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User: WPIDalamar

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Comments · 451

  1. What data? on Hacker Says He Could Access 70,000 Healthcare.Gov Records In 4 Minutes · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What data was he able to access?

    Two ends of a possible spectrum I see...
    - Being able to tell 70k accounts exist by some numerical ID
    - Getting full personal information for 70k accounts including name, address, ssn, payment details

  2. Makes it easier? on Google Makes It Harder For Marketers To Collect User Data · · Score: 1

    As long as you're giving a unique url to each user who you email, this actually makes open-rate calculations a lot more accurate, doesn't it? Instead of a large percentage of your users never seeing the image, they'll all get loaded.

    Sure you can't track cookies, get IP addresses, or any of that anymore...

    I'm assuming Google is only downloading images of emails that people open. If Google is downloading every image of every email they get, then never mind.

  3. Re:Pros vs Cons on RF Safe-Stop Shuts Down Car Engines With Radio Pulse · · Score: 1

    Even the Q50 has a mechanical fail-safe.

  4. Inconsequential on Zuckerberg Shows Kindergartners Ruby Instead of JavaScript · · Score: 2

    Did anyone watch the video? The code was completely inconsequential to what was talked about and only shown for a brief few seconds as a "ooooh look at code". It wasn't really meant to be read or understood.

  5. What are they being used for? on Bitcoin Tops $1,000 For the First Time · · Score: 2

    Presumably, people want Bitcoins for some reason, otherwise the price wouldn't go up. I can think of 2 reasons that could be driving it...

    1. Pure speculation in a rising market and wanting to make money by investing.

    2. BTC actively being used for something so they have actual value.

    I've seen some minor gambling sites. And a handful of sites that accept them for services/products. There was silk road, but that's gone. With the bust, I have to imagine that people are skittish about the new silk road, so I have to believe those volumes are way down. But all that just doesn't seem to be keeping up with the extreme increase in value. Make me really think #1 is the more likely scenario.

    What am I missing? How are these being used?

    Side note... I've got 0.34 BTC from when I played around with it a year ago. Wasn't worth cashing in then and forgot about them. Glad I didn't lose the keys.

  6. Accounting tricks on Ask Slashdot: IT Spending In Engineering? · · Score: 1

    This almost certainly came from some sort of "how much do you spend on IT" survey. Split your normal IT spending from your Engineering hardware budget. Then compared to other industries, your IT is in line.

  7. Python anywhere on Better Tools For Programming Literacy · · Score: 1

    I think he just described pythonanywhere?

    https://www.pythonanywhere.com/

    It's essentially "google docs for python"

  8. Re:HotS on Can $60 Games Survive? · · Score: 1

    Splitting the game into 3 to tripple their profits was one of the smartest things Blizzard has done recently. They know how to make a good game, and then get you to pay a ton for it.

  9. Re:Google versus Apple on Google Working On Siri Competitor Majel · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Google has less real world usage?

    Matching a search with useful information is kind of what google does best. For voice recognition, they've been doing voice-search on Android for a long time, plus their now defunct goog-411 and that's a lot of voice recognition experience.

    Siri/Majel is really just a UI layer on top of those two things.

    Google may be behind in the integration, but they're probably way ahead in those two things.

  10. Playdough? on 3D Printer For Your Kids · · Score: 1

    Whatever happened to playdough?

  11. Quantity on Facebook: Your Personal Data is a Trade Secret · · Score: 2

    It could be that the quantity of data they collect is far more than anyone suspects and that's the trade secret.

  12. Who cares? on Sixteen Years Later: GNU Still Needs An Extension Language · · Score: 1

    I read into these comments just to see if anybody cares.

    It seems not.

    If the Slashdot crowd doesn't, then why would the wider world?

  13. Security? on Harnessing Interference For Faster Wireless Data · · Score: 2

    Does this have implications for enhanced wireless security? A wireless signal that can only be received in a specific location seems like a valuable thing.

  14. Re:Accident or intentional? on AT&T Sued For Systematic iPhone Overbilling · · Score: 1

    I never assumed malice on the phone rep's part.

    I tried to explain to her that point zero zero two cents is not what was written. But she just couldn't wrap her head around it.

  15. Re:Accident or intentional? on AT&T Sued For Systematic iPhone Overbilling · · Score: 1

    As of august of last year, they were still doing that. I saw it personally.

    http://www.rogue-development.com/blog2/2010/08/still-time-to-teach-your-reps-math-verizon/

  16. Re:Excellent on Biotech Company Making Fossil Fuels With a 'Library' of Bacteria · · Score: 2

    The Acela Express from Boston to NYC takes about the same time as driving, despite the fact that it makes a detour to Providence. But yeah, on the regular routes trains are slow as hell.

    ... if you live next to the train station on either side.

    For just about everyone else, driving is quicker. For me, by about an hour.

    I do take that train for work every time I have to go to NYC. But it's not because of time, I prefer riding instead of driving that far. Plus "I have a train to catch" is a great way of getting out of the remote office if stuff is running late.

  17. Re:Copyright law doesn't work that way on Hosting Company Appears To Be Violating the GPL [Resolved] · · Score: 1

    Even reading that, I'm not sure that a work that doesn't contain anything from another could be considered a derivative.

    Could we agree, that if WinMTR was written completely from scratch, and happened to do some similar things to MTR, that it would not be a derivative work?

    If we can agree upon that, it's a hard argument to make that if WinMTR used to contain MTR work, but it has since been replaced, that it's still a derivative work.

    Is copyright based on one snapshot of the work, and not on it's entire history? Could version 1.0.1 of WinMTR be a derivative, but version 1.1 not be?

  18. Re:Copyright law doesn't work that way on Hosting Company Appears To Be Violating the GPL [Resolved] · · Score: 1

    Please explain "the whole 'derivative works' thing."

    If I have a codebase that I'm the only contributor to, because anybody else's code has been removed -- why wouldn't that be entirely my copyright, which I'm allowed to do what I like with?

    You can't copyright ideas in the US. Only specific manifestations of those ideas. So even if WinMTR is doing the same sort of thing, copyright doesn't come into play.

    I'm not saying that's the case with WinMTR -- my guess is that they have MTR code in there and are not in GPL compliance.

  19. Just look at the screen shot... on Avoiding DMCA Woes As an Indy Game Developer? · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Put this image in front of an average citizen.
    http://spwebgames.com/pacman/screenshot2.png

    Ask him what it is.

    He'll say "Pac Man"

    That's the guy that's in the jury of the trial figuring out if it's copyright infringement or not.

  20. Nofollow? on No Press Is Bad Press Even Online · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Perhaps review sites should add nofollow attributes to their external links

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nofollow

    Maybe just for negative reviews?

  21. Personal Information Definition on Mass. Data Security Law Says "Thou Shalt Encrypt" · · Score: 2, Insightful

    From the law, personal information is defined as:

    Personal information, a Massachusetts resident's first name and last name or first initial and last name in combination with any one or more of the following data elements that relate to such resident: (a) Social Security number; (b) driver's license number or state-issued identification card number; or (c) financial account number, or credit or debit card number, with or without any required security code, access code, personal identification number or password, that would permit access to a resident’s financial account; provided, however, that “Personal information” shall not include information that is lawfully obtained from publicly available information, or from federal, state or local government records lawfully made available to the general public.

    So just a first+last name isn't enough to incur the wrath of the law. It has to be that, plus SSN, Lic Number, or financial account number.

    But from how I read that, it has to be the First name, Last name, Plus one of those. Does that mean I can store a list of social security numbers plus last names completely unencrypted and be off free? Odd

  22. Re:Not Apache's problem on Serious Apache Exploit Discovered · · Score: 4, Informative

    The extension module DLL's are third party.

    The core isapi apache module is all apache, and that's where the bug is.

  23. TSA on Interstellar Hydrogen Prevents Light-Speed Travel? · · Score: 2, Funny

    The real reason interstellar travel will never happen is the time in the security line with TSA would approach infinity for that sort of trip.

  24. Political parties on Subversive Groups Must Now Register In South Carolina · · Score: 3, Insightful

    " every person who advocates, teaches, advises or practices the duty, necessity or propriety of controlling, conducting, seizing or overthrowing the government"

    Political parties certainly advocate and advise the controlling and conducting of the government. I hope all those politicians are registering.

  25. Re:Client or server? on Flash Vulnerability Found, Adobe Says No Fix Forthcoming · · Score: 1

    I was under the impression it was the browser that decided what player to use, and not the player deciding?