First of all, penal law is immoral, only the victims should have a claim against their aggressor. The victim should present the damage in front of a judge, establish the lack of consent, and the verdict set accordingly.
Be careful with absolutes like that. You just legalized murder, beating somebody to the point of brain damage, racketeering where victims are too afraid for their own safety or that of their loved ones to take people to court, etc.
Perhaps you were only referring to the kiddie porn issue and suggesting that 5 year olds should file charges against their exploiters (often their parents), but even then it's a stance that's kind of hard to understand.
Most of our system is set up to catch the dumb criminals. That's where the best cost/benefit ratio lies - If you can catch 80% easily or 90% by doing 5x as much work, you have to evaluate whether the best use of those resources is chasing the additional 10%. [Numbers obviously plucked directly from nowhere.]
Catching somebody who knows what they're doing is REALLY tough. Law enforcement catching somebody "above their own IQ level", IMO, has little to do with it. Even a really bright cop will have a tough time busting a relatively dumb criminal who knows how to run TrueCrypt, wipe the free space on his drive, and is relatively paranoid about sending stuff in the open over the Internet - All easy tasks in today's world.
Personally, I tend to mod every 'Why was I modded ***!?! That wasn't ***!' post Redundant, even if it's the first time it shows up in a thread, because I find them pointless and tiresome. Regarding your FP, I'd imagine that somebody decided that some harsh moderator decided that the answer to your question "Why isn't this replacing Firefox?" was obvious and (fairly or not) modded you (-1 Redundant) because he lacked a (-1 Duh) option. Them's the breaks.
I now have stopped caring about these scores.
That's a very healthy attitude - Karma is overrated.
That said, I'm foregoing my karma bonus because this has very little to do with TFA.
I would assume that this is just a "first pass" search. Many criminals will simply be too lazy to flip a bit (how many confessed copyright violators out there take the time to flip a bit on their ill-gotten mp3s or avis?) It's a quick, easy search with bullet-proof results. After you scan for known hashes, you search for '.jpg', '.gif', etc. even though simply changing the extension on a file would elude that search technique - Many people will leave them intact so that they're easier to view. That search is more time-intensive because somebody actually has to look at the list and see if there's anything named '3yo_covered_hot_grits.jpg' or, alternatively, actually open a bunch of stuff up and look at thumbnails. From there you can imagine any number of more involved search techniques, but you get my point.
They do that with just about every category of fraud. I believe that it's partially related to scope and entities responsible for enforcement (different folks handle the case depending on whether I sell you a Rollex from my coat, mail fake credit card applications from my state to yours to gain personal information, or call you from Nigeria to get you to help me with a tricky financial situation). Another reason is probably related to the perceived impact to society at large (can this type of fraud easily swindle large amounts of money from many people or is this just a $1 at a time, 1 person at a time game of 3-card Monte) and the identity of the victims (single voter vs. deep-pocketed insurance company).
So, we wind up with computer fraud, phone fraud, insurance fraud, mail fraud, credit card fraud, charity fraud, etc...
No, if that's what they were doing they could have set up a legitimate business and possibly been successful.
They weren't "taking a slice off the top" - They were taking the whole pie, having the sub-contractors haul the loads they'd committed to, and then leaving the drivers uncompensated because they had in fact been hired by scammers rather than a legitimate contracting firm. Contacting the actual contracting firms did no good because they had no knowledge of the contract and the $$ had gone to the Russians.
I admit that the summary was a little hard to follow - I had to read it a couple of times too - TFA makes the situation much more clear.
Agreed - this does not seem to be a Troll post. This seems to be more of a (-1 JFGI) post. The first hit through google, here, has the answer at the top (assuming that you can pick the correct answer between "Ottawa/Rockcliffe Airport, the IATA airport code" and "A Slashdot sub-section on politics, Your Rights Online").
A "loyal" rat is one that will not bite even if you coat your finger with peanut-butter, prefers your company to people that he doesn't know, and will jump in front of a ninja's throwing star to save you should the occasion arise.
I ask that all rat lovers mod parent down for such an insult to rats everywhere.
Pretty much off-topic, so I've foregone my karmic bonus. Mods, please be gentle.
Rats rock. Best pets I've had. They're clean, loyal, friendly, and low upkeep. Terrific. They've even potty-trainable with less that 1-month of effort - I used to let mine run loose and kept ramps up so that they could return to their cages to crap. ----- On-topic... If we can generate stem-cells applicable to human research trans-specially, who other than PETA would continue to object?
I admit that I have become powerless over my frustration with those that disagree with me, my anger issues, and my self-perceived impotence regarding my ability to communicate my opinion to the "unenlightened". I acknowledge that calling people retards and swearing will not sway them to my opinion, even if I defend it well. I will not feed the trolls.
FSM, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
1) Make a passable replica of a major motorcycle gang's insignia. 2) Attach it to a motorcycle jacket and display it proudly in areas where the gang is known to operate. 3) Learn first-hand whether the **AA or underground motorcycle gangs are more aggressive in IP protection. 4) ??? 5) Profit. (For your life-insurance beneficiaries.)
Despite this, Wikipedia is usually sceptical of creationism - statements on evolution are usually phrased "it is the case that x" whereas creationist statements are carefully bracketed as "many people believe that x".
I jumped over to wikipedia so that I could correct you and point out that they only describe the evolutionary process as fact while leaving ambiguity about whether or not it's actually how we arrived with our current selection of species. I can't - Your example is dead on. From here:
All organisms on Earth are descended from a common ancestor or ancestral gene pool. Current species are a stage in the process of evolution, with their diversity the product of a long series of speciation and extinction events.
Newton was brilliant and nobody knows that he was wrong regarding religion. But it's not too hard to find a pair of brilliant minds and demonstrate that at least one of them is mistaken on that topic. Most people think that Newton was wrong, so if you play the odds he probably was. (Actually if you pick any person anywhere in history, most of Earth's population will think they were wrong - Let's stop picking on poor Isaac.)
Unfortunately, when it comes to religion and the supernatural, we have neither empirical nor consensual "truth". Just a lack of hard evidence and a lot of speculation.
Why is it so difficult to believe this Mars mission? The Lunar lander did similar feats. It's even possible to test this with modified equipment right here on earth.
I agree almost 100%. But why must we test the awesome tech we're developing for space exploration in space? It's awesome engineering with a good cause, but we can do the same things here (more or less) at a much reduced cost. I'm convinced that the difference in cost between deploying locally and deploying extraterritorially must exceed any benefits we'll receive from making actual landings. I know slashdot is full of folks who want robots/astronauts actually tromping around, but what's the actual cost/benefit?
The big push I see is that actual landings, despite making questionable sense from a budgetary standpoint, may be the only way to garner funding for our tech development. That's just too depressing for me to accept...
Awesome post. I'm fairly ignorant on the whole space topic - I researched briefly what we have to gain from actual visits to other planets in our system and compared it to the cost of actually sending craft to visit right before deciding that it made the most sense to develop all the necessary exploratory technology but not implement it for a number of years.
But that will in no way stop me from reiterating the basics of your post the next time I'm discussing extraterrestrial exploration in an effort to sound informed.
It's amazing that it's taken as obvious that there's no such thing as UFOs
They do exist - I can testify to it personally. I see maybe 2-3 very strange flying things in the sky around Los Alamos, NM per year. Definitely not planes/helicopters and their shape & flight patterns make balloons a strange guess.
They're flying objects that, at least for me and most (possibly all) of the town, they're unidentified. Now, whether or not they're extraterrestrial as opposed to some weird LANL experiment or hobby object is up for debate. (Los Alamos is full of nerdy hobbyists - LANL/hobbyist seem about equally likely.)
In 1948 green fireballs were seen over the south-western skies of the US near nuclear weapons research sites. Famous meteoriticist Dr. Lincoln La Paz declared they weren't normal meteors. In 1949 the USAF started Project Twinkle under the direction of Dr. Anythony Mirachi.
Sorry... That was us. See, you take a nice, lightweight dry-cleaning bag - The green-tinted ones are the best. Add some light-gauge wire and some birthday candles, and you have a green-glowing orb that will float mysteriously in the sky for quite some time.
Slashdot Mirror
First of all, penal law is immoral, only the victims should have a claim against their aggressor. The victim should present the damage in front of a judge, establish the lack of consent, and the verdict set accordingly.
Be careful with absolutes like that. You just legalized murder, beating somebody to the point of brain damage, racketeering where victims are too afraid for their own safety or that of their loved ones to take people to court, etc.
Perhaps you were only referring to the kiddie porn issue and suggesting that 5 year olds should file charges against their exploiters (often their parents), but even then it's a stance that's kind of hard to understand.
Most of our system is set up to catch the dumb criminals. That's where the best cost/benefit ratio lies - If you can catch 80% easily or 90% by doing 5x as much work, you have to evaluate whether the best use of those resources is chasing the additional 10%. [Numbers obviously plucked directly from nowhere.]
Catching somebody who knows what they're doing is REALLY tough. Law enforcement catching somebody "above their own IQ level", IMO, has little to do with it. Even a really bright cop will have a tough time busting a relatively dumb criminal who knows how to run TrueCrypt, wipe the free space on his drive, and is relatively paranoid about sending stuff in the open over the Internet - All easy tasks in today's world.
How can a first post be redundant?
Personally, I tend to mod every 'Why was I modded ***!?! That wasn't ***!' post Redundant, even if it's the first time it shows up in a thread, because I find them pointless and tiresome. Regarding your FP, I'd imagine that somebody decided that some harsh moderator decided that the answer to your question "Why isn't this replacing Firefox?" was obvious and (fairly or not) modded you (-1 Redundant) because he lacked a (-1 Duh) option. Them's the breaks.
I now have stopped caring about these scores.
That's a very healthy attitude - Karma is overrated.
That said, I'm foregoing my karma bonus because this has very little to do with TFA.
I would assume that this is just a "first pass" search. Many criminals will simply be too lazy to flip a bit (how many confessed copyright violators out there take the time to flip a bit on their ill-gotten mp3s or avis?) It's a quick, easy search with bullet-proof results. After you scan for known hashes, you search for '.jpg', '.gif', etc. even though simply changing the extension on a file would elude that search technique - Many people will leave them intact so that they're easier to view. That search is more time-intensive because somebody actually has to look at the list and see if there's anything named '3yo_covered_hot_grits.jpg' or, alternatively, actually open a bunch of stuff up and look at thumbnails. From there you can imagine any number of more involved search techniques, but you get my point.
So, uhh, what does JFGI mean?
Joe Frasier gargles iodine?
Jesus freaks garner insight?
Junk freighters glow intensely?
Jumpy frogs goad Indians?
Jerky fondu goodness I?
Jane Fonda gambles irresponsibly?
There must be some way to find out...
I'll stick to beer and bacon sandwiches thank you very much.
I'm very intrigued, but I have to ask - How do you keep the bread from getting soggy? Perhaps soak it with beer prior to toasting?
There's a distinction between these guys and truckers.
Truckers drive trucks.
They do that with just about every category of fraud. I believe that it's partially related to scope and entities responsible for enforcement (different folks handle the case depending on whether I sell you a Rollex from my coat, mail fake credit card applications from my state to yours to gain personal information, or call you from Nigeria to get you to help me with a tricky financial situation). Another reason is probably related to the perceived impact to society at large (can this type of fraud easily swindle large amounts of money from many people or is this just a $1 at a time, 1 person at a time game of 3-card Monte) and the identity of the victims (single voter vs. deep-pocketed insurance company).
So, we wind up with computer fraud, phone fraud, insurance fraud, mail fraud, credit card fraud, charity fraud, etc...
You wouldn't believe how much thinner your profit margin gets when you start actually paying the people doing the work.
Although that business model does allow for more flexible retirement opportunities (sans free room and board).
So that's what that is!
Now perhaps you can explain why people keep welcoming random overlords and telling me what happens in Soviet Russia?
</smartass>
Sorry...
If the people taking your checks never bother to pay the people actually providing you with bandwidth, that's a perfect analogy.
There are better explanations of the scenario than available in TFS both here and here.
No, if that's what they were doing they could have set up a legitimate business and possibly been successful.
They weren't "taking a slice off the top" - They were taking the whole pie, having the sub-contractors haul the loads they'd committed to, and then leaving the drivers uncompensated because they had in fact been hired by scammers rather than a legitimate contracting firm. Contacting the actual contracting firms did no good because they had no knowledge of the contract and the $$ had gone to the Russians.
I admit that the summary was a little hard to follow - I had to read it a couple of times too - TFA makes the situation much more clear.
Agreed - this does not seem to be a Troll post. This seems to be more of a (-1 JFGI) post. The first hit through google, here, has the answer at the top (assuming that you can pick the correct answer between "Ottawa/Rockcliffe Airport, the IATA airport code" and "A Slashdot sub-section on politics, Your Rights Online").
A "loyal" rat is one that will not bite even if you coat your finger with peanut-butter, prefers your company to people that he doesn't know, and will jump in front of a ninja's throwing star to save you should the occasion arise.
I ask that all rat lovers mod parent down for such an insult to rats everywhere.
Pretty much off-topic, so I've foregone my karmic bonus. Mods, please be gentle.
Rats rock. Best pets I've had. They're clean, loyal, friendly, and low upkeep. Terrific. They've even potty-trainable with less that 1-month of effort - I used to let mine run loose and kept ramps up so that they could return to their cages to crap.
-----
On-topic... If we can generate stem-cells applicable to human research trans-specially, who other than PETA would continue to object?
Deep breath. Repeat after me.
I admit that I have become powerless over my frustration with those that disagree with me, my anger issues, and my self-perceived impotence regarding my ability to communicate my opinion to the "unenlightened". I acknowledge that calling people retards and swearing will not sway them to my opinion, even if I defend it well. I will not feed the trolls.
FSM, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.
Hope that helps. Wow.
Private groups discriminating against homosexuals is not illegal (although I take more issue with their stance on atheists).
It's despicable, but not illegal. Racketeering is.
Only one way to find out.
1) Make a passable replica of a major motorcycle gang's insignia.
2) Attach it to a motorcycle jacket and display it proudly in areas where the gang is known to operate.
3) Learn first-hand whether the **AA or underground motorcycle gangs are more aggressive in IP protection.
4) ???
5) Profit. (For your life-insurance beneficiaries.)
Despite this, Wikipedia is usually sceptical of creationism - statements on evolution are usually phrased "it is the case that x" whereas creationist statements are carefully bracketed as "many people believe that x".
I jumped over to wikipedia so that I could correct you and point out that they only describe the evolutionary process as fact while leaving ambiguity about whether or not it's actually how we arrived with our current selection of species. I can't - Your example is dead on. From here:
All organisms on Earth are descended from a common ancestor or ancestral gene pool. Current species are a stage in the process of evolution, with their diversity the product of a long series of speciation and extinction events.
Newton was brilliant and nobody knows that he was wrong regarding religion. But it's not too hard to find a pair of brilliant minds and demonstrate that at least one of them is mistaken on that topic. Most people think that Newton was wrong, so if you play the odds he probably was. (Actually if you pick any person anywhere in history, most of Earth's population will think they were wrong - Let's stop picking on poor Isaac.)
Unfortunately, when it comes to religion and the supernatural, we have neither empirical nor consensual "truth". Just a lack of hard evidence and a lot of speculation.
Why is it so difficult to believe this Mars mission? The Lunar lander did similar feats. It's even possible to test this with modified equipment right here on earth.
I agree almost 100%. But why must we test the awesome tech we're developing for space exploration in space? It's awesome engineering with a good cause, but we can do the same things here (more or less) at a much reduced cost. I'm convinced that the difference in cost between deploying locally and deploying extraterritorially must exceed any benefits we'll receive from making actual landings. I know slashdot is full of folks who want robots/astronauts actually tromping around, but what's the actual cost/benefit?
The big push I see is that actual landings, despite making questionable sense from a budgetary standpoint, may be the only way to garner funding for our tech development. That's just too depressing for me to accept...
Awesome post. I'm fairly ignorant on the whole space topic - I researched briefly what we have to gain from actual visits to other planets in our system and compared it to the cost of actually sending craft to visit right before deciding that it made the most sense to develop all the necessary exploratory technology but not implement it for a number of years.
But that will in no way stop me from reiterating the basics of your post the next time I'm discussing extraterrestrial exploration in an effort to sound informed.
Hopefully there will be no follow-ups. Thanks!
Oh please... "The Egyptian papyrus described a fleet of flying saucers darting through the sky?"
Seriously....
The Egyptians said NO SUCH THING, that is by way of being utter nonsense.
I can think of at least a couple of references right off the top of my head that handily contradict that.
It's amazing that it's taken as obvious that there's no such thing as UFOs
They do exist - I can testify to it personally. I see maybe 2-3 very strange flying things in the sky around Los Alamos, NM per year. Definitely not planes/helicopters and their shape & flight patterns make balloons a strange guess.
They're flying objects that, at least for me and most (possibly all) of the town, they're unidentified. Now, whether or not they're extraterrestrial as opposed to some weird LANL experiment or hobby object is up for debate. (Los Alamos is full of nerdy hobbyists - LANL/hobbyist seem about equally likely.)
In 1948 green fireballs were seen over the south-western skies of the US near nuclear weapons research sites. Famous meteoriticist Dr. Lincoln La Paz declared they weren't normal meteors. In 1949 the USAF started Project Twinkle under the direction of Dr. Anythony Mirachi.
Sorry... That was us. See, you take a nice, lightweight dry-cleaning bag - The green-tinted ones are the best. Add some light-gauge wire and some birthday candles, and you have a green-glowing orb that will float mysteriously in the sky for quite some time.
My bad - Didn't really mean to spook anyone...