So you're suggesting that if there's something abnormal that raises suspicions, the right procedure is to comply with the suspect's requests and use the weakest scanning system available?
And that when there's a breach of security, and several people disrupting the normal flow of operations, it's entirely unacceptable to shout or become frustrated in any way?
Then you haven't thought it through very carefully.
Quite the contrary. I actually read TFA before posting, and learned what happened, and saw how blatently stupid the family was, and how the entire matter is being sensationalized in an appeal to emotion, rather than looking at what the security implications of "common sense" are.
They could have not acted like shouty pedo-kidnappers and not grabbed a terrified 4 year old and kept her away from her carer.
They didn't grab her, and they didn't yell anything at her. After the kid hugged the grandmother (who had originally set off the alarm), the TSA said she'd have to be checked again. The kid screamed and tried to run off. At that point, there's a person running through a secure area who hasn't been checked. When the girl was brought back, the TSA manager had the parent hold her during the pat-down.
The TSA could have done any number of sensible things instead of none, which they chose to do.
The "sensible" thing to do is to follow basic security practices. There's a secure area, an insecure area, and a DMZ between them. Entities passing through the DMZ are screened before entering the secure area. When anything from the secure side interferes with the security checking, it needs to be rechecked. Period. Disallowed material may have been passed unnoticed. The only thing allowed free passage through the DMZ are entities that have undergone a thorough vetting process.
In case that procedure still doesn't seem familiar, it's also the basic DMZ setup for a computer network. Why is it that what's decent security for a computer is suddenly terribly unacceptable for an airport? Why can't the mother have told the kid "No, stay with me now; Grandma will be back in a minute?" Why do we complain when a boss insists that the new data server be accessible from his house, but we expect the TSA to abandon security for a whiny child?
I did read the article before posting. I see a family who never taught their kid to respect any authority, and didn't bother explaining what was going on at the airpport. When an incident happened, they made a facebook post bitching about it, and sensationalizing the TSA's apparent lack of compassion while following standard security practices. What was your point, exactly?
It makes me sad to see this modded troll, because that's exactly what I came here to say.
It's trivially easy to hand off weapons while hugging, because hands can go anywhere and bodies can be moved to hide actions. I've personally seen a 6-year-old pickpocket an inside coat pocket with just a slight bump. Dropping a switchblade or small explosive into a 4-year-old's pocket is a simple enough matter, and there's always the chance that the whole family's crazy enough to be trying an elaborate scheme to take down the plane. The grandma could have been the planned mule, but she got pulled out for a pat-down. An unseen signal, a suggestion from the parent, and that adorable little child runs up to take the weapon, and smuggle it through the security checkpoint right under those agents' noses!
I find it hilarious that Slashdotters will often bitch against those idiot users who fall for a scam's appeal to emotion, then complain about the NSA not showing an emotional response. They complain about the TSA being ineffective, and also complain when the TSA follows legitimate secure-area procedure.
Make a product (which we call Widget) that people are attracted to
Offer Widget for free
Sell ad space on Widget
Profit!
If the Widget in question is a nutrition plan, we have the business model of one Steve Cooksey, and "common sense" dictates that he's not in the nutrition advice business.
If the Widget in question is a suite of web-based applications, we have the business model of Google, and "common sense" dictates that they aren't in the software business.
If the Widget in question is a news aggregator, we have the business model of Slashdot, and "common sense" dictates that they aren't in the social media business.
This strikes me as a rather uncommon form of "common sense", where being in a business is dependent on that business being your revenue source.
I don't know about BSE-contamininated, but I chose my words carefully... I just said "risky". Between volunteering in Africa and traveling around Europe, I've had my share of meat that I knew had unclean sources. I've had the intestinal worms to prove it.
No, using improperly-applied statistics we have 0.7 cases.
Now consider that the CDC statistic likely refers to the per-exposure chance. 200 people worldwide with the disease, a one in 10 billion is about 2 trillion exposures, which works out to about only needing 285 exposures per person since 1980. I've personally been exposed to risky meat more than that.
I am not an epidemiologist, though, and I'd wager that your and GP aren't, either.
skipping surgery based on what some random dude on a blog says?
Yes, people do this. There are people who are terrified of surgery. They'll only go if it's the last option (besides losing that foot entirely). That random dude on a blog becomes their last hope, who will save them when the doctors (those evil minions of the pharmaceutical industry) won't. They know that the surgery might not work, has its risks, and will cost thousands of dollars. The doctors even admit that. This diet, though, is cheap, the person stays in control, and it'll improve their life... their savior even says so, right there! Besides, if it doesn't work, they can get the surgery in a few months, unless they find another last chance.
I was thinking about the "leaving no representation" bit (or however it's worded). The more I think about it, the more I think of things that could go either way for the representation/disposal aspect, but I really don't know the system well enough to know if any are velocity-triggered. There's certainly some where the velocity controls how much is moved, so I could see a lawyer arguing that it counts. On the other hand, things like that could be argued to not really be disposing of anything.
Gee, if only there was some body to establish a legitimate interpretation of legal documents after all sides present their own interpretation and any supporting information...
How about "he makes money, period." The important part is that it's a significant source of economic gain, which makes it a business. Being a business means more liability, under consumer-protection laws.
My mobile phone has no GPS or wifi receiver, and its number says I'm calling from another state in another time zone, which is where I was when I originally got the number. It's also never seen a software update since manufacture... and this is for a rather techie person, too. Consider all those grandmas out there with the cheap simple phones that exist solely for calling 911 from their mobile home in Florida.
"Effective" is even more subjective than "best". Anybody can have their own opinion as to what's an acceptable level of "effective"... and if that means 1% of samples are contaminated rather than 0.01%, that's still a hundred-fold increase in mistakes, though the practice is 99% effective.
In IT, I've seen far too often the results of "effective" practices that are adopted because they work without needing to take the extra steps to meet the level of best practices. I've seen businesses deleting the last set of backups to re-use its media (and only keeping one other set), because it's effective... there's always one backup? I've seen SQL injection vectors go unpatched, leaving SSNs vulnerable, because the management didn't think that a few hundred SSNs were a target for attackers. I've seen robots carrying half-ton car parts with hydraulic lines patched with duct tape.
Whatever the situation, if there's an industry best practice (keeping multiple verified backups at all times, patching all known vulnerabilities,or replacing worn parts) that's being snubbed in favor of something considered "effective", there should be a damned good reason, and it should be documented. Bast practices are the result of far more mistakes and experiments than you'll ever make in your lifetime, so learn from them. For every neglected best practice, there's an assumption being made. You could assume that tapes don't fail, that SSNs aren't vulnerable, or that somebody will notice the low level of hydraulic fluid before the failsafes kick in. In a legal setting, those assumptions call into question the validity of your process, and therefore the conclusions you draw.
Maybe your server is itself an offsite backup for somewhere else, or maybe the SSNs aren't real, or maybe the duct tape is just to prevent damage to a hose that rubs against a wall. You could have a good reason for ignoring a best practice... and a judge should consider that.
No, but I do have a company-issued iPad, which I use rarely. After I posted, I realized that the home screen also has the little dots indicating the current page, so that wouldn't be covered by the patent.
The example gestures in the patent don't matter. It's the claims that do, and I don't see any requirement that the gestures fit a particular design. It is a narrow patent, but broad enough to possibly cover iOS's home screen, where you can "throw" a page of apps off, or any number of other places where swiping your finger across the screen scrolls to another view.
There's enough wiggle room there for a court to work.
Oh, really? I don't recall any matching the patent's claims:
When... the system detects that the velocity with which the image is being dragged exceeds a threshold velocity, the system responds by removing the image from the display without leaving any representative thereof in the display.
In other words, swiping your finger across the display to go to the next page of apps. Note that it is not covering "any touch-sensitive device", or "any device with a dragging mechanism", or any such nonsense. The patent's pretty specific.
The claims are the important part of the patent, not the Slashdot summary.
Or it takes 5 years to assemble the paperwork, funding, and lawyers.
I'm sure attorneys are just lining up to deal with the overwhelming defense Apple will surely have on hand, the sleepless nights before their work is torn apart in court, and the media circus if the case actually develops. There must also be rich folks out there just itching to donate money to a case against Apple, where a chunk of their other money is likely invested. Of course, everyone documents their ideas fully, with timestamps and complete lists of influences, too...
All legal matters take time. Big legal matters take more time.
should they look at science to see if it matches our idealized view of the scientific method, or should they consider the realities of science
How about both? Look to see if the real process aligns closely with ideals, then base decisions on that. Did the lab follow best practices to prevent contamination? Were the statistics compiled by someone who knew what the samples were? Do all of the numbers include error calculations?
The discerning judge who considers scientific evidence will end up with a subjective opinion of whether the result meets the need for accuracy. It's the judge's job to apply such subjective opinions fairly, and here that means allowing only evidence that meets their realistic ideal.
Your analogy doesn't make sense. The drilling does not affect the rock in the way that drilling through a glass plate would.
Fracking is not new. Only the debate is. One of the reasons hydraulic fracturing is economically feasible now is the addition of directional drilling technologies, allowing drills to go around geologic formations that can't be passed through. Previously, going through the one small hole of softer rock would let the well extract only the gas from directly below it. With directional drilling, that hole allows access to a wide area beneath the would-be barrier.
Perhaps a more appropriate analogy is that a wall with a window in it is only weakened if the window installer's an idiot.
Through 7 kilometers (4 miles) of rock that's resistant enough to breaking that we drill around it? Through strata that tend to separate horizontally, rather than vertically? There is a chance, but it's roughly the same as the chance that politicians will ever actually talk about the realistic problems with fracking (waste disposal, mostly) rather than the fearmongering (contamination, "peak energy") that's effectively unsupported by any scientific studies.
This one makes a decent amount of sense to me, though I did do previous work in artificial life simulators...
Effectively, they built a simulation of the app store, and filled it with developers following several different strategies, and presumably a feedback function that models expected consumer behavior. The simulation was left to run, and interesting results were gathered. TFA is actually a rather well-written explanation that's worth reading.
Sorry... the 2,000-ton figure was launch mass, which I guess means fuel, boosters, and so forth. Wikipedia failed me.
I'll revise my statement: Though the 500-ton rock may be large enough to survive Earth's atmosphere, it requires a combination of incredibly bad luck, incredibly bad planning, and incredibly missing failsafes for the rock to actually reach Earth.
Slashdot Mirror
So you're suggesting that if there's something abnormal that raises suspicions, the right procedure is to comply with the suspect's requests and use the weakest scanning system available?
And that when there's a breach of security, and several people disrupting the normal flow of operations, it's entirely unacceptable to shout or become frustrated in any way?
Then you haven't thought it through very carefully.
Quite the contrary. I actually read TFA before posting, and learned what happened, and saw how blatently stupid the family was, and how the entire matter is being sensationalized in an appeal to emotion, rather than looking at what the security implications of "common sense" are.
They could have not acted like shouty pedo-kidnappers and not grabbed a terrified 4 year old and kept her away from her carer.
They didn't grab her, and they didn't yell anything at her. After the kid hugged the grandmother (who had originally set off the alarm), the TSA said she'd have to be checked again. The kid screamed and tried to run off. At that point, there's a person running through a secure area who hasn't been checked. When the girl was brought back, the TSA manager had the parent hold her during the pat-down.
The TSA could have done any number of sensible things instead of none, which they chose to do.
The "sensible" thing to do is to follow basic security practices. There's a secure area, an insecure area, and a DMZ between them. Entities passing through the DMZ are screened before entering the secure area. When anything from the secure side interferes with the security checking, it needs to be rechecked. Period. Disallowed material may have been passed unnoticed. The only thing allowed free passage through the DMZ are entities that have undergone a thorough vetting process.
In case that procedure still doesn't seem familiar, it's also the basic DMZ setup for a computer network. Why is it that what's decent security for a computer is suddenly terribly unacceptable for an airport? Why can't the mother have told the kid "No, stay with me now; Grandma will be back in a minute?" Why do we complain when a boss insists that the new data server be accessible from his house, but we expect the TSA to abandon security for a whiny child?
I did read the article before posting. I see a family who never taught their kid to respect any authority, and didn't bother explaining what was going on at the airpport. When an incident happened, they made a facebook post bitching about it, and sensationalizing the TSA's apparent lack of compassion while following standard security practices. What was your point, exactly?
It makes me sad to see this modded troll, because that's exactly what I came here to say.
It's trivially easy to hand off weapons while hugging, because hands can go anywhere and bodies can be moved to hide actions. I've personally seen a 6-year-old pickpocket an inside coat pocket with just a slight bump. Dropping a switchblade or small explosive into a 4-year-old's pocket is a simple enough matter, and there's always the chance that the whole family's crazy enough to be trying an elaborate scheme to take down the plane. The grandma could have been the planned mule, but she got pulled out for a pat-down. An unseen signal, a suggestion from the parent, and that adorable little child runs up to take the weapon, and smuggle it through the security checkpoint right under those agents' noses!
I find it hilarious that Slashdotters will often bitch against those idiot users who fall for a scam's appeal to emotion, then complain about the NSA not showing an emotional response. They complain about the TSA being ineffective, and also complain when the TSA follows legitimate secure-area procedure.
Business plan:
If the Widget in question is a nutrition plan, we have the business model of one Steve Cooksey, and "common sense" dictates that he's not in the nutrition advice business.
If the Widget in question is a suite of web-based applications, we have the business model of Google, and "common sense" dictates that they aren't in the software business.
If the Widget in question is a news aggregator, we have the business model of Slashdot, and "common sense" dictates that they aren't in the social media business.
This strikes me as a rather uncommon form of "common sense", where being in a business is dependent on that business being your revenue source.
I don't know about BSE-contamininated, but I chose my words carefully... I just said "risky". Between volunteering in Africa and traveling around Europe, I've had my share of meat that I knew had unclean sources. I've had the intestinal worms to prove it.
No, using improperly-applied statistics we have 0.7 cases.
Now consider that the CDC statistic likely refers to the per-exposure chance. 200 people worldwide with the disease, a one in 10 billion is about 2 trillion exposures, which works out to about only needing 285 exposures per person since 1980. I've personally been exposed to risky meat more than that.
I am not an epidemiologist, though, and I'd wager that your and GP aren't, either.
skipping surgery based on what some random dude on a blog says?
Yes, people do this. There are people who are terrified of surgery. They'll only go if it's the last option (besides losing that foot entirely). That random dude on a blog becomes their last hope, who will save them when the doctors (those evil minions of the pharmaceutical industry) won't. They know that the surgery might not work, has its risks, and will cost thousands of dollars. The doctors even admit that. This diet, though, is cheap, the person stays in control, and it'll improve their life... their savior even says so, right there! Besides, if it doesn't work, they can get the surgery in a few months, unless they find another last chance.
I was thinking about the "leaving no representation" bit (or however it's worded). The more I think about it, the more I think of things that could go either way for the representation/disposal aspect, but I really don't know the system well enough to know if any are velocity-triggered. There's certainly some where the velocity controls how much is moved, so I could see a lawyer arguing that it counts. On the other hand, things like that could be argued to not really be disposing of anything.
Gee, if only there was some body to establish a legitimate interpretation of legal documents after all sides present their own interpretation and any supporting information...
How about "he makes money, period." The important part is that it's a significant source of economic gain, which makes it a business. Being a business means more liability, under consumer-protection laws.
The laws are protecting people from their own stupidity? Amazing...
My mobile phone has no GPS or wifi receiver, and its number says I'm calling from another state in another time zone, which is where I was when I originally got the number. It's also never seen a software update since manufacture... and this is for a rather techie person, too. Consider all those grandmas out there with the cheap simple phones that exist solely for calling 911 from their mobile home in Florida.
Won't somebody please think of the grandmas?
"Effective" is even more subjective than "best". Anybody can have their own opinion as to what's an acceptable level of "effective"... and if that means 1% of samples are contaminated rather than 0.01%, that's still a hundred-fold increase in mistakes, though the practice is 99% effective.
In IT, I've seen far too often the results of "effective" practices that are adopted because they work without needing to take the extra steps to meet the level of best practices. I've seen businesses deleting the last set of backups to re-use its media (and only keeping one other set), because it's effective... there's always one backup? I've seen SQL injection vectors go unpatched, leaving SSNs vulnerable, because the management didn't think that a few hundred SSNs were a target for attackers. I've seen robots carrying half-ton car parts with hydraulic lines patched with duct tape.
Whatever the situation, if there's an industry best practice (keeping multiple verified backups at all times, patching all known vulnerabilities,or replacing worn parts) that's being snubbed in favor of something considered "effective", there should be a damned good reason, and it should be documented. Bast practices are the result of far more mistakes and experiments than you'll ever make in your lifetime, so learn from them. For every neglected best practice, there's an assumption being made. You could assume that tapes don't fail, that SSNs aren't vulnerable, or that somebody will notice the low level of hydraulic fluid before the failsafes kick in. In a legal setting, those assumptions call into question the validity of your process, and therefore the conclusions you draw.
Maybe your server is itself an offsite backup for somewhere else, or maybe the SSNs aren't real, or maybe the duct tape is just to prevent damage to a hose that rubs against a wall. You could have a good reason for ignoring a best practice... and a judge should consider that.
No, but I do have a company-issued iPad, which I use rarely. After I posted, I realized that the home screen also has the little dots indicating the current page, so that wouldn't be covered by the patent.
The example gestures in the patent don't matter. It's the claims that do, and I don't see any requirement that the gestures fit a particular design. It is a narrow patent, but broad enough to possibly cover iOS's home screen, where you can "throw" a page of apps off, or any number of other places where swiping your finger across the screen scrolls to another view.
There's enough wiggle room there for a court to work.
Oh, really? I don't recall any matching the patent's claims:
When... the system detects that the velocity with which the image is being dragged exceeds a threshold velocity, the system responds by removing the image from the display without leaving any representative thereof in the display.
In other words, swiping your finger across the display to go to the next page of apps. Note that it is not covering "any touch-sensitive device", or "any device with a dragging mechanism", or any such nonsense. The patent's pretty specific.
The claims are the important part of the patent, not the Slashdot summary.
Or it takes 5 years to assemble the paperwork, funding, and lawyers.
I'm sure attorneys are just lining up to deal with the overwhelming defense Apple will surely have on hand, the sleepless nights before their work is torn apart in court, and the media circus if the case actually develops. There must also be rich folks out there just itching to donate money to a case against Apple, where a chunk of their other money is likely invested. Of course, everyone documents their ideas fully, with timestamps and complete lists of influences, too...
All legal matters take time. Big legal matters take more time.
should they look at science to see if it matches our idealized view of the scientific method, or should they consider the realities of science
How about both? Look to see if the real process aligns closely with ideals, then base decisions on that. Did the lab follow best practices to prevent contamination? Were the statistics compiled by someone who knew what the samples were? Do all of the numbers include error calculations?
The discerning judge who considers scientific evidence will end up with a subjective opinion of whether the result meets the need for accuracy. It's the judge's job to apply such subjective opinions fairly, and here that means allowing only evidence that meets their realistic ideal.
Your analogy doesn't make sense. The drilling does not affect the rock in the way that drilling through a glass plate would.
Fracking is not new. Only the debate is. One of the reasons hydraulic fracturing is economically feasible now is the addition of directional drilling technologies, allowing drills to go around geologic formations that can't be passed through. Previously, going through the one small hole of softer rock would let the well extract only the gas from directly below it. With directional drilling, that hole allows access to a wide area beneath the would-be barrier.
Perhaps a more appropriate analogy is that a wall with a window in it is only weakened if the window installer's an idiot.
Through 7 kilometers (4 miles) of rock that's resistant enough to breaking that we drill around it? Through strata that tend to separate horizontally, rather than vertically? There is a chance, but it's roughly the same as the chance that politicians will ever actually talk about the realistic problems with fracking (waste disposal, mostly) rather than the fearmongering (contamination, "peak energy") that's effectively unsupported by any scientific studies.
This one makes a decent amount of sense to me, though I did do previous work in artificial life simulators...
Effectively, they built a simulation of the app store, and filled it with developers following several different strategies, and presumably a feedback function that models expected consumer behavior. The simulation was left to run, and interesting results were gathered. TFA is actually a rather well-written explanation that's worth reading.
Well played, sir. If you'll pardon me, I need a towel and another drink.
1. Gravity
Ross Perot Jr. (who stands to inherit his father's ears)
That'd tell me all I need to know.
Sorry... the 2,000-ton figure was launch mass, which I guess means fuel, boosters, and so forth. Wikipedia failed me.
I'll revise my statement: Though the 500-ton rock may be large enough to survive Earth's atmosphere, it requires a combination of incredibly bad luck, incredibly bad planning, and incredibly missing failsafes for the rock to actually reach Earth.