Re:no encryption that YOU didn't write is safe
on
Is Hushmail Still Safe?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Yes, but that goes both ways. For every brilliant person who chooses to work for the government there is another that chooses to work commercially or academically. Which is why I believe it's highly unlikely that the government could be so far ahead of the curve as the GP suggests. That is unless they were actively hindering those who work outside of the government, in which case I'd find it very difficult to believe that such efforts would be unknown.
Re:no encryption that YOU didn't write is safe
on
Is Hushmail Still Safe?
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Anyone who thinks the government is a magical entity that can automatically undo the work of independent researchers and mathematicians is deluded.
I'm sure any major government's capabilities to obtain information are beyond what they are commonly percieved to be, but that does not mean that every encryption scheme is instantly rendered null and void. No one government has control over everyone, so if you think the US government is stifling innovation in America do you also think they're doing the same in Japan, Europe, China, and anywhere else? Or do you think that those governments are all collaborating on this - now that really would be deluded.
If all available encryption mechanisms were crackable then why would governments have gone to to such lengths to try and hinder their development in years gone by - and why would many governments now be trying to attack encryption methods via other means, eg. the recent British law that makes refusal to give up keys to encrypted material punishable by up to 5 years in prison. Why be the bad guy and make those laws if they're unnecessary anyway? I suppose you could claim it's to try and mask their true abilities, or to play up to the anti-terror idiots, but I don't see that as likely.
Anyone else think the chance of YouTube fame is more likely to encourage copycats than educate people about the wrongs of hoax calling?
Yes, because there was certainly no such thing as prank phone calls before Youtube came along.
Yes, because that's what the GP said. He said "Youtube will create the concept of prank calling". It's not like he made a valid point about it encouraging idiots to get some 'fame' for themselves, or possibly memeifying the worst calls and making them into regular prank call trolls. Way to miss the point.
Not that I back Hasbro, but purchasing the alleged "illegal copy" of their game would have sent the message "Copy our game and do a better job than us, and we will pay you for it rather than prosecuting you"
And if it ultimately makes Hasbro a shitload of money from the deal what's wrong with that? Another way of putting it would be "Make something profitable and enjoyable from our IP and we'll deal with you so that everybody wins". Hasbro's chosen course of action is either a poor business decision or plain spite.
You're making the insanely simplistic assumption that one language is appropriate in all parts of a given application/project. Yes, obviously anything that's truly resource/speed dependent will generally require a language like C or C++ to allow you to get intimate with the lower-level aspects of the given system. Which is why just about any newer language makes it simple to create native language modules and packages allowing you to take all the advantages of a tightly coded core with the convenience of writing the majority of code in a high-level language.
I don't think there's anything truly new about that concept and I certainly don't think it's responsible for any kind of 'backlash'.
Reader gbjbaanb adds a link to the BBC's coverage and points out that Facebook's 100 million users would mean nearly a doubling of the approximately 120 million OpenID accounts now in use
No, I'm pretty sure he wrote in pointing that MySpace's 100 million users would nearly double the number of OpenID accounts.
Jesus fucking Christ, is proof-reading really that hard?
Use the app from this previous article to scan a few popular Linux-hating blogs' articles and comments and maybe you've got yourself a pro-active user feedback tool. Maybe.
This is a SERIOUS breach of privacy. This will hit mainstream media. The fact that I can hit a google link and listen to people voice attachments, look at their photos - that's too public of a mistake. I look forward to watching this unfold.
Umm... yesterday it hit the TV news that in the last 4 years the MoD has lost ~650 laptops - many containing classified information. It made the mainstream news, I'm sure people are moaning, and there'll probably be an "enquiry" which will take a few months and cost a few million eventually leading to nothing and, as always, nothing will change.
By comparison a few photos and sound-bites is nothing. This will probably be a 1/8th page article on page 32 and that'll be the end of that.
In the UK the prevalence of data collection is so great and the ineptitude of governments and companies is so absolute that this stuff is just commonplace now. Even if this story gets picked up anywhere it'll be overshadowed within days by a bigger data breach fuck-up somewhere else.
the problem with relying on people to make decisions is that people might not do what I want them to.
There. Fixed that for you.
And I don't consider that a problem. If such a small amount of people do say yes then all that's doing is clarifying how many people you're potentially pissing off by forcing such decisions on users. And to be perfectly honest if you word the question correctly and explain how it can help development I think you could get considerably more than 1% of users to accept. It would still probably be a very small proportion of users, but it should be enough to gather useful stats on the kind of information TFA claims developers want.
They usually mention such things in the license agreement. Do you read the license agreement?
That's not asking is it? That's telling someone after they've purchased the product that aspects of their system will be monitored. Of course you can take the product back but that's inconvenient. Technically everyone should read the licence agreement but the plain fact is that nobody does, and while that's obviously got no legal standing, if the developers don't want to be hated by everyone using their product they should cut out the sly bullshit and ask in plain and simple English. If the developers really do just want certain info regarding gameplay or system specs I'm sure that enough people would say yes to get a representative sample of users.
So I guess gays should be thanking Christianity for the centuries of persecution? What with it making homosexuality cool and all.
Seriously I don't see your point. So more people might try homosexual experiences on account of the taboo aspect. So what? It isn't the browser wars - gays and straights aren't competing for market share. I think you'll find most (actual) gay people would rather live in a world where they have the same rights as straight people rather than a world where they're treated like second class citizens or worse by large parts of society but get the occasional come-on by a curious Christian.
If you think World War 2 is at all relevant to the current tensions between Iran and the United States you're a fucking idiot.
But if you really insist on shoehorning World War 2 into this scenario you'll also note that it ended with the Cold War - 45 years of teetering on the brink of global catastrophe from the mutual hatred of two differing ideologies. We got away with it once, I don't think we will a second time.
Because you know, there are so many non-islamic states that murder their population for leaving the state religion.
Apostasy has nothing to do with state religions. That line is simply explaining what apostasy means and then pointing out that it's specific to Islam in Iran in case anyone thought the crime would also apply to anyone promoting leaving Christianity or another religion too. Might seem unlikely but certainly not impossible that it could.
As for another belief system where apostasy can still have negative consequences, I'd suggest Scientology for a start.
in accordance with, involving, or being the primary or strict meaning of the word or words; not figurative or metaphorical
Slang would also typically come under that. If someone said they "literally pissed all over someone" you wouldn't take it to mean they got the better of them would you?
I'll believe it when I see it and not a moment before. With Microsoft's record anything short of unequivocal action should be treated with absolute scepticism.
Yes, absolutely. Instead of believing the propaganda from Big Oil that nothing is wrong, we should instead believe in the propaganda from political interests attempting to divert our attention from other matters and scientific communities whose funding is dependent on the support of those political interests that our doom is upon us and we must stop doing anything.
Global warming has been essentially 'known' (just not widely acknowledged) for as long as I've been alive. Which political interest do you think has been around for over 25 years making this "propaganda"? And why would they refuse to acknowledge it for so long if it was to their benefit? And which political interest spans the globe? Yeah, newsflash genius, this 'global warming' thing isn't specific to America.
In no way will this turn out to be the same as most issues in popular science, where there is an underlying trend that we should consider changing, but whose likely effects will not be fully understood without much more research and in any case will occur subtly over a period of many years.
Yeah. Better to wait and see. Then in 50 years when it's too late you can say "oh shit I guess it's time to turn my lights off when I'm not in a room and stop driving a 1 tonne truck to move 100 metres". Better to pretend the problem isn't there until it directly and irrefutably affects you and it becomes more inconvenient for you personally to not accept it's existence than to ignore it. Then you'll be bitching about how it was all covered up for so many years and they should have done more to warn you.
I'm not sure if you're joking or not, but no, it's something quite different. The ideas they're talking about (or at least the idea involving multiple people) is that with a large number of guesses there's a good chance that the majority of guesses will balance out between being too high or too low allowing an average of those guesses to be relatively accurate.
On Slashdot each post is a disparate peice of information, you can't average anything. The number of informative/interesting/insightful posts is a much simpler concept - the more people that post the greater the odds that a few have something worthwhile to say.
How can you have a single upper-limit on waist sizes? Are all people in Japan the same height or are short people allowed to be fatter than tall ones?
And how is the employer really responsible for their employees' weight? OK sure, there's going to be a bit of correllation between the general health attitude at your job and your own weight and from what I understand there's more of a culture for this thing in Japan but it still seems like a big leap to make in what a company is responsible for and subsequently what an employee has to answer to his employer about. Can constantly fat people be fired for costing their company too much in fines?
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, but that goes both ways. For every brilliant person who chooses to work for the government there is another that chooses to work commercially or academically. Which is why I believe it's highly unlikely that the government could be so far ahead of the curve as the GP suggests. That is unless they were actively hindering those who work outside of the government, in which case I'd find it very difficult to believe that such efforts would be unknown.
Anyone who thinks the government is a magical entity that can automatically undo the work of independent researchers and mathematicians is deluded.
I'm sure any major government's capabilities to obtain information are beyond what they are commonly percieved to be, but that does not mean that every encryption scheme is instantly rendered null and void. No one government has control over everyone, so if you think the US government is stifling innovation in America do you also think they're doing the same in Japan, Europe, China, and anywhere else? Or do you think that those governments are all collaborating on this - now that really would be deluded.
If all available encryption mechanisms were crackable then why would governments have gone to to such lengths to try and hinder their development in years gone by - and why would many governments now be trying to attack encryption methods via other means, eg. the recent British law that makes refusal to give up keys to encrypted material punishable by up to 5 years in prison. Why be the bad guy and make those laws if they're unnecessary anyway? I suppose you could claim it's to try and mask their true abilities, or to play up to the anti-terror idiots, but I don't see that as likely.
<abbr title="Entertainment Software Association">ESA</abbr>
Something to consider, /. editors.
Anyone else think the chance of YouTube fame is more likely to encourage copycats than educate people about the wrongs of hoax calling?
Yes, because there was certainly no such thing as prank phone calls before Youtube came along.
Yes, because that's what the GP said. He said "Youtube will create the concept of prank calling". It's not like he made a valid point about it encouraging idiots to get some 'fame' for themselves, or possibly memeifying the worst calls and making them into regular prank call trolls. Way to miss the point.
Not that I back Hasbro, but purchasing the alleged "illegal copy" of their game would have sent the message "Copy our game and do a better job than us, and we will pay you for it rather than prosecuting you"
And if it ultimately makes Hasbro a shitload of money from the deal what's wrong with that? Another way of putting it would be "Make something profitable and enjoyable from our IP and we'll deal with you so that everybody wins". Hasbro's chosen course of action is either a poor business decision or plain spite.
You're making the insanely simplistic assumption that one language is appropriate in all parts of a given application/project. Yes, obviously anything that's truly resource/speed dependent will generally require a language like C or C++ to allow you to get intimate with the lower-level aspects of the given system. Which is why just about any newer language makes it simple to create native language modules and packages allowing you to take all the advantages of a tightly coded core with the convenience of writing the majority of code in a high-level language.
I don't think there's anything truly new about that concept and I certainly don't think it's responsible for any kind of 'backlash'.
...pointing out that...
Wow, proof-reading really is that hard.
Reader gbjbaanb adds a link to the BBC's coverage and points out that Facebook's 100 million users would mean nearly a doubling of the approximately 120 million OpenID accounts now in use
No, I'm pretty sure he wrote in pointing that MySpace's 100 million users would nearly double the number of OpenID accounts.
Jesus fucking Christ, is proof-reading really that hard?
Use the app from this previous article to scan a few popular Linux-hating blogs' articles and comments and maybe you've got yourself a pro-active user feedback tool. Maybe.
This is a SERIOUS breach of privacy. This will hit mainstream media. The fact that I can hit a google link and listen to people voice attachments, look at their photos - that's too public of a mistake. I look forward to watching this unfold.
Umm... yesterday it hit the TV news that in the last 4 years the MoD has lost ~650 laptops - many containing classified information. It made the mainstream news, I'm sure people are moaning, and there'll probably be an "enquiry" which will take a few months and cost a few million eventually leading to nothing and, as always, nothing will change.
By comparison a few photos and sound-bites is nothing. This will probably be a 1/8th page article on page 32 and that'll be the end of that.
In the UK the prevalence of data collection is so great and the ineptitude of governments and companies is so absolute that this stuff is just commonplace now. Even if this story gets picked up anywhere it'll be overshadowed within days by a bigger data breach fuck-up somewhere else.
Arr, not a looker in the bunch!
the problem with relying on people to make decisions is that people might not do what I want them to.
There. Fixed that for you.
And I don't consider that a problem. If such a small amount of people do say yes then all that's doing is clarifying how many people you're potentially pissing off by forcing such decisions on users. And to be perfectly honest if you word the question correctly and explain how it can help development I think you could get considerably more than 1% of users to accept. It would still probably be a very small proportion of users, but it should be enough to gather useful stats on the kind of information TFA claims developers want.
They usually mention such things in the license agreement. Do you read the license agreement?
That's not asking is it? That's telling someone after they've purchased the product that aspects of their system will be monitored. Of course you can take the product back but that's inconvenient. Technically everyone should read the licence agreement but the plain fact is that nobody does, and while that's obviously got no legal standing, if the developers don't want to be hated by everyone using their product they should cut out the sly bullshit and ask in plain and simple English. If the developers really do just want certain info regarding gameplay or system specs I'm sure that enough people would say yes to get a representative sample of users.
Shockingly, new studies suggest that people may be able to make decisions all by themselves without a company or a government or anything!
So I guess gays should be thanking Christianity for the centuries of persecution? What with it making homosexuality cool and all.
Seriously I don't see your point. So more people might try homosexual experiences on account of the taboo aspect. So what? It isn't the browser wars - gays and straights aren't competing for market share. I think you'll find most (actual) gay people would rather live in a world where they have the same rights as straight people rather than a world where they're treated like second class citizens or worse by large parts of society but get the occasional come-on by a curious Christian.
If you think World War 2 is at all relevant to the current tensions between Iran and the United States you're a fucking idiot.
But if you really insist on shoehorning World War 2 into this scenario you'll also note that it ended with the Cold War - 45 years of teetering on the brink of global catastrophe from the mutual hatred of two differing ideologies. We got away with it once, I don't think we will a second time.
Because you know, there are so many non-islamic states that murder their population for leaving the state religion.
Apostasy has nothing to do with state religions. That line is simply explaining what apostasy means and then pointing out that it's specific to Islam in Iran in case anyone thought the crime would also apply to anyone promoting leaving Christianity or another religion too. Might seem unlikely but certainly not impossible that it could.
As for another belief system where apostasy can still have negative consequences, I'd suggest Scientology for a start.
Yeah, killing thousands of people and destroying their country will help establish a peaceful democracy!
Separation of church and state anyone?
Yeah, it's almost as if the First Amendment doesn't apply to Iran...
literal
in accordance with, involving, or being the primary or strict meaning of the word or words; not figurative or metaphorical
Slang would also typically come under that. If someone said they "literally pissed all over someone" you wouldn't take it to mean they got the better of them would you?
... Apple is quite literally ripping off those who aren't able to upgrade hardware themselves
Ouch! What are they ripping off and why would they do that to people giving them lots of money?
I'll believe it when I see it and not a moment before. With Microsoft's record anything short of unequivocal action should be treated with absolute scepticism.
Yes, absolutely. Instead of believing the propaganda from Big Oil that nothing is wrong, we should instead believe in the propaganda from political interests attempting to divert our attention from other matters and scientific communities whose funding is dependent on the support of those political interests that our doom is upon us and we must stop doing anything.
Global warming has been essentially 'known' (just not widely acknowledged) for as long as I've been alive. Which political interest do you think has been around for over 25 years making this "propaganda"? And why would they refuse to acknowledge it for so long if it was to their benefit? And which political interest spans the globe? Yeah, newsflash genius, this 'global warming' thing isn't specific to America.
In no way will this turn out to be the same as most issues in popular science, where there is an underlying trend that we should consider changing, but whose likely effects will not be fully understood without much more research and in any case will occur subtly over a period of many years.
Yeah. Better to wait and see. Then in 50 years when it's too late you can say "oh shit I guess it's time to turn my lights off when I'm not in a room and stop driving a 1 tonne truck to move 100 metres". Better to pretend the problem isn't there until it directly and irrefutably affects you and it becomes more inconvenient for you personally to not accept it's existence than to ignore it. Then you'll be bitching about how it was all covered up for so many years and they should have done more to warn you.
I'm not sure if you're joking or not, but no, it's something quite different. The ideas they're talking about (or at least the idea involving multiple people) is that with a large number of guesses there's a good chance that the majority of guesses will balance out between being too high or too low allowing an average of those guesses to be relatively accurate.
On Slashdot each post is a disparate peice of information, you can't average anything. The number of informative/interesting/insightful posts is a much simpler concept - the more people that post the greater the odds that a few have something worthwhile to say.
How can you have a single upper-limit on waist sizes? Are all people in Japan the same height or are short people allowed to be fatter than tall ones?
And how is the employer really responsible for their employees' weight? OK sure, there's going to be a bit of correllation between the general health attitude at your job and your own weight and from what I understand there's more of a culture for this thing in Japan but it still seems like a big leap to make in what a company is responsible for and subsequently what an employee has to answer to his employer about. Can constantly fat people be fired for costing their company too much in fines?