Currently, almost all of those are done before opening a new credit account. However, people still find ways of getting this information and doing it anyway. If we were going to take this approach, why not require each person to show up to a police station and give a set of fingerprints to get a domain?
There are plenty of people who would buy the domain for a third party to get around any of these restrictions. How many people would do it for $100,000,000? How about $1? The result is the same, just the pricing point is up for discussion.
The government could go after these people right now for the fraud they're committing, but they don't. Find a solution to that problem first. I think the problem is that stealing $5 from 1 million people is 1 million counts of stealing $5, not theft of $5,000,000. The sociopathic aspect of ID theft is not something our legal system handles well.
The internet is a bad neighborhood. Just assume that and you'll be fine.
Authentication is all nice in theory, but the disconnects between you in real life and online make it impractical. Look at all of the zombie PC's on the net - someone could successfully authenticate as any of those people.
The attraction of ID theft and related fraud is that it's so difficult to catch people and the courts haven't been able to figure out how to handle it yet. As you've noted, the cost/benefit analysis comes out in favor of the criminal currently. The system isn't set up to deal with people who are clearly sociopathic. Each individual crime is small, and the system treats it that way. There are class action lawsuits to go after companies who behave this way. There is no recourse against an individual with no significant assets.
It sounds like you should pursue being a professional goon. You clearly have a natural inclination to give people what's coming to them. Experienced goons can make 6 figures working for the right kind of organizations.
I work in software, but I keep trying to explain to my boss how we need more goons to help us do our jobs better. For example, if a vendor tells us they only support telnet for their tools that we use, a goon could help them understand that supporting SSH is beneficial for everyone.
I used to live in sillycon valley where I would have agreed with you. Now that I live in the outside world (Phoenix), I do see a lot of the people who are in this industry for the money. In my opinion, they're not that good at what they do. However, I've noticed that's a common trait in large organizations. People feel threatened by those who do what they cannot. Those that do not have a passion for what they do will never reach the level of feeling warm fuzzies. They will only do the same things they have always done because that cocoon is their reality.
Sounds like he should be promoted to management where he can better apply his shallow knowledge of many subjects. Really, this is only a semi-facetious recommendation. It doesn't sound like he's a problem solver, so he shouldn't be in a job that requires a problem solver.
It sounds like he's interested in technology for the sake of technology. I like technology, but I see it as a tool. Ultimately, not every problem should be solved with computers. Not every problem can be solved in a vacuum of information. I use FreeBSD for my personal stuff. I'm not going to recommend it for my mom, no matter how well it works for me.
Speaking as a straight parent, my wife and I ain't any more normal than our gay friends. Do my kids need less normalcy in their lives because of genetics?
What about individual gays, as opposed to couples? What if they're still in the closet? What if they don't know they're gay yet? Where do you draw the line?
Foster kids shouldn't be placed in dysfunctional homes. Can we agree on that? Gay couples living in San Francisco aren't likely to be seen as all that abnormal.
Do you know many gay couples? I've heard the same arguments made against blacks by old white guys who only know about blacks by watching cops. There's a big world out there. You don't have to like it, but if you get to tell everyone else how to live, don't complain when they start telling you how to live.
I agree with the philosophy of encrypting backups. However, in practice it does add another layer of complexity. It complicates recovery in the case of of partially corrupted media. Also, larger companies will have policies and compliance issues surrounding the use and storage of passwords for the backups. An encrypted backup without the password is nothing more than a false sense of security.
Human life has always been and will always continue to be worth less than the entertainment and comfort of the top 5% economically. If you have free time to read and post on slashdot, you're probably in the top 5%.
Do you know that there are extravagant parties that rich people have and cost more for a day than most slashdot posters make in a year? How do you feel about that? Do you think how it makes you feel matters to anyone but you?
It's an entertainment expense. Some people do this, others go to movies, others do drugs. In the grand scheme of things, I'm all for these people playing games instead of doing meth. Though, some people would argue that these games are much like meth in many ways.
Users are sheep. What the user wants is irrelevant. That may not be a nice way to say it, but I've seen too many projects succeed or fail based on what purpose is being served. Most nontechnical users see "requirements" as a wish list. Trying to meet those kind of requirements will ensure failure.
The trick to being a good software engineer is to understand the users. A good solution gives them what they need, not what they want. A software engineer has to understand the problem the user has before being able to propose a solution. The user is the best source of information about the problem that needs to be solved, and often the worst source for figuring out what should be done.
More specifically, they can have any sort of policies they want. However, compliance with policies is strictly voluntary. The authority that the property owners (or their representatives) do have is to inform you that you are trespassing and then press charges for it if you refuse to leave. If you leave when you're asked to leave and violate no other laws, their policies or posted signs are irrelevant.
I can't reconcile the disclaimer "past performance is not an indicator of future returns" with "186,000 miles per second". Physics and investment shouldn't be combined.
But the rich can afford to shoot down the arguments of people trying to change the status quo. Government is all about resistance to change. When someone wants change, it requires lobbying. It's not hard to spend a little money to sabotage that lobbying effort to keep things as they are. People who pay more in taxes than most people make can afford a little extra to grease the wheels.
Re:Why isn't online filing at IRS.Gov a reality?
on
Tracking Your Taxes
·
· Score: 1
This is an important distinction to me - I pay for tax preparation guidance and advice from a program instead of from a much more expensive human. I see this as a service, not a product. That's a common problem in how people look at software. The e-filing is just a convenience factor as far as I'm concerned. I just don't want to seriously overpay in taxes or pay several hundred dollars to someone who is going to take just as much time asking me questions as it would take for me to go through the program.
That depends on how well they covered their tracks. This is already a high profile compromise. The only additional risk of using the data now is that LexisNexis will also be interested in finding the culprits. Most people don't get into identity theft as a retirement planning investment. Chances are, we'd see some of this information used this year.
This situation is going to keep getting worse until victims start suing these companies. Companies don't want the bad press of these situations, but continue to take a minimalist apoproach to protecting data that they don't need to be collecting in the first place. Of course these databases are an identity theif's target. However, the companies will not do anything about the situation until they start losing hundreds of millions of dollars in lawsuits. The amount of damage to each person doesn't have to be that serious to add up to large sums of money lost as a result of these breeches.
As someone else said, a supported, secure browser is something that could make some real money. Large companies have policies that oppose free software in general. Functionality is what we respect as geeks. Companies want someone to blame and possibly go after when things go wrong. Liability is something that companies don't like and isn't a purely technical problem. It's hard to sue someone for a security problem related to free software. If someone is willing to stick their neck out on this and develops a good reputation for delivering, there is money to be made.
As a programmer/sysadmin living in America, I have benefitted greatly from the excesses we have enjoyed in the past. As the employment market becomes tighter, I recognize that I must make compromises that weren't necessary in the past. Adapt or suffer. None of us have a choice in this matter, so if we don't choose our own destiny, one will be chosen for us.
He can't. However, no one has a right to own a house or drink milk. The fact that a problem exists does not confer an obligation on someone else to do something about it.
Of course, the irony of the situation is that all of the companies cutting their work force for short term savings are going to end up with a much smaller customer base in the long run. Once all the well paid people are working for peanuts, only peanut farms will be able to sustain themselves.
Here on earth, I've noticed that there are always a number of governments who will let people with a lot of money do whatever they want. It would be hard to create laws that outlaw products or services that are created or performed by nanotech in a place where it is legal to do so. If anything, it gives a competitive advantage to those who have fewer limits, creating a competetive disadvantage for the "civilized countries" that adhere to the law.
If people are really concerned about the grey goo scenario, they can rest assured that those responsible will be killed for their sins. Sure, everyone will die, but that's a small price to pay to give those bastards their comeuppins.
Employees have the ability to control their own destiny. I don't think anyone is entitled to any particular job at any particular pay rate. The workers need to find a situation that is agreeable to them, and that often involves compromises. For example, there was a lot of discussion recently about game programmers having to work 80+ hour weeks on a regular basis. If there are enough people who are willing to do that, even if it takes a toll on their health, employers will take advantage of that. I worked 80+ hour weeks for months on end to get a project done. I did so as an hourly contractor, so I felt we had an equitable arrangement.
Employers generally are motivated by keeping costs down and avoiding expensive lawsuits for grossly neglecting the safety of their workers. When people are injured or die in avoidable situations, the juries are generally not too sympathetic to the big faceless corporation.
Slashdot Mirror
Currently, almost all of those are done before opening a new credit account. However, people still find ways of getting this information and doing it anyway. If we were going to take this approach, why not require each person to show up to a police station and give a set of fingerprints to get a domain?
There are plenty of people who would buy the domain for a third party to get around any of these restrictions. How many people would do it for $100,000,000? How about $1? The result is the same, just the pricing point is up for discussion.
The government could go after these people right now for the fraud they're committing, but they don't. Find a solution to that problem first. I think the problem is that stealing $5 from 1 million people is 1 million counts of stealing $5, not theft of $5,000,000. The sociopathic aspect of ID theft is not something our legal system handles well.
The internet is a bad neighborhood. Just assume that and you'll be fine.
Authentication is all nice in theory, but the disconnects between you in real life and online make it impractical. Look at all of the zombie PC's on the net - someone could successfully authenticate as any of those people.
The attraction of ID theft and related fraud is that it's so difficult to catch people and the courts haven't been able to figure out how to handle it yet. As you've noted, the cost/benefit analysis comes out in favor of the criminal currently. The system isn't set up to deal with people who are clearly sociopathic. Each individual crime is small, and the system treats it that way. There are class action lawsuits to go after companies who behave this way. There is no recourse against an individual with no significant assets.
It sounds like you should pursue being a professional goon. You clearly have a natural inclination to give people what's coming to them. Experienced goons can make 6 figures working for the right kind of organizations.
I work in software, but I keep trying to explain to my boss how we need more goons to help us do our jobs better. For example, if a vendor tells us they only support telnet for their tools that we use, a goon could help them understand that supporting SSH is beneficial for everyone.
I've got all of that, what do I do next?
I used to live in sillycon valley where I would have agreed with you. Now that I live in the outside world (Phoenix), I do see a lot of the people who are in this industry for the money. In my opinion, they're not that good at what they do. However, I've noticed that's a common trait in large organizations. People feel threatened by those who do what they cannot. Those that do not have a passion for what they do will never reach the level of feeling warm fuzzies. They will only do the same things they have always done because that cocoon is their reality.
Sounds like he should be promoted to management where he can better apply his shallow knowledge of many subjects. Really, this is only a semi-facetious recommendation. It doesn't sound like he's a problem solver, so he shouldn't be in a job that requires a problem solver.
It sounds like he's interested in technology for the sake of technology. I like technology, but I see it as a tool. Ultimately, not every problem should be solved with computers. Not every problem can be solved in a vacuum of information. I use FreeBSD for my personal stuff. I'm not going to recommend it for my mom, no matter how well it works for me.
I should have said "Cops" - referring to the TV show.
Speaking as a straight parent, my wife and I ain't any more normal than our gay friends. Do my kids need less normalcy in their lives because of genetics?
What about individual gays, as opposed to couples? What if they're still in the closet? What if they don't know they're gay yet? Where do you draw the line?
Foster kids shouldn't be placed in dysfunctional homes. Can we agree on that? Gay couples living in San Francisco aren't likely to be seen as all that abnormal.
Do you know many gay couples? I've heard the same arguments made against blacks by old white guys who only know about blacks by watching cops. There's a big world out there. You don't have to like it, but if you get to tell everyone else how to live, don't complain when they start telling you how to live.
I agree with the philosophy of encrypting backups. However, in practice it does add another layer of complexity. It complicates recovery in the case of of partially corrupted media. Also, larger companies will have policies and compliance issues surrounding the use and storage of passwords for the backups. An encrypted backup without the password is nothing more than a false sense of security.
Human life has always been and will always continue to be worth less than the entertainment and comfort of the top 5% economically. If you have free time to read and post on slashdot, you're probably in the top 5%.
Do you know that there are extravagant parties that rich people have and cost more for a day than most slashdot posters make in a year? How do you feel about that? Do you think how it makes you feel matters to anyone but you?
It's an entertainment expense. Some people do this, others go to movies, others do drugs. In the grand scheme of things, I'm all for these people playing games instead of doing meth. Though, some people would argue that these games are much like meth in many ways.
Users are sheep. What the user wants is irrelevant. That may not be a nice way to say it, but I've seen too many projects succeed or fail based on what purpose is being served. Most nontechnical users see "requirements" as a wish list. Trying to meet those kind of requirements will ensure failure.
The trick to being a good software engineer is to understand the users. A good solution gives them what they need, not what they want. A software engineer has to understand the problem the user has before being able to propose a solution. The user is the best source of information about the problem that needs to be solved, and often the worst source for figuring out what should be done.
More specifically, they can have any sort of policies they want. However, compliance with policies is strictly voluntary. The authority that the property owners (or their representatives) do have is to inform you that you are trespassing and then press charges for it if you refuse to leave. If you leave when you're asked to leave and violate no other laws, their policies or posted signs are irrelevant.
I can't reconcile the disclaimer "past performance is not an indicator of future returns" with "186,000 miles per second". Physics and investment shouldn't be combined.
But the rich can afford to shoot down the arguments of people trying to change the status quo. Government is all about resistance to change. When someone wants change, it requires lobbying. It's not hard to spend a little money to sabotage that lobbying effort to keep things as they are. People who pay more in taxes than most people make can afford a little extra to grease the wheels.
This is an important distinction to me - I pay for tax preparation guidance and advice from a program instead of from a much more expensive human. I see this as a service, not a product. That's a common problem in how people look at software. The e-filing is just a convenience factor as far as I'm concerned. I just don't want to seriously overpay in taxes or pay several hundred dollars to someone who is going to take just as much time asking me questions as it would take for me to go through the program.
The problem is that they're not dropping high explosives on the right hapless citizens. If they cluster bombed spammers, would anyone really care?
That depends on how well they covered their tracks. This is already a high profile compromise. The only additional risk of using the data now is that LexisNexis will also be interested in finding the culprits. Most people don't get into identity theft as a retirement planning investment. Chances are, we'd see some of this information used this year.
This situation is going to keep getting worse until victims start suing these companies. Companies don't want the bad press of these situations, but continue to take a minimalist apoproach to protecting data that they don't need to be collecting in the first place. Of course these databases are an identity theif's target. However, the companies will not do anything about the situation until they start losing hundreds of millions of dollars in lawsuits. The amount of damage to each person doesn't have to be that serious to add up to large sums of money lost as a result of these breeches.
As someone else said, a supported, secure browser is something that could make some real money. Large companies have policies that oppose free software in general. Functionality is what we respect as geeks. Companies want someone to blame and possibly go after when things go wrong. Liability is something that companies don't like and isn't a purely technical problem. It's hard to sue someone for a security problem related to free software. If someone is willing to stick their neck out on this and develops a good reputation for delivering, there is money to be made.
No cheating!
If you can't figure out what keys go where by pressing them, you need to leave your keyboard disassembled for the good of mankind.
They will be the last consumers. It's not all bad. Unless of course you have some moral hangup about people being rewarded for evil. =)
As a programmer/sysadmin living in America, I have benefitted greatly from the excesses we have enjoyed in the past. As the employment market becomes tighter, I recognize that I must make compromises that weren't necessary in the past. Adapt or suffer. None of us have a choice in this matter, so if we don't choose our own destiny, one will be chosen for us.
He can't. However, no one has a right to own a house or drink milk. The fact that a problem exists does not confer an obligation on someone else to do something about it.
Of course, the irony of the situation is that all of the companies cutting their work force for short term savings are going to end up with a much smaller customer base in the long run. Once all the well paid people are working for peanuts, only peanut farms will be able to sustain themselves.
Here on earth, I've noticed that there are always a number of governments who will let people with a lot of money do whatever they want. It would be hard to create laws that outlaw products or services that are created or performed by nanotech in a place where it is legal to do so. If anything, it gives a competitive advantage to those who have fewer limits, creating a competetive disadvantage for the "civilized countries" that adhere to the law.
If people are really concerned about the grey goo scenario, they can rest assured that those responsible will be killed for their sins. Sure, everyone will die, but that's a small price to pay to give those bastards their comeuppins.
Employees have the ability to control their own destiny. I don't think anyone is entitled to any particular job at any particular pay rate. The workers need to find a situation that is agreeable to them, and that often involves compromises. For example, there was a lot of discussion recently about game programmers having to work 80+ hour weeks on a regular basis. If there are enough people who are willing to do that, even if it takes a toll on their health, employers will take advantage of that. I worked 80+ hour weeks for months on end to get a project done. I did so as an hourly contractor, so I felt we had an equitable arrangement.
Employers generally are motivated by keeping costs down and avoiding expensive lawsuits for grossly neglecting the safety of their workers. When people are injured or die in avoidable situations, the juries are generally not too sympathetic to the big faceless corporation.