what else our government will start declaring as "terrorism", surely any malicious act could ultimately fall under the government's ever widening definition of the word.

Let's see. Someone sets a bomb to go off in a public place, and it could easily have killed one or more people. And you think it would be more accurate to call it "vandalism" rather than "terrorism" ??

This kind of act used to be called terrorism in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s. Why not call it terrorism now? If anyone here is revising the definition of terrorism, it is you.

To add a little trollish zest to my post, I'll add a historical note. Bombings like this used to happen in the US during the 1890s. But back then they didn't call it "terrorist". The word hadn't been invented yet. No, they called it "anarchist".

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[jamar0303]

The plate glass window was designed to withstand minor earthquakes. The "sudden jolt" type is hardly minor- I know, having lived in California and sleeping through most of the earthquakes that went through the state- except those "sudden jolt" ones.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[glancep]

You are absolutely right about how almost anything can be characterized as terrorism anymore, but what I find interesting is how so many politicians want to have it both ways: harsher punishments for crimes like this (because they are terrorism), yet when talking about their accomplishments, those in power will point out that "there have been no terrorist attacks on US soil since 9/11."

Now which is it?

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[batura]

This is one of the things that I actually do consider terrorism-- the intent was probably never to kill anyone but to scare and intimidate people.... That's basically what terrorism is. I don't think anybody ever hesitated to call Ted Kaczynski a terrorist. Spray painting a wall is vandalism, constantly yelling at your neighbor is harassment and sending bombs in the mail is terrorism.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[qzulla]

I didn't see the T word in the article. Did I miss something?

qz

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[tinkertim]

>> I was a terrorist in my youth. I'd blow up army men with firecrackers, filled tennis balls with gasoline,
>> even constructed solid fuel rockets with an explosive payload. Of course terrorism was a lot more popular in >> the 70s than it is now.

I think every self respecting geek kid had similar fun. I chucked a coffee can full of flash powder and ground up M80's ina storm drain and ended up making a pretty impressive crater. We also had fun making our own short range rockets with estes kits and D sized engines. Never got one working that could do serious damage with its payload, but shooting them horizontally really scared the piss out of whoever you aimed at.

My middle school chemistry teacher had this neat "trustee" program so he could go smoke weed while the smart kids looked after the dumb ones, so supplies of bromide, potassium, sulphur, etc were rather abundant.

Precussion explosives made with bromide were also fun, especially when the same key the teacher gave us to get to the supply closet also opened the band storage room. The problem with my recipe is you had to rig the carbon from a matchbook in just the right way on the tip of the big mallets the bass drummer used, and after a while he began checking.

That was childhood fun, I remember it fondly.. but we're in a slightly different era now. The really scary part is your kid could do the same thing in a deliberate attempt to have you tortured by the CIA to find out how the kid happened upon such "dangerous" knowledge.

Me (and my rectum) hope to god they take "Google" for an answer .. my daughter is 1 year old now and has the same twinkle in her eye that I did. Whooooboy.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[tinkertim]

>> It's scarey now that something like this - which is obviously a purely criminal act (one of vandalism and
>> possibly GBH or even murder) - can now be called a "terrorist act". With all the negative connotations which
>> are implied. I wonder what else our government will start declaring as "terrorism", surely any malicious
>> act could ultimately fall under the government's ever widening definition of the word.

Sorry, but if you look at the word .. the shoe fits. Terrorism is doing things to make people fear for their safety in hopes they see your point of view. Its ugly, despicable and (you are correct) a very easy label to slap on anything of this nature.

I really hope this was just kids being stupid. We (Gen X kids) all did dumb shit too, but we never endangered someone's life or physical safety in the process. Making someone piss their pants : fun. Making someone bleed : not fun.

If it was a disgruntled customer .. sorry, but the T word fits and should be applied.

I got a chuckle out of this too since nobody got hurt but someone very easily could have .. there's a fine line between prankish fun and violence.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[tomatensaft]

Eeh, sorry, but what's up with Kazahstan? Never heard about any islamic extremism there... But concerning Russia, it's not only Moscow... It's a lot more! The whole Caucasia is in war, if to follow your little theory... :)

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[tietokone-olmi]

Terrorist.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[malsdavis]

But my point is that it would be pretty easy to use that definition to state that a street robber / Mugger who threatens violence towards you unless you hand over your wallet is trying to persuade you - through fear of violence - that his POV that he deserves your wallet is correct. Which would mean he is using Terrorism.

What about someone who warns that there may be civil unrest in the future due to the consequences of a particular government policy?
The word is so vague, that in addition to what I said before, even non-malicious actions could be perceived as terrorism.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[malsdavis]

"This is one of the things that I actually do consider terrorism-- the intent was probably never to kill anyone but to scare and intimidate people.... That's basically what terrorism is."

But why isn't spray painting a wall with hostile graffiti or yelling abuse at your neighbour also terrorism then?
They are both also attempts to scare and intimidate. There doesn't appear to be any actual line between your definition of harassment and that of terrorism, just that one was a slightly more malicious example than the other. Fundamentally though, they all involved the same behavioural mindset, that of intimidation.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[squiggleslash]

You need to think more strategically and more about the aims of the people involved.

Bin Laden's ultimate goal is very clear. He may have had "short term" issues, such as the whole Non-Islamic troops on the Holy Land thing which supposedly was a trigger for attacks on the West, but even that reflects an overall goal and overall view of the world. Bin Laden wants a united Arab superstate. That's it. That's the #1 issue.

Right now, the various countries that would make up such a state are divided and ruled by various "royal families" whose power would be reluctantly released. Unless they're on Bin Laden's side, to the point of eye-swiveling ideological madness, they're not going to give up power in favour of said superstate. They're not even going to set in motion a set of events that will lead to a united Arab superstate after their deaths, because as monarchs, that would be undermining their children and their own ideological reasons for believing they have a right to that power in the first place.

If you're Bin Laden, how do you change that? Is it through persuasion, or do you want to persue strategies that unite Arabs, and create chaos that undermines the existing governments?

Do you think Bin Laden expected the US to say "OMG! We've been so wrong in that part of the world" when he masterminded a plot to murder 3,000 Americans in a single morning in one of the most dramatic ways possible, and simply withdraw our troops from the region and rethink our policies on oil. Even if he did, do you think that a terrorist who, since, has done little but help (and probably not help very much) turn one war the US is involved in into a bit of a morass, would expect the US to have that response if he makes a speech just before an election praising the politician most likely to pull out of the region, and against the incumbent who has staked his reputation on a policy pretty much anyone can see is causing chaos there?

The important thing to recognize is that this isn't about changing the US's view of itself, it's about making use of the behaviour of the most powerful countries on Earth. If you view the US, as most do, as an intensely proud country with a streak straight out of a Wild West movie for vengence and justice, you don't attack them expecting the US to do what you've asked them to do. You expect the US to have one reaction, and that's to lash out at you.

Of course, it's possible Bin Laden is a complete dimwit who really doesn't think anything through, but the most powerful country in Earth hasn't been able to capture him in five years, and it's unquestionably true that US involvement since 9/11 has destroyed one of Bin Laden's major ideological opponents (Saddam Hussein), undermined most of the governments there, and stirred up a certain amount of Arab unity in opposition to the US and anything it might be associated with, including the local emirate governments. So either Bin Laden has accidentally been successful (Madrid bombings excepting, but the Spanish government fucked that up by lying about it), or this is more or less what he intended to happen. The idea that he wanted to demonstrate our vulnerability or persuade ordinary Americans of some awful truths of rest-of-world existance strikes me as a tad improbable.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[davecb]

Slow, in this case, is measured in milliseconds (;-))

--dave

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[GrayCalx]

...most likely in those very civilians that are being killed, and also in those who are doing the bombing but have simply been misled.
Misled? You've missed the point of their actions entirely. You are the one that has been misled

I felt this was the only point I really needed to respond to. You missed my entire point and again just started arguing and debating when I actually feel the same way you do about the war(s). But you couldn't just read and listen could you? You had to assume it was some sort of attack, I'm on your side brother... I'm on your side, and it saddens me that its consumed you so much that you can't see that. As you said yourself you're "starting to get paranoid beyond [your] usual."

My point in the above statement was that more than likely the soldiers in Iraq are just as innocent as the civilians, or me, or you. Thats the only thing I was trying to say there.

But as I said, keep hating everyone if thats what you need to do, even the people who are on your side of things. I have to warn you tho, internal bickering with people "on your side" isn't going to win elections and change things. We all must accept our faults and work as one for reform.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[tinkertim]

>> What about someone who warns that there may be civil unrest in the future due to the consequences of a
>> particular government policy?

>> The word is so vague, that in addition to what I said before, even non-malicious actions could be perceived as
>> terrorism

Good point.. and I think the distinction can be made on the anomity of an "attack". Leaving a bomb to go off or detonating from a safe distance is quite a bit different than mugging someone.

A "terrorist" attack is also very indiscriminate, where a mugging indicates a precise target.

So , you clobber someone for their wallet .. your a mugger. You empty 3 AK clips into a schoolyard .. your a terrorist. Its a different .. detached and more .. ugly sort of violence in that it demonstrates a severe lack of empathy as a whole rather than just desperation.

Its still a very good point, and I'm glad you mentioned it.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[LunaticTippy]

We sure had similar childhoods. My high school chemistry teacher would help us build explosives and go "supervise" on weekends and after school. He loved it as much as we did. The lab ceiling was cratered from countless explosions. Once he detonated a kilo of thermite on his desk and it set off the fire alarms in several other buildings. He rarely wore safety equipment and was not uptight about us using it either. Those days are sadly gone forever.

I wish you luck raising a child. It'd be depressing for me with the safety-obsessed fascism we're moving towards, not to mention the brand-fixated and horrid popular culture. At least your daughter has a good chance of having an independent mind.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Eeh, sorry, but what's up with Kazahstan? Never heard about any islamic extremism there... But concerning Russia, it's not only Moscow... It's a lot more! The whole Caucasia is in war, if to follow your little theory... :)

To a certain extent, you're correct- and Kazakstan's freedom is as much at stake as Chechnya's. I was just going on the events I could remember at the moment- and seeing if I could remember 30 of them. My real point is that this is a World War- whether you like it or not- and it's *already* moved beyond mere Islamic interests and wishes.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[tomatensaft]

Well, I don't remember from the history of this century, that there were any 10 years, when there were no wars anywhere in the world... I think, it's just a century of war and it looks like 21st century is not going to be any different... :P

And I don't quite agree, that this is a World War... It's more just pre-war tentions... ;) The real fight is yet to come. Unfortunately.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[Marxist Hacker 42]

The other side already considers it a world war- one foretold by scripture, one in which the entire world will be subject to the Justice of Allah. It is that dream of JUSTICE, not a dream for freedom, that drives them. The only thing keeping us relatively safe is that the other side can't agree on a definition of justice- yet.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[batura]

I generally consider voilence a rule of thumb.... Explosions in the mail are signicantly scarier than spraypainting a threatning slogan.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[shaitand]

Actually I would think DHCP being common practice among ISPs would muddy the issue more than private nets and proxies.

While the odds would be slim, seeing the same IP wouldn't mean the same person was behind it. This is the same reason that banning IP's is bad practice.

Re:Shouldn't be too difficult..

[mink]

"sending bombs in the mail is terrorism"

Sounds like attempted murder to me, but maybe I have a loose set of moral/ethical values.

Obligatory

[Anonymous Coward]

What happen?

Re:Obligatory

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently someone set up paypal the bomb.

Re:Obligatory

[Anonymous Coward]

Operator: We get negative feedback.

Re:Obligatory

[gx5000]

Dang nabbit, and moi with no mod points
for great justice !!

Re:Obligatory

[$RANDOMLUSER]

That'll teach 'em to say "All your money are belong to us".

Re:Obligatory

[asylumx]

WHAT?!

Re:Obligatory

[AgentGibbled]

Dissatisfied Customer: "How are you gentlemen !! All your [plate glass window] are belong to us. You are on the way to destruction."

Re:Obligatory

[Anonymous Coward]

++++ FAST DELIVERY - great explosion - WILL DO BUSINESS AGAIN ++++

First !!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone pissed about their ebay option

Surprised it took this long

[Skyshadow]

Man, if I had a nickle for every time I wanted to bomb Paypal, I'd have... er... probably a real hassle getting all the money out of my Paypal account.

Re:Surprised it took this long

[From A Far Away Land]

Even my Class Action experience with PayPal was dissatisfying, I only got $13US of a potential $49. But considering I only lost $6US, and some hair, it was fair for me anyway.

They are one company I can understand someone wanting to send them an angry letter-bomb. This ties into the Slashdot story today about how best to deal with your user disputes. PayPal is the example of how NOT to.

Re:Surprised it took this long

[cliveholloway]

Well, I just sent you a nickel through PayPal, and you now owe them 20c, so that's perfectly understandable ;-)

Re:Surprised it took this long

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe that was the reason they bombed it. Paypal froze someones account which pissed someone off enough to try to "unfreeze" it. =)

Re:Surprised it took this long

[PurifyYourMind]

If you had a nickle? How much is that worth compared to a nickel?

Bomb making material bought on eBay

[Anonymous Coward]

According to my unreliable sources, bomb making material was bought on eBay.

Great. Now if they start offering actual service..

[weston]

... then the terrorists will have already have won.

Halloween parties at PayPal...

[thewiz]

are a blast!

So I've heard.

Re:Halloween parties at PayPal...

[xint]

baaahahaha!!! ...we all knew this was coming.

Re:Halloween parties at PayPal...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha ha very funny... Now who handed out the exploding cigars?

Re:Halloween parties at PayPal...

[Fozzyuw]

Next time, I'd go with the "Treat".

I wonder...

[Anonymous Coward]

...what was the shipping charge?

Re:I wonder...

[Sizzlean]

It was at least 20 dollars but the package arrived with nothing more than 3 dollars in stamps on it.

Re:I wonder...

[jellomizer]

Many times the reason for this (Like the $1 iPods with $100 Shipping an Handling) is so the seller doesn't get dinged with additional ebay costs they only have to pay an extra percentage of the $1 and not the S&H. Still I don't like it when they do that. It makes sorting by price a pain.

Re:I wonder...

[TheCarp]

Isn't it actually defacto illegal to hide the cost of the product in the shipping and handling costs?

I had heard that but never really looked into it.

-Steve

Customer service

[www.sorehands.com]

This is the result of bad customer service. If you call the companies with bad customer service, they are not allowed to give out the location. Now we know why.

Re:Customer service

[rob1980]

If you call the companies with bad customer service, they are not allowed to give out the location. Now we know why.

Not because they're afraid you're going to bomb them, but because the majority of the time "customer service" is some call center in Missouri that has support contracts with dozens of clients and they couldn't care less what you think of their client.

Re:Customer service

[truthsearch]

Really? MasterCard never speaks to any customers (they only service banks), yet their headquarters get bomb threats all the time.

Re:Customer service

[loraksus]

You're full of shit, there are no people who actually speak English working in call centers anymore...

Re:Customer service

[Brandybuck]

This is the result of bad customer service.

No, it's the result of someone planting a bomb! Let's try to find the perp and punish him for committing the crime, and not try to blame PayPal (or society, or bad parenting, or video games, or flouride, or transfats, or Bush, or Clinton, or anything else).

If someone at PayPal got raped, would you argue that it was the result of wearing a sexy low-cut dress? Of course not!

Re:Customer service

[Anonymous Coward]

If you were a muslim cleric in Australia, you would. Sadly....

Re:Customer service

[Chosen Reject]

Isn't that what he said? They're in Missouri for crying out loud.

Re:Customer service

[friedmud]

Actually... the man is more on the spot than you know.

I grew up in Missouri... and in my home city one of the larger industries is the call center industry. There are litterally dozens of _very_ large call centers in the city to choose from and they actually all pay well and give good benefits (they are competing for the workforce).

The reason they're all in Missouri is because of the accent... ie. none. Most Missourians (disregarding the hill-billys!) have a fairly neutral accent which lends itself well to call centers. The land is also pretty cheap and the taxes are fairly low... combining for a great place to plop a phone center.

So, anyway, yes... there is a lot of call-center outsourcing... but I do know that there are still a lot of call-centers here in the US and specifically in Missouri.

Friedmud

Re:Customer service

[i_ate_god]

If someone working for paypal got raped, many would consider it eye-for-an-eye vegence.

paypal rapes you, you rape paypal back.

unfortunately corporations are represented via human beings so its the human beings that are made to suffer...

Re:Customer service

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually there are still some call centers in the US that hire native speakers. As I heard this morning while talking to Verizon, with the stream of obscenities that angry girl unleashed when I asked to speak to her supervisor, she just had to be from the US. No one knows that many dirty words and phrases in a single language without having grown-up around it. I was in the Navy for five years, and even I was impressed. Her supervisor didn't speak very good English, but that was because she was from Kentucky. It wasn't because she wasn't a native.

Re:Customer service

[Anonymous Coward]

Bump

No one will believe you, but it's true.

Re:Customer Service

[AK Marc]

They have a customer service department?

Re:Customer service

[Anonymous Coward]

You have a very strange thought process regarding the tying of different concepts into one unit.
People wanting to know the cause or reason that someone committed a crime has no relationship to the time it takes people actually working on the case to find the perpetratior. Your statement seems to imply that because so many people on /. are discussing why someone did it, the capture of who did it will be delayed by the authorities. Discussing of the issue among completely unrelated parties runs in paralell with the investigation, not in series. Using your logic, people discussing the issue here right now are holding back the existing capture efforts. Can you explain that concept to me? At what point in your theory are normal people unrelated to the investigation hindering the capture? People that do not even know about this bombing incedent? People that read about but did not discuss the issue with anyone? People that read and know about it and discuss the issue? Where is your line? Are you suggesting that everyone that wonders why it happened would actually be out looking for the person if they were not wondering about it?

Okay, I am no longer going to wonder why the person did it (which in your mind is happering the investigation) and want to help in the capture. Where do I report for duty and who in charge do I meet with to get my assignment? I assume I may need to travel ~3000 miles to the scene first though or maybe I can help over the phone (I would like to wait until after 7PM for my night minutes though). I really hope the investigators can use my elite but untested crime fighting skills.

Re:Customer service

[rob1980]

There's a lot of that up here in Nebraska too. General American is the predominant "accent" in these parts and it makes the whole area desirable for somebody who doesn't want to ship their operations overseas.

Re:Customer service

[sharkman67]

No accent, please ask 10 people to say: I need to wash the laundry

If 9 out of 10 people don't say "warsh" I'll believe you!

Re:Customer service

[Brandybuck]

Many people are pissed at PayPal's bad service but not everyone is trying to blow them up. Get it? It's not PayPal's fault someone tried to bomb them!

Re:Customer service

[friedmud]

Have you really spent significant time in Missouri? I sincerely doubt it.

While I do know some people who say "warsh" it is no where near 9 out of 10 (maybe 1 out of 30). I think you might be thinking of Arkansas (not to dig on Arkansas... but everyone I know from Arkansas seriously does say warsh).

But anyway... arguing on the internet and all that...

Friedmud

No one was hurt ...

[DAharon]

No one was hurt, so whats the big deal? If anything, this is a good thing, because PayPal has to fix their building and the bomber gets satisfaction. Both sides get what they deserve. Next stop, the phone company...

Re:No one was hurt ...

[soft_guy]

The SLA members were hunted down many, many years after their crimes and in most cases it was for bombs that either didn't go off or else they had called and warned people about the bomb and took efforts to prevent people from actually being hurt. However, that's not really the point, though. The point is that the reason someone wasn't hurt was because of luck. If you are exploding bombs to blow up other people's property, you can easily kill someone. It is reckless and it is a bad idea and you will be punished if caught.

Re:No one was hurt ...

[DestroyAllZombies]

I can't see the original reference, but it's worth noting that the SLA was not merely a bunch of incompetents. Well, perhaps they were, but they murdered two people. One was an assassination with hollow-point bullets dipped in cyanide.
It should be obvious to the original poster that the fact nobody was hurt was simply coincidence.

Sufferin Suckotash!

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

I think I read somewhere that Wile E. Coyote uses Paypal to shop at ACME.

Radiological??

[Anonymous Coward]

From TFA:

There was no immediate word on the contents of the device, but officials told CBS 5 Tuesday that the debris left behind was not radiological.

Wow. Why would the officials bother to mention that?

Re:Radiological??

[$RANDOMLUSER]

Because the election is one week away.

Re:Radiological??

[drinkypoo]

Wow. Why would the officials bother to mention that?

Because it's very easy to get your hands on low-grade nuclear material, wrap it around a conventional explosive, and create a "dirty bomb" that will throw a bunch of nuclear crap around and render the neighborhood effectively uninhabitable until it can be cleaned up. Do it in the rain and that might require digging up tons and tons of dirt and hauling it off, etc etc.

Re:Radiological??

[MyLongNickName]

Because Kim Jong apparently had his paypal account frozen the week before.

Re:Radiological??

[Kelson]

Why would the officials bother to mention that?

Same reason that when a plane crashes in New York by pure accident, they're quick to point out that terrorism does not appear to have been involved.

Re:Radiological??

[Anonymous Coward]

There a millions of bad things it could have been that would involve a cleanup. That's not a valid reason for printing that. I'm more inclined to lean towards what other posters are saying "election time". To list all the easily acquired items that may have caused more damage than the story would have been a 300 page essay, but no, a specific and current political buzzword was used.

Re:Radiological??

[jamstar7]

Wow. Why would the officials bother to mention that?

Because it's very easy to get your hands on low-grade nuclear material, wrap it around a conventional explosive, and create a "dirty bomb" that will throw a bunch of nuclear crap around and render the neighborhood effectively uninhabitable until it can be cleaned up. Do it in the rain and that might require digging up tons and tons of dirt and hauling it off, etc etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_bomb

Looks to me like it'd be a waste of time other than the fact that it makes the government spend money cleaning it up.

Re:Radiological??

[Anonymous Coward]

Because it's very easy to get your hands on low-grade nuclear material

It might be easy for you, but I wouldn't know how to get my hands on that kind of stuff. More to the point, I've never heard of a dirty bomb being set off anywhere. Why in the world would they bring up that possiblity here? To me, it would be like adding "there was no sign of alien mind-control methods behind this event."

Re:Radiological??

[drinkypoo]

Looks to me like it'd be a waste of time other than the fact that it makes the government spend money cleaning it up.

Pretty much. They're potentially a very useful technique in warfare (which this was not of course) because they can really cause serious problems for your opponents. Although video games do not translate well to the real world, it's kind of like pollution in Civilization 2. While land is polluted it cannot produce the things it normally produces, and your engineer units have to spend time (and thus resources) to clean it up before the land can be used again. This actually is directly comparable to what happens if you set off a dirty bomb - the land is polluted and can no longer be used until it is cleaned up. It takes a great deal of resources to clean it up meanwhile.

But maybe someone asked them about it directly! We'll probably never know why they said that unless someone calls them up, pretends to be a member of the press, and asks. If you do, please put the answer here :)

Re:Radiological??

[Anonymous Coward]

obviously you have never actually TRIED to obtain "low level radioactive material". attempts to get anything that is going to be dangerous enough to have any significance is going to get you attention from some alphabet agencies that you REALLY don't want to have.

Re:Radiological??

[squiggleslash]

It's very easy, just put in an order for a million smoke alarms and luminous watches.

Re:Radiological??

[4D6963]

Because it's very easy to get your hands on low-grade nuclear material, wrap it around a conventional explosive, and create a "dirty bomb" that will throw a bunch of nuclear crap around and render the neighborhood effectively uninhabitable until it can be cleaned up.

If it's that easy, it really makes me wonder why terr'ists haven't used that before. That have used anything, from cars full of explosives to bombs with nails in it to neurotoxic gases, and never anything nuclear. I wonder why..

Re:Radiological??

[Kelson]

It might be easy for you, but I wouldn't know how to get my hands on that kind of stuff.

Yeah. I'm sure in the future plutonium will be available at every corner drugstore, but in 2006 it's a little hard to come by.

Re:Radiological??

[evilviper]

Because it's very easy to get your hands on low-grade nuclear material,

True, despite some of the idiots replying to you...

wrap it around a conventional explosive,

You'd need a lot more than this tiny little explosive to throw any appreciable ammount of radioactive material into the atmosphere. If that was the intention, you'd certainly see something like a truck bomb. After all, they've made a big investment in radioactive materials... Leaving 90% of them harmlessly sitting on the sidewalk would be stupid.

and render the neighborhood effectively uninhabitable until it can be cleaned up.

This is nonsense. Even if the material ISN'T cleaned up, living there for DECADES will only give you a couple percentage points higher chance of EVENTUALLY getting cancer...

Living there for a few months while it's cleaned up would be pretty harmless. The only problem would be the "terror" aspect, and that is 99.99% due to the news media having hyped it to insane levels, and giving terribly misleading information without context, graphics which imply more serious results, etc.

Re:Radiological??

[drinkypoo]

You'd need a lot more than this tiny little explosive to throw any appreciable ammount of radioactive material into the atmosphere.

The cop was talking to the press. Do you really think they're that smart?

Living there for a few months while it's cleaned up would be pretty harmless. The only problem would be the "terror" aspect, and that is 99.99% due to the news media having hyped it to insane levels, and giving terribly misleading information without context, graphics which imply more serious results, etc.

It would probably still be against some kind of regulation so they'd evac everyone anyway :P

Re:Radiological??

[WilliamSChips]

I know exactly where a small amount of americium is in my house. It's called a smoke detector.

Wait I can narrow it down even more

[technoextreme]

Shouldn't be too difficult to find the culprit, just look for someone extremely dissatisfied with their service.

Here we go. We should look for someone extremely dissatisfied with there service and recently bought the parts to make a bomb. That should narrow it down.

Re:Wait I can narrow it down even more

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd say look for people who can't tell the difference between "there" (it's over there) and "their" (their spelling sucks).

Re:Wait I can narrow it down even more

[eno2001]

Yes... bought the parts to make a bomb over the internet using... wait for it: PAYPAL! ;P

Re:Wait I can narrow it down even more

[Hoi Polloi]

SELECT customer_id,
              trans_date
    FROM all_transactions
  WHERE payee_name = 'E-Bombs.com'
      AND cust_rating = 'PISSED'

Not very big

[Silver Sloth]

From TFA

"Whatever caused this was pretty strong,' said San Jose Fire Department Capt. Jose Guerrero. "It's tough to break one of these windows."

Er... As someone who lived in the UK during the IRA bombing campaign I can suggest that if the 'bomb' only broke a few windows then it wasn't exactly huge. Consider this atrocity

Looks more like the sort of thing I used to knock up as a teenager - Sodium Chlorate and sugar anyone?

Re:Not very big

[mashade]

If you'll read some of the comments above, you'll see that the HQ is in San Jose, California. Earthquakes are relatively frequent there, so they use windows hardened to withstand that.

I imagine the windows are probably stronger there than what you're used to seeing. I tend to think this was a more powerful bomb than you give credit.

Re:Not very big

[Anonymous Coward]

"Looks more like the sort of thing I used to knock up as a teenager - Sodium Chlorate and sugar anyone?"

I thought you were suppose to "knock up" something else as a teenager....

(slaps forehead) Wait, this is /. Nevermind.

Re:Not very big

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about that, I did a lot of 'knocking [one] out" as a teenager though.

Re:Not very big

[cliffski]

Yet a post box survievd the blast at a distance of a few yards. Oh yes....
If only everyone built everything the same way us Brits built our post boxes. They must be made out of neutronium or something. I reckon my great great grandchildren will still float past the same pillar boxes in their hover cars.

Re:Not very big

[Silver Sloth]

The local fire chief says in the broadcast that it was 'a very strong device'. My point is that these things are relative. Consider

• Enniskillen
• Warrington
• London, London, London

and you can see why I don't get very worked up about something that manages to smash one window, however strong.

Re:Not very big

[Anonymous Coward]

So we're supposed to wait until these asshats manage to cook up a bigger bomb? Thank you, Sir, but we'll ship them to gitmo instead. Someone who plants a bomb in public is a terrorist in every sense of the word. It doesn't take hundreds of casualties or catastrophic financial damages, no Sir, one small bomb is sufficient. And we treat them all equally hard, smaller terrorists and extortionists get federal PMITA prison, while islamic and dangerous terrorists get the fancy jumpsuit and a cage at Camp Delta. I'd prefer to give them lead instead, administered directly to the brain stem, to save the taxpayer some money.

Re:Not very big

[sa1lnr]

You don't remember the bombs the IRA put in the the post boxes then? IIRC they are made of cast iron and created plenty of lethal shrapnel when a bomb went off inside them.

Re:Not very big

[Silver Sloth]

I don't know about elsewhere but in the UK the standard post box has to be able to withstand quite a bit to prevent theft by someone with, for example, a sledgehammer. So, I'm not sure about the neutronium but there are plenty of post boxes >100 years old so they'll probably capable of out lasting me and you.

Re:Not very big

[Anonymous Coward]

sort of thing I used to knock up as a teenager - Sodium Chlorate and sugar anyone?
 
Gee, that's not what I used to "knock up" as a teenager... :P

Re:Not very big

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, sure. Paypal only took 5% of the charge.

Re:Not very big

[Stormcrow309]

Screw that, send there scrawny ass to Levenworth. They will be HIGHLY popular there.

Re:Not very big

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you, Sir, but we'll ship them to gitmo instead

The problem isn't with shipping convicted criminals or terrorists "to gitmo", the problem is that it hasn't been determined whether these people are. It may be good enough for you that some bureaucrat in the military or administration calls these people "terrorists", but in a democracy, that sort of thing needs to be determined in public trial.

I'd prefer to give them lead instead, administered directly to the brain stem, to save the taxpayer some money.

Well, I think you are a terrorist. So, let's call you in and have you shipped off to gitmo. I mean, why bother with a trial? You publically advocate killing American citizens. You practically convict yourself!

Re:Not very big

[Anonymous Coward]

The Nazis committed atrocities, Pol Pot did, Stalin did. Are you saying a big bomb that went off after a warning and killed noone is in the same league? Maybe you should look up what the term means.

Re:Not very big

[Anonymous Coward]

Er... As someone who lived in the UK during the IRA bombing campaign I can suggest that if the 'bomb' only broke a few windows then it wasn't exactly huge. Consider this atrocity

Yeah, Americans have no sense of perspective. Brits live with it, and go on with life... I can just imagine if some Irish blokes terror-bombed the US like this -- I guess Bush would have carpet bombed Sweden and occupied Denmark in retaliation.

Re:Not very big

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone who plants a bomb in public is a terrorist in every sense of the word.

No, someone who plants a bomb in public is a criminal. If their motive is not the death and destruction in and of itself, or purely financial, but rather to cause terror to achieve political ends, then they are a terrorist -- but let's have a trial first. Due process and all that, you know.

Re:Not very big

[Frogbert]

Now hold on, I'm no IRA supporter but at the very least they called in warnings before the bomb was detonated. Calling it an atrocity is a bit of a stretch.

I don't get it

[OrangeTide]

I hear people rant about how terrible paypal is, I don't understand why. Someone please explain.

I get a better deal with an ATM card through paypal than I get through my own bank. I actually collect interest on all my money as if it were a savings account. My "free" checking at my bank doesn't give me interest on money in my checking account. And if I put money in my savings account I can get fined for taking money out of it too often.

If you want to go around bombing finanicial institutions why not go after the ones that are actually greedy and evil. (seriously I am not recommending this, instead of a bomb why not write a nasty letter or post a rant/complaint in your blog to boycott the company)

Re:I don't get it

[dontspamme]

Your own bank is less likely to freeze all your money for a minimum period of 6 weeks and to end up keeping it all without having the possibility to do nothing about it.

Re:I don't get it

[brouski]

Do you actually use your account to buy and sell with?

Re:I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

Good luck getting all your collected interest out of your account after they freeze it.

Re:I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

The main issue with Paypal is them closing peoples accounts and without funds through no fault of the accounts owner.

Re:I don't get it

[loraksus]

And if I put money in my savings account I can get fined for taking money out of it too often.

Then your bank "fucking sucks" (TM) and yeah, almost no checking accounts earn interest. Even if it did, if you keep a reasonable amount of money in there (i.e. not everything you have), what are you going to earn in interest? $10 a year?
The paypal card is a pain, probably the most annoying is the "automatic tip rejection" and I'm pretty sure their chargeback policy is the worst out there (not that ATM cards are worth a damn when it comes to chargebacks anyways).

Re:I don't get it

[Detritus]

How would you like it if your bank froze all of your accounts and then refused to talk to you for several months? I haven't had any problems with paypal but there are many people who have, and their customer service is often terrible.

Re:I don't get it

[nehumanuscrede]

Here, I'll help you understand PayPal a bit more.

Recently, I received notice from PayPal ( an actual PayPal notice, not a phishing email ) that several attempts had been made to gain access to my account from an IP they claim was somewhere in Russia.

Ok, no problem.

I log into my account and find their security notice along with the IP's that were registered when the access attempt was made. Site is verified, certificate checks out, etc. etc.

I rarely use my PayPal account anymore so I attempted to cancel the account.

THAT'S where the problem starts.

Since the access attempt, they locked the account to minimum permissions. The only way I
can cancel the account and / or remove the credit card information is to provide PayPal with
proof of who I am. This involves giving them my home phone number and my BANK ACCOUNT information.

Thus, my account remains open with my credit card info on their servers. You can't close it without giving out even MORE information. Which I refuse to do. Emails to customer service return the usual scripted crap they are known for.

My solution to the problem was to change my password to the most complex mind-numbing thing I could and wait until my credit card expires in December. At which point the card info on their servers will be invalid and I no longer have to worry about it.

A fast Google on PayPal problems will turn up similar stories for you.

Re:I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

Call the credit card company and get them to issue you a new card with a new number, and cancel the old number.

Re:I don't get it

[Firehed]

That was pretty much my experience with them a few years back. I couldn't even find a phone number on the site to call and bitch at them about it, much less actually get the money that was frozen (a not insignificant amount, which they're still holding).

Re:I don't get it

[eric76]

Thus, my account remains open with my credit card info on their servers.

If you used my approach, that wouldn't be a worry.

They want a credit card number -- that's fine. I give them a one-time ShopSafe credit card number from MBNA with a maximum limit of about $25.

When I want to make a purchase, I create and use a new ShopSafe credit card number from MBNA with a limit of two or three bucks more than the value I want to pay.

Using ShopSafe from MBNA, I specify the maximum amount to use on the card and an expiration date of from 2 to 12 months from now. Once used, any future uses until the amount runs down must be from the same place. So if you're using it at a subscription site for on-going subscriptions, they can't go out and use it to buy anything from another merchant.

As far as I'm concerned, it's the only way to go.

Note: I don't work for MBNA or any other credit card company.

Re:I don't get it

[mypalmike]

This involves giving them my home phone number and my BANK ACCOUNT information. ... Which I refuse to do.

Every time you write a check you're giving out your bank account information.

Re:I don't get it

[StarvingSE]

bombing finanicial institutions

Except that paypal is not a fincancial institution, and the risk of having your account frozen by paypal is a lot worse than being charged for overdrawing a savings account.

Paypal is not a bank, and is not federally insured. If they go out of business or want to otherwise freeze your account, say byebye to your money.

Re:I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

ot, paypal doesn't suck when it works (as in your case), but when it doesn't. Customer service is terrible with paypal. In all other financial institutions, they would be able to resolve this conflict within a working day. In paypal, they just freeze your account or worse, take your money away. It used to be worse, actually. if i made money in the US (solved someone's homework on IRC, again), there was NO way i could transfer the money to my Greek bank account. Nowdays, paypal customer service sucks slighly less, but it still smells and feels and looks much like a bulkload of bat guano.

PS. We all know it was disgrunt who did it. Or Hamstar. Or aedi. Or all three ;D

-- Dmi

Re:I don't get it

[illegalcortex]

If you don't work for MBNA, you need to stop watching so many ads. Every time you mentioned shopsafe (three times), you phrased it as "ShopSafe from MBNA". That kind of talk is only done by advertisers.

Re:I don't get it

[phoenix321]

Oh yes, it is a financial institution. It deals with money, and only with money. I don't care how they describe themselves or what their legal status is, they are a de-facto bank and when challenged before a reasonably well educated court with a reasonably skilled lawyer, they'll get to be held on public standards. "If it quacks like a duck..." and so on. To bring some analogies to the table: if a bakery sells cars, they still must have seatbelts and if the car dealer sells bread, anyone can reasonably expect them not to put glass shards in it.

Re:I don't get it

[OrangeTide]

Of course. How do you think I got the money in there ?

Re:I don't get it

[ErikZ]

You can wake up tomorrow and all that money can be gone.

Paypal is not a bank, there are no laws protecting your money like there is with a bank.

Re:I don't get it

[OrangeTide]

I've had 3 different major banks. They all "fucking sucks" (tm), the whole savings account thing is a regulation put in place by the FED (I think). Credit Unions are nice, if you can get into one. And you usually earn interest on money in your checking account, and as far as I know you can do any amount of withdrawals from savings. But credit unions have fundamentally different accounting than Banks do. (that's bank with a capital B, as it is a legal entity with special status)

ATMs are pretty rotten for doing chargebacks. I never use the things online, that's what a credit card is for.

Re:I don't get it

[OrangeTide]

My credit card company did that for me for free. I'm sure I can only do it so many times in a certain period of time though.

Re:I don't get it

[vertinox]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay_Pal#Criticism

Also they really screwed over Somethingawful.com when they held their Katrina Victims fundraiser. Lowtax had raised over $20,000 in donations and then froze the money refusing to even let them donate it to the Red Cross. Eventually he was able to get Pay Pal to refund the money to everyone who donated.

Re:I don't get it

[eric76]

Good point.

Now if I can only quit referring to George Bush, President of the United States and former Governor of Texas by calling him "George Bush, President of the United State and former Governor of Texas".

Oops. There I go again.

Let's try it again but in a roundabout way. How do I refer to his wife? Laura Bush, wife of George Bush, President of the United States and former Governor of Texas.

Hmmmm.

Maybe it's time for a brain transplant. Do you have any I can borrow?

Re:I don't get it

[OrangeTide]

Paypal is indeed a financial institution, but it is not a Bank.

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/ir/lic enses-outside ..

Although your account in paypal is not FDIC insured, certain types of transactions through paypal are (as required by law) FDIC insured (up to $100,000)

Re:I don't get it

[OrangeTide]

So it all boils down to imperfect software and crappy customer service.
after seeing how Paypal handles security threats, like password hacking. It is pretty obvious the policy is not going to be a very positive experience for people.

Wells Fargo Bank has pretty rotten customer service, and has some of the highest fees things like overdraft. Also WFB has gotten in trouble for double charging fees. account goes negative, they initiate an overdraft fee, the account goes positive (small deposit or chargeback). the fee clears and pushes it negative again. another overdraft fee is initiated.

I had this happen to me twice with WFB. I only managed to convince them they were mistaken once though. I gave up pulled out of that place. It was too complicated to keep three bank accounts anyways, so now I'm back down to two.

re dmi :)

Re:I don't get it

[iwsnet]

PayPal is a pretty good service overall. You can also get 1.5% off on purchases using your PayPal Debit Card for Business and if you select credit.

Re:I don't get it

[dr_dank]

Worse, they like to pretend they're a bank when it suits them and claim they're not a bank when it doesn't suit them. Paypal offers a money market-type account, pays interest on certain balances, ATM cards, money transfers, etc but they're not a bank, no sir, federal regulator!

If it looks like a duck, sounds like a duck, but calls itself a dog, it's probably PayPal.

Re:I don't get it

[nehumanuscrede]

"Every time you write a check you're giving out your bank account information."

True statement. Assuming you use checks to pay for anything.

Everything goes on my credit card, since it's from the same bank as my checking account, I simply transfer
the funds between accounts every month to pay it off. One box of checks lasts me YEARS.

Here's the entertaining part.

This discussion came up today and I get this email a few minutes ago:

Dear ,

As part of our security measures, we regularly screen activity in the PayPal
system. We recently contacted you after noticing an issue on your account.We
requested information from you for the following reason:

Our system requires further account verification.

Case ID Number:

This is a reminder to log in to PayPal as soon as possible.

Be sure to log in securely by opening a new browser window and typing the
PayPal URL. Once you log in, you will be provided with steps to restore your account
access. We appreciate your understanding as we work to ensure account safety.

In accordance with PayPal's User Agreement, your account access will remain
limited until the issue has been resolved. Unfortunately, if access to your
account remains limited for an extended period of time, it may result in further
limitations or eventual account closure. We encourage you to log in to your PayPal
account as soon as possible to help avoid this.

To review your account and some or all of the information that PayPal used to
make its decision to limit your account access, please visit the Resolution
Center. If, after reviewing your account information, you seek further
clarification regarding your account access, please contact PayPal by visiting the Help
Center and clicking "Contact Us".

We thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. Please understand that
this is a security measure intended to help protect you and your account. We
apologize for any inconvenience.

Sincerely,
PayPal Account Review Department

PayPal Email ID

Maybe if I sit back and wait, they'll close it for me :) Since I can't seem to do it myself.

Re:I don't get it

[JimBobJoe]

I get a better deal with an ATM card through paypal than I get through my own bank. I actually collect interest on all my money as if it were a savings account. My "free" checking at my bank doesn't give me interest on money in my checking account. And if I put money in my savings account I can get fined for taking money out of it too often.

To be fair, the only problems I've heard about happen to people who use their accounts for selling on ebay. Those of us like you and me, who basically use the Paypal account as really good secondary bank account, don't seem to incur the wrath of Paypal.

Re:I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not just call the company that you got the credit card from and block pay-pal from using it or so it is stolen and get a new one with a new number issued. Personally I went with option number one. Called my bank(they issued me my cc) and told them paypal was holding my information hostage and would not let me close the account. They said ok we will just block them from using it. Took 5 minutes. Anytime paypal tries to use it it is automatically denied.

Re:I don't get it

[wuzzeb]

Everyone else is replying with criticism of paypal, but I will point out that http://www.schwabbank.com/ offers checking accounts that earn 1.05% interest, and bank of the internet http://www.bankofinternet.com/ offers a whopping 3.34% on checking accounts. Yes, checking accounts. The interest on checking is actually higher than on savings accounts.

I have a checking account at schwab bank, and it works great. They have excellent customer service. I was looking at bank of the internet, but decided on schwab bank. Both of these companies are members of the FDIC, so your money is guaranteed and insured by the government up to $100,000. Pretty much the exact opposite to Paypal. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FDIC

Re:I don't get it

[Pooua]

I was tired of my old music club (BMG Music, a real club, not a file-sharing network), so I looked around the Web for a replacement. My Music Inc was highly recommended by a certain Website, iComparer, so I decided to give them a try. iComparer even noted that My Music Inc offers a money back guarantee.

I attempted to pay my membership fee using my credit card, but the My Music Inc website had disabled the link; I could not specify the card type, and attempts to submit the card returned a message saying that an error had occurred, please try an alternate payment method. So, I elected to use PayPal. My Music Inc. actually uses ClickBank to transfer money from PayPal.

I was extremely displeased to find that My Music Inc offers nothing more than a collection of share/freeware and instructions for sharing media files. I asked for a refund through the My Music Inc refund form. Then, I heard nothing for a week. I attempted to contact ClickBank, but I still could not get a reply. So, I filed a complaint with PayPal. Still nothing. After another week, I asked PayPal to arbitrate. Within a few hours, they sent me a reply that my claim was declined, because,

'As stated in our User Agreement, the claims process only applies to the shipment of goods. It does not apply to complaints about the attributes or quality of goods received. Therefore, we are unable to reverse this transaction or issue a refund.'

The PayPal e-mail noted, though, that,

'PayPal does not tolerate fraud or illegal activities. Your complaint has been noted in the record of the PayPal user you reported. If we find this user has violated our policies, we will investigate and take appropriate action. If this occurs, you may be contacted in the future about the status of this complaint.'

This is not the first time that PayPal has rejected my claim. In fact, of the 3 times that I have complained, they have always rejected my claim. So, as you might imagine, I am annoyed with them. Of course, I am much, much more annoyed with My Music Inc, iComparer and ClickBank.

BTW, I own eBay stock. Business is business.

It was me

[Anonymous Coward]

I was the person who sold this explosive device to an excellent ebayer, A+++++++, fast payment, would highly recommend doing business!

employee protection?

[disturbedite]

how could they provide employee protection when they don't even provide customer protection?...

What a shame

[oliverthered]

What a shame the bomb wasn't bigger.

Re:What a shame

[Rufus211]

What a shame the bomb wasn't bigger.

I may not like some (a lot) of PayPall's policies, and I might wish paypall to go out of business. That said why do the 20-odd hackers that were in the building at the time deserve to be bombed?

Re:What a shame

[Nastard]

It's the NOC (eBay NOC, at that) we're talking about. Would you really want a group of geeks to get killed because you don't like PayPal's service? As an employee in another NOC, I'm just glad none of our people were hurt.

Re:What a shame

[Anonymous Coward]

Because they voluntarily work for an evil corporation?

"I vas just followink ORDERS! Yah!"

Re:What a shame

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"What a shame the bomb wasn't bigger."

Erm... Considering this and the "LOL" tag for this story, I have to say it's a shame that Slashdotters don't have a better sense of proportion. Paypal may not be everybody's favorite entity, but bombing them's ok? I'm glad this post was at least modded as flamebait.

Re:What a shame

[rk]

Some people have a dark sense of humor.

On 9/11/2001, I got onto a chat with a friend of mine with whom I've had many discussions about the things wrong in the world. His first line to me was:

"Don't tell me you started without me."

You may or may not appreciate that form of humor, but some people do. My sense of humor is fairly dark, but I have another friend who has such a dark sense of humor some of his comments give me shivers. Interestingly enough, he works as a paramedic. I don't think that when he makes a joke about the carnage at a multi-car drunk driver-caused accident that he's endorsing drunk driving.

Re:What a shame

[evilviper]

That said why do the 20-odd hackers that were in the building at the time deserve to be bombed?

Good tip!

Guys, next time wait until late morning, when the management will all be there...

Re:What a shame

[MacDork]

why do the 20-odd hackers that were in the building at the time deserve to be bombed?

Because they are passing responsibility for atrocity to an authority figure rather than accept it themselves? Those 20-odd hackers are the ones directly responsible for PayPal. To say otherwise is just passing the buck. So kids, the moral of this story is that the corporate veil might stop a lawyer, but not a bomber. To fend off bombers, act like a moral and responsible citizen.

Randal: So they build another Death Star, right?
Dante: Yeah.
Randal: Now the first one they built was completed and fully operational before the Rebels destroyed it.
Dante: Luke blew it up. Give credit where it's due.
Randal:And the second one was still being built when they blew it up.
Dante: Compliments of Lando Calrissian.
Randal: Something just never sat right with me the second time they destroyed it. I could never put my finger on it-something just wasn't right.
Dante: And you figured it out?
Randal: Well, the thing is, the first Death Star was manned by the Imperial army-storm troopers, dignitaries- the only people onboard were Imperials.
Dante: Basically.
Randal: So when they blew it up, no prob. Evil is punished.
Dante: And the second time around...?
Randal: The second time around, it wasn't even finished yet. They were still under construction.
Dante: So?
Randal: A construction job of that magnitude would require a helluva lot more manpower than the Imperial army had to offer. I'll bet there were independent contractors working on that thing: plumbers, aluminum siders, roofers.
Dante: Not just Imperials, is what you're getting at.
Randal: Exactly. In order to get it built quickly and quietly they'd hire anybody who could do the job. Do you think the average storm trooper knows how to install a toilet main? All they know is killing and white uniforms.
Dante: All right, so even if independent contractors are working on the Death Star, why are you uneasy with its destruction?
Randal: All those innocent contractors hired to do a job were killed- casualties of a war they had nothing to do with. (notices Dante's confusion) All right, look-you're a roofer, and some juicy government contract comes your way; you got the wife and kids and the two-story in suburbia-this is a government contract, which means all sorts of benefits. All of a sudden these left-wing militants blast you with lasers and wipe out everyone within a three-mile radius. You didn't ask for that. You have no personal politics. You're just trying to scrape out a living.
(The Blue-Collar Man (Thomas Burke) joins them.)
Blue-Collar Man: Excuse me. I don't mean to interrupt, but what were you talking about?
Randal: The ending of Return of the Jedi.
Dante: My friend is trying to convince me that any contractors working on the uncompleted Death Star were innocent victims when the space station was destroyed by the rebels.
Blue-Collar Man: Well, I'm a contractor myself. I'm a roofer... (digs into pocket and produces business card) Dunn and Reddy Home Improvements. And speaking as a roofer, I can say that a roofer's personal politics come heavily into play when choosing jobs.
Randal: Like when?
Blue-Collar Man: Three months ago I was offered a job up in the hills. A beautiful house with tons of property. It was a simple reshingling job, but I was told that if it was finished within a day, my price would be doubled. Then I realized whose house it was.
Dante: Whose house was it?
Blue-Collar Man: Dominick Bambino's.
Randal: "Babyface" Bambino? The gangster?
Blue-Collar Man: The same. The money was right, but the risk was too big. I knew who he was, and based on that, I passed the job on to a friend of mine.
Dante: Based on personal politics.
Blue-Collar Man: Right. And that week, the Foresci family put a hit on Babyface's house. My friend was shot and killed. He wasn't even finished shingling.
Randal:

Re:What a shame

[Grishnakh]

I may not like some (a lot) of PayPall's policies, and I might wish paypall to go out of business. That said why do the 20-odd hackers that were in the building at the time deserve to be bombed?

No hackers were bombed, only a plate-glass window. This wasn't some truck-size fertilizer bomb, just a little pipe bomb or the like. Sure, there was a small risk someone may have been walking by when it exploded, but this thing went off in the early AM, so obviously the bomber didn't intend to hurt anyone.

As far as I'm concerned, anyone actually hanging out at work at 2AM deserves to get bombed for being such a tool for their company (unless they own the company, or are 2nd/3rd shift workers).

Re:What a shame

[Anonymous Coward]

1. RTFA, it was 19:15 (That is 7:30 PM for a true genuis such as yourself)

2. How about the poor janitors whose jobs are to ONLY work after hours cleaning up. And while we're at it, Paypal IS a website as in 24/7 with 24/7 staff.

Try taking your head out of you know where before speaking in the future.

Re:What a shame

[oliverthered]

and I thought the old joke about americans not getting sarcasm was a myth.

Hehe

[Anonymous Coward]

PayPal, instead of the usual "Pay up pal, or we will cancel your account and take all your money", got PayPal'ed instead-"Pay me back my money pal, or we will bomb your building."

Quality Journalism

[Asklepius M.D.]

From TFA There was no immediate word on the contents of the device, but officials told CBS 5 Tuesday that the debris left behind was not radiological.

This was my first worry..... but the article failed to mention whether hackers, teens, or radical islamofacistantiglobalisticexpialidocious terrorists may or may not have been involved.

Re:Quality Journalism

[Anonymous Coward]

Coinage of the Year award!

"the article failed to mention whether hackers, teens, or radical islamofacistantiglobalisticexpialidocious terrorists may or may not have been involved"

Re:Quality Journalism

[lessthan]

Islamofacistantiglobalisticexpialidocious is my new favorite word! I'm going to immediately added it to all my conversations!

Thank God ...

[Anonymous Coward]

... it was not a nukelar bomb.

George

Re:Thank God ...

[Kelson]

I believe the proper term is "nukular," an abbreviation of "nuke-you-la'r," itself a contraction of "nuke you later," a traditional Texan greeting derived from the intense heat of a Texan barbecue grill. Essentially, one is saying that the other person is always welcome at a barbecue.

How the term jumped over to fission/fusion-based weapons, I couldn't begin to guess.

What in the crap?

[grammar fascist]

Perhaps they should have offered employee protection instead?

What's this garbage? And linking to a story about how PayPal is going to "suck less?"

There's black comedy and there's black comedy, and the latter kind implies that your sympathies lie with the perpetrators. Do you think, maybe, this is a bad way to start an article?

Good one, Pooua.

Re:What in the crap?

[drinkypoo]

Your sympathies can lie with the perpetrators without agreeing with their actions - I know that a lot of people would bomb paypal. They wouldn't do it, and most of them wouldn't condone such an action, but at the same time since no one was hurt it's not unreasonable to take a certain kind of smug satisfaction.

Personally, although I would never be involved (I am just NOT sneaky and even my fingerprints are the easiest kind to identify, arch+whorl) I would love to see a few more bombs go off at the headquarters of some of our less favorite companies. If I were going to blow something up, I'd be attacking their infrastructure instead of just blowing up windows - hit the box where their networking wiring is, or blow up their electrical transformer. This was just a poor waste of a bomb.

I'd say the first bombs to go off should be at the USPTO, the HQ of the RIAA and every single one of their members, and various SBC facilities. Microsoft is pretty far down the list, but by god they're on there.

To the government watchdogs reading this because it was flagged, again, I would never blow shit up. Honest.

Re:What in the crap?

[loraksus]

and the latter kind implies that your sympathies lie with the perpetrators

Bing bing bing!

Re:What in the crap?

[blahplusplus]

"There's black comedy and there's black comedy, and the latter kind implies that your sympathies lie with the perpetrators. Do you think, maybe, this is a bad way to start an article?"

You must have never been defrauded before for a SERIOUS amont of money that represents a large chunk of you time spent having worked

Tell me have you ever been ripped off for a large amount of money? I don't care WHO you are, but when you've worked months and months for money and someone defrauds you of thousands of dollars, thats MONTHS or YEARS of your life you can't get back, money gives a person control of their time and their life, it supports their family, when someone steals that money, THEIR PROPERTY, LIFE AND TIME HAS BEEN STOLEN FROM THEM.

It's a perfectly valid response. You have to understand paypal does stupid fucking things, I got defrauded once and paypal gave me a hell of a time simply because I bought from a buyer who did not have "paypal buyer protection" after the sale because he ripped off a bunch of people and then the flurry of negative feedback came on ebay, but he DID have buyer ptoection wgeb I made the sale, but he lost it due to bad ebay feedback and I had to haggle with paypal for my money of technicality.

Sure bombing may seem extreme from our side because we are not the person who has been defrauded, but if it was a big enough amount of money it surely would be very difficult to settle onself if you're not in a position to get it back.

Re:What in the crap?

[reflector]

There's black comedy and there's black comedy, and the latter kind implies that your sympathies lie with the perpetrators.

which perpetrators are you referring to, the bomber, or paypal?

Funny?

[Nos.]

I just don't find any of this funny. Planting a bomb anywhere but in strict controlled testing areas is not a joke. Obviously this was at least meant to damage the building, and possibly even to harm people. Imagine for a minute that you're a tech at this location, regardless of who it is. You're not responsible for corporate policy. Yet you're in as much, or more danger from an attack like this than those who do make the decisions.

I'm just glad nobody was hurt, and that the damage was relatively minor. I hope the culprit or culprits are caught quickly, and dealt with harshly.

Re:Funny?

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine for a minute that you're a tech at this location, regardless of who it is. You're not responsible for corporate policy. Yes, they were just following orders. That exempts them from any moral responsibility. After all, it's impossible to just resign a job from an immoral company. Newsflash - the "just following orders" defence doesn't work based on significant precedent.

Re:Funny?

[otacon]

Yeah seriously, I mean could you imagine working there and how rattled you would be from it all? Those people are just trying to make a living like everyone else. The fact that some people think their service sucks is irrelevent, it doesn't constitute planting a bomb. Whether it was a serious attack or meant as a gag, it's still not very funny.

Re:Funny?

[otacon]

Most people aren't trying to make a statement by choosing where they work. They just want to collect a paycheck. Simple as that.

Re:Funny?

[Rob T Firefly]

Ethically and morally I totally agree with you.

However, due to an odd mixture of customer dissatisfaction, slightly warped senses of drama and poetic justice, and good old-fashioned schadenfreude, I still chuckled.

Humans, eh?

Re:Funny?

[Nos.]

Resigning from a job because of differing beliefs between employee and employer is admirable. However, its not as easy as handing in your resignation when you've got a family to feed and a mortgage to pay. I've been there, it can take years to find a new and better position.

Just following orders - only applies to legal proceedings. If they asked an employee to do something illegal that's one thing. The guy maintaining the OS isn't doing anything illegal, and arguably, nothing immoral either.

Re:Funny?

[Anonymous Coward]

The "just following orders" defence historically applied to those kinds of people, not the ideological leaders. People who just wanted to get by, while willingly overlooking immoral things they did, were punished. This seems appropriate to me.

Re:Funny?

[otacon]

Ok, I see your argument, how do you even figure PayPal as being an immoral company, every company has people that are dissatisfied. As far as I know they haven't broken any laws, and are not under investigation. They provide a widely used service. Now if you were the sysadmin for a 419 E-Mail scam operation, I would totally agree with you that it would be wrong to "just follow orders". Where legally and ethically the company is in the wrong.

Re:Funny?

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

You're not responsible for corporate policy. Yet you're in as much, or more danger from an attack like this than those who do make the decisions.

By working for a company, you express your approval of its policies and actions. It's that simple. See here for a good example of why your excuse just doesn't cut it.

Re:Funny?

[TheCarp]

Kind of like all the contractors on the death star?

-Steve

Re:Funny?

[avirrey]

Funny?! No it certainly isn't funny. I am pissed! Why couldn't they bomb the RIAA instead!?!? What a waste of a bomb!
-----------------
X's and O's for all my foes.

Re:Funny?

[Nos.]

By working for a company, you express your approval of its policies and actions. It's that simple. See here for a good example of why your excuse just doesn't cut it.

I'm sorry, what illegal acts are you implying our fictional IT guy has committed? Surely you're not comparing the corporate policies of a company with the Holocaust? Paypal, to the best of my knowledge, isn't committing genocide. Now, while you may not agree with the policies of Paypal, our IT guy might. If he does, he's not guilty of any crime and sure as hell does not deserve to be killed or have is life endangered because of it. Even if he doesn't agree with the policies, that doesn't mean as an employee he endorses them. Do you agree with absolutely everything your employer does?

Re:Funny?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Resigning from a job because of differing beliefs between employee and employer is admirable. However, its not as easy as handing in your resignation when you've got a family to feed and a mortgage to pay.

Yeah, doing the right thing often hurts.

I've been there, it can take years to find a new and better position.

If you only stop an unethical act when it is to your benefit, you haven't really made an ethical choice at all, have you? Who said you have to move to a better position? Or did you mean a less ethically repugnant position?

Just following orders - only applies to legal proceedings.

I consider this to be one of the greatest failings of western and American culture. The excuse "it's just business" to justify or distance oneself from unethical behavior. Guess what? It doesn't fly. Whether you're profiting from stocks you know are making money because of unethical act or whether you're performing the acts themselves, but claim to abdicate responsibility to a person higher up, it does not matter. You're still responsible for what the end result is.

Personal responsibility is rough, but that's just the way it is. A lot of people spend a lot of time trying to blame other's for their problems and for the problems with society, but if people refused to take part in unethical acts they would stop. If you help evict an old lady, guess what, you're responsible because you did not refuse to take part. If you cashed in on stock you own after it goes up because the company foreclosed on that old lady and kicked her into the street, guess what, you're responsible for profiting from the unethical act.

Being ethical in today's society that tries to excuse unethical acts with these rationalizations is very hard. Simply finding a stock to invest in that you have a reasonable assurance will not behave unethically is a monumental task. You will suffer for doing the right thing. Less ethical people will make more money than you, send their kids to better schools and probably move up the societal ladder while you slide down it. The question is, what is more important, monetary success or being a good person?

Re:Funny?

[Mysticalfruit]

I'm thinking the harshest penalty they could give this person is paypal account. With that said, the judge will give him time servered.

All joking aside, I agree whole heartedly. I'm not sure how this device was triggered, but let's assume it was some type of timer. With that premise, you could argue the person (probably a guy) didn't care either way and in their head he was "sending them a message". Well, we got the message, and we hear it loud and clear, you're a fucking idiot. We now offically revoke your license to cohabitate with the free world.

Re:Funny?

[OldeTimeGeek]

By working for a company, you express your approval of its policies and actions.

So, unless you're working for yourself, you're pretty much screwed, right? EVERY company makes decisions that somebody somewhere won't like. Every company has policies that will negatively affect someone. Am I, personally, responsible for all of them, regardless of whether I know of them or not? Am I complicit even though I did not actively participate in their enforcement?

If one of the Board of Directors of the company that I work for decides to relocate half the workers, making the Board, and, by extension, the company "evil" (a word that has no practical meaning on Slashdot), am I responsible because I run the systems? Should I commit seppuku, or would just quitting be sufficient to expiate my sins?

Re:Funny?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for confirming Godwin's law.

Re:Funny?

[Anonymous Coward]

Quitting would be fine.

Re:Funny?

[Lurker2288]

If I allow my family to suffer because I refuse to profit from ethically-suspect (not necessarily blatantly unethical) actions, have I really made the most ethical choice? If not sending my kids to a good school damns them to poverty and ignorance, then don't I have an ethical obligation to them, as well? And hey, if the old lady isn't paying her rent, then isn't she being unethical?

Ah, a little moral relativism after lunch. C'est maqnifique.

Re:Funny?

[hyfe]

You're not responsible for corporate policy.

Bullshit. You help do something, you're responsible.

If the benefits* outweigh your moral qualms, well..that's your deal. Just don't pretend that somehow absolves you of your moral guilt. It's still there.

_

*Such as getting paid and actually being able to afford food for your starving children

Re:Funny?

[Nos.]

Yeah, doing the right thing often hurts.
Hurts? I'm talking about being able to provide food and shelter for my family, not about having to give up picking up the next console or big screen TV.

If you only stop an unethical act when it is to your benefit, you haven't really made an ethical choice at all, have you? Who said you have to move to a better position? Or did you mean a less ethically repugnant position?
I guess my beliefs, ethics, and morals are a little different than yours. I've tried everywhere I've worked, to make changes to what I believe are the more "right" ways of doing things. I've had some success, but not lots. However, is it ethically "right" in your mind, to subject myself and my family to stress, frustration, and fewer perks for the privilege of fighting a battle that can't be won against management that refuses to see things my way? If so, I guess I just don't measure up on your moral yard stick.

The excuse "it's just business" to justify or distance oneself from unethical behavior. Guess what? It doesn't fly. Whether you're profiting from stocks you know are making money because of unethical act or whether you're performing the acts themselves, but claim to abdicate responsibility to a person higher up, it does not matter. You're still responsible for what the end result is.
I'm sorry, I will not claim responsibility for every action that remotely relates back to me. Extending you logic only slightly would mean that simply by paying taxes in my country means I support every action taken by my government. You've made investing money anywhere to almost be a guaranteed ethical nightmare. I certainly wouldn't be able to invest in any RRSP, which I guess means I couldn't work for most of the employers around here, since that's where their pensions are , that or in Government bonds which goes back to my previous point. In fact, I shouldn't even keep money in the bank since every bank I know of forecloses on good honest people who just can't make their payments, which is obviously an immoral act. Not to mention the service charges. Most car companies that I know of are doing horrible things to the environment, guess I can't buy a car. But wait, if I don't do all these things, I hurt the economy, so I'd better spend money. I know, organic foods. I'll buy those. Oh wait, some farms are known to have illegal immigrants working. Do you see where I'm going? If you try and find something unethical about everything you do, you probably can. You're (presumably) using a computer to browse slashdot. You don't really *need* to browse and comment on slashdot, so unless all your energy is from a green source, your polluting, which is unethical. Of course, that doesn't even take into account all the components in your computer that are harmful.

The question is, what is more important, monetary success or being a good person?
You make it out to be a black or white decision. Its not, at least not for me. Sure, some situations are easy. I see an old woman drop a $20 on the ground while trying to pay for her medications at the drug store, I pick it up and give it to her. Unfortunately, the rest of my life isn't so clean and simple. I've blacklisted myself at an employer because I stood up for employee rights. I've tried to make positive change in a company only to end up being treated like dirt. I've spent time and money with non-profit and charitable organizations because I believe in what they are trying to accomplish.

Re:Funny?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

EVERY company makes decisions that somebody somewhere won't like.

So does every individual.

Every company has policies that will negatively affect someone. Am I, personally, responsible for all of them, regardless of whether I know of them or not? Am I complicit even though I did not actively participate in their enforcement?

You're not responsible for acts you don't partake in or know about, but you are responsible for being willfully ignorant if you intentionally try not to learn about unethical acts in which you are complicit.

If one of the Board of Directors of the company that I work for decides to relocate half the workers, making the Board, and, by extension, the company "evil" (a word that has no practical meaning on Slashdot), am I responsible because I run the systems? Should I commit seppuku, or would just quitting be sufficient to expiate my sins?

If a company you're working for takes unethical actions and you know about them, you do have en ethical responsibility. The extent of that responsibility is pretty subjective as is the action you should take to take care of that unethical action. Perhaps writing to the board and telling them you disapprove is sufficient. Perhaps it is not. Everyone will have a slightly different opinion about this.

The point is, we are all responsible for the actions of groups and companies we know are behaving unethically. Collecting a paycheck and calling it "business" in no way absolves you of responsibility. Make sure you understand that level of responsibility and are prepared to deal with the consequences.

I'm not saying that a customer support guy at PayPal deserves to have their legs blown off for not quitting when they realize that the company is scamming people, but neither are they blameless. You are personally responsible for your actions and actions you know your company is taking. It's part of being a rational thinking creature. You're responsible for your effect upon the world.

Re:Funny?

[Nos.]

Bullshit. You help do something, you're responsible.
Okay, you used electricity and a computer to post that comment. Those are both polluters, unless you're on completely green energy (which I really doubt). That means you polluted simply to post a comment to slashdot. I hold you morally and ethically responsible for global warming.

Re:Funny?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody forces you to work for any particular employer. By agreeing to work for them and collecting a paycheck from them, you signify that you endorse their policies and become a "part of the machine". For better or worse, being employed by an evil company makes you evil. If you don't completely agree with everything your employer does, either leave, or justify it to yourself and stay, but realize that working for an evil company makes you a target to the people that your company rapes.

What's really sad about this whole situation is that it was a useless attempt at garnering attention. There was no real damage done to the building, and I can guarantee that Paypal sure didn't get the message from whoever performed this act. God help whoever put the bomb there, as now every three letter agency in this country is gunning for them. WHATEVER Paypal did to you, it will be insignificant compared to prison. Paypal doesn't think through how their policies affect their customers, but this putz REALLY didn't think through how his actions would affect his life.

-Anonymous Coward

Re:Funny?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

If I allow my family to suffer because I refuse to profit from ethically-suspect (not necessarily blatantly unethical) actions, have I really made the most ethical choice?

When you strip away the situation from this it boils down to a fundamental ethical question: "Do the ends justify the means." I personally don't think they do, in principal. I don't believe murdering one unwilling, innocent to save hundreds is ethical. There is room for debate and it has been ongoing for thousands of years.

And hey, if the old lady isn't paying her rent, then isn't she being unethical?

Obviously that depends upon the particular situation. But does one unethical act justify another? Can two wrongs make a right. I think most of us agree they don't, and can safely discard this line of reasoning.

Re:Funny?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit is right. You are full of it. Wake me up when you enter the real world my friend. It is more complicated than you think, and isn't made up of simply black and white.

Re:Funny?

[Anonymous Coward]

I do work at this location (I'm an engineer). As TFA says, the damage was minimal due to the late hour (~8pm local time) and Halloween (due to which a lot of employees were outside partying or trick-o-treating). All of the employees at this location have been asked to work from home today while investigations continue. Since Paypal/eBay has another location right here in San Jose, CA work still goes on.

I agree that this is not funny as such, but people react differently, ya know? As long as no one underestimates the seriousness of human life, that's OK. Also the fact that noone's injured makes it less tragic.
Hopefully this doesn't turn out to be terrorism (I don't think it is - who would want to bomb PayPal especially on such a small scale), but we need to take it seriously either way and find out the root cause.

Re:Funny?

[Anonymous Coward]

And some nonpaypal employees actually live near there too. Go ahead and make your contractors on the death star jokes, but I have nothing to do with them at all. I just happen to live a couple blocks away. I drive past there daily. Some days I even walk past there. Bombs don't care if you are innocent or not.

Re:Funny?

[Null537]

Any employee of Paypal knew the risks. If they were killed it was their own fault. A Paypal employee listens to this *taps heart* not his wallet.

Re:Funny?

[AK Marc]

I'm sorry, what illegal acts are you implying our fictional IT guy has committed?

Theft and fraud.

Re:Funny?

[Duggeek]

Very cute. Is your copy of Clerks autographed, too?

Bombing PayPal... sheesh. For all we know, it was a Halloween prank. Who sets-off a bomb in the middle of the night to spread terror? Sure, there's some paranoia... but nobody was hurt.

Let's be honest, here. Any strategist knows that, in order to spread terror and change behavior on a massive scale, you need more than just a bit of property damage. People have to get hurt in order for terror to take hold.

Heaven forbid that should happen, but that is the truth in the matter, now isn't it?

Sure, go catch the pranksters. Have them pay for the damage they caused.

After that, do us a favor and drop it. There's wa-a-ay too much being read into this.

Besides... the contractors were only on the *second* Death Star, stupid! >:P

On the first Death Star, they got what they deserved.

Re:Funny?

[Threni]

> Even if he doesn't agree with the policies, that doesn't mean as an employee he endorses them. Do you agree with absolutely
> everything your employer does?

It's not about agreeing with everything they do. Most employers make too many decisions for any one person to be aware of all of them, and there are likely to be many things one would do differently. But if you work for a company doing things you find immoral* then you're a hypocrite, and should quit and find work elsewhere.

* The distinction as to whether a crime is committed by a company or not is irrelevant. People approve or disapprove of things regardless of whether they're legally sanctioned. Besides, if a company breaks the law it's generally possible to take them to court or have them prosecuted with criminal charges.

Re:Funny?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Hurts? I'm talking about being able to provide food and shelter for my family, not about having to give up picking up the next console or big screen TV.

Sometimes the ethical act is the one that results in you dying a horrible, painful death. That makes it no less the ethical decision. That is because the world is not a fair place and others will do unethical things and random, unfortunate events will happen.

I've tried everywhere I've worked, to make changes to what I believe are the more "right" ways of doing things. I've had some success, but not lots.

Great. Good for you. That is a very ethical and noble thing to do. It does not, however, make you any less responsible for other, unethical acts you know the company is performing and which you are enabling.

However, is it ethically "right" in your mind, to subject myself and my family to stress, frustration, and fewer perks for the privilege of fighting a battle that can't be won against management that refuses to see things my way?

"Right" is for morals. Yes, I believe it is ethical to suffer and be unable to bring benefits to others rather than contribute to unethical behavior. I fundamentally do not believe the ends justify the means.

If so, I guess I just don't measure up on your moral yard stick.

To be clear, I'm speaking about ethics, not morals. No one acts in a completely ethical way, nor would I presume to judge anyone based upon their actions. I'm merely speaking of ethical principals and responsibilities. We all make choices and the responsibility for those choices is our own. I'm not prescribing behavior, merely describing fundamental principals.

I'm sorry, I will not claim responsibility for every action that remotely relates back to me. Extending you logic only slightly would mean that simply by paying taxes in my country means I support every action taken by my government.

As a thinking person, you are responsible for the foreseeable results of your actions. That does not make the responsibility yours alone, or even in a significant way. The actions of a government funded by your tax dollars are your responsibility, but only in a small part being as you are only slightly aware of what they are used for and seeing as the money is taken from you under threat of violence.

You've made investing money anywhere to almost be a guaranteed ethical nightmare.

I didn't do anything. And your cause an effect is very incorrect. The system of stocks and mutual funds evolved out of people not wanting to feel responsible for unethical acts that benefit them. Layers of bureaucracy separate those profiting and the unethical acts that create that profit. Your knowledge of those probably unethical acts, however, makes you responsible for willfully being ignorant of the specifics.

Do you see where I'm going?

Yes. Unethical acts happen all around and it is hard to not take part in them. Since when does the fact that being ethical is difficult change what is ethical? It was hard not to kill strangers when some noble rounded you up into their little army. If you didn't help kill the children, they would kill you. How does that make killing the children ethical?

You're (presumably) using a computer to browse slashdot. You don't really *need* to browse and comment on slashdot, so unless all your energy is from a green source, your polluting, which is unethical. Of course, that doesn't even take into account all the components in your computer that are harmful.

I never claimed I'm not doing things that support or contribute to unethical behavior. I'm just noting that I and everyone else are personally responsible for our parts in that unethical behavior.

You make it out to be a black or white decision. Its not, at least not for me.

If that is what you took from this, I'm sorry. The decision is certainly not black and white. The ethics of it is. Sometimes an unethical act can resu

Re:Funny?

[TheViewFromTheGround]

As an employee of the company, you most certainly are responsible for corporate policy -- at the very least, to the continuation of said policies. That alone doesn't justify the use of violent resistance against said company or its employees. Other things might, in utterly extreme and rare cases. More imaginative strategies, informed by creativity and imaginative forms of nonviolent resistance, are often far more effective and more ethically defensible. I work as an activist on the southside of Chicago, and one of the things I work on is police brutality. Lately, we've been had a couple of surprising successes in pushing reform, mainly due to precise and dispassionate factual evidence, a sophisticated analysis, careful targeting of officials with our message, an upcoming mayoral election, and alliances with elite lawyers who sometimes take them on. We haven't planted any bombs or threatened any officers. To the contrary, I respect and admire many of the police I known socially or dealt with in the course of this work, even officers that I have had deep disagreements with or who stop me for being a white guy in a black neighborhood. In fact, we have never tried to do anything big or dramatic, even in the tone of the narrative and design of the site. You can be effective by being dead-serious, factual, clear, and strategic in your interventions, without ever having to resort to violence.

Re:Funny?

[slvi]

Planting a bomb anywhere but in strict controlled testing areas is not a joke.

So, planting a bomb in strict controlles testing areas is a joke? I don't get it.

Re:Funny?

[dAzED1]

agreed that planting bomb isn't appropriate.

That being said, two things: honestly ask yourself which side you fall on the Palestinian/Israeli issue. Palestinian plants a bomb in a cafe' because that's all they can do, they can't attack non-civs with actual military success (note the "military" limit to the word "success"). By the same token, if corporation X deprives someone of their life, liberty, and persuit of happiness...do you really think the courts are going to care in this extreme capitalism world we live in? The side with the bigger lawyers wins. Little guy that lost $500 to paypal fraud can't do anything; the cost of any action to reclaim damages would far exceed the original damages themselves.

Second thing: "You're not responsible for corporate policy" - wrong. Refuse to work there. If you work there, you should be held culpable for the actions of the company; at the very least, you should be held liable for any action of which you are aware. I've left places because I didn't agree with their corporate policy, business model, etc. Don't like what the Republicans are doing? Don't be a Republican, don't vote Republican. Don't like what Paypal is doing? Don't work at Paypal, don't use Paypal. Patronization of a product or service, or involvement in the production of the product or service, counts you as partially responsible for the ramifications of that product or service. Don't like factory farming? Then don't buy factory farmed meat. Think we are causing global warming? Stop driving cars and wasting electricity. Be responsible. If nothing else, thermodynamics; if you're willing to add energy to a closed system (like paypal) then you must be willing to accept the heat, as it were.

If Paypal's offices were located in some small farming community, and you really had no other employment options that paid enough so you could take care of your wife who was dying of cancer, then fine, your responsibility is limited. However, we're talking about a bomb outside offices in San Jose...with thousands of other employment opportunities within walking distance.

Re:Funny?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would mod you as funny but I just ran out of points...

Re:Funny?

[asuffield]

EVERY company makes decisions that somebody somewhere won't like.

Whether or not people like a decision has got nothing to do with whether or not it is ethical.

Re:Funny?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope. Still not funny to me. My brother in law works at Paypal, and my sister and my 3 year old niece were playing in the area earlier that day.

"Funny" how the humor of the situation was lost on me.

Re:Funny?

[Anonymous Coward]

It looks like nobody was hurt. If the opposite were true, I'm sure you'd see less jokes made about it. If that clashes with your outlook, come to terms with the fact that nobody else is responsible for your outlook, so ignore it and move on.

Nobody's asking you to find it funny, but some people will laugh.

Re:Funny?

[hyfe]

I hold you morally and ethically responsible for global warming.

As is your right. Pretty much everybody in the western world share the blame. Including me. We all enjoy being rich a tad too much.

Re:Funny?

[hyfe]

It is more complicated than you think, and isn't made up of simply black and white.

Life is exactly as simple as you make it; and your answer is very typical for people refusing to face reality.

Re:Funny?

[Shajenko42]

Yeah seriously, I mean could you imagine working there and how rattled you would be from it all?

Interesting point. Maybe they've achieved a part of their goal. This might push some people to quit in favor of working somewhere they feel to be safer, and that will cost Paypal some money. Which, of course, is really the only way to hurt a corporation.

Re:Funny?

[TheCarp]

Yah thats very very true.

People generally don't like to think about that though. It really takes alot of the bite out of terrorist attacks when you put your head into the mindset of the terrorist and try to see why he does what he does and how he chooses his targets. Look at his goals.

People seem to like to just throw up their hands, and call them "crazy". Afterall, if they are crazy, you can't understand them, they don't make sense, its the only explaination!

In reality though, its very simple. Imagine that you are just you, and you have an enemy, and enemy who is out to get you, an enemy that you feel is threatening your very way of life and the way of life of others. Now imagine that enemy is the United States, a big powerful government with a big powerful army.

You can't hope to engage them on a level playing field and win. So, how do you fight them?

Never mind whether we deserve to be fought or why. None of that matters. In their mind, the decision of who the enemy is is made. The decision to fight is made. What follows naturally from there is pretty much exactly what they do.

You hide, you work in shadowy networks. You utilise your advantages, you are small, you can hide amongst people similar both ethnically, culturally, and who share some amount of your ideology, or at least who see a common enemy.

Then you strike. What is the goal of your strike? To attack their weaknesses. Terrorism is like jujutsu. Its not about delivering a killing strike to an enemy. Its about redirecting the enemies energy. Its about throwing him off balance, its about using his own attacks and counter attacks against him.

Shit, any geek with some time on his hands could devise a pretty damned effective terrorist campaign. A bomb here, a shooting there. Its cheap, but effective. Look at it this way...

You spend a hundred bucks and a few weeks time building a bomb. You plan a place to put it where it will hit lots of people.... maybe make two or three bombs and target the rescue squad too.

You choose the time to strike. You choose what statement you release. If you re careful, you probably even get away with it the first time (and maybe you get away with it for a long time if you are lucky and good).

Then, as we have proved over and over, the government will play right into you rhand. You blow up a few 10s of people. Probably all told in terms of financial impact (hate to look at it that way) a couple o fmillion dollars in terms of lost wages to families, medical bills, property damage.

Then entire police forces, FBI etc are mobilised. They will spend millions more looking for you. You just hit the local town, state, federal gov, and private individuals for a collective total of probably a couple of 10s of millions of dollars.... all for under $100 and a few weeks of work.

Thats the model, scale it up, scale it down. Do one big one, or a few little ones. They will be spending money looking to solve the case for years to come. People may even lose some of their civil liberties. They may lock down your target... but thats ok, you wont hit the same place or way again anyway.

Educating people as to how this works and finding ways to overcome peoples natural urges to give in to the tactic are the only ways to fight it. essentially, you can't fight terrorists by fighting them. You have to isolate them ideologially, you have to cut off their means of recruiting new people (same thing) and then, you find the individuals doing it.

What you don't do is send in the army to where you think their "base of operations" is. You don't topple regiemes. You don't take away civil liberties. Because as soon as you spent more money on fighting them than they spent hitting you.... they have already won.

I would say September 11th did so much damage it "paid for itself" the moment the planes hit in terms of damage. Since then it paid for itself over and over again.

They won the moment they hit. They won again the moment we invaded afghanistan. Th

Re:Funny?

[zoftie]

A company that generates so much ill will, karama etc, is bound to get things like that. Reading some of the horror stories, about dealings with paypal I'd say this was coming to them, and some more will come again, if they don't change their ways. Fact of the matter, paypal really does bring alot of reasons why internet cannot be used for wholesale commerce. Imagine CEO of walmart buying a baby carrige on ebay then his bank account gets cleared out, account frozen and him getting obtuse responses, "your account under investiation", "it may be resolved in near future".
Also eBay, something leads me to think there is as much legitimacy to each, as currency exchanger that walks around stalls in the "hot" goods(stolen stuff) market.
Whatever comes to them, is what they asked for. Working for eBay of Paypal, is like working for racketeering gangs that govern such illegal markets. You have to expect that some day you will get your face smashed in or worse be killed. I wouldn't work for a place like this after reading up on it.
And no this is not funny, it is retribution. This is when ill will is so great, that it has to come to this, and more possibly later.

The only long term way to solve this is to regulate paypal to be a bank, with strict controls to protect its customers.

Re:Funny?

[Grishnakh]

Since you're an employee at Paypal, how's your conscience treating you with regard to all the people you've helped screw over? Or do you have a conscience?

Re:Funny?

[Anonymous Coward]

To the contrary, I respect and admire many of the police I known socially or dealt with in the course of this work, even officers that I have had deep disagreements with or who stop me for being a white guy in a black neighborhood.

Don't they just do this because they're concerned you won't make it out alive without police protection?

I've driven through the south side of Chicago, and it looked like a war zone. I think Baghdad probably looks more peaceful.

Re:Funny?

[Grishnakh]

Working for eBay of Paypal, is like working for racketeering gangs that govern such illegal markets. You have to expect that some day you will get your face smashed in or worse be killed. I wouldn't work for a place like this after reading up on it.
And no this is not funny, it is retribution. This is when ill will is so great, that it has to come to this, and more possibly later.

I think this is just something you have to realistically consider when you choose where to go work. A bunch of people on here are making noises about how this bombing is unjustified no matter what Paypal did, etc. None of that matters; yes, you can argue that it's unjustified, and the bomber should go to jail, but the simple fact is, when people are screwed over (or think they are), there's a certain minute percentage that may just go postal and do something like this. The more bad stuff you do, the more likely you are to get a payback from some nut like this. Yeah, the nut stands a significant chance of getting caught and going to jail, but that won't undo the damage he does.

The best way to avoid all of this is to act in an honest and ethical manner whenever possible. You may still get killed by a nut, but your chances of this are far lower than for someone who makes a living screwing people over.

Re:Funny?

[TheViewFromTheGround]

Don't they just do this because they're concerned you won't make it out alive without police protection?

It depends. Sometimes, yeah, because of some presumption of danger. Sometimes, because they think I'm there to buy drugs (which is fair, that's the main reason you'll see white people in those neighborhoods). Sometimes because they want to mess with somebody. It just depends.

The southside looks awfully scary to outsiders, and sometimes genuinely is (when gangs are warring) but I've never been in mortal danger and rarely in anything more than very minor danger of being the victim of crime in the past seven years of working on the southside, and never have been. Based on a lot of conversations and my experiences and the experience of my friends, I think you're in more danger in a more affluent or gentrifying neighborhood, because that's where the stickup kids and other thugs go to shake folks down. I suppose that changes if you are actually there to buy drugs. But if you aren't, I think you're pretty safe. I actually have a buddy who is really eloquent about it, who tells me that since I have the privilege to travel and not be a symbol of fear for folks, I need to let people know I've walked the toughest blocks in the USA, and people there are pretty much like people everywhere else.

Re:Funny?

[charlesnw]

Boy aren't you living in an idealistic world. Still in the basement eh?

Re:Funny?

[dAzED1]

err...nope. Six-figure income from a company I enjoy working at and against which I'm not morally opposed, house on the beach...I rent out my basement in my second house to a young coed though. Does that count?

Re:Funny?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, otherwise I would change job.

Re:Funny?

[charlesnw]

Hehe. Sorry. I was in a bad mood. Just sometimes is not as simple as you said.

Re:Funny?

[Raenex]

They won again the moment we invaded afghanistan.

I don't buy it. Taking out the Taliban was a very reasonable and probably positive thing to do. After all, they were actively giving a terrorist organization safe harbor. Not taking them down after 9/11 would make us look extremely impotent.

The real trouble came with Iraq, which had nothing to do with the terrorist attack, and only served to fuel charges of American imperialism.

Re:Funny?

[TheCarp]

Well I guess it depends what "they won".

They did get what they wanted... they drew us out into a military conflict. Thats what they wanted, its far more "fun" for them to run an insurgency with daily planning and fighting. It play right into their recruitment strategy.

Certainly we tuned it into a win for ourselves by rolling them back there. However, the initial move was exactly what they were hoping for. In either case, its an example of their strategy working (that is, costing us). Its a classic battle of attrition fought with not quite so classical means.

-Steve

Big Brother is watching

[Anonymous Coward]

I would be careful with some of these posts. If I understand the Patriot Act and subsequent laws, joking about bombs can get you into a lot of trouble.

Re:Big Brother is watching

[alienmole]

If such laws exist, then it would be a good idea to test them and break them as much as possible. Otherwise, things will only get worse in future.

Re:Big Brother is watching

[Kelson]

Oblig. bash.org quote:

<Stormrider> I should bomb something
<Stormrider> ...and it's off the cuff remarks like that that are the reason I don't log chats
<Stormrider> Just in case the FBI ever needs anything on me
<Elzie_Ann> I'm sure they can just get it from someone who DOES log chats.
*** FBI has joined #gamecubecafe
<FBI> We saw it anyway.
*** FBI has quit IRC (Quit: )

Perp was at least 70 miles away

[birder]

Otherwise he would of just drove there and beat people with his axe handle.

Re:Perp was at least 70 miles away

[Anonymous Coward]

...and people who don't know the difference between "have" and "of".

Re:Perp was at least 70 miles away

[voice_of_all_reason]

Language evolution. Learn it, live it, love it.

Re:Perp was at least 70 miles away

[WilliamSChips]

Yah, it don't matt her how we yoose are Language!

I imagine...

[ackthpt]

Chargeback my account eh!!?

I imagine when some saw a headline "PayPal Bombed" they thought, "They certainly have."

Re:I imagine...

[surefooted1]

I imagine when some saw a headline "PayPal Bombed" they thought, "They certainly have."

Nope, millions rejoiced...

Re:I imagine...

[Anonymous Coward]

So let me get this straight, you see the biggest story on domestic terrorism in five years, and you think it's funny? Christ man, we really are in trouble.

Re:I imagine...

[voice_of_all_reason]

What happened to "violence can be used for good?"

Re:I imagine...

[shaitand]

"So let me get this straight, you see the biggest story on domestic terrorism in five years, and you think it's funny?"

Yes I look upon this pathetic excuse for a terrorist act and agree that it is the biggest incident of domestic terrorism in five years the second largest in the past fifteen years, third largest in decades.

With that in mind I look at the 'war on terror' we wage that has caused more terror and death than the United States has seen as a result of domestic terror. Yes, I find the situation so sad that it transcends sadness and can only be comprehended as a joke.

Re:I imagine...

[ackthpt]

What happened to "violence can be used for good?"

Clearly this was done by North Korean agents. We'll be invading in fifteen minutes.

Re:I imagine...

[bb5ch39t]

Clearly this was done by North Korean agents. We'll be invading in fifteen minutes.

Why? They don't have any oil!

Re:I imagine...

[AusIV]

A window was destroyed and this is the biggest incident of domestic terrorism in five years?

I suppose extremists firebombing a neuro-scientist's neighbor doesn't count, since they bombed the wrong house.

And what about bombings at abortion clinics, which have been fairly widespread since the 1970's. A friend of my family works at an abortion clinic as a counselor who tries to persuade patients not to have abortions, and her car was set on fire by abortion protestors.

I'm not sure how you define domestic terrorism, but it hardly seems that this is the largest act of domestic terrorism this year, much less out of the last 5.

Re:I imagine...

[Coco Lopez]

Biggest recent incident of domestic terrorism? This is nothing!

Check out this link here for domestic religious fundamentalist terrorist incidents: Violence at US Abortion Clinics

or these ones here for domestic ecoterrorists and general antiscience terrorism:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/292/ 5522/1622

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/313/ 5793/1541

Re:I imagine...

[jrp2]

"Yes I look upon this pathetic excuse for a terrorist act and agree that it is the biggest incident of domestic terrorism in five years the second largest in the past fifteen years, third largest in decades."

Not to dispute your overall point (I basically agree), but that is a pretty ridiculous statement. Without any research or even deep thought, these come to mind (and I am sure I am missing many) in the last 15 years that greatly exceed this one by an order of magnitude:

- 9/11
- WTC (1993)
- Oklahoma City (Murrah Federal Building)
- Unibomber (several separate incidents, including a few deaths)
- 1996 Atlanta Olympics bombing
- Re-election of George W. Bush (just kidding, sort of)

And, I think we can include the 1998 US embassy bombings as attacks on US soil, and throw in the attacks on the Marine Barracks in Saudi and the USS Cole in a similar group. Yeah, these are debatable as "domestic" but they certainly fall into the category of justifications for war in many people's minds.

Just the other day a suburban Chicago man was arrested for bombing a Salt Lake City library and is under suspicion for 2 similar pipe-bombings in the Chicago area over the past several months. These are at least equal in severity to the Paypal "bombing", and I would say exceed as most (maybe all) were done in the daytime when people were around. Thankfully no one was seriously injured in any of them.

I am sure I missed many that were more severe than this "serious case of vandalism" that occurred at Paypal HQ.

Re:I imagine...

[UKRevenant]

The reference to bombing abortion clinics reminded me of something I heard on a TV show (The Mark Thomas Comedy Product, I think).

When asked why he was pro-abortion he explained along these lines:
You dont see me with a placquard chanting 'get rid of it!' outside the maternity ward do you? I'm pro choice, which is not the same as pro-abortion.

Still if it was possible to wipe paypal from the timeline, I would not hesitate. But then if I had that power, I would hope someone would remove the power before I got carried away!

Re:I imagine...

[Anonymous Coward]

show me an abortion clinic that has counselors that try and talk women out of abortions and ill show you an abortion clinic that is going out of business.

Re:I imagine...

[dangitman]

So much for Bush's "no attacks on American soil since 9/11" bullshit, eh?

Re:I imagine...

[bkr1_2k]

So listing two (related) bombings by foreign persons and 3 domestic bombings by US nationals counts as justification for war? Or were you just saying the debatable "domestic" bombings were justification for war? And which war, exactly, are they justification for? The "War on Terror" or the war in Iraq?

I'm just trying to clarify here.

This "attack" on Paypal seems more like an act of vandalism than a terrorist strike.

Re:I imagine...

[Anonymous Coward]

A Window was destroyed?!?
We all get frustrated with Windows from time to time but this is taking it too far!

Re:I imagine...

[Anonymous Coward]

Attack? Some bored kids with a pipe bomb? (Which I'm sure it'll turn out to be.)

A broken window? Big deal! You should see what those kids can to do a mailbox! ;)

Re:I imagine...

[metamatic]

While it may be the biggest single incident in years, the number of US civilians killed by terrorism has been steadily increasing since 2001.

Re:I imagine...

[jrp2]

"So listing two (related) bombings by foreign persons and 3 domestic bombings by US nationals counts as justification for war? Or were you just saying the debatable "domestic" bombings were justification for war? And which war, exactly, are they justification for? The "War on Terror" or the war in Iraq?

I'm just trying to clarify here."

Read my post, and it's parent, again. My guess based on your questions, is you and I have similar opinions. I believe I was clear.

My own personal opinion, is the only "justified" war we have engaged in recent times is against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

My only reason for mentioning Oklahoma City, the Unibomber, etc. is that it directly addresses his statement.

"This "attack" on Paypal seems more like an act of vandalism than a terrorist strike."

That is almost certain. I called it exactly that in the last line of my post.

My reason for posting was simple. I can't stand to see good points ruined with misleading information. Michael Moore is a classic example. He has so many great points, but makes them vulerable to debunking by twisting the truth (bad use of statistics for example). His credibility with exactly the people he wants to convince (the ones who don't already agree with him) suffers as a result. The catch the BS line, and ignore the rest of his message.

Again, I am sure, you, the parent I replied to, and I are pretty much on the same page.

Re:I imagine...

[dangitman]

They're still attacks, aren't they? I'm sure many other people have been attacked and murdered since Bush said that. If he meant something else, then why did he phrase it that way?

Re:I imagine...

[Anonymous Coward]

>>So let me get this straight, you see the biggest story on domestic terrorism in five years, and you think it's funny?

I gather you've never had an issue with paypal? "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

Re:I imagine...

[Phroggy]

Because he's an idiot?

Seems plausible...

Re:I imagine...

[RockDoctor]

Clearly this was done by North Korean agents. We'll be invading in fifteen minutes.

Why? They don't have any oil!

Wrong.
To the west of DPR Korea there is appreciable proved and developed oil in China's Bohai Sea, and there is good evidence for the plays to continue to the east into Korean waters (e.g. the Peng Lai prospect).
The East Sea, up to and into Japanese waters is also considered prospective, and considering the Japanese thirst for oil, surprisingly under-explored. Well, considering the relations between the two states, not surprising.

Maybe...

[doit3d]

...Osama got angry that George had PayPal freeze his account.

Customer Service

[dontspamme]

The bomber probably figured that it was the best way to catch the customer service department's attention.

Are you insane?????

[technoextreme]

No one was hurt, so whats the big deal? If anything, this is a good thing, because PayPal has to fix their building and the bomber gets satisfaction. Both sides get what they deserve. Next stop, the phone company...

I for one am probably speaking for 99.9999% of the population when I say are you freaking nuts? No one deserves to have their lives even remotely threatened by some random idiott.

Re:Are you insane?????

[Com2Kid]

I could list some people....

*points off towards DC*

Pretty much all the residents in those large government buildings there need to have a bit more fear of the populace.

Re:Are you insane?????

[Marxist Hacker 42]

I for one am probably speaking for 99.9999% of the population when I say are you freaking nuts? No one deserves to have their lives even remotely threatened by some random idiott.

It's that kind of attitude that has allowed the random idiots to hurt millions of people through "It's just business" deals.

Re:Are you insane?????

[eno2001]

Actually, the only people who deserve to be BOMBED are the people in corporations and businesses who perpetrate crimes against humanity on a daily basis in the name of profit. (And before you go there, I'm not a "commie" or a "socialist" I believe in GOOD business, I just happen to think that 98% of business is corrupt) The trouble is discerning who those people are, since they're all a bunch of slimy and cunning bastards. I call for an all out war on corruption in government and business. If profits are put ahead of the needs of the customers, or if the customers are treated as products instead of human beings, wage that war folks!

Re:Are you insane?????

[blinder]

as you know 76.97% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

98% of all business corrupt? hmmm. nope.

Re:Are you insane?????

[BootNinja]

Enjoy your stay in Gitmo.

Re:Are you insane?????

[Anonymous Coward]

Wolf Bearclaw is going to kill you! FAG!!!

- Wolf Bearclaw

Re:Are you insane?????

[certain death]

Well...I am not a commie, socialist OR a christian bible thumper, but I agree with you.

Re:Are you insane?????

[eno2001]

Of course... reading 64% of your posts for about .003% of the time I've spent on Slashdot I'd have to concur on the comment about statistics. But then again, they're all just ++damnlies. My point though is that most business people are fine. Most businesses are not because they ignore their social responsibilities. Just as an example, take a look at the mad cow situation. It wouldn't have happened if agribusiness wasn't pushing for maximal profits which translates to maximal meat output, which forces unsound farming techniques (ie. feeding animals with animals) to up the production. It's hard to pin that decision down to one person, but that doesn't mean it's not a bad or corrupt thing. And it also means that anyone who participates in that crime against humanity should be made to pay the price.

Re:Are you insane?????

[Com2Kid]

Funny thing is, I remember the early/mid 90s when part of the republican base was militias with guns who used to hold that exact position.

Given how the tables have turned, I am thinking that maybe the democrats should not taken a strong stance in favor of gun control. ;)

Re:Are you insane?????

[DestroyAllZombies]

I heard it was 85% ...

Re:Are you insane?????

[Mister Whirly]

Would you like a corporate sponsor for you war? It would make the financing much easier and I know a few corporations willing to make sizeable donations...

Re:Are you insane?????

[WilliamSChips]

Business is corrupt because the majority of businesses aren't accountable to the people. Government is corrupt because it is only accountable to the corrupt businesses and not to the people. We need accountability--period.

Re:Are you insane?????

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Would you like a corporate sponsor for you war? It would make the financing much easier and I know a few corporations willing to make sizeable donations...

It would be better than going to the communists (China) for financing- but the problem is corporations can't win wars. Winning wars is almost always unprofitable, requiring sacrifice, thus the base motivation of corporations prevents them from actually *winning* the war

Re:Are you insane?????

[shaitand]

no doubt, 98% sounds a little low to me. We should probably be debating the numbers of 9's for that particular number.

Resistance is futile

[nacturation]

Check out the first frame of that video. It's captioned "Employees evacuated after explosion at PayPal" and shows what looks to be a Borg-like figure. I'm sure the PayPal collective has gone into regeneration mode and should be back at full strength in no time.

I'm not worthy of that opener...here is my best

[way2trivial]

Luckily, Our president is not some "RANDOM" idiot..

Re:I'm not worthy of that opener...here is my best

[bky1701]

Yeah, he's a very decided one.

Obligatory "Fight Club" Reference

[Anonymous Coward]

The first rule of Operation Mayhem is that we don't talk about Operation Mayhem.

Re:Obligatory "Fight Club" Reference

[Anonymous Coward]

The first rule of PROJECT Mayhem is that you don't ask questions. If you're going to post Fight Club references, then do it right. Otherwise, your other personality is going to start beating you up.

michael moore

[minus_273]

to quote michael moore, "these are the minute men!" there is nothing braver than leaving a bomb in a civillian area to kill random people

Re:michael moore

[TheCarp]

Almost as brave as dropping bombs from the sky far above surface to air defenses on targets who have already had their air forces destroyed? Or maybe as brave as declaring war when neither you nor your family are in the military?

At least the guy who did this has to be worried about a large, well funded, high tech government using its resources to track him down and capture him. As someone who has onc or twice considered going into illicit buisness, I can tell you, it takes something more than the bravery I have to disregard that.

Then again, maybe he doesn't care. Its not really brave if you don't feel you have anything to lose.

-Steve

Re:michael moore

[forgotten_my_nick]

>At least the guy who did this has to be worried about a
>large, well funded, high tech government using its
> resources to track him down and capture him.

Based on that track record he has nothing to worry about. I would be more worried about the 100's of upset customers who will be shipped off to gitmo for 2 years while they determine what they are guilty of. :p

Re:michael moore

[TheCarp]

I think gitmo is full.

Which is too bad, because that means now everyone with a gripe against paypal will be secretly sent off to nations in africa to be tortured.

-Steve

afik

[thripper]

thepiratebay's paypal accound was closed.

PARENT = CULPRIT?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for the anonymous tip! "Disgruntled" high school kids generally throw eggs at houses and stuff like that.. they don't drive to PayPal HQ and plant a bomb.

Re:PARENT = CULPRIT?

[LindseyJ]

If by "throw eggs at houses" you mean "shoot up their school", then yeah.

Re:PARENT = CULPRIT?

[PyroMosh]

Maybe Video Games made them do it.

Re:PARENT = CULPRIT?

[drinkypoo]

You know, the kids who are shooting up schools have typically been the subject of a systematic policy of harassment that is carried out by the students but with the effective blessing of the administration which does nothing to prevent it. the people really responsible for the columbine massacre (for example) are the members of the administration who did nothing to prevent bullying. if I'd had access to a gun while I was in high school, there were times when I very likely would have brought it to school and opened up on some of the asshole jocks who used to pick on me when I was just a mama's boy too pussified by his fatherless (and even father-figure-less) upbringing to fight back and stand up for himself. I frequently felt suicidal and was perpetually depressed from about sixth grade up to the time I dropped out of college and took the CHSPE, which was a turning point in my life because I got away from the harassment. I no longer had people striking and tripping me as I walked by even when I didn't look at them, no longer had people constantly assaulting my self-esteem.

But in fact this is all tacitly approved by the administration. I made frequent complaints in middle school, not understanding that fighting back would solve my problem. I finally got into a fight with a kid one-on-one, not a bully who strikes and leaves but just a kid who wanted respect and had no way to get it other than imitating the other kids. I gave him two black eyes and received an expulsion for my trouble - my reward for defending myself. Granted, I got a little out of control on him, but the school was willing to create a child who would get out of control when attacked, but not willing to protect him from violence so it wouldn't happen in the first place.

There are only three [groups of] people who you can blame for school shootings, and the perps aren't in any of them. They are the parents who fail to give their children workable strategies for solving their problems, the students who bully them, and the school administration that permits and in the end even encourages bullying by not acting to stop it.

Again, I was a really fucked up kid in school due to the way I was treated for being precocious, poor, and really tall, and it's a really good thing that I didn't have access to a firearm, because I likely would have used it. I was the kind of kid who would fantasize about that kind of stuff in class instead of doing my work because it's hard to concentrate on your schoolwork when you have to plan your exit from the classroom to minimize the time you spend next to people who typically assault you.

Re:PARENT = CULPRIT?

[Dankling]

Simple question here: Do you have free will?

Re:PARENT = CULPRIT?

[Anonymous Coward]

I heard that, man, that could have been me in high school you describe. Every time I hear about a student shooting up a school, the first thing I wonder is why it doesn't happen much more often. Luckily, all I had was an M-80, an electronic game, and a mercury tilt switch, with which I built a device that exploded in the hands of someone trying again to rifle through my locker. I was expelled, spent 60 days in Juvenile Hall, and got 2 felony explosives charges on my record, which luckily has been sealed because I was only 15. And the guy wasn't even injured - just think if he had been. I was lucky - I am sure today I would have been in much more trouble (this was in the 80s). There is something wrong with this attitude of locking up a kid and throwing away the key; young people deserve a second chance, that's why you can seal your juvenile criminal record (or at least you could 20 years ago, not sure about that nowadays - and that's why the anonymous post, too). It reminds me of that article I read recently about how Oppenheimer played a stupid, dangerous prank by attempting to poison someone, when he was in college or boarding school or something. He got a second chance, and went on to major achievements in science, but in this day and age his life would have been over then and there.

Re:PARENT = CULPRIT?

[RyatNrrd]

Sorry, it's a bit early in the morning where I'm living... Could you please explain why you've asked this? I assume the question is rhetorical and you're making some kind of point, but I'm sorry, I've missed it.

Re:PARENT = CULPRIT?

[kdemetter]

very brave of you too talk about it . i would mod you up if i could .

Re:PARENT = CULPRIT?

[Anonymous Coward]

Violence in schools is a socialising and learning mechanism. A certain amount is required and expected. It's important that everyone there understands that, it sounds like you didn't - blame your teachers and your parents for not explaining.

Re:PARENT = CULPRIT?

[drinkypoo]

Simple question here: Do you have free will?

Simple question here: What system do you use for modeling the behavior of water molecules in a positive-displacement gear-driven pump?

I mean WTF, how the hell is "do you have free will" a simple question? People have been wrestling with that for centuries, even millenia probably, and you call it a simple question?

Even if you take it at scientific face value there is debate over this question. But even if you assume that the answer is yes and this is a rhetorical question, there's more to the situation than that. Behavioral psychologists have long stated that something like half of your personality is based on how others treat you - there's a feedback mechanism between you and they that influences your behavior. And, of course, we primates learn by imitation and probably have very little choice over that based on the design of our brains.

So basically, your question is a red herring that wasted a bunch of my time and one of the 30 comments I'm allowed to post in 24 hours - a system of censorship that ensures that only those with the least to say will be permitted to say it. (that's not your fault but I had to complain somewhere.)

Re:PARENT = CULPRIT?

[pjbass]

Sorry, but that's called "growing up." If everyone were to live in a wonderful world in school, free of germs, bullies, and criticism (oh no, you got a D on a test?!?!), you'd get eaten alive in the professional industry. What happens the moment you get yelled at by a manager or receive constructive feedback? Without learning how rough it *can* be out there, and learning how to *deal* with it, you'd curl up in the fetal position in the corner of the conference room as soon as someone hints that they don't agree with you.

I'm sick of seeing how people want to candy-coat school for kids because it may be too stressful for them. No red ink on grading papers (red connotates bad....give me a break), bending to allow people to pass tests, lowering standards for sciences and math, etc. Growing up is physically and emotionally painful, and trying to take away the latter will be eternally damaging to someone trying to make it outside their little world of childhood.

Re:PARENT = CULPRIT?

[drinkypoo]

Sorry, but that's called "growing up."

So it's okay to systematically harass people until they're eighteen? It's okay to physically and mentally abuse someone until they're eighteen? Good call.

If everyone were to live in a wonderful world in school, free of germs, bullies, and criticism (oh no, you got a D on a test?!?!), you'd get eaten alive in the professional industry.

Let me set you straight here - if you do the kinds of things you get away with in high school in the real world, then you're commiting crimes, as in the kind that carry jail time as a penalty. People used to walk up and hit me, kick me, or steal things from me (by ripping them out of my hands, or off of my body) at school on a regular basis. All three of these things are assault, plain and simple. By permitting children to do these things we are setting them up to do them habitually as adults.

Incidentally, the "D on a test" thing pretty much proves that you're an asshole. I wasn't talking about the shit that everyone has to go through at school. I was talking about the things that those who are targeted by bullies go through. Obviously one of two things is true: either you never had these experiences, or you were so emotionally damaged by them that you have turned into the cold, callous asshole that I'm replying to today.

I'm sick of seeing how people want to candy-coat school for kids because it may be too stressful for them. No red ink on grading papers (red connotates bad....give me a break), bending to allow people to pass tests, lowering standards for sciences and math, etc.

This is a STRAW MAN. I didn't talk about any of these things. It is easy to see that you do not have any rational argument or you would not have to resort to logical fallacies.

Growing up is physically and emotionally painful, and trying to take away the latter will be eternally damaging to someone trying to make it outside their little world of childhood.

Growing up in an atmosphere of alternating abuse and neglect teaches us to be abusive and neglectful. The school system is helping to perpetuate an environment in which we treat one another poorly.

If you don't think that children will learn from the negative behavior which we downright encourage in them (by letting them get away with it, and letting them build their juvenile social structures around it) and carry those lessons throughout their life, then you don't think.

Re:PARENT = CULPRIT?

[RKBA]

When I was in high school, and even grade school for that matter, most of us kids either had our own firearms or had easy access to them at home and knew how to use them safely. Most of my friends and I attended an NRA Hunter Safety training course at age 10 or 12. An adult always accompanied us until they felt we (my circle of friends) were responsible enough to go hunting on our own without adult supervision. Admittedly it was a rural farming area where hunting Jackrabbits (for example) was encouraged by the local farmers because of the crop damage caused by Jackrabbits, but back then a group of kids walking around with rifles, shotguns, and handguns was a non-event. Nowadays we would have been called "a gang of armed juvenile terrorists" or some such BS.

As I recall, there were no school shootings at all back then (circa 1958).

Re:PARENT = CULPRIT?

[Nasarius]

Let me set you straight here - if you do the kinds of things you get away with in high school in the real world, then you're commiting crimes, as in the kind that carry jail time as a penalty.

Exactly. People who whine that bullying is some kind of sick "rite of passage" are ignoring the fact that these kids are committing assault in many cases, or harassment at the very least. Fuck the school administrators who allow antisocial, criminal behavior as some kind of normal childhood thing. Why should school be a bizarre environment where your free speech rights are restricted, yet harmful, criminal behavior is tolerated?

The GP is clearly a moron with a political agenda to push first, human being second.

Re:PARENT = CULPRIT?

[drinkypoo]

As I recall, there were no school shootings at all back then (circa 1958).

Yes, it's very interesting that kids have less access to guns today than they used to - I mean who knew what a trigger lock was in the 50s? (rhetorical question) - But now we have problems with kids and guns. By the same token, access to firearms has grown steadily less over the years - once upon a time not very long ago in a galaxy very, very close to here, you could walk into a sears and roebuck and buy a pistol and the ammunition for it and maybe some silhouette targets all at the same time, no background check, no ID. I mean hell, you could order a pistol from their catalog. Not only that, but even California state law less than 70 years ago (not sure of the date at all) actually explicitly protected your right to carry firearms on public property, like at schools and in courthouses. Today, we have mandatory waiting periods and background checks, yet gun violence occurs dramatically more frequently. And then people blame it on the availability of guns! That is clearly not the problem.

Re:PARENT = CULPRIT?

[Anonymous Coward]

His point is that your choice to bring in a gun and shoot people is your own. Your actions and responses to the actions of others are your own.

They are as much yours as the other people you blame to be at fault, at least.

I understand your point, and I agree with it. I've been faced with similar situations.
I'll explain what you need to know.

I lived with an abusive stepfather
he came from an abusive family
I don't know about the rest of his family tree.

By what you are saying - my step father couldn't help but be abusive.
thus - I can't help but be abusive.

I hope for my childrens sake this isn't the case.

Except it isn't. I have several options presented to me.

For one, I could just not have kids.
For two, I could take my experiences into consideration - and look at them as things NOT to do, rather than things to do.
For three, I could just fail miserably.

It is true that who we are and what we do is highly influenced by the circumstances and our experience, but those are not the only determining factor.

Again, you would be as much to blame for your would be violence as those who created the situation in the first place.

Re:PARENT = CULPRIT?

[metamatic]

If everyone were to live in a wonderful world in school, free of germs, bullies, and criticism (oh no, you got a D on a test?!?!), you'd get eaten alive in the professional industry.

I never suffered any kind of anguish from criticism of my academic abilities. If I did badly on the test, it was 'cause I didn't study hard enough or couldn't hack it at that particular subject. There were even cases where I still think I was right and the teacher was wrong, but again, I understand that truth is generally a matter of opinion, so even the smartest people will sometimes disagree.

I never suffered any anguish from germs either. Sure, I got ill, sometimes as sick as a dog, but it wasn't personally directed at me. It was just part of life.

On the other side of the equation, I've never had a bunch of colleagues at work throw stones at me every day for several months. I've never had a manager shove my head down a toilet. I've never had people in the office canteen deliberately trip me up, spit in my food, or spill my drink.

In short: if you think the abuse of being bullied is any kind of necessary training for dealing with the real world, you're either an idiot, or you work in a seriously fucked up workplace.

Re:PARENT = CULPRIT?

[Anonymous Coward]

sorry - in hindsight I've replied to the wrong person.

Re:PARENT = CULPRIT?

[Anonymous Coward]

the people really responsible for the columbine massacre (for example) are the members of the administration who did nothing to prevent bullying.

No, the people responsible for Columbine are the ones who pulled the triggers. There may have been contributory factors, but life for a lot of us sucks, and we don't go postal. Grow a fucking pair and grow the fuck up.

Hey Max, looks like you got out in time, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't have the Russian mob or some crazy fuck who lost all his cash after you, am I rite?

Olbigatory....

[m0rph3us0]

All your accounts are belong to us.

It's one thing when...

[Anonymous Coward]

the government freezes an Al-Qaeda account. But it's an entirely different story when Paypal does. LoL :D

Paypal's service is legendary

[blueZ3]

and not in a good way.

If you're using the service to buy and sell on eBay, and everything else in the transaction goes smoothly, then PayPal workd fine. However, if you have a problem (with a buyer or seller) and you try and take it up with PayPal, you're going to get screwed. Let me explain how it works:

If you are a seller, and you ship and you "collect" money from PayPal and ship the item you sold, if the seller complains to PayPal (they can claim they didn't get the item, that it wasn't as advertised, etc.) PayPal will take the money out of your account because the transaction was "fraudulent" -- your loss: one item (which you shipped) since you won't be seeing the money. If you are a buyer, it works the other way around. If you pay for something and it never arrives, PayPal will refuse to refund the money.

As far as I can tell, in instances where there is a dispute, PayPal collects the money for themselves and the buyer and seller are out of luck. Some of this seems to be based on "who complains first" but generally if you use PayPal and have a problem, you can kiss your money goodbye. Add to this the fact that PayPal constantly pushes linking your PayPal account to your "real" bank account (apparently so they can clean you out in one fell swoop) and you have a recipe for... well, I'd say about 5 lbs of ammonium nitrate, some black powder, and a time-delay fuse.

Re:Paypal's service is legendary

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I have not had a single instance of PayPal screwing me over the way you describe, and I've done over 500 transactions. I haven't had anyone I know complain about PayPal or had problems with them. Even on the forums that I use, when there is a mention of PayPal, I haven't seen anyone complain of losing money themselves or people they personally know. Anyone that mentions problems only refer to some web site or repeat what they heard third hand from someone they don't personally know losing money, which usually tracks back to the small collection of web sites.

In short, I've not heard what I would consider to be a credible, bankable reason to believe that PayPal is out defrauding millions of people. I chalk it up to the "Internet Bullhorn Effect", where one person out of a million has a problem and of course it's percieved to be one out of ten.

Re:Paypal's service is legendary

[eric76]

I refuse to give them a bank account number. All it takes is one crooked employee to really do you in.

I did ask a VP at the local bank about the possibility of opening up a bank account with $1 in it for the sole purpose of providing that number to PayPal.

Re:Paypal's service is legendary

[inKubus]

Add to this the fact that PayPal constantly pushes linking your PayPal account to your "real" bank account (apparently so they can clean you out in one fell swoop) and you have a recipe for... well, I'd say about 5 lbs of ammonium nitrate, some black powder, and a time-delay fuse.

I have a separate bank account I use only with paypal. It's at the same bank I have my primary checking account at, so I can make free transfers between the two. I do that to get my seller money faster. To fund purchases, I always use a credit card, that way I get buyer protection for anything over $50 if fraud occurs. As far as the other problem, you're going to want to confine that mixure in a length of steel pipe with threaded end caps. Be sure to wipe down the threads on the second end cap with a wet rag before screwing it on--otherwise friction may ignite a stray grain of powder and ruin your afternoon.

Re:Paypal's service is legendary

[Wansu]

  Some of this seems to be based on "who complains first" but generally if you use PayPal and have a problem, you can kiss your money goodbye. Add to this the fact that PayPal constantly pushes linking your PayPal account to your "real" bank account (apparently so they can clean you out in one fell swoop) ...

Then create a separate checking account at a different bank and don't keep any more money in it than is absolutely necessary.

Re:Paypal's service is legendary

[Maradine]

You know, with x (where x>2) hundred thousand transactions a day in y (where y>39) countries, I'm force to believe that these instances are a ridiculous (if no less unfortunate) rounding error of a minority.

With all the payment methods available, and every PayPal-sucks/blows/eatsballs site pushing their own superior alternative, you'd think that no one would use PayPal. And yet . . .

Re:Paypal's service is legendary

[ocbwilg]

With all the payment methods available, and every PayPal-sucks/blows/eatsballs site pushing their own superior alternative, you'd think that no one would use PayPal. And yet . . .

Ah yes, the old "everybody else is doing it so why shouldn't I" mentality. Nothing like the wisdom of the masses to point you in the right direction...

Re:Paypal's service is legendary

[ErikZ]

Your bank called. You owe 2400$ in fees from failed transfer attempts.

Re:Paypal's service is legendary

[eraser.cpp]

So because you don't know anybody who has been screwed over by PayPal it doesn't happen? This isn't some small idea on the Internet being voiced by a vocal minority, PayPal complaints are everywhere. A quick search for "Paypal sucks" on Google reveals hundreds of detailed accounts on dealing with PayPal. Even if you haven't personally been screwed it's easy to see that they're a bad company to deal with, just try contacting their customer service. It's damn near impossible. I can name 3 people I know who have had their PayPal accounts frozen and each time unfairly. There was no communication with Paypal about the account, just an email indicating that it was being shutdown due to excessive risk. It's great that you have been able to conduct such a large amount of business through PayPal without any problems, but don't use that to trivialize the legitimate complaints being made about the company - they're not a myth.

Re:Paypal's service is legendary

[Maradine]

Ah yes, the old "everybody else is doing it so why shouldn't I" mentality. Nothing like the wisdom of the masses to point you in the right direction...

Ah yes, the old "the crowd's doing it, it must be wrong" mentality. Nothing like unfounded elitism to point you in the right direction...

That's the great thing about Slashdot. You can trade fallacies all day and have nothing to show for it. :)

Re:Paypal's service is legendary

[pafrusurewa]

Check eBay's own PayPal forums. Even with all the censoring that's going on there you can still see plenty of legitimate complaints.

It doesn't matter how seldom they defraud people (like freezing your account indefinitely because they have a problem with someone they think you are related to, or freezing your account for reasons they won't tell you), it shouldn't happen. Even if it happened to only one in a billion people, there's no justification for some of the things they do.

Re:Paypal's service is legendary

[OrangeTide]

Having interviewed at Paypal I can tell you that all employees undergo credit checks and background checks. (the whole credit check thing was annoying to me).

One bad employee at the electric company, or supermarket has all your bank info on your check. I think you're being paranoid about something when there are more significant dangers lurking around the corner.

Your routing and account number is not exactly secret. It is trivial to discover and using it to send or receive money leaves an obvious paper trail. (nobody is supposed to be able to do a wire transfer without a valid address and identification)

Re:Paypal's service is legendary

[Anonymous Coward]

As far as I can tell, in instances where there is a dispute, PayPal collects the money for themselves and the buyer and seller are out of luck.

So what you are saying is that Paypal is committing criminal fraud on a massive basis.

Considering the number of transactions they carry out, if you have been effected enough to have spotted the pattern then the scale of this fraud must be vast. Therefore it should be easy to verify - creating a few test disputes would allow you to prove your allegation, and no doubt you will become an internet wonder when the mainstream press pick up on your story.

I'm sure that would be much more satisfying then posting unsubstantiated accusations on /.

Re:Paypal's service is legendary

[ocbwilg]

Ah yes, the old "the crowd's doing it, it must be wrong" mentality. Nothing like unfounded elitism to point you in the right direction...

I'm not saying that it must be wrong because everyone is doing it, but an awful lot of people watch WWF and Jerry Springer too. If popularity were the only criteria for determining whether to use a product or service, or even just whether the service was decent, then we'd be in a sad state. Anything that aspires to such a high level of popularity must by default appeal to the lowest common denominator. Just look at AOL if you want an example.

Re:Paypal's service is legendary

[Anonymous Coward]

"Add to this the fact that PayPal constantly pushes linking your PayPal account to your "real" bank account (apparently so they can clean you out in one fell swoop)"

This is called theft you moron. Do you seriously think Paypal can steal your money without repercussions???!?

Re:Paypal's service is legendary

[Strolls]

With all the payment methods available, and every PayPal-sucks/blows/eatsballs site pushing their own superior alternative, you'd think that no one would use PayPal. And yet . . .

Back in the old days, PayPal did have strong competition. This ended following the eBay merger.

When browsing eBay auctions you often used to see sellers who would charge a surcharge for accepting payment by PayPal - receiving money by PayPal incurs fees, and many sellers felt it reasonable to pass these to the buyer, should they insist on using PayPal. In fact, almost all sellers charged PayPal fees back then. Why should it cost me money if you're too lazy to write a cheque? (here in the UK, a cheque posted today by first class mail will likely arrive tomorrow, although it'll take a few days to clear, of course)

Until 2001 there were good alternatives to PayPal, companies who didn't charge fees on smaller amounts (less than £50, say) or whose fees where significantly less than PayPal's. NoChex was one of these, and when I first went on eBay and traded DVDs on Usenet, most everyone had both a PayPal & a NoChex account. Back then, everyone stated their surcharges (if applicable) in their adverts or auctions, and everyone understood the reason for it. If you didn't want to pay fees then you just used a different payment method, or if you wanted your purchase delivered in a hurry then you shrugged, paid by PayPal (or one of the alternatives) and in good grace added the appropriate percentage to cover the surcharge. The cost of using PayPal - or other electronic payment method - was fairly transparent even to buyers and frankly, I'm sure the competition did PayPal some good. Realistically, most everyone on eBay has to take electronic payments of at least some type, and now that is PayPal by default.

After eBay bought PayPal in 2001, they ended the practice of passing surcharges on to buyers, requiring sellers to accept all payment types on the same terms, and thus removed the incentive for buyers to use cheaper electronic payment methods. NoChex charges may have been cheaper, but the buyer no longer had any cause to care about that - the seller took the hit on the transaction costs, and no longer had any way of influencing which electronic payment processor the buyer preferred. Subsequently the integration of PayPal into the eBay checkout system was the death of other electronic payment brands.

It seems from their site that NoChex are focussed now on merchant transactions rather than (as they were when I used them) as a user-to-user PayPal-alternative; I'm glad they're still in business, but I feel they (and the consumer) were really stitched-up on that one - if eBay were an operating-systems company we'd describe this behaviour as leveraging their monopoly to extend into other areas, or something.

Looking at my PayPal account, I see that PayPal fees cost me 3.8% on a £45 transaction - a sum that quite frankly I find ridiculous for moving a few bits around a database. How come credit card companies can do the same thing for 1% or 2%, or I can transfer money into someone else's bank account at no charge? Meanwhile, PayPal are raking in interest on all the money sitting around in users' accounts AND charging them fees for it - PayPal's free service is just useless as soon as someone makes a payment to you by credit-card, and unless you decline that payment and make separate arrangements for receiving those funds all subsequent payments you receive will have fees applied, whatever their source. You might disagree with me and say that 4% is quite reasonable for PaiPal's services, and it's true that PayPal are more efficient than our old British banking institutions, but they don't provide any customer service at all - If I'm mad at my bank I can phone them up & ask to speak to a supervisor; if I'm dissatisfied with th

Re:Paypal's service is legendary

[radish]

A bank a/c number is not secret, it's written on every cheque for one thing. If someone can get money from your bank account just by knowing the number then you have much more serious problems, and you should be switching bank. It's simple - the bank are 100% responsible for any unauthorised transfer from your account. And the burden of proof is on them.

Re:Paypal's service is legendary

[sideswipe76]

I have had my share of problems with PayPal. I bought a video card from a guy on eBay ($400) and paid immediately. Of course Paypal wants you to use your bank account to pay so they barely give any indication they are doing so. to change it to credit card is a per-transaction pain in the ass, but it's possible. So, I bought the card, but it turns out the guy must have been phished because within days he went from 99.7% feedback on 400+ auctions to 80% and all negative comments were with a week. Contacted eBay and paypal. eBay never got back to me, and Paypal finally did and essentially said: 'Yup, you're right, you did get screwed, but per the user agreement you accepted we don't owe you shit'. I submitted a report to the Virginia Attorney General, the FBI, the Michigan Attorney General (the guys PP bank account was there) and got no response from any of them. Now, I could get all pissy and never use paypal again but good luck doing business on ebay. So, now I am ever vigilant to change it to credit card and twice this has helped me recover funds. Paypal is great until there is a problem. All of them are great until their is a problem.

Re:Paypal's service is legendary

[lucas teh geek]

If you are a buyer, it works the other way around. If you pay for something and it never arrives, PayPal will refuse to refund the money.
Having never sold anything via paypal, but have heard similar stories to what you told I believed you until you wrote the above line. I've had 3 people try and scam me as a buyer, each one I've put in a dispute and each one I've received all my money back. some as minor as $10-$15. 3 out of 3 makes me think that I didn't just get lucky. Previously I'd heard that paypal always lent in favour of the buyer and my own experiences tend to agree with that.

Re:Paypal's service is legendary

[Grishnakh]

I think the only way we'll see competition to the Paypal regime is if we ever see any real competition to Ebay itself. And the only way I see that happening is if Google starts up its own auction site (which I sincerely hope they do).

I for one am sick of Ebay/Paypal and their ridiculous fees--auction listing fee, fees for photos, final value fee, then a Paypal fee on top of it all. It's gotten to be so it's not really worth it to sell or buy on Ebay any more unless you're looking for a used and rare item.

Re:Paypal's service is legendary

[Wansu]

  Your bank called. You owe 2400$ in fees from failed transfer attempts.

Do you speak from experience, firsthand or otherwise?

I've never heard tell of such a thing. Assuming this is for real, one advantage of the separate account approach I suggested is they don't have your money yet.

Re:Paypal's service is legendary

[Anonymous Coward]

I've had 3 people try and scam me as a buyer, each one I've put in a dispute and each one I've received all my money back. some as minor as $10-$15. 3 out of 3 makes me think that I didn't just get lucky. Previously I'd heard that paypal always lent in favour of the buyer and my own experiences tend to agree with that.

Exactly. I always see people on Slashdot going on and on about PayPal, but as a buyer I have had the same good experiences. In the last few years, three times myself I paid for an item and received nothing (and the seller would no longer return my emails), and all three times PayPal refunded my money. Now, they weren't exactly quick about it: it took over 3 weeks for them to do their "investigation" but every time they refunded my money in full once they were done. I used a credit card to pay for the items, so I could have gotten a refund from there no matter what, but PayPal did the job fine.

For sellers, it may be different, but I don't think buyers have anything to worry about at all.

Re:Paypal's service is legendary

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why I link to my credit card. If something happens, I can tell my credit card company that the service was not provided as advertised, and get it reversed. I'm not going to waste my time with Paypal/eBay.

Re:Paypal's service is legendary

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

Rather than let a class action suit get to court, Paypal paid $9.25 million to settle it (July 2004). That doesn't actually prove anything, but suggests they felt vulnerable.

Re:Paypal's service is legendary

[syousef]

Well I did dozens (not hundreds) of transactions and then was finally bitten. Paypal refused to look into a small value transaction for an item that was sent broken in pieces and clearly repacked unless I provided evidence on a company letterhead faxed internationally within 10 days of opening the dispute. I complained to consumer bodies and was told that since it was a person not a company that my transaction was with that I was out of luck. They weren't interested in looking at Paypal's behaviour either. Luckily I'd used a credit card, so for a AUD28 transaction I mailed the item back in the same condition and issued a chargeback. It cost me AUD11 plus all the time and money I wasted with Paypal's repetition of the same demands. The seller in the meantime tried to coerce me into dropping the dispute and removing negative feedback (that basically just stated fact) using vague legalise that didn't hold water (using SquareTrade). Ebay and Paypal weren't interested in looking into that at all.

I closed my Paypal account, put a stop on transactions from my bank account and credit card, and I've used Ebay only once since that incident (for a set of 3 items I couldn't obtain any other way).

I've been very careful to make statements I can back up 100% above because Paypal administrators have been known to send cease and desist letters if people do publicly air their greivances.

You might not consider me a credible source, but I certainly find myself credible.

Re:Paypal's service is legendary

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, right, try to detonate ammonium nitrate with just black powder. If it's not sensitized, it won't go of from standard blasting cap, never mind black powder.

Re:Paypal's service is legendary

[syousef]

Lucky you. I've never been a seller either but I won't use Paypal again. See my other post today on this subject for details.

You're a retard.

[ChiChiCuervo]

Anyone who's experienced Paypal's wonderful quality of service DOES sympathize with the perpetrators. They're the same people who rightly hate Verizon, MSFT, RIAA, MPAA, the RUC, George W. Bush and every other entity that is both arrogant and incompetant, and covers the latter with more of the former!

I've been lucky, never having met the ire of paypal, nor needing customer service for myself.. But I've suffered through more than a few nightmares on behalf of friends and associates.. and every single time i've wondered how they've avoided some nutjob doing exactly this.

But huzzah to Tyler Durden for fighting the good fight! Huzzah!

Windows

[batje14]

a small bomb, and the only thing that breaks is Windows.
Do you really need a bomb for that?

Re:Windows

[sa1lnr]

Imagine what it's like with lethal glass fragments flying about.

Why didn't I think of that?

[Anonymous Coward]

They got what they deserved..
In fact, this is nothing compared to what they deserve.
http://www.fuckpaypal.net/

AOL next please

[Anonymous Coward]

pretty pretty please

The web site survived the blast

[miller60]

The Paypal.com web site stayed online throughout, even though the blast happened near its network operations center.

That's what happens, Larry, when you...

[MrPerfekt]

(you guessed it) fuck a stranger in the ass!

Re:That's what happens, Larry, when you...

[Anonymous Coward]

what the fuck are you talking about Walter!?!....

Re:That's what happens, Larry, when you...

[Anonymous Coward]

shut the fuck up donny.

finally!

[Wizzerd911]

I think I speak for all of us when I say I hope the person stops at AOL's HQ next.

Re:Great. Now if they start offering actual servic

[nsomnac]

Maybe they should consider a name change if they do to: PaybackPal.

Paypal: What happen?

[Anonymous Coward]

Paypal: Somebody set up us the bomb!
Paypal: We get signal.
Paypal: Main screen turn on.
Paypal: It's You!
Google: How are you gentlemen?
Google: All your base are belong to us!

PayPal follow up email

[Hoi Polloi]

Please rate your experience at PayPal:

A) Excellent
B) Good
C) Average
D) Poor
E) Want to bomb your damn company

Thank you!

Re:PayPal follow up email

[Intron]

Looks like they last changed their dispute policy on Nov 2, 2006. I think it used to just be a page that said "FOAD, sucker".

Re:PayPal follow up email

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice catch. It isn't Nov 2nd yet in most of the world. Is PayPal hosted out of China?

At least now we have a shorthand...

[jpellino]

"Wow. You should see that that bomb did."

"Was that google-bomb or paypal-bomb?"

Re:At least now we have a shorthand...

[AnalogDiehard]

"Was that google-bomb or paypal-bomb?"

It was a dot bomb.

AYB Had to...

[AikonMGB]

Someone set up them the bomb.

-Aikon

I miss the good old days

[moochfish]

What ever happened to leaving flaming sacks of crap on a porch??

Re:I miss the good old days

[Anonymous Coward]

When I first heard of a bomb at paypal that is exactly what I thought of. Someone got a huge bag full of crap an used some explosives to 'paint' the offices of paypal.

Justice

[StarvingSE]

While I cannot say that bombing the PayPal office is a good way to settle disputes, it still made me smile to read this article as I have recently been subjected to their horrible customer service.

I am a casual ebay user, and probably sell roughly 10 items a year. Since paypal is the defacto standard there, I use them and have it linked to my checking account to transfer payments to myself. Well, I recently sold an old video card for $100 and was paid for it through the paypal service. Now, after hearing about people not being able to transfer their funds etc, I always immediately transfer the $$$ to my checking account. So, I have my $100. 5 days later, paypal sends me a notice saying that the payment might be fraudulent and is being investigated. 2 days later, they say it is indeed fraudulent, and that $100 is being deducted from my paypal account. Great, I already shipped the item, so I call paypal, spend an hour on hold, and finally talk to someone. The only response I get is "sorry, can't do anything about it. Sorry, can't tell you the reason it was fraudulent." Now I already have the money in my checking, so its not like I'm totally screwed, but I can't use my account becuase it has that negative balance on it. Any money into it will automatically go against it. I can't cancel either becuase of it.

They also told me that my item was not valid for seller protectrion because it is an electronic item. Why the hell does it matter what item was sold???? I don't udnerstand why I am responsible for the fraudulent transaction when PayPal deemed this other users account valid and processed the payment in the first place. This is another example of a business who thinks that they can do business without any risk what-so-ever. Just screw the end user.

btw... If anyone has had a similar experience and has some advice as to how I can cancel this account or otherwise solve the problem, please let me know!

Re:Justice

[amaiman]

From what I've heard, they'll likely just pull the money back out of your bank account. If there's not enough in there, they'll resubmit it over and over running up overdraft fees.

I wish you good luck with getting it resolved. I'd recommend not offering PayPal when selling items that don't require a physical item to be shipped. Paypal makes it too easy for the buyers to claim non-reciept and refuse to pay. If it's a physical item, you can provide proof of mailing, etc, to make your side of the case.

Re:Justice

[inKubus]

File an insurance claim with the shipping company. They will investigate, tell you it was delivered and then you take that back to Paypal in the form of a small claims court suit. They will settle.

Re:Justice

[Anonymous Coward]

No the won't. Not if you agreed to their terms and services. They will submit a motion to compel arbitration in Santa Clara, California.

What you can do file small claims court against "Unknown account holder" and subpoena Internet service provider, ebay, pay pal, and the credit card company.

I don't know why for the love of Mary does Pay Pal go out of their way to irritate the ones who make them money (sellers) by protecting credit card fraud.

You case is identical to mine, and you will find out that that the credit card holder claims the charge was done by a minor. This is a common problem on Pay Pal and is likely some sort of known scam. Because the charge back always happens 2-3 days after receipt of the item and not during the next Credit Card statement cycle. Now you had to wait for an item. My item was an account for some mmorpg and when I got the purchase note, I immediatly emailed the account info. 2 days later, wham, money removed for charge back reasons.

Why? Can't tell you they say. Who? Can't tell you they say. Well I'm protected by seller's protectiong right? Nope, read the fine print they say. Well here's the email that proves I sent it. Here's the email they sent to me. Okay, we'll investigate. It takes 8 weeks. Meanwhile, you owe us an additional $4.30 as a charge back penalty and if you don't pay up we'll lock your account.

Re:Justice

[BiggerIsBetter]

Just a cost of doing business until a more ethical payment provider arrives on the scene...

GOOGLE, ARE YOU LISTENING?!

Re:Justice

[chifut]

What's wrong with neteller.com? Except that it is difficult to spell?

Re:Justice

[DigiShaman]

My friend, your first problem was that you used Paypal. Your second, EBay. Why pay the middle men with fees and little to no customer support???

When you need to sell something (or buy), always go with Graigs List. It's easy as hell, and it's safe if you trade in a public place. For example: In Austin, TX, I would tell all my customers to meet my over at Fry's Electronics in the parking lot...etc.

You accept only cash, and they get to inspect the goods for obvious issues. It's WIN WIN for everyone!

Re:Justice

[BiggerIsBetter]

What's wrong with neteller.com? Except that it is difficult to spell?

Well, how about that I've never heard of them?

Google has an easy to remember name, and brand recognition. Importantly, they also have an ethical image and enough bank to get this started on a large scale. They can leverage those attributes to produce, say, "Google Pay" which is simple enough to remember and has a name that people can trust - and that's the main reason for people to use them over PayPal.

I know there are other small players out there, it's just that we need a very big player to compete with PayPal internationally. Someone that Banks will talk to (and give good rates to) and someone with enough leverage to get it implemented on sites - especially if it's to become used on a site like Ebay (who owns PayPal, IIRC), TradeMe, etc.

I knew . . .

[ElephanTS]

I knew about this. I got an email saying that all of PayPal's servers had blown up and they had lost all my personal and banking information. Luckily I simply followed the link they provided (things must be bad over there - they didn't even use the regular PayPal URL) and updated all my info. Thanks to PayPal for their quick customer service and helping me avert this little disaster.

Were eBay affected by this? I've just got an email from them now . . .

Re:I knew . . .

[Cro Magnon]

What a coincidence! I got the same message, and I don't even have a PayPal account! I'm sure glad they were able to track me down so I could enter my info.

Re:I knew . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

I knew about this. I got an email saying that all of PayPal's servers had blown up and they had lost all my personal and banking information.

Apparently your email address remained unscathed.

Re:I knew . . .

[nacturation]

Were eBay affected by this? I've just got an email from them now . . .

Yes, they were. Fortunately, a gentleman in Nigeria wishes to return eBay's money and needs your help.

Re:I knew . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

"Were eBay affected by this?" Yes, eBay were affected. WTF is up with "were"? It's a single corporation, a company, a group, etc. WAS the corporation affected? You wouldn't say: WERE the corporation affected!

Was it a bombing or a break-in?

[Anonymous Coward]

Was the motive to scare/cause damage, or was it to get in to a building that would soon be evacuated?

For PayPal, No Sympathy

[teneighty]

I've been ripped off by PayPal twice, with absolutely no recourse whatsoever to get things rectified. The amounts involved are small enough that its not worth getting the legal system involved, but big enough that it's intensely irrirating. I think PayPal's business model is at least partly based on having free will to screw over individual customers in this manner.

While I don't even slightly agree with the bomber's methods, I do understand what would drive them to do this. Individuals are powerless against PayPal, so its no suprise they will lash out any way they can. This is a classic terrorist attack in that sense - someone who felt they had no options left, so they turned to the increasingly commonly accepted equalizer: bombings.

The very moment there is a viable alterntive to PayPal, I'll be switching (Google, are you listening? I'm getting desperate here!).

Re:For PayPal, No Sympathy

[ocbwilg]

I've been ripped off by PayPal twice, with absolutely no recourse whatsoever to get things rectified.

Feel me once...shame on...shame on me. But fool me can't be fooled again.

I think PayPal's business model is at least partly based on having free will to screw over individual customers in this manner.

And you gotta admit, it's a great business model. You get to store peoples' money, shuffle it around and do wire transfers and such, without all those pesky rules and regulations that limit banks. And best of all, at the least hint of anything fishy going on, you can confiscate all of the money in the account and even drain someone's checking account too! It's like having a license to print (or steal, more accurately) money!

Re:For PayPal, No Sympathy

[twifosp]

You have not been ripped off by PayPal. Not once, not twice. Unless you are trying to tell us that PayPal robbed you, then you are very mistaken. PayPal does not rip you off. The person you are buying/selling in a transaction rips you off. PayPal might provide them with a means to do so, but that's like saying the guy pulling the trigger isn't responsible for murder. PayPal is a means to and end.

Look, I don't agree with a lot of PayPal's policies either, and I try to avoid the service when other options are available. But PayPal is just that, a freaking service. It's a convienent way to transfer funds over the internet. If you don't like em, you're welcome to deal with the hassles of other services or snailmail money orders.

I do understand what would drive them to do this. Individuals are powerless against PayPal, so its no suprise they will lash out any way they can

It's a service! If you want to lash out at someone, lash out at the person on the other end of the service. You choose to use it.

I'm really sick of people thinking conviences and services are "rights".

Re:For PayPal, No Sympathy

[Anonymous Coward]

If you had read any of the posts so far, you would know that PayPal DOES rip people off.

People should have the right to not be ripped off by companies they deal with.

Re:For PayPal, No Sympathy

[Nasarius]

Are you serious? Because I've heard of a number of people who have had their accounts (with money in them) locked by PayPal, with no recourse. So your pathetic self-righteous ranting is hilariously clueless.

Re:For PayPal, No Sympathy

[Archon-X]

Here's one:
Setup your paypal account. Put some money into it.
Notice people are currently trying to hack your bank and epassporte accounts.
Ring PayPal, advise them that this situation is happening. Have PayPal assure you your account is safe.
No less than three days later, have your account shutdown for 'fraudulent activities'.
Ring PayPal - have them tell you they can't and won't talk about it, and they have no record of your call of ID XYZ that you took down the first time.

Do you
a) Blame Paypal for being useless, or
b) Blame a third party?

Re:For PayPal, No Sympathy

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahhh, I understand where you're coming from. It's like when I buy my "bike parts"! First "Joe" (me) hands the money to someone called "Jose". Then he takes that money and hands it to "Carlo". Carlo then ships the cok-"bike parts" to me in the mail. I tell Jose he never did and somehow Jose always comes through getting me all my cash back. Then I keep the stuff. It's pretty awesome.

Last time the cops tried to pin the crime on "Jose" all he said was:

"Mang, all I do is hold the money and move it and stuff, like FedEx but more like MonEyx, I don't know what for, I mean, the dude I gave it to, I don't have his real name or number or nothing. I thought it was good but the guy was loco and was all lyin' and stuff. He said it was like for a bicycle 'n things, but then, you know, Joe calls me and stuff and sez HEY MANG MY FRIGGIN' BICYCLE PARTS DIDN'T COME OFF THE TRUCK. Well I never let an hombre down, you hear?" ... "I went to the joint me and Carlo hangs out. I gets him and says 'Man, what you done rippin' off Joe? Carlo starts tryin to tell me sumthin but I already know he's lyin because my main man Joe told me first the truth. No need for seconds on 'splainin. Sos I gets my biggest hombres and we pound the money out of Carlo and gives it back to Joe, fairs and squares. We told Carlo that if he done gonna rip off his hombres hes nothin but a no good lyin gringo and he gonna get the gringo treatment."

And, man, the police believed him. Pretty awesome. I get to "ride" my "bike", the police are asking Carlo all sorta questions, and, well, I'm smart enough not to keep doing business with Jose after this. Yeeha!

Fuck paypal for life.

Interestingly...

[dantheman82]

the bomb was bought on eBay, but due to a PayPal phishing expedition, the seller was scammed out of any profits. So, he took matters (and a little dynamite) into his own hands. Apparently, a note was also found on the scene: "Paypal me $3000 + send fees to gCheckoutRocks@gmail.com ASAP or eBay HQ will be next."

Run Marty!

[IflyRC]

It's the Libyans!!!!!

It's a federal regulation

[donutello]

You are not allowed to make more than 6 withdrawals a month from a savings account without paying a fee.

Re:It's a federal regulation

[compro01]

You are not allowed to make more than 6 withdrawals a month from a savings account without paying a fee.

and this is at what bank? i get 30 transactions (withdrawls, interact, etc.) monthly on my savings account at RBC.

Re:It's a federal regulation

[caffeineboy]

RBC=Royal Bank of Canada = US Federal laws don't apply...

right?

Re:It's a federal regulation

[Anonymous Coward]

It's six PREAUTHORIZED withdrawals or transfers (e.g., online banking transfer, ACH, etc.)

Withdrawals made in person or at the ATM don't count.

The regulation is there so that people don't use interest-bearing accounts (savings, money market, etc.) as transaction or demand accounts (checking).

Somehow, imho, it's supposed to help the bank (or credit union) since the majority don't pay interest on checking and those that do...require high minimum balances and have interest rates of 1%.

Yes, it's a federal rule. It's called Regulation D.

Re:It's a federal regulation

[compro01]

i think i made that post before i has my morning caffine.

anyway, could anyone explain any rational thinking behind such a legal restriction?

Re:okay, but....

[E 99]

First, before we follow you into battle against the evil people who work for corporations, I think we need to know what you do for a living, and if you ever put YOUR own paycheck ahead of the needs of YOUR customers.

Negative Feedback

[daveewart]

"Postage was quick, but the item exploded upon arrival."

a simpler explanation

[GeeDubber]

Halloween was yesterday. It was probably just a firecracker or a roman candle.

WOW This is SO weird, I was on the phone w/ them

[DRAGONWEEZEL]

Last night, complaining, because they couldn't (wouldn't) verify the address on a credit card that has been with the account for several years.

They had me on hold for a very long time, and in the end my call was not resolved, and I had spent 77 minutes and 33 seconds on the phone!

Not saying they deserved this, but with the kind of treatment I got, I am not surprised.

What in the crap?-collateral damage.

[Anonymous Coward]

"To the government watchdogs reading this because it was flagged, again, I would never blow shit up. Honest."

Good for you. However bombings are a poor means for effecting change. Anyone who tells you different has failed history class. The simplest and easiest is to simply not do business with them. Thinking that "just saying no" is painful have never lost a loved one from those who couldn't.

Re:What in the crap?-collateral damage.

[Grishnakh]

However bombings are a poor means for effecting change. Anyone who tells you different has failed history class. The simplest and easiest is to simply not do business with them.

You really believe this? Big companies aren't affected by boycotts at all; this has been proven over and over. You just can't get enough of the customer base to commit to a boycott for it to work, especially if the company is some kind of monopoly (Microsoft, SBC, etc.), or at least completely dominant in its field. Heck, look what's happening to Sony. They're probably hated now more than ever, but they're still limping along despite the battery disaster.

Also, targetted bombings along the lines of the OP's suggestions could have a devastating effect on a company's business. Blowing up an internet company's connection with the internet would cause them enormous financial damage for the time until they get it repaired. Doing this over and over could cause them to lose so much business they'd have to change or shut down.

Obligatory note to government watchdogs: I'm not going to bomb anyone. Besides, Paypal hasn't screwed me over yet except for those idiotic fees.

Sign of the times

[Rich Klein]

This article has been tagged with "terrorism." I can remember when people would hear this news and think not "terrorism," but "nutcase setting off a bomb."

Re:Sign of the times

[Anonymous Coward]

I still thought "nut case setting off a bomb" but I'm probably one of not many that did...

Re:Sign of the times

[inKubus]

Because terrorism means Muslim nutcase setting off a bomb, right?

Re:Sign of the times

[Jekler]

See terrorism in a dictionary. Terrorism isn't defined by what was done, it is defined by why it was done. Generally speaking, it has some socio-political motivation.

A bomb at a crappy company isn't terrorism anymore than throwing a can of yeast at someone is a biological attack.

Re:Sign of the times

[muellerr1]

I don't know about you, but I've been terrified by the bombing. How did the Iraqi insurgents get all the way to PayPal headquarters? They could be in my bedroom right now!

Re:Sign of the times

[dangitman]

How is bombing a crappy company not a socio-political motive? Economics is at the core of most people's politics and social interaction these days.

Re:Sign of the times

[freeze128]

...and I remember when tagging was something that was done to wildlife.

Re:Sign of the times

[Rich Klein]

I was thinking that terrorism implies a trend, a series of events, but I'll defer to the dictionary. The dictionary definition is better, anyway.

Re:okay, but....

[eno2001]

I work for a non-profit organization so as to keep my karma clean. And, yes public service is a HUGE factor in what I do. I could make a ton more money doing IT in the corporate world, but I wouldn't be able to live with myself. Hell, even here I feel bad that the maintenance staff get less pay than I do. They do a hell of a lot of really important work and I would say they're MORE essential than IT.

Canadian PayPal HQ

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone have the address of the PayPal Canadian HQ? Seriously, just reply here with details. I believe it's in Vancouver. You can't even file a claim against them without a legit address!?

Looks like people have real reasons to be pissed..

[Van Cutter Romney]

From The Mercury News:

'It wasn't anything radioactive,' San Jose Fire Capt. Guerrero said.

Radioactive? If someone sets off a radioactive bomb, that's one PO'd customer. Paypal'd rather shut down its operations!!

damage isn't always relative to magnitude

[brokeninside]

You seem to be equating the effects of a bomb with the magnitude of the explosive power of the bomb. The strength of the bomb measures its explosive power. A stronger bomb set off in front of a modern office building where the code specifies hardening of windows and structural reinforcements may very well cause less damage than a weaker bomb where the buildings are older and not built to withstand an earthquake.

Re:damage isn't always relative to magnitude

[Silver Sloth]

I realise that damage != power but if you'd followed the links I'd posted you would have seen

April 10, 1992: A large bomb explodes in St Mary Axe in the City of London killing three people and injuring 91. Many buildings are heavily damaged and the Baltic Exchange is completely destroyed.

as just one of the eleven bombs planted by the IRA in seven years (1990 - 1996 inc) in London alone.

I, and many of us Londoners who lived through all that, refuse to get worked up about a bomb which breaks one plate glass window and has no casualties to the people working inside - even if it is a company with heavy IT connections.

Diversionary Tactics?

[HFShadow]

Seems like this would make a fairly good diversion.... place a small bomb at the NOC to make sure the staff gets evacuated, then ddos/hack away.

Moo

[Chacham]

Paypal is so kewl Paypal iS dA bOmB!

Just for the record...

[bealzabobs_youruncle]

I was home last night...

That useless attempt at humor aside, PayPal has gone from zero consumer protection and zero seller protection to moderate consumer protection and now sellers have virtually no rights. I would not condone this kind of thing, but for the handful tha have lost large sums of money this isn't a huge shock to read. People do messed up stuff over large sums of cash and PayPal already knows this. Probably shouldn't be that easy to get that close to PayPal HQ either.

LOL, I am going to be a suspect.

[DRAGONWEEZEL]

I have been with them for a long time too. I have allways been happy, but I had this one issue recently. I could not pay for an ebay auction because the seller requires a confirmed address. No big, I go through the steps to confirm, and get cycle errors. No big, I contact the seller and tell them about my issues, they say call paypal, and they can fix this for you. I contact paypal, and spend about 60 minutes on hold, and 15 minutes arguing with the "supervisor" about how waiting for 15 minutes and trying again is not going to solve my problems (they tried the classic "get him off the phone" routine.)

I was extremely upset, and after spending almost 80 minutes (yes 60 + 20 in one call) on hold, geting into an arguement with the "supervisor" I decided it just wasn't worth it!

Customer service-Taking a byte out of bits.

[Anonymous Coward]

"unfortunately corporations are represented via human beings so its the human beings that are made to suffer..."

Keep that in mind next time you all pirate IP products.

Re:Customer service-Taking a byte out of bits.

[WilliamSChips]

The profits that the actual artists get from CD sales are about 5 cents an album.

To those who sympathize with the bomber...

[E 99]

You're all psychopaths. We have a legal system in this country that is still extremely viable for collecting damages if you have been defrauded. Oh, I forgot, as one person said, the amount of damages aren't worth going to court over, BUT TRYING TO BLOW UP AN INNOCENT PERSON TO ALLAY YOUR FRUSTRATION -- well, sure, that's what bombs are for! You know, there's a terrific country called Iraq that you should consider moving to. There, whenever you get frustrated, either at the government, or the Americans, or the Sunnis or the Shiites, you can just kill people a bunch of random people with a bomb, and it's considered socially acceptable. You'd fit in great!

Re:To those who sympathize with the bomber...

[asylumx]

George? Is that you? You let some inside words slip out again...

Come on, lil dubya, back to the nice room with the soft bouncy walls.

Re:To those who sympathize with the bomber...

[Anonymous Coward]

When the amount is enough to hurt but not enough to warrant legal action (say a few hundred bucks), one will find themselves backed up against a wall with literally no reasonable recourse. Small claims court? Please, there's no way to force Paypal to pay out on that, and you can bet they have a lawyer on retainer while you can't afford one if a couple hundred in money lost actually hurts you. Bombing, however, strikes me as going a bit overboard. Especially since it's the people that have no control over policy that they attacked.

Now if these guys wanted to attack the real culprits, they would have left a flaming bag of dogshit on a Paypal exec's front porch. They wouldn't be regarded as "terr'rists" right about now, and the people that really did fuck them over would be the ones facing the consequences of their policies.

Re:To those who sympathize with the bomber...

[Anonymous Coward]

BUT TRYING TO BLOW UP AN INNOCENT PERSON TO ALLAY YOUR FRUSTRATION
IT'S ALL IN CAPS SO IT MUST BE TRUE!!!!!111111ONE

Find me one innocent person in this entire world. I fucking dare you.

Yeah keep trying. No rush I'll be here till you are done. In about 30 years when you realize you have no fuckin idea what you are talking about.

Re:To those who sympathize with the bomber...

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

...congratulations for formulating your own opinions, despite the white noise of "if you are not with us, you are with the terrorists", such as the parent post. I completely disagree with you, but I shall fight to the death your right to say it.

Can I gloat!?

[NFN_NLN]

Is it illegal to call someone up toll-free and gloat that they were bombed? Seriously, that was my first instinct, and it's not too late to bail out... I'm still on hold... have been for 15 minutes...

Paypal
1-877-6-paypal
(877) 672-9725
(866) 272-9725
(402) 537-5740 FAX
Help Center: (888) 221-1161
Craig, complaints resolution manager: (402) 935-2258 Premier Account Holders: (800) 836-1859

PayPal
Media Contact:

Amanda Pires
PayPal
(650) 864-8067
apires@paypal.com

Re:okay, but....

[Duodecimal]

The problem is, anyone can push a broom. The incentive for developing marketable skills is higher pay. So if you were brought up or educated to feel guilt over earning your keep, feel free to be as charitable as you wish. The rest of us will continue to engage in mutually beneficial exchanges at agreed upon rates for our relatively scarcer skill sets.

The real shame

[Anonymous Coward]

You weren't on top of it.

Sony??

[KrugerLive]

Did sony send PayPal a new shipment of batteries?

Maybe you should be worried about intent...

[Vellmont]

It doesn't sound like this was a terribly powerfull bomb. But if you worked at paypal maybe you should be worried about the intent of this attack rather than the effects. This wasn't some kid setting off firecrackers, this was someone that took the time to construct a bomb that's powerfull enough to damage a window, and maybe seriously injure someone that was nearby. People like that might just make a much larger bomb next time.

Comparing this to the IRA simply isn't fair. Should someone that lived through Hiroshima poo-poo the IRA bombing campaign because it paled in comparison to the atomic bomb? Comparing this to the IRA bombing really misses the point. A more apt comparison would probbably be the Unabomber.

Re:Maybe you should be worried about intent...

[Cederic]

The point is that this isn't a particularly strong bomb.

I concur. You can get more powerful bombs through the post. Or detonated on the back seat of a double-decker in London at rush hour.

Re:Maybe you should be worried about intent...

[Vellmont]

The point is that this isn't a particularly strong bomb.

No, I think the original poster was trying to convey the idea that this is "no big deal". The OP was comparing this to much larger bombings that aren't really relevant.

How do you sell on eBay and not use PayPal?

[Zaurus]

Is there a way to sell on eBay and not use PayPal??? That's the only reason that I use PayPal, but after reading a dozen stories of PayPal confiscating seller's money without good reason and never giving it back, I'd really like to stop using it. But then how do I accept payments for eBay auctions? I only sell about $100 worth of stuff per year, so an actual credit card merchant account is way too expensive.

Re:How do you sell on eBay and not use PayPal?

[Digz]

Money orders, cashier's checks, Bidpay, Western Union, eGold, so forth and so on..

Re:How do you sell on eBay and not use PayPal?

[Anonymous Coward]

I hear there are these things called "checks." Apparently it's a piece of paper that the buyer is supposed to fill out with the amount of money involved, and sign. Then they put them in envelopes, put something called a "stamp" on them, and put them in a box. At that point a shipping company picks up the envelope and ships it to you. When you take this "check" to your bank, they'll contact the buyer's bank and get the money transferred directly into your account.

I understand there are similar things called "cashier's checks" and "money orders" which go a step further and set aside the money before it reaches you.

Re:How do you sell on eBay and not use PayPal?

[pafrusurewa]

I mostly use bank transfers. I'm in Europe, and within the Eurozone bank transfers are essentially free and easy. There are many people on eBay who don't accept PayPal at all. Even if a seller accepts PayPal he is usually happy to accept bank transfers.

And it's faster than PayPal, too (money in your PayPal account is worth nothing, you have to transfer it to your bank account to be sure that PayPal doesn't keep it).

We don't do cheques here because we don't need them. I don't even know if you can still get them from banks.

Big dilemma for PayPal

[RealGrouchy]

This bombing creates a big dilemmma for PayPal: do they add the "bombing PayPal fee" to the culprit's account before or after they lock him/her out?

- RG>

Re: Real Bank Account

[fallen1]

Add to this the fact that PayPal constantly pushes linking your PayPal account to your "real" bank account (apparently so they can clean you out in one fell swoop) and you have a recipe for...

...someone to do what I have done - set up a PayPal only bank account. This bank account is NOT linked to any other account except for PayPal - period. I don't use it to pay bills, I don't use it to save money in, I don't use it for anything EXCEPT PayPal payments (both sending and receiving). When I get money into my PayPal account, I sweep it out of there into either a) cash or b) another bank account. This means that ALL the mighty PayPal can do if someone disputes a claim is, if they seize my account or try to get back money from it (which is no longer there), cause me to close that account. I'll file a complaint with my bank that the goods were sent and delivered (I always request delivery confirmation and/or signature confirmation) and so PayPal is in error and I won't be putting money back into that account. They can then handle PayPal. Meanwhile, I open a new PayPal bank account and, if needed, a new PayPal account and go right back to buying/selling.

Fuck PayPal.

lol tag?!?

[doug141]

How did this get tagged lol? Is there some large faction of terrorists on slashdot? Comments denouncing the bombing are the ones being modded up, indicating otherwise. Does the tagging methodology need tweaking?

Re:lol tag?!?

[Mr2001]

Does the tagging methodology need tweaking?

Yes. Every story about lasers gets tagged "sharks" (haw haw, someone remembered a 9-year-old joke from Austin Powers) and some days every story gets tagged "fud"--and then "notfud" in response because no one remembers that "!fud" is the correct way to cancel a tag. At this point, tags are mostly useless.. you can't even browse stories by tag.

Hear Hear!

[Anonymous Coward]

I hear ya, buddy. I was in the same boat in school. My folks taught me never to fight. They taught me that the best way to deal with bullies was to ignore them. That never works - it just makes an easy target. My kids will grow up kicking ass. Better to deal with the expulsions and have respect and self-esteem.

Somone posted recently that it is a fallacy that kids in middle/high school learn to be adults through the process of being entirely around kids their own age. The reason they act like savages is because there is not enough adult supervision teaching them how to behave like adults. Instead, they behave like "Lord of the Flies".

Re:Hear Hear!

[Shotgun]

I take it a step further. My children have been taught, and will continue to be taught, that there is nothing wrong to put yourself on the line to protect those weaker than yourself. Befriend the bullied and stand with them. Part of the socialization is that your supposed to be converted to sheep and accept the bullies as overlords. Replace 'adminstrator' with 'police' and the conversion to adulthood is complete.

Fuck 'em. I will protect myself, my family, and my neighbors, and if I have to sacrifice to do it...so be it. OP should have learned that standing up for yourself is painful, but it's the only way to stop the bullying.

Whip out the violins!

[NDPTAL85]

Its not a failing of western or American culture at all. Our economies would be absolutely paralyzed if we had to stop to consider the sentiments of every useless over emotional/idealistic person in existence. It just wouldn't be practical at all. While trying to do the "right" thing should always be a constant and never-ending goal at the end of the day if it is too uncomfortable to do or too inconvienent then its just not going to happen.

There's also the fact that you can be successful monetarily and bea good person but even if not I'm not going to willfully pass up the good life so that the seriously self-conflicted will think well of me. Being a lifestyle masochist does not make one a good person. It just makes you kinky. Really really kinky.

Re:Whip out the violins!

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Its[sic] not a failing of western or American culture at all.

It is an ethical failure of our culture.

Our economies would be absolutely paralyzed if we had to stop to consider the sentiments of every useless over emotional/idealistic person in existence.

Which is precisely why our economies evolved the way did, to gain the benefits of unethical behavior while making the ethics harder to see.

While trying to do the "right" thing should always be a constant and never-ending goal at the end of the day if it is too uncomfortable to do or too inconvienent then its just not going to happen.

Not the "right" thing. That would morality. We are speaking of ethics. I'm not prescribing behaviors, I'm assigning responsibility for actions.

There's also the fact that you can be successful monetarily and bea good person but even if not I'm not going to willfully pass up the good life so that the seriously self-conflicted will think well of me.

I never told you what you should do, nor claimed to judge you based upon what you do. I merely said you're responsible for what you do, including all the unethical behaviors that keep you fed, or overfed.

Being a lifestyle masochist does not make one a good person. It just makes you kinky. Really really kinky.

Good, bad, right, and wrong are moral opinions and wholly subjective. I am speaking about ethics, which is not. Do what you will. I'm simply making the statement that you are ethically responsible for what you do, including contributing to companies that use your contribution to behave unethically. Deal with it.

Re:Whip out the violins!

[NDPTAL85]

I think you are really splitting hairs in the differences between Morality and Ethics. For all intents and purposes they're the same thing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morality

The first paragraph of both definitions references "good and evil". When you assign responsibility you clearly have a goal in mind. The goal is obviously not to increase EVIL behaviour but to increase GOOD behaviour. So therefore in this context and in wider contexts morals = ethics. An ethical person is a good person. An unethical person is a bad person. There's no way you can convince me that an unethical person could be good or a ethical person could be bad.

Now back to the discussion, I still do not see the point of denying yourself business because someone else hobbles themsleves with a naieve sense of honor that most would regard as "quaint and provincencial"

Re:Whip out the violins!

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

I think you are really splitting hairs in the differences between Morality and Ethics. For all intents and purposes they're the same thing.

No, they're not. It is too bad the wikipedia articles do such a poor job of reflecting that. Ethics are objective. Morality is subjective.

When you assign responsibility you clearly have a goal in mind.

No, I don't. Ethics is a tool for determining responsibility according to objective rules. Morality is determining the "good" or "evil" of an act. I don't even believe in good and evil as they are commonly defined.

The goal is obviously not to increase EVIL behaviour but to increase GOOD behaviour.

You're assigning motivations to me under the assumption that I have the same subjective opinions about morality you do. That is incorrect.

So therefore in this context and in wider contexts morals = ethics.

You need to think in terms of people with radically different beliefs than you do. The ethics of that persons actions as they see them are the same as yours (for the same ethical code). The morality of their actions, may be completely different from their perspective than yours.

There's no way you can convince me that an unethical person could be good or a ethical person could be bad.

Extremes provide clarity or principals. To go back to a previous example. It is unethical to kill an innocent child. If the innocent child does not die, thousands of other people will perish. From the opinion of some people, it is moral to kill the child, despite being unethical. Maybe that is not how you think of it, but a lot of people have different moral beliefs than you. Regardless of that, ethics clearly places the responsibility for the act on the killer.

Now back to the discussion, I still do not see the point of denying yourself business because someone else hobbles themsleves with a naieve[sic] sense of honor that most would regard as "quaint and provincencial[sic]"

That is your moral belief. It is separate from the fact that ethically, you are still responsible for the results of your decision.

5 years? try 4...

[way2trivial]

5 years still is inclusive of the Anthrax scares..

closed post offices, cost millions..

here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_Anthrax_Attacks go crazy.

TERROR!

[darkvizier]

FTA: There was no immediate word on the contents of the device, but officials told CBS 5 Tuesday that the debris left behind was not radiological.

*slaps forehead*

That settles it. Reporters are all on crack. What the hell does a blown up window have to do with nuclear bombs?

TERROR!

Re:okay, but....

[2short]

You feel working for a non-profit is morally superior; You feel bad that workers doing harder but less skilled work get paid less. I'm sorry, but in what sense are you not a commie? I mean, forget all the negative stupidity heaped on communism by people who apply that label indiscriminately. It sure sounds like your political beliefs are most accurately and succinctly summed up by saying you are a communist. If you want to convince anyone else of these beleifs, you might start by rejecting the automatic assumption that they are bad and wrong that comes from denying their most accurate label off the top. When you say "I'm not a commie!", you acknolwedge the assumption that communism is obviously bad at the outset.
    For the record, I think you're wrong, and that communism is bad even for the working classes it seeks to help. But I don't think it's *obviously* bad, and I think the same of unrestrained capitalism, so I hate being deprived of a healthy societal discussion when one end of the spectrum just capitulates at the beginning.

Why PayPal and not eBay?

[Anonymous Coward]

when the incident occured at eBay's North Campus?
was PayPal the target? or was it eBay?
or any handy corporate business park in the area?

Me, too!

[Darren Hiebert]

You can add me to the long list of people who have been abused by PayPal. My experience is that the company couldn't care less about unsatisfied customers. They knows all the steps to the dance of avoiding taking action that benefits a customer.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Google behind it?

[Dretep]

Maybe Google Checkout isn't doing as well as they had hoped and Ebay said no to an offer on Paypal. Maybe Google really IS evil!?

Additional Information

[mrkitty]

Paypal's campus is inside of Ebay's North Campus. Both are shut down today.

Might be more sinister then you think

[AceCaseOR]

Now, I never made it this far in the biographical book on the company that was written by one of the company's founders (The PayPal Wars) it did have problems with various organized crime organizations. Maybe they pissed off some Russian Mob boss who was using PayPal to transfer ill-gotten funds, or receiving payments through PayPal (possibly by shutting down that account), so they sent them a warning?

Yeah, it's blind speculation, but it almost seems just as plausible as a disgruntled customer building a bomb (and according to TFA your garden variety pipe bomb wouldn't have broken the window).

Re:Might be more sinister then you think

[captainClassLoader]

AceCaseOR says:

Maybe they pissed off some Russian Mob boss who was using PayPal to transfer ill-gotten funds, or receiving payments through PayPal (possibly by shutting down that account), so they sent them a warning?

From TFA:

The blast occurred near an outdoor corridor popular for employee breaks and was not visible from the street.

Another possibility: Maybe this was an inside job?...But for what reason?...

Congratulations!

[OrbNobz]

Oh! Did they get a congratulations cake from the IE team as well?

  - OrbNobz
Capsuleers do it in goo.

Political

[Anonymous Coward]

Because terrorism means Muslim nutcase setting off a bomb, right?

No, terrorism is for political reasons. This attack on PayPal (EBay - same company) was just some adolescently minded dipshit acting out.

It had to happen

[Skaber]

Just refer to http://www.paypalsucks.com and you'll hear the most horrible stories from their customers. Paypal is really ruining lives by offering poor security, as much for the seller and the buyer. With all the scams over eBay and other sites, they MUST enhance their support and make online shopping a safe market. Trust my personnal experiencessss, they really lack professionalism when it comes to fraud protection. Francis Robichaud

condone or not ....

[nblender]

I don't condone the bombing, but I also feel pretty strongly that if you knowingly work for a company widely known for being a bunch of creepy scumbags (which paypal is with ample documentation) then you are complicit even if you aren't directly involved in the 'creepiness'. If more people grabbed a spine and refused to work for creepy scumbags, then said scumbags would have trouble sustaining their business. I refused to take a job at the local telco due to some things they'd done to a former employer of mine. In my refusal, I also told them why. I doubt it had any effect, but I feel better about it. Not everyone can choose to turn down jobs, but if more of us (who can afford to make these choices) did, the message sent would be strong.

I'm too late

[Soltys]

I'm too late
Someone have been first than me :(

Just a guess, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

They couldn't find a contact address for PayPal?

Have you looked a "all the options available"?

[blueZ3]

Just because people use PayPal, that doesn't mean their service is good. I use the DMV, but I can tell you that aside from PayPal, it's my least favorite organization to interact with. I do so because here in California they are the only place to get a driver's license.

It's not that PayPal is so good that complaints are a "rounding error" amongst the millions and millions of satisfied customers, it's that there are basically no other viable options. PayPal has the eBay market locked (where most non credit card transactions occur) and other services are so limited in scope that they are essentially niche products. They have become synonymous with "on-line payments for eBay" (thus eBay's purchase) and it's unlikely you're going to get a random eBay buyer or seller to sign up for "Joe's ePayment" system.

I have been looking for an alternative since I closed my PayPal account after the SomethingAwful mess, and so far I haven't found anything. It's true that a lot of PayPal sucks sites are pushing other options, but if you look at those options, you'll see that currently there's nothing with the market penetration of PayPal. Basically, PayPal is the Microsoft of electronic payments. There are other options, but they are the default, especially on eBay.

I know that the plural of anecdote isn't data, but neither is the plural of "it never happened to me" "it never happens"

Re:Great. Now if they start offering actual servic

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't you hear- The terrorists won in 2000, 2004, and are rigging it so that they will win in perpetuity.

Re:okay, but....

[eno2001]

These guys do more than push brooms. They are skilled workers. They deserve better treatment than society is willing to give them. You should really make friends with some maintenance guys. They are pretty smart.

Re:okay, but....

[Duodecimal]

My second job was a Janitor. Now I'm in CT. A digital janitor, as it were. I actually fantasize about moving somewhere quiet and being a Janitor again. With my favorite mop...

Paypal traps you into higher-priced options...

[SallyShears]

I have many positive experiences with PayPal transactions. It really does make normal payments easier.

What I object to is the way they back you into a corner and force your choice.

Here's a specific example. eBay wants sellers to accept PayPal. Fine. Once you sell something, the buyer is invited to pay with a credit card. Still fine. Then PayPal writes the seller saying, "Your buyer wants to use a credit card. This will cost you 2.5% for this transaction and ALL FUTURE transactions for your account. Do you want to accept the payment? YES... or NO..." (..and, by the way, you cannot easily open another account.)

That's a trap! To me, this is underhanded. The kind of company you continue to use, but you keep stewing about how to get back at them.

    -- Sally

Re:okay, but....

[eno2001]

Actually, I don't think working for a non-profit is morally superior. I don't attach a value judgment to the kind of work that people do. I just personally feel that if I am doing work for citizens rather than businesses, *I* fell better about it. Regarding communism, I think it's a great system as long as we're not dealing with animal species of any kind (humans included). In other words, it's ideal but it can never work due to the inherent flaw of selfishness in biological systems. Regarding capitalism, I feel it's subject to the same flaw that communism is. As long as one person who is in a higher position than another person wants more than they actually need and to the detriment of the other person, both communism and capitalism fail. I'm here on this planet to help people and I believe that is why everyone else is here to. It's obvious that others don't feel the same way.

mod parent up

[Anonymous Coward]

sometimes there is nothing else to say

Overrated..

[necro2607]

OK, what is the big deal about this, though? Last night people were lighting off explosives of a completely recreational sort that would DEFINITELY shatter windows. It's fucking halloween. It was 99% likely some teenagers who happened to be in the area and thought "hey sweet, let's shoot [this firecracker/firework] at the PayPal building, lol!" ... Seriously, why are people bringing up "terrorism" and crap about how it was some kind of deliberate planned "attack" against PayPal? Jeez..

Coffee spill case

[metamatic]

Save yourself some time, just post this link in future:

http://www.stellaawards.com/stella.html

Maybe the blast was just a distraction?

[Anonymous Coward]

Blow up a window or two and maybe nobody notices the guy in the fireman's uniform rifling the files or pulling hard disks from computers. Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get me!

Somebody set up them the bomb

[Meph_the_Balrog]

So you're saying that they made their time?

Re:Somebody set up them the bomb

[WilliamSChips]

Well, they had no chance to survive!

while I agree that PayPal suxx0rz. . .

[alizard]

What ever happened to leaving flaming sacks of crap on a porch??

Hey, putting a small bomb outside PayPal is one thing. Don't you think that putting the C-level suits on somebody's porch and setting them afire is overdoing it a little bit? (I might not have thought so a few months ago, but since after close to 2 years of trying, I finally managed to close my account and get my money back, I'm not as annoyed with them as I was.)

While there are probably a great many people whose days would be made by opening the daily fishwrap and discovering that somebody had set fire to the sacks of crap that they call C-level executives, how would you like to find those guys on fire on your porch?

Re: Kim Jong Il

[calculadoru]

Because Kim Jong apparently had his paypal account frozen the week before

If this is all he could come up with, I guess there's no need to worry about his nukes, eh?
Then again, the dude has apparently declared war on the sunrise so there might be more trouble brewing.

Mod parent up

[idonthack]

I wish I had mod points so I could do it myself.

C.E.O.'s House - Better Target?

[cyberscan]

Why target each other? The hackers were not the cause as far as I know. If people want to use violence, then they should select the correct target. I usually don't support violence, however, I can unsderstand why people get frustrated enough to do something like this. It seems that the little guy or the common person has absolutely no recourse when screwed by a big company. The police usually do not want to pursue people who screw over the common man. The FBI only assists if the amount is $5000 or above. Even a thousand dollars is a lot of money for the common person. However, governments do not care about the common person. It seems that the only way to fight back is by doing some sort of damage or breaking some law. I can now hear all of those "Well, if you do not like it, then do business with someone else people." The problem is that that "someone else" is also most likely a big corporation who also screws over some of their customers.

I just encourage people who feel the need to take some form of disruptive action to make sure they only affect the deserving target. The last major L.A. riot is a prime example of the wrongful use of violence. Why were small businessess and innocent truckers attacked when the police were the target of protesters? It seems to make more sense to me for the rioters to burn down, rob, or vandalize every police precint or police car rather than small businesses whose propriators were probably equally appalled at the verdict. Rather than using violence to punish a target, I suggest other, more creative action that reduces the chance of collateral damage. Does the target have a toll free number? A computer or botnet can fine the target by repeatedly calling that number (from an untracable line). How about bad publicity? I noticed a guy who had lage signs on his car that stated "I got ripped off by ....." The guy drove that car around town and lots of people saw the sign. The targetted business almost closed down as a result. It is also easy to glue doors shut, cut air conditioning lines, use herbicide on landscaping, etc. Big business care about only one thing, and that thing is bringing in money. Damage the money stream will damage the company.

A public utility is almost invincible against a customer who uses legal channels to file a complaint, however that same utility becomes very vulnerable to vandalism. It is deeply amazing what a crossed line, a closed valve, an open switch, or a plugged meter can do. It is also amazing what instruction passed onto others who are equally dissatisfied with service can also do. When a target is on the defensive it has to think of every way to prevent a malcontent from doing damage while a malcontent only has to discover a single way of exacting damage to be successful.

Your Recipe is Wrong

[Ignis Flatus]

Add to this the fact that PayPal constantly pushes linking your PayPal account to your "real" bank account (apparently so they can clean you out in one fell swoop) and you have a recipe for... well, I'd say about 5 lbs of ammonium nitrate, some black powder, and a time-delay fuse.

well, you seem to be missing something (i'll leave the ignorant in their bliss here). but it does explain how you managed to only break a window. ;)

"Legendary"

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

That would mean that it's history. Except for the part that's mythical.

If you can set up a nuclear reactor...

[patio11]

... then you can make a dirty bomb. And if you're a Boy Scout with a couple hundred dollars lying around and some high school nuclear chemistry knowledge, you can set up a nuclear reactor. http://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/radscout.html

WOW!!!

[qzulla]

Bomb and terrorism not mentioned in the same article. Amazing!

qz

FBI says

[DollyTheSheep]

it was just an exploding Sony accu. Other sources say, that it was a just a Windows Vista box, not withstanding the vapor any longer.

support

[Anonymous Coward]

and if you liked the explosions, click the "Donate using PayPal" button to support us for further activities.

Uh, it was just... lying there?

[repvik]

"... an explosive device left outside of PayPal headquarters exploded last night."
Ok, so someone had left a bomb outside PayPal (understandable). How long had it been lying there before it went off?

In which part of India is Missouri?

[jotaeleemeese]

:-P :-)

So?

[jotaeleemeese]

That still does not absolve them of anny illegal or immoral practices their company may be pursuing.

I am a little more cynical and suspicious

[zogger]

The 9-11 attacks seemed to have primarily benefited the international mil/industrial complex, the PNAC ideological crowd, and israel. I can't see where they benefited joe muhammad on the street *very much at all*. And I am not sure where Osama is or his motivations at this point,he was long at least a marginal asset of the US intel community, and connected to the large international business community,so did he ever really cease to function as one of those folks, could there be overlapping interests and goals, instead of just one overwhelmingly large goal of the caliphate? If he changed to just the latter, when and where and why? That is a truly hidden secret, we have no timeline to look at, at least I have never seen it. With saddam, it is a little clearer, he was tolerated/supported/supplied as long as he wqas fighting iran and keeping sunnis and shias divided (the relationship with the kurds has always been hypocritcal, turkey has always fought them just as hard and they are still in NATO), but when he started growing uncontrollable and expansionist, and especially when he started threatening the petrodollar hegemony he got smashed. I think that was the real reason there. The US (western industrialised governments in other ways), has a long history of supporting varous despots as long as they suit a purpose, then turning around and demonising them and acting like the earlier support never existed. Look at Noriega for another example. Look at the argentine generals and brazilian generals. Look at the Taliban (not bin laden, the Taliban)who were tolerated until they actually DID control the opium trade, they just ruthlessly smashed it almost totally gone in just one year, and at the same time they did not want to accept pitiful oil pipeline offer from unocal and Rice, so then within weeks all of a sudden afghanistan is back on the radar and eventually they get invaded. Coincidence?? They even offered to give up bin laden as long as the trial was conducted at a more neutral place, not just hand him over to the US, and that was rejected out of hand. But they really did stop the bulk of the huge opium to heroin trade. I think that really annoyed some behind the scenes organized profiteers.

On the side, ever listen to george carlin much? He has a funny skit where he goes on how to really stop the drug trade, he said don't fool around with the little dealers, go to the top and throw the big bankers in jail who launder the bigmoney. It's pretty much right-on if that is the real goal. But it doesn't happen much, so you have to wonder whynot? I think I can answer it, it is just too profitable to stop, just the war on drugs in the US manufactured half the accepted police state.

Constant threats and wars serve a variety of purposes for various power blocs, I don't think there is ever any single one overlying cause to them for the most part. War is a racket just as much as it might be a legit struggle for this or that ideology. It's just a very complex and lucrative business.

Re:okay, but....

[2short]

Why would you feel better about your work than something else if you didn't think it was a better thing to be doing? I can't even make the question sound like it makes sense. Why not attach a value judgement to the kind of work people do? Is it not reasonable to say a social worker is doing more good for society than a blackjack dealer?
You say you think you and others are here to help each other, and note it's obvious that others think differently. But you seem very reluctant to reach the obvious conclusion: You think they are wrong.

Re:okay, but....

[eno2001]

No. I don't think they are wrong. I'm just not arrogant enough to think I'm right. I only think that I'm right to myself and those who agree with me. I very well may be wrong in the bigger scheme but I have enough reasons to think that I'm not. However I'm not going to tell someone else that they're wrong because I really don't care to argue about it. I'm not here to debate. Just to help and be kind to others.