E-gold is an online currency service that is backed up by gold. You cannot buy directly from them though, you have to buy through a redistributor, some of which are questionable and only takes certain forms of payment. The nature of the having a third party buy from egold and then sell to another person creates a web of denial effect for money launderes. One of the largest schemes e-gold is used for is in the credit card theft hacker rings, where it is easy to get credit card info, it is harder to "cash out". This is where "cashiers" come in, usually charging a 50 point take on cashing out for someone else. Egold, since it was in a different country, denies US Government requests for transaction records for accounts. E-gold may be in trouble, but for every e-gold there is another replacement, e-platinum, webmoney, and large handful of others. Oh yeah, btw, I didnt RTFA either, I just thought Id share what I know about e-gold, and I might be wrong about some of it.
Well, Ive only been drinkin buddies with some Royal Marines, never any SAS. (Headgear swap for souvenir anyone?) I never had any issue with their ability. What I have had an Issue with is their cocky attitude (which coming from a Marine is sorta the pot calling the kettle black, but they are a bit over the top) I have a good example: 3 Marines and 2 Seals are hanging out at a Mall in an undefined Arab country. Stuff happens (people dont like Americans anymore, even though Im such a nice guy), long story short, the seal gets deported, and me and my buddies didnt. I tried to warn him. Seals fail at not drawing attention to themselves.
Don't enable any audio program you use to automatically download codecs. Use third-party trusted codec packs, or better yet, use VLC!
As for Joe Schmo internet user, he is just fsked anyway, and probably already has more trojans on his PC than I've ever had on my... um.... usb dongle?
When I was trying out for Force Recon, I was trying to explain to a civilian friend what they did, and I compared them to the navy seals. My friend laughed and said "no way Force Recon is similar to the seals." While not many Marines have, I have worked with seals, and my conclusion is this: "If you take someone with the right mental willpower to learn things and the right physical dedication, the only difference is the kind of training you give him." Basically, though seals are much more amphibious and deal much more with explosives, the only difference between Sgt. Kill in the infantry and that guy is the amount and quality of training given to him. It costs an awful lot to train people, especially the more "awesome" the training is. So if you took a good Marine and trained him to be Batman, I think it would only take a couple years, tops. Enter the Batman Batallion, ooo, I crack myself up sometimes...
So Vista, Word, and Google Desktop make truecrypt less viable? Im Shocked I tell you! Shocked.
Please..If you are serious about using truecrypt please tell me that you are savy enough to know how to get around some of these holes. Googledesktop?-aka, I spy on everyone and read your brain desktop? Its like saying my iron has a security hole if someone installs a hardware keylogger on my system. Duh! But just because Schneier is involved, the hacking gods must bow and agree with every word he says. Anyway, now Im rambling, but I use truecrypt only on my secure linux box, which doesnt have these problems. I hide all my stuff that would get me into lots of trouble if!@#@!#%T^GD no carrier
And this is only one example. It seems to me that there are too many business that are taking advantage of the average "I know what Im doing because I use myspace all the time" kinds of users. Facebook, google, myspace, these are all things that from the early days I warned people were dangerous. I even fell into the trap and created a myspace once, with no correct info, but even with just a real picture of me, it made me nervous. What I've concluded (quite obviously)is if there is a internet service out there that is free from a large corporation, odds are that they are doing something fishy.
This is where learning how to have alternate identities online comes in handy. I personally have been having a harder and harder time with this as I grow in the tech business. Its hard when people expect your email to be firstname.lastname.social@mybusiness.com.
So what should the solution be then? Well, I dont know, but I do think that better regulations on pre-service registration disclosure (and not in tiny text EULAs) would help a lot. Also, as always, punishments for mis-leading deliberatly consumers. Just my -2 cents.
The modern countries that rely so heavily on credit systems underestimate this vulnerability as a whole to the economy. With companies not taking the proper precautions, and Pvt. schmuckately looking at pr0n while online banking, there needs to be A) more awareness raised by the government(or anyone for that matter) B) stricter regulations for companies holding sensitive data, and hence stricter punishment. Im no expert of course, but that just a couple ideas. One thing I worry about though is somehow this whole mess is going to get turned into some 1984 shit were the government has to monitor all credit activity for "our own good".
Actually, I have a funny story. For Marines in Iraq movies get passed around on HD's alot. Me and some buddies had a 320g external hd at the time. Well, one day theyre watching Lost and we get attacked, I jump down and kick the cord. We all watched in Tivo slomo while the poor thing went all the 3 feet from desk to floor. It even had the entire album of some of my fancy themselves rappers friends. They blamed me, I blamed them for stringing a 10 foot usb to the laptop (which was hooked to a projector, its funny what you can get in the middle of nowhere when you know the supply officer)and the terrorist blamed the hard-drive. We lost over 200 movies, and SSD just might have stopped the whole thing, and now im ranting, but theres one of my war stories, buy me beer/scotch if you want more/better ones.
We need X number of women in congress at all times! They can even sync their cycles and then we could have a good reason to watch cspan. (rabid mob of congresswomen attack capitol hill, more news at ten anybody?) Congress allows stuff like FISA without the blink of an eye, why is anyone/. suprised, or for that matter, why would you think congress even really cares. Viva la revolution!/end crazy talk (got bit by a congresswomen)
Boils down to a couple of things: Reliability = Good, Speed = Good, Space = Fair , Cost = Why can't I pirate this! Damn, but that would be "stealing".
When the cost goes down and the size comes up a bit, Ill be ready to buy one.
First, let me say that I have not seen the movie, but since this whole discussion has turned into more about evolution vs creationism, I will take the bait.
Despite not having seen the movie, one thing that I think it may try to address is not that sciences theory is wrong, but too narrow-minded. Evolution may be part of the formula, and so also might creationism. Science, supposing to be unbiased and neutral, seems to me to not be looking at any other possibilities and to only want to test a singe theory until they can prove it.
Warning: a bit long-winded, but interesting read ahead.
My personal believes don't prevent me from being open to new ideas, and just recently a friend has opened my eyes to some other possibilities. I looked up and did some very light research into what he was saying, and I find it very intriguing. He was telling me about the oldest civilizations, generally considered to be sumer, aka the Sumerian's, and what they believed in regards to creationism and religion. Seeing as it was one of the oldest religions, there is a lot to be learned from the study of it. They spoke of Annunaki, strange creature-gods who mad man to serve them. The Sumerian's also have been believed by some to have known details about the solar system that science didn't discover till much later. This is also one place where the infamous 12th planet,"Planet X" theories come from, a scroll cylinder that had a depiction of the solar system with 12 planets in the orbit of the sun. Annunaki, translated means "Those who from heaven to earth came." I find this interesting, because the bible talks about nephilim,(which also means those who from heaven to earth came) or giants, the offspring of angels.
Anyway, getting a bit long winded, but to sum it up, there are plenty of people that believe that these "Gods" in Sumer, and these "sons of angels" in the bible, and the "gods" who created man in the mayan myths, may actually be.. gasp...aliens.
Assuming there is another race in the universe that is extremely technologically advanced, it is possible that they have such mastery of DNA and such to "create" humans. Sounds far fetched I know, but it is just one example of the many alternative theories that I'm sure exist to creationism and evolutionism that both scientists and religious people seem to cast to the side.
Regardless, I think the point of the movie should not be that one is right and one is wrong, but how close minded both theories can be.
According to researchers of Our Mother You Tube, offensive action by spy submarines of aliens have decided to cut the many millions of cables that run from YouTube Island to the rest of the world. The US is claiming a couple of fishing ships dragged their anchors over the cables. UK says they have new training for the SAS where they can swim to depths of 10 miles with no scuba gear and do top secret *****. Tinfoil hats are being sold in the streets of Japan (hey it called style!). Porn Popups run rampant and take over the interwebs. Tubes are being lost left and right. I am an alien posting this to inform you poor souls, because it is the precursor to alien invasion and if I get caught warning you then no telling what will #$^(@#*% NO CARRIER
Being a recently honorably discharged Marine, I can tell you that for civilians, the main application of this could be self defense. On the military scale though, bright lights (usually surefires, but some knock-offs make it in there) are extremely useful in combat and hostage/raid situations. Imagine being an terrorist in your house at night (prime times for raids) and all of a sudden you have the sun in your face, its disorienting and could make you that many more seconds slow to reach for your AK and too late your zip tied up already. Done it a handful of times myself, and it works. But this flashlight seems to be too big for mounting on a rifle and I didn't see any attachments for it, so maybe its just a novelty value? Regardless, I dont see much value other than some sort of offensive (combat) or defensive (shine light in robbers eyes while hubby gets the gun) applications.
does this seem like making a vhs that can hold 40 hours of video? Cd/DVDs are on the beginning slope of the trash shute, SSD and other technologies are the things up and coming. But on the other hand dvd, Hddvd and bluray are here to, so who knows, but if it were me Id be working on an organic memory cube that measures the size of my fingernail and that I can download the contents of my brain onto...
I for one welcome our brain downloading overlords?
Having spent time in Iraq (as a Marine) dealing with systems marked with all kinds of stickers telling you what they were for, I can tell you that even on "Secret" computers, tech security is a joke militarily. Why?, because information on the battlespace is key, and when your in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of POGs (People Other than Grunts) in some air conditioned tent controlling your username/password access to a SIPR machine, and you need access to SIPR, it causes all kinds of trouble. In Iraq/Afghanistan the systems are run by the undertrained overworked IT POG, and CONUS things are run by NMCI which takes its time and doesn't give a shit about your issues. Basically, the military is all about a balance between usability and security, and MACs, except for the IT guys, are going to be as useful as a brick to the people that actually use and need the system, aka Sgt. Grunt.(remember that especially during times of war, if your not a ground pounder, then your are there to support the groundpounder)/end infantry soapbox
A lot of judges don't know squat about computers, and prosecutors are obviously notorious for spinning things to look as evil as possible, and just because you don't have any porn of any kind on you computer(you must buy magazines and hide them from your wife), millions of other people do, hence, why I said/. ers wouldn't have this problem, but joe schmo might.
Another point of interest might be joe schmo and malicious ad ware, where he goes to one porn site that starts a million pop ups of kiddie porn or something. Which begs the question, Is it illegal to not be aware of what your computer is doing? Again, you and I don't have these kinds of issues because we use *nix and any browser that is not IE, people like you and I don't take our computers to repair shops, but I know of cases where the "child porn" on a persons computer was there because of looking at legal porn and the questionable management of the legal site.
And once again, I am not defending child porn perusers or distributors, as I hate them just as much as you, but I'm trying to bring to light that in theory at least, just because you "might" (talking about cases that are close to the line aka 17yrs vs 18yrs) have child porn on your computer, doesn't mean you like it or looked for it or have even seen it before. Please don't limit the conversation to how special you are, but to how other people aren't.
Now I'm not defending child porn, but having lawyer friends that have dealt with this sort of thing a couple of times. (A computer is being searched for a document pertaining to something else and "child porn" is found.) Talking to them what seems to happen at least some of the time is that Pvt. Smuckatelly goes to google and types "porn" then browses around porn websites (which is dangerous enough in itself) is happy, and leaves. What he didn't realize is one of those sites that said "must be 18+ to enter, didn't actually have 18+ porn stars, and he couldn't tell the difference.(can you tell the difference between a 17yr old and a 18yr old?) So either these files end up in a temp space or saved, all the while he thinks they are legit 18+ files. But wait, the media gets a hold of the story, and a man is labeled perverted for looking at so called "child porn" etc etc.
Now I know everyone on/. are geniuses and all, but how many of you "might" not have cleared your temp folders and "might" unknowingly have child pron on your HD? Not many, but the regular idiot computer user is just that, an Idiot. Of course this is not always or even usually the case, but I'm just saying, its possible.
But as for the people producing child porn, they should die a thousand horrible deaths.
Howdy all, been on/. for while but just registered and is my first post so bear with me.
Maybe it has been addressed before but does anyone else know if some sort of pre-blog reading fine print (saying everything within is opinion and the reader must agree to not take legal action before continuing) could prevent lawsuits on a blog?
Just a thought.
Slashdot Mirror
E-gold is an online currency service that is backed up by gold. You cannot buy directly from them though, you have to buy through a redistributor, some of which are questionable and only takes certain forms of payment. The nature of the having a third party buy from egold and then sell to another person creates a web of denial effect for money launderes. One of the largest schemes e-gold is used for is in the credit card theft hacker rings, where it is easy to get credit card info, it is harder to "cash out". This is where "cashiers" come in, usually charging a 50 point take on cashing out for someone else. Egold, since it was in a different country, denies US Government requests for transaction records for accounts. E-gold may be in trouble, but for every e-gold there is another replacement, e-platinum, webmoney, and large handful of others. Oh yeah, btw, I didnt RTFA either, I just thought Id share what I know about e-gold, and I might be wrong about some of it.
http://www.somethingawful.com/d/your-band-sucks/radiohead-sucks.php I always enjoy it when other people wittily smash other people! Thats entertainment.
Well, Ive only been drinkin buddies with some Royal Marines, never any SAS. (Headgear swap for souvenir anyone?) I never had any issue with their ability. What I have had an Issue with is their cocky attitude (which coming from a Marine is sorta the pot calling the kettle black, but they are a bit over the top) I have a good example: 3 Marines and 2 Seals are hanging out at a Mall in an undefined Arab country. Stuff happens (people dont like Americans anymore, even though Im such a nice guy), long story short, the seal gets deported, and me and my buddies didnt. I tried to warn him. Seals fail at not drawing attention to themselves.
Don't enable any audio program you use to automatically download codecs. Use third-party trusted codec packs, or better yet, use VLC! As for Joe Schmo internet user, he is just fsked anyway, and probably already has more trojans on his PC than I've ever had on my... um.... usb dongle?
When I was trying out for Force Recon, I was trying to explain to a civilian friend what they did, and I compared them to the navy seals. My friend laughed and said "no way Force Recon is similar to the seals." While not many Marines have, I have worked with seals, and my conclusion is this: "If you take someone with the right mental willpower to learn things and the right physical dedication, the only difference is the kind of training you give him." Basically, though seals are much more amphibious and deal much more with explosives, the only difference between Sgt. Kill in the infantry and that guy is the amount and quality of training given to him. It costs an awful lot to train people, especially the more "awesome" the training is. So if you took a good Marine and trained him to be Batman, I think it would only take a couple years, tops. Enter the Batman Batallion, ooo, I crack myself up sometimes...
Meant to say ironkey =)
So Vista, Word, and Google Desktop make truecrypt less viable? Im Shocked I tell you! Shocked. Please..If you are serious about using truecrypt please tell me that you are savy enough to know how to get around some of these holes. Googledesktop?-aka, I spy on everyone and read your brain desktop? Its like saying my iron has a security hole if someone installs a hardware keylogger on my system. Duh! But just because Schneier is involved, the hacking gods must bow and agree with every word he says. Anyway, now Im rambling, but I use truecrypt only on my secure linux box, which doesnt have these problems. I hide all my stuff that would get me into lots of trouble if!@#@!#%T^GD no carrier
And this is only one example. It seems to me that there are too many business that are taking advantage of the average "I know what Im doing because I use myspace all the time" kinds of users. Facebook, google, myspace, these are all things that from the early days I warned people were dangerous. I even fell into the trap and created a myspace once, with no correct info, but even with just a real picture of me, it made me nervous. What I've concluded (quite obviously)is if there is a internet service out there that is free from a large corporation, odds are that they are doing something fishy. This is where learning how to have alternate identities online comes in handy. I personally have been having a harder and harder time with this as I grow in the tech business. Its hard when people expect your email to be firstname.lastname.social@mybusiness.com. So what should the solution be then? Well, I dont know, but I do think that better regulations on pre-service registration disclosure (and not in tiny text EULAs) would help a lot. Also, as always, punishments for mis-leading deliberatly consumers. Just my -2 cents.
The modern countries that rely so heavily on credit systems underestimate this vulnerability as a whole to the economy. With companies not taking the proper precautions, and Pvt. schmuckately looking at pr0n while online banking, there needs to be A) more awareness raised by the government(or anyone for that matter) B) stricter regulations for companies holding sensitive data, and hence stricter punishment. Im no expert of course, but that just a couple ideas. One thing I worry about though is somehow this whole mess is going to get turned into some 1984 shit were the government has to monitor all credit activity for "our own good".
Actually, I have a funny story. For Marines in Iraq movies get passed around on HD's alot. Me and some buddies had a 320g external hd at the time. Well, one day theyre watching Lost and we get attacked, I jump down and kick the cord. We all watched in Tivo slomo while the poor thing went all the 3 feet from desk to floor. It even had the entire album of some of my fancy themselves rappers friends. They blamed me, I blamed them for stringing a 10 foot usb to the laptop (which was hooked to a projector, its funny what you can get in the middle of nowhere when you know the supply officer)and the terrorist blamed the hard-drive. We lost over 200 movies, and SSD just might have stopped the whole thing, and now im ranting, but theres one of my war stories, buy me beer/scotch if you want more/better ones.
We need X number of women in congress at all times! They can even sync their cycles and then we could have a good reason to watch cspan. (rabid mob of congresswomen attack capitol hill, more news at ten anybody?) Congress allows stuff like FISA without the blink of an eye, why is anyone /. suprised, or for that matter, why would you think congress even really cares. Viva la revolution! /end crazy talk (got bit by a congresswomen)
Boils down to a couple of things: Reliability = Good, Speed = Good, Space = Fair , Cost = Why can't I pirate this! Damn, but that would be "stealing". When the cost goes down and the size comes up a bit, Ill be ready to buy one.
First, let me say that I have not seen the movie, but since this whole discussion has turned into more about evolution vs creationism, I will take the bait. Despite not having seen the movie, one thing that I think it may try to address is not that sciences theory is wrong, but too narrow-minded. Evolution may be part of the formula, and so also might creationism. Science, supposing to be unbiased and neutral, seems to me to not be looking at any other possibilities and to only want to test a singe theory until they can prove it. Warning: a bit long-winded, but interesting read ahead. My personal believes don't prevent me from being open to new ideas, and just recently a friend has opened my eyes to some other possibilities. I looked up and did some very light research into what he was saying, and I find it very intriguing. He was telling me about the oldest civilizations, generally considered to be sumer, aka the Sumerian's, and what they believed in regards to creationism and religion. Seeing as it was one of the oldest religions, there is a lot to be learned from the study of it. They spoke of Annunaki, strange creature-gods who mad man to serve them. The Sumerian's also have been believed by some to have known details about the solar system that science didn't discover till much later. This is also one place where the infamous 12th planet,"Planet X" theories come from, a scroll cylinder that had a depiction of the solar system with 12 planets in the orbit of the sun. Annunaki, translated means "Those who from heaven to earth came." I find this interesting, because the bible talks about nephilim,(which also means those who from heaven to earth came) or giants, the offspring of angels. Anyway, getting a bit long winded, but to sum it up, there are plenty of people that believe that these "Gods" in Sumer, and these "sons of angels" in the bible, and the "gods" who created man in the mayan myths, may actually be.. gasp...aliens. Assuming there is another race in the universe that is extremely technologically advanced, it is possible that they have such mastery of DNA and such to "create" humans. Sounds far fetched I know, but it is just one example of the many alternative theories that I'm sure exist to creationism and evolutionism that both scientists and religious people seem to cast to the side. Regardless, I think the point of the movie should not be that one is right and one is wrong, but how close minded both theories can be.
According to researchers of Our Mother You Tube, offensive action by spy submarines of aliens have decided to cut the many millions of cables that run from YouTube Island to the rest of the world. The US is claiming a couple of fishing ships dragged their anchors over the cables. UK says they have new training for the SAS where they can swim to depths of 10 miles with no scuba gear and do top secret *****. Tinfoil hats are being sold in the streets of Japan (hey it called style!). Porn Popups run rampant and take over the interwebs. Tubes are being lost left and right. I am an alien posting this to inform you poor souls, because it is the precursor to alien invasion and if I get caught warning you then no telling what will #$^(@#*% NO CARRIER
Being a recently honorably discharged Marine, I can tell you that for civilians, the main application of this could be self defense. On the military scale though, bright lights (usually surefires, but some knock-offs make it in there) are extremely useful in combat and hostage/raid situations. Imagine being an terrorist in your house at night (prime times for raids) and all of a sudden you have the sun in your face, its disorienting and could make you that many more seconds slow to reach for your AK and too late your zip tied up already. Done it a handful of times myself, and it works. But this flashlight seems to be too big for mounting on a rifle and I didn't see any attachments for it, so maybe its just a novelty value? Regardless, I dont see much value other than some sort of offensive (combat) or defensive (shine light in robbers eyes while hubby gets the gun) applications.
does this seem like making a vhs that can hold 40 hours of video? Cd/DVDs are on the beginning slope of the trash shute, SSD and other technologies are the things up and coming. But on the other hand dvd, Hddvd and bluray are here to, so who knows, but if it were me Id be working on an organic memory cube that measures the size of my fingernail and that I can download the contents of my brain onto... I for one welcome our brain downloading overlords?
Having spent time in Iraq (as a Marine) dealing with systems marked with all kinds of stickers telling you what they were for, I can tell you that even on "Secret" computers, tech security is a joke militarily. Why?, because information on the battlespace is key, and when your in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of POGs (People Other than Grunts) in some air conditioned tent controlling your username/password access to a SIPR machine, and you need access to SIPR, it causes all kinds of trouble. In Iraq/Afghanistan the systems are run by the undertrained overworked IT POG, and CONUS things are run by NMCI which takes its time and doesn't give a shit about your issues. Basically, the military is all about a balance between usability and security, and MACs, except for the IT guys, are going to be as useful as a brick to the people that actually use and need the system, aka Sgt. Grunt.(remember that especially during times of war, if your not a ground pounder, then your are there to support the groundpounder) /end infantry soapbox
A lot of judges don't know squat about computers, and prosecutors are obviously notorious for spinning things to look as evil as possible, and just because you don't have any porn of any kind on you computer(you must buy magazines and hide them from your wife), millions of other people do, hence, why I said /. ers wouldn't have this problem, but joe schmo might.
Another point of interest might be joe schmo and malicious ad ware, where he goes to one porn site that starts a million pop ups of kiddie porn or something. Which begs the question, Is it illegal to not be aware of what your computer is doing? Again, you and I don't have these kinds of issues because we use *nix and any browser that is not IE, people like you and I don't take our computers to repair shops, but I know of cases where the "child porn" on a persons computer was there because of looking at legal porn and the questionable management of the legal site.
And once again, I am not defending child porn perusers or distributors, as I hate them just as much as you, but I'm trying to bring to light that in theory at least, just because you "might" (talking about cases that are close to the line aka 17yrs vs 18yrs) have child porn on your computer, doesn't mean you like it or looked for it or have even seen it before. Please don't limit the conversation to how special you are, but to how other people aren't.
Now I'm not defending child porn, but having lawyer friends that have dealt with this sort of thing a couple of times. (A computer is being searched for a document pertaining to something else and "child porn" is found.) Talking to them what seems to happen at least some of the time is that Pvt. Smuckatelly goes to google and types "porn" then browses around porn websites (which is dangerous enough in itself) is happy, and leaves. What he didn't realize is one of those sites that said "must be 18+ to enter, didn't actually have 18+ porn stars, and he couldn't tell the difference.(can you tell the difference between a 17yr old and a 18yr old?) So either these files end up in a temp space or saved, all the while he thinks they are legit 18+ files. But wait, the media gets a hold of the story, and a man is labeled perverted for looking at so called "child porn" etc etc. Now I know everyone on /. are geniuses and all, but how many of you "might" not have cleared your temp folders and "might" unknowingly have child pron on your HD? Not many, but the regular idiot computer user is just that, an Idiot. Of course this is not always or even usually the case, but I'm just saying, its possible.
But as for the people producing child porn, they should die a thousand horrible deaths.
Howdy all, been on /. for while but just registered and is my first post so bear with me.
Maybe it has been addressed before but does anyone else know if some sort of pre-blog reading fine print (saying everything within is opinion and the reader must agree to not take legal action before continuing) could prevent lawsuits on a blog?
Just a thought.