Should we decide the merits of MLK based on how many litterbugs where in his crowd compared to an equivalently sized Klan meeting?
We certainly can conclude a lot about the audience. You can take the next step and theorize what kind of a message will appeal to that audience, but that would be not very reliable.
I hear that old line a lot yet I don't seem to every having it be much of an issue on my iDevices.
Go buy an AT&T MicroCell, for example. The whole thing is written in Flash. Why, you might ask? Well, there are reasons - it's an interactive presentation. Probably it was easier to write it once in Flash than many times in JavaScript, for different HTML versions and different browsers.
I'm blocking Flash with AdBlock Plus and NoScript for everyday browsing, but I also have IE and Iron (Chrome) as alternative browsers, so that I don't need to temporarily enable 27 hosts to see a video or to make a purchase. Sites that I visit regularly are whitelisted if needed.
The holy trio of Marx, Engels and Lenin, with other people sometimes added as required.
The rituals of CPSU were quite comparable to religious rituals of established churches. They had their hierarchy, their rites of passage, their own universities, their special offices, their own money reserves, and their own influence.
However, I can't believe that it's a practical joke. It's too expensive to run a broadcasting station for 30 years as a joke.
The "joke" part was about voice messages, not about the buzz itself. The GRU would love to task its counterparts in the USA, UK and elsewhere with an impossible challenge, at cost of merely calling someone and ordering him, once in several years, to transmit a certain nonsense message. The structure of the message suggests use of a code book, and with so few messages they can't be correlated with anything else (if they were for real; distractors would be always random.)
The buzz itself is probably useful enough to justify the power and the maintenance of three transmitters (like this one, looks like in this photo though the photo shows a different transmitter.)
Set up a metronome at exactly 2.4sec period and sync it to the pulses. Then as the message comes in, you only have to determine if the tone is before or after the tick of the metronome.
I'm not sure how a spy, if he is not a musician, can explain the metronome:-) Anyway, I see your method, and indeed with careful selection of phase shifts on the transmitter side it would be possible, kind of, to demodulate by hand. But as I mentioned earlier, this "secret" will not hold for more than several minutes in hands of NSA because phase modulation is very common, and they'd be specifically looking for this. Many people specifically mentioned in this thread that the signal was analyzed to death and nobody was able to find anything of value in it.
There is another catch with this partially concealed phase modulation thing. It's dog slow. You can transmit only a few bits per minute; at most, assuming an ideal receiver, you can transmit about 25 bits per minute. This isn't much by anyone's standards. A spy, to receive a highly condensed all-caps message of 100 characters at the rate of 10 phase shifts per minute (5 bits assuming Manchester coding,) would need to listen for 100 minutes, assuming that he copied everything the first time. I'm unsure if any spy can afford to spend that much time glued to the radio.
If the signal is encrypted and NOT intended for spies but instead is electronically decoded, then the signal - such as the dead man switch - must be modulated clearly enough so that when someone in a city 100 miles away plugs a shaver in this doesn't start the World War III.
How about saying that the average period is 2.4 sec. 2.5 sec could be a dash or a one (depending on whether Morse code or binary was being used), and 2.3 sec could be a dot or a zero. That would be easy enough to decode with a digital counter or even a good metronome and a sharp ear.
First of all, I dare you to reliably tell the difference between 2.3 and 2.5 seconds in an HF signal. There is a good reason why Morse code uses 3:1 length ratio of elements. Some straight key operators like to increase it to as high as 4:1. Even worse, while it's hard for the intended recipient to receive the signal, it's very easy for the eavesdropper, who has computers, recorders and everything else. This doesn't make any sense.
Secondly, there is no reason for the numbers station to obscure its nature. If anything, UVB-76 attracts more attention than any numbers station just because it is so unusual.
is usurped by the government for important messages
As I (and others) said earlier, important messages are not broadcast into aether just once, with no confirmation and no authentication. Do you think the military will execute a nuclear launch order just because they heard a short message on a radio? I'm sure that order would have to come over three different channels, and it would be heavily encrypted and authenticated. Besides, most of nuclear installations are fixed objects, so they already have multiple fiber (and other) links to receive such a message.
I'd rather think those messages are just a practical joke. Or it could be a low importance broadcast related to expected propagation conditions.
It's being broadcast from a military base. It's purpose is known. To communicate information to military personnel.
There is one big problem with this theory - lack of said information. 30 messages over several decades are laughably insufficient. They wouldn't be enough to even arrange delivery of food to one base, on any given day.
As far as I know, most of information in armies, starting from 60s and up to this day, is transmitted over telephone or teletype or computers. The transmission channels are usually buried cable (copper or fiber,) radio relay (at a few GHz,) and the satellite. Many of these channels use encryption. HF is basically not used much because of the required antenna size, power, and limited channel capacity.
HF has larger range (tens of thousands of km) but that is not always an advantage, especially among the military. That's why most of the radio links are V/UHF and microwave; they are harder to intercept, you need a satellite flying overhead. If the microwave link uses high gain antennas (which is not unusual) then most of the energy is in the beam, and not much is in side lobes. If you set up the link with two dishes and use just enough power to reliably communicate, radiation to the side will be far below the noise, especially if the satellite doesn't have a high gain antenna. Use CDMA to further make life difficult for the eavesdropper.
So where the HF may be of use?
Theory 1: The HF may be chosen because it is received all over the world.
This is untrue. The HF propagation depends on many factors, such as time of the day and state of the ionosphere and the location of both ends of the link. Only the ground wave is stable, but it is limited to a couple hundred km radius. Since the messages are rare and not repeated for 24 hours, we can presume that the transmission is intended for receivers that are hearing the signal all the time. They can't be far away.
Theory 2: The HF may be chosen because this is a beacon to monitor propagation conditions.
This, IMO, is true. This explains the buzz - it is a convenient, simple signal that can be used to detect which way (around the planet) the signal is coming from (and also to see if you receive it from both directions.) The messages are of no consequence; they can be just a test of the microphone or of the entire system. Since there is no confirmation of reception of messages (which on HF is essential) I think the transmitter and the receiver had a parallel telephone link, and the receiving end reported over the telephone when the message was received. Perhaps the message itself was random. Some messages were clearly sent by a technical personnel from the transmitter room, not by a trained speaker in a studio.
Most of the speculation about the messages themselves is also ridiculous. For example:
The names used in the message are used in some Russian spelling alphabets, and spell out the first word - "naimina", which one commenter at the UVB-76 blog translated as "on names".
This "translation" is wrong, the word "naimina" is random and has no meaning. This message can be anything. It was repeated twice within a minute. Any HF operator here can tell that you need to be pretty sure about the quality of your link to do that - the message was repeated only to allow the receiving end to check the message, not to tune to the signal or to fiddle with the filter or to rotate the antenna... (well, a beam antenna for 4 MHz would be large, but not impossible.)
Some say the buzz is a "dead man's switch." It could be, but not likely. First of all, there are no backups, and any transmitter has to do down occasionally, at least for maintenance - 100 kW final stage is not a joke, you don't change vacuum tubes that are under live 25 kV. There could be a backup transmitter in the same building, of course, but even then there probably ar
'm fairly sure GP was opposed to requiring students to buy proprietary software [...] You don't honestly expect your students to shell out for matlab, do you?
I'm sure every school requires students to buy Windows or OS/X, and a bunch of books. It's in the noise, compared to the overall cost of education. If some students are not OK with that, they can study elsewhere (or nowhere, as it is more likely.)
Yeah, there are problems, but nothing where you imply
He can start with routing cables (hundreds of miles of them) to his cameras. That is sure to be cheap and easy, to tunnel under multiple roadways, among other (likely unmarked) pipes and cables. Just don't cut any of those, though, that will be expensive. Those cables ought to terminate somewhere, so those locations need to be purchased and outfitted. He also needs to secure rights to lay his cables where they need to be, since probably homeowners will be unhappy if someone digs a trench across their lawn. All that needs to be done (and tested!) before the first camera goes up.
But of course doing any of that without the city's approval and involvement is beyond stupid. I'm just pointing out that the hidden, underground infrastructure is often overlooked by eager enthusiasts. They declare the project done as soon as their code calculates the blob's speed correctly (+- 10 mph, that is, depending on the position of the Sun. Yes, that won't fly in any court.)
Well the guy said he intends to fund expansion of this project through fees collected, implying law enforcement might be cooperative.
In a society of laws this will not fly. The ticket will be challenged in court, and the judge will have no other option but to dismiss it. The camera is not calibrated, is not certified, is not professionally maintained - how can you fine someone based on readings of your personal gadget? Even professionally installed and maintained devices, like speed guns and cameras and alcohol meters, are constantly challenged in US courts.
Furthermore, the owner of the camera may be counter-sued for harassment, and may be ordered to remove private devices from the public property.
If the society is not of laws, then nothing will work. The summons and fines will be summarily ignored, and the cameras will be vandalized or stolen. If that's the case, the OP needs to work on making his society better, more civil, because this helps not just on the road but everywhere. Vigilantism will not work because the vigilante has no legal right to do what needs to be done. He would be probably the first and the only guy arrested, especially if he is unfortunate enough to photograph a car driven by an important official.
A camera is not a gun. It doesn't threaten the life of police, and it probably won't get you killed, no matter what.
That "probably" is not good enough - especially when dealing with soldiers. It only takes a misunderstanding. If a gun is pointed at you then a mechanical malfunction also can kill you. (That's why we are told to never point a gun at anything but intended targets, among other rules.)
Having a gun pointed at you is a pretty strong intimidation tactic [...] Some soldier driving out to meet you in a Hummer is probably NOT prepared to fire a weapon at a civilian photographer.
You'd bet your life on too many assumptions. You have no idea what are the rules of engagement. You have no idea what is there that they don't want you to take pictures of. You don't know if the soldier's trigger finger is itchy. And you don't know how the soldier perceives you - as a civilian photographer or as a terrorist who is about to blow up. Case in point - recent shooting of Eric Scott. Police was misinformed about the situation and came ready to kill, which they did.
[She] is only a communist by right of birth, and not by any conscious political affiliation
China, USSR and probably other countries had times when refusing to join the party was bad for your health - just as if the Spanish Inquisition unexpectedly visits you and asks to kiss the cross and recite a prayer. Those are nothing but tests for loyalty.
In better times rejecting the party would simply put an end to your career - even if you only dream of becoming a senior engineer at some point in the future, or perhaps of visiting a foreign country of Bulgaria as a tourist.
There is indeed that primal fear of a beast. An unfounded fear would disappear over time, just like today most people aren't afraid of Hell or demons or whatever other scarecrow of the past one can think of. But fear of animals remains. Why? Because it is far from being unfounded. A dog will literally tear you apart, bit by bit. The dog hasn't signed the Geneva convention, haven't read the Constitution and swore no adherence to a human law.
I think a criminal in the situation that you depicted is clearly counting on the fact that the police officer is not going to execute him on the spot. (That happens only if you are unarmed and largely innocent.) So as long as he doesn't shoot, the LEO won't shoot either. The criminal has several options at this point - maybe he can escape now, maybe he can escape later, maybe his friends are coming, maybe the officer is injured, etc. In any case he doesn't risk much in a standoff, and the police also won't be taking risks as long as the suspect is cornered.
But if the LEO sends a dog, the criminal can't negotiate with the dog, and probably can't even kill it before it bites him. It's a force of nature, like a hurricane. You don't negotiate with a hurricane, you do your best to escape. In this case escape is possible only toward the police. Otherwise the dog will tear him into little pieces, and the police then just sweeps the remains into a small plastic bag and calls it a day. If a dog kills or maims him, there can be no lawsuit against that dog, especially if you are dead by then.
Many thieves aren't afraid of guns, but they ARE afraid of dogs. I guess there is just something primal about an animal with its gums slicked back ready to pounce that spooks them.
It's pretty hard to defend yourself against a determined dog. If there are several, things go downhill fast. Even a handgun is not a guaranteed way to disable an attacking dog; it might be on you in seconds.
Do the cops automatically jump to the conclusion that B owned the child porn?
They most likely start there, just because the computer is protected by a password that only the worker is supposed to know. A desk is not protected, as you note, so the accusation won't be that strong from the very beginning.
Or do they try to investigate further to establish how the material likely got there?
They have to. But there are very few competent computer forensics investigators, so the case will be dragging on for months. What, in your opinion, are job prospects of the accused during this time? Besides, the investigator may conclude that the files were stored "by undetermined piece of software running under $worker's credentials. That could be a browser, or an IM client, or Outlook...
Computers are literary no different and thoughts of equivalent magic shields around the computer's hard drive only impede justice.
Someone earlier commented that many computer crimes are investigated by officers who are nearing retirement. To them a computer is magic. Once the forensics report is in the case is solved. How would anyone even tell a difference between intentionally browsing the $evil_site.com or going to $innocent_site.org which was hacked the night before to include 1x1 pixel illegal pictures? How easy would it be to prepare a CD with autorun, load it into the victim's computer while it is locked, let it run and terminate, and remove the CD. [I don't know if a locked computer will start autorun, though.]
I personally would be escorted out of the building, and once in the street I'd go directly to a lawyer, with lots of evidence of wrongful termination. Gems like "you eat too much" would do wonders in front of the judge - but the company will settle before that. Guess who would be fired, and who gets his job back?
It was indeed difficult... in 1980. You probably had access to a computer only at work. But today you are correct, it is much easier to carry your own computer in a pocket than to worry about encryption, IT and other such things.
I have a couple of personal files on my work computer; one of them is the desktop background, and the rest are of a similar nature. If anyone wants to read the latest HRO catalog, I have a copy there.
But to have a permanent sword of damocles dangling over the data by a thread...
Nobody suggests that you have your only copy of that data on the IronKey. Have the data at home, secured by whatever you want there, and carry a copy of files that you need on the IronKey. If you lose the IronKey, or it self-destructs, it only means, for example, that you can't manage your bank account from work today.
Sure you could spend 30k+ on laser tripwires and heat activated motion sensors, but deadbolts and a loud blasting alarm will work just as well against your average thief.
Laser beams and PIR motion sensors are used to silently alert you to the thief before the thief knows it. This gives you time to wake up, assess the situation, call 911, grab your firearms, etc. When a loud alarm starts screaming you should be already in position, ready to do whatever is appropriate. If you are asleep in bed when the siren starts, the attackers have an advantage - they can be in your bedroom just by the time when you wake up disoriented and scared.
Carpooling is actually quite enjoyable if you treat it properly
It would certainly help your case if you elaborate *why* it is enjoyable more than driving a personal vehicle. Can you stop at some place on a whim and go shopping? Can you have personal phone conversations? Can you play *your* favorite music (or radio) without bothering others?
you tell your wife that you can't run an errand for her because you carpooled with the neighbor.
And then the wife will be upset:-) Wives can become unhappy without any apparent reason, and here you provide an excellent reason:-) But most likely you will return home with your neighbor and *then* go out again to do that errand - if, for example, there is no food in the house. Some errands actually make sense and are necessary.
I work as a contractor now. My schedule is not known until I get a phone call from a company, and then I rush there to see what they need to do. Good luck finding a neighbor with identical schedule. I just can't afford to adhere to someone's else schedule.
Many people (nearly) come from and go to the same place as hundreds of other people.
There is not a single person in the whole world who comes and goes from the same places to the same places as I do, when I do. It's trivial to prove.
Obviously they do for you because you seem to be anti-social.
The best source of social behavior is an ant hill, not a human society. Ants cooperate because that's in their genes. Humans cooperate only when it is beneficial to them. Tell me how I will benefit from carpooling, and I will consider it. Note that fuel expenses are irrelevant, they are in the noise (I drive a Prius.)
Why wouldn't you save time and money by carpooling and using HOV lanes?
I could have gotten a HOV sticker. But I neither needed nor wanted it; I let other people have it - they might need it more than I do. With regard to money, savings on fuel and car mileage aren't even close to the cost of my freedom.
Studies indicate [that HOV] increase congestion even more by reducing the number of lanes available for most drivers and doing little or nothing to change carpooling habits.
A car is a personal vehicle, not a bus. I drive my car to where I want and when I want. I don't want to negotiate my plans with someone else.
For example, you took your neighbor to work in your car. Then your wife calls and tells you that you need to do an errand after work. Will you take your neighbor on a ride in a wrong (for him) direction and waste an hour or two of his time? If not, he has to take a taxi and spend 10x money on that ride than he'd spend on fuel for his own car.
Or even worse, it's not your wife who calls, it's the neighbor's wife. So will you volunteer your time, your fuel and your car's resource to go out of your way to some remote store to let him buy a bauble that you can't possibly care about?
California's HOVs are a tool to reshape public transportation habits. It doesn't work because these habits are what they are not because people are lazy, but because those habits make sense. If the city will provide a personal air taxi that can be summoned by a cell phone to any location, costs about as much as the personal car ride, and is always available, personal cars will largely disappear. But buses and trains, as they are, don't even come close to that.
A vacuum sealed container is necessary because the Prius is constantly starting and stopping its engine.
The Prius pumps the coolant to (and from) the thermos bottle only when you power the car down (or up.) It is not used when the ICE is stopped by the computer.
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Do you really want your kids to have hunting homeless and immigrants become a recreational activity?
While that is being debated, illegal immigrants in the USA are hunting you.
Should we decide the merits of MLK based on how many litterbugs where in his crowd compared to an equivalently sized Klan meeting?
We certainly can conclude a lot about the audience. You can take the next step and theorize what kind of a message will appeal to that audience, but that would be not very reliable.
I hear that old line a lot yet I don't seem to every having it be much of an issue on my iDevices.
Go buy an AT&T MicroCell, for example. The whole thing is written in Flash. Why, you might ask? Well, there are reasons - it's an interactive presentation. Probably it was easier to write it once in Flash than many times in JavaScript, for different HTML versions and different browsers.
I'm blocking Flash with AdBlock Plus and NoScript for everyday browsing, but I also have IE and Iron (Chrome) as alternative browsers, so that I don't need to temporarily enable 27 hosts to see a video or to make a purchase. Sites that I visit regularly are whitelisted if needed.
oh yeah? what deity was involved?
The holy trio of Marx, Engels and Lenin, with other people sometimes added as required.
The rituals of CPSU were quite comparable to religious rituals of established churches. They had their hierarchy, their rites of passage, their own universities, their special offices, their own money reserves, and their own influence.
However, I can't believe that it's a practical joke. It's too expensive to run a broadcasting station for 30 years as a joke.
The "joke" part was about voice messages, not about the buzz itself. The GRU would love to task its counterparts in the USA, UK and elsewhere with an impossible challenge, at cost of merely calling someone and ordering him, once in several years, to transmit a certain nonsense message. The structure of the message suggests use of a code book, and with so few messages they can't be correlated with anything else (if they were for real; distractors would be always random.)
The buzz itself is probably useful enough to justify the power and the maintenance of three transmitters (like this one, looks like in this photo though the photo shows a different transmitter.)
Set up a metronome at exactly 2.4sec period and sync it to the pulses. Then as the message comes in, you only have to determine if the tone is before or after the tick of the metronome.
I'm not sure how a spy, if he is not a musician, can explain the metronome :-) Anyway, I see your method, and indeed with careful selection of phase shifts on the transmitter side it would be possible, kind of, to demodulate by hand. But as I mentioned earlier, this "secret" will not hold for more than several minutes in hands of NSA because phase modulation is very common, and they'd be specifically looking for this. Many people specifically mentioned in this thread that the signal was analyzed to death and nobody was able to find anything of value in it.
There is another catch with this partially concealed phase modulation thing. It's dog slow. You can transmit only a few bits per minute; at most, assuming an ideal receiver, you can transmit about 25 bits per minute. This isn't much by anyone's standards. A spy, to receive a highly condensed all-caps message of 100 characters at the rate of 10 phase shifts per minute (5 bits assuming Manchester coding,) would need to listen for 100 minutes, assuming that he copied everything the first time. I'm unsure if any spy can afford to spend that much time glued to the radio.
If the signal is encrypted and NOT intended for spies but instead is electronically decoded, then the signal - such as the dead man switch - must be modulated clearly enough so that when someone in a city 100 miles away plugs a shaver in this doesn't start the World War III.
RF propagation beacon is a station that transmits a carrier (sometimes modulated) that is used to monitor propagation all over the world.
http://www.dxzone.com/catalog/DX_Resources/Beacons/
How about saying that the average period is 2.4 sec. 2.5 sec could be a dash or a one (depending on whether Morse code or binary was being used), and 2.3 sec could be a dot or a zero. That would be easy enough to decode with a digital counter or even a good metronome and a sharp ear.
First of all, I dare you to reliably tell the difference between 2.3 and 2.5 seconds in an HF signal. There is a good reason why Morse code uses 3:1 length ratio of elements. Some straight key operators like to increase it to as high as 4:1. Even worse, while it's hard for the intended recipient to receive the signal, it's very easy for the eavesdropper, who has computers, recorders and everything else. This doesn't make any sense.
Secondly, there is no reason for the numbers station to obscure its nature. If anything, UVB-76 attracts more attention than any numbers station just because it is so unusual.
is usurped by the government for important messages
As I (and others) said earlier, important messages are not broadcast into aether just once, with no confirmation and no authentication. Do you think the military will execute a nuclear launch order just because they heard a short message on a radio? I'm sure that order would have to come over three different channels, and it would be heavily encrypted and authenticated. Besides, most of nuclear installations are fixed objects, so they already have multiple fiber (and other) links to receive such a message.
I'd rather think those messages are just a practical joke. Or it could be a low importance broadcast related to expected propagation conditions.
It's being broadcast from a military base. It's purpose is known. To communicate information to military personnel.
There is one big problem with this theory - lack of said information. 30 messages over several decades are laughably insufficient. They wouldn't be enough to even arrange delivery of food to one base, on any given day.
As far as I know, most of information in armies, starting from 60s and up to this day, is transmitted over telephone or teletype or computers. The transmission channels are usually buried cable (copper or fiber,) radio relay (at a few GHz,) and the satellite. Many of these channels use encryption. HF is basically not used much because of the required antenna size, power, and limited channel capacity.
HF has larger range (tens of thousands of km) but that is not always an advantage, especially among the military. That's why most of the radio links are V/UHF and microwave; they are harder to intercept, you need a satellite flying overhead. If the microwave link uses high gain antennas (which is not unusual) then most of the energy is in the beam, and not much is in side lobes. If you set up the link with two dishes and use just enough power to reliably communicate, radiation to the side will be far below the noise, especially if the satellite doesn't have a high gain antenna. Use CDMA to further make life difficult for the eavesdropper.
So where the HF may be of use?
Theory 1: The HF may be chosen because it is received all over the world.
This is untrue. The HF propagation depends on many factors, such as time of the day and state of the ionosphere and the location of both ends of the link. Only the ground wave is stable, but it is limited to a couple hundred km radius. Since the messages are rare and not repeated for 24 hours, we can presume that the transmission is intended for receivers that are hearing the signal all the time. They can't be far away.
Theory 2: The HF may be chosen because this is a beacon to monitor propagation conditions.
This, IMO, is true. This explains the buzz - it is a convenient, simple signal that can be used to detect which way (around the planet) the signal is coming from (and also to see if you receive it from both directions.) The messages are of no consequence; they can be just a test of the microphone or of the entire system. Since there is no confirmation of reception of messages (which on HF is essential) I think the transmitter and the receiver had a parallel telephone link, and the receiving end reported over the telephone when the message was received. Perhaps the message itself was random. Some messages were clearly sent by a technical personnel from the transmitter room, not by a trained speaker in a studio.
Most of the speculation about the messages themselves is also ridiculous. For example:
The names used in the message are used in some Russian spelling alphabets, and spell out the first word - "naimina", which one commenter at the UVB-76 blog translated as "on names".
This "translation" is wrong, the word "naimina" is random and has no meaning. This message can be anything. It was repeated twice within a minute. Any HF operator here can tell that you need to be pretty sure about the quality of your link to do that - the message was repeated only to allow the receiving end to check the message, not to tune to the signal or to fiddle with the filter or to rotate the antenna... (well, a beam antenna for 4 MHz would be large, but not impossible.)
Some say the buzz is a "dead man's switch." It could be, but not likely. First of all, there are no backups, and any transmitter has to do down occasionally, at least for maintenance - 100 kW final stage is not a joke, you don't change vacuum tubes that are under live 25 kV. There could be a backup transmitter in the same building, of course, but even then there probably ar
'm fairly sure GP was opposed to requiring students to buy proprietary software [...] You don't honestly expect your students to shell out for matlab, do you?
I'm sure every school requires students to buy Windows or OS/X, and a bunch of books. It's in the noise, compared to the overall cost of education. If some students are not OK with that, they can study elsewhere (or nowhere, as it is more likely.)
Yeah, there are problems, but nothing where you imply
He can start with routing cables (hundreds of miles of them) to his cameras. That is sure to be cheap and easy, to tunnel under multiple roadways, among other (likely unmarked) pipes and cables. Just don't cut any of those, though, that will be expensive. Those cables ought to terminate somewhere, so those locations need to be purchased and outfitted. He also needs to secure rights to lay his cables where they need to be, since probably homeowners will be unhappy if someone digs a trench across their lawn. All that needs to be done (and tested!) before the first camera goes up.
But of course doing any of that without the city's approval and involvement is beyond stupid. I'm just pointing out that the hidden, underground infrastructure is often overlooked by eager enthusiasts. They declare the project done as soon as their code calculates the blob's speed correctly (+- 10 mph, that is, depending on the position of the Sun. Yes, that won't fly in any court.)
Well the guy said he intends to fund expansion of this project through fees collected, implying law enforcement might be cooperative.
In a society of laws this will not fly. The ticket will be challenged in court, and the judge will have no other option but to dismiss it. The camera is not calibrated, is not certified, is not professionally maintained - how can you fine someone based on readings of your personal gadget? Even professionally installed and maintained devices, like speed guns and cameras and alcohol meters, are constantly challenged in US courts.
Furthermore, the owner of the camera may be counter-sued for harassment, and may be ordered to remove private devices from the public property.
If the society is not of laws, then nothing will work. The summons and fines will be summarily ignored, and the cameras will be vandalized or stolen. If that's the case, the OP needs to work on making his society better, more civil, because this helps not just on the road but everywhere. Vigilantism will not work because the vigilante has no legal right to do what needs to be done. He would be probably the first and the only guy arrested, especially if he is unfortunate enough to photograph a car driven by an important official.
Rules of engagement? What the hell is this, Afghanistan? We don't have rules here in the US, we have laws
Soldiers are governed by RoE. Police is governed by laws. You can argue that use of the US Army on US soil is illegal in itself, good luck with that.
A camera is not a gun. It doesn't threaten the life of police, and it probably won't get you killed, no matter what.
That "probably" is not good enough - especially when dealing with soldiers. It only takes a misunderstanding. If a gun is pointed at you then a mechanical malfunction also can kill you. (That's why we are told to never point a gun at anything but intended targets, among other rules.)
Having a gun pointed at you is a pretty strong intimidation tactic [...] Some soldier driving out to meet you in a Hummer is probably NOT prepared to fire a weapon at a civilian photographer.
You'd bet your life on too many assumptions. You have no idea what are the rules of engagement. You have no idea what is there that they don't want you to take pictures of. You don't know if the soldier's trigger finger is itchy. And you don't know how the soldier perceives you - as a civilian photographer or as a terrorist who is about to blow up. Case in point - recent shooting of Eric Scott. Police was misinformed about the situation and came ready to kill, which they did.
[She] is only a communist by right of birth, and not by any conscious political affiliation
China, USSR and probably other countries had times when refusing to join the party was bad for your health - just as if the Spanish Inquisition unexpectedly visits you and asks to kiss the cross and recite a prayer. Those are nothing but tests for loyalty.
In better times rejecting the party would simply put an end to your career - even if you only dream of becoming a senior engineer at some point in the future, or perhaps of visiting a foreign country of Bulgaria as a tourist.
Weird huh?
There is indeed that primal fear of a beast. An unfounded fear would disappear over time, just like today most people aren't afraid of Hell or demons or whatever other scarecrow of the past one can think of. But fear of animals remains. Why? Because it is far from being unfounded. A dog will literally tear you apart, bit by bit. The dog hasn't signed the Geneva convention, haven't read the Constitution and swore no adherence to a human law.
I think a criminal in the situation that you depicted is clearly counting on the fact that the police officer is not going to execute him on the spot. (That happens only if you are unarmed and largely innocent.) So as long as he doesn't shoot, the LEO won't shoot either. The criminal has several options at this point - maybe he can escape now, maybe he can escape later, maybe his friends are coming, maybe the officer is injured, etc. In any case he doesn't risk much in a standoff, and the police also won't be taking risks as long as the suspect is cornered.
But if the LEO sends a dog, the criminal can't negotiate with the dog, and probably can't even kill it before it bites him. It's a force of nature, like a hurricane. You don't negotiate with a hurricane, you do your best to escape. In this case escape is possible only toward the police. Otherwise the dog will tear him into little pieces, and the police then just sweeps the remains into a small plastic bag and calls it a day. If a dog kills or maims him, there can be no lawsuit against that dog, especially if you are dead by then.
Many thieves aren't afraid of guns, but they ARE afraid of dogs. I guess there is just something primal about an animal with its gums slicked back ready to pounce that spooks them.
It's pretty hard to defend yourself against a determined dog. If there are several, things go downhill fast. Even a handgun is not a guaranteed way to disable an attacking dog; it might be on you in seconds.
Do the cops automatically jump to the conclusion that B owned the child porn?
They most likely start there, just because the computer is protected by a password that only the worker is supposed to know. A desk is not protected, as you note, so the accusation won't be that strong from the very beginning.
Or do they try to investigate further to establish how the material likely got there?
They have to. But there are very few competent computer forensics investigators, so the case will be dragging on for months. What, in your opinion, are job prospects of the accused during this time? Besides, the investigator may conclude that the files were stored "by undetermined piece of software running under $worker's credentials. That could be a browser, or an IM client, or Outlook...
Computers are literary no different and thoughts of equivalent magic shields around the computer's hard drive only impede justice.
Someone earlier commented that many computer crimes are investigated by officers who are nearing retirement. To them a computer is magic. Once the forensics report is in the case is solved. How would anyone even tell a difference between intentionally browsing the $evil_site.com or going to $innocent_site.org which was hacked the night before to include 1x1 pixel illegal pictures? How easy would it be to prepare a CD with autorun, load it into the victim's computer while it is locked, let it run and terminate, and remove the CD. [I don't know if a locked computer will start autorun, though.]
I personally would be escorted out of the building, and once in the street I'd go directly to a lawyer, with lots of evidence of wrongful termination. Gems like "you eat too much" would do wonders in front of the judge - but the company will settle before that. Guess who would be fired, and who gets his job back?
It was indeed difficult ... in 1980. You probably had access to a computer only at work. But today you are correct, it is much easier to carry your own computer in a pocket than to worry about encryption, IT and other such things.
I have a couple of personal files on my work computer; one of them is the desktop background, and the rest are of a similar nature. If anyone wants to read the latest HRO catalog, I have a copy there.
But to have a permanent sword of damocles dangling over the data by a thread...
Nobody suggests that you have your only copy of that data on the IronKey. Have the data at home, secured by whatever you want there, and carry a copy of files that you need on the IronKey. If you lose the IronKey, or it self-destructs, it only means, for example, that you can't manage your bank account from work today.
Sure you could spend 30k+ on laser tripwires and heat activated motion sensors, but deadbolts and a loud blasting alarm will work just as well against your average thief.
Laser beams and PIR motion sensors are used to silently alert you to the thief before the thief knows it. This gives you time to wake up, assess the situation, call 911, grab your firearms, etc. When a loud alarm starts screaming you should be already in position, ready to do whatever is appropriate. If you are asleep in bed when the siren starts, the attackers have an advantage - they can be in your bedroom just by the time when you wake up disoriented and scared.
Carpooling is actually quite enjoyable if you treat it properly
It would certainly help your case if you elaborate *why* it is enjoyable more than driving a personal vehicle. Can you stop at some place on a whim and go shopping? Can you have personal phone conversations? Can you play *your* favorite music (or radio) without bothering others?
you tell your wife that you can't run an errand for her because you carpooled with the neighbor.
And then the wife will be upset :-) Wives can become unhappy without any apparent reason, and here you provide an excellent reason :-) But most likely you will return home with your neighbor and *then* go out again to do that errand - if, for example, there is no food in the house. Some errands actually make sense and are necessary.
I work as a contractor now. My schedule is not known until I get a phone call from a company, and then I rush there to see what they need to do. Good luck finding a neighbor with identical schedule. I just can't afford to adhere to someone's else schedule.
Many people (nearly) come from and go to the same place as hundreds of other people.
There is not a single person in the whole world who comes and goes from the same places to the same places as I do, when I do. It's trivial to prove.
Obviously they do for you because you seem to be anti-social.
The best source of social behavior is an ant hill, not a human society. Ants cooperate because that's in their genes. Humans cooperate only when it is beneficial to them. Tell me how I will benefit from carpooling, and I will consider it. Note that fuel expenses are irrelevant, they are in the noise (I drive a Prius.)
Why wouldn't you save time and money by carpooling and using HOV lanes?
I could have gotten a HOV sticker. But I neither needed nor wanted it; I let other people have it - they might need it more than I do. With regard to money, savings on fuel and car mileage aren't even close to the cost of my freedom.
Studies indicate [that HOV] increase congestion even more by reducing the number of lanes available for most drivers and doing little or nothing to change carpooling habits.
A car is a personal vehicle, not a bus. I drive my car to where I want and when I want. I don't want to negotiate my plans with someone else.
For example, you took your neighbor to work in your car. Then your wife calls and tells you that you need to do an errand after work. Will you take your neighbor on a ride in a wrong (for him) direction and waste an hour or two of his time? If not, he has to take a taxi and spend 10x money on that ride than he'd spend on fuel for his own car.
Or even worse, it's not your wife who calls, it's the neighbor's wife. So will you volunteer your time, your fuel and your car's resource to go out of your way to some remote store to let him buy a bauble that you can't possibly care about?
California's HOVs are a tool to reshape public transportation habits. It doesn't work because these habits are what they are not because people are lazy, but because those habits make sense. If the city will provide a personal air taxi that can be summoned by a cell phone to any location, costs about as much as the personal car ride, and is always available, personal cars will largely disappear. But buses and trains, as they are, don't even come close to that.
A vacuum sealed container is necessary because the Prius is constantly starting and stopping its engine.
The Prius pumps the coolant to (and from) the thermos bottle only when you power the car down (or up.) It is not used when the ICE is stopped by the computer.