I just don't like people bandying about statistics that probably aren't accurate.
You noticed I specifically said it was 2nd hand knowledge right? Then asked for opinions from other cardiologists?
I never claimed it was accurate, just an interesting percentage that people could weigh in on. To have a discussion about. Your last post was interesting. 100% of the bypass patients I know of are smokers, yet you are the opposite.
I never claimed it as truth, but in the absence of all other data, I have no reason to disbelieve his 99% or question his motives, especially when he has credentials and a lifetime of experience. You presented more data. That was kind of my intent all along. Was to get people talking about the relationship between smoking and incidents of heart bypasses later on in life.
1) It is not my cardiologist. 2) It is my friend's cardiologist. 3) My friend was told this about 10 years ago. 4) The cardiologist in question was highly respected and is in his 70's now and retired.
So, snarky comments aside, I was seeking another cardiologist that may be on Slashdot to confirm, refute, or refine that statement. When my friend was told this, this cardiologist had probably performed thousands of bypasses. Sample size may be small, but I have no reason to disbelieve the statement that 99% of his patients had smoked.
Other than calling us all liars, do you have anything productive to add to the conversation? A study? A different percentage? etc.
I just mentioned something interesting that was pertinent to the poster I replied to. There is no need for sarcastic incredulity.
If you are talking about percentages, I heard something pretty staggering.
Granted, it is second hand knowledge. A cardiologist told my friend that 99% of all the patients he did a heart bypass on smoked at some point in their lives. Obviously, sustained for a few years I would bet.
That's an extremely logical and well thought out plan for a system design for non-humans.
A computer can warn a human of all the threats in the world. However, if there is a promise of a fuzzy kitten doing something cute, or a fuzzy kitten in between a pair a nice tits, all the warnings are useless.
If I had a nickle for every time somebody I know said they clicked on the link anyways because of the promised content I would be retired on an island.
I think the better idea is that we draw a hard line in the sand. You have documents that can be rendered, PERIOD. You also have programs which can be installed, verified with MD5 hashes and certificates.
Never the two shall meet.
The problem is, and always shall be, the morons who infected document rendering with the execution of processes on the system. An HTML document cannot possibly harm any system in any way whatsoever (goatse excepted). However, a HTML page that also loads some flash and javascript can own you.
Gee why is that?
I think you explained and proposed a secure operating system. It does not address the cause, but the symptom. To address the cause make document rendering exactly that.... rendering a farking document. Then all you have to do is worry about buffer overflows and exploits that exist in the rendering software. Something of which can be done fairly well if you spend some time on it.
I thought that could not happen unless you had the permission from the game developer and paid them twice? Wasn't that made illegal or some shit? Punishment comparable to Schedule 1 narcotics possession?
I also saw a study funded by the game publishers proving it was no different than kicking a puppy... hard.
Once again I am confused how even a poorly secured credit card system allows your bank account to be drained... unless you are using debit.
Debit != Credit Cards. They are not even remotely the same.
I refuse to use debit, never have used debit, never will use debit. It affords me no protections at all and any fraudulent activity has an immediate affect on my available balance at the bank. Using your ATM card as a credit card does the same thing, but you are afforded MUCH better protections and when the activity is clearly fraudulent. I have even had the bank issue provisional credits on my account while the investigation proceeds.
I think you may be speaking about debit card systems. At one point I looked at the debit card agreement over 15 years ago and looked straight back at the banker and told him his company was on crack if they thought I was going to allow unlimited amounts to be drained out of my account through the debit system with 4 numbers and the ATM only allows me $500. I demanded an ATM only card and received one. Since then, I always ask what the maximum number of digits is. Some banks actually allow up to 12. I know BOFA allows 6. Another credit union allowed 7. If you go to a bank with something other than 4, it makes it very difficult to brute force and that activity is logged.
I NEVER use the debit card system and make it a point with a certified letter to the bank indicating that I will never perform such activity and they must construe such activity as fraudulent. Since that statement is true, then there is no way to capture my PIN number. I always use it as a credit card, which affords me much greater protections.
Drain his pension? How does that happen? It's a monthly payment.
Furthermore, in the context of credit card discussions, that is impossible. The credit card companies can't actually take money from you, unless you agree to a EFT draft of your account every month, but once again, how does that even drain the pension?
Most cards are 0$ liability, but some are 50$ max. So how does this drain all the man's money again?
What kind of pension are we talking about here? Setting aside the fact it is impossible for a thief to "drain" a pension, most pensions, especially government and military ones are EXEMPT from garnishment. Look it up. It's the law.
Furthermore, if the credit card company did come after him all he would have to do is take out enough money to leave $999 dollars in his bank account since (at least in the state I am in) you cannot take money, even with a judgement, from an account that has less than $1000. That assumes that they could win in court or even arbitration.
None of your story makes sense. There has to be something else that went on there, especially with the pension. I can't possibly see how the thief could continue to receive the monthly pension payments.
I should know. I have been helping out several older people with pensions that just can't keep up with their debt because they got caught up in the real estate crazy and thought they were going to have even more money to play with.
It really is simple. The very day your pension payment comes in you set up automatic payments to all of your utilities and take anything extra and put them towards the utilities, or your credit cards. Credit cards can have a negative balance, they will take your money happily. At the end of the month all of your money is gone, save for a couple hundred bucks in the account they can't touch. They also cannot make the utilities give any money back, or the credit card companies either. A judgement does not allow them to do this with other companies, only assets and bank accounts. Negative balances with utilities and credit card companies don't count as a bank account or an asset and you don't even need to disclose it in a debtor's exam.
So, although your story is emotional, it is fraught with logical holes that I just can't figure out. My original point stands.
Actually you are not victimized at all. You are not even party to proceedings for those seeking remediation.
I am assuming of course, that these were just straight purchased with a credit card number and NOT identity fraud in which you are harmed by a lower magic number they come up which causes you pay more interest, the harm part.
Most likely, The TOS that you signed going in, specifically made you *not* the victim. I have had a few charges made that were not me at all. Other than placing a phone call and spending 10 minutes of my time, I was not financially harmed, nor was my credit harmed at all. In fact, I have been called several times in the past on my credit card when they thought my purchase spending pattern was abnormal.
The victim here are the credit card companies themselves. The merchant still gets paid from what I understand, and the credit card company has to eat it. Hence, they are the victims, not you.
Indirectly, the credit card companies may be compensating for their losses by increasing your fees and raising interest rates.... but we should be honest here.... they are going to do that anyways. Corporate culture in our recent times has demanded ever increasing growth in revenues, wherever you can find it. Fraud aside, I cannot possibly see how credit card companies were going to squeeze anything *less* out of you.
In a way, the credit card systems are victimizing you. It's just a point of view really and depends on your relationship with them. If you pay off your purchases at the end of the month, and have a low interest rate card it can be a good deal. However, there are some cases in which I can see it as predatory and their behavior as inexcusable.
Once again, that is up for debate. However, the fraudsters cause harm to the system, not you directly. Indirectly is really up for debate in my mind as well.
On another topic, I watched a documentary once about prison and specifically the time. This person did not assault you leaving you handicapped for the rest of your life. Did he kill you? Somebody you love? Torture? Rape?
10 years is a long damn time in prison. There are child molesters who get less. He committed fraud, not raped a 11 year old boy. Our perception of time can be weird. Try imaging everything that has happened to you in the last 10 years. Quite a bit eh?
The sentence is overboard, you are not the victim even if he did steal your card info, and some insurance premiums got adjusted. That's what happened here.
I think 3 years would have been more appropriate and you would be surprised by just how long that really is..... for a non-violent crime.
Then again, I"m one of those that has refused to buy music online until it comes in a lossless format with no DRM. I buy CD's....and rip them myself to lossy formats for portable players in lesser listening environments (gym, car)..
Guess what our word is today children? Cognitive Dissonance.:)
Yes, but you are completely dependent upon piracy and copyright infringement. If you are philosophically against the idea of *temporary* ownership of any content of ideas, I can understand, but most likely you are just a pirate that does not want to compensate anybody at all.
How can Netflix be a ripoff?
Ripoff:
1. A product or service that is overpriced or of poor quality. 2. Something, such as a film or story, that is clearly imitative of or based on something else. 3. A theft. 4. An act of exploitation.
How can it be over priced, when you are compensating nobody at all, and there is no exchange? How can Netflix be stealing from you, when it delivers the services it promises to deliver by contract? How is Netflix exploiting you?
You just want to point out, that nearly everything on TV, in theaters, and Netflix, can be had for free on public torrent trackers. Which by the way, is stupidity itself. Not only is the Pirate Bay disreputable as far as security and quality goes, because you can't trust a damn thing on there, but it is PUBLIC man. Anti-virus can only identify known threats. New malware and rootkits could easily be distributed on something popular on the Pirate Bay, and the rating system does not help when accounts can get hacked, and you can farm out good accounts for a month or two with clean stuff, then release the bad stuff.
You want to be a pirate and not compensate anybody? You want to be completely against the idea of anything but the Public Domain? Fine.
Dear god man, get yourself on some private trackers before you get seriously infected, if not infected already.
Ohhhhhh, and let's not forget that going to the most popular and well known public tracker that multiple companies are grabbing IP addresses from for hundreds of thousands of lawsuits and extortion schemes, is a great idea.
You are using a computer. For mobile, I guess you are right. You are stuck using Silverlight which is bullshit.
However, I am using a Netflix enabled device, and I am not trying to capture the content. Why would I? It is available for streaming. If I really like a movie I will purchase it, at a good price, and remove all protections and add it to my library.
The competition cannot possibly beat Netflix. 40% of it's content is advertisements, which are not only worthless, but just intellectually painful to even light exposure. So take 40% of the top right away. Then add all the other bullshit, syndicated reruns, and you will find that TV is just a collection of a bunch of channels which is kind of heavy on the reality TV side of things. Most of it do you really want to watch? Of course not.
Netflix STILL even offers up a lot of the TV shows for streaming!:)
I have a real hard time understanding why Netflix at 25-30% of the price is beaten in quality and availability when 90% of what is on TV is crap, and laden with so much on-screen advertisements it makes watching the TV show or movie impossible due to the distractions.
I was talking about people that were paying $14.98 right now and will paying an extra $5 a month on their next billing cycle. If you don't have Netflix, than you are not party to the argument.
As for as having the temerity to complain, than I stand by that statement. People that do have Netflix have simply got used to how cheap it really was and have not done a cost comparison with all the the other options available to them. If you just bitch and whine without even doing a cost comparison, you are not seeing that Netflix was already like getting a cheeseburger for 10c and now it is 15c. Everywhere else it is 99c. That is actually fairly accurate. Average customers have more than one digital converter box and with Internet in the package, because it is the only way to get it cheaper, you are already at $100 approx. I pay $30 for Internet because I am smart enough to understand bandwidth and what I actually need, and I pay $20 for Netflix now. That's $50.
So I get Internet for work and play, and Netflix, all for $50.
If you can't do the comparison and the math and just want to bitch and complain, then yes, you are acting like an entitled ignorant whiner.
If you don't have any of that, that is your choice and does not speak negatively of you at all, nor should my comment have been construed as a judgment against your character. You simply misunderstood what I was trying to say, but I will apologize to you nonetheless.
Well we are also talking about streaming here I think. That is the main gripe for most people is that just to get a streaming level account you have to pay so much more.
To be honest, I don't even really get all that many Netflix DVDs in the mail anymore. There is so much content on streaming and they keep adding more. I have over 200 in my Instant List and I am surprised at how many movies are actually pretty good. At first glance you might not invest in getting it shipped, but streaming is instant.
As for some of the other services that are available, I have a Western Digital Live TV Plus, the network performance is just lacking. They are clearly not set up with a CDN.
As for Redbox itself, it is not competition to Netflix in terms of streaming right now, but that is not to say I don't use it or that it is competition to Netflix in general. There are at least two at every grocery store I go into and I check to see if there is something I do want to watch. Since I tend to buy groceries more often and cook, I pass by a Redbox quite often.
You're childish assertion of essentially "if it isn't absolutely 100% secure against anything I can imagine, it is worthless" shows you don't know shit about security.
The fact that you make that assertion indicates a reading comprehension problem.
My issue was with the tamper proof claim, not tamper resistant, tamper proof. That is asinine. I never claimed it was without value, or that it had to be 100% secure.
All I stated was that it is not 100% secure, therefore, not tamper proof.
Take any major cable provider. They charge per digital box, which is why you can't just hook up any TV anymore and get the premium channels, and then each box has its own charge for the premium packages.
So you get:
1) Advertisements. Way too many, way too frequent, and even channel surfing exposes you to the infection that is advertisements. 2) In-media Advertisements. Saw The Matrix for about 5 minutes on AMC a few days ago at a friends place. Was absolutely fascinated that people put up with that shit. There was an upper left advertisement for something. Breaking Bad logo and next play time in the lower right. AMC logo prominently displayed in the lower left. At least 10% of the entire movie taken up with NOT THE MOVIE. 3) High charges for channel packages including shit you don't ever want to watch. 4) Per box charges. 5) Hidden regulatory fees. 6) Pay per view and movie rentals where I get the * privileged* status of paying over $5 to rent a movie for the next 24 hours.
Riiiiigggggghhhhtttt
Netflix.
1) Still only $20. 2) Unlimited 2 DVDs as many times as I can get it. 3) Streaming options that are fairly good and getting better. 4) NO ADVERTISEMENTS. 5) NO ADVERTISEMENTS. 6) They just added Star Trek TNG, Voyager, and Enterprise. Check again. They are adding a ton of TV shows. 7) Starz play. That gets you access to some interesting movies streaming only available via shipping otherwise.
On the whole, Netflix is a great deal. Even if it goes to $40 bucks a month, you still have to pay far more than that for all the aforementioned bullshit in addition to the Internet charges from your ISP.
Anybody even look at it yet? Those executives must be on crack. They are still trying to charge $3 and over for streaming movies and will "sell" you protected movie content that you "own". Seriously? Who is left that is still falling for that bullshit? If you have a DRMd file on some device it is only owned by you as long as the authentication servers stay up in their data centers and are still operating. How many have gone down and fucked all the customers?
Redbox is not out with its service yet.
Websites for the actual content producers are full of advertisements and bullshit too. Not much better.
The Big Media ISP cooperatives? They are trying to offer streaming and purchase services, but again, at $5 per movie.
Look at Dish Network. Sure, I can see a movie still in theaters, but they all cost more than $5 for 24 hours.
There is NO competition to Netflix at all and they know it.
$20 bucks? Wow. There are some really entitled and bitchy people out there that cannot see the big picture.
It's asinine to claim that it is tamper proof. That right there should be raising red flags.
Considering the "threat" from China and chip suppliers to consider any machine that you have not personally inspected down to the firmware to be secure is just nuts.
Sure, they booted into a different OS and bypassed the local storage completely. Great. Any OS rootkits cannot get loaded and access the "secure" OS. Fine.
What about rootkits that can get loaded via different means? NIC cards? Storage adapters? LCD monitors that have small repeaters to record and send encrypted frames of what is displayed? Keyloggers loaded directly into the keyboard?
It's only as secure as the weakest link. Hotel computers and home systems? Yeah...... I can see the TV repair man coming in and the next thing you know we have a conduit into a tamper proof secure DoD network.
That distro is not going to be smart enough to validate all the hardware it is running on, and if it did, it would defeat the whole purpose wouldn't it?
Asinine is an understatement and we actually paid to have this developed.
I don't own anything BlueRay for precisely the DRM that they are putting on all the devices. Not interested, Fuck Off.
Now if this 500GB disc from GE does not contain any measures like this... and they have readers that they can install into media players, I will be very interested in doing so. That's probably anywhere from 130-150 DVD's on a single disc. Make 3 or 4 backups and keep one in a safety deposit box and you will have all your media (music, pictures, and movies) backed up pretty well.
I would like to see a Jukebox for this. Just like the ones made for DVDs. I had one that stored up 250 DVDs in the carousel. 250x500 GB = Buttload of space.
You are also forgetting Sneakernet. Can you imagine me giving you 5 or 6 of these in trade? Give it a few weeks and you will see an amazing exchange of data that would exceed the bandwidth limitations of every ISP in the city combined.
P.S - Optical discs only allow you to keep the movie for life if you remove the protections. DVDs are okay because the protection is so easily removable, even on the new ones. Prohibited User Operations, and all the extra crap can be removed including trailers and the FBI warning. When a brand new disc is released where they have done some funky things that we cannot remove the protections on easily..... that's where piracy comes into play. Just download a high quality DVD-R release of the movie because the piracy groups are experts at removing protections that should not be there in the first place.
The only difference between DRM on DVDs and BlueRay is the amount of effort it takes to break them. BlueRay is just too damn difficult, and because they are increasingly making it Internet connected devices, it will turn into the same battle between PS3 owners and Sony. No thank you. I don't need to be a participant in that war.
I get plenty of crap all day long about why I am not on Facebook and have not "friended" them. The fact I have to even use Skype is bothersome to me. There were others that were worse that indicated if you were idle based on keyboard and mouse movement.
Seriously, screw that noise.
You have my email and a phone number. That's good enough.
What I find absolutely amazing is that we can have conversations like this about frequencies and harmonics, elementary resonance, complicated resonance from multiple sources, etc. and yet we still cannot create a system where you understand the person taking your order for a simple burger and fries without having them repeat themselves and screaming into the loud speaker .
This is not a solution for anonymity like TOR at all. In fact, I don't see it providing anonymity as a goal. To say that it is providing it is extremely misleading and I can understand why a lot of people are ripping it apart.
However, this is a fairly good idea. You just have to limit the scope of this to HTTPS requests that come from countries which engage in censorship. So while it is not for American or EU citizens to use for anonymity, it could be quite useful to Pakistan, China, Australia, etc.
Even if all the info is logged completely for government inspection, the citizen from X government can probably be fairly safe assuming that Y government will not be cooperating with X government to turn over records. Do you think the US, or any EU government would be turning over the info to a country practicing censorship on a mass scale? For instance, take a government that is shutting down Skype, Twitter, and Facebook during elections or public unrest. Would the US force hosting providers to turn over logs to that government? Would that government even be able to sue for it effectively once they identify it?
Somehow I doubt it.
The whole point of the technology, which could be WAY faster than TOR, is that sympathetic organizations could be running these on hosted connections with big pipes and that it would be much harder to isolate these gateways based on the traffic. This could be an effective tool to keep information flowing in a country undergoing massive unrest. Of course, Libya just cut the whole damn thing off, which makes the whole point moot.
It's not a bad idea, just a specific one for a specific purpose. I could easily see the CIA setting up stations like this across the world to help destabilize or support a revolution in a country. Of course it would be done for purely humanitarian reasons with absolutely no agenda whatsoever.
A statement by the MPAA disputes these claims, arguing that typical users lack the expertise to select a different DNS server and that the Internet must not be allowed to 'decay into a lawless Wild West.'
Hmmmmmmm. Let me rephrase that differently.....
An inter-office memo from Microsoft was recently released with a statement by an executive arguing that the typical user lacks the expertise to choose a different browser and that apathy and ignorance will allow the Internet to continue to be dominated by Internet Explorer and that the Internet will not devolve into a Wild West of open source competitors taking away market share and that governments and states will not get involved via lawsuits and legislation to affect Microsoft negatively .
You screw around with DNS too hard and you will find that people will fight back. Of course their warnings about fragmentation will most likely be true very quickly. How much of an excuse does China need to form its own root servers and DNS? It would certainly only help them to create and control DNS resolution and to ban all DNS queries to outside networks period. The EU will probably form its own, and interestingly, will probably pick up well over half the US market.
Seriously? Would you choose a DNS "network" that bypasses due process and exposes you to impossible business risks for you and your customers, or a DNS "network" operated without such risks?
When installing IE9 now I can see options on changing default search engines. You can choose default programs now too. Did you think you would see that 5 years ago?
I am willing to bet that if it gets bad enough, even router manufacturers will start giving choices and that open source browsers themselves will start making it easy to configure a computer to use alternate DNS servers, even if it is just for the browser itself.
So far, they have not affected enough people yet, not all that many in actuality, but how much are we arguing about it right now? All they have done is stare at the hornets nest, just wait till they actually throw a rock.
Slashdot Mirror
See that is constructive :)
I just don't like people bandying about statistics that probably aren't accurate.
You noticed I specifically said it was 2nd hand knowledge right? Then asked for opinions from other cardiologists?
I never claimed it was accurate, just an interesting percentage that people could weigh in on. To have a discussion about. Your last post was interesting. 100% of the bypass patients I know of are smokers, yet you are the opposite.
I never claimed it as truth, but in the absence of all other data, I have no reason to disbelieve his 99% or question his motives, especially when he has credentials and a lifetime of experience. You presented more data. That was kind of my intent all along. Was to get people talking about the relationship between smoking and incidents of heart bypasses later on in life.
That's really constructive.
1) It is not my cardiologist.
2) It is my friend's cardiologist.
3) My friend was told this about 10 years ago.
4) The cardiologist in question was highly respected and is in his 70's now and retired.
So, snarky comments aside, I was seeking another cardiologist that may be on Slashdot to confirm, refute, or refine that statement. When my friend was told this, this cardiologist had probably performed thousands of bypasses. Sample size may be small, but I have no reason to disbelieve the statement that 99% of his patients had smoked.
Other than calling us all liars, do you have anything productive to add to the conversation? A study? A different percentage? etc.
I just mentioned something interesting that was pertinent to the poster I replied to. There is no need for sarcastic incredulity.
If you are talking about percentages, I heard something pretty staggering.
Granted, it is second hand knowledge. A cardiologist told my friend that 99% of all the patients he did a heart bypass on smoked at some point in their lives. Obviously, sustained for a few years I would bet.
Any cardiologists care to comment?
Well such a comment coming from Dr. Peter Venkman I take quite graciously.
Not everyday I get an endorsement from such a well respected parapsychologist.
You are the doctor involved in the infamous Stay Puft incident in New York some 25 years ago?
What fucking planet are you from dude? :)
That's an extremely logical and well thought out plan for a system design for non-humans.
A computer can warn a human of all the threats in the world. However, if there is a promise of a fuzzy kitten doing something cute, or a fuzzy kitten in between a pair a nice tits, all the warnings are useless.
If I had a nickle for every time somebody I know said they clicked on the link anyways because of the promised content I would be retired on an island.
I think the better idea is that we draw a hard line in the sand. You have documents that can be rendered, PERIOD. You also have programs which can be installed, verified with MD5 hashes and certificates.
Never the two shall meet.
The problem is, and always shall be, the morons who infected document rendering with the execution of processes on the system. An HTML document cannot possibly harm any system in any way whatsoever (goatse excepted). However, a HTML page that also loads some flash and javascript can own you.
Gee why is that?
I think you explained and proposed a secure operating system. It does not address the cause, but the symptom. To address the cause make document rendering exactly that.... rendering a farking document. Then all you have to do is worry about buffer overflows and exploits that exist in the rendering software. Something of which can be done fairly well if you spend some time on it.
gift the games you have to someone else.
I thought that could not happen unless you had the permission from the game developer and paid them twice? Wasn't that made illegal or some shit? Punishment comparable to Schedule 1 narcotics possession?
I also saw a study funded by the game publishers proving it was no different than kicking a puppy... hard.
Once again I am confused how even a poorly secured credit card system allows your bank account to be drained... unless you are using debit.
Debit != Credit Cards. They are not even remotely the same.
I refuse to use debit, never have used debit, never will use debit. It affords me no protections at all and any fraudulent activity has an immediate affect on my available balance at the bank. Using your ATM card as a credit card does the same thing, but you are afforded MUCH better protections and when the activity is clearly fraudulent. I have even had the bank issue provisional credits on my account while the investigation proceeds.
I think you may be speaking about debit card systems. At one point I looked at the debit card agreement over 15 years ago and looked straight back at the banker and told him his company was on crack if they thought I was going to allow unlimited amounts to be drained out of my account through the debit system with 4 numbers and the ATM only allows me $500. I demanded an ATM only card and received one. Since then, I always ask what the maximum number of digits is. Some banks actually allow up to 12. I know BOFA allows 6. Another credit union allowed 7. If you go to a bank with something other than 4, it makes it very difficult to brute force and that activity is logged.
I NEVER use the debit card system and make it a point with a certified letter to the bank indicating that I will never perform such activity and they must construe such activity as fraudulent. Since that statement is true, then there is no way to capture my PIN number. I always use it as a credit card, which affords me much greater protections.
Drain his pension? How does that happen? It's a monthly payment.
Furthermore, in the context of credit card discussions, that is impossible. The credit card companies can't actually take money from you, unless you agree to a EFT draft of your account every month, but once again, how does that even drain the pension?
Most cards are 0$ liability, but some are 50$ max. So how does this drain all the man's money again?
What kind of pension are we talking about here? Setting aside the fact it is impossible for a thief to "drain" a pension, most pensions, especially government and military ones are EXEMPT from garnishment. Look it up. It's the law.
Furthermore, if the credit card company did come after him all he would have to do is take out enough money to leave $999 dollars in his bank account since (at least in the state I am in) you cannot take money, even with a judgement, from an account that has less than $1000. That assumes that they could win in court or even arbitration.
None of your story makes sense. There has to be something else that went on there, especially with the pension. I can't possibly see how the thief could continue to receive the monthly pension payments.
I should know. I have been helping out several older people with pensions that just can't keep up with their debt because they got caught up in the real estate crazy and thought they were going to have even more money to play with.
It really is simple. The very day your pension payment comes in you set up automatic payments to all of your utilities and take anything extra and put them towards the utilities, or your credit cards. Credit cards can have a negative balance, they will take your money happily. At the end of the month all of your money is gone, save for a couple hundred bucks in the account they can't touch. They also cannot make the utilities give any money back, or the credit card companies either. A judgement does not allow them to do this with other companies, only assets and bank accounts. Negative balances with utilities and credit card companies don't count as a bank account or an asset and you don't even need to disclose it in a debtor's exam.
So, although your story is emotional, it is fraught with logical holes that I just can't figure out. My original point stands.
Actually you are not victimized at all. You are not even party to proceedings for those seeking remediation.
I am assuming of course, that these were just straight purchased with a credit card number and NOT identity fraud in which you are harmed by a lower magic number they come up which causes you pay more interest, the harm part.
Most likely, The TOS that you signed going in, specifically made you *not* the victim. I have had a few charges made that were not me at all. Other than placing a phone call and spending 10 minutes of my time, I was not financially harmed, nor was my credit harmed at all. In fact, I have been called several times in the past on my credit card when they thought my purchase spending pattern was abnormal.
The victim here are the credit card companies themselves. The merchant still gets paid from what I understand, and the credit card company has to eat it. Hence, they are the victims, not you.
Indirectly, the credit card companies may be compensating for their losses by increasing your fees and raising interest rates.... but we should be honest here.... they are going to do that anyways. Corporate culture in our recent times has demanded ever increasing growth in revenues, wherever you can find it. Fraud aside, I cannot possibly see how credit card companies were going to squeeze anything *less* out of you.
In a way, the credit card systems are victimizing you. It's just a point of view really and depends on your relationship with them. If you pay off your purchases at the end of the month, and have a low interest rate card it can be a good deal. However, there are some cases in which I can see it as predatory and their behavior as inexcusable.
Once again, that is up for debate. However, the fraudsters cause harm to the system, not you directly. Indirectly is really up for debate in my mind as well.
On another topic, I watched a documentary once about prison and specifically the time. This person did not assault you leaving you handicapped for the rest of your life. Did he kill you? Somebody you love? Torture? Rape?
10 years is a long damn time in prison. There are child molesters who get less. He committed fraud, not raped a 11 year old boy. Our perception of time can be weird. Try imaging everything that has happened to you in the last 10 years. Quite a bit eh?
The sentence is overboard, you are not the victim even if he did steal your card info, and some insurance premiums got adjusted. That's what happened here.
I think 3 years would have been more appropriate and you would be surprised by just how long that really is..... for a non-violent crime.
.I'm always opting for bluray rental.
Then again, I"m one of those that has refused to buy music online until it comes in a lossless format with no DRM. I buy CD's....and rip them myself to lossy formats for portable players in lesser listening environments (gym, car)..
Guess what our word is today children? Cognitive Dissonance. :)
See you tomorrow!
Yes, but you are completely dependent upon piracy and copyright infringement. If you are philosophically against the idea of *temporary* ownership of any content of ideas, I can understand, but most likely you are just a pirate that does not want to compensate anybody at all.
How can Netflix be a ripoff?
Ripoff:
1. A product or service that is overpriced or of poor quality.
2. Something, such as a film or story, that is clearly imitative of or based on something else.
3. A theft.
4. An act of exploitation.
How can it be over priced, when you are compensating nobody at all, and there is no exchange? How can Netflix be stealing from you, when it delivers the services it promises to deliver by contract? How is Netflix exploiting you?
You just want to point out, that nearly everything on TV, in theaters, and Netflix, can be had for free on public torrent trackers. Which by the way, is stupidity itself. Not only is the Pirate Bay disreputable as far as security and quality goes, because you can't trust a damn thing on there, but it is PUBLIC man. Anti-virus can only identify known threats. New malware and rootkits could easily be distributed on something popular on the Pirate Bay, and the rating system does not help when accounts can get hacked, and you can farm out good accounts for a month or two with clean stuff, then release the bad stuff.
You want to be a pirate and not compensate anybody? You want to be completely against the idea of anything but the Public Domain? Fine.
Dear god man, get yourself on some private trackers before you get seriously infected, if not infected already.
Ohhhhhh, and let's not forget that going to the most popular and well known public tracker that multiple companies are grabbing IP addresses from for hundreds of thousands of lawsuits and extortion schemes, is a great idea.
You are using a computer. For mobile, I guess you are right. You are stuck using Silverlight which is bullshit.
However, I am using a Netflix enabled device, and I am not trying to capture the content. Why would I? It is available for streaming. If I really like a movie I will purchase it, at a good price, and remove all protections and add it to my library.
The competition cannot possibly beat Netflix. 40% of it's content is advertisements, which are not only worthless, but just intellectually painful to even light exposure. So take 40% of the top right away. Then add all the other bullshit, syndicated reruns, and you will find that TV is just a collection of a bunch of channels which is kind of heavy on the reality TV side of things. Most of it do you really want to watch? Of course not.
Netflix STILL even offers up a lot of the TV shows for streaming! :)
I have a real hard time understanding why Netflix at 25-30% of the price is beaten in quality and availability when 90% of what is on TV is crap, and laden with so much on-screen advertisements it makes watching the TV show or movie impossible due to the distractions.
I think you took that completely the wrong way.
I was talking about people that were paying $14.98 right now and will paying an extra $5 a month on their next billing cycle. If you don't have Netflix, than you are not party to the argument.
As for as having the temerity to complain, than I stand by that statement. People that do have Netflix have simply got used to how cheap it really was and have not done a cost comparison with all the the other options available to them. If you just bitch and whine without even doing a cost comparison, you are not seeing that Netflix was already like getting a cheeseburger for 10c and now it is 15c. Everywhere else it is 99c. That is actually fairly accurate. Average customers have more than one digital converter box and with Internet in the package, because it is the only way to get it cheaper, you are already at $100 approx. I pay $30 for Internet because I am smart enough to understand bandwidth and what I actually need, and I pay $20 for Netflix now. That's $50.
So I get Internet for work and play, and Netflix, all for $50.
If you can't do the comparison and the math and just want to bitch and complain, then yes, you are acting like an entitled ignorant whiner.
If you don't have any of that, that is your choice and does not speak negatively of you at all, nor should my comment have been construed as a judgment against your character. You simply misunderstood what I was trying to say, but I will apologize to you nonetheless.
Well we are also talking about streaming here I think. That is the main gripe for most people is that just to get a streaming level account you have to pay so much more.
To be honest, I don't even really get all that many Netflix DVDs in the mail anymore. There is so much content on streaming and they keep adding more. I have over 200 in my Instant List and I am surprised at how many movies are actually pretty good. At first glance you might not invest in getting it shipped, but streaming is instant.
As for some of the other services that are available, I have a Western Digital Live TV Plus, the network performance is just lacking. They are clearly not set up with a CDN.
As for Redbox itself, it is not competition to Netflix in terms of streaming right now, but that is not to say I don't use it or that it is competition to Netflix in general. There are at least two at every grocery store I go into and I check to see if there is something I do want to watch. Since I tend to buy groceries more often and cook, I pass by a Redbox quite often.
You're childish assertion of essentially "if it isn't absolutely 100% secure against anything I can imagine, it is worthless" shows you don't know shit about security.
The fact that you make that assertion indicates a reading comprehension problem.
My issue was with the tamper proof claim, not tamper resistant, tamper proof. That is asinine. I never claimed it was without value, or that it had to be 100% secure.
All I stated was that it is not 100% secure, therefore, not tamper proof.
They said tamper proof. Not tamper resistant.
It's not what they are trying to do, it is what they are claiming as the level of security. That is my issue.
I never said completely unbreakable. I just said tamper proof is bullshit, and it is.
I know people paying much more for much less.
Take any major cable provider. They charge per digital box, which is why you can't just hook up any TV anymore and get the premium channels, and then each box has its own charge for the premium packages.
So you get:
1) Advertisements. Way too many, way too frequent, and even channel surfing exposes you to the infection that is advertisements.
2) In-media Advertisements. Saw The Matrix for about 5 minutes on AMC a few days ago at a friends place. Was absolutely fascinated that people put up with that shit. There was an upper left advertisement for something. Breaking Bad logo and next play time in the lower right. AMC logo prominently displayed in the lower left. At least 10% of the entire movie taken up with NOT THE MOVIE.
3) High charges for channel packages including shit you don't ever want to watch.
4) Per box charges.
5) Hidden regulatory fees.
6) Pay per view and movie rentals where I get the * privileged* status of paying over $5 to rent a movie for the next 24 hours.
Riiiiigggggghhhhtttt
Netflix.
1) Still only $20.
2) Unlimited 2 DVDs as many times as I can get it.
3) Streaming options that are fairly good and getting better.
4) NO ADVERTISEMENTS.
5) NO ADVERTISEMENTS.
6) They just added Star Trek TNG, Voyager, and Enterprise. Check again. They are adding a ton of TV shows.
7) Starz play. That gets you access to some interesting movies streaming only available via shipping otherwise.
On the whole, Netflix is a great deal. Even if it goes to $40 bucks a month, you still have to pay far more than that for all the aforementioned bullshit in addition to the Internet charges from your ISP.
Competition?
Blockbuster. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Anybody even look at it yet? Those executives must be on crack. They are still trying to charge $3 and over for streaming movies and will "sell" you protected movie content that you "own". Seriously? Who is left that is still falling for that bullshit? If you have a DRMd file on some device it is only owned by you as long as the authentication servers stay up in their data centers and are still operating. How many have gone down and fucked all the customers?
Redbox is not out with its service yet.
Websites for the actual content producers are full of advertisements and bullshit too. Not much better.
The Big Media ISP cooperatives? They are trying to offer streaming and purchase services, but again, at $5 per movie.
Look at Dish Network. Sure, I can see a movie still in theaters, but they all cost more than $5 for 24 hours.
There is NO competition to Netflix at all and they know it.
$20 bucks? Wow. There are some really entitled and bitchy people out there that cannot see the big picture.
It's asinine to claim that it is tamper proof. That right there should be raising red flags.
Considering the "threat" from China and chip suppliers to consider any machine that you have not personally inspected down to the firmware to be secure is just nuts.
Sure, they booted into a different OS and bypassed the local storage completely. Great. Any OS rootkits cannot get loaded and access the "secure" OS. Fine.
What about rootkits that can get loaded via different means? NIC cards? Storage adapters? LCD monitors that have small repeaters to record and send encrypted frames of what is displayed? Keyloggers loaded directly into the keyboard?
It's only as secure as the weakest link. Hotel computers and home systems? Yeah...... I can see the TV repair man coming in and the next thing you know we have a conduit into a tamper proof secure DoD network.
That distro is not going to be smart enough to validate all the hardware it is running on, and if it did, it would defeat the whole purpose wouldn't it?
Asinine is an understatement and we actually paid to have this developed.
I don't own anything BlueRay for precisely the DRM that they are putting on all the devices. Not interested, Fuck Off.
Now if this 500GB disc from GE does not contain any measures like this... and they have readers that they can install into media players, I will be very interested in doing so. That's probably anywhere from 130-150 DVD's on a single disc. Make 3 or 4 backups and keep one in a safety deposit box and you will have all your media (music, pictures, and movies) backed up pretty well.
I would like to see a Jukebox for this. Just like the ones made for DVDs. I had one that stored up 250 DVDs in the carousel. 250x500 GB = Buttload of space.
You are also forgetting Sneakernet. Can you imagine me giving you 5 or 6 of these in trade? Give it a few weeks and you will see an amazing exchange of data that would exceed the bandwidth limitations of every ISP in the city combined.
P.S - Optical discs only allow you to keep the movie for life if you remove the protections. DVDs are okay because the protection is so easily removable, even on the new ones. Prohibited User Operations, and all the extra crap can be removed including trailers and the FBI warning. When a brand new disc is released where they have done some funky things that we cannot remove the protections on easily..... that's where piracy comes into play. Just download a high quality DVD-R release of the movie because the piracy groups are experts at removing protections that should not be there in the first place.
The only difference between DRM on DVDs and BlueRay is the amount of effort it takes to break them. BlueRay is just too damn difficult, and because they are increasingly making it Internet connected devices, it will turn into the same battle between PS3 owners and Sony. No thank you. I don't need to be a participant in that war.
Tough words coming from a pasty lardass who can only leave his parent's basement through the help of a forklift.
That's just silly. How is a forklift supposed to fit through the door to the basement and navigate the stairs?
No Kidding.
I get plenty of crap all day long about why I am not on Facebook and have not "friended" them. The fact I have to even use Skype is bothersome to me. There were others that were worse that indicated if you were idle based on keyboard and mouse movement.
Seriously, screw that noise.
You have my email and a phone number. That's good enough.
It all ultimately leads to the BECAUSE I SAID SO law which, much like the Crane Stance, there can be no defend.
What I find absolutely amazing is that we can have conversations like this about frequencies and harmonics, elementary resonance, complicated resonance from multiple sources, etc. and yet we still cannot create a system where you understand the person taking your order for a simple burger and fries without having them repeat themselves and screaming into the loud speaker .
This is not a solution for anonymity like TOR at all. In fact, I don't see it providing anonymity as a goal. To say that it is providing it is extremely misleading and I can understand why a lot of people are ripping it apart.
However, this is a fairly good idea. You just have to limit the scope of this to HTTPS requests that come from countries which engage in censorship. So while it is not for American or EU citizens to use for anonymity, it could be quite useful to Pakistan, China, Australia, etc.
Even if all the info is logged completely for government inspection, the citizen from X government can probably be fairly safe assuming that Y government will not be cooperating with X government to turn over records. Do you think the US, or any EU government would be turning over the info to a country practicing censorship on a mass scale? For instance, take a government that is shutting down Skype, Twitter, and Facebook during elections or public unrest. Would the US force hosting providers to turn over logs to that government? Would that government even be able to sue for it effectively once they identify it?
Somehow I doubt it.
The whole point of the technology, which could be WAY faster than TOR, is that sympathetic organizations could be running these on hosted connections with big pipes and that it would be much harder to isolate these gateways based on the traffic. This could be an effective tool to keep information flowing in a country undergoing massive unrest. Of course, Libya just cut the whole damn thing off, which makes the whole point moot.
It's not a bad idea, just a specific one for a specific purpose. I could easily see the CIA setting up stations like this across the world to help destabilize or support a revolution in a country. Of course it would be done for purely humanitarian reasons with absolutely no agenda whatsoever.
True statement? Really?
A statement by the MPAA disputes these claims, arguing that typical users lack the expertise to select a different DNS server and that the Internet must not be allowed to 'decay into a lawless Wild West.'
Hmmmmmmm. Let me rephrase that differently.....
An inter-office memo from Microsoft was recently released with a statement by an executive arguing that the typical user lacks the expertise to choose a different browser and that apathy and ignorance will allow the Internet to continue to be dominated by Internet Explorer and that the Internet will not devolve into a Wild West of open source competitors taking away market share and that governments and states will not get involved via lawsuits and legislation to affect Microsoft negatively .
You screw around with DNS too hard and you will find that people will fight back. Of course their warnings about fragmentation will most likely be true very quickly. How much of an excuse does China need to form its own root servers and DNS? It would certainly only help them to create and control DNS resolution and to ban all DNS queries to outside networks period. The EU will probably form its own, and interestingly, will probably pick up well over half the US market.
Seriously? Would you choose a DNS "network" that bypasses due process and exposes you to impossible business risks for you and your customers, or a DNS "network" operated without such risks?
When installing IE9 now I can see options on changing default search engines. You can choose default programs now too. Did you think you would see that 5 years ago?
I am willing to bet that if it gets bad enough, even router manufacturers will start giving choices and that open source browsers themselves will start making it easy to configure a computer to use alternate DNS servers, even if it is just for the browser itself.
So far, they have not affected enough people yet, not all that many in actuality, but how much are we arguing about it right now? All they have done is stare at the hornets nest, just wait till they actually throw a rock.