Was the idea that he would feel compelled to hide this simply because of the porn itself?
Pornography is illegal in Pakistan. It is legal in Austria. He was arriving in Austria from Pakistan when they found the flash drive in his pants. Do the math.
There is no threshold below which radiation is 'safe'. There is a threshold below which is become statistically indistinguishable from random events, but that is not the same thing. We've known even "low" levels of radiation can be dangerous -- look at the cancer clusters showing up in TSA screeners. The scanners were declared 'absolutely safe' and had a 'low' level of radiation. There is a long history in the medical field of radiology where equipment, engineering, or our understanding of underlying principles failed and led to death or serious injury. The fact is, there is no such thing as "safe". That doesn't mean don't use the equipment -- it's often the only way to get the information needed (note: full body scanners NOT included, there are alternatives which provide the same information). But it does mean use the least amount of radiation necessary, only use it when necessary, and carefully track a person's exposure -- time, dosage, etc., to identify trends.
Radiation is a daily reality in our lives. Go outside, look up. There it is; the biggest source of radiation in your life (most likely). We can't avoid it... but we can limit it.
That sort of argument is unlikely to fly in front of a jury given all the other evidence against him.
Correct. Most juries make their decisions based on emotional reasoning, rather than on the law. That's why so many people are in prison in this country compared to others, and also why so many innocent people are released from prison every year based on new evidence.
Bear in mind this wasn't just a random stop-and-search, they already suspected he was an al-Qaeda member.
And this is why juries so often convict innocent people: Suspicion equivocates to guilt for many people.
He tried to hide the incriminating files.
Pornography is prohibited in Pakistan, even when viewing it in the privacy of your own home. It's legal in Austria, the country he was from. So upon arriving in Austria from Pakistan, is it really that unusual?
Having said that, I think this sort of story just re-inforces the general impression that the counter-terrorism apparatus is way too big for the size of the threat it presently faces
Irony, defined: Saying that counter-terrorism apparatus is way too big, while unintentionally demonstrating exactly why it is too big.
If this is the way AQ move sensitive files around, they are clearly unable to recruit members with any technical sophistication.
The use of steganography is not exactly widespread; And despite the simplicity of the concept, most everyday people in this country couldn't tell you what it is, nor provide any examples of it. This is likely broadly true of the general population worldwide. So your argument here is invalid: The very use of steganographic techniques indicates an above-average level of technical proficiency.
I can easily believe intelligence agencies have got a lot better over time, not to mention ruthless and focused, but it seems that if these guys can pull off a devastating attack then basically anyone can and we may as well give up now.
If you never try, you'll never succeed. Defeatism is not an attribute I want in any person, group, or organization who's charter is to save my ass from a suicide bomber. I sincerely hope you feel similar.
No need for "training in Pakistan" for those guys.
They train all over the world, and yet very few of them succeed in their attacks. If I were rooting for the other team, I would conclude that the training is inadequate. However, I am not, so I am thankful their training sucks. Keep getting an 'F' in "Death to America 101" guys.
Of course, a terrorist group wouldn't use one of the most widely-distributed types of video to conceal information in plain sight, knowing that communication with the actual target would be concealed by the tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of others downloading it.
Absent the decryption key and/or software, I can't see a solid basis for destroying this guy's life. Of course, that won't stop them. New terrorist strategy: Make everyone a terrorist by distributing encoded terrorist documents.
If bosses aren't responsible for their employees, what are they there for?
To provide individual profit without individual responsibility. Unless, of course, profit is threatened, in which case sacrificing an individual is a reasonable response. See also: The reason most people over the age of 30 are fired. I can't tell you how many times I've heard someone blubber "But I did what they asked me to..." on the way out the door. I've worked corporate jobs long enough to know that when someone asks you to do something you think might backfire, you smile, agree, and work as slowly as possible on the project while working as quickly as possible at finding another job and getting your name off the reports. Corporations will not hesitate to throw their employees under the bus -- afterall, it's not like you're unique or important... there's fifty more just like you a phone call away.
That is the raisin de etre for a corporation: Individual profit without individual responsibility.
What kind of twisted world view do you have in which corporate employees are transformed into mindless minions that have to obey every command?
My 'twisted' world view is called 'capitalism'. And yes, if you want to stay employed, you do what the person signing your paycheck tells you to do.
As an employee, you still have moral and legal responsibilities.
Yes, the moral responsibility to keep eating, paying the rent so you can keep a roof over your head, etc. It's very easy to act all indignant that someone would choose to eat food instead of morals; It's a lot harder when you're the one choosing between keeping your job, or losing your car, house, family, etc.
In fact, the way Google works, he probably could have said "no" without consequences.
The evidence does not agree with your 'world view'. Also, although cliche, I have to say "Citation needed." You haven't claimed you work for google, nor provided any citation or information that might suggest Google is somehow above its fiduciary responsibility to its shareholders; Because before this guy got fired, the Board most certainly looked at the issue and determined one man's future was not worth Google getting raked over the coals in a PR disaster. To suggest that they would take the moral high ground on that is preposterous: All businesses react the same way to a perceived threat -- they jettison it and distance themselves from responsibility for it as quickly as possible.
I think what rather happened is that he thought this was an OK thing to do. Good for him! I hope he makes that argument stick, because I think he's right and...
... And that'll be the last time he gets a job in this industry. What's the first thing a prospective employer does these days? Type your name into a search engine and see what it comes up with. And right there, as the #1 result for the rest of his life, will be "Caused PR disaster." Whether that's true or not is irrelevant; Future employers won't take the risk. Taking the moral high ground is not without its consequences; That is why so few people these days do it.
, in that people may come to realize that we shouldn't have useless and ineffective legal restrictions on recording publicly broadcast data.
I'm sure he'll take great comfort in raising public awareness on this very important issue, while he's asking you if you'd like fries with that.
I thinks it's exceptionally clever of Google that they found a wifi hacker with street cred to write the sniffer,
Dude... there's nothing exceptionally clever about it. There are dozens of sniffers out there that are easy to configure and use. The fact that Google hired a guy who wrote one isn't clever; It's business. Clever is leaving this guy twisting in the wind, with no future job prospects, no stock options, and only a few months' unemployment to coast on before beginning his new career in retail -- thus protecting the Google brand identity and slogan "Do No Evil". Determining whether or not ruining someone's life for doing exactly what was asked of them by management qualifies as evil or not is left as an excercise for the reader.
If you want a prototype, imagine the irresponsible woman who has lots of sex, uses no birth control, gets knocked up, has a bunch of children she cannot afford, and then complains that poverty sucks.
You just described my ex, perfectly. Naturally, she blamed me and told everyone it was my fault for months after. I'm not entirely sure how I was responsible for getting her pregnant, since that would require a magic, detachable, invisible, asexual, teleporting penis... but you know, pick and choose your battles.:)
Could anyone sue the UK government if they were found to be blocking sites without providing a genuine legal reason for doing so?
A government is just a group of people, notably ungoverned. You can't really sue the government. I mean, you can, but only if they allow you to. So really, when you can sue the government and it isn't just dismissed or you, your family, and everyone you ever knew disappear in a 'boating accident', the government is acknowledging that it hasn't been paid enough from Peter to rob Paul. If Peter pays a higher percentage, then Peter can rob Paul and Paul will not be able to sue the government.
Remember: All laws advantage one group while disadvantaging another.
Totally not related to those same ISPs moving to cut people off from the internet with some special new method of piracy detection and enforcement that is extrajudicial... and being implimented only a few months from now.
It's not like this is coordinated or anything. Collusion doesn't exist. Enhance your calm, Citizen.
No, what's hilarious is that a filthy rich guy plans on building a ship that was created during an economic downturn, filling it full of people, and then going on a long trip where... after it hits an iceberg, all the poor people will be locked below and the ship will sink, which is not in any way a parallel to today's economy where we are bailing out billionaires 'too big to fail', and setting people up for a lifetime of loan repayment and wage slavery.
Next to 'Irony' in the dictionary will be a picture of this man standing next to his ship.
Footnote: It's a shitty amateur video that's so jerky about half of the landing is off-camera, it goes in and out of focus, and the saturation and brightness continually change as the camera tries to cope with the moron aiming it. It's probably a cell phone. all the while, the sound of a diesel engine running obscures everything else that might be useful about the audio track.
"explore the many digital music services operating ethically and legally in the UK.'"
Yes, and you "can have any color of model T, as long as its black." Please. The popularity of the pirate bay suggests that the 'many digital music services' are woefully lacking in something the pirate bay provides; And study after study have shown that it's not the price that's driving people to those sites, but the ease of use and lack of DRM. People are, in fact, willing to pay to be entertained... they just don't believe that the pricing model accurately reflects the entertainment value of the product -- and when every song is priced the same at the various digitla music stores, that's pretty good evidence they're right; Nobody would say that Manos, Hands of Fate is of equal value to say, The Dark Knight. Well, nobody except the entertainment industry...
I am absolutely sure that/. and many websites try to claim all that they are entitled to, but I would be exceptionally surprised if the lengths that they went to included offshore tax havens
True, but then slashdot and most websites are not publicly-traded companies with a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders to maximize profits; And reducing the tax burden is one of the ways that is accomplished. Don't hate the player, hate the game, as the saying goes.
Those pilots had perfectly good input from the inertial platform, GPS and perhaps radio altimeter. They should have looked at their fine instruments, determined what their ground track speed was, what the attitude was, and figured out what to do. End of story.
You're neglecting the fact that the manuals also state that when you have one instrument that disagrees with the others to ignore it, and those manuals usually list which sensors to rely on in the case where you only have two and they show conflicting information. Human error obviously had a lot to do with it, but when you have a voice talking urgently at you, do you listen to that, or what your eyeballs are telling you? Again, no disagreement human error is to blame... but when humans screw up, they usually do so in particular patterns, and good engineering tries to avoid causing those behavior patterns to manifest.
Try yelling "STOP!" sometime when you're out driving with a friend sometime (obviously when there's nobody behind you) and see what he does first: Check his instrumentation, looks around to see if there's a problem, or panic's and stomps the brake. It could be that auditory warnings with a voice component are a bad engineering choice and have a role to play.
In Superman 1. I need to buy up all the real estate 20 miles inland and wait for Global warming to make me rich! Maybe I should set off some nukes at the north and south poles to help speed things up...
Forget that noise;
1. Buy large oil company.
2. Begin drilling wells off the coast of large city... at a 45 degree angle.
3. Frack baby, frack!
4. giant sinkhole swallows 20 miles of coastline.
5. PROFIT!
Slashdot Mirror
Was the idea that he would feel compelled to hide this simply because of the porn itself?
Pornography is illegal in Pakistan. It is legal in Austria. He was arriving in Austria from Pakistan when they found the flash drive in his pants. Do the math.
There is no threshold below which radiation is 'safe'. There is a threshold below which is become statistically indistinguishable from random events, but that is not the same thing. We've known even "low" levels of radiation can be dangerous -- look at the cancer clusters showing up in TSA screeners. The scanners were declared 'absolutely safe' and had a 'low' level of radiation. There is a long history in the medical field of radiology where equipment, engineering, or our understanding of underlying principles failed and led to death or serious injury. The fact is, there is no such thing as "safe". That doesn't mean don't use the equipment -- it's often the only way to get the information needed (note: full body scanners NOT included, there are alternatives which provide the same information). But it does mean use the least amount of radiation necessary, only use it when necessary, and carefully track a person's exposure -- time, dosage, etc., to identify trends.
Radiation is a daily reality in our lives. Go outside, look up. There it is; the biggest source of radiation in your life (most likely). We can't avoid it... but we can limit it.
That sort of argument is unlikely to fly in front of a jury given all the other evidence against him.
Correct. Most juries make their decisions based on emotional reasoning, rather than on the law. That's why so many people are in prison in this country compared to others, and also why so many innocent people are released from prison every year based on new evidence.
Bear in mind this wasn't just a random stop-and-search, they already suspected he was an al-Qaeda member.
And this is why juries so often convict innocent people: Suspicion equivocates to guilt for many people.
He tried to hide the incriminating files.
Pornography is prohibited in Pakistan, even when viewing it in the privacy of your own home. It's legal in Austria, the country he was from. So upon arriving in Austria from Pakistan, is it really that unusual?
Having said that, I think this sort of story just re-inforces the general impression that the counter-terrorism apparatus is way too big for the size of the threat it presently faces
Irony, defined: Saying that counter-terrorism apparatus is way too big, while unintentionally demonstrating exactly why it is too big.
If this is the way AQ move sensitive files around, they are clearly unable to recruit members with any technical sophistication.
The use of steganography is not exactly widespread; And despite the simplicity of the concept, most everyday people in this country couldn't tell you what it is, nor provide any examples of it. This is likely broadly true of the general population worldwide. So your argument here is invalid: The very use of steganographic techniques indicates an above-average level of technical proficiency.
I can easily believe intelligence agencies have got a lot better over time, not to mention ruthless and focused, but it seems that if these guys can pull off a devastating attack then basically anyone can and we may as well give up now.
If you never try, you'll never succeed. Defeatism is not an attribute I want in any person, group, or organization who's charter is to save my ass from a suicide bomber. I sincerely hope you feel similar.
No need for "training in Pakistan" for those guys.
They train all over the world, and yet very few of them succeed in their attacks. If I were rooting for the other team, I would conclude that the training is inadequate. However, I am not, so I am thankful their training sucks. Keep getting an 'F' in "Death to America 101" guys.
Of course, a terrorist group wouldn't use one of the most widely-distributed types of video to conceal information in plain sight, knowing that communication with the actual target would be concealed by the tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of others downloading it.
Absent the decryption key and/or software, I can't see a solid basis for destroying this guy's life. Of course, that won't stop them. New terrorist strategy: Make everyone a terrorist by distributing encoded terrorist documents.
Hey! "Indestructible" is a quality.
Yes... and it's one Nokia phones lack.
However, that is about to change now that Nokia will be putting out quality WP7 smart phones.
'Nokia' and 'quality' should not be put in the same sentence.
If bosses aren't responsible for their employees, what are they there for?
To provide individual profit without individual responsibility. Unless, of course, profit is threatened, in which case sacrificing an individual is a reasonable response. See also: The reason most people over the age of 30 are fired. I can't tell you how many times I've heard someone blubber "But I did what they asked me to..." on the way out the door. I've worked corporate jobs long enough to know that when someone asks you to do something you think might backfire, you smile, agree, and work as slowly as possible on the project while working as quickly as possible at finding another job and getting your name off the reports. Corporations will not hesitate to throw their employees under the bus -- afterall, it's not like you're unique or important... there's fifty more just like you a phone call away.
That is the raisin de etre for a corporation: Individual profit without individual responsibility.
What kind of twisted world view do you have in which corporate employees are transformed into mindless minions that have to obey every command?
My 'twisted' world view is called 'capitalism'. And yes, if you want to stay employed, you do what the person signing your paycheck tells you to do.
As an employee, you still have moral and legal responsibilities.
Yes, the moral responsibility to keep eating, paying the rent so you can keep a roof over your head, etc. It's very easy to act all indignant that someone would choose to eat food instead of morals; It's a lot harder when you're the one choosing between keeping your job, or losing your car, house, family, etc.
In fact, the way Google works, he probably could have said "no" without consequences.
The evidence does not agree with your 'world view'. Also, although cliche, I have to say "Citation needed." You haven't claimed you work for google, nor provided any citation or information that might suggest Google is somehow above its fiduciary responsibility to its shareholders; Because before this guy got fired, the Board most certainly looked at the issue and determined one man's future was not worth Google getting raked over the coals in a PR disaster. To suggest that they would take the moral high ground on that is preposterous: All businesses react the same way to a perceived threat -- they jettison it and distance themselves from responsibility for it as quickly as possible.
I think what rather happened is that he thought this was an OK thing to do. Good for him! I hope he makes that argument stick, because I think he's right and ...
... And that'll be the last time he gets a job in this industry. What's the first thing a prospective employer does these days? Type your name into a search engine and see what it comes up with. And right there, as the #1 result for the rest of his life, will be "Caused PR disaster." Whether that's true or not is irrelevant; Future employers won't take the risk. Taking the moral high ground is not without its consequences; That is why so few people these days do it.
, in that people may come to realize that we shouldn't have useless and ineffective legal restrictions on recording publicly broadcast data.
I'm sure he'll take great comfort in raising public awareness on this very important issue, while he's asking you if you'd like fries with that.
I thinks it's exceptionally clever of Google that they found a wifi hacker with street cred to write the sniffer,
Dude... there's nothing exceptionally clever about it. There are dozens of sniffers out there that are easy to configure and use. The fact that Google hired a guy who wrote one isn't clever; It's business. Clever is leaving this guy twisting in the wind, with no future job prospects, no stock options, and only a few months' unemployment to coast on before beginning his new career in retail -- thus protecting the Google brand identity and slogan "Do No Evil". Determining whether or not ruining someone's life for doing exactly what was asked of them by management qualifies as evil or not is left as an excercise for the reader.
Can we call that girlintraining's Law?
Not if you want to keep both your arms.
Data Engineer In Google Case Is Identified
Fall Guy In Google Case Is Identified.
FTFY
What are the risks for anyone found running OONI-probe in a surveillance heavy country?
If they board the ship, they'll rape us, kill us, and sew our skin into their clothing. And if we're very, very lucky, they'll do it in that order.
If you want a prototype, imagine the irresponsible woman who has lots of sex, uses no birth control, gets knocked up, has a bunch of children she cannot afford, and then complains that poverty sucks.
You just described my ex, perfectly. Naturally, she blamed me and told everyone it was my fault for months after. I'm not entirely sure how I was responsible for getting her pregnant, since that would require a magic, detachable, invisible, asexual, teleporting penis... but you know, pick and choose your battles. :)
Could anyone sue the UK government if they were found to be blocking sites without providing a genuine legal reason for doing so?
A government is just a group of people, notably ungoverned. You can't really sue the government. I mean, you can, but only if they allow you to. So really, when you can sue the government and it isn't just dismissed or you, your family, and everyone you ever knew disappear in a 'boating accident', the government is acknowledging that it hasn't been paid enough from Peter to rob Paul. If Peter pays a higher percentage, then Peter can rob Paul and Paul will not be able to sue the government.
Remember: All laws advantage one group while disadvantaging another.
Dude just wants to build a friggin boat.
Dude, something that weighs a few thousand tonnes is not a "boat". It's the biggest penis enhancement on the high seas.
Totally not related to those same ISPs moving to cut people off from the internet with some special new method of piracy detection and enforcement that is extrajudicial... and being implimented only a few months from now.
It's not like this is coordinated or anything. Collusion doesn't exist. Enhance your calm, Citizen.
No, what's hilarious is that a filthy rich guy plans on building a ship that was created during an economic downturn, filling it full of people, and then going on a long trip where... after it hits an iceberg, all the poor people will be locked below and the ship will sink, which is not in any way a parallel to today's economy where we are bailing out billionaires 'too big to fail', and setting people up for a lifetime of loan repayment and wage slavery.
Next to 'Irony' in the dictionary will be a picture of this man standing next to his ship.
Footnote: It's a shitty amateur video that's so jerky about half of the landing is off-camera, it goes in and out of focus, and the saturation and brightness continually change as the camera tries to cope with the moron aiming it. It's probably a cell phone. all the while, the sound of a diesel engine running obscures everything else that might be useful about the audio track.
"BECAUSE WE CAN: Doing Cool Shit Just Fucking Because."
Otherwise known as 'Myth Busters'.
That's piracy sorted, what's next?
"The rest of the internet."
Note the lack of sarcasm.
"explore the many digital music services operating ethically and legally in the UK.'"
Yes, and you "can have any color of model T, as long as its black." Please. The popularity of the pirate bay suggests that the 'many digital music services' are woefully lacking in something the pirate bay provides; And study after study have shown that it's not the price that's driving people to those sites, but the ease of use and lack of DRM. People are, in fact, willing to pay to be entertained... they just don't believe that the pricing model accurately reflects the entertainment value of the product -- and when every song is priced the same at the various digitla music stores, that's pretty good evidence they're right; Nobody would say that Manos, Hands of Fate is of equal value to say, The Dark Knight. Well, nobody except the entertainment industry...
I am absolutely sure that /. and many websites try to claim all that they are entitled to, but I would be exceptionally surprised if the lengths that they went to included offshore tax havens
True, but then slashdot and most websites are not publicly-traded companies with a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders to maximize profits; And reducing the tax burden is one of the ways that is accomplished. Don't hate the player, hate the game, as the saying goes.
I mean, we DO have to protect Airstrip 1, after all.
The missiles are not for the terrorists, they're for the tourists.
Those pilots had perfectly good input from the inertial platform, GPS and perhaps radio altimeter. They should have looked at their fine instruments, determined what their ground track speed was, what the attitude was, and figured out what to do. End of story.
You're neglecting the fact that the manuals also state that when you have one instrument that disagrees with the others to ignore it, and those manuals usually list which sensors to rely on in the case where you only have two and they show conflicting information. Human error obviously had a lot to do with it, but when you have a voice talking urgently at you, do you listen to that, or what your eyeballs are telling you? Again, no disagreement human error is to blame... but when humans screw up, they usually do so in particular patterns, and good engineering tries to avoid causing those behavior patterns to manifest.
Try yelling "STOP!" sometime when you're out driving with a friend sometime (obviously when there's nobody behind you) and see what he does first: Check his instrumentation, looks around to see if there's a problem, or panic's and stomps the brake. It could be that auditory warnings with a voice component are a bad engineering choice and have a role to play.
In Superman 1. I need to buy up all the real estate 20 miles inland and wait for Global warming to make me rich! Maybe I should set off some nukes at the north and south poles to help speed things up...
Forget that noise;
1. Buy large oil company.
2. Begin drilling wells off the coast of large city... at a 45 degree angle.
3. Frack baby, frack!
4. giant sinkhole swallows 20 miles of coastline.
5. PROFIT!