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  1. Re:If it was me on Copy-and-Paste Reveals Classified U.S. Documents · · Score: 1
    Well, it was probably an impromptu roadblock. So physical blocks were out.

    There are plenty of tyre puncturing strips that are foldable, specifically designed for police operations. Police officers can carry them in trunks of their cars, and when something happens they use these strips to block the escape routes. This sort of technology is around for what, 30 years at least... I can't imagine there would be no space in Humvee for a roll or two of those.

    not to disable cars but to check them, so puncture devices are out

    That's why they had that machine gun, right? They were not allowed to puncture tyres, but it's allright to puncture the passengers. Makes sense now...

    And if you give enough warning, well, people will likely go around, negating their effectiveness.

    I thought the whole idea of a roadblock is to turn cars around - like in, say, blocking the f-ng road...

    Since obviously you don't believe in this pet theory of mine, so what is, in your opinion, the measure of effectiveness of a roadblock? The number of spent cartridges, maybe? If so, it's not a roadblock any more, it's a death trap.

  2. Re:If it was me on Copy-and-Paste Reveals Classified U.S. Documents · · Score: 1

    I don't know about the green laser pointer, but when someone shines a 3 MEGACd light into your face it's kind of hard to miss. You'd probably think the Sun is rising on your nose, or maybe that someone exploded a thermonuclear grenade under the hood of your car. It's impossible to miss. Nevertheless the driver was chatting on the phone, kept driving (and stayed on the road, which indicates he wasn't blinded by any light whatsoever) and apparently had no knowledge of the ambush^Wcheckpoint until it was all upon him.

  3. Re:Itally is Showing It's Own Guilt on Copy-and-Paste Reveals Classified U.S. Documents · · Score: 1

    In war time and in war zone, premeditated killing of noncombatants is a war crime. Soldier(s) who killed people this way are on trial even right now, if you read news. Being in war zone does not give anyone a right to commit massacres just for fun of it.

  4. Re:Enlisted don't sign NDA's in the Army. on Copy-and-Paste Reveals Classified U.S. Documents · · Score: 1
    I'd be violating the NDA I signed upon my departure

    There is another interesting curiosity: security clearance is required prior to access to the classified material, not after :-) Even in business world you have to sign an NDA before you are given the materials.

  5. Re:No smoking gun? on Copy-and-Paste Reveals Classified U.S. Documents · · Score: 1
    if you live in a country that wasn't forced to throw out oppressors violently

    There are very few countries on this planet that were not forced to throw out oppressors violently at some point in time. Many countries did it fairly regularly, if not continuously, for hundreds of years.

    If you believe that the USA is so unique in being forced to fight a war or two, look at China, or European countries, and compare.

  6. Re:Itally is Showing It's Own Guilt on Copy-and-Paste Reveals Classified U.S. Documents · · Score: 1
    I think the guy killed in this case might have been a legitimate military target--if indeed, he was paying ransomes to get hostages.

    Since when it is a crime? And since when soldiers (and bloggers) became jury, judges and executioners, without a fair trial?

  7. Re:Profits from suing on RIAA File-Sharing Lawsuits Top 10,000 People Sued · · Score: 1

    It only takes 5 seconds of lawyer's time to sign the initial letter. If the client bites, then as someone else commented above, maybe an hour or two on the phone to explain to him why settling is good. This is not too expensive. Besides, this doesn't have to be a good lawyer - this is not a trial.

  8. Re:Nonsense. on Thin Client With OSS for Developing Nations · · Score: 1

    Will you have to pay the same tax on parts that go into the thin client? If it is more efficient to assemble computers locally, does it include standard PCs? There are usually many solutions.

  9. Re:FPGAs vs. SOCs on Thin Client With OSS for Developing Nations · · Score: 1

    There are no commercial programs to do that well :-)

  10. Re:Development begins at home on Thin Client With OSS for Developing Nations · · Score: 1

    Use friend's computer or find a public computer / cafe.

  11. Re:Windows or Linux, who cares? on Thin Client With OSS for Developing Nations · · Score: 1
    And just try to connect a roomful of W98 computers to a router and wait for the license sharks and viruses to arrive.

    People in all countries face this issue, not just in developing nations. Besides, Win98 with Firefox is probably more secure than WinXP with IE... Win98 has so few networking capabilities it may be safer than all the later UPnP bells & whistles :-)

  12. Windows or Linux, who cares? on Thin Client With OSS for Developing Nations · · Score: 0
    People who want a $100 computer probably don't care if their Windows is not exactly properly licensed (such as, installed from a CD bought for $1 at a street corner.) Linux or BSD does not help in this aspect.

    Furthermore, an old and cheap PC may not be good enough for a modern UNIX-like system, but an old Windows 95 system will be fine on it. Can we recommend Redhat 3.0 to anyone, going back in time? Can we suggest to run it in console mode only, without X? But Win98SE is not a bad choice, given the old PC in question. I still have Win98SE on an old notebook; it runs very snappy. But when I tried RH (8 or 9) on the same notebook it was visibly sluggish, and generally the usability of the system dropped.

  13. Re:How to solve these problems. on Spitzer Sues Intermix Media for Bundling Spyware · · Score: 4, Insightful
    It's not even just the time, it's whose time it is. Slip a DVD in, start the restore and walk away. Come back 30 minutes later and find the computer fully restored. This doesn't require much of human involvement, and even that is a SOP - and even then you know beforehand how long it will take and how well it will be done.

    Now compare that dumb restore to a manual repair. You have to be very well versed in spyware removal and must know where all the latest tripwires are installed (like the grandparent says.) I have more important things to do than to learn about malicious software, about every release of it. Also when you start you have no idea how long it will take and whether you will succeed, completely or partially. Also if there are many different spyware programs the repair time also grows - and finally how do you know that at some point no spyware is left? Only because you can't find any?

    If you are at home and have nothing else to do - sure, read about the spyware until your eyes start falling out, and then try to remove the thing - and once you fail, try and try again. But if you are in a business setting, just reimage the box in half an hour and be done with it.

  14. Re:Disturbing... on U.S. Wiretapping Surges 19% · · Score: 2, Interesting
    It doesn't have to be an evidence in a trial:

    Detective: You, boy, said last night to your friend that you stole the widget, and we have a tape to prove that! (plays the tape) You, boy, are in trouble - but if you take the following plea (introduces the plea) we will drop this charge...

    Prisoner: Oh, oh, I see your wisdom, Sir Officer, I confess... (confesses)

    The confession goes into the record and on trial, as well as the presentation of stolen widgets, recovered after the confession. The court never hears about the tape.

    There is, of course, the concept of the fruit of the poisoned tree, but it must be a fairly obvious path between the illegal action and the compromised evidence. For example, it must be shown that the detective would have never found the stolen widgets, with prisoner's fingerprints all over them, if he never had that tape. Even in this contrived example how can you prove that I won't dig under suspect's flower beds? What if I saw the soil as recently touched, for example? Even if I just imagined that?

  15. Re:pre-emptive lawsuit on Apple Sued over Tiger, Injunction Sought · · Score: 1

    Obviously they are not aluminum then, at such rotational speeds - more like diamond :-)

  16. Re:The Way To Get Nikon's Attention on Nikon Responds to Encryption Claims · · Score: 1
    Many posters indicated that Nikon has no legal basis for suing anyone for accessing the encrypted data. DMCA does not apply because you, the owner of the camera, own the copyrighted material. There is no foul play here, morally or however else.

    As I see it, the encrypted data is a trade secret, and as such it has not much of a legal protection.

  17. Re:The Way To Get Nikon's Attention on Nikon Responds to Encryption Claims · · Score: 1
    ...the only way to access your RAW files will be to buy Nikon Capture 4.0 for $100. Nothing else, anywhere, will do it.

    In other news, the only way to eat your canned soup is to buy a can opener for $1. Nothing else, anywhere, will do it :-)

    People who buy a $5,000 camera don't even have a $100 piece of software on their radar. It's all "tools and accessories", like a carrying bag or a tripod. Cheaper than those, in fact. It's all cost of doing business, and will be carefully written off at tax time.

  18. Re:How bona-fide am I? on Nikon Responds to Encryption Claims · · Score: 1
    Nikon does not want to give the SDK to just anyone; it would be completely useless. Also, as I understand it, Nikon wants you to request the SDK, and you most likely have to promise to not reverse engineer the product. Other than that, you will be then free to ship the redistributable SDK DLLs to your own customers.

    This is a very common practice when the software manufacturer won't give you the software until he knows who you are. At work we also don't give our demos to anyone who asks - just because we don't want to waste time on losers and then guide them through setup of the stuff and later on find out that they don't have the required hardware...

  19. Re:idiots on Nikon Responds to Encryption Claims · · Score: 1
    Nikon is very well known as a manufacturer of high-end cameras. Kodak is very well known as a manufacturer of good film. But since film is history now, Kodak tries to move to where it haven't moved into before - such as good cameras (Kodak always made consumer-level cameras.) This is exactly what Nikon does not want to promote.

    Besides, being Japanese, Nikon most definitely has some juicy technology here and there that a competitor would want to know about.

  20. Re:What's the deal? on What Happened to Simputer? · · Score: 1
    they can have the equivalent of a small library

    It would be useless on a small screen. Much better to have a bunch of books, at least you can share them easier.

    With regard to sharing, there is that theory that 100 poor people will buy one Simputer. However each will quickly realize that -he- can have it only for three days per year, on average - and so he can easily see it as an unwise choice. And what if/when it gets damaged or lost? Will -my- investment be ruined by that rabble? That's the question. It will take a lot of effort to have 100 people to donate, and even more debate and fingerpointing after that...

  21. Re:Moonbase Pluses on Site for Moon Base Determined · · Score: 1
    we really ought to do an uncrewed sample return mission, and find out for once and for all whether there's microbial life on Mars

    Because if the martian colonists discover martian microbial life, there will be a strong possibility of contamination, and regardless of whether it is outright fatal or seemingly benign the colonists will be probably barred from returning to Earth.

  22. Re:Moonbase Pluses on Site for Moon Base Determined · · Score: 1

    Silicon dioxide is just sand. Sand is a very hard material, which indicates strong chemical bonds between atoms. What is your magical formula for breaking apart one of the strongest minerals? To even begin with, you need plenty of energy for that. But how to apply this energy is another question. Are there any chemists in the house?

  23. Re:Always??? on Site for Moon Base Determined · · Score: 1
    It's just because navies have ships, captains and crew, which is kind of relevant.

    Besides, navies traditionally have better discipline, and keep their ships in order. You don't want to die in orbit around Rhea just because somebody's socks got sucked into the air recycler and set it on fire.

  24. Re:Finance: Money for Moon Base Unknown on Site for Moon Base Determined · · Score: 1

    Like this one, for example?

  25. Re: The devil's advocate on Linus Defends Proprietary File Formats [Updated] · · Score: 1
    I can imagine that a client software, that was developped only by reverse enginneering, has the potential to cause serious damage to his company.

    Larry should have put some simple authentication into the protocol if he is so much concerned. This would not be unreasonable at all. Then the key would need to be found and extracted from the binary, and that may be more than is normally accepted as proper.

    The (possible) fact that there is no authentication means that the BK server is stupid enough to allow anyone to connect and feed any random data into it. If so, it is highly unwise. Even CVS can use encrypted communication (like it is done at SourceForge.)