That's how science is supposed to work. People show an interest in the work, check it over, tell you what's wrong with it. Then, because they contributed to it, of course they want to use it (ie, cite it) when it's published. But all that said, I'm skeptical -- how do we know that it's not because of Unforseen Variable X that papers that are initially (or repeatedly?) rejected are also often cited more? It could simply be that papers that are rejected more is a sign of increased interest in the topic, and that higher interest level is what drives both metrics. And it also says nothing about the quality of other papers which are published without being rejected -- it could simply be that it is either too specialized or that the research doesn't have any practical application. This could just be a case of someone assuming that high correlation necessarily leads to a relationship existing between the two, instead of doing their homework and building a model.
Yes, and this communication is not authenticated... which means you now have up to seven tons of machinery barreling around a corner... and if it's told that the way is clear, instead of blocked, instead of a gentle deceleration and safe crossing you get human hamburger. Up next on CSI... hacking GPS signals and inter-car communication to create the perfect murder: No forensic evidence, looks just like an accident.
I do not like the idea of autonomous cars depending on or accepting unauthenticated inputs, or having two-way communication abilities while in operation. We already have a pile of broken nuclear facilities in Iran caused entirely by malicious digital communications, the source of which can't be proven. Most systems rely on GPS and network communication for route planning, which is problematic enough but can probably be made reasonably secure... but when you start processing realtime data from unauthenticated sources to make operating decisions, not just navigation decisions, I just don't see it as being possible to secure because of the wide number of variables which could be influenced independently or collectively to create an unsafe condition.
There might have been information in those cables that the public had a right to know, but a lot of it they didn't, and Wikileaks should have shown some discretion in what to publish and what not to. How would you like it if private communications with friends and family were leaked to the public because you happened to work for a company that engaged in unethical behavior that due to the leaks became public? Sure, the public had a right to know about that, but not your stuff too. And that's what the diplomatic cable leaks was about -- it wasn't just leaking information the public had a right to know, but everything. All of it. And no responsible journalist would do that because they're mostly decent human beings who understand a need to balance the public's right to know with an individual's right to privacy.
The "good" things they released do not erase the "bad" things they also leaked. You can't call people unethical while yourself being unethical and expect to get any kind of respect; You need to be an example of a responsible person or organization.
BZzzzzt! They're a movement, not an organization. An organization implies a level of accountability and membership is unambiguous. Why is it that al-Qaeda is called a terrorist group but Anonymous is called an organization? al-Qaeda was far better organized, had a clear leadership structure, and deliberately chose its targets, as well as having a clear mission statement. Anonymous has no real organization, leaders aren't vetted -- it's a popularity contest (at best!), and it chooses targets in a haphazard fashion, with varying levels of participation by its members. And Anonymous' mission statement goes something like "... lulz."
No, you're giving Anonymous too much credit: It's only barely managing to hold on to its identity as a "collective".
Ugh. "Its", not "It's"... This is what I get for not having my morning mountain dew before logging in. *flogs self* Oh, grammar gods, forgive this young and foolish geek! *flogs self* I have seen the error of my ways! *flogs*...
So basically, they're having a lover's spat between thieves, and this is news why? Wikileaks sunk itself because it put all it's eggs in a basket named Julian. When you're fighting the good fight against a government, exposing and embarassing them, they're going to target your leaders. The first duty of any political movement is to ensure continuity; Because your leaders will be taken out of the game. Wikileaks was too centralized, and so all it took was removing this one guy and making three phone calls (to paypal, visa, and mastercard) to take it out of the game.
Wikileaks died of poor planning. It died of ego. And you know what: Good. Enough people have seen the need for a secure and anonymous disclosure of documents that are in the public's best interest to know, but come from citizens in oppressive countries without journalistic shield laws (Yes, United States, I am looking at you). The next incarnation of Wikileaks will not be captained by one man, it will not rely on easily co-opted financial institutions to survive, and... hopefully, that decentralization will also help the next version stay honest. It'll keep any one person's ego from taking center stage, and that'll mean more rational thinking, and hopefully lead to people focusing less on hurting a government they have a bone to pick with and more on telling people things they actually should know. Yes, that was a veiled reference to the diplomatic cable leaks -- Bad Plan, Darlings. We don't need to know that our diplomats are sexually promiscuous, or that they're having marital problems, etc. Those are private matters -- diplomat or not, we need to respect the privacy of others unless there's a compelling public interest reason for disclosure. If you can't do that, you'll never have anyone's respect -- because you're just settling grudges, not looking out for your country's best interest. And to the former crowd... I hope the police do come and bust your door down and spank the everloving crap out of you so you learn some manners. -_-
You do understand that without copyright, Pandora wouldn't give a single dime to the artists, right? Pandora is a business. They're not in the habit of giving away millions of dollars when they're not legally obligated to.
Why is there always That Guy(tm) who assumes that when someone disagrees with a particular instance of something, That Guy(tm) assumes they don't like all instances of the thing, and then goes on to do a reducto ad absurdum argument. Dude, let me be clear: I'm not against copyright, I'm against the copyright system we have today. Copyright should not last 150 years plus the life of the author. It shouldn't have billion trillion dollar fines with plenty of rape in prison tacked on for trivial amounts of actual damage. The list of epic fail can be continued almost indefinately... but that doesn't mean I don't support compensating artists' for their work, it means the system as it exists today is crap.
*facepalm* I also mentioned the DHCP lease data, which would. You missed that.
The idea that ARP caches have been used to bust people I find rather hard to believe, since...
Since you can't imagine a death threat being sent and then the secret service not showing up ASAP? You think they just sit around going "hmm, should we deal with this now, or after tea and crumpets?" No -- their response time is in hours. It's a job requirement that their sense of humor be surgically removed. The ARP data will likely still be in RAM, and yes, you crack open the device, and then remove the ram (or hook clips up to the debugging ports, etc., while it is powered on), chill it, and transfer it to a reader device to extract its contents. This is not theoretical: This has been proven, the people who wrote TrueCrypt describe this particular attack in great detail in their disclaimers and limitations documentation.
And yes, there are workarounds, there are always workarounds... But are dozens of things you need to do to cover your trail, and each of those things that you do reduce the pool of potential suspects. As well, you aren't considering the other evidence that may be available -- a witness to your car being parked outside a few hours before the guys with shotguns showing up, for example. The home security camera on the neighbor's house you didn't notice. The ANPR system of the gas station you drove by on the way to the street you parked outside of. The list goes on.
Only layer 3 information survives, and only until it hits a NATting router at which point that, too, is stripped.
Yes, congratulations, you have a basic understanding of protocols. But you apparently don't understand implimentation of them in hardware, software, and firmware very well, and you're even worse at looking at the total system -- which includes things like statistical analysis, looking at words and speech patterns, timing delays in the data, other data your computer may accidentally chirp (like windows update, which sends a GUID). There's a hundred ways they can hang you -- and you only need to screwup once. Even NAT leaves traces in memory -- All it requires is a single missed ACK during the close of a TCP session, or sending any UDP data, and the state table data may remain there for minutes, hours, even days. Many NAT implimentations in firmware have problems with memory leaks caused by faulty code. Guess what's in the leak?
Cases where people are busted tend to involve ISPs who can pull up logs of who owned what public IP, and that then leads to a warrant which allows a physical search, leading to incriminating evidence on the home computer. But in the absence of such evidence...
All ISPs are required by law to store that data; They have had to for years. Also, the government has been consolidating existing wiretapping efforts into a supermassive data center intended to store detailed and comprehensive records of all communications on the internet domestically. They don't necessarily need the ISP's assistance -- though it may speed up the execution of a search warrant.
Yes, the 4th amendment still applies, but that doesnt mean a warrant cannot be issues. The 4th amendment specifically lays out circumstances in which your "right to be secure in person, houses, papers, and effects" may be violated.
You made a terroristic threat. Maybe you missed the memo, but since 9/11, all you need to do is mention the word 'terrorist' and you have no civil rights. They're detaining people in Guantanamo and elsewhere in the world without trial or charges being brought against them. A guy who merely accidentally bumped into the President spent several months in jail without a trial just last year. A government that has spent many trillions of dollars and bankrupted itself to protect against terrorism is not going to be held up by some internet critic's interpretation of the fourth amendment. The word "unreasonable" will be made to be amazingly elastic if you decide to attempt the aforementioned crime.
and the people taking the blame would be guilty of no other crime than not understanding how networks operate.
Actually, they may understanding completely how networks operate, but have a device that requires the use of WEP (older wifi-enabled printers, anyone?). Don't assume that because something isn't secured to some arbitrary amount that the person who secured it was uneducated.
Also, there is some data left behind that could link it to you: Until the router is rebooted, it will probably maintain an ARP record (if not also a DHCP lease) in the memory of the device. That record will contain the MAC address of your wifi card, and possibly your computer name as well. People can and have been busted for this when, say, sending a death threat to the President. It turns out, the secret service does know a thing or two about this, and they pride themselves on doing anything necessary to find you, even if that means confinscating every computer in a given radius of that wifi router and comparing trace records to forensic data on each computer. Oh, and incase you're wondering -- as a matter of fact, no, the 4th amendment doesn't really apply when it comes to death threats against the president. Or any other law for that matter... they will find you.
Must be one of those angry overweight ugly lesbian cunts the FBI uses to infiltrate other groups of ugly overweight ugly lesbian cunts.
I know I'm breaking rule #1 of Slashdot: Don't feed the trolls. Buuut... it's late, I'm bored, somewhat drunk, and still fabulous. First, not overweight or ugly. Second, I'm bi, but my last two relationships have been lesbian. Third, I prefer the term bitch, not cunt. I reserve that word for people who have done worse to me than making an internet post on some website only known to a fraction of the population. As far as being used by the FBI, nope -- that's what PETA is for. Didn't you get the memo? Us cunt lesbians hang out at PETA meetings, not replying to comments by the marginally literate.
Go ahead, mod me down now guys... but be honest: Every now and then, beating an anonymous coward to a pulp is carthetic.
This isn't the smoking gun you might be thinking it is. Until now, most piracy claims have been prosecuted under the idea that infringement must be willful. In other words, the prosecution has to prove intent. If you accidentally download, or stumble home late one night and while fumbling for the lights, happen to push the "download 300 gigabytes of copyrighted porn" button, intent is not satisfied. Of course, it's pretty hard to prove intent looking at network traffic -- how can you tell the difference between an action initiated by a human, and an action initiated by a computer program? Even if you can prove it's a human, can you prove which one? Digital forensics is still in its infancy, and it has clear and compelling limitations.
That's why, (drum roll please), we have crimes of strict liability. For example, possession of stolen property. Doesn't matter if you knew it was stolen. Doesn't matter if you checked all the registries for stolen products, the serial numbers -- there is simply no defense in cases of strict liability. It was found on your person or on your property and ta-da, guilty. I'll let someone with a more legal background get into why this is bad if they want in a reply, but short answer: Yes, it's abused. No, it won't stop anytime soon. This is what file sharing is moving towards -- you no longer have to prove intent, the act itself is now grounds to throw you in prison or fine you more than acts of major depravity, terrorism, murder, etc., would net you. Again, not how strict liability was sold when it came out, but that's how the way the doughnut's rolling these days.
What I'm getting at is that IP addresses might legally become evidence that the account holder did it... or it may not. But either way, it's still probable cause to search your computer, person, property, etc., and if they find ye ole pirate treasure, you're going to be just as screwed. And as a bonus, if you encrypt it or otherwise protect it from being searched, odds are good they'll tack on additional criminal charges as well, or simply hold you in contempt of court, which means indefinite jail time without appeal, trial, etc., for failing to surrender the encryption keys... even if you can prove a sudden case of total amnesia and are now a glorified vegetable who's main mode of communication is drool, you might still be rotting in jail the rest of your life.
Some people search long and hard to find videoclips like that, AND they're often happy to pay-per-view.
I can understand people rubbing one out looking at pictures of the artists... but a record company executive? It should be illegal, and anyone caught with the pictures punished... for cruelty to camera lenses.
Pandora's problem is that they're cutting out the middlemen. Middlemen tend not to like that very much, especially given that most of the people in our economy are one kind of middleman or another. Money directly to people working? That's unamerican. That's communism. That's... well, you get the idea.
Copyright law exists principally for one reason anymore these days: Middlemen. Oh sure, they talk about the artists, but there's no such thing as an artist under copyright law anymore. They're all contractors -- and their art actually isn't art anymore, they're "works for hire". I shouldn't have to explain how RIAA fucks artists, but for those who've been living under a rock until just now, let me give you a hint: It starts with a 'c', ends with a 't', and has a lot of legal language in between that says you (the artist) brings the lube, and they bring the butt hurt. Oh, and don't bother trying to look elsewhere: It's exclusive. Just you and me baby. And it will not be over quickly. And you will not enjoy it.
Okay, I RTFA after writing this; Some confirmations. "27-year-old Oleg Vsevolodovich Tolstykh from Moscow". Recently purchased a new vehicle, but not something too ostenacious -- suggests he's recently come into some money, especially given his mentioning his "cars, house, and face." The ordering here isn't random -- he's putting status symbols first, which again underscores that he likely came from poverty. The article doesn't say whether the message from the hacker was translated or if he wrote it as-is. If it is the latter case, the abundant use of sentence fragments and run-ons suggests either a poor grasp of the english language, or that his thinking occurs at high speed but is incomplete -- similar things happen when ordinary people take large quantities of stimulants, but in his case may be evidence of an underlying mental affliction.
I'm only mentioning this because it's very common to find career criminals with mental health problems. The prisons are filled with the mentally ill, and it's my opinion that simply letting them rot is a poor use of society's resources and simply reinforces and deepens any already-existing health problems, so that when they're released they aren't rehabilitated but in fact even more dangerous. I've been a strong supporter of medical care for criminals and more compassionate sentencing -- there's too many people who can be rehabilitated and go on to live normal and productive lives if they're simply put on the right medication and given access to regular therapy.
People really pay attention to little cues like this when they are doing something nefarious. Good luck.
Or they just pull a balaclava over their head, tape over the license plates, and keep doing it, since "video surveillance in use" signs almost invariably mean "not monitored in realtime" in remote areas. Not that I'd count on your average opportunistic criminal to think that far ahead, but... be honest with yourself: This is a deterrent, not a preventative action. As others have pointed out: Criminals are usually pretty stupid. Trash usually contains unpaid bills and receipts with their name or other personally-identifiable information on it.
Check with your local police department about the fines for littering/dumping. They'll probably be quite happy to fine them, as well as having them pay for cleanup costs (that would be your time, good sir).
This isn't a sting operation. Law enforcement would not be that obvious; They prefer to infiltrate, get close to the people at the top, gather intelligence, and then orchestrate mass-busts shortly after extracting their operatives. The whole point of undercover work is to not get noticed in the wrong way -- making stupid and risky suggestions for criminal enterprise could get them hurt or killed before they gathered the intelligence they were sent in to acquire.
No, fortunately for us, this is most likely stupidity on a grand and delusional scale. The person behind this is most likely in his 20s, single, male, above-average intelligence, spend his childhood poor, regular access to computers and public education, an interest in engineering/programming, and has some idea about "getting it all back" either for himself or his family. He may have started out with smaller crimes -- credit card theft, fraud, etc. He probably has a juvenile record from learning the ropes, and that record brought him into contact with more experienced adults. He smartened up and graduated to computer crime.
There, he honed his programming and engineering skills somewhat (self-taught), and channeled his anger over perceived societal injustice from his teenage years into scams and computer fraud; "They hurt me, I hurt them back ten times worse!" Given his poor track record with crime before, and his sudden 'success' at it now, he quickly developed an exaggerated sense of his abilities and like many young males, now considers himself 'invulnerable'. This latest example simply underscores the extent of his delusional thinking -- and others who are more cautious and experienced don't see that, instead misattributing it to "the police", due to healthy levels of paranoia that permeate the criminal underground.
Anyway, these types of criminals usually self-destruct within a few years of reaching this critical mass of delusional thinking. If he's "lucky" (I use the word lightly; Obviously, it would be better if he were caught and got help) and isn't caught, he'll take the rejection from his criminal peers as further evidence that the world hates him, and become further isolated as he continues what has now in his mind become a one man crusade against the evil empire. The core attributes of this person is a sense of persecution, intelligence, creativity, and he may be schizo-affective, the key trait here being blunted affect (his emotions seem subdued externally, but may have a very rich internal fantasy world to compensate).
..., and I should be able to do whatever I want with it as long as I don't break the law doing so
Whups. You were doing so well until then, too. Let me ask you a single, very simple question: Do you know all of the laws which may be applicable to you? No, of course you don't. Our own government can no longer count the number of federal laws alone. Many of those laws are badly or vaguely written. Did you know, for example, that if you possess a fish that is illegal to possess, own, transport, or consume anywhere in the world, that's a federal crime? That's right: Our own laws make references to the laws of other countries! Have you reviewed the laws of the other 176 countries currently on the planet as well?
You can start to see the problem here. Right now, everyone reading this is likely doing something illegal. Any officer will tell you -- you follow someone long enough, and they'll commit a crime. Justifiably, even. You can't operate a motor vehicle for any length of time without committing some kind of moving violation. And that's just one example of one daily activity of yours... amongst dozens.
My point is this: You shouldn't do (or not do) something based on whether you think it's illegal. The legality of a thing stopped being relevant a long time ago -- everything is illegal. In california, oxygen "is known to cause cancer" (old joke: Californian visits Minnesota and shortly after passes out. He is revived by putting his head under a car's exhaust). The law has degraded into pure idiocy, and anyone who still thinks it should form the basis of any kind of ethical or moral behavior is severely deluded or selling something. Do what's right -- you're going to pay for it anyway. Might as well be damned for what you really are.
I get that way when some pompous asshole takes a dislike to something I said, and then fails to read my evidence and instead just skims it while trying to work out what he's going to say in reply. If you want me to be less cranky, you need to come to the table with the idea that you might be wrong, and have some idea about what it would take for you to admit it.
The problem is that "an original work of your own" might not be possible for someone who has never accessed the knowledge in the library.
The library was intended as a repository of scientific, academic, and cultural texts of significance. It was never meant to be a free-for-all; It wasn't meant for the teeming masses, but for people who actually had something to contribute. It doesn't take very long anymore these days for anyone, in any scientific or engineering discipline, to come across a novel idea, implimentation, or method. All you have to do is write about it in your own words.
That's not a high bar to clear; And it keeps people who probably have no vested interest in the accuracy or integrity of the information, or people who haven't been trained or educated in the field, from wasting time and resources. There's already a place for the teeming masses to share their own opinions -- it's called the internet, and it's a firehose of continuous crap.
Pardon me for saying, but I'd like to have a place to go where when I walk into the section on evolution, all the work collected there was by people who actually bothered to study it in some kind of detail before adding something. I do not need "Volumes 1--500: The uneducated people's 'proof' of evolution being wrong." If I want that, I'll watch Foxnews!
A financial company outsourcing its IT ought to be considered criminal negligence.
Outsourcing IT isn't the problem. A failure to oversee the IT services provided was the problem; A complete lack of auditing and process control. I wish people would stop looking at outsourcing as somehow evil; It makes sense in a lot of cases. Most corporations have other companies contracted to replace and maintain printers. Most office printers have the ability to retain all documents printed from it, locally, to a harddrive inside it. That isn't a problem by itself -- unless you don't know that the functionality is enabled, and don't audit or remove the drives before the printers are rolled out the front door with all your confidential data... that you thought was secure because you had a contract to shred all your documents.
The story of GunnAllen's criminal negligence starts with the CTO and board of directors -- who fired people for coming forward with security problems, and had a very obvious closed-door policy. Nobody with the parent company wanted to hear about problems, and it's no surprise that the firm they contracted with heard that loud and clear -- and propagated the same attitude right on down the line. "See no evil, hear no evil" often leads to a lot of people doing evil.
GunnAllen's story is one being repeated by the thousand every morning of every workday across our industry. Managerial incompetence leads to otherwise trivial problems becoming fines, bankrupcy, and lawsuits. This story is not about the failures of IT -- IT was involved, but it was not that failed. It was the people at the top... and when the extent of the damage was finally discovered by the government, they tried to pin it all on former employees and the people under them. I'd like to know where those managers are now; Because I know they'll eventually find themselves in another position of power at another company. Whereas all the engineers and people who actually worked for a living, well... we all know what happened to them, whether the article says so or not.
You want to fix problems like this: Start with accountability.
We should just bring back the Library of Alexandria: Full access to the library, must donate one original work of your own. Takes care of all this stupid licensing crap -- just have a central library with a non-exclusive license that says all library patrons have free and full access to read any of the materials at the library, and the right to make a personal copy of the same, free of charge. To become a library patron, simply donate a copy of an original work of your own, subject to the provisions mentioned earlier.
Citation needed. Specifically with regards to the "unlike" bit. Of all charitable donations, 41% comes from the top 10% of incomes. From households (excluding foundations or nonprofit companies), 3% of households account for over two thirds of household donations.
Rockefeller donated 10% of his total income to church, and an unspecified additional amount to other charities throughout his life. In general though, the richer you are, the less you give, as a percentage of income. Absolute dollars is a meaningless comparison: Someone who's poor and gives away his last piece of bread is showing his humanity. A multibillionaire handing the poor a piece of bread does not, because he isn't giving up very much relative to his station. Percentage of income: The more you earn, the less you give.
pSo there you go. Citations given. Now sit down and shut up.
Has anyone ever told you that you are a very annoying cunt ?
Yes. But unlike you, I don't need to resort to name calling; I know what I know, and have no need to prove it. So, how's the job hunt coming, Mr. I-Have-Experience-With-These-Things?
Your argument is a rather simple, old logical fallacy. That's why you got modded as a troll.
To quote the link you provided (yes, I can read): "You should not call your opposition down for committing this fallacy unless they rely on appeals to pity to the exclusion of the other necessary arguments."
I asked why money is being spent on a superfluous luxury when there are clear and obvious better uses for it. We're not talking about slightly better, we're talking about massively better. Even in the space industry. Even in the transporting people into space industry. Even in the transporting private people into space industry. It's a space yacht, okay? It's not going to help satellites get into orbit that'll do useful work. It's not going to help conduct any valuable scientific research. It's built for one purpose: Take rich people into orbit so they can earn prestige points amongst each other. That's it. They want their name next to the names of real astronauts, real scientists. But they don't want to do all the hard work that goes with it -- it's just a joy ride for them.
For the kind of money these guys are paying out, I could build an amusement park in the middle of most of the top 100 largest cities in this country, and pay for its maintenance, upkeep, and staff, without collecting a penny from the attendees, for a decade. My argument isn't to the money can't be put to better use -- it's to the opportunity cost. In economics, the opportunity cost is all the other things that could have been done with that money, which go away when you use that money on whatever the opportunity is.
The bottom line here is, my position is that spending billions to create an industry simply to hand out membership in the most exclusive future country club yet built... is shameful. Almost any other use I can think of would be better. Buying pools of lime green jello filled with prostitutes wearing nothing but marshmellows would be money better spent. There's a point beyond which something ceases to be entertainment, and becomes something so decadent as to be in the form of an added scourge. This, sir, is one such time.
That isn't a fallacy, and I'm getting really damn tired of you petty intellectuals going through lists of fallacies and then saying "See! I'm right and you're wrong!" There's a fallacy for everything a person can possibly say. "The sky is blue because nitrogen absorbs all the red." Ah, the troll replies, "correlation is not causation! Fallacy! Fallacy!"... It should be a crime punishable by tasering to the balls (or tits) to formally mention any such 'fallacy' outside of academic circles. Almost invariably, the original author didn't want to over-explain something and cover every. last. fucking. point, and Sir Fallacious Argumentus comes along to air out his/her inadequacy issues, as if arguing with someone on the internet is somehow going to cure that.
Slashdot Mirror
That's how science is supposed to work. People show an interest in the work, check it over, tell you what's wrong with it. Then, because they contributed to it, of course they want to use it (ie, cite it) when it's published. But all that said, I'm skeptical -- how do we know that it's not because of Unforseen Variable X that papers that are initially (or repeatedly?) rejected are also often cited more? It could simply be that papers that are rejected more is a sign of increased interest in the topic, and that higher interest level is what drives both metrics. And it also says nothing about the quality of other papers which are published without being rejected -- it could simply be that it is either too specialized or that the research doesn't have any practical application. This could just be a case of someone assuming that high correlation necessarily leads to a relationship existing between the two, instead of doing their homework and building a model.
Yes, and this communication is not authenticated... which means you now have up to seven tons of machinery barreling around a corner... and if it's told that the way is clear, instead of blocked, instead of a gentle deceleration and safe crossing you get human hamburger. Up next on CSI... hacking GPS signals and inter-car communication to create the perfect murder: No forensic evidence, looks just like an accident.
I do not like the idea of autonomous cars depending on or accepting unauthenticated inputs, or having two-way communication abilities while in operation. We already have a pile of broken nuclear facilities in Iran caused entirely by malicious digital communications, the source of which can't be proven. Most systems rely on GPS and network communication for route planning, which is problematic enough but can probably be made reasonably secure... but when you start processing realtime data from unauthenticated sources to make operating decisions, not just navigation decisions, I just don't see it as being possible to secure because of the wide number of variables which could be influenced independently or collectively to create an unsafe condition.
The "good" things they released do not erase the "bad" things they also leaked. You can't call people unethical while yourself being unethical and expect to get any kind of respect; You need to be an example of a responsible person or organization.
Yeah, Anonymous, that well known organisation...
BZzzzzt! They're a movement, not an organization. An organization implies a level of accountability and membership is unambiguous. Why is it that al-Qaeda is called a terrorist group but Anonymous is called an organization? al-Qaeda was far better organized, had a clear leadership structure, and deliberately chose its targets, as well as having a clear mission statement. Anonymous has no real organization, leaders aren't vetted -- it's a popularity contest (at best!), and it chooses targets in a haphazard fashion, with varying levels of participation by its members. And Anonymous' mission statement goes something like "... lulz."
No, you're giving Anonymous too much credit: It's only barely managing to hold on to its identity as a "collective".
Ugh. "Its", not "It's"... This is what I get for not having my morning mountain dew before logging in. *flogs self* Oh, grammar gods, forgive this young and foolish geek! *flogs self* I have seen the error of my ways! *flogs* ...
So basically, they're having a lover's spat between thieves, and this is news why? Wikileaks sunk itself because it put all it's eggs in a basket named Julian. When you're fighting the good fight against a government, exposing and embarassing them, they're going to target your leaders. The first duty of any political movement is to ensure continuity; Because your leaders will be taken out of the game. Wikileaks was too centralized, and so all it took was removing this one guy and making three phone calls (to paypal, visa, and mastercard) to take it out of the game.
Wikileaks died of poor planning. It died of ego. And you know what: Good. Enough people have seen the need for a secure and anonymous disclosure of documents that are in the public's best interest to know, but come from citizens in oppressive countries without journalistic shield laws (Yes, United States, I am looking at you). The next incarnation of Wikileaks will not be captained by one man, it will not rely on easily co-opted financial institutions to survive, and... hopefully, that decentralization will also help the next version stay honest. It'll keep any one person's ego from taking center stage, and that'll mean more rational thinking, and hopefully lead to people focusing less on hurting a government they have a bone to pick with and more on telling people things they actually should know. Yes, that was a veiled reference to the diplomatic cable leaks -- Bad Plan, Darlings. We don't need to know that our diplomats are sexually promiscuous, or that they're having marital problems, etc. Those are private matters -- diplomat or not, we need to respect the privacy of others unless there's a compelling public interest reason for disclosure. If you can't do that, you'll never have anyone's respect -- because you're just settling grudges, not looking out for your country's best interest. And to the former crowd... I hope the police do come and bust your door down and spank the everloving crap out of you so you learn some manners. -_-
You do understand that without copyright, Pandora wouldn't give a single dime to the artists, right? Pandora is a business. They're not in the habit of giving away millions of dollars when they're not legally obligated to.
Why is there always That Guy(tm) who assumes that when someone disagrees with a particular instance of something, That Guy(tm) assumes they don't like all instances of the thing, and then goes on to do a reducto ad absurdum argument. Dude, let me be clear: I'm not against copyright, I'm against the copyright system we have today. Copyright should not last 150 years plus the life of the author. It shouldn't have billion trillion dollar fines with plenty of rape in prison tacked on for trivial amounts of actual damage. The list of epic fail can be continued almost indefinately... but that doesn't mean I don't support compensating artists' for their work, it means the system as it exists today is crap.
ARP records would NOT contain your computer name
*facepalm* I also mentioned the DHCP lease data, which would. You missed that.
The idea that ARP caches have been used to bust people I find rather hard to believe, since...
Since you can't imagine a death threat being sent and then the secret service not showing up ASAP? You think they just sit around going "hmm, should we deal with this now, or after tea and crumpets?" No -- their response time is in hours. It's a job requirement that their sense of humor be surgically removed. The ARP data will likely still be in RAM, and yes, you crack open the device, and then remove the ram (or hook clips up to the debugging ports, etc., while it is powered on), chill it, and transfer it to a reader device to extract its contents. This is not theoretical: This has been proven, the people who wrote TrueCrypt describe this particular attack in great detail in their disclaimers and limitations documentation.
And yes, there are workarounds, there are always workarounds... But are dozens of things you need to do to cover your trail, and each of those things that you do reduce the pool of potential suspects. As well, you aren't considering the other evidence that may be available -- a witness to your car being parked outside a few hours before the guys with shotguns showing up, for example. The home security camera on the neighbor's house you didn't notice. The ANPR system of the gas station you drove by on the way to the street you parked outside of. The list goes on.
Only layer 3 information survives, and only until it hits a NATting router at which point that, too, is stripped.
Yes, congratulations, you have a basic understanding of protocols. But you apparently don't understand implimentation of them in hardware, software, and firmware very well, and you're even worse at looking at the total system -- which includes things like statistical analysis, looking at words and speech patterns, timing delays in the data, other data your computer may accidentally chirp (like windows update, which sends a GUID). There's a hundred ways they can hang you -- and you only need to screwup once. Even NAT leaves traces in memory -- All it requires is a single missed ACK during the close of a TCP session, or sending any UDP data, and the state table data may remain there for minutes, hours, even days. Many NAT implimentations in firmware have problems with memory leaks caused by faulty code. Guess what's in the leak?
Cases where people are busted tend to involve ISPs who can pull up logs of who owned what public IP, and that then leads to a warrant which allows a physical search, leading to incriminating evidence on the home computer. But in the absence of such evidence...
All ISPs are required by law to store that data; They have had to for years. Also, the government has been consolidating existing wiretapping efforts into a supermassive data center intended to store detailed and comprehensive records of all communications on the internet domestically. They don't necessarily need the ISP's assistance -- though it may speed up the execution of a search warrant.
Yes, the 4th amendment still applies, but that doesnt mean a warrant cannot be issues. The 4th amendment specifically lays out circumstances in which your "right to be secure in person, houses, papers, and effects" may be violated.
You made a terroristic threat. Maybe you missed the memo, but since 9/11, all you need to do is mention the word 'terrorist' and you have no civil rights. They're detaining people in Guantanamo and elsewhere in the world without trial or charges being brought against them. A guy who merely accidentally bumped into the President spent several months in jail without a trial just last year. A government that has spent many trillions of dollars and bankrupted itself to protect against terrorism is not going to be held up by some internet critic's interpretation of the fourth amendment. The word "unreasonable" will be made to be amazingly elastic if you decide to attempt the aforementioned crime.
and the people taking the blame would be guilty of no other crime than not understanding how networks operate.
Actually, they may understanding completely how networks operate, but have a device that requires the use of WEP (older wifi-enabled printers, anyone?). Don't assume that because something isn't secured to some arbitrary amount that the person who secured it was uneducated.
Also, there is some data left behind that could link it to you: Until the router is rebooted, it will probably maintain an ARP record (if not also a DHCP lease) in the memory of the device. That record will contain the MAC address of your wifi card, and possibly your computer name as well. People can and have been busted for this when, say, sending a death threat to the President. It turns out, the secret service does know a thing or two about this, and they pride themselves on doing anything necessary to find you, even if that means confinscating every computer in a given radius of that wifi router and comparing trace records to forensic data on each computer. Oh, and incase you're wondering -- as a matter of fact, no, the 4th amendment doesn't really apply when it comes to death threats against the president. Or any other law for that matter... they will find you.
Must be one of those angry overweight ugly lesbian cunts the FBI uses to infiltrate other groups of ugly overweight ugly lesbian cunts.
I know I'm breaking rule #1 of Slashdot: Don't feed the trolls. Buuut... it's late, I'm bored, somewhat drunk, and still fabulous. First, not overweight or ugly. Second, I'm bi, but my last two relationships have been lesbian. Third, I prefer the term bitch, not cunt. I reserve that word for people who have done worse to me than making an internet post on some website only known to a fraction of the population. As far as being used by the FBI, nope -- that's what PETA is for. Didn't you get the memo? Us cunt lesbians hang out at PETA meetings, not replying to comments by the marginally literate.
Go ahead, mod me down now guys... but be honest: Every now and then, beating an anonymous coward to a pulp is carthetic.
This isn't the smoking gun you might be thinking it is. Until now, most piracy claims have been prosecuted under the idea that infringement must be willful. In other words, the prosecution has to prove intent. If you accidentally download, or stumble home late one night and while fumbling for the lights, happen to push the "download 300 gigabytes of copyrighted porn" button, intent is not satisfied. Of course, it's pretty hard to prove intent looking at network traffic -- how can you tell the difference between an action initiated by a human, and an action initiated by a computer program? Even if you can prove it's a human, can you prove which one? Digital forensics is still in its infancy, and it has clear and compelling limitations.
That's why, (drum roll please), we have crimes of strict liability. For example, possession of stolen property. Doesn't matter if you knew it was stolen. Doesn't matter if you checked all the registries for stolen products, the serial numbers -- there is simply no defense in cases of strict liability. It was found on your person or on your property and ta-da, guilty. I'll let someone with a more legal background get into why this is bad if they want in a reply, but short answer: Yes, it's abused. No, it won't stop anytime soon. This is what file sharing is moving towards -- you no longer have to prove intent, the act itself is now grounds to throw you in prison or fine you more than acts of major depravity, terrorism, murder, etc., would net you. Again, not how strict liability was sold when it came out, but that's how the way the doughnut's rolling these days.
What I'm getting at is that IP addresses might legally become evidence that the account holder did it... or it may not. But either way, it's still probable cause to search your computer, person, property, etc., and if they find ye ole pirate treasure, you're going to be just as screwed. And as a bonus, if you encrypt it or otherwise protect it from being searched, odds are good they'll tack on additional criminal charges as well, or simply hold you in contempt of court, which means indefinite jail time without appeal, trial, etc., for failing to surrender the encryption keys... even if you can prove a sudden case of total amnesia and are now a glorified vegetable who's main mode of communication is drool, you might still be rotting in jail the rest of your life.
God bless America.
Some people search long and hard to find videoclips like that, AND they're often happy to pay-per-view.
I can understand people rubbing one out looking at pictures of the artists... but a record company executive? It should be illegal, and anyone caught with the pictures punished... for cruelty to camera lenses.
Pandora's problem is that they're cutting out the middlemen. Middlemen tend not to like that very much, especially given that most of the people in our economy are one kind of middleman or another. Money directly to people working? That's unamerican. That's communism. That's... well, you get the idea.
Copyright law exists principally for one reason anymore these days: Middlemen. Oh sure, they talk about the artists, but there's no such thing as an artist under copyright law anymore. They're all contractors -- and their art actually isn't art anymore, they're "works for hire". I shouldn't have to explain how RIAA fucks artists, but for those who've been living under a rock until just now, let me give you a hint: It starts with a 'c', ends with a 't', and has a lot of legal language in between that says you (the artist) brings the lube, and they bring the butt hurt. Oh, and don't bother trying to look elsewhere: It's exclusive. Just you and me baby. And it will not be over quickly. And you will not enjoy it.
Okay, I RTFA after writing this; Some confirmations. "27-year-old Oleg Vsevolodovich Tolstykh from Moscow". Recently purchased a new vehicle, but not something too ostenacious -- suggests he's recently come into some money, especially given his mentioning his "cars, house, and face." The ordering here isn't random -- he's putting status symbols first, which again underscores that he likely came from poverty. The article doesn't say whether the message from the hacker was translated or if he wrote it as-is. If it is the latter case, the abundant use of sentence fragments and run-ons suggests either a poor grasp of the english language, or that his thinking occurs at high speed but is incomplete -- similar things happen when ordinary people take large quantities of stimulants, but in his case may be evidence of an underlying mental affliction.
I'm only mentioning this because it's very common to find career criminals with mental health problems. The prisons are filled with the mentally ill, and it's my opinion that simply letting them rot is a poor use of society's resources and simply reinforces and deepens any already-existing health problems, so that when they're released they aren't rehabilitated but in fact even more dangerous. I've been a strong supporter of medical care for criminals and more compassionate sentencing -- there's too many people who can be rehabilitated and go on to live normal and productive lives if they're simply put on the right medication and given access to regular therapy.
People really pay attention to little cues like this when they are doing something nefarious. Good luck.
Or they just pull a balaclava over their head, tape over the license plates, and keep doing it, since "video surveillance in use" signs almost invariably mean "not monitored in realtime" in remote areas. Not that I'd count on your average opportunistic criminal to think that far ahead, but... be honest with yourself: This is a deterrent, not a preventative action. As others have pointed out: Criminals are usually pretty stupid. Trash usually contains unpaid bills and receipts with their name or other personally-identifiable information on it.
Check with your local police department about the fines for littering/dumping. They'll probably be quite happy to fine them, as well as having them pay for cleanup costs (that would be your time, good sir).
This isn't a sting operation. Law enforcement would not be that obvious; They prefer to infiltrate, get close to the people at the top, gather intelligence, and then orchestrate mass-busts shortly after extracting their operatives. The whole point of undercover work is to not get noticed in the wrong way -- making stupid and risky suggestions for criminal enterprise could get them hurt or killed before they gathered the intelligence they were sent in to acquire.
No, fortunately for us, this is most likely stupidity on a grand and delusional scale. The person behind this is most likely in his 20s, single, male, above-average intelligence, spend his childhood poor, regular access to computers and public education, an interest in engineering/programming, and has some idea about "getting it all back" either for himself or his family. He may have started out with smaller crimes -- credit card theft, fraud, etc. He probably has a juvenile record from learning the ropes, and that record brought him into contact with more experienced adults. He smartened up and graduated to computer crime.
There, he honed his programming and engineering skills somewhat (self-taught), and channeled his anger over perceived societal injustice from his teenage years into scams and computer fraud; "They hurt me, I hurt them back ten times worse!" Given his poor track record with crime before, and his sudden 'success' at it now, he quickly developed an exaggerated sense of his abilities and like many young males, now considers himself 'invulnerable'. This latest example simply underscores the extent of his delusional thinking -- and others who are more cautious and experienced don't see that, instead misattributing it to "the police", due to healthy levels of paranoia that permeate the criminal underground.
Anyway, these types of criminals usually self-destruct within a few years of reaching this critical mass of delusional thinking. If he's "lucky" (I use the word lightly; Obviously, it would be better if he were caught and got help) and isn't caught, he'll take the rejection from his criminal peers as further evidence that the world hates him, and become further isolated as he continues what has now in his mind become a one man crusade against the evil empire. The core attributes of this person is a sense of persecution, intelligence, creativity, and he may be schizo-affective, the key trait here being blunted affect (his emotions seem subdued externally, but may have a very rich internal fantasy world to compensate).
..., and I should be able to do whatever I want with it as long as I don't break the law doing so
Whups. You were doing so well until then, too. Let me ask you a single, very simple question: Do you know all of the laws which may be applicable to you? No, of course you don't. Our own government can no longer count the number of federal laws alone. Many of those laws are badly or vaguely written. Did you know, for example, that if you possess a fish that is illegal to possess, own, transport, or consume anywhere in the world, that's a federal crime? That's right: Our own laws make references to the laws of other countries! Have you reviewed the laws of the other 176 countries currently on the planet as well?
You can start to see the problem here. Right now, everyone reading this is likely doing something illegal. Any officer will tell you -- you follow someone long enough, and they'll commit a crime. Justifiably, even. You can't operate a motor vehicle for any length of time without committing some kind of moving violation. And that's just one example of one daily activity of yours... amongst dozens.
My point is this: You shouldn't do (or not do) something based on whether you think it's illegal. The legality of a thing stopped being relevant a long time ago -- everything is illegal. In california, oxygen "is known to cause cancer" (old joke: Californian visits Minnesota and shortly after passes out. He is revived by putting his head under a car's exhaust). The law has degraded into pure idiocy, and anyone who still thinks it should form the basis of any kind of ethical or moral behavior is severely deluded or selling something. Do what's right -- you're going to pay for it anyway. Might as well be damned for what you really are.
My, you are a cranky one, aren't you?
I get that way when some pompous asshole takes a dislike to something I said, and then fails to read my evidence and instead just skims it while trying to work out what he's going to say in reply. If you want me to be less cranky, you need to come to the table with the idea that you might be wrong, and have some idea about what it would take for you to admit it.
The problem is that "an original work of your own" might not be possible for someone who has never accessed the knowledge in the library.
The library was intended as a repository of scientific, academic, and cultural texts of significance. It was never meant to be a free-for-all; It wasn't meant for the teeming masses, but for people who actually had something to contribute. It doesn't take very long anymore these days for anyone, in any scientific or engineering discipline, to come across a novel idea, implimentation, or method. All you have to do is write about it in your own words.
That's not a high bar to clear; And it keeps people who probably have no vested interest in the accuracy or integrity of the information, or people who haven't been trained or educated in the field, from wasting time and resources. There's already a place for the teeming masses to share their own opinions -- it's called the internet, and it's a firehose of continuous crap.
Pardon me for saying, but I'd like to have a place to go where when I walk into the section on evolution, all the work collected there was by people who actually bothered to study it in some kind of detail before adding something. I do not need "Volumes 1--500: The uneducated people's 'proof' of evolution being wrong." If I want that, I'll watch Foxnews!
A financial company outsourcing its IT ought to be considered criminal negligence.
Outsourcing IT isn't the problem. A failure to oversee the IT services provided was the problem; A complete lack of auditing and process control. I wish people would stop looking at outsourcing as somehow evil; It makes sense in a lot of cases. Most corporations have other companies contracted to replace and maintain printers. Most office printers have the ability to retain all documents printed from it, locally, to a harddrive inside it. That isn't a problem by itself -- unless you don't know that the functionality is enabled, and don't audit or remove the drives before the printers are rolled out the front door with all your confidential data... that you thought was secure because you had a contract to shred all your documents.
The story of GunnAllen's criminal negligence starts with the CTO and board of directors -- who fired people for coming forward with security problems, and had a very obvious closed-door policy. Nobody with the parent company wanted to hear about problems, and it's no surprise that the firm they contracted with heard that loud and clear -- and propagated the same attitude right on down the line. "See no evil, hear no evil" often leads to a lot of people doing evil.
GunnAllen's story is one being repeated by the thousand every morning of every workday across our industry. Managerial incompetence leads to otherwise trivial problems becoming fines, bankrupcy, and lawsuits. This story is not about the failures of IT -- IT was involved, but it was not that failed. It was the people at the top... and when the extent of the damage was finally discovered by the government, they tried to pin it all on former employees and the people under them. I'd like to know where those managers are now; Because I know they'll eventually find themselves in another position of power at another company. Whereas all the engineers and people who actually worked for a living, well... we all know what happened to them, whether the article says so or not.
You want to fix problems like this: Start with accountability.
We should just bring back the Library of Alexandria: Full access to the library, must donate one original work of your own. Takes care of all this stupid licensing crap -- just have a central library with a non-exclusive license that says all library patrons have free and full access to read any of the materials at the library, and the right to make a personal copy of the same, free of charge. To become a library patron, simply donate a copy of an original work of your own, subject to the provisions mentioned earlier.
Citation needed. Specifically with regards to the "unlike" bit. Of all charitable donations, 41% comes from the top 10% of incomes. From households (excluding foundations or nonprofit companies), 3% of households account for over two thirds of household donations.
Rockefeller donated 10% of his total income to church, and an unspecified additional amount to other charities throughout his life. In general though, the richer you are, the less you give, as a percentage of income. Absolute dollars is a meaningless comparison: Someone who's poor and gives away his last piece of bread is showing his humanity. A multibillionaire handing the poor a piece of bread does not, because he isn't giving up very much relative to his station. Percentage of income: The more you earn, the less you give. pSo there you go. Citations given. Now sit down and shut up.
Has anyone ever told you that you are a very annoying cunt ?
Yes. But unlike you, I don't need to resort to name calling; I know what I know, and have no need to prove it. So, how's the job hunt coming, Mr. I-Have-Experience-With-These-Things?
It's what he really thinks. He's not pandering.
Who said he's only concerned about this election?
Your argument is a rather simple, old logical fallacy. That's why you got modded as a troll.
To quote the link you provided (yes, I can read): "You should not call your opposition down for committing this fallacy unless they rely on appeals to pity to the exclusion of the other necessary arguments."
I asked why money is being spent on a superfluous luxury when there are clear and obvious better uses for it. We're not talking about slightly better, we're talking about massively better. Even in the space industry. Even in the transporting people into space industry. Even in the transporting private people into space industry. It's a space yacht, okay? It's not going to help satellites get into orbit that'll do useful work. It's not going to help conduct any valuable scientific research. It's built for one purpose: Take rich people into orbit so they can earn prestige points amongst each other. That's it. They want their name next to the names of real astronauts, real scientists. But they don't want to do all the hard work that goes with it -- it's just a joy ride for them.
For the kind of money these guys are paying out, I could build an amusement park in the middle of most of the top 100 largest cities in this country, and pay for its maintenance, upkeep, and staff, without collecting a penny from the attendees, for a decade. My argument isn't to the money can't be put to better use -- it's to the opportunity cost. In economics, the opportunity cost is all the other things that could have been done with that money, which go away when you use that money on whatever the opportunity is.
The bottom line here is, my position is that spending billions to create an industry simply to hand out membership in the most exclusive future country club yet built... is shameful. Almost any other use I can think of would be better. Buying pools of lime green jello filled with prostitutes wearing nothing but marshmellows would be money better spent. There's a point beyond which something ceases to be entertainment, and becomes something so decadent as to be in the form of an added scourge. This, sir, is one such time.
That isn't a fallacy, and I'm getting really damn tired of you petty intellectuals going through lists of fallacies and then saying "See! I'm right and you're wrong!" There's a fallacy for everything a person can possibly say. "The sky is blue because nitrogen absorbs all the red." Ah, the troll replies, "correlation is not causation! Fallacy! Fallacy!" ... It should be a crime punishable by tasering to the balls (or tits) to formally mention any such 'fallacy' outside of academic circles. Almost invariably, the original author didn't want to over-explain something and cover every. last. fucking. point, and Sir Fallacious Argumentus comes along to air out his/her inadequacy issues, as if arguing with someone on the internet is somehow going to cure that.
Rant done. You may now mod to oblivion.