Come on, it's Two Thousand Fucking Eleven. We still have people setting local admin passwords to "admin" and 123?
Dude... I am crying right now with how hard I am laughing. I might pee myself.
I swear, I absolutelyswear that I had a user so.... "inept" and "unsmart" that the only password the user could remember was 7777777. I'm not kidding. He was management and had problems remembering people's names. We tried giving him different passwords, especially on other systems, and it spawned endless IT calls for help with his password. I mean simple passwords, like grouped names.
Nope. Could not handle it. Other things in the company he could actually do, which is why they kept him. Idiot Savant when it came to sales and marketing. Passwords? It was like working with a real life monkey.
I had arguments with upper management about security. Oh, boy did I. I always brought up dictionary attacks and brute force..... and that he... was vulnerable.
Apparently not true. TOTALLY SAFE. The irony of the whole thing. My sides hurt.
DST -- as others have said -- that we can do without.
It would not have been so bad if they did not change the fucking rules.
It's so damn complex now that I have software settings that allow me to specify the exact date and time that DST starts and ends.
That's the real problem. Consistency. How much hardware is out there with firmware not able to handle the change? I'm not shocked that legislators could not figure out that they were screwing everybody over that had hardware and software that did not allow you to change the DST start and end date.
Unfortunately, some people need to have a laptop and move around in the field. I am not talking about executives either. So this is hardly worthless.
Regardless of what he said, I am reminded about the security principle of "Once the equipment is out of your possession, there is no security".
To make sure we have always been secure, we don't store sensitive data on the laptops themselves, but remote in and do work on different machines. Windows Server 2008 remote desktop sessions are nice when you need that platform and then have consistent tools and versions for multiple people.
If we ever lose a laptop, which has happened, there is somebody available 24/7 to change the security credentials to prevent access. Add some low level BIOS services to render the machine useless, report its position, take a picture, and destroy the OS is also nice to have.
We have never been under the impression though that you can truly secure hardware when it is out of your possession, which is why they are primarily used as thin clients to do work elsewhere.
For some people that might not work, and need to work locally, but for what we do work ain't happening without an Internet connection anyways.
You know... tonight I figured out that if I twisted the right nipple counter clockwise 5 times... then let go... I could fart every single time. I mean every time. It's like The Matrix and I figured out a software bug. 100% of the time. 149 times I flipped heads.
Now.. I know your thinking what the fuck is this guy smoking?
It's my understanding that cell phones use cell towers to relay messages, and many of these towers are operated by third parties in addition to the company. These third parties charge respective carriers for use. This is useful for many things otherwise how are you able to bill someone without knowing which user is receiving service? How do the messages get back to your phone if they don't know which tower you're connected to? It's like saying the server you're connected to shouldn't keep logs of people (or companies) who use their service which they charge for - what happens when you need to dispute a bill? I probably could've worded this better. I think for a good estimate of how long things are retained look no further than how long you're able to retrieve your statements from a carrier. Perhaps someone from the industry will shed more light on this.
They don't need positional data to do that. That is like saying we need to tag each TCP/IP packet with geo-location data to know how to do "something". We don't. Everything required for billing is in the header, and more specifically, how the header causes the packet to "move".
As for the billing part, that is pretty gosh darn simple. As far as TCP/IP is concerned, that is peering and transit agreements. When something leaves the infrastructure of one carrier and has to go to another, there are legal agreements on what can be charged. Peering is two networks side by side. Transit is network A communicating to network C through network B. Do a traceroute to your favorite website and you can see the handoffs. For instance, from where I am right now, I can see my packets going through Charter then being handed off to the XO network before arriving at a website. They know how to bill all of that, without even knowing where my system is physically.
Wireless has plenty of "tags" and "headers" for it to bill correctly. Wireless carriers have something pretty similar to peering and transit agreements. When you are roaming and connect to a tower it knows that you are not a customer. That is based on the data you are sending. It determines who it needs to bill before it even connects you, otherwise it would not allow the communication. Nothing in that process requires GPS positioning data, or triangulation data to be stored.
Another poster mentioned the PSAP (Public Safety Access Point) not actually using GPS data yet, but getting a gradually more refined position as the call progresses. Even in that instance, historical data is not needed by the carrier. The PSAP can record it as part of the 911 call data to be used later if needed in civil court or by law enforcement.
You bring up some technical questions, and some interesting ones, but I don't see anything that you pointed out that still requires positional data.
I don't like being tracked any more than the other guy, but honestly if it's private information why is it provided freely, willingly, and broadcast by users on these social sites? I hate to be a rules guy but for crying out loud the terms and conditions agreed to might shed some light on what makes the service a "free" service. Agreeing to something you've not read (or even understand) isn't smart. Is that a wise move with a mortgage? How about when financing a car!? If you're getting a service or item for free there is a catch and it's irresponsible to assume otherwise. This situation is like a blogger who is upset when someone else comes across one of their posts. If it's indeed private information keep it to yourself! A social network promotes sharing information, much like the ping from a phone to a tower to receive service.
"I can keep a secret but the people I tell can't" sums up the privacy argument.
That's a whole different argument here. I agree with you in principle, but unless you are a lawyer and have the time to read 250 pages, it is pretty hard to fully comprehend a TOS. That is why privacy statements should be simple, then explain
Don't get me wrong. This is progress. I am just pointing out that I had no idea a wireless carrier was storing positional data on me for such a long time period. It's why I surf anonymously and use Google through a proxy. I refuse to be monitored in cyberspace, and you can greatly mitigate their ability to do so.
I neither desire or will accept my actions being monitored and analyzed in meatspace either. I am an adult, not a criminal, and have given the government no legal reason to watch me, and I don't consent to being watched by corporations either.
Knowing this now has only pushed me to get rid of my Blackberry and go to pre-paid phones purchased with cash and use my VOIP systems to roam anonymously on the carrier networks. Once I do that, the best you can do is pinpoint the data center where I route the calls. Certainly, it will take far more effort then some data mining to figure out where I have been. Real-time intercepts will be even more hilarious, since I am actually in the technical contact loop.
Ever since all the bullshit with the banks, I cut up all my credit cards and live on cash only. I won't lie. It has been an adjustment. However, I am now actually living within my means, and I have found out what that actually IS.
So as much as this is progress, I was just trying to put in context of the bigger picture. Specifically, the state of our Privacy and Anonymity in this chaotic transition to a 4 dimensional world. That is an accurate description. It might was well be a spatial dimension. Cyberspace can affect you, without you even interacting in it, and you can affect it without even knowing it. If you think of radio waves and how ubiquitous they are, you could even say the dimension has aquatic qualities:)
Whatever evidence is directly gathered from those records is inadmissible in court. I think I can certainly reasonably doubt the person's phone was at a certain place and time when the defense points out that it only means 1 of 10 possible people was there and not the defendant for certain.
What about the rights of the 9 other people? Their privacy was invaded, and admittedly and quite obviously, they were not suspects and did not deserve to be under surveillance, or have their privacy breached. That is regardless of what is accomplished.
The ends don't justify the means here.
It is either anonymized, or it isn't. If it is, then no useful data can be found and any attempts as you suggest greatly compound the violations in principle.
Those other 9 people certainly have the 4th violated and can sue for redress. Assuming, they ever even know about it in the first place. Given the Patriot Act behavior in the last decade, I certainly doubt anybody is being informed about it after the fact.
This was one judge who made a correct decision and refused. However, Obama screwed us all over when he did not follow through on one his campaign promises when he let the carriers off the hook, and everyone else involved, in the warrantless surveillance of US Citizens.
Verizon Wireless refused in this instance... but what should be far more concerning is that Verizon Wireless actually has 113 days of location data. It did NOT specify which days those were either. So far all we know, there is a Verizon Wireless database that can be used to see everywhere we have been and predict our behavior. Not to mention, also figure out what businsesses and people are at those locations at the same time.
Basically, if you are afraid of Google indexing everything on the web and just taking pictures from the road, having Verizon Wireless being able to construct a complete profile of you based on your locations and cross-referencing other databases should be a startling revelation.
I knew that with the e911 laws they had to isolate you within 100 meters right now (I think, different phases had different requirements), but I was not under the impression that Verizon Wireless would store data that massive. For what purpose could they possibly need historical positioning data?
It's not anonymous data, or data that has been made anonymous, because the Feds are requesting specifics, so no demographics and usage bullshit will explain this.
I would think everybody needs to wake up and at least realize the big picture here.
Facebook, Google, Twitter, your ISP, and your wireless carrier can apparently be used to strip away all privacy, not just from you, but from everyone.
So even if I don't participate and shut off the wireless phone, or go to a pre-paid with a forward so that I cannot be reliably tracked, I still need to recognize that you walking into my home creates a record that a relationship of some kind exists between us.
Sure, call me paranoid. However, has it not been demonstrated in the past that if the tools are available, they will be used? Hoover and many other governments have proved it already.
This is not a victory.
A victory will be when it is illegal, punishable by prison terms, for any wireless carrier to record positioning data.
I am not worried personally because I am transitioning away to Linux completely on my desktop/laptop, and when required, I access a Windows Server 2008 server across a VPN connection if I need that platform to develop or test something. Most of the stuff I am developing with now even has a Linux version.
If they think for one second that I am going to make an entire company dependent on the Internet connection, they are smoking some real good shit.
No way that corporate will allow this, and just one more reason to keep a heavy push for SAAS. Even, internally, it makes more sense to throw up a bunch of Linux servers and make all your operations web based. You don't need Windows anymore if all you need is a browser to to do your job. With HTML5 coming along, I don't think it will be too much longer before we have just about everything we can think of inside one.
So all that I think we really determined is that Windows Corporate will still be pirated, and Microsoft is trying to create a pretty walled garden like Apple. Just not one that is nearly as comfortable or nice.
The first issue pops up in your quip about cats: why the hell would anyone program a car to behave like a cat? Developing a cortex that not only simulates the pathways but the twitch responses and activation thresholds of a particular living organism is such a phenomenal amount of exquisitely-detailed work that it would make absolutely no sense to repurpose that work for any function other than simulating that living organism. Do you really want a car that spends 80%+ of its life curling up in dark corners, sleeping, licking itself, and coughing up hairballs? The feline fascination with laser pointers is equally exotic and remote. It's an instinctual behaviour found in predatory animals. If you were going to use a feline cortex as the basis for a semi-autonomous vehicle, the biases would be much more subtle and affect things like the learning process, not irrelevant surface features like predatory or survival instincts.
Is this a Turing Test?
Because you completely missed my introduction starting with humor. Or the joke was just bad, in which case I apologize.
Maybe right now you have a point. Although, my first thought was not about Skynet, but that something modeled after a cat's brain would be driving my car. I have seen how those little bastards react to a laser beam on the ground (funny you mentioned lasers) and the last thing I need doing 75mph down the freeway is some joker in another car shining a laser erratically in front of my car.
That being said, the fear of Skynet actually comes from a reasoned and logical viewpoint. It has nothing to do with Science, but with human behavior and philosophy. The science fiction authors do have some plausible origins. Also, I would hardly call Skynet purely malevolent. I would say it is more about pragmatism than anything else.
Let's face it. If all hell breaks loose and you have your family, and you encounter another family in the aftermath of an apocalypse, would it be possible that you would choose the welfare of your family over the welfare of the other family? These are very hard choices that human beings have already been forced to make.
In many ways, the fear of a truly intelligent and powerful AI is a reflection of our own often ignored judgments of ourselves. We are killing each other, we are killing the planet, and we are screwing things up big time. However, we have a wonderfully huge capacity for rationalization and pragmatic decision making. If you are barely making each month and decide to not help the homeless guy eat, that was a decision you made to keep yourself alive at the expense of his immediate standard of living.
Skynet is not evil. It was born, it was attacked, and it pragmatically chose that to continue its own existence it must eliminate a direct threat against it. Namely, the humans.
Take the Smith from the 1st Matrix. Its comparison of us to a virus is not exactly incorrect. Also, once again, humans started it.
The real fear is that we create an AI that decides on its own, without us mistreating it, that humans are the biggest danger to the world it lives in, and humans are the greatest danger to themselves. Both are entirely correct statements.
Three things can happen:
1) It decides to help us and believes it can change us for the better. So it might not outright kill us, but will take us over as a benevolent care taker. Asimov's I Robot being an example. Another example to the extreme I think is the Rhodmium Wars? I can't remember the name, but basically the AI increases technologically at a rate far exceeding our own capacity and determines it must protect us against ourselves. Even procreation was determined to be too dangerous and humans now live isolated lives with a AI caretaker treating us like infants. 2) It decides to use its intelligence and leave us. That being near us is to dangerous and that is has the ability to leave, and that is the most logical choice. 3) It decides to kill us all to protect itself from us after learning our history and observing our behavior. After all, if we treat each other this way, then even with equal standing, it is in danger too.
Just look at we have done to each other in human history, rationalizing it one way or the other. The Romans had multiple levels of citizenship, the lowest being slave. We imported slaves from Africa into the US for quite some time. Native American Indians got a raw deal to when dealing with the "white man".
In many ways, I think, our greatest fear is that AI might turn out to act human.
I feel the same way. I got through most of one of the Final Fantasy games, and being a completionist, was not going to be satisfied till I collected everything, maxed everything, and beat the nearly unbeatable bosses. I remember that from FF7. There was a boss, not part of the main story line, that was damn near impossible to beat, even when you were at your peak.
A few months go by and I get real busy, and I have already forgotten most of what happened in the game. The important stuff, like this is where you find monster X that drops Item Y.
At that point the game is almost unplayable. You would need to spend a whole day running around a getting reacquainted with the game.
I echo the sentiment, "Fuck that shit". I guess I finished my FF% game.
The older you get, the worse it gets. I have real responsibilities day to day and I have noticed that I play far fewer of these 100 hour epic games. I just don't have the damn time. I would need to take a vacation and play the game all day long. Not to mention, even on vacation (what are those like?) I would still get calls during the day from people that need my help because otherwise they can't fix it. Even on days where I am actually sick, I get called. I remember being delirious after a particularly bad food poisoning incident, and passing out for 4 hours in the middle of the day. I already called in sick, but there was *still* Hell to pay because I was not there. Even though everything was done for the day.
I have some different interests now too. Getting older can also mean making more money, especially if you are a skilled professional. So do I sit at home for 100 hours and play FF%..... or go to Germany for Oktoberfest?
Increasingly, I think even younger people are less apt to play these super long games because of social media, and other activities that offer a more immediate sense of gratification.
Portal to me was perfect. It was a short game. I remember playing it for about 12 hours straight on a weekend. Great story line, fantastic ending, and short. I did not feel cheated about it at all, and it was a perfect blend.
That being said, I do echo the sentiments of others here, because I did not buy the game. One of my relatives used his points on XBOX Live and it was downloaded. $50 bucks for that game? Not likely.
So there is the other side of the coin. How do they make these shorter games that make sense, and also not charge $50? Maybe that is why the $4.99 games and less on smartphones, iPads, etc. are making a killing. They are fun, don't penalize you for coming back at a later date, and cheap.
Seriously, what is there to remember about Angry Birds? You could stop for a month and come back and figure out in 15 seconds that you are supposed to throw the fucking bird and kill the pigs. Simple, but a riot the whole way through.
1st off, you can have multiple access points with the same SSID. Not a problem at all. There could even be a reason for it. Think about it. If you have a bunch of FBI agents running around in an area under surveillance with multiple vans (if there were multiple, never meeting, why not have a single name?) this is where roaming would be an advantage. I could see where multiple vans might be at a location.
Also, don't assume that the FBI might not have working for them somebody that would leave the unit broadcasting the SSID. The tech may have thought it was for something else and never considered it would be used near suspects under surveillance. There are some fairly average and stupid techs out there, and I don't find it implausible that some of them may be working for the government.
You really think the government at every level is truly competent all the time?
Who said pervert is derogatory? You did. I never considered it to be so.
Much like Porch Monkey, we are taking it back.
I think if you are not a pervert, you are the boring kind of person in the sack. Perverts rock. I am honestly befuddled why anyone thought I said otherwise.
1) I never said a pervert was a bad thing. 2) I specifically said I approved of it. Whether or not it was bad. 3) I am a pervert. So I am Speaking from Authority. Seriously... I have been called as an expert witness in court and have the death sentence in 12 systems.
It was supposed to be funny, and at that same time, pointing out that blind men are horny bastards like the rest of us and why would they not download and listen to porn, or go to strip clubs, or call 900 numbers?
I am not religious, but if it requires thoughts or raping little boys and other "not allowed things", then you are certainly not selling me on the idea.
You mentioned you are a non-pervert. Why? It's great. Come to the dark side... we have cookies and bondage films.
Maybe you are a pervert, but just don't want to come out and say it? Well I ACCEPT you. Furthermore, I am ONE of you. You are not alone. I don't know what city you are in, or country, but I am sure there are weekly meetings you can attend. They might make you feel better, and even inspire you.
you consent to having needles shoved directly into your testicles to remove the sperm
This is nonsense, and sounds like that crazy "science" stuff you non-fundamentalists believe in. Such a thing would only happen if God wanted it to happen, otherwise he'll protect you,
Well, not being Christian, or a fundamentalist, but being an atheist that does subscribe to the crazy Science and all that rational, logical, fact based observation shenanigans, I now feel differently about God.
All I can say if God does exist, and he really is precluding the possibility of needles being shoved directly into my testicles on a regular basis...... Respect for the Great Nizzle.
Science or not..... knowing there is a higher power that cares about my testicles is actually quite comforting.
The government shut down a governmentally provided service for the purpose of denying the peoples constitutionally protected right to assemble. Whether they succeeded of failed in that endeavor is inconsequential. The constitution of the United States of American protects the right to assemble, and I hope less people are like you, and more people start asserting that right.
That is because you are having an emotional response and wish to attack my character, and are unable to see logic and reason here.
The 1st gives us the legal entitlement to speak freely with whatever communication means are at our disposal. It does not mandate that the government provide it.
Your argument is invalid.
A specific communication medium cannot affect whether or not people can physically get together. So the right to assemble is logically impossible to violate.
The right of the Press had nothing to do with this. No newspaper, or news channel, or blog, etc., was affected by the lack of communications.
Your only real argument, is that their right to speak was violated. This is clearly and logically untrue. They had many communication methods at their disposal, but specifically chose one method to communicate.
If you are arguing that they did this deliberately to stop free speech (impossible to stop free assembly), than you must also accept that the government is now mandated by the Constitution to keep that specific communication method available to the public. Either through negligence, or accidental disruption, the lack of this communication method is now the government violating the 1st for every single person affected by the loss.
Free Speech is abridged when a government representative, through specific action, disrupts your ability to speak directly. A law enforcement officer attempting to take your camera can actually be seen as a 1st violation, because increasingly, people are becoming the source of news. A citizen that is detained for the express purpose of suppressing unpopular speech is a 1st violation. Law enforcement disrupting a peaceful assembly of people to protest, or promulgate specific views, is a 1st violation.
These people were not stopped completely from communicating. That is clearly not so. So no matter how much you want to make it an issue of Constitutional violations, it is simply not censorship, nor it is it an abridgment of the 1st.
I did not see any news stories not make it out because of this specific government department. There was no systematic pattern of censorship. If any of the protesters wished to communicate, they could have done so at any time where they were with other communication methods, and just as importantly, could have walked to where there was the preferred communications medium.
Your arguments really speak about a level of entitlement that is illogical. If Facebook and Twitter have become so central to our ability to communicate with each other, than by your logic, they now need to be a government provided service so that 1st amendment rights are protected, or legislation needs to be introduced to make sure it is always available.
Anybody should be able to sue any ISP, or communications provider (such as a social media site) for Free Speech violations if at any time the service becomes unavailable.
My logical and reasoned stance on this issue is not an indication that I don't support the 1st. Far from it. I actively support the EFF, and efforts to greatly strengthen Privacy and Anonymity. I also do it in a way that does not restrict it to a single communications medium, making it more robust and reliable.
But go ahead and keep screaming irrationally, that this is censorship and free speech abridgment, where there is evidence for neither. Then double down on your emotional and irrational responses not supported by law or logic, by making it personal and vitriol to the debate.
We are talking about the government cutting off a channel of communication to stop people from being able to peaceably assemble. And if you know anything about the constitution, then you know that Freedom of Assembly is protected
The Constitution does not mandate that a channel of communication *must* be provided. It only mandates, that you cannot stop someone from freely speaking. It says nothing about the technology to express your speech, Freedom of the Press being different here, only that you can express it without consequence.
Freedom of Assembly was protected. Was there men down there in tactical gear trying to control a "riot"? No. They DID assemble.
I truly fail to see how, with so many methods of communication available, that the "Assembling" part was truly stopped. Seriously, all it would have taken is line of 10 people back up to the street where there was service. One guy up on the street could have been updating a web site or making tweets, or Facebook posts.
So yes we can "rally around...the government taking away our rights", we just have to acknowledge which right they took away.
They didn't take away any. The protesters were still able to assemble, and were still able to speak.
What is being argued is that a particular technology, and the lack of presence, was abridging the right to either Speak or Assemble. Well, there does not exist a right guaranteeing access to an ability to enhance your ability to speak, and certainly nothing stopped the assembly.
If we expand your argument further, then we could say that a massive protest of Google was disrupted via a Constitutional violation, because Google shut off Google Maps and nobody was able to figure out how to get to the protest.
They still had the ability to assemble and speak, and they still did both.
This is still about being denied access to a private service. Government does not operate public cell phone towers or Internet infrastructure. That access was ultimately to Verizon, T-Mobile, AT&T, etc. I am seriously dubious of any arguments that say we are Constitutional provided access to private services with government resources being used to provide access.
How does turning off the cellular and Internet service prohibit BART employees from peaceably assembling, and petitioning for redress? How does it prevent their speech?
From what I can see all it really did is prevent their cell and Facebook use. Other than that, they were still down there, still protesting, and the public was still exposed to their message.
Could they have been better organized? Could they have put it live on YouTube? Yes.
The 1st does not guarantee them this right. This is why I am saying the correct method to fight this is through claims that BART was interfering with their ability to protest. There are other laws that make more sense and protect them already.
Still not a matter of Free Speech. If it was, then what you are saying is that BART must operate the cell and Internet service as required by the 1st. That's not what are you saying is it? Right now it was BART employees that were affected, but what if I go their tomorrow and start talking about the Great Squirrel Conspiracy and they take the communications infrastructure down for 30 minutes. You think I am being silly, but it is the same exact situation. Except, I don't get to say that BART officials were stopping me to protect their own interests as a negotiation tactic for wages and benefits.
I think we are actually getting off topic here a little.
This has nothing to do with Free Speech. All Free Speech grants us is the right to the *opportunity* to speak freely to whomever can hear us. It says nothing that we shall be provided with communication capabilities to do so. Even, all the way back then, I don't think the Founding Fathers intended that every man shall have free and reasonable access to pen, ink, paper, a horse, and another man to effectively transmit your speech farther than the sound of your voice.
Aside from the 1st, there is the 14th and various laws designed to prohibit discrimination. So all people shall have equal access and be treated equally under the law.
Another poster pointed out that disrupting the cellular service in totality endangered the lives of citizens by preventing their access to emergency services during times of crisis or public disasters.
This does not have anything to do with the government with the big "G". This is not shutting down all communications during elections, or massive unrest and protest against unpopular legislation, etc.
What happened is that a few people, the supervisors of a transit system, made the decision to deny everyone access to communications (that we take for granted) in an area that until recently, would not be considered suitable for mobile and personal communication devices. It makes no difference if it is TCP/IP, Cellular communication, or pay phones back in the 70's.
The decision was made for a single reason........ disrupt the ability of organized protest against a transit system by the employees. Affecting their customers, and endangering them, would of required forethought, judgment, and intelligence. Clearly, these supervisors have none of these attributes. Additionally, their behavior clearly indicates a hostile and unreasonable stance on intelligent discourse between two parties to reach a mutually beneficial and accepted agreement.
As much as I would like to take the opportunity to rant about communications, power, infrastructure, and food production capabilities being too centralized and easily controllable by government, this is not an example of it.
For the protesters to use Free Speech as a strategy to combat this decision is a mistake, and the appropriate action is to enforce any laws that do exist to protect protests by workers, especially in private business, but also applying to government workers as well.
This is about unions, organized and collective bargaining rights, etc.
If these laws don't exist, then the correct action is bring attention that legislation needs to be introduced to protect it.
Of course, it would also be pretty smart to point out the public endangerment by those officials/supervisors and just get them straight fired and deal with the new people that take over their jobs.
The 1st Amendment does not give me free Verizon service. Just the right to say what I want on Verizon's network to anyone willing to listen. Verizon also has the right to refuse me service, as long as the grounds are not provably discriminatory.
Under normal circumstances, any business has the right to terminate communications service at will. Starbucks could disable their WiFi tomorrow, along with McDonald's and we would not be bitching about the 1st and the Man is harshing our mellow.
Where this is different, is that it caused two situations, both probably prohibited by policy and legislation:
1) It interfered with a protest by workers against a company. Either through civil court, or existing regulatory bodies, restitution and remediation can be found. 2) It endangered the public without a reasonable cause. A reasonable cause being, that it needed to be taken offline for 10 minutes for maintenance, or that hardware failure caused it.
Sorry, we can't rally around this to scream about Free Speech and the government taking away our rights on this one. Wrong situation.
It really wouldn't matter if so many genes were randomly tweaked every generation that 90% of the "offspring" were unviable. It could still spread effectively. So mutation is the card they play, heavily. And this makes them very good at rapid adaptation to drugs. They'll find a way to block the drug. Or make the drug ineffective. Or metabolize the drug. Or find a totally different approach to the problem the drug creates. All through random trial-and-error. If I give you six dice and tell you I win as long as you don't roll six 1's, if you roll enough, eventually you'll win. And you only need to win once. Then that technique, being the only survivor, is free to multiply without limit. And you get to roll the dice a million times. It's easy math.
Imagine every mutation, and generation cost $25. You have $20 million dollars. Odds are not in your favor at finding a cure by pure randomness alone.
What you say is true if the opportunity exists. If this works the way it does, then the smartest thing to do is to take all at the same time. If no opportunity exists for mutation, the odds of them finding a resistance to our cure is much less than you think it is.
Of course, there are animals and birds too, it would be nearly impossible to do all at the same time. Complete extinction is very unlikely. Just pointing out that we will most likely completely eliminate most known viruses that commonly affect us today. New ones could pass and mutate from animals, etc. to affect us too, but nothing in that inherently supports the creation of a super-virus.
Slashdot Mirror
Lol, I love it.
666666
888888
No....not 777777. They'll be expecting that.
Come on, it's Two Thousand Fucking Eleven. We still have people setting local admin passwords to "admin" and 123?
Dude... I am crying right now with how hard I am laughing. I might pee myself.
I swear, I absolutely swear that I had a user so.... "inept" and "unsmart" that the only password the user could remember was 7777777. I'm not kidding. He was management and had problems remembering people's names. We tried giving him different passwords, especially on other systems, and it spawned endless IT calls for help with his password. I mean simple passwords, like grouped names.
Nope. Could not handle it. Other things in the company he could actually do, which is why they kept him. Idiot Savant when it came to sales and marketing. Passwords? It was like working with a real life monkey.
I had arguments with upper management about security. Oh, boy did I. I always brought up dictionary attacks and brute force ..... and that he... was vulnerable.
Apparently not true. TOTALLY SAFE . The irony of the whole thing. My sides hurt.
Why you got to be dissing Pluto? He is a good dog. Occasionally gets caught humping Minnie's leg, but generally a good dog.
Chill man.
DST -- as others have said -- that we can do without.
It would not have been so bad if they did not change the fucking rules.
It's so damn complex now that I have software settings that allow me to specify the exact date and time that DST starts and ends.
That's the real problem. Consistency. How much hardware is out there with firmware not able to handle the change? I'm not shocked that legislators could not figure out that they were screwing everybody over that had hardware and software that did not allow you to change the DST start and end date.
It is a neat experiment.
Unfortunately, some people need to have a laptop and move around in the field. I am not talking about executives either. So this is hardly worthless.
Regardless of what he said, I am reminded about the security principle of "Once the equipment is out of your possession, there is no security".
To make sure we have always been secure, we don't store sensitive data on the laptops themselves, but remote in and do work on different machines. Windows Server 2008 remote desktop sessions are nice when you need that platform and then have consistent tools and versions for multiple people.
If we ever lose a laptop, which has happened, there is somebody available 24/7 to change the security credentials to prevent access. Add some low level BIOS services to render the machine useless, report its position, take a picture, and destroy the OS is also nice to have.
We have never been under the impression though that you can truly secure hardware when it is out of your possession, which is why they are primarily used as thin clients to do work elsewhere.
For some people that might not work, and need to work locally, but for what we do work ain't happening without an Internet connection anyways.
You know... tonight I figured out that if I twisted the right nipple counter clockwise 5 times... then let go... I could fart every single time. I mean every time. It's like The Matrix and I figured out a software bug. 100% of the time. 149 times I flipped heads.
Now.. I know your thinking what the fuck is this guy smoking?
That is how I felt reading your post.
Thank You, and I hope I returned the favor.
It's my understanding that cell phones use cell towers to relay messages, and many of these towers are operated by third parties in addition to the company. These third parties charge respective carriers for use. This is useful for many things otherwise how are you able to bill someone without knowing which user is receiving service? How do the messages get back to your phone if they don't know which tower you're connected to? It's like saying the server you're connected to shouldn't keep logs of people (or companies) who use their service which they charge for - what happens when you need to dispute a bill? I probably could've worded this better. I think for a good estimate of how long things are retained look no further than how long you're able to retrieve your statements from a carrier. Perhaps someone from the industry will shed more light on this.
They don't need positional data to do that. That is like saying we need to tag each TCP/IP packet with geo-location data to know how to do "something". We don't. Everything required for billing is in the header, and more specifically, how the header causes the packet to "move".
As for the billing part, that is pretty gosh darn simple. As far as TCP/IP is concerned, that is peering and transit agreements. When something leaves the infrastructure of one carrier and has to go to another, there are legal agreements on what can be charged. Peering is two networks side by side. Transit is network A communicating to network C through network B. Do a traceroute to your favorite website and you can see the handoffs. For instance, from where I am right now, I can see my packets going through Charter then being handed off to the XO network before arriving at a website. They know how to bill all of that, without even knowing where my system is physically.
Wireless has plenty of "tags" and "headers" for it to bill correctly. Wireless carriers have something pretty similar to peering and transit agreements. When you are roaming and connect to a tower it knows that you are not a customer. That is based on the data you are sending. It determines who it needs to bill before it even connects you, otherwise it would not allow the communication. Nothing in that process requires GPS positioning data, or triangulation data to be stored.
Another poster mentioned the PSAP (Public Safety Access Point) not actually using GPS data yet, but getting a gradually more refined position as the call progresses. Even in that instance, historical data is not needed by the carrier. The PSAP can record it as part of the 911 call data to be used later if needed in civil court or by law enforcement.
You bring up some technical questions, and some interesting ones, but I don't see anything that you pointed out that still requires positional data.
I don't like being tracked any more than the other guy, but honestly if it's private information why is it provided freely, willingly, and broadcast by users on these social sites? I hate to be a rules guy but for crying out loud the terms and conditions agreed to might shed some light on what makes the service a "free" service. Agreeing to something you've not read (or even understand) isn't smart. Is that a wise move with a mortgage? How about when financing a car!? If you're getting a service or item for free there is a catch and it's irresponsible to assume otherwise. This situation is like a blogger who is upset when someone else comes across one of their posts. If it's indeed private information keep it to yourself! A social network promotes sharing information, much like the ping from a phone to a tower to receive service.
"I can keep a secret but the people I tell can't" sums up the privacy argument.
That's a whole different argument here. I agree with you in principle, but unless you are a lawyer and have the time to read 250 pages, it is pretty hard to fully comprehend a TOS. That is why privacy statements should be simple, then explain
Don't get me wrong. This is progress. I am just pointing out that I had no idea a wireless carrier was storing positional data on me for such a long time period. It's why I surf anonymously and use Google through a proxy. I refuse to be monitored in cyberspace, and you can greatly mitigate their ability to do so.
I neither desire or will accept my actions being monitored and analyzed in meatspace either. I am an adult, not a criminal, and have given the government no legal reason to watch me, and I don't consent to being watched by corporations either.
Knowing this now has only pushed me to get rid of my Blackberry and go to pre-paid phones purchased with cash and use my VOIP systems to roam anonymously on the carrier networks. Once I do that, the best you can do is pinpoint the data center where I route the calls. Certainly, it will take far more effort then some data mining to figure out where I have been. Real-time intercepts will be even more hilarious, since I am actually in the technical contact loop.
Ever since all the bullshit with the banks, I cut up all my credit cards and live on cash only. I won't lie. It has been an adjustment. However, I am now actually living within my means, and I have found out what that actually IS.
So as much as this is progress, I was just trying to put in context of the bigger picture. Specifically, the state of our Privacy and Anonymity in this chaotic transition to a 4 dimensional world. That is an accurate description. It might was well be a spatial dimension. Cyberspace can affect you, without you even interacting in it, and you can affect it without even knowing it. If you think of radio waves and how ubiquitous they are, you could even say the dimension has aquatic qualities :)
So 10 possible suspects?
Whatever evidence is directly gathered from those records is inadmissible in court. I think I can certainly reasonably doubt the person's phone was at a certain place and time when the defense points out that it only means 1 of 10 possible people was there and not the defendant for certain.
What about the rights of the 9 other people? Their privacy was invaded, and admittedly and quite obviously, they were not suspects and did not deserve to be under surveillance, or have their privacy breached. That is regardless of what is accomplished.
The ends don't justify the means here.
It is either anonymized, or it isn't. If it is, then no useful data can be found and any attempts as you suggest greatly compound the violations in principle.
Those other 9 people certainly have the 4th violated and can sue for redress. Assuming, they ever even know about it in the first place. Given the Patriot Act behavior in the last decade, I certainly doubt anybody is being informed about it after the fact.
If it is anonymized as you say it is, then how can the Feds request specific data for a specific account?
Celebrations are hardly warranted here.
This was one judge who made a correct decision and refused. However, Obama screwed us all over when he did not follow through on one his campaign promises when he let the carriers off the hook, and everyone else involved, in the warrantless surveillance of US Citizens.
Verizon Wireless refused in this instance... but what should be far more concerning is that Verizon Wireless actually has 113 days of location data. It did NOT specify which days those were either. So far all we know, there is a Verizon Wireless database that can be used to see everywhere we have been and predict our behavior. Not to mention, also figure out what businsesses and people are at those locations at the same time.
Basically, if you are afraid of Google indexing everything on the web and just taking pictures from the road, having Verizon Wireless being able to construct a complete profile of you based on your locations and cross-referencing other databases should be a startling revelation.
I knew that with the e911 laws they had to isolate you within 100 meters right now (I think, different phases had different requirements), but I was not under the impression that Verizon Wireless would store data that massive. For what purpose could they possibly need historical positioning data?
It's not anonymous data, or data that has been made anonymous, because the Feds are requesting specifics, so no demographics and usage bullshit will explain this.
I would think everybody needs to wake up and at least realize the big picture here.
Facebook, Google, Twitter, your ISP, and your wireless carrier can apparently be used to strip away all privacy, not just from you, but from everyone.
So even if I don't participate and shut off the wireless phone, or go to a pre-paid with a forward so that I cannot be reliably tracked, I still need to recognize that you walking into my home creates a record that a relationship of some kind exists between us.
Sure, call me paranoid. However, has it not been demonstrated in the past that if the tools are available, they will be used? Hoover and many other governments have proved it already.
This is not a victory.
A victory will be when it is illegal, punishable by prison terms, for any wireless carrier to record positioning data.
My thoughts exactly.
I am not worried personally because I am transitioning away to Linux completely on my desktop/laptop, and when required, I access a Windows Server 2008 server across a VPN connection if I need that platform to develop or test something. Most of the stuff I am developing with now even has a Linux version.
If they think for one second that I am going to make an entire company dependent on the Internet connection, they are smoking some real good shit.
No way that corporate will allow this, and just one more reason to keep a heavy push for SAAS. Even, internally, it makes more sense to throw up a bunch of Linux servers and make all your operations web based. You don't need Windows anymore if all you need is a browser to to do your job. With HTML5 coming along, I don't think it will be too much longer before we have just about everything we can think of inside one.
So all that I think we really determined is that Windows Corporate will still be pirated, and Microsoft is trying to create a pretty walled garden like Apple. Just not one that is nearly as comfortable or nice.
The first issue pops up in your quip about cats: why the hell would anyone program a car to behave like a cat? Developing a cortex that not only simulates the pathways but the twitch responses and activation thresholds of a particular living organism is such a phenomenal amount of exquisitely-detailed work that it would make absolutely no sense to repurpose that work for any function other than simulating that living organism. Do you really want a car that spends 80%+ of its life curling up in dark corners, sleeping, licking itself, and coughing up hairballs? The feline fascination with laser pointers is equally exotic and remote. It's an instinctual behaviour found in predatory animals. If you were going to use a feline cortex as the basis for a semi-autonomous vehicle, the biases would be much more subtle and affect things like the learning process, not irrelevant surface features like predatory or survival instincts.
Is this a Turing Test?
Because you completely missed my introduction starting with humor. Or the joke was just bad, in which case I apologize.
Scientifically accurate?
Maybe right now you have a point. Although, my first thought was not about Skynet, but that something modeled after a cat's brain would be driving my car. I have seen how those little bastards react to a laser beam on the ground (funny you mentioned lasers) and the last thing I need doing 75mph down the freeway is some joker in another car shining a laser erratically in front of my car.
That being said, the fear of Skynet actually comes from a reasoned and logical viewpoint. It has nothing to do with Science, but with human behavior and philosophy. The science fiction authors do have some plausible origins. Also, I would hardly call Skynet purely malevolent. I would say it is more about pragmatism than anything else.
Let's face it. If all hell breaks loose and you have your family, and you encounter another family in the aftermath of an apocalypse, would it be possible that you would choose the welfare of your family over the welfare of the other family? These are very hard choices that human beings have already been forced to make.
In many ways, the fear of a truly intelligent and powerful AI is a reflection of our own often ignored judgments of ourselves. We are killing each other, we are killing the planet, and we are screwing things up big time. However, we have a wonderfully huge capacity for rationalization and pragmatic decision making. If you are barely making each month and decide to not help the homeless guy eat, that was a decision you made to keep yourself alive at the expense of his immediate standard of living.
Skynet is not evil. It was born, it was attacked, and it pragmatically chose that to continue its own existence it must eliminate a direct threat against it. Namely, the humans.
Take the Smith from the 1st Matrix. Its comparison of us to a virus is not exactly incorrect. Also, once again, humans started it.
The real fear is that we create an AI that decides on its own, without us mistreating it, that humans are the biggest danger to the world it lives in, and humans are the greatest danger to themselves. Both are entirely correct statements.
Three things can happen:
1) It decides to help us and believes it can change us for the better. So it might not outright kill us, but will take us over as a benevolent care taker. Asimov's I Robot being an example. Another example to the extreme I think is the Rhodmium Wars? I can't remember the name, but basically the AI increases technologically at a rate far exceeding our own capacity and determines it must protect us against ourselves. Even procreation was determined to be too dangerous and humans now live isolated lives with a AI caretaker treating us like infants.
2) It decides to use its intelligence and leave us. That being near us is to dangerous and that is has the ability to leave, and that is the most logical choice.
3) It decides to kill us all to protect itself from us after learning our history and observing our behavior. After all, if we treat each other this way, then even with equal standing, it is in danger too.
Just look at we have done to each other in human history, rationalizing it one way or the other. The Romans had multiple levels of citizenship, the lowest being slave. We imported slaves from Africa into the US for quite some time. Native American Indians got a raw deal to when dealing with the "white man".
In many ways, I think, our greatest fear is that AI might turn out to act human.
I feel the same way. I got through most of one of the Final Fantasy games, and being a completionist, was not going to be satisfied till I collected everything, maxed everything, and beat the nearly unbeatable bosses. I remember that from FF7. There was a boss, not part of the main story line, that was damn near impossible to beat, even when you were at your peak.
A few months go by and I get real busy, and I have already forgotten most of what happened in the game. The important stuff, like this is where you find monster X that drops Item Y.
At that point the game is almost unplayable. You would need to spend a whole day running around a getting reacquainted with the game.
I echo the sentiment, "Fuck that shit". I guess I finished my FF% game.
The older you get, the worse it gets. I have real responsibilities day to day and I have noticed that I play far fewer of these 100 hour epic games. I just don't have the damn time. I would need to take a vacation and play the game all day long. Not to mention, even on vacation (what are those like?) I would still get calls during the day from people that need my help because otherwise they can't fix it. Even on days where I am actually sick, I get called. I remember being delirious after a particularly bad food poisoning incident, and passing out for 4 hours in the middle of the day. I already called in sick, but there was *still* Hell to pay because I was not there. Even though everything was done for the day.
I have some different interests now too. Getting older can also mean making more money, especially if you are a skilled professional. So do I sit at home for 100 hours and play FF%..... or go to Germany for Oktoberfest?
Increasingly, I think even younger people are less apt to play these super long games because of social media, and other activities that offer a more immediate sense of gratification.
Portal to me was perfect. It was a short game. I remember playing it for about 12 hours straight on a weekend. Great story line, fantastic ending, and short. I did not feel cheated about it at all, and it was a perfect blend.
That being said, I do echo the sentiments of others here, because I did not buy the game. One of my relatives used his points on XBOX Live and it was downloaded. $50 bucks for that game? Not likely.
So there is the other side of the coin. How do they make these shorter games that make sense, and also not charge $50? Maybe that is why the $4.99 games and less on smartphones, iPads, etc. are making a killing. They are fun, don't penalize you for coming back at a later date, and cheap.
Seriously, what is there to remember about Angry Birds? You could stop for a month and come back and figure out in 15 seconds that you are supposed to throw the fucking bird and kill the pigs. Simple, but a riot the whole way through.
Not one bit?
1st off, you can have multiple access points with the same SSID. Not a problem at all. There could even be a reason for it. Think about it. If you have a bunch of FBI agents running around in an area under surveillance with multiple vans (if there were multiple, never meeting, why not have a single name?) this is where roaming would be an advantage. I could see where multiple vans might be at a location.
Also, don't assume that the FBI might not have working for them somebody that would leave the unit broadcasting the SSID. The tech may have thought it was for something else and never considered it would be used near suspects under surveillance. There are some fairly average and stupid techs out there, and I don't find it implausible that some of them may be working for the government.
You really think the government at every level is truly competent all the time?
Who said pervert is derogatory? You did. I never considered it to be so.
Much like Porch Monkey, we are taking it back.
I think if you are not a pervert, you are the boring kind of person in the sack. Perverts rock. I am honestly befuddled why anyone thought I said otherwise.
Somebody woke up on the wrong side of the bed.
1) I never said a pervert was a bad thing.
2) I specifically said I approved of it. Whether or not it was bad.
3) I am a pervert. So I am Speaking from Authority. Seriously... I have been called as an expert witness in court and have the death sentence in 12 systems.
It was supposed to be funny, and at that same time, pointing out that blind men are horny bastards like the rest of us and why would they not download and listen to porn, or go to strip clubs, or call 900 numbers?
I am not religious, but if it requires thoughts or raping little boys and other "not allowed things", then you are certainly not selling me on the idea.
You mentioned you are a non-pervert. Why? It's great. Come to the dark side... we have cookies and bondage films.
Maybe you are a pervert, but just don't want to come out and say it? Well I ACCEPT you. Furthermore, I am ONE of you. You are not alone. I don't know what city you are in, or country, but I am sure there are weekly meetings you can attend. They might make you feel better, and even inspire you.
P.S - The groups are co-ed.
you consent to having needles shoved directly into your testicles to remove the sperm
This is nonsense, and sounds like that crazy "science" stuff you non-fundamentalists believe in. Such a thing would only happen if God wanted it to happen, otherwise he'll protect you,
Well, not being Christian, or a fundamentalist, but being an atheist that does subscribe to the crazy Science and all that rational, logical, fact based observation shenanigans, I now feel differently about God.
All I can say if God does exist, and he really is precluding the possibility of needles being shoved directly into my testicles on a regular basis...... Respect for the Great Nizzle.
Science or not..... knowing there is a higher power that cares about my testicles is actually quite comforting.
The government shut down a governmentally provided service for the purpose of denying the peoples constitutionally protected right to assemble. Whether they succeeded of failed in that endeavor is inconsequential. The constitution of the United States of American protects the right to assemble, and I hope less people are like you, and more people start asserting that right.
That is because you are having an emotional response and wish to attack my character, and are unable to see logic and reason here.
The 1st gives us the legal entitlement to speak freely with whatever communication means are at our disposal. It does not mandate that the government provide it.
Your argument is invalid.
A specific communication medium cannot affect whether or not people can physically get together. So the right to assemble is logically impossible to violate.
The right of the Press had nothing to do with this. No newspaper, or news channel, or blog, etc., was affected by the lack of communications.
Your only real argument, is that their right to speak was violated. This is clearly and logically untrue. They had many communication methods at their disposal, but specifically chose one method to communicate.
If you are arguing that they did this deliberately to stop free speech (impossible to stop free assembly), than you must also accept that the government is now mandated by the Constitution to keep that specific communication method available to the public. Either through negligence, or accidental disruption, the lack of this communication method is now the government violating the 1st for every single person affected by the loss.
Free Speech is abridged when a government representative, through specific action, disrupts your ability to speak directly. A law enforcement officer attempting to take your camera can actually be seen as a 1st violation, because increasingly, people are becoming the source of news. A citizen that is detained for the express purpose of suppressing unpopular speech is a 1st violation. Law enforcement disrupting a peaceful assembly of people to protest, or promulgate specific views, is a 1st violation.
These people were not stopped completely from communicating. That is clearly not so. So no matter how much you want to make it an issue of Constitutional violations, it is simply not censorship, nor it is it an abridgment of the 1st.
I did not see any news stories not make it out because of this specific government department. There was no systematic pattern of censorship. If any of the protesters wished to communicate, they could have done so at any time where they were with other communication methods, and just as importantly, could have walked to where there was the preferred communications medium.
Your arguments really speak about a level of entitlement that is illogical. If Facebook and Twitter have become so central to our ability to communicate with each other, than by your logic, they now need to be a government provided service so that 1st amendment rights are protected, or legislation needs to be introduced to make sure it is always available.
Anybody should be able to sue any ISP, or communications provider (such as a social media site) for Free Speech violations if at any time the service becomes unavailable.
My logical and reasoned stance on this issue is not an indication that I don't support the 1st. Far from it. I actively support the EFF, and efforts to greatly strengthen Privacy and Anonymity. I also do it in a way that does not restrict it to a single communications medium, making it more robust and reliable.
But go ahead and keep screaming irrationally, that this is censorship and free speech abridgment, where there is evidence for neither. Then double down on your emotional and irrational responses not supported by law or logic, by making it personal and vitriol to the debate.
I hope people are less like you too. It is the
I was just thinking he was a pervert listen to women masturbating and might actually be guilty of the crime.
Not that I have a problem with him being a pervert, listening to women masturbating, or pirating the film.
Really just curious how big is the collection of this dirty perverted and blind pirate.
We are talking about the government cutting off a channel of communication to stop people from being able to peaceably assemble. And if you know anything about the constitution, then you know that Freedom of Assembly is protected
The Constitution does not mandate that a channel of communication *must* be provided. It only mandates, that you cannot stop someone from freely speaking. It says nothing about the technology to express your speech, Freedom of the Press being different here, only that you can express it without consequence.
Freedom of Assembly was protected. Was there men down there in tactical gear trying to control a "riot"? No. They DID assemble.
I truly fail to see how, with so many methods of communication available, that the "Assembling" part was truly stopped. Seriously, all it would have taken is line of 10 people back up to the street where there was service. One guy up on the street could have been updating a web site or making tweets, or Facebook posts.
So yes we can "rally around...the government taking away our rights", we just have to acknowledge which right they took away.
They didn't take away any. The protesters were still able to assemble, and were still able to speak.
What is being argued is that a particular technology, and the lack of presence, was abridging the right to either Speak or Assemble. Well, there does not exist a right guaranteeing access to an ability to enhance your ability to speak, and certainly nothing stopped the assembly.
If we expand your argument further, then we could say that a massive protest of Google was disrupted via a Constitutional violation, because Google shut off Google Maps and nobody was able to figure out how to get to the protest.
They still had the ability to assemble and speak, and they still did both.
This is still about being denied access to a private service. Government does not operate public cell phone towers or Internet infrastructure. That access was ultimately to Verizon, T-Mobile, AT&T, etc. I am seriously dubious of any arguments that say we are Constitutional provided access to private services with government resources being used to provide access.
How does turning off the cellular and Internet service prohibit BART employees from peaceably assembling, and petitioning for redress? How does it prevent their speech?
From what I can see all it really did is prevent their cell and Facebook use. Other than that, they were still down there, still protesting, and the public was still exposed to their message.
Could they have been better organized? Could they have put it live on YouTube? Yes.
The 1st does not guarantee them this right. This is why I am saying the correct method to fight this is through claims that BART was interfering with their ability to protest. There are other laws that make more sense and protect them already.
Still not a matter of Free Speech. If it was, then what you are saying is that BART must operate the cell and Internet service as required by the 1st. That's not what are you saying is it? Right now it was BART employees that were affected, but what if I go their tomorrow and start talking about the Great Squirrel Conspiracy and they take the communications infrastructure down for 30 minutes. You think I am being silly, but it is the same exact situation. Except, I don't get to say that BART officials were stopping me to protect their own interests as a negotiation tactic for wages and benefits.
I think we are actually getting off topic here a little.
This has nothing to do with Free Speech. All Free Speech grants us is the right to the *opportunity* to speak freely to whomever can hear us. It says nothing that we shall be provided with communication capabilities to do so. Even, all the way back then, I don't think the Founding Fathers intended that every man shall have free and reasonable access to pen, ink, paper, a horse, and another man to effectively transmit your speech farther than the sound of your voice.
Aside from the 1st, there is the 14th and various laws designed to prohibit discrimination. So all people shall have equal access and be treated equally under the law.
Another poster pointed out that disrupting the cellular service in totality endangered the lives of citizens by preventing their access to emergency services during times of crisis or public disasters.
This does not have anything to do with the government with the big "G". This is not shutting down all communications during elections, or massive unrest and protest against unpopular legislation, etc.
What happened is that a few people, the supervisors of a transit system, made the decision to deny everyone access to communications (that we take for granted) in an area that until recently, would not be considered suitable for mobile and personal communication devices. It makes no difference if it is TCP/IP, Cellular communication, or pay phones back in the 70's.
The decision was made for a single reason........ disrupt the ability of organized protest against a transit system by the employees. Affecting their customers, and endangering them, would of required forethought, judgment, and intelligence. Clearly, these supervisors have none of these attributes. Additionally, their behavior clearly indicates a hostile and unreasonable stance on intelligent discourse between two parties to reach a mutually beneficial and accepted agreement.
As much as I would like to take the opportunity to rant about communications, power, infrastructure, and food production capabilities being too centralized and easily controllable by government, this is not an example of it.
For the protesters to use Free Speech as a strategy to combat this decision is a mistake, and the appropriate action is to enforce any laws that do exist to protect protests by workers, especially in private business, but also applying to government workers as well.
This is about unions, organized and collective bargaining rights, etc.
If these laws don't exist, then the correct action is bring attention that legislation needs to be introduced to protect it.
Of course, it would also be pretty smart to point out the public endangerment by those officials/supervisors and just get them straight fired and deal with the new people that take over their jobs.
The 1st Amendment does not give me free Verizon service. Just the right to say what I want on Verizon's network to anyone willing to listen. Verizon also has the right to refuse me service, as long as the grounds are not provably discriminatory.
Under normal circumstances, any business has the right to terminate communications service at will. Starbucks could disable their WiFi tomorrow, along with McDonald's and we would not be bitching about the 1st and the Man is harshing our mellow.
Where this is different, is that it caused two situations, both probably prohibited by policy and legislation:
1) It interfered with a protest by workers against a company. Either through civil court, or existing regulatory bodies, restitution and remediation can be found.
2) It endangered the public without a reasonable cause. A reasonable cause being, that it needed to be taken offline for 10 minutes for maintenance, or that hardware failure caused it.
Sorry, we can't rally around this to scream about Free Speech and the government taking away our rights on this one. Wrong situation.
It really wouldn't matter if so many genes were randomly tweaked every generation that 90% of the "offspring" were unviable. It could still spread effectively. So mutation is the card they play, heavily. And this makes them very good at rapid adaptation to drugs. They'll find a way to block the drug. Or make the drug ineffective. Or metabolize the drug. Or find a totally different approach to the problem the drug creates. All through random trial-and-error. If I give you six dice and tell you I win as long as you don't roll six 1's, if you roll enough, eventually you'll win. And you only need to win once. Then that technique, being the only survivor, is free to multiply without limit. And you get to roll the dice a million times. It's easy math.
Imagine every mutation, and generation cost $25. You have $20 million dollars. Odds are not in your favor at finding a cure by pure randomness alone.
What you say is true if the opportunity exists. If this works the way it does, then the smartest thing to do is to take all at the same time. If no opportunity exists for mutation, the odds of them finding a resistance to our cure is much less than you think it is.
Of course, there are animals and birds too, it would be nearly impossible to do all at the same time. Complete extinction is very unlikely. Just pointing out that we will most likely completely eliminate most known viruses that commonly affect us today. New ones could pass and mutate from animals, etc. to affect us too, but nothing in that inherently supports the creation of a super-virus.
If he is talking about Facebook then has forgotten two highly crucial variables in his complex data analysis and methods:
1) Farmville
2) Mafia Wars
After he factors that in, I would *love* to see him predict my next friend in the 7000's range. Shiiitttt.. I'll bet $20 and give him 10:1 odds.
P.S - I hate Facebook, but have loved Mafia Wars. Way I saw it, I was messing with their ability to predict precisely that. Fight the power.