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User: PainMeds

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  1. Re:Bad US Army Intel. on US Army Sees Twitter As Possible Terrorist "Operation Tool" · · Score: 1

    The reasoning behind this is that otherwise semi-private communication, such as email and encryption, reveals the existence of a conversation, and hence a relationship. The idea of using a social networking tool like Twitter is to hide both the conversation as well as proof of the relationship. Using something like lexical steganography, two malicious parties can communicate with each other in plain sight, without any connection linking them together. This is paramount when you're talking about building isolated terrorist cells; if one cell goes down, the bad guys don't want the government being able to connect it to other cells. Something like Twitter, which is mostly anonymous, is ideal for this kind of operation.

  2. Ancient Atmosphere on Old Materials Resurface For "Prebiotic Soup" · · Score: 2, Interesting

    From TFA:

    Yes, I know that Miller's reducing atmosphere is no longer considered to be an accurate representation of the ancient earth's atmosphere

    This is true; in fact, had Miller used an accurate representation of ancient earth's atmosphere, the result would have been formaldehyde and cyanide - the very antithesis of life. It is interesting, though, (and I'm not trying to troll, or take sides on anything), but one thing the Miller experiment illustrated was that life could be intelligently planned and synthesized. Wouldn't that seem to support modern day ID more so than evolution?

  3. iPhone on Google, Circa 2001 · · Score: 1

    Check out the iPhone, scheduled for release in 2050 http://web.archive.org/web/20010207002902/www.uioa.com/productcatalog/ Among its features: 56K modem! w00t!

  4. Re:And the reason is... on Apple Allows Lotus On iPhone (After Banning Competitor) · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Or maybe it's because it's not a product being sold in the iPhone App Store, it's just a web application they point Safari at

    Hence, it's entirely out of Apple's control, hence this is entirely non-news (just incase anyone was curious what the significance of this is).

  5. Re:3G killed the jailbreak market on Apple Censors App Store Rejection Notices · · Score: 1

    Jailbreaking and unlocking are two different purposes; while Apple obsoleted unlocking, to some degree, jailbreaking is still employed by millions simply to open the device platform. The third party software community for the 3G is growing to the same size that it was with the first gen phones, and sites hosting tools like Pwnage and Cydia are reporting millions of unique visitors. The more Apple tries to control the market, the more consumers are going to jailbreak to run what they want on the phone.

  6. It's not about Android on Apple Censors App Store Rejection Notices · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Android may or may not provide competition for Apple. What is providing competition for Apple, however, is the growing pool of independent developers writing jailbreak applications for the iPhone; catering to an even larger open development pool and more reasons to jailbreak your device. A year ago, 30% of the market was jailbreaking. Today, that number's got to be much higher. Open developers distributing through Cydia (the third party software repository) are able to compete with AppStore developers, because they can take advantage of otherwise restricted APIs to write better software, and can write apps that Apple deems to be otherwise a threat.

  7. What to do on Sept 24 Is World Day Against Software Patents · · Score: 3, Informative

    From TFA:

    What to do?

    1. Please sign or comment on our Draft Petition
    2. Write to your Patent Office, Senators and Deputies
    3. ...
    4. Don't Profit!

  8. Re:The real idea... on Using Computers for Sophisticated Music Analysis · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    You start humming and the RIAA deducts

    Well, there is some humming involved when approached by the RIAA, but not the kind you think.

  9. Re:Just what they want you to think on Feds Tighten DNS Security On .Gov · · Score: 5, Funny

    Nothing says 'rob me blind' than 'trust us'.

    Which is why this originated from the IRS.

  10. Re:So? on Comcast Discontinues Customers' USENET Service · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Does anybody still actually use usenet for anything other than the binary groups? I haven't touched it in a decade, mainly because the spam got so bad.

    Occasionally, you'll find a computer club filled with x-hippies exchanging correspondence solely over usenet; I think they do it for the privacy that comes with ghost towns. Even they have their binary groups, though; mainly fonts and different versions of Maelstrom.

  11. Re:From TFA on Apple Bans iPhone App For Competing With Mail.app · · Score: 1

    True, but there are two framework directories - Frameworks, and PrivateFrameworks. Apple was treating (internally, at least) the iTunes frameworks, CoreSurface, and others as general purpose frameworks for multiple applications to use. Once AppStore hit, these and more were moved to PrivateFrameworks. Many of them are critical to writing applications capable of delivering high-performance 2D rendering (movie players, etc), and communicating with other software. The transition is there, and is obvious. All the right pieces to writing software that can do anything like Apple's own are now privatized.

  12. From TFA on Apple Bans iPhone App For Competing With Mail.app · · Score: 5, Informative

    ⦠Your application duplicates the functionality of the built-in iPhone application Mail without providing sufficient differentiation or added functionality, which will lead to user confusion. â¦

    So the 30 different versions of Voice Notes is acceptable, since it doesn't compete with Apple, but having two versions of mail applications are unacceptable?

    What bothers me more than this is that the AppStore restricts any frameworks that one _could_ use to write good applications, like movie players (CoreSurface) and programs that interact with iTunes. If you look at older versions of the firmware, these were all public frameworks until the AppStore rolled out.

  13. Well, not really on DOJ Needs Warrant To Track Your Cell's GPS History · · Score: 5, Interesting

    TFA suggests that they only need a warrant to obtain this information from the mobile carrier, but in some cases this information is available from the devices themselves. The iPhone is a good example of this - software can easily be installed on the device (kind of like a LoJack) to report back GPS location, and the iPhone itself apparently keeps logs of GPS positioning, based on this book's claims. I would argue that this form of surveillance would be just as loosely managed as police placing GPS transponders on vehicles.

  14. Theft Recovery? on Locate Any WiFi Router By Its MAC Address · · Score: 2, Interesting

    A lot of different theft-recovery packages report the WiFi router and MAC address back, so this could theoretically be used to recover a stolen laptop that went back online.

  15. Chinese Spyware... on Lenovo Removes Linux Option For Home Buyers · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Chinese Spyware didn't support the Linux drivers.

    How do you say, "can it run Linux, bitch?" in Chinese?

  16. Re:How much more can you take? on "War On Terror" Board Game Confiscated In UK · · Score: 1

    Right because we have police breaking in and confiscating board games they don't like, holding people with iPods at gunpoint because they "might" be carrying a gun, and raid people's homes over lara croft posters.

  17. Re:How much more can you take? on "War On Terror" Board Game Confiscated In UK · · Score: 1

    The US has become as tyrannical if not more than the government we overthrew 200 years ago.

    Please take a look at the list of grievances in the declaration of independence. I don't think we're anywhere close to the tyranny that we fought against then, though 8 years from now might be noticeably closer.

  18. How much more can you take? on "War On Terror" Board Game Confiscated In UK · · Score: 1

    When are you brits going to overthrow your ridiculous government already and just get on with a normal life? We did the same in the 1700s and it got us 200+ years of "useful" government. Granted, we've got our issues here in the US, but they're not nearly as bad as yours. What bothers me more is most brits seem to like living in a police state.

  19. Have they exceeded their authority? on How NASA Will Bomb the Moon To Find Water · · Score: 0

    Should NASA really be pursuing things that could ultimately fuck all of humanity up by breaking our tide? I'm not sure we should be giving so much authority to an organization hell bent on finding little green martians. Before anything is done that geographically impacts the moon, it seems like we ought to get congressional and presidential approval. It would seem to me that we would bomb the living hell out of China for trying to do the same thing.

  20. Re:No. on Infineon Chipset May Be Cause of IPhone 3G Issues · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There are always issues before a product is released. The testing is supposed to find them.

    You're not too familiar with Apple products, are you?

  21. Re:Refunds on Apple Can Remotely Disable iPhone Apps · · Score: 2, Informative

    No. The CoreLocation blacklist doesn't prevent applications from using CoreLocation, it kills applcations that use it. That's a big difference.

  22. Quad-Partison Decision on Sweden's Snoop Law Targets Russia · · Score: 1

    From TFA, "It is now obvious that the legislation was a deal made between the leaders of the four government parties without full support, even from within their own ranks"

    Being that we only have two parties in the US, and wiretapping bills are getting passed around like cheap hookers, I suspect Sweden will be a good case study for the future of telecommunications monitoring here in the states. Our government now can see that another government could get away with something like this, so it likely won't be long before more "workarounds" to the fourth amendment get passed off a law here. I'm glad Sweden is protesting, but we really ought to be pushing our congressmen to move in an equally extreme and opposite direction here, now.

  23. Have you bought a ticket lately? on Pentagon Wants Kill Switch For Planes · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... looking for technologies that could 'disable' aircraft, before they can take off from a runway

    Delta seems to have the edge on this market already.

  24. Re:Obfuscation on Kurzweil on the Future · · Score: 1

    That's very weak. From the link:

    Suppose you are building a computer and you are trying to decide what base to use to represent integers.

    So this (very short, uncited, non-whitepaper) document claims to be proof that is almost entirely relevant to DNA, as it claims 1. you're building a computer, and 2. your primary interest is in storage. In the setting of DNA, there are likely many reasons that 4 base pairs would make more sense other than just storage and circuitry. This is the kind of closed-mindedness Crick didn't want to assume in his presumptions about God, I think.

  25. Konfabulator? on Google Releases Desktop Gadgets For Linux · · Score: 5, Interesting

    making it the first cross-platform [desktop] gadgets framework

    Wasn't Konfabulator the first? It supported both Mac and Windows, and was the tool of choice until Apple decided to release the Dashboard.