Actually, many of the hijackers presented
forged ID, and to this day we don't really
know who they are.
Furthermore, as many of them were in the country
on temporary visas, with a national ID there
might have been a way to root them out.
So do not pretend that there are absolutely no benefits to having a national ID.
Still there are drawbacks, and no it doesn't have to do with any silly 1984-type distopian fantasies. With a national ID used everywhere, all those lovely illegal immigrants from Latin America would be kicked out. Why is that bad? Because it would very quickly drive the U.S. into a full fledged depression. The U.S. needs its illegals just as much as they need us; it's just that we don't admit it to ourselves.
Just because the U.S. isn't being hypocritical dealing with the Taliban doesn't mean we aren't hypocrites in many other places.
Change your perspective.. Only about 10% of the people in Afghanistan are literate, so what percentage do you think speak English? The fact that he has that equipment, means that he can speak directly to the people in Afghanistan. He can lie to them, get them pissed at us, and we can't do anything about it yet.
We need to get in there and take over the T.V. stations, and put the King back in charge..
Actually, TV is outlawed by the Taliban. Osama Bin Ladin's message wasn't to the Afghani people (who largely dislike him), but to his sympathetic supporters in the rest of the Arab world.
I'm not so sure that's a good idea. I love the democracy part, but I don't want ANYONE with the power to subvert the country again. No Kings. No Mullahs. No Military.
During his original reign, the Afgahni King was a constitutional monarch; he was Head of Government, not Head of State. Exactly like Queen Elizabeth. He headed a democracy until it was overthrown.
Assume that one in one billion flyers, on average, is a terrorist. Is the software any good?
No. The software will generate 9,999 false alarms for every one real terrorist. And every false alarm still means that all the security people go through all of their security procedures. Because the population of non-terrorists is so much larger than the number of terrorists, the test is useless.
So let's get this straight:
Under the scenario presented, the software prevents all terrorists from boarding every plane.
Across the country there are about 10,000 false positives scattered throughout the 500-odd airports on a yearly basis (assuming a billion travellers a year).
This comes to about 20 false alarms per U.S. airport per year. Or about two false alarms per month. (Actually this is simplifying, it would really depend on the airport traffic - heavily used airports might get two or three per week, lightly used ones none at all.)
Wow. Security is really overwhelmed with this "boy who cried wolf" technology.
I'm not particularly impressed with the math
presented in the article.
Gangsters have tried this sort of defense time and time again. "Gee, your honor, I didn't
actually threaten him, I just said something
bad might happen to him! I meant he might get a heart attack if he didn't give me money. Honest!"
Sorry, but the real world doesn't work that way.
Bin Laden and the Taliban have declared Jihad - holy war - against America, and have openly recruited, trained, harbored, armed, coordinated, and financed their terrorists to make their barbarous attacks against us.
Despite your juvenile sophistry, these are not "THOUGHT CRIMES". They are not "thoughts"
but actions. Nor are they even crimes, furtive
acts committed by civilians for personal reasons. They are Acts Of War.
In wartime there are no "fair trials" that require
proof beyond a reasonable doubt. An enemy soldier
sitting in a machine gun nest gets no "trial" at all even if he never manages to fire off a shot. Even if he wouldn't have.
War is of course a very scary thing. But the
U.S. and its allies did not choose this. The
Taliban did.
You sound like a teenager still enamored with
how well you could twist your parent's rules into
a convenient excuse for something bad you or your friends did. What you may not realize is that your parents weren't fooled by this
kind of behavior. They were just waiting for
you to grow up. As am I.
A seatbelt system does not prevent every
death, but it has been categorically proven
to stop the majority of them. The cost
of seatbelts is minor.
A better automotive analogy for Bush's missile
system is adding a 440HP engine to a car without seatbelts on the theory that you could use it to accellerate your way out of danger.
Not only is the justification dubious, it is
likely to create a false sense of security, and
the money spent prevents you from spending
money on what would really protect you.
The proposed missile defense system has never
been shown to work except under rigged trials,
and costs trillions of dollars that would not
be spent on terrorist countermeasures, which
would be considerably more effective against
the kinds of attacks the U.S. faces.
Terrorists, like soldiers, must be trained to
be effective. Not everybody knows how to
penetrate international borders, hijack a plane, or build a bomb. In fact, trying to do so without training can be very dangerous to your health.
Deprive potential terrorists the necessary
means, logistical support, and training and
the most of the problem goes away. Don't believe
me? Israel has pursued a strategy of killing
Palestilian bomb makers, and now more Palestinians are dying trying to build or deliver bombs than ever get to the "suicide bombing" part.
Their attacks have become progressively less
effective.
The truth is that the U.S. has not been particularly aggressive going after regimes
that use terrorism. There are some economic
and travel restrictions on Lybia, Afghanistan, etc, but that's about it. The little the U.S.
does do is typically limited in scope and only
in "response" to terrorist acts. Almost none
of it is pro-active.
If the U.S. decides to seriously go after the
states that train, harbor, and encourage terrorists, terrorism will be reduced to a
tiny annoyance in short order. I am not
certain that even in the face of this abomination the
U.S. would pursue such an extended action, as it is always very reticent to commit its troops directly, but if it doesn't happen after this, it never will.
If congress wanted to, they could make a law which says "Microsoft Corporation shall be broken up".
Actually, no.
Such a specific law against
a specific corporation is called a Bill of
Attainder. The specific definition is: A legislative act that singles out an individual or group for punishment without a trial.
Bills of Attainder are specifically forbidden by the Constitution of the United States.
That's an easy one to answer.
Software companies don't back their products
because their customers don't expect them to.
Instead they expect low prices.
Bill Gates is a billionare because he was one
of the first people to realize that given a
choice between a $200 program that works flawlessly and a $99 program that fails 5% of
the time, most people (and businesses) will
choose the cheaper product (while moaning how
bad software is).
Note that this isn't the case in all
software markets. Banking and T.V. are both
industries which I've worked in, in which
customers actually demand quality. If it's
crap, they won't buy it no matter how cheap it
is.
Funny enough, Microsoft is not in either
business - and not for lack of trying.
The reason why MS can't be held responsible
is that manufacturers are not responsible
for deliberate illegal misuse of their products.
Ford and Firestone got into trouble because
people attempting emergency maneuvers, or just
driving on a hot day, could have a tire blow
leading to a rollover. They wouldn't
have been in trouble if the failures only occurred when a crook deliberately targeted
the tires with a gun.
Manufacturers are not legally responsible for
making their products "bullet proof" - unless
they specifically contractually agree to do so.
It's the criminal himself who is liable.
This, by the way is also true for firearms, which is why you can't generally sue a gun manufacturer
when someone murders a family member with their
product. Only if they knowingly sold the product
to someone who was likely to commit a crime (a felon or violent paranoic) do you have a prayer
of a chance against them in American courts.
Printing derogatory information about a
company is not illegal manipulation so long
as the information is both publicly available
and true in the full sense of the term (lying by
omission might still get you in trouble). You can even sell "short" and do this. It's hazy legal grounds whether you have to disclose your
interests when making such recommendations.
Both you and the people who modded you up
need need to go back and retake some of your
high school civics courses.
The President
doesn't just "eventually sign the bill", he
also has the ability to veto it. He also has
the ability to control administrative policy.
All of this gives him emormous leverage over
Congress, because he can threaten
to veto bills that are highly important to the districts (and thus careers) of individual Congressmen, unless
they give him what he wants.
Even in the highly divided Congress we have
today, Congress gave Bush most of what he asked
for. Clinton was even more effective, considering
he faced hostile majorities in both houses.
Whether you are cheering for NASA's demise, or reacting in horror to their budgetary problems, this was Bush's decision. (Or someone he
delegated it to.)
Having a combined 10 patents and
patents pending, I think I have some
perspective on this.
The best change to the prior-art system
would be to open up potential patents for
examination by the public before they are
granted, and give some limited public comment
time for identification of prior art in the
public domain. (Please note, prior art not in the public domain is a whole
different kettle of fish, I won't go into here.)
That said, such a change in the system would
certainly exceed the authority of the USPO to do on its own. It would have to be done as an act of Congress.
Within the limited scope of just database
management issues, I think the USPO could
reasonably argue that Web Search Engines
are extremely useful in finding prior art, and
that at the very least, these should be consulted
prior to issuing any patent.
There are actually a host of other data
gathering mechanisms that aren't http based
that the USPO could also use as data sources
for prior art. I think these could be adopted
within the normal bounds of federal administrative
guidelines.
Re:Real risks with this expirement
on
Star In A Jar
·
· Score: 3
Dark matter accretes. This means that when it comes into contact with normal matter, it transforms it into dark matter too. This is unstoppable.
If this was true, why aren't all
stars "dark matter"? Our own atoms (above
Iron in weight) were forged in a supernova.
By your "facts", we should all be dark matter
now.
If you are really a physics major, Mr. "Physics Major", I would have expected you to know this.
Haha, explain to me how you justify that? Speech is being intercepted, checked for "vulgarity", and if there is "vulgarity" in it, it is stopped. That's censorship, and censorship does not equal free speech.
Spoken like a true spammer.
Free speech includes the idea that people can
freely explain to others what they think about
someone else's speech (or media). If someone decides to say (in their opinion) something is "vulgar", "offensive", "inappropriate for minors", "spam" or any other pejoritave thing, they have the right to do so, even (or especially) when others will use that
opinion to organize a boycott.
Your right to free speech does not include
any special right to use other people's
property to promulgate it, as spammers learn
every day.
The ratings system is nothing more than a boycott
by the MPAA of any theater that does not
follow its rules. The rules are a boycott of
showing certain films to minors. No police are involved, except when minors criminally trasspass.
Next question?
As a parent of an almost 11 year old, I
also read The Morality Police, and
while it did say some things I agreed with,
the author had some very wierd views of the law.
Specifically, the MPAA ratings system is not
an "unconstitutional restriction of free speech",
it is free speech - in the form of an
economically enforced blacklist. X-rated theaters aren't illegal, it's just that Walt Disney and all other MPAA members won't license their films to be shown
at one. This is nearly identical to the
approach of anti-spam lists, including the RTBL.
So far as raising your daughter is concerned,
repeat after me: the net is no different
than any other medium.
You need to stay involved in your daughters
life no matter what her interests are, and while
your opinions won't be absolutely followed all
the time like it was when she was 5, they are
still the extremely important. Try not to
be judgemental, but also be clear to point out
the consequences that can occur from bad choices
on her part.
Despite media hype about the internet, the #1
killer of teenagers - that just about dwarfs all
others - is drunk driving. Telling her not
to get in a car with a drunk boy is more likely to keep her out of harms way than any other advice
I could give you.
They could, but they normally wouldn't.
It's far too risky.
Why? Because if you were growing tomatos
there, or had a really snazzed out aquarium
setup (especially a coral reef one) they could
get a false positive. Busting into your house
to find out you had nothing would garner all
sorts of media attention. Worse, the judge
who had been lied to would start asking some
very very hard questions.
Police do not typically risk their careers over
such trivial violations.
True, but at that point you're talking
about a physical object someone has to get
access too. Your palm is now a "key", and
have to keep track of it like you would your
car keys.
For the truly paranoid, I suppose you could
write a Palm app that did both. That is, it
generated a pseudo-random password ORed with
some encryped code derived from a password you
had to enter every time. Thieves who
stole your Palm wouldn't be able to access your
server without the password. (They'd just
have your $300 Palm)
So your gnuPassport couldn't be used on sites which only recognize Microsoft's Passport.
True, now what incentive would companies
other than Microsoft have to not
support "gnuPassport" ?
The analogy is very similar to web browsers.
Through various mechanisms MS did win the browser
wars. Yet all sites support divergent browsers.
Hell, even slate.msn.com supports Netscape.
...and no, they don't do this by sticking
to HTML1.0 either.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, many of the hijackers presented forged ID, and to this day we don't really know who they are.
Furthermore, as many of them were in the country on temporary visas, with a national ID there might have been a way to root them out. So do not pretend that there are absolutely no benefits to having a national ID.
Still there are drawbacks, and no it doesn't have to do with any silly 1984-type distopian fantasies. With a national ID used everywhere, all those lovely illegal immigrants from Latin America would be kicked out. Why is that bad? Because it would very quickly drive the U.S. into a full fledged depression. The U.S. needs its illegals just as much as they need us; it's just that we don't admit it to ourselves.
Just because the U.S. isn't being hypocritical dealing with the Taliban doesn't mean we aren't hypocrites in many other places.
Actually, TV is outlawed by the Taliban. Osama Bin Ladin's message wasn't to the Afghani people (who largely dislike him), but to his sympathetic supporters in the rest of the Arab world.
During his original reign, the Afgahni King was a constitutional monarch; he was Head of Government, not Head of State. Exactly like Queen Elizabeth. He headed a democracy until it was overthrown.
From the article:
So let's get this straight:
Under the scenario presented, the software prevents all terrorists from boarding every plane.
Across the country there are about 10,000 false positives scattered throughout the 500-odd airports on a yearly basis (assuming a billion travellers a year).
This comes to about 20 false alarms per U.S. airport per year. Or about two false alarms per month. (Actually this is simplifying, it would really depend on the airport traffic - heavily used airports might get two or three per week, lightly used ones none at all.)
Wow. Security is really overwhelmed with this "boy who cried wolf" technology.
I'm not particularly impressed with the math presented in the article.
Gangsters have tried this sort of defense time and time again. "Gee, your honor, I didn't actually threaten him, I just said something bad might happen to him! I meant he might get a heart attack if he didn't give me money. Honest!"
Sorry, but the real world doesn't work that way. Bin Laden and the Taliban have declared Jihad - holy war - against America, and have openly recruited, trained, harbored, armed, coordinated, and financed their terrorists to make their barbarous attacks against us.
Despite your juvenile sophistry, these are not "THOUGHT CRIMES". They are not "thoughts" but actions. Nor are they even crimes, furtive acts committed by civilians for personal reasons. They are Acts Of War.
In wartime there are no "fair trials" that require proof beyond a reasonable doubt. An enemy soldier sitting in a machine gun nest gets no "trial" at all even if he never manages to fire off a shot. Even if he wouldn't have.
War is of course a very scary thing. But the U.S. and its allies did not choose this. The Taliban did.
You sound like a teenager still enamored with how well you could twist your parent's rules into a convenient excuse for something bad you or your friends did. What you may not realize is that your parents weren't fooled by this kind of behavior. They were just waiting for you to grow up. As am I.
A seatbelt system does not prevent every death, but it has been categorically proven to stop the majority of them. The cost of seatbelts is minor.
A better automotive analogy for Bush's missile system is adding a 440HP engine to a car without seatbelts on the theory that you could use it to accellerate your way out of danger.
Not only is the justification dubious, it is likely to create a false sense of security, and the money spent prevents you from spending money on what would really protect you.
The proposed missile defense system has never been shown to work except under rigged trials, and costs trillions of dollars that would not be spent on terrorist countermeasures, which would be considerably more effective against the kinds of attacks the U.S. faces.
It's a lot easier than many people think.
Terrorists, like soldiers, must be trained to be effective. Not everybody knows how to penetrate international borders, hijack a plane, or build a bomb. In fact, trying to do so without training can be very dangerous to your health.
Deprive potential terrorists the necessary means, logistical support, and training and the most of the problem goes away. Don't believe me? Israel has pursued a strategy of killing Palestilian bomb makers, and now more Palestinians are dying trying to build or deliver bombs than ever get to the "suicide bombing" part. Their attacks have become progressively less effective.
The truth is that the U.S. has not been particularly aggressive going after regimes that use terrorism. There are some economic and travel restrictions on Lybia, Afghanistan, etc, but that's about it. The little the U.S. does do is typically limited in scope and only in "response" to terrorist acts. Almost none of it is pro-active.
If the U.S. decides to seriously go after the states that train, harbor, and encourage terrorists, terrorism will be reduced to a tiny annoyance in short order. I am not certain that even in the face of this abomination the U.S. would pursue such an extended action, as it is always very reticent to commit its troops directly, but if it doesn't happen after this, it never will.
Actually, no.
Such a specific law against a specific corporation is called a Bill of Attainder. The specific definition is: A legislative act that singles out an individual or group for punishment without a trial.
Bills of Attainder are specifically forbidden by the Constitution of the United States.
That's an easy one to answer. Software companies don't back their products because their customers don't expect them to. Instead they expect low prices.
Bill Gates is a billionare because he was one of the first people to realize that given a choice between a $200 program that works flawlessly and a $99 program that fails 5% of the time, most people (and businesses) will choose the cheaper product (while moaning how bad software is).
Note that this isn't the case in all software markets. Banking and T.V. are both industries which I've worked in, in which customers actually demand quality. If it's crap, they won't buy it no matter how cheap it is.
Funny enough, Microsoft is not in either business - and not for lack of trying.
The reason why MS can't be held responsible is that manufacturers are not responsible for deliberate illegal misuse of their products.
Ford and Firestone got into trouble because people attempting emergency maneuvers, or just driving on a hot day, could have a tire blow leading to a rollover. They wouldn't have been in trouble if the failures only occurred when a crook deliberately targeted the tires with a gun.
Manufacturers are not legally responsible for making their products "bullet proof" - unless they specifically contractually agree to do so. It's the criminal himself who is liable.
This, by the way is also true for firearms, which is why you can't generally sue a gun manufacturer when someone murders a family member with their product. Only if they knowingly sold the product to someone who was likely to commit a crime (a felon or violent paranoic) do you have a prayer of a chance against them in American courts.
In this slashdot article by a slashdot reader.
The reader, being a Microsoft employeee, received a mostly negative response, whereas responses to this article are getting mostly positive reviews.
Funny how much acceptance of the message is affected by who the messenger happens to be.
Printing derogatory information about a company is not illegal manipulation so long as the information is both publicly available and true in the full sense of the term (lying by omission might still get you in trouble). You can even sell "short" and do this. It's hazy legal grounds whether you have to disclose your interests when making such recommendations.
The idea is perfectly acceptable.
Both you and the people who modded you up need need to go back and retake some of your high school civics courses.
The President doesn't just "eventually sign the bill", he also has the ability to veto it. He also has the ability to control administrative policy. All of this gives him emormous leverage over Congress, because he can threaten to veto bills that are highly important to the districts (and thus careers) of individual Congressmen, unless they give him what he wants.
Even in the highly divided Congress we have today, Congress gave Bush most of what he asked for. Clinton was even more effective, considering he faced hostile majorities in both houses.
Whether you are cheering for NASA's demise, or reacting in horror to their budgetary problems, this was Bush's decision. (Or someone he delegated it to.)
Oh wait, you mean stuff that's true?
You will at least need a skin that makes it look like Excel. (Just like MS did to WP, etc.) Are there any plans for this?
Having a combined 10 patents and patents pending, I think I have some perspective on this.
The best change to the prior-art system would be to open up potential patents for examination by the public before they are granted, and give some limited public comment time for identification of prior art in the public domain. (Please note, prior art not in the public domain is a whole different kettle of fish, I won't go into here.)
That said, such a change in the system would certainly exceed the authority of the USPO to do on its own. It would have to be done as an act of Congress.
Within the limited scope of just database management issues, I think the USPO could reasonably argue that Web Search Engines are extremely useful in finding prior art, and that at the very least, these should be consulted prior to issuing any patent.
There are actually a host of other data gathering mechanisms that aren't http based that the USPO could also use as data sources for prior art. I think these could be adopted within the normal bounds of federal administrative guidelines.
If this was true, why aren't all stars "dark matter"? Our own atoms (above Iron in weight) were forged in a supernova. By your "facts", we should all be dark matter now.
If you are really a physics major, Mr. "Physics Major", I would have expected you to know this.
Spoken like a true spammer.
Free speech includes the idea that people can freely explain to others what they think about someone else's speech (or media). If someone decides to say (in their opinion) something is "vulgar", "offensive", "inappropriate for minors", "spam" or any other pejoritave thing, they have the right to do so, even (or especially) when others will use that opinion to organize a boycott.
Your right to free speech does not include any special right to use other people's property to promulgate it, as spammers learn every day.
The ratings system is nothing more than a boycott by the MPAA of any theater that does not follow its rules. The rules are a boycott of showing certain films to minors. No police are involved, except when minors criminally trasspass. Next question?
As a parent of an almost 11 year old, I also read The Morality Police, and while it did say some things I agreed with, the author had some very wierd views of the law.
Specifically, the MPAA ratings system is not an "unconstitutional restriction of free speech", it is free speech - in the form of an economically enforced blacklist. X-rated theaters aren't illegal, it's just that Walt Disney and all other MPAA members won't license their films to be shown at one. This is nearly identical to the approach of anti-spam lists, including the RTBL.
So far as raising your daughter is concerned, repeat after me: the net is no different than any other medium.
You need to stay involved in your daughters life no matter what her interests are, and while your opinions won't be absolutely followed all the time like it was when she was 5, they are still the extremely important. Try not to be judgemental, but also be clear to point out the consequences that can occur from bad choices on her part.
Despite media hype about the internet, the #1 killer of teenagers - that just about dwarfs all others - is drunk driving. Telling her not to get in a car with a drunk boy is more likely to keep her out of harms way than any other advice I could give you.
They could, but they normally wouldn't. It's far too risky.
Why? Because if you were growing tomatos there, or had a really snazzed out aquarium setup (especially a coral reef one) they could get a false positive. Busting into your house to find out you had nothing would garner all sorts of media attention. Worse, the judge who had been lied to would start asking some very very hard questions.
Police do not typically risk their careers over such trivial violations.
It's already there:
I run across this meta-moderating all the time.
True, but at that point you're talking about a physical object someone has to get access too. Your palm is now a "key", and have to keep track of it like you would your car keys.
For the truly paranoid, I suppose you could write a Palm app that did both. That is, it generated a pseudo-random password ORed with some encryped code derived from a password you had to enter every time. Thieves who stole your Palm wouldn't be able to access your server without the password. (They'd just have your $300 Palm)
Again this is just a few lawyers trolling using the court system.
Remember you can file just about any suit you want. It's not getting it laughed out of court that's the hard part.
Culture is the quintessence of "public domain". This will go nowhere fast, unless LEGO decides the 'bad publicity' is more costly than just giving in.
True, now what incentive would companies other than Microsoft have to not support "gnuPassport" ?
The analogy is very similar to web browsers. Through various mechanisms MS did win the browser wars. Yet all sites support divergent browsers. Hell, even slate.msn.com supports Netscape.
This technology will fail.
While it is somewhat convenient, it isn't as convenient as credit cards. While it is somewhat anonymous, it isn't as anonymous as cash.
Besides anonymity is pretty much guaranteed under european law. Private mechanisms to ensure that aren't necessary in that kind of environment.