I prefer CookieSafe. It's got a simple UI that works almost identically to NoScript. I have it set to accept cookies globally per session since many sites won't work without them, with sites that require logins white listed.
They want only the tough to remain, basically, because they're working from the premise that the tough can contribute much better information than everyone else. In other words, "the basic premise that the masses aren't 'qualified' to contribute". And the point is that premise is wrong. Most issues don't need an expert to contribute positively. You don't need a PhD to correct a typo or start a basic article. Experts are only really necessary to sort out the nitty-gritty details when everything else is already pegged down. Citizendium had a chance with the initial plan to create a running fork of Wikipedia. Take the 90% that doesn't need an expert and finely polish the last 10%. By starting over, they're wasting resources just to catch up with Wikipedia when they're trying to be better than Wikipedia. That sounds like a failing recipe to me.
As a result, the masses are moving toward what they know: TV shows, pop culture, and fictional universe wikis. The Lyric wiki is 6th on the http://wikindex.com/, and the TV wiki is 13th overall. IME, TVIV is less complete and up to date than Wikipedia itself. Compare the articles on last week's episode of House on Wikipedia and TVIV. As for the Lyric Wiki... I'd be surprised if they actually have permission to post the lyrics to popular songs. Meanwhile, Wikipedia manages some very detailed articles on popular songs without including the lyrics themselves. (That song happens to be on the front page of Lyrics wiki at the moment.)
I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to revoke your geek license until you turn in the watch. If you insist on wearing shiny objects, you may be issued a Leatherman.
Steve Jobs can't come right out and say this, as it can be seen as tantamount to saying that users are stupid. Security. Not on the cell network, but the iPhone as a new platform. User's can't be trusted to install their own apps! Palm, Symbian, and Windows Mobile have managed this conundrum fairly well. Trojans on your PC are not uncommon, but they're much more rare on your phone. What Jobs doesn't want to admit is not that users are stupid, but that the iPhone itself can't handle security. The NY Times article says:
Palm's operating system imposes very modest limits on what developers can do. They can't restructure the databases on the phone -- such as the address book -- that are used by many different applications. And they can't change the inner workings of how the phone connects to the telephone network. The software unlocking hacks are pretty solid evidence that the iPhone can't manage even those simple barriers.
AFAIK, the quoted prices are without a contract. Unauthorized and warranty-voiding unlocking aside, the iPhone still comes with a $2880 contract. Also, Apple's online store is already out of the 4GB iPhones, though you may be able to find one in brick-and-mortar AT&T or Apple stores.
Given that Ebay's response is along the lines of "It's a hoax, our security is fine, don't worry" I really wonder if keeping things like this under wraps is enough to keep companies like Ebay honest. So what should eBay do when it really is a hoax? There are plenty of assholes who would do exactly this sort of thing just to have a laugh at eBay (and Slashdot for talking about it). eBay's story is far from implausible. If they're lying and it isn't a hoax, it'll come out very soon. Then they'll catch even more shit for lying about it.
Groklaw says they started with seven accountants. "Approximately half" is either 3 or 4, and I'd wager that they would have said "more than half" if it were 4. Two of them were the 10-year veterans who resigned, leaving just one guy who was fired.
Between my lousy French and the Babelfish translation, this article seems to suggest that the city is open to replacing "double terminals" with "simple" ones. Perhaps the simple terminals he's referring to are the new ones you're talking about and the Apple store happens to have old ones. Or vice-versa, I'm not sure I understand the quote.
What's next, boycotting google image search because it doesn't automatically load all the blinking flash ads on the pages the thumbnails came from? If I remember correctly, a few web sites were upset with Google for just that. I've also noticed that some sites have somehow managed to get their pages to show up in normal search results, while the images on those pages won't show up in an image search.
I love this bit:
Of course, that would meet MY criteria for a stored record rather than ephemeral data since it is intended to be committed to a more persistant storage as a normal operation. IOW, RAM disks are stored data because they are intended to be committed to persistent storage. IP addresses are not because they aren't intended to be committed. Intent is not a technological limitation! The judge was well within her authority to tell them to change what they intended to do with that data.
Unfortunatly, rulings like this get used as precidents later. Since the ruling made no attempt whatsoever to distinguish between systems where it is less practical AND the judge didn't seem to believe that requiring additional storage was a good enough reason to not keep the logs, it is a problem. Bull-fucking-shit. The judge explicitly ruled on the practicality of the order, noting:
(4) defendants have failed to demonstrate that the preservation and production of such data is unduly burdensome, or that the other reasons they articulate justify the ongoing failure to preserve and produce such data; So, quite explicitly, there is an out for all of your hypothetical cases where it would be unduly burdensome or otherwise infeasible. Note that this is no different than how discovery is handled in the pen-and-paper world. If the records you needed were sealed in a vault in a sunken ship in the middle of the Atlantic, then a judge would similarly rule that the request is unreasonable. If there were an actual technical reason that prevented TorrentSpy from keeping logs, the judge wouldn't have ordered them to do so.
You seem intent on conflating two different questions relating to this ruling: whether they have the legal right to even ask for the evidence and whether or not it is possible or reasonable to provide it. The first is all that has been decided here and the answer pretty much makes sense. Storing an item in RAM is not magical get-out-of-court-free card that exempts you from discovery. The second was never really an issue in this case, sets no precedent, and yet it's the only thing you vary in your endless hypotheticals.
Again, you are arguing that logging is infeasible in some cases. Well, in this case, it is feasible. TorrentSpy does not run on a Linksys AP, logging would not severely affect their system, and making a permanent copy of the information is as simple as configuring the web server to do so.
If the order were more sweeping and onerous or if TorrentSpy's setup were so stupid that logging is impossible, they would have made that point in court and the judge would have ruled in their favor. Instead, she ruled that the "defendants have failed to demonstrate that the preservation and production of such data is unduly burdensome," and she's right.
All of that is in direct contravention to established definitions in computer science. Files are persistant data, RAM is not. To test it, just power cycle the machine and see which is still there. This is an incredibly oversimplified view of computer storage. The only real distinction between (most types of) RAM and a hard disk is that RAM requires power to retain the data. You can easily keep files in RAM (see: RAM disks, caching) and make it persistent (see: SRAM, battery-powered NV RAM). You can even access a hard drive as temporary storage (see: virtual memory). The distinction is nowhere near as clear as you make it out to be and completely irrelevant anyway, because it doesn't matter if RAM is persistent. The judge can order you to keep or make copies of records that would otherwise be destroyed.
The ruling also paradoxically claims that the burden is small because it's just standard webserver logging but later claims it's not a privacy problem because they may mask the IP address (not remove, mask). The latter, is NOT a standard logging feature, so we're back to custom hacking. An expert in the field would know that. This is standard post-processing of records before presenting them as evidence. It's not a standard logging feature, but it has nothing to do with the logging. It can be done after the fact. It happens all the time that impertinent personal details (phone numbers, names, SSNs, etc.) are redacted from records prior to handing them over. An expert in the field (of law) would know that.
Does THAT sound even vaguely feasible to you? No, but that has nothing to do with this case. The judge did not rule that all memory must be presented, or that all traffic must be presented. You got that mistaken impression from Slashdot.
The judge ruled that "the IP addresses are only in RAM" is not a valid excuse to avoid presenting logs of who accessed the service. "Logging is not feasible" is a different excuse that was not at issue because she only ordered them to do what practically every other web server does. Had she ordered them to do as Slashdot seems to believe and log everything, then you might have had a point, but she didn't.
Wait, why is the Catholic Church the bad guy if the Chinese Government goes about installing fake Catholic bishops? If you want to take the "any path to God" track, then that's fine, but the Chinese government is effectively creating a new church and should be clear to the members about that.
The phone service makes it easier to watch the clock you're trying to set and sync up exactly when you hear the tone. My cell phone doesn't even have a seconds display.
Hell, I've been known to call POP-CORN (as I grew up calling it) from my cell phone.
If you had to tap into the memory bus to record every write operation to memory... Good thing you don't. They're not asking for anything more than most web servers do anyway, which is to log incoming requests.
Witness our earlier Slashdot thread about a judge not knowing that "storing" logs in RAM is fundamentally different than "storing" logs on disk. She's got a good legal reason to expect that when someone is told to "turn over the logs", that they turn over all the logs. But because she's an idiot, she's very angry and confused when she finds out that RAM just. doesn't. work. like. that. The judge is a lot smarter than you think. The law is outside Slashdot's realm of expertise, so you get a horribly inaccurate summary and tons of +5 posts making jokes about putting a stick of RAM in the mail. All that was decided is that storing an entry in RAM constitutes making a record, even if it's of the most temporary variety. The law doesn't give a damn whether you store that information in RAM, on your hard drive, or on a piece of paper. On a judge's order, you can be compelled to keep records that would otherwise be destroyed, even if that means positive action on your part to create a permanent copy.
Yes, they will sue Apple over everything they do to promote AT&T-free iPhones... that can be traced to Apple. The broken activation scheme can pretty squarely be traced to Apple. All Apple has to do is make customers to sign the contract in the store. AT&T could care less if people unlock the phone after that.
As the sibling post points out, this only applies after you have been ordered to retain the information. However, it's pertinent to your hypothetical that the judge could just as easily order to you retain the actual plaintext of the transmission by the same logic.
Slashdot Mirror
I prefer CookieSafe. It's got a simple UI that works almost identically to NoScript. I have it set to accept cookies globally per session since many sites won't work without them, with sites that require logins white listed.
So at what point does it cease to be a web app and start being a normal desktop app that happens to be written in HTML/Javascript/etc.?
I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to revoke your geek license until you turn in the watch. If you insist on wearing shiny objects, you may be issued a Leatherman.
See the sibling post about Pets.com and shipping 50lbs of dog food to Alaska.
Tupperware is actually rather expensive for what it is.
AFAIK, the quoted prices are without a contract. Unauthorized and warranty-voiding unlocking aside, the iPhone still comes with a $2880 contract. Also, Apple's online store is already out of the 4GB iPhones, though you may be able to find one in brick-and-mortar AT&T or Apple stores.
And it sucked righteously. Let's hope they can do better.
Groklaw says they started with seven accountants. "Approximately half" is either 3 or 4, and I'd wager that they would have said "more than half" if it were 4. Two of them were the 10-year veterans who resigned, leaving just one guy who was fired.
Between my lousy French and the Babelfish translation, this article seems to suggest that the city is open to replacing "double terminals" with "simple" ones. Perhaps the simple terminals he's referring to are the new ones you're talking about and the Apple store happens to have old ones. Or vice-versa, I'm not sure I understand the quote.
Check out reddit. The flood of digg users jumping ship and ruining reddit is a common theme over there.
You seem intent on conflating two different questions relating to this ruling: whether they have the legal right to even ask for the evidence and whether or not it is possible or reasonable to provide it. The first is all that has been decided here and the answer pretty much makes sense. Storing an item in RAM is not magical get-out-of-court-free card that exempts you from discovery. The second was never really an issue in this case, sets no precedent, and yet it's the only thing you vary in your endless hypotheticals.
If the order were more sweeping and onerous or if TorrentSpy's setup were so stupid that logging is impossible, they would have made that point in court and the judge would have ruled in their favor. Instead, she ruled that the "defendants have failed to demonstrate that the preservation and production of such data is unduly burdensome," and she's right. All of that is in direct contravention to established definitions in computer science. Files are persistant data, RAM is not. To test it, just power cycle the machine and see which is still there. This is an incredibly oversimplified view of computer storage. The only real distinction between (most types of) RAM and a hard disk is that RAM requires power to retain the data. You can easily keep files in RAM (see: RAM disks, caching) and make it persistent (see: SRAM, battery-powered NV RAM). You can even access a hard drive as temporary storage (see: virtual memory). The distinction is nowhere near as clear as you make it out to be and completely irrelevant anyway, because it doesn't matter if RAM is persistent. The judge can order you to keep or make copies of records that would otherwise be destroyed. The ruling also paradoxically claims that the burden is small because it's just standard webserver logging but later claims it's not a privacy problem because they may mask the IP address (not remove, mask). The latter, is NOT a standard logging feature, so we're back to custom hacking. An expert in the field would know that. This is standard post-processing of records before presenting them as evidence. It's not a standard logging feature, but it has nothing to do with the logging. It can be done after the fact. It happens all the time that impertinent personal details (phone numbers, names, SSNs, etc.) are redacted from records prior to handing them over. An expert in the field (of law) would know that.
The judge ruled that "the IP addresses are only in RAM" is not a valid excuse to avoid presenting logs of who accessed the service. "Logging is not feasible" is a different excuse that was not at issue because she only ordered them to do what practically every other web server does. Had she ordered them to do as Slashdot seems to believe and log everything, then you might have had a point, but she didn't.
Wait, why is the Catholic Church the bad guy if the Chinese Government goes about installing fake Catholic bishops? If you want to take the "any path to God" track, then that's fine, but the Chinese government is effectively creating a new church and should be clear to the members about that.
How many of those people even have a computer to connect to the Internet with?
The phone service makes it easier to watch the clock you're trying to set and sync up exactly when you hear the tone. My cell phone doesn't even have a seconds display.
Hell, I've been known to call POP-CORN (as I grew up calling it) from my cell phone.
As the sibling post points out, this only applies after you have been ordered to retain the information. However, it's pertinent to your hypothetical that the judge could just as easily order to you retain the actual plaintext of the transmission by the same logic.