I am Brazilian, I am in favor of privacy and access to strong crypto for everyone, I think most judges don't have a clue about how WhatsApp works.
Having said that, you don't answer a Court Order in a country where you operate and have offices over e-mail, in a foreign language, asking for details about the ongoing investigation (in English, please)!
Quote from the e-mail, contained in the decison:
"If possible, please provide responses in English as that will significantly improve our ability to analyze and process your request in a timely manner.
1. Is this a criminal matter?
2. What organization is conducting the investigation (Federal Police, Civil Police, Prosecutor's Office)?
3. What is the nature of the crime being investigated (corruption, drug trafficking, gun violence/homicide, child exploitation, terrorism, etc.)?
4. What are the specific WhatsApp accounts that are the target of this legal process (including all applicable country codes)?
5. What data are you requesting for each of the targets listed above?"
Unquote
The reason the appeal was granted is not simply because the higher court disagreed with the judge's decision. It was granted because it was done in writing, by lawyers, respectfully and in Portuguese. It is that simple!
Yes. It disturbs me a lot. It sounds quite unprofessional. Im not with the millitary, but I think the "go kill people" concept of war is totally mistaken. my 0.02
Yeah. Considering the prefect program is yet to be written, then there will always be some poor code somewhere.
Ive been using MS-Word for years too, many versions, on anything since MS-DOS4 to W2K. There are things I dont like in Word, but stable it is.
For example, my home machine runs Windows like a charm, but if I run Linux/XFree86/KDE/Mozilla and load a page with a few large jpgs (which IE would just eat) it begins to swap and stop responding to *any* imput except for the power CHORD! Once I just let it spin to see how long it would take. AFter 2h40min I gave up. I am sooo obviously doing something wrong, I just cant figure out what it is. So dont tell way0utwest to shut up, hes tryin gto help and giving sound advice.
100Mb ethernet. A subnet scheme that would allow me to have 2 IP's (maybe private addresses, you can always host your stuff somewhere else) at the very least. A decent power line, stabilized, backed up by a no-break (not for everything, just for the computers). Lots of conduit. Particularly one running straight to a big flat roof, just in case. But most important, the complex should be laid out like one geek buikding for each two ordinary ones, or else it would be a social aberration. And preferrably close to somewher one could walk to so as to relax, be it a mall or a park.
OK. Im not a network engineer, rather a do-it-yoursefer. Not that the netadmin wouldnt help me, hes fine, just that he is absurdly overloaded and I dont think its nice to ask him to spend any of his time so as I can browse in my Linux notebook because my NT machine swaps too much.
We have more than 30 LANs, all in a private address scheme. But now that you mention NAT, that shouldnt be a problem... Ill check tomorrow if the service is running.
But I just came accross this:
"IP addresses are not permitted to have the value 0 or -1 for any of the , , or fields (except in the special cases listed above [relating to broadcast or network addresses]). This implies that each of these fields will be at least two bits long." [RFC 1716, Almquist & Kastenholz, p.45]
In one of my early attempts I tried to sub-subnet and used 255.255.255.64 as a subnet mask. The NT machine didnt complain (no surprise) so I left it that way but I dindt pay much attention to the output of ifup in the notebook. That may be part of the problem.
Ive been trying that for 2 weeks now. Not that our netadmin wont let me hook up a Linux box, just that the hub in our location is all taken up!
Hows this Win machine supposed to route packets? Win 9.x doesnt do that, I dont know about ME or XP.
Assumming he has a NT Workstation: how to find a subnet range that wouldnt conflict with the rest of the campus? How to tell other routers about the new subnet without the netadmins consent? And he would need at least Windows NT *Server* 4.0 to do DHCP relay to the small net.
Unless you know something I dont, in which case Id be more than happy to learn!;)
What about good old reflection?
on
Battlefield Lasers
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Ok, the system was reported to be able to melt down Katyushas. My bet would be that those were painted gray or olive green. What if one chrome-plates the damn thing? Would that make the rocket (or a shell, or a racing pigeon!) laser-proof? Would someone in the know tell me why this wouldnt be a protection?
The most important thing is to push for the correct approach. By that I mean whenever one talks about anything "digital" or "computer"/"internet"-related, commonsense dissapears, most people tend to look at relations as if a different balance was needed. It is not. Cyber tools are like any other tools. Companies that offer computer-related products should be accountable for damages, like any other company. Products that involve risk should stamp that clearly in the manuals. Tha most secure way to use software should be described in detail. If one promisses and sends a bill, one has to deliver, or else compensate. Things like that. Think of software as an automobile. It's so simple! That would answer many other questions.
One thing, though, *is* different: the absence of an a clear geographic location for things and people on the net. This can only be dealt with through international cooperation. I would advise your Senator not to try and push for unilateral measures, as seems to be the norm in the US with this administration, because that would make it far more difficult to iron-out differences in the future.
MS tools may not be the best, but once that's what the White House has got, then choosing this guy to advise on security seems to me to be a sound decision, no question about that. But I don't think this move has much to do with White House security at all.
Now, call me paranoid if you wish, but when I read this piece of news I can't help but ask myself what is this individual really up to within the government structure. He's supposed to know MS security like very few people in the world. Wouldn't he be of great help for the Bureau in their desire to do funny stuff with everyone's machine? Or something along those lines? Reading the article we see that he's not going to do things like helping beef up thw WH website security, he will be working with a taskforce that has many ramifications, chaired by Richard Clarke.
From the article:
Clarke was named last month to head a new White House Office of Cyberspace
Security that is to focus on developing a plan for protecting the nation's
critical infrastructure.
they wanted me to go through these two Excel spreadsheets of volunteers to weed out duplicates and it looked like a dauntingly tedious process, so I converted the spreadsheets to comma-delimited text files and booted the Dell I was given to work with to a Linuxcare CD, mounted the disk, and used cat and grep to go through the list at several times the speed I was expected to go at. If I were a "Perl Monk" I am sure that I could have blown through it in even less time.
Or you could have done the same with tools written for Windows, only replacing type for cat and loosing the CD boot/mount thing.
Of course, I see your point. Unix is inherently more flexible when it comes to doing non-standard things, and utilities talk to each other much more seamlessly. What I want to note is that there is an enourmous world under Windows beyond what Microsoft offers, some of it open source. If a staff is already comfortable with an OS, I don't think it would be wise to migrate, except if there are at least two people proficient with Unix (which might well be the case) and time and budget for training. OTOH, maybe your example sprung up to my eyes just because I'm so used to using Borland's grep that I'm beginning to feel it's part of the OS!
A note on distributions: I imagine the situation in Africa as being similar to the one in Brazil as far as hardware is concerned, that means a lot of cheap/old cards that may not be supported by many distros. If you (the submiter of the original question) face that kind of problem, try Conectiva Linux. They have paid special attention to that aspect.
There's nothing stopping any country from launching its own navigation satellites, but until they come up with that kind of money and sufficient technology, I think it's pretty damn nice of the US to provide the service for free.
I think its very nice too, but the Russians have a comparable system for some years now. Check http://giswww.pok.ibm.com/gps/gpsweb.html#Header_5 0 for details. I can't find a link now, but some people are considering building receivers that work with both systems so as to improve accuracy/reliability.
Here are some of the things that make me embarrassed to be a U.S. citizen:
Don't be!
While all those are true (and I could mention many other shameful actions) I think 99% of the world population can establish a clear distinction between American people and American government. While it's true that up to Bill Clinton US presidents have been democractly chosen (not sure about JFK), there's not much one can do when options are so limited, as far as candidates are concerned.
Unless you are a Government policy maker or a journalist, you only have reasons to be proud. Just try to keep your congressman in a tight leash.
Right. Airspace above FL400 may be controlled, as is the case in the U.S. and other places. I really meant Concorde pilots are allowed to gradually climb instead of being locked to a few flight levels. Thanks!
People's lives are at stake with the equipment in an aircraft, so you don't want to upgrade simply to make everything look cool.
But you still want to upgrade. Reducing pilot stress is one main factor in improving safety and those cockpit's from the 60's and 70's suck. You should see the cockpit of the infamous Comet, pity I don't have a link... Modern avionics are just as reliable as old dials, but pilots don't like the feel of not having control. I used to fly airplanes (ok, Piper Cherokees) and if I could have a dial showing me tire temperature or rudder angle I'd surely want one, yet usefulness would be highly questionable.
The Concorde is a weird beast, and most things about that airplane are are different. Let me give you two examples:
Cruise flight in a modern airliner is boring. You just supervise a few systems and sip your coffee (or actually sleep, as many pilots acknowledge. Some other things they won't acknowledge...). Not in a Concorde. That airplane burns lots of fuel considering its size, which means weight and CG change considerably during a trip. The flight engineer has to monitor the fuel in the many tanks and transfer it from here to there to maintain the CG where it's supposed to be, which also depends on how the plane is loaded in each trip. Lots of calculations, lots of monitoring. Also, the lighter the airplane, the highest it will fly at optimum fuel consumption. In normal jet aviation you're given a flight level and during the trip you are tipically allowed to switch to a higher level two or three times. The Concorde flies high, above 40.000 ft, where airspace is not controlled, so the pilot can gradually increase altitude during the trip. Actually one *has* to, if consumption is to be kept to the minimum. These are two tasks that should be handled by computers in my opinion, drawing attention from the crew only if something goes out of pre-established parameters.
Of course, machines can enslave humans. Those who think otherwise should think again. The current paradigm that computer behaviour has to be deterministic will certainly change. Any creature above a cetain intelligence level can conceive that, given the motivation and circumstances, hard-coded basic directives can be overriden. It doesn't have to be taht complicated either: machines can be "programmed" to enslave all but their "lords", or at least try to.
But what if GMO's, or GMH's (humans) are developed to enough of an intelligence level so as to be much more capable than such machines? Wouldn't these new "humans" be subjected to the temptation of ruling over us? Think about it. If a creature twice as intelligent as you wants to screw you, no matter how strong or wealthy you are, it will.
Who would be the selected ones? Those holding the patents would choose, right? Does that smell good? Not to me. As much as I love scientific progress (and I do), messing with human genetics is a recipe for disaster. Maybe that's an unavoidable step in any race's evolution, painful as it may prove to be. But the amount of power such things are about to unleash (it won't take long, I think) coupled with economic interests may well do more harm than good.
Why does it need be like that? Quite often I ask God why did He dump me on this planet... Am I supposed to rescue this race? Give me the tools, damn it!
Sorry for the rant, sorry for the emulation of English.
I mean sometimes these computers aren't the same. A "www" computer name specifies that that computer's task is to serve html pages over the Internet. Try my bank at http://www.unibanco.com.br and they serve you a page. Try http://unibanco.com.br and you get nothing. At my State Agency we have http://www.sef.sc.gov.br for public access and http://sef.sc.gov.br for intranet. Some sites hosted in domains with different names (those sites with which reverse DNS won't work as expected) demand that you type the www. Also, some servers seem to try different routes depending on whether or not you type the www, wich is what I think is going on in this case, hence the suggestion.
I fully agree with the gist of your post, but let's not call him guilty, that's not up to you or I to say. If you are such a strong believer in Justice of the Law, let the courts decide. And yes, I saw the "as far as I can see" part.
On a side note: what I understand from this is that everyone who is or has been an employee of ElcomSoft, or anyone who has somehow contributed to the "effort" is subjected to arrest upon entering the USA. Maybe one wouldn't even need to enter the USA (think Noriega). I think this extreme scenario highlights how law and justice can be apart, as you suggested.
maybe my system could keep up with changes that other people have committed, and begin showing the file through a fog, to let me know that something has been obscured.
Slashdot Mirror
Having said that, you don't answer a Court Order in a country where you operate and have offices over e-mail, in a foreign language, asking for details about the ongoing investigation (in English, please)!
Quote from the e-mail, contained in the decison:
Unquote
The reason the appeal was granted is not simply because the higher court disagreed with the judge's decision. It was granted because it was done in writing, by lawyers, respectfully and in Portuguese. It is that simple!
I read and enjoyed "My life as a quant" , by Emanuel Derman.
Actually the 486/SX25 did not have an embedded Math CO-processor (at least not a working one).
I've got one of these, with a leaking LCD screen. Not sure what to do with it
Yes. It disturbs me a lot. It sounds quite unprofessional. Im not with the millitary, but I think the "go kill people" concept of war is totally mistaken. my 0.02
Steel rots.
Yeah. Considering the prefect program is yet to be written, then there will always be some poor code somewhere.
Ive been using MS-Word for years too, many versions, on anything since MS-DOS4 to W2K. There are things I dont like in Word, but stable it is.
For example, my home machine runs Windows like a charm, but if I run Linux/XFree86/KDE/Mozilla and load a page with a few large jpgs (which IE would just eat) it begins to swap and stop responding to *any* imput except for the power CHORD! Once I just let it spin to see how long it would take. AFter 2h40min I gave up. I am sooo obviously doing something wrong, I just cant figure out what it is. So dont tell way0utwest to shut up, hes tryin gto help and giving sound advice.
100Mb ethernet. A subnet scheme that would allow me to have 2 IP's (maybe private addresses, you can always host your stuff somewhere else) at the very least. A decent power line, stabilized, backed up by a no-break (not for everything, just for the computers). Lots of conduit. Particularly one running straight to a big flat roof, just in case. But most important, the complex should be laid out like one geek buikding for each two ordinary ones, or else it would be a social aberration. And preferrably close to somewher one could walk to so as to relax, be it a mall or a park.
This is basic TCP/IP networking.
OK. Im not a network engineer, rather a do-it-yoursefer. Not that the netadmin wouldnt help me, hes fine, just that he is absurdly overloaded and I dont think its nice to ask him to spend any of his time so as I can browse in my Linux notebook because my NT machine swaps too much.
We have more than 30 LANs, all in a private address scheme. But now that you mention NAT, that shouldnt be a problem... Ill check tomorrow if the service is running.
But I just came accross this:
"IP addresses are not permitted to have the value 0 or -1 for any of the , , or fields (except in the special cases listed above [relating to broadcast or network addresses]). This implies that each of these fields will be at least two bits long." [RFC 1716, Almquist & Kastenholz, p.45]In one of my early attempts I tried to sub-subnet and used 255.255.255.64 as a subnet mask. The NT machine didnt complain (no surprise) so I left it that way but I dindt pay much attention to the output of ifup in the notebook. That may be part of the problem.
Not really, but computed-related terms are very different.
Sure! Shell out some money, they give you a box of a distro that ships with 2.4.5-9 binaries with 2.4.5-8 sources. One which rpm doesnt unpack, btw...
Then you try to compile a driver for some hardware.
Then you ask about the source and they say "kernel compilation" is not included in the basic support package.
Then you go to their website and you cant find the damn thing!
Then, if you have a Win machine at the monastery, you just d/l a 30MB tar from kernel.org.
Informative my ass!
Ive been trying that for 2 weeks now. Not that our netadmin wont let me hook up a Linux box, just that the hub in our location is all taken up!
;)
Hows this Win machine supposed to route packets? Win 9.x doesnt do that, I dont know about ME or XP.
Assumming he has a NT Workstation: how to find a subnet range that wouldnt conflict with the rest of the campus? How to tell other routers about the new subnet without the netadmins consent? And he would need at least Windows NT *Server* 4.0 to do DHCP relay to the small net.
Unless you know something I dont, in which case Id be more than happy to learn!
Ok, the system was reported to be able to melt down Katyushas. My bet would be that those were painted gray or olive green. What if one chrome-plates the damn thing? Would that make the rocket (or a shell, or a racing pigeon!) laser-proof? Would someone in the know tell me why this wouldnt be a protection?
The most important thing is to push for the correct approach. By that I mean whenever one talks about anything "digital" or "computer"/"internet"-related, commonsense dissapears, most people tend to look at relations as if a different balance was needed. It is not. Cyber tools are like any other tools. Companies that offer computer-related products should be accountable for damages, like any other company. Products that involve risk should stamp that clearly in the manuals. Tha most secure way to use software should be described in detail. If one promisses and sends a bill, one has to deliver, or else compensate. Things like that. Think of software as an automobile. It's so simple! That would answer many other questions.
One thing, though, *is* different: the absence of an a clear geographic location for things and people on the net. This can only be dealt with through international cooperation. I would advise your Senator not to try and push for unilateral measures, as seems to be the norm in the US with this administration, because that would make it far more difficult to iron-out differences in the future.
MS tools may not be the best, but once that's what the White House has got, then choosing this guy to advise on security seems to me to be a sound decision, no question about that. But I don't think this move has much to do with White House security at all.
Now, call me paranoid if you wish, but when I read this piece of news I can't help but ask myself what is this individual really up to within the government structure. He's supposed to know MS security like very few people in the world. Wouldn't he be of great help for the Bureau in their desire to do funny stuff with everyone's machine? Or something along those lines? Reading the article we see that he's not going to do things like helping beef up thw WH website security, he will be working with a taskforce that has many ramifications, chaired by Richard Clarke.
From the article:
Clarke was named last month to head a new White House Office of Cyberspace Security that is to focus on developing a plan for protecting the nation's critical infrastructure.
That could mean a lot of things.
they wanted me to go through these two Excel spreadsheets of volunteers to weed out duplicates and it looked like a dauntingly tedious process, so I converted the spreadsheets to comma-delimited text files and booted the Dell I was given to work with to a Linuxcare CD, mounted the disk, and used cat and grep to go through the list at several times the speed I was expected to go at. If I were a "Perl Monk" I am sure that I could have blown through it in even less time.
Or you could have done the same with tools written for Windows, only replacing type for cat and loosing the CD boot/mount thing.
Of course, I see your point. Unix is inherently more flexible when it comes to doing non-standard things, and utilities talk to each other much more seamlessly. What I want to note is that there is an enourmous world under Windows beyond what Microsoft offers, some of it open source. If a staff is already comfortable with an OS, I don't think it would be wise to migrate, except if there are at least two people proficient with Unix (which might well be the case) and time and budget for training. OTOH, maybe your example sprung up to my eyes just because I'm so used to using Borland's grep that I'm beginning to feel it's part of the OS!
A note on distributions: I imagine the situation in Africa as being similar to the one in Brazil as far as hardware is concerned, that means a lot of cheap/old cards that may not be supported by many distros. If you (the submiter of the original question) face that kind of problem, try Conectiva Linux. They have paid special attention to that aspect.
I'm not in the U.S. I'm getting "(113) No route to host" errors. Ok, next step: try Google. What? They're not caching the pages!
Does that mean what I think it means? Anyone?
There's nothing stopping any country from launching its own navigation satellites, but until they come up with that kind of money and sufficient technology, I think it's pretty damn nice of the US to provide the service for free.
I think its very nice too, but the Russians have a comparable system for some years now. Check http://giswww.pok.ibm.com/gps/gpsweb.html#Header_5 0 for details. I can't find a link now, but some people are considering building receivers that work with both systems so as to improve accuracy/reliability.
Here are some of the things that make me embarrassed to be a U.S. citizen:
Don't be!
While all those are true (and I could mention many other shameful actions) I think 99% of the world population can establish a clear distinction between American people and American government. While it's true that up to Bill Clinton US presidents have been democractly chosen (not sure about JFK), there's not much one can do when options are so limited, as far as candidates are concerned.
Unless you are a Government policy maker or a journalist, you only have reasons to be proud. Just try to keep your congressman in a tight leash.
My DNS server seems to be screwed...
;)
Would someone post the IP of the server? (those of CNN and TWPost wouldn't hurt either
Thanks!
Right. Airspace above FL400 may be controlled, as is the case in the U.S. and other places. I really meant Concorde pilots are allowed to gradually climb instead of being locked to a few flight levels. Thanks!
People's lives are at stake with the equipment in an aircraft, so you don't want to upgrade simply to make everything look cool.
But you still want to upgrade. Reducing pilot stress is one main factor in improving safety and those cockpit's from the 60's and 70's suck. You should see the cockpit of the infamous Comet, pity I don't have a link... Modern avionics are just as reliable as old dials, but pilots don't like the feel of not having control. I used to fly airplanes (ok, Piper Cherokees) and if I could have a dial showing me tire temperature or rudder angle I'd surely want one, yet usefulness would be highly questionable.
The Concorde is a weird beast, and most things about that airplane are are different. Let me give you two examples:
Cruise flight in a modern airliner is boring. You just supervise a few systems and sip your coffee (or actually sleep, as many pilots acknowledge. Some other things they won't acknowledge...). Not in a Concorde. That airplane burns lots of fuel considering its size, which means weight and CG change considerably during a trip. The flight engineer has to monitor the fuel in the many tanks and transfer it from here to there to maintain the CG where it's supposed to be, which also depends on how the plane is loaded in each trip. Lots of calculations, lots of monitoring. Also, the lighter the airplane, the highest it will fly at optimum fuel consumption. In normal jet aviation you're given a flight level and during the trip you are tipically allowed to switch to a higher level two or three times. The Concorde flies high, above 40.000 ft, where airspace is not controlled, so the pilot can gradually increase altitude during the trip. Actually one *has* to, if consumption is to be kept to the minimum. These are two tasks that should be handled by computers in my opinion, drawing attention from the crew only if something goes out of pre-established parameters.
The interface thing is just a matter of time.
Of course, machines can enslave humans. Those who think otherwise should think again. The current paradigm that computer behaviour has to be deterministic will certainly change. Any creature above a cetain intelligence level can conceive that, given the motivation and circumstances, hard-coded basic directives can be overriden. It doesn't have to be taht complicated either: machines can be "programmed" to enslave all but their "lords", or at least try to.
But what if GMO's, or GMH's (humans) are developed to enough of an intelligence level so as to be much more capable than such machines? Wouldn't these new "humans" be subjected to the temptation of ruling over us? Think about it. If a creature twice as intelligent as you wants to screw you, no matter how strong or wealthy you are, it will.
Who would be the selected ones? Those holding the patents would choose, right? Does that smell good? Not to me. As much as I love scientific progress (and I do), messing with human genetics is a recipe for disaster. Maybe that's an unavoidable step in any race's evolution, painful as it may prove to be. But the amount of power such things are about to unleash (it won't take long, I think) coupled with economic interests may well do more harm than good.
Why does it need be like that? Quite often I ask God why did He dump me on this planet... Am I supposed to rescue this race? Give me the tools, damn it!
Sorry for the rant, sorry for the emulation of English.
CmdrTaco: Lame post my ass!
I mean sometimes these computers aren't the same. A "www" computer name specifies that that computer's task is to serve html pages over the Internet. Try my bank at http://www.unibanco.com.br and they serve you a page. Try http://unibanco.com.br and you get nothing. At my State Agency we have http://www.sef.sc.gov.br for public access and http://sef.sc.gov.br for intranet. Some sites hosted in domains with different names (those sites with which reverse DNS won't work as expected) demand that you type the www. Also, some servers seem to try different routes depending on whether or not you type the www, wich is what I think is going on in this case, hence the suggestion.
But what do I know? I just surf here...
I fully agree with the gist of your post, but let's not call him guilty, that's not up to you or I to say. If you are such a strong believer in Justice of the Law, let the courts decide. And yes, I saw the "as far as I can see" part.
On a side note: what I understand from this is that everyone who is or has been an employee of ElcomSoft, or anyone who has somehow contributed to the "effort" is subjected to arrest upon entering the USA. Maybe one wouldn't even need to enter the USA (think Noriega). I think this extreme scenario highlights how law and justice can be apart, as you suggested.
maybe my system could keep up with changes that other people have committed, and begin showing the file through a fog, to let me know that something has been obscured.
You must love your paperclip! ;)
Sorry, I couldn't resist...