Yes, but... it depends on what your biggest concerns are. For example, are you more concerned about delivery, in the sense that you want to make absolutely sure the recipient eventually gets the information, or are you more concerned about "security", in the sense that you DON'T want it getting out prematurely?
Here is a way to ensure both: strongly encrypt the data. Give your recipients at least two copies, to put in (separate) safe places. Then hire TWO attorneys, unknown to the recipients. Give each of them them a sealed package containing the names of the recipients, along with the encryption key and instructions for decrypting the data, to be delivered only after your demise. Put seals on the packages, and see that the recipients know what the seals are and how to tell if they're broken. But don't tell them who the attorneys are.
It still requires that you put SOME trust in the attorneys. If you don't trust them as much as you'd like, then split the key in half and give half the information to each attorney. That way, if one of them is dishonest, maybe the other one won't be.
There is no perfect way. But this one is pretty good.
Single account to rule them all......the best approach is the separation of concerns (user management, server management, backup / restore, etc.) so that it is a lot harder to compromise everything.
Yes, and no.
The BEST approach is to back up your stuff in more than one place. Then if everything disappears... voila! You just put it back once your server is straightened out.
I am currently working on some web projects. We take regular snapshots of our code AND data, and keep backups not just online, but also offline in 2 different countries. And all sensitive data is well-encrypted.
And you know what? Not only is not not hard to do, it hardly takes any time.
I just mean that the very real political obstacles exist, and sheer pluck on the part of supporters won't make that disappear.
But, see, that's different from what you said before. Now you say there are "real obstacles" (true). Before you implied that it was simply impossible. That's the part I object to. I don't doubt that it could be difficult. But I don't think it's impossible.
Alright, so... let's put it this way: the obstacles to it happening are greater than the collective will to see it happen.
How is that different? You merely said the same thing using different words.
I don't think there was any confusion over what you meant. My point was that you appear to be -- intentionally or otherwise -- participating in or even promoting that mentioned lack of "collective will".
I just read up on this on Wikipedia and other places. And it turns out not to be true in most cases. Here is what has bolstered the myth:
IF someone innocently infringes your trademark, with no malicious intent or intent to confuse or deceive, then if you don't enforce your trademark when you become aware of the infringement, and unreasonably delay such enforcement, you may lose your ability to get "relief" (often monetary compensation) from the infringer.
But you still don't lose your "rights" to the trademark. You just don't get compensated for the infringement.
Now, if you wantonly neglect enforcing your trademark, and allowed for example many parties to infringe (albeit innocently), you may lose any effective ability to gain from that trademark, because it has now been watered down and you won't get compensation from the infringers.
But you can still generally enforce your trademark, even if you delay such enforcement, if you can show the infringers' "hands are unclean", that is to say, that they were aware of their infringement, continued it deliberately after being notified to cease, and the infringement was "significant".
(I use words like "generally" here because it's a legal thing, and that's why we have courts.)
Anyway, the point is: you can certainly screw yourself in some circumstances if you fail to enforce your trademarks. But they aren't really "use or lose". You don't lose your rights to the trademark, but you might be prevented from gaining anything with a suit. And even that generally holds only if the infringement was intentional and significant, and you "unreasonably" delay.
If they were still advertising the specs of the hardware they no longer ship, yes.
Well, yes. That is what I had presumed was the situation under discussion. But at least in the U.S., even if the review thing were not outright fraud, it could still be ruled a deceptive practice.
Frankly, I don't understand why government has not gone after the video card manufacturers who gamed the benchmarks for so many years. Again, it might not be fraud, but it is definitely and intentionally deceptive.
Trademarks are "defend-or-lose". A trademark is supposed to identify your stuff, and if you don't actively try to stop violations when you know of them you're allowing the confusion.
That's what I thought. I mean I don't know that it's true, but I suspected that if it were true at all, it was in relation to trademarks. I had had heard this kind of thing before regarding copyrights and patents, so I asked a patent attorney about it. He said it was BS: you can license or sell your copy or patent rights pretty much any way you wish... you can waive or sell or rent any of those rights and still retain all the others. If that were not so, Free and Open Source licenses would not exist.
I disagree that "it's not going to happen". In fact I think fatalistic attitudes like that are a rather large part of the problem.
Most of this can be solved by simply regulating ISPs as Title II Common Carriers. Do that, and the vast majority of problems go away. No more surveillance without warrants, no more internet activity tracking for profit, no more throttling of certain kinds of traffic.
Germany, South Korea, and Japan are instances in which proves you wrong directly.
How so? Please explain how helping them paid itself back to the U.S. and its economy.
Seems to me that except for Germany, those other countries were primarily targets for "outsourcing", which actually helped them far more than it helped us. In fact it can be argued that it hurt us greatly, to their advantage.
I would be happy to be proven wrong, if you can do it.
In fact, on top of the simple dishonesty, it's insulting that they assume we buy products on the basis of reviews but don't bother to measure them, or aren't aware enough to notice performance differences ourselves. We're not idiots.
I don't think some people are really appreciating the real import here. It it was done deliberately in order to deceive consumers, then it's not just "selling down their name", it's almost certainly FRAUD. A crime.
I may not be an lawyer or a prosecutor, but if I were, I'd probably be going after them. And if I were a judge, I would make it a point to be harsh on them. This shit has gone too far.
Thats entirelt different than attempting to prop up a failing nation we want rebuilt as allies politically.
Yeah, and look how well that worked.:( They got help to rebuild their economy and they're back to pulling the same old bullshit.
We really should have known better. I was taught in history class as a child (a long time ago) that historically, giving aid to other countries has NEVER paid off in the long run. Now we have more decades proving the same.
There's nothing wrong with helping other people, but there IS something wrong when we help other people and they use it against us. As they have, almost every time.
Site uses the Ikea logo and colors and contains no disclaimer. I can see how people could mistake it for an "official" site.
Yes, but... I have to wonder about this "rights are lost" bit.
I've seen this several times on Slashdot. It puzzles me, because it sounds like popular myth. I know of no law that says you "lose your rights" in any way if you don't enforce your copyrights.
Perhaps this applies to trademarks, specifically. If anybody knows of a particular law saying you "lose" your rights under the law if you don't actively enforce them, I'd like to see it.
Actually, out sourcing like this made perfect sense.
No, it didn't.
In short, this had more diplomatic reasoning than financial when it was implemented.
I am aware. But while it may have had political purposes, from a strategic standpoint it was a completely boneheaded thing to do. No matter how much you might want to make friends with your aggressive neighbor, you don't do it by handing them your guns keys and saying "Here, hold these while I go on vacation." That's a bit of an exaggeration but it describes the situation pretty well.
Police drone scans every home in the neighborhood.
Police aren't allowed to "drone scan" in my state or the surrounding states. If it can't be seen from the perspective of a normal passerby (in a car or on foot) outside the property, they need a warrant to see it. Without a warrant, or probable cause, it's not even legal for them to stand on a ladder and look over the back fence. That's the truth. I had reason to research state privacy laws a couple of years ago.
Technically, "the property" that can't be invaded or "droned over" is the "curtilage", which means a defined area around the residence. That generally means the property in the general area of the house. If it's fenced, it's definitely curtilage. But curtilage may have different definitions in different states.
In my state, believe it or not, even standing on the sidewalk and staring in your front window is "illegal surveillance", unless it's law enforcment with a warrant or probable cause.
Parallel construction involves obtaining the evidence by any means (illegally), then using that knowledge to manufacture a plausible probable cause, which can then be used to get the evidence (that the cops know is there through their illegal means) legally.
I know how it works. Except the "legally" part, because it isn't legal. It's just a pretense of legality, because they didn't actually have the probable cause.
My point was that courts as a whole do not like people lying to them. Even the police, and even government. When they're caught out, as inevitably they will be (though not in every case of course), there will be repercussions.
Unless they do an exceptional job of "parallel construction", there is a very good chance they will get caught. I do acknowledge that it is an insidious practice.
Is a distortion of the old principle that the government should be run "more like" a business. But not "like" a business. Some people took that idea, interpreted it kind of sideways, and made the government run like a BAD business.
"Outsourcing" to your own competitors has never been good business.
They would function by buying them, for a little more money, from American companies.
For all their manufacturing, most of these devices sold in the U.S. are still U.S. design. The manufacturing could be moved back here (in fact some companies are doing that already). Turns out the "savings" from outsourcing, in the long run, led to unintended consequences which at least partially offset those savings.
Returning the manufacturing to the U.S. is not as short-term profitable as many companies would like, but the long-term economic benefits are worth it.
In answer to your actual question, my first suggestion is Python. It's used everywhere, not only on the Internet, but also as the scripting language in a wide range of traditional type applications.
Not intending to get in a flame war here. My basic suggestion is the same, but I'd say it's a tossup between Python and Ruby. Python is a bit older, but Ruby is old enough now to be called a "mature" language.
Each has its own strengths and weaknesses. Python has a more established base, especially in the academic community. Ruby has a few newer additions to the language, and (just my opinion) is a bit more consistent in its structure.
Some people love Python's "significant whitespace" formatting. I don't like it, but I don't pretend that's anything more than a personal preference.
Because Ruby is my preference and I am more familiar with it, I can tell you that it is in continuous development, and bytecode-compiled versions are available (JRuby, which uses the JVM, and others). I do not know about Python in this respect because I haven't used it nearly as much.
In essence, this is the same silly-assed idea that was mentioned here the other day, which some famous-for-something-else computer science has been working on for all of 50 years, or some damned thing.
They want to take the Web, and make into some kind of holy f*king persistent interconnected-data mess, which would be broken all the time because data that is supposed to be persistent seldom is after a few years.
I do not want the Internet to be an "interconnected database". I think if we tried to do it today it would fail miserably, AND that it would be an extremely, horribly bad idea all around.
They have gotten a lot sneakier now. That's how the DEA acts on NSA tips that come from illegal surveillance.
They take the info and then set a trap where they have the 'astounding luck' to stumble upon the evidence.
You don't get it, do you?
You are talking about faking of probable cause. In an honest court, and if you have a non-corrupt defender, they have to SHOW probable cause in court. It isn't legal to just say that probable cause may have existed! The have to GET A WARRANT based on PROBABLE CAUSE, BEFORE they can scan. If they pretend they got the evidence some other way, they have to prove it, and show a logical chain of events.
In any kind of honest court system, anything else would catch them up before their 4th try, and hang them high.
I'm not saying that every court in the US is honest 100% of the time, but shit is shit, and it will out.
Like Lois Lerner, for example. Friday, IRS tried to claim that they lost her emails, but JUST during the period when the IRS was accused of discriminating against non-LEFT non-profits.
Yeah, right. Nixon lied better about Watergate, and he was a shitty liar.
So they'll use it anyway and then use 'parallel construction' to convict you.
Nah. Been tried.
Multiple cases, in California, New York, and other jurisdictions have all found the same way: it's illegal. The police can fuck off.
A few years ago, ex-Texas-Ranger Barry Cooper and his fellow Kop Busters heard that IR scanning was happening in NYC, despite it having been ruled illegal without a warrant. They rented an apartment, bugged and alarmed it, rigged it up with an artificial Christmas tree and some grow lights (curtains all closed), and walked away. (But not far... they stayed out of the way in a nearby building.)
When the cops busted in, they were greeted with automatic video cameras and a big sign that said, "You guys are BUSTED!"
The video was even posted on the Internet. The PD got in trouble with the State.
I should add that if you do it properly, building such a cage will render you immune to cell-phone or radio reception inside your house. But you can use commonly and cheaply available repeaters to fix that.
Aluminum foil will nicely block the 5.46-7.25 GHz (4-5 cm) radio waves used for this radar (as would a typical screen door). I wonder who will be the first to market RF-opaque sheet-rock, which would technically easy to make.
As it would block a great many other things.
Here's a hint, folks: metal-backed insulation has been pretty standard for many years. As long as you make sure it's all in contact, also using metal (or metal-clad) doors and metal-screened windows will also give you an effective Faraday cage.
But given that in the US, even use of commonly-available infrared-scanning equipment by law enforcement requires a warrant, I doubt very much that even more intrusive scanning would be ruled legal for LEO without a warrant.
Slashdot Mirror
Isn't that what lawyers are for?
Yes, but... it depends on what your biggest concerns are. For example, are you more concerned about delivery, in the sense that you want to make absolutely sure the recipient eventually gets the information, or are you more concerned about "security", in the sense that you DON'T want it getting out prematurely?
Here is a way to ensure both: strongly encrypt the data. Give your recipients at least two copies, to put in (separate) safe places. Then hire TWO attorneys, unknown to the recipients. Give each of them them a sealed package containing the names of the recipients, along with the encryption key and instructions for decrypting the data, to be delivered only after your demise. Put seals on the packages, and see that the recipients know what the seals are and how to tell if they're broken. But don't tell them who the attorneys are.
It still requires that you put SOME trust in the attorneys. If you don't trust them as much as you'd like, then split the key in half and give half the information to each attorney. That way, if one of them is dishonest, maybe the other one won't be.
There is no perfect way. But this one is pretty good.
Single account to rule them all......the best approach is the separation of concerns (user management, server management, backup / restore, etc.) so that it is a lot harder to compromise everything.
Yes, and no.
The BEST approach is to back up your stuff in more than one place. Then if everything disappears... voila! You just put it back once your server is straightened out.
I am currently working on some web projects. We take regular snapshots of our code AND data, and keep backups not just online, but also offline in 2 different countries. And all sensitive data is well-encrypted.
And you know what? Not only is not not hard to do, it hardly takes any time.
I just mean that the very real political obstacles exist, and sheer pluck on the part of supporters won't make that disappear.
But, see, that's different from what you said before. Now you say there are "real obstacles" (true). Before you implied that it was simply impossible. That's the part I object to. I don't doubt that it could be difficult. But I don't think it's impossible.
Alright, so... let's put it this way: the obstacles to it happening are greater than the collective will to see it happen.
How is that different? You merely said the same thing using different words.
I don't think there was any confusion over what you meant. My point was that you appear to be -- intentionally or otherwise -- participating in or even promoting that mentioned lack of "collective will".
Trademarks are "defend-or-lose".
I just read up on this on Wikipedia and other places. And it turns out not to be true in most cases. Here is what has bolstered the myth:
IF someone innocently infringes your trademark, with no malicious intent or intent to confuse or deceive, then if you don't enforce your trademark when you become aware of the infringement, and unreasonably delay such enforcement, you may lose your ability to get "relief" (often monetary compensation) from the infringer.
But you still don't lose your "rights" to the trademark. You just don't get compensated for the infringement.
Now, if you wantonly neglect enforcing your trademark, and allowed for example many parties to infringe (albeit innocently), you may lose any effective ability to gain from that trademark, because it has now been watered down and you won't get compensation from the infringers.
But you can still generally enforce your trademark, even if you delay such enforcement, if you can show the infringers' "hands are unclean", that is to say, that they were aware of their infringement, continued it deliberately after being notified to cease, and the infringement was "significant".
(I use words like "generally" here because it's a legal thing, and that's why we have courts.)
Anyway, the point is: you can certainly screw yourself in some circumstances if you fail to enforce your trademarks. But they aren't really "use or lose". You don't lose your rights to the trademark, but you might be prevented from gaining anything with a suit. And even that generally holds only if the infringement was intentional and significant, and you "unreasonably" delay.
If they were still advertising the specs of the hardware they no longer ship, yes.
Well, yes. That is what I had presumed was the situation under discussion. But at least in the U.S., even if the review thing were not outright fraud, it could still be ruled a deceptive practice.
Frankly, I don't understand why government has not gone after the video card manufacturers who gamed the benchmarks for so many years. Again, it might not be fraud, but it is definitely and intentionally deceptive.
Trademarks are "defend-or-lose". A trademark is supposed to identify your stuff, and if you don't actively try to stop violations when you know of them you're allowing the confusion.
That's what I thought. I mean I don't know that it's true, but I suspected that if it were true at all, it was in relation to trademarks. I had had heard this kind of thing before regarding copyrights and patents, so I asked a patent attorney about it. He said it was BS: you can license or sell your copy or patent rights pretty much any way you wish... you can waive or sell or rent any of those rights and still retain all the others. If that were not so, Free and Open Source licenses would not exist.
phoenix arise!
I disagree that "it's not going to happen". In fact I think fatalistic attitudes like that are a rather large part of the problem.
Most of this can be solved by simply regulating ISPs as Title II Common Carriers. Do that, and the vast majority of problems go away. No more surveillance without warrants, no more internet activity tracking for profit, no more throttling of certain kinds of traffic.
Germany, South Korea, and Japan are instances in which proves you wrong directly.
How so? Please explain how helping them paid itself back to the U.S. and its economy.
Seems to me that except for Germany, those other countries were primarily targets for "outsourcing", which actually helped them far more than it helped us. In fact it can be argued that it hurt us greatly, to their advantage.
I would be happy to be proven wrong, if you can do it.
In fact, on top of the simple dishonesty, it's insulting that they assume we buy products on the basis of reviews but don't bother to measure them, or aren't aware enough to notice performance differences ourselves. We're not idiots.
I don't think some people are really appreciating the real import here. It it was done deliberately in order to deceive consumers, then it's not just "selling down their name", it's almost certainly FRAUD. A crime.
I may not be an lawyer or a prosecutor, but if I were, I'd probably be going after them. And if I were a judge, I would make it a point to be harsh on them. This shit has gone too far.
Call the CDC! Extra national lawmaking is contagious!
The U.S. was actually one of the first places to try this, remember? Clueless judges made the same kind of ruling.
It didn't work. But they tried.
Thats entirelt different than attempting to prop up a failing nation we want rebuilt as allies politically.
Yeah, and look how well that worked. :( They got help to rebuild their economy and they're back to pulling the same old bullshit.
We really should have known better. I was taught in history class as a child (a long time ago) that historically, giving aid to other countries has NEVER paid off in the long run. Now we have more decades proving the same.
There's nothing wrong with helping other people, but there IS something wrong when we help other people and they use it against us. As they have, almost every time.
It's time we stopped.
Site uses the Ikea logo and colors and contains no disclaimer. I can see how people could mistake it for an "official" site.
Yes, but... I have to wonder about this "rights are lost" bit.
I've seen this several times on Slashdot. It puzzles me, because it sounds like popular myth. I know of no law that says you "lose your rights" in any way if you don't enforce your copyrights.
Perhaps this applies to trademarks, specifically. If anybody knows of a particular law saying you "lose" your rights under the law if you don't actively enforce them, I'd like to see it.
Actually, out sourcing like this made perfect sense.
No, it didn't.
In short, this had more diplomatic reasoning than financial when it was implemented.
I am aware. But while it may have had political purposes, from a strategic standpoint it was a completely boneheaded thing to do. No matter how much you might want to make friends with your aggressive neighbor, you don't do it by handing them your guns keys and saying "Here, hold these while I go on vacation." That's a bit of an exaggeration but it describes the situation pretty well.
Police drone scans every home in the neighborhood.
Police aren't allowed to "drone scan" in my state or the surrounding states. If it can't be seen from the perspective of a normal passerby (in a car or on foot) outside the property, they need a warrant to see it. Without a warrant, or probable cause, it's not even legal for them to stand on a ladder and look over the back fence. That's the truth. I had reason to research state privacy laws a couple of years ago.
Technically, "the property" that can't be invaded or "droned over" is the "curtilage", which means a defined area around the residence. That generally means the property in the general area of the house. If it's fenced, it's definitely curtilage. But curtilage may have different definitions in different states.
In my state, believe it or not, even standing on the sidewalk and staring in your front window is "illegal surveillance", unless it's law enforcment with a warrant or probable cause.
Parallel construction involves obtaining the evidence by any means (illegally), then using that knowledge to manufacture a plausible probable cause, which can then be used to get the evidence (that the cops know is there through their illegal means) legally.
I know how it works. Except the "legally" part, because it isn't legal. It's just a pretense of legality, because they didn't actually have the probable cause.
My point was that courts as a whole do not like people lying to them. Even the police, and even government. When they're caught out, as inevitably they will be (though not in every case of course), there will be repercussions.
Unless they do an exceptional job of "parallel construction", there is a very good chance they will get caught. I do acknowledge that it is an insidious practice.
"Running the government like a business..."
Is a distortion of the old principle that the government should be run "more like" a business. But not "like" a business. Some people took that idea, interpreted it kind of sideways, and made the government run like a BAD business.
"Outsourcing" to your own competitors has never been good business.
They would function by buying them, for a little more money, from American companies.
For all their manufacturing, most of these devices sold in the U.S. are still U.S. design. The manufacturing could be moved back here (in fact some companies are doing that already). Turns out the "savings" from outsourcing, in the long run, led to unintended consequences which at least partially offset those savings.
Returning the manufacturing to the U.S. is not as short-term profitable as many companies would like, but the long-term economic benefits are worth it.
In answer to your actual question, my first suggestion is Python. It's used everywhere, not only on the Internet, but also as the scripting language in a wide range of traditional type applications.
Not intending to get in a flame war here. My basic suggestion is the same, but I'd say it's a tossup between Python and Ruby. Python is a bit older, but Ruby is old enough now to be called a "mature" language.
Each has its own strengths and weaknesses. Python has a more established base, especially in the academic community. Ruby has a few newer additions to the language, and (just my opinion) is a bit more consistent in its structure.
Some people love Python's "significant whitespace" formatting. I don't like it, but I don't pretend that's anything more than a personal preference.
Because Ruby is my preference and I am more familiar with it, I can tell you that it is in continuous development, and bytecode-compiled versions are available (JRuby, which uses the JVM, and others). I do not know about Python in this respect because I haven't used it nearly as much.
Short version: You are losing your privacy. "Not liking it", "Angry posts" and the like won't change this.
So, what do you think WILL change it? Moving along with the other sheep to the other side of the field, hoping the wolf won't get you next?
Angry posts are more likely to change it than what you seem to be advocating. Enjoy your cage.
In essence, this is the same silly-assed idea that was mentioned here the other day, which some famous-for-something-else computer science has been working on for all of 50 years, or some damned thing.
They want to take the Web, and make into some kind of holy f*king persistent interconnected-data mess, which would be broken all the time because data that is supposed to be persistent seldom is after a few years.
I do not want the Internet to be an "interconnected database". I think if we tried to do it today it would fail miserably, AND that it would be an extremely, horribly bad idea all around.
They have gotten a lot sneakier now. That's how the DEA acts on NSA tips that come from illegal surveillance.
They take the info and then set a trap where they have the 'astounding luck' to stumble upon the evidence.
You don't get it, do you?
You are talking about faking of probable cause. In an honest court, and if you have a non-corrupt defender, they have to SHOW probable cause in court. It isn't legal to just say that probable cause may have existed! The have to GET A WARRANT based on PROBABLE CAUSE, BEFORE they can scan. If they pretend they got the evidence some other way, they have to prove it, and show a logical chain of events.
In any kind of honest court system, anything else would catch them up before their 4th try, and hang them high.
I'm not saying that every court in the US is honest 100% of the time, but shit is shit, and it will out.
Like Lois Lerner, for example. Friday, IRS tried to claim that they lost her emails, but JUST during the period when the IRS was accused of discriminating against non-LEFT non-profits.
Yeah, right. Nixon lied better about Watergate, and he was a shitty liar.
So they'll use it anyway and then use 'parallel construction' to convict you.
Nah. Been tried.
Multiple cases, in California, New York, and other jurisdictions have all found the same way: it's illegal. The police can fuck off.
A few years ago, ex-Texas-Ranger Barry Cooper and his fellow Kop Busters heard that IR scanning was happening in NYC, despite it having been ruled illegal without a warrant. They rented an apartment, bugged and alarmed it, rigged it up with an artificial Christmas tree and some grow lights (curtains all closed), and walked away. (But not far... they stayed out of the way in a nearby building.)
When the cops busted in, they were greeted with automatic video cameras and a big sign that said, "You guys are BUSTED!"
The video was even posted on the Internet. The PD got in trouble with the State.
I should add that if you do it properly, building such a cage will render you immune to cell-phone or radio reception inside your house. But you can use commonly and cheaply available repeaters to fix that.
Aluminum foil will nicely block the 5.46-7.25 GHz (4-5 cm) radio waves used for this radar (as would a typical screen door). I wonder who will be the first to market RF-opaque sheet-rock, which would technically easy to make.
As it would block a great many other things.
Here's a hint, folks: metal-backed insulation has been pretty standard for many years. As long as you make sure it's all in contact, also using metal (or metal-clad) doors and metal-screened windows will also give you an effective Faraday cage.
But given that in the US, even use of commonly-available infrared-scanning equipment by law enforcement requires a warrant, I doubt very much that even more intrusive scanning would be ruled legal for LEO without a warrant.