Not all pepper sprays are created equal. The active ingredient in Pepper spray is capsaicin, which occurs naturally in peppers. The cheap-ass crap normally peddled to civilians has a fairly low concentration of capsaicin (often 1%) and is typically delivered in a water or mineral oil base -- both of which are natural antidotes to the effects of capsaicin. The good stuff that the military gets is mixed with CS or CN tear gas and has very high concentrations (10% - 25%) of capsaicin. This combination of agents is highly effective - each agent enhances the effect of the other.
Every cell phone carrier is required by Federal law to accept 911 calls, at no charge, from any cellular device, regardless of whether or not the calling device has a valid subscription or not.
The question of whether or not that call actually goes through is a different matter altogether - a 911 call from an unsubscribed phone has just as much chance of connecting successfuly as one from a subscribed phone. And assuming that your call does go through, the way it is handled is no different than a landline call. 911 systems are overloaded in many areas; this affects landline calls just as much as wireless ones.
As you noted, the bulk of problems calling 911 from a wireless phone are the same ones encountered making any other wireless call: weak or no signal, dead batteries, no available circuits, and so forth. A wireless connection will never be as reliable as a landline; that is the nature of wireless.
The point is not that you can't rely on being able to call 911 to save your ass. Numerous Supreme Court decisions say that while the police have a duty to protect society as a whole, they are under no obligation to help any particular individual.
I have no clue what the people at CompRen are smoking, but I want some. Where else can you find obsolete, second-hand hardware that costs more than brand new hardware that's more powerful? More to the point, tell me where to find people who'll actually buy that crap; I have a couple bridges to unload.
Amen to that, Brother! I'll take a restored classic big-block muscle car over a hi-tech riceburner anyday. I still regret selling my 72 LeMans GT... 400ci putting out 490hp and 500 ft/lbs. It would pass everything on the road except a gas station.
That is why the best way to control access is via URL Rewriting. Behold the glory and mystery that is mod_rewrite.
Re:Not necessarily unenforceable (with commentary)
on
You Can't Link Here
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· Score: 2
An even better solution is to create all your deep-link pages dynamically. That way, you can tie the deep URL to a session ID. [IMHO] The best way is to imbed the session ID in the url via URL rewriting (mod_rewrite is your friend!), but you can accomplish the same thing with cookies.
If you set it up so that the only way you can get a session ID is to visit the top page first, you've effectively disabled deep linking, because any deep link that gets posts is going to contain an expired session ID. This way you don't have to trust the referrer field at all, which is a good idea.
It's stupid to use poorly-written legal disclaimers to do something that can be better accomplished via some simple well-written code.
A country's armed forces have ALWAYS been a tool of foreign policy, all the way back to the dawn of recorded history. The legions of Rome in both the Empire and the Republic spent *far* more time building roads, policing the populace of client states, and so forth then they ever spend fighting.
You are assuming that they will have one chassis and multiple payload modules. This is the wrong idea. They will probably have more chassis units than payload modules; that way, if the truck goes tango-uniform, you rip off the payload module and stick it on a replacement chassis and send the broken chassis back to the depot for servicing. This also means you only have to keep one set of spare parts, tools, service manuals, etc on hand to repair the damn things, instead of having to duplicate everything 8 times over.
The military has a lot of interest in non-lethal weapons. There are a lot of situations where lethal force isn't a viable option, and situations where (as you note) you want to disable and capture, not kill, the opposition. Actually pepper spray is one of the more effective non-lethal chemical agents, particuarly in high concentrations and when combined with other disabling agents (tear gas).
I've noticed several recent games which also refuse to start in VMWare on the supposition that you are running a debugger. I don't know enough about the internals of how VMWare works to be sure, but I'd suspect that it's intercepting hardware interrupts at some level, which the anti-debugger code can detect.
I disagree. A properly-written law would be effective. The primary flaw of the current laws prohibiting spam faxes is that while you can file suit in your local small claims court, the defendant has the option to escalate the case to Federal court, making it effectively impossible to prosecute. In order to be effective, a Federal anti-spam law would remove this loophole. While you can't force it to be in small claims court (small claims is a juryless trial, and the 7th amendment guarantees the right to a jury trial if the amount is >= $20.) I don't see any Constitutional reason why a Federal law couldn't force a suit to be tried in the State courts.
You can't deal with all third-world spammers this way, but being able to sue the advertiser as well as the spammer will go a long way to discourage companies from spamvertising. Naturally, there would have to be some burden of proof to show that the advertisement was actually sanctioned by the advertiser; otherwise someone could send out bogus spams on "behalf" of, say, Microsoft, and have MS be liable for the spam.
Not only do those parody posts make everyone laugh at the people who don't seem to have the ability to take responsibility for their own actions, they make the site less credible as a whole.
I disagree. The more parody and satire directed against these misguided would-be crusaders and their alarmist rantings, the better. By mocking them, you show how trite and formulaic their arguments are. It marginalizes their "cause" even further, and makes them look like the whacked-out nutjobs they really are. If someone sees a site like this and realizes it's parody, maybe they will exercise a little more critical thinking the next time they see one that is serious.
Heck, just what I have already said probably violates my NDA in some way...
I doubt it. What you describe is a classic textbook example of secure networking.
As bizarre as it may seem to you, I've lived 45 years without having a single 6'2" drug-crazed criminal break into my home.
It's nice that you've led such a sheltered life. Consider yourself fortunate that you've been lucky enough to go 45 years without being the victim of a crime. I hope for your sake that you never are. I hope for your sake that you never have to experience the gut-wrenching helpless feeling that comes from seeing someone being hurt and being powerless to help them.
I HAVE had a criminal attempt to break into my home. At the time liveed in a ground-floor apartment in a pretty crappy neighborhood (I was a poor college student). One night I heard the gravel in the window well outside my bedroom crunching. When I got up to investigate, I saw that there was somebody out there. I can't say for sure how tall he was or what chemicals he had been consuming, or even what his intentions were. I didn't get the chance to find any of this out because he ran away VERY quickly when I pointed my pistol at him. Had I not been armed, the situation could have escalated to something far worse. That's the only time I've ever felt that I actually had to point a gun at someone, but not the only time I was grateful I had one.
On another occasion (and in another state), there had been a series of rapes in my (nice, "safe", suburban) neighborhood. One night when I came home from work I noticed a suspicious-looking guy loitering in the parking lot who matched the description of the rapist (which, admittedly, was vague enough to cover about 10% of the male population). I grabbed my phone and tucked my gun into my waistband out of sight, and went down to ask the guy what he was doing. He said he was "waiting for someone" but couldn't give me a name or even the apartment number of the person he was waiting for. I told him he was tresspassing and advised him to leave; he got in his car and drove off and I phoned in his tags and description to the police. I never gave him any indication I was armed or theatened him in any way, but I felt a whole lot safer knowing I had that extra bit of insurance just in case things turned ugly.
I've also been the victim of one armed robbery (held up at work) and a witness to another. Being a law-abiding citizen living in a state where it's basically impossible for an ordinary citizen to get a CCW permit, my pistol was at home on those two occasions instead of on my belt where it might (and probably would) have done some good.
My uncle, a WWII veteran, was once mugged in broad daylight while shoveling snow off the sidewalk in front of his house. The mugger was unarmed; my uncle was severely beaten and had his wallet, watch, and wedding ring taken. Had he been armed, he would have been able to protect himself. How exactly do you expect a frail 70-year man to defend himself against a teenage punk in prime condition?
Think about it: If some lowlife shot your husband, wife, or child wouldn't you suddenly find yourself gung-ho for gun control, irregardless of your present political beliefs
No, I would be more more gung-ho about actually keeping violent criminals in jail for their full sentences (the vast majority of armed assaults, robberies, and murders are committed by people who already have 1 or more felony conviction). I would become more gung-ho in my belief that ordinary law-abiding citizens should be issued carry permits after receiving appropriate training: it has been demonstrated that the possibility that an intended victim may be armed is far more effective deterrant than any law.
Even if terrorists manage to produce a nuclear weapon, it will be a small one (with the range of a city block) and they'll go to D.C. with it, not New York
I think you seriously underestimate the destructiveness of nuclear weapons. Probably the most likely terrorst bomb would be of similar design to "Little Boy", the bomb droped on Hiroshima: two subcritical masses of U-235 slammed together by an explosive. The explosion resulting from a minimum critical mass is going to have an explosive force on the same order of magnitude as Little Boy (12.5 kilotons, which is tiny compared to today's multi-megaton weapons). This design is called the "gun trigger", because a uranium slug is fired down a gun barrel into a larger subcritial mass to form a supercritical mass. The only difficulty in building this weapon is getting enough U-235 (about 13 lbs); the engineering and construction are comparitivly trivial with modern tools. It's not a very efficient design but it works, as was dramatically demonstrated on August 6, 1945. This took out a hell of a lot more than one city block: over 70,000 people out of an estimated population of 350,000 died in the initial blast; the final death toll was over 200,000. Sobering, isn't it?
Starting a nuclear chain reaction with a single subcritial mass (implosion trigger) takes a HELL of a lot more engineering than it does with a supercritical mass (gun trigger).
Every time we have a topic that deals with freedoms, liberties, etc, do we always have to see posts that quote Ben Franklin, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, or anybody else?
Once a basic truth has been expressed in an eloquent manner, the most we can do is repeat it. [I'm paraphrasing Heinlein on this one, can't find the exact quote, otherwise I'd have put it up].
There's no proof that Thomas Jefferson himself had sex with his slaves, only proof that someone closely related to him did
Actually the evidence (genetic as well as documentary) that Jefferson had an ongoing sexual relationship with his slave Sally Hemmings, and that he fathered children by her, is pretty much airtight.
Jefferson, for all his wisdom and intelligence, had his flaws. The fact that he was a fallable man does not tarnish the grandeur of his accomplishments; nor does the fact that he failed to live up to his ideals diminish the enduring truthfulness of his words.
Not really. Think of it this way. When one person loses their right to privacy, another person gains their right to security, and vise versa
You are missing the point. The Constitution does not *GIVE* us any rights - we already have them. What the Constitution does do is explicitly forbid the government from taking away some of those rights (Freedom of speech, press, and assembly; right of due process; freedom from unreasonable searches; right to a speedy and public trial by a jury of one's peers; and so forth).
Please keep in mind that privacy (the right to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects) is an enumerated right: it is explicitly mentioned and protected by the 4th amendment. The Supreme Court has held on several occasions that the enumerated rights (Amendments 1 - 8) have a higher degree of protection than any of the implicit rights protected by the 9th.
I would argue that there is no individual right to be physically protected from harm (which is what I think you mean when you say "security"). However, there is a colletive entitlement to such protection: it is the stated duty of the Government to provide for the common defense. However, the government CANNOT assume powers not explicitly granted to it (10th amendment) to carry out this duty, nor can it exercise powers which it is explicity forbidden from having. Rights always come before entitlements. The government's duty to collectively protect us from attack is subordinate to it's obligation to respect our individual rights and freedoms.
When a Government exceeds it's lawful powers, in any way whatsoever, it is a cause for alarm. A government which does not obey it's own laws forfits it's claims of legitimacy. It is our duty as citizens to hold the individuals who hold positions of public trust accountable for their actions, and to call them to task when they break the law.
Its as if they believe civil rights trump ALL other rights, even the right to life, no matter how extreme the circumstances
Perhaps that's because our Constitutionally protected rights do trump everything else. The phrases "Congress shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" come to mind. All the authority of the US Government derives from the Constitution; and it places EXPLICIT limits on what the government can and cannot do. Any law which exceeds the bounds of what is Constitutionally permissible is invalid.
It is our right and duty as free Citizens to oppose tyrrany, regardless of it's source. It is our duty to hold our government accountable for it's actions, and to insure that it obeys it's own laws and guiding principles. The first recourse to an unconstitutional law is to petition the legislature to abolish it. The second is to ask the courts to invalidate it. The third is peaceful civil disobedience. The final solution, when all else has failed, is armed resistance.
Why is it when people hear that the internet may or may not be on the road to Big Brother, that so many people seem to lose all common sense and become so paranoid?
Because we know that power corrupts, and that absolute power corrupts absoloutly. Because history shows that "temporary emergency measures" have a nasty way of becoming permanent. Because the various three-letter agencies have demonstrated, time after time, that they are willing to twist laws written for one explicit purpose to other ends.
A perfect example of this last point is the RICO [Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization] Act. This law was passed for the explicit purpose of going after the Mafia. During the debates, the point was raised that the expanded powers this law gave to the government could be easily abused. The response from the FBI was "don't worry, trust us, we're the good guys, we promise we'll only use these powers against the Mafia". The ink was barely dry before the FBI started turning it's new toy against people who had no organized crime ties whatsoever.
I have no gun. I fucking GUARANTEE to you that my son will not get my gun and hurt someone with it. Refute THAT
I'm sure that will be a great comfort to you when a 6'2", 350# drug-crazed lunatic breaks into your house, whacks you over the head with a baseball bat, rapes your wife, and kills your son. I'm sure while you are filling out the police reports afterwards you'll be glad you were unable to protect your family.
People WITH KNIVES kill people
People WITH ROCKS kill people
People WITH POINTY STICKS kill people
People WITH FISTS kill people.
Getting rid of guns will not prevent people from getting killed. It will prevent smaller and weaker people from defending themselves against bigger and stronger attackers.
When enough blood has escaped so as to decrease the blood pressure, and thus deprive vitaul organs of blood/oxygen, they will cease to function as expected
Unfortunately, blood loss alone does not explain why a bullet impact can kill instantaneously, even if the brain, heart, or spinal cord are not hit. The shock of the impact itself (read: blunt force trauma) can kill you easily. Consider the cases of people who were killed while wearing bulletproof vests: the vest stopped the bullet, but the force of the impact still killed them. Likewise, there have been numerous people killed with "non-lethal" projectiles like beanbags and plastic bullets.
Your Adam/Eve scenerio is a CODE, not a CYPHER (which is what we typically mean when we say "Encryption"). Codes have a limited vocabulary, bounded by a pre-defined codebook (which you trivially illustrated.) A cypher obfuscates any arbitrary message algorithmically via a key. A one-time pad is merely a cypher with a key length equal to the message length.
Codes are most definately breakable. If the code book is compromised, it's broken. If you use the same codewords over time, it is subject to analysis. If your codewords map 1:1 to words a natural language, it's breakable. If your actions can be correlated to the message, it can be broken. And so forth. A code is only 100% secure if the codebooks remain secret and it is only used once. "Climb Mount Nitaka" only works once as a code for "Attack Base PearlHarbor". Having used this, using "Climb Mount Fuji" as code for "Attack Base Midway" is really stupid; the opposition might not know exactly WHERE you are going to strike, but they know an attack is emminent. If you sent a previous message "Visit Mount Fuji" to mean "Photograph Base Midway", and I correlated that message with a recon flight over midway, now I know exactly where the attack is coming.
Slashdot Mirror
Not all pepper sprays are created equal. The active ingredient in Pepper spray is capsaicin, which occurs naturally in peppers. The cheap-ass crap normally peddled to civilians has a fairly low concentration of capsaicin (often 1%) and is typically delivered in a water or mineral oil base -- both of which are natural antidotes to the effects of capsaicin. The good stuff that the military gets is mixed with CS or CN tear gas and has very high concentrations (10% - 25%) of capsaicin. This combination of agents is highly effective - each agent enhances the effect of the other.
Every cell phone carrier is required by Federal law to accept 911 calls, at no charge, from any cellular device, regardless of whether or not the calling device has a valid subscription or not.
The question of whether or not that call actually goes through is a different matter altogether - a 911 call from an unsubscribed phone has just as much chance of connecting successfuly as one from a subscribed phone. And assuming that your call does go through, the way it is handled is no different than a landline call. 911 systems are overloaded in many areas; this affects landline calls just as much as wireless ones.
As you noted, the bulk of problems calling 911 from a wireless phone are the same ones encountered making any other wireless call: weak or no signal, dead batteries, no available circuits, and so forth. A wireless connection will never be as reliable as a landline; that is the nature of wireless.
The point is not that you can't rely on being able to call 911 to save your ass. Numerous Supreme Court decisions say that while the police have a duty to protect society as a whole, they are under no obligation to help any particular individual.
I have no clue what the people at CompRen are smoking, but I want some. Where else can you find obsolete, second-hand hardware that costs more than brand new hardware that's more powerful? More to the point, tell me where to find people who'll actually buy that crap; I have a couple bridges to unload.
Amen to that, Brother! I'll take a restored classic big-block muscle car over a hi-tech riceburner anyday. I still regret selling my 72 LeMans GT... 400ci putting out 490hp and 500 ft/lbs. It would pass everything on the road except a gas station.
That is why the best way to control access is via URL Rewriting. Behold the glory and mystery that is mod_rewrite.
If you set it up so that the only way you can get a session ID is to visit the top page first, you've effectively disabled deep linking, because any deep link that gets posts is going to contain an expired session ID. This way you don't have to trust the referrer field at all, which is a good idea.
It's stupid to use poorly-written legal disclaimers to do something that can be better accomplished via some simple well-written code.
A country's armed forces have ALWAYS been a tool of foreign policy, all the way back to the dawn of recorded history. The legions of Rome in both the Empire and the Republic spent *far* more time building roads, policing the populace of client states, and so forth then they ever spend fighting.
You are assuming that they will have one chassis and multiple payload modules. This is the wrong idea. They will probably have more chassis units than payload modules; that way, if the truck goes tango-uniform, you rip off the payload module and stick it on a replacement chassis and send the broken chassis back to the depot for servicing. This also means you only have to keep one set of spare parts, tools, service manuals, etc on hand to repair the damn things, instead of having to duplicate everything 8 times over.
The military has a lot of interest in non-lethal weapons. There are a lot of situations where lethal force isn't a viable option, and situations where (as you note) you want to disable and capture, not kill, the opposition. Actually pepper spray is one of the more effective non-lethal chemical agents, particuarly in high concentrations and when combined with other disabling agents (tear gas).
I've noticed several recent games which also refuse to start in VMWare on the supposition that you are running a debugger. I don't know enough about the internals of how VMWare works to be sure, but I'd suspect that it's intercepting hardware interrupts at some level, which the anti-debugger code can detect.
You can't deal with all third-world spammers this way, but being able to sue the advertiser as well as the spammer will go a long way to discourage companies from spamvertising. Naturally, there would have to be some burden of proof to show that the advertisement was actually sanctioned by the advertiser; otherwise someone could send out bogus spams on "behalf" of, say, Microsoft, and have MS be liable for the spam.
Well, you see, those Canadian clones only cost 60% as much as Euro or American clones...
On another occasion (and in another state), there had been a series of rapes in my (nice, "safe", suburban) neighborhood. One night when I came home from work I noticed a suspicious-looking guy loitering in the parking lot who matched the description of the rapist (which, admittedly, was vague enough to cover about 10% of the male population). I grabbed my phone and tucked my gun into my waistband out of sight, and went down to ask the guy what he was doing. He said he was "waiting for someone" but couldn't give me a name or even the apartment number of the person he was waiting for. I told him he was tresspassing and advised him to leave; he got in his car and drove off and I phoned in his tags and description to the police. I never gave him any indication I was armed or theatened him in any way, but I felt a whole lot safer knowing I had that extra bit of insurance just in case things turned ugly.
I've also been the victim of one armed robbery (held up at work) and a witness to another. Being a law-abiding citizen living in a state where it's basically impossible for an ordinary citizen to get a CCW permit, my pistol was at home on those two occasions instead of on my belt where it might (and probably would) have done some good.
My uncle, a WWII veteran, was once mugged in broad daylight while shoveling snow off the sidewalk in front of his house. The mugger was unarmed; my uncle was severely beaten and had his wallet, watch, and wedding ring taken. Had he been armed, he would have been able to protect himself. How exactly do you expect a frail 70-year man to defend himself against a teenage punk in prime condition?
Jefferson, for all his wisdom and intelligence, had his flaws. The fact that he was a fallable man does not tarnish the grandeur of his accomplishments; nor does the fact that he failed to live up to his ideals diminish the enduring truthfulness of his words.
Please keep in mind that privacy (the right to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects) is an enumerated right: it is explicitly mentioned and protected by the 4th amendment. The Supreme Court has held on several occasions that the enumerated rights (Amendments 1 - 8) have a higher degree of protection than any of the implicit rights protected by the 9th.
I would argue that there is no individual right to be physically protected from harm (which is what I think you mean when you say "security"). However, there is a colletive entitlement to such protection: it is the stated duty of the Government to provide for the common defense. However, the government CANNOT assume powers not explicitly granted to it (10th amendment) to carry out this duty, nor can it exercise powers which it is explicity forbidden from having. Rights always come before entitlements. The government's duty to collectively protect us from attack is subordinate to it's obligation to respect our individual rights and freedoms.
When a Government exceeds it's lawful powers, in any way whatsoever, it is a cause for alarm. A government which does not obey it's own laws forfits it's claims of legitimacy. It is our duty as citizens to hold the individuals who hold positions of public trust accountable for their actions, and to call them to task when they break the law.
It is our right and duty as free Citizens to oppose tyrrany, regardless of it's source. It is our duty to hold our government accountable for it's actions, and to insure that it obeys it's own laws and guiding principles. The first recourse to an unconstitutional law is to petition the legislature to abolish it. The second is to ask the courts to invalidate it. The third is peaceful civil disobedience. The final solution, when all else has failed, is armed resistance.
Because we know that power corrupts, and that absolute power corrupts absoloutly. Because history shows that "temporary emergency measures" have a nasty way of becoming permanent. Because the various three-letter agencies have demonstrated, time after time, that they are willing to twist laws written for one explicit purpose to other ends.A perfect example of this last point is the RICO [Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization] Act. This law was passed for the explicit purpose of going after the Mafia. During the debates, the point was raised that the expanded powers this law gave to the government could be easily abused. The response from the FBI was "don't worry, trust us, we're the good guys, we promise we'll only use these powers against the Mafia". The ink was barely dry before the FBI started turning it's new toy against people who had no organized crime ties whatsoever.
People WITH KNIVES kill people
People WITH ROCKS kill people
People WITH POINTY STICKS kill people
People WITH FISTS kill people.
Getting rid of guns will not prevent people from getting killed. It will prevent smaller and weaker people from defending themselves against bigger and stronger attackers.
Codes are most definately breakable. If the code book is compromised, it's broken. If you use the same codewords over time, it is subject to analysis. If your codewords map 1:1 to words a natural language, it's breakable. If your actions can be correlated to the message, it can be broken. And so forth. A code is only 100% secure if the codebooks remain secret and it is only used once. "Climb Mount Nitaka" only works once as a code for "Attack Base PearlHarbor". Having used this, using "Climb Mount Fuji" as code for "Attack Base Midway" is really stupid; the opposition might not know exactly WHERE you are going to strike, but they know an attack is emminent. If you sent a previous message "Visit Mount Fuji" to mean "Photograph Base Midway", and I correlated that message with a recon flight over midway, now I know exactly where the attack is coming.