Should Osama and crew learn all of the ways that we spy on them, they are liable to change their tactics and make it that much harder for us to try to foil them.
You know, a person might be fogiven for thinking that one way to foil a terrorist is to quit paying him to be a terrorist. I had imagined maybe the US had thought of that, or maybe could figure it out eventually, but perhaps it's time some one pointed it out.
The sumbitch (Osama) is training terrorists using training plans created by US federal govt employees, in camps (and cave complexes) paid for with CIA black-budget funding, using materiel bought with US tax-payer dollars - and yet a covert monitoring program is needed to keep an eye on this "business associate" of the current and former presidents of the United States.
Wow. I should have thought of that myself. Silly me.
Perhaps the reason carnivore has been retired is that it DIDN't F**KING WORK. It didn't exactly stop 9/11, did it?
The FBI probably used it enough to realize that all the really juicy stuff was going across NNTP or HTTP or THE PHONE (ob. nod to ECHELON) - and that not even CIA financed 3rd world thugs were stupid enough to put their battle plans into an email (well, SPAM, maybe, but that's another matter, since they were using 1-shot addresses and CARNIVORE only worked if you set it up at the ISP of known account).
In fact, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that CARNIVORE is just one peice of that $170-sum-odd-billion software package that the FBI just scrapped the other day because it was "obsolete" and "indadequate" to their needs....
Just a thought.
"You don't need proof if you have just the right.... inflection?"
You could still end up decrepit and arthritis-ridden barely able to care for yourself, and just live that way for the next several hundred years
Nuh-uh. Dubya promised me that right after the War of the Five Armies in the Tigris Euphrates Valley of Armageddeon that Jesus would come with lots of angels and there would be a new heaven and a new earth and I would get a new body that could sing hosanneah all the live long day on a street of glass in a gold city with gemstones and rainbows and while Satan burns in Hell forever with Sadam Hussein... or was that the preacher?
Anyway, there's going to be peace on earth right after the republicans get enough gas to drive their SUVs thru the sky for all eternity, so that proves it.
As I've been pointing out for dozens - perhaps thousands - of years, now: You (and all those other parsiminous naysayers who mouth [type] that old saw) are precisely right. The world owes me a helluvalot more than just a living... and I can tell you from experience, the world is just really a tightwad. Seems like it thinks it can just wait me out and I'll forget, or something...
It scares me to think that just a few short weeks ago I almost considered perhaps allowing myself to be conned into moving there. Damn that was close...
On a more positive note, though - the traditional hellhole of the Universe - the Midwest - is now looking good by comparison to what used to be the Silicon Mecca. I do have to wonder what's going to happen to Berkley, though. I don't know if they have another Revolt Against the Establishment left in 'em... I foresee Anarchy and Chaos... no wait... nevermind.
Sorry to keep hammering on this, but my interest is running a bit deeper here than just a chance to take cheap shots at the FCC (i usually strive not to be too serious, but this is really interesting...
You don't WANT to "hardwire" the power settings - you want the WiFi device to be able to adjust its power settings based upon the amount of power needed to communicate to the other devices. What you DON'T want is the user taking the device out of the designed limits.
What about a feedback loop? Is that what you're talking about with the 10 cent component addition?
Frankly, as someone plays at doing software development almost every day, I'd just as soon not *have* to s/w control the gain. Frequency either, if I can help it. I'd prefer to just give it some data have it arrive somewhere else magickally. Okay - well, more practically - all this freq and gain setting xlates to ioctl() calls in my "posix" device driver model, and I want to minimize my dependence on such things. They may not be as evil as crack, but I figure heroin is probably easier to put down than a nasty ioctl() habit...
I'm pretty sure frequency is routinely controlled by something I read about in school called a "Phase Locked Loop". How is that (a PLL) typically implemented (i.e. digitally or analog)? I would have guessed as one of these ASIC things (or discrete components in older stuff), but that's only a (decade old) guess...
Would it be reasonable to expect to be able to purchase on the open market a design for, say, an 802.11g device that incorporates those sorts of design elements (self-contained, automatic freq and gain controls)? Not the device itself, just a design that could built (fabbed?) - or "open sourced". Or would that be considerd a WMD ?
So, what you do when you design an RF device is you design the hardware to allow for enough gain variation to compensate for 99% of the parts you will see.
Isn't the gain control a set of bits in a "register", though? And if so, can't you limit the gain by limiting the number of bits?
And to follow up on your direct response to my earilier question (thank-you for the succinct definition of ASIC): Are the ASICs that are going into the devices proprietary? And: Is the e.g. Prism 2 an ASIC. or just part of one? And finally, roughly how much design effort goes into design of the ASIC given some prefab design or part that is the actual radio? (not sure if I'm asking that correctly, but I'm trying to get an idea of what it takes to go from a "cheap", off-the-shelf part to a functional device - more insterested in the radio part than e.g. the USB interface)
The Economist, but it speaks with a collective voice. Leaders are discussed, often disputed, each week in meetings that are open to all members of the editorial staff. Journalists often co-operate on articles.
Yeah, right. Sez them. For all we know that was written by the same flak that writes all the rest of their crud. For all we know the "anonymity" is just a cover for some failed wannabe in a crummy hotel room with a typewriter and a bottle of cheap gin. Probably in Toronto...
If there really is more than one of them, they should at least use pen names.
I was going to tell you to STFU so as not to give them any ideas, but...
let's just declare the intarweb illegal and impose fines for anyone who uses it.
... I see you're onto the Master Plan; a key factor you didn't mention, though (I can say this because it's already been leaked elsewhere): It won't just be fines, for individuals.
Fines are for gigantic corps (except for M$ - their "Windows Networking" P2P software will go unpunished along with the anti-trust "mis-understanding". I'm not clear on why, but I think it has something to do with Gate's head being better than average; or perhaps it's just youthful exuberence)...
Use of TCP/IP on a machine not under the direct control of a corporation will be defined as Terrorism, and we're working up to the Death penalty for that; fines are for wimpy states; Real Men who are Not Girly Terminate the criminals/terrorists/....
... ain't that right, Arnie, you corporate fascist bitch, you... [sorry, this isn't directed at the poster, here]... just wondering why an alleged Consevative in a position to do so hasn't already voluteered to veto this POS legislation... it can only mean he's a Girly Man!
Can this be considered "defamation" yet? Regardless, California is lost...
I have an Atheros chipset WiFi board down in my server that is currently doing little but sucking milliamps
Fwiw, I have a NetGear WG111 USB thing working (nominally - haven't used it for much yet) on a cheapo laptop using ndiswrapper, the windows driver for the chip, and SuSE 9.2.~ It might be turn out to be unstable - but I was able to ping the iMac, which made me happy... hth
how about bringing pressure on Atheros, Intel, Broadcom and others to add the US$0.10 to the damn bill-of-materials
I can sympathize w/ your (and the FCC) argument against allowing all the l33t hx0rs access to the frequency and output amp controll registers, but would it really add cost to just hardwire those settings?
IANAHGPS (I am not a h/w geek, per se) but I was figuring these dongles I've been getting (e.g. Prism2 802.11b for $10US) are basically a single IC with with the registers wired to the USB bus. Seems like it would be pretty trivial to just tie them to some value, no? And aren't these chips commercially available? How much trouble can a private citizen get into by buying the (unpackaged) chip hooking it to a battery and some light switches? I'm guessing there's the small matter of some Federal Laws, but does anyone really care how one abuses the frequency spectrum in the privacy of ones own home (not that I have a home, you understand, but in principle....)?
So isn't it the power control that's the potential for problem, really? I mean, any Red-Bleeding Amerikan should be Free to build widgets that cause strange phenomena on their own t.v. screen and perhaps explode the microwave oven provided the neighbor's signals are not affected. At least, so one might be forgiven for believing up until a few years ago...
Doable, you think?
And once done, will the FBI be sent overseas to the home of the individual who published the schematic onto the internet and - citing the sponsorship of Sony corp and the precedent of DeCSS - drag the perpetrator in irons back to the US to stand for punishment in a kangaroo court?
What's selling these days is propaganda, not unbiased news.
Since Propaganda - practically by definition - implies Profit to the party or parties disseminating it, one might guess that non-profit sources would be more apt to purvey truth, or at least accuracy. But if that's the case, how are the the purveyors of accurtate News supposed to make a profit.
Iirc, that dilemma is how we wound up in this situation to start with - at least in television.
At one time (before cable t.v.) television news was still considered Jounalism, and there were certain codes that applied to the practice of the trade. "Who/What/Where/When/Why?" Injection of Opinion into News was considered bad form - Opinion was reserved for editorial pieces. The news departments of the networks were not expected to be major profit centers - news was something that was (supposedly) done as a "public service" and hence did not have to be entertaining... the networks weree expected to pay fo the News out of the profits from their regular (entertainment) programming.
With the advent of cable news we have seen News morphing gradually bit inexorably into Entertainment. It is defintitely a part of that process that Journalism is devalued in favour of Popular saleability. News stories get pushed or quashed not for truth value, but for financial consideration (obvisous recent examles).
I don't have a solution here, just agreeing that propaganda sells, and news reporting currently is based on sales, not on any non-fiscal objective values.
It may well be possible to address these kinds of issues thru internet distribution channels, but the Internet is just as vulnerable to propaganda for profit as any other information channel.
Okay, I read that headline as "LSD possibly in to ICE. EiieeeeeEEEEE!!!" - a second scan yeilded "L[east] S[ignificant] B[yte] written to CD [iso] is 0xEEEEEEE".
I'm logging off now. Call me when I wake up, or when the drugs wear off, whichever comes first....
Dominance and Submit-shun
on
Google Tidbits
·
· Score: 1
C'mon, now - these "buttons" (as you call them) are newfangled tom-foolery - mere bells and whistles...
The <ISINDEX> element, anyone?
Besides, the aliens didn't start programming the abductees with HTML skillz until XHTML 1.0 came out, so HTML is one you just had to learn on your own, back in the day. Take a look at the terabytes of crappy HTML now dragging the WWW into oblivion and it's no surprise the Google developers didn't know it - no one else did, either. The majority still don't, near as I can tell - fer certain no one working in.com knows it...
Screw all this "aych-teetee-pee-colon-whack-whack" shite, anyway... I'd use Google more if they'd fix their Gopher server.
I'm sure this would suffice if you didn't actually *own* said laptop. If you did, you'd be more careful with it;)
I don't know - I tried to be real careful with the first one, but that cup of cream and sugar (well, it had some coffee in it) shorted the video leads and fried the motherboard (genuine tears shed, there). Damn thing didn't last a week. I'm all callus and devil-may-care with the biatches, now. They like it when you slap 'em a little bit around once in awhile... *flex* *belch* *big shiteating grin*
I saw a guy on the plane the other day who I thought had the right idea: He didn't have a case - just stuck the notebook in the seat-back pocket.
I got a big anti-static bag from one of the lab techs that should be sufficient to protect it from such "weather" as it might encounter, and I figure to keep the power brick in my purse/pocket/whatever...
And who is the idiot who put all this stuff into a single directory? What sort of permissions does that user/application/group have, and how may they be revoked - 'cause they should be. Dataset design should come before creation - that will alleviate a lot of your (spurious, here) permissions problems...
convicted under unconstitutional statutes of really evil things like giving away free stuff, successfully unseating Netscape as the dominant browser, bundling things with their software, and making deals favorable to themselves in order to undercut the competition and gain market share. In other words, conducting business like men.
Actually, they were convicted of Anti-Trust violations - that's violations of the Law, not the mish-mash you enumerate. All the things you name there - and their motives - are matters of opinion. The conviction is a matter of legal record. The lack of punishment for those crimes is also a matter of public record. Denial is not a river, etc.
Unconsitutional? You want to try to make that argument? Have at. I am unaware of any violations of the constitution that had a bearing on Microsoft's conviction. I know of several that have led to Microsoft's not being sentenced, but none that led to the conviction.
So, I see you're among the mentally ill who has delusions about Diebold somehow "installing" G.W. Bush as president.
Actually, it's no delusion. It's demonstrable, as we shall see. Again, you're in denial. Take a step back and look at the big picture. Mentally ill is arguable, regardless. It certainly has nothing to do with the topic here, and you're showing all the standard Right-wing tendencies of an attempt to defend a terminally flawed position by engaging in personal attack, as you continue to demostrate, below...
On the contrary, I do favor rule of Law; true Law
Apparently not. At least, that can't be seen from your stated opinions concerning violations of Law, here.
What am I trying to "impose" on you?
The death penalty. Or did you forget, already? Who is not taking whosse medication here?
The advocates of slavery typically do accuse those who promote liberty as "corprate bull(ies)" and "mega-coroprate" asses.
Actually, the advocates of slavery typically throw out all reasoned thought in favor of sneering remarks about their opponents' competence or lack thereof. If you've never been bullied by a corporation, it's probably because you are one. I am not advocating slavery. Never have. I simply advocated punishment for the convicted. Nothing more, nothing less. You just got bent out of shape because I reminded you that Microsoft is, in fact, guilty, and has not been punished. Now you're raving, which - to a saner mind - might indicate that you're afraid of something - probably people who can think clearly enough to have seen the problem here, but that's just a guess.
Microsoft doesn't need my support, and I think Haliburton can get by just fine without me (or my tax dollars).
Well, you're wrong about Microsoft (if you don't believe it, just ask them). As for Halliburton, if you really don't think they need your tax dollars, you should agreeing with me, not acting like a little bitch, cause tax dollars is what they're getting. Note that they haven't been convicted of anything, yet, to the best of my knowledge. They will have to be, though, to get their snout out of the public trough.
"Non-violent action" doesn't do a damn thing against robbers, thugs and murderers - those who would rather just kill you than listen to your pleas.
I never suggested that non-violence was an approach to handling violent crime. I was simply making the point that you - for all your assertion that I should be killed - are so much of a wuss that you'd rather execute a person than speak out against things like corporate abuses. That's a measure of the fear you live in. Fear of your corporate masters. Sorry to have to spell it out for you, but you are one of those thugs, by your own admission.
I guess that depend on how closely you want to look. If you look only at the CNET puchase, you won't verify much. If you go back a little further you will find that CNET purchased mp3.com from Viacom. Ask how Viacom got it.
Even being cynical and suspicious (which I am, definitely)
I'm sorry, but if you didn't even bother to check who CNET got it from, and where they got it, and who owns CNET, you just don't fit my definition of either cynical or suspicious. Well, cynical, maybe, since cynicism seems to be the opposite of the pre-cursor state to suspicion: curiosity.
Fwiw, it has been my observation that cynicism and suspicion don't typically go together on the same topic. A person will usually be either cynical or suspicious, but not both, on any given subject. I am suspicious about things concerning which I am *not* cynical - and I am suspicious about them because I'm curious, not because I'm cynical....
Anyway. You might consider asking "Why did CNET want mp3.com to go away?"
I don't recall there being anything fundamentally wrong with the business before they shut down
Afaik the business did quite well up until the RIAA judgement against them. I believe it was that judgement that enabled Viacom (the RIAA by proxy) to buy mp3.com, at which point the company was on a downhill slide, since Viacom immediately began pushing RIAA-signed material thru the mp3.com portal. I believe that it is at that point that customers began to lose interest.
I'm still curious about why Robertson decided to allow the placement of RIAA material on the site (my.mp3.com). I know there was demand for it, but it is the one move that killed the business which could have survived - even thrived - without it.
I suspect he may have simply thought that what he was doing was within the Law (it was, according to my understanding of Copyrights, but I've never been bribed by the RIAA to say that it wasn't, as presumably the courts were) and that the RIAA would not spend as much as they did just to remove a bunch of independant artists from the market.
Or they (the RIAA) may have outright lied to him about it in order to get him into a position where they could move against mp3.com. Either way, I think if RIAA-owned material had not been introduced, then mp3.com would be doing better than ever right now, and the artists using it would be competing seriously for "airtime" on radio and tv. I think the RIAA realized that - that they would be in a serious financial hurt within 10 years unless mp3.com went away - and they moved to neutralize the threat to their monopoly.
(You'd have to be careful with defining this, since it's too easy for a board of directors to sell off assets to their friends and then reincorporate those pieces into a new entity. To avoid this dodge, you'd have to identify people and property. A good measure is a "Ten Percent Rule"... where groups of no more than 10% of the assets, debts, officers, and rank-and-file employees can be collected into other corporations for the term of the punishment. In effect, if a corporation seeks to dodge the punishment, they are forced to break themselves up.)
This is good. Very to the point. Is there such a mechanism in place?
But yes, clearly that is the issue with punishing corporate misbehaviour and is the reason for my suggestion that a "death penalty" is needed for corporate entities.
Measures like the proposed 2.6M outpay by Diebold do abosolutely nothing to address recidivism by criminal corporations. Another example: the judgement (late 1970's? '80's? I'm not sure) against American Family Life Insuance (former incarnation of AFLAC) for fraudulent cancer insurance - the principals paid a fine, changed the corporate identity, and proceeded to spend their fraudulently-gained "profits" - this is stolen money, now - to secure a dominant position in the industry world-wide.
Yes, they were tried and convicted, but the fine was more of a payoff to the court system than any sort of punishment. Not even a slap on the wrist...
In genenral I think penalties against corporations need to be far more severe. Typically, even if a case is made against one and won, the penalties fall far short of anything that might serve as a deterrent - and often don't even address victim compensation - or address it completely unrealisticly. So-called "tort reform" is going to exacerbate this problem.
We don't need to prevent civil actions, we need to supplement them with criminal actions. And the penalty phases should have some teeth. Corps are making a mockery of Law and government by buying off key individuals. This "settlement" is just another examle of that, imo.
I just wish more people would learn the lessons from MP3.com
Actually, I was referring more to the "what happened to part" than to the MP3.com business model. MP3.com was destroyed by the "music industry" leaving thousands of independant artists without an outlet, and millions of consumers without recourse against the RIAA. I'm wondering what is going to stop RIAA from taking similar action against Midawn?
Your question is badly phrased, but I will respond to what I believe the spirit of it to be...
The argument is a legal one, and resides under the Law. IANAL, but I do consider Samuel Adams to be "pretty decent for a domestic beer" so I'll try to hit the high points. Remember: You asked.
The argument for treason is that these corporations have been and continue to systematically engage in activities designed to destroy the Federal Government of the United States of America.
These behaviours are not patriotic (they go against the fundation of the Republic) or revolutionary (they don't fight to overthrow oppression), therefore, such actions against the state can only be treason.
The actions of these corporation are widespread and insidious, some of them taking place covertly at the State and Municiple level. Nevertheless, the pattern of effect is clear: while such actions and activities may support individual participants in the governmental process - they are as a whole determintal to the structure and operation of the government as an entity. and destructive to both the letter and the spirit of the Law.
(which government must be defined by the founding documents of the country - specificly the Constitution of the United States of America), and is particularly detrimental to the well-being of the population of the country, standing as they do to withhold or otherwise abrogate the fundamental Rights of the citizenry - Life, Liberty, etc as definned in the Constitution, etc etc...)
Your attempt to ask what verification of their actions exist is both disingenous and badly couched, as well...
Diebold had machines involved in an election wherein the candidate of your choice did not win.
Diebold has been systematicly undermining democracy in the US for years. Look it up. Your implication that I may have supported a candidate in some "election" is spurious and beside the point.
Halliburton is a contractor involved in a military operation of which you do not approve.
Halliburton has been using their relationship with a US head of state to rob the US treasury and (further) endanger the lives of US citizens. You implication concerning my personal support for any given military operations is ill-concieved and not germaine to the issues surrounding Halliburton.
If you want to talk about my positions on the given points of own agenda, please be more direct. AC trolling makes you look like a girly man. Responding to it is poor form on my part.
But what is your evidence that treason has been committed, and what is your argument?
Well, the evidence is everywhere you look, but it is is not "mine", and I didn't claim to have it. I simply said it is "arguable" - which it is. Get your head out fo the boob toob and take a look around.
Diebold
Tthe Diebold issue is not (just) in California (the only part of it that CNN seems to be willing to report on - Fox doesn't appear to be covering it at all), it's nationwide (although it's being fought in Ohio, right now).
governement already has the ability to abrogate a company's corporate charte
I figured that should be true, but didn't know it for sure. So it sounds like I'm not the first person have thought along these lines. I don't suppose you could give me a clue as to e.g. the last time a US govt did something along those lines? I'd like to look into this a bit more...
Funny, I was just sitting here wondering if maybe I'd just had enough and it was time to end my Life, and you suggest that you may be willing to help. Such synchronicity...
Microsoft, a company guilty of nothing but conducting business like men who, unlike their critics, actually have a pair
LoL. Real men get convicted of anti-trust violations Yeah. Well, that's a new one, to me, anyway. Iirc, M$ was, in fact, convicted.
In fact, they may trivially be expected to be grateful to Diebold for installing politicians which lack sufficient balls to exectute the a sentence against them (recall Dubya's campaign promise that M$ would not be punished for the violations of which the have been convicted.
I get the distinct impression that your definition of "corporate crime" is completely unjust and arbitrary.
I get the distinct impression you do not favor a Rule of Law where corporations, like any other legal entity, are held to standards of behaaviour under the Law. You are, of course, entitled to your opinion.
You are not, however, entitled to impose your deluded beliefs on me (or anyone else) absent some overwhelming evidence akin to, say, the kind of evidence that has accumulated around the criminal cororpate entities I named...
I am therefore inclined to support a real death penalty; for you
Hah. You and every other panty-waist corprate bully on the block. Keep nuzzling that mega-coroprate ass, partisan, you'll go far. Really. Microsoft needs your continued support. So does Haliburton. Without people like you, they could not exist...
And who is going to execute your attempt at unilateral judgement? You don't even have the cojones to organize or execute an effective non-violent action against the people who are oppressing you - killing you and your loved ones, even as we speak (type). But you're going to - what, whack off my head? Send me to the guillutine? Uh-huh. Well, Be prepared to wait in line... You're not the first half-wit to want me dead, believe me.
Fwiw, I don't really consider a desire to see Justice in the matter of criminals who just happen to be corporate entities to be "deluded". Nor do I believe that that it is deluded to possess and understanding of corporations, economics, and government sufficient to support the knowledge that corporate crime requires punishment just as surely as crimes by individuals. If you believe those concepts are "deluded", I submit that you are delusional and are probably a danger to yourself and others.
Anyway. You're talking about a "death penalty" - which implies laws and due process, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and not lump you completely into the crowd of whackos who are issuing simple death threats...
and anyone else who attempts to use violence (including government) to impose these deluded beliefs upon companies.
Oooooo. Wow. So radical. You oppose violence by Government. Wow. How would oppose that violence? With more violence? Very good, partisan. You are what you hate...
Let me say that I unequivicly support your nihlistic desires and believe that you have every right to destroy yourself. I do support the Right to Die, after all... just don't go trampling the Rights of others in the process, mind.
I will state for the record that my beliefs are hardly deluded, and that furthermore, you have done nothing to show otherwise.
Furthermore, it is inherent to the nature of humanity and their inclination to form governments that not only will I continue to impose my beliefs on companies, I have every Right to do so.
The companies are not the victims. They may not require me to be a consumer, and you wil
Given recent history - Enron, Global Crossing, Diebold, Microsoft, Haliburton - I think we should implement a corporate death penalty for certain corporate crimes (esp e.g. Diebold and Haliburton - both arguably guilty of treason).
"Settlements" are bullshit. The corp pays to a set of politicians some money - those same polititicians that Diebold was cnotracted to install in office? Sounds a lot more like a kick-back than a settlement.
It's interesting that this California peice made the news - a place where apparently the politicos are willing to let Diebold settle. The situation in certain other states - Ohio, Georgia, Florida, for instance - is indicative of outright criminal activity for which the company should be brought up on charges. Treason is not to strong a word.
In order for that to work, though, there would have to be a mechanism to impose a sentence appropriate to the crime upon the corporation. Maybe seizure of assets, nullification of incorporation status, revocation of licenses. The corporate officers should also be charged and incarcerated, banned from participating in corporations or sitting on boards for some period of time.
In a case like Diebold, the siezed assets would have to be distrubuted to someone besides the politicians who paid Diebold (with public funds) to put them in office - perhaps the money could be used to finance eclections, pay for audits and recounts, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
You know, a person might be fogiven for thinking that one way to foil a terrorist is to quit paying him to be a terrorist. I had imagined maybe the US had thought of that, or maybe could figure it out eventually, but perhaps it's time some one pointed it out.
The sumbitch (Osama) is training terrorists using training plans created by US federal govt employees, in camps (and cave complexes) paid for with CIA black-budget funding, using materiel bought with US tax-payer dollars - and yet a covert monitoring program is needed to keep an eye on this "business associate" of the current and former presidents of the United States.
Wow. I should have thought of that myself. Silly me.
Perhaps the reason carnivore has been retired is that it DIDN't F**KING WORK. It didn't exactly stop 9/11, did it?
The FBI probably used it enough to realize that all the really juicy stuff was going across NNTP or HTTP or THE PHONE (ob. nod to ECHELON) - and that not even CIA financed 3rd world thugs were stupid enough to put their battle plans into an email (well, SPAM, maybe, but that's another matter, since they were using 1-shot addresses and CARNIVORE only worked if you set it up at the ISP of known account).
In fact, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that CARNIVORE is just one peice of that $170-sum-odd-billion software package that the FBI just scrapped the other day because it was "obsolete" and "indadequate" to their needs....
Just a thought.
"You don't need proof if you have just the right .... inflection?"
Nuh-uh. Dubya promised me that right after the War of the Five Armies in the Tigris Euphrates Valley of Armageddeon that Jesus would come with lots of angels and there would be a new heaven and a new earth and I would get a new body that could sing hosanneah all the live long day on a street of glass in a gold city with gemstones and rainbows and while Satan burns in Hell forever with Sadam Hussein ... or was that the preacher?
Anyway, there's going to be peace on earth right after the republicans get enough gas to drive their SUVs thru the sky for all eternity, so that proves it.
As I've been pointing out for dozens - perhaps thousands - of years, now: You (and all those other parsiminous naysayers who mouth [type] that old saw) are precisely right. The world owes me a helluvalot more than just a living... and I can tell you from experience, the world is just really a tightwad. Seems like it thinks it can just wait me out and I'll forget, or something...
Don't gloat, it's unseemly.
It scares me to think that just a few short weeks ago I almost considered perhaps allowing myself to be conned into moving there. Damn that was close...
On a more positive note, though - the traditional hellhole of the Universe - the Midwest - is now looking good by comparison to what used to be the Silicon Mecca. I do have to wonder what's going to happen to Berkley, though. I don't know if they have another Revolt Against the Establishment left in 'em ... I foresee Anarchy and Chaos ... no wait ... nevermind.
"California: When Blue States Go Bad!"
Sorry to keep hammering on this, but my interest is running a bit deeper here than just a chance to take cheap shots at the FCC (i usually strive not to be too serious, but this is really interesting ...
What about a feedback loop? Is that what you're talking about with the 10 cent component addition?
Frankly, as someone plays at doing software development almost every day, I'd just as soon not *have* to s/w control the gain. Frequency either, if I can help it. I'd prefer to just give it some data have it arrive somewhere else magickally. Okay - well, more practically - all this freq and gain setting xlates to ioctl() calls in my "posix" device driver model, and I want to minimize my dependence on such things. They may not be as evil as crack, but I figure heroin is probably easier to put down than a nasty ioctl() habit...
I'm pretty sure frequency is routinely controlled by something I read about in school called a "Phase Locked Loop". How is that (a PLL) typically implemented (i.e. digitally or analog)? I would have guessed as one of these ASIC things (or discrete components in older stuff), but that's only a (decade old) guess ...
Would it be reasonable to expect to be able to purchase on the open market a design for, say, an 802.11g device that incorporates those sorts of design elements (self-contained, automatic freq and gain controls)? Not the device itself, just a design that could built (fabbed?) - or "open sourced". Or would that be considerd a WMD ?
Isn't the gain control a set of bits in a "register", though? And if so, can't you limit the gain by limiting the number of bits?
And to follow up on your direct response to my earilier question (thank-you for the succinct definition of ASIC): Are the ASICs that are going into the devices proprietary? And: Is the e.g. Prism 2 an ASIC. or just part of one? And finally, roughly how much design effort goes into design of the ASIC given some prefab design or part that is the actual radio? (not sure if I'm asking that correctly, but I'm trying to get an idea of what it takes to go from a "cheap", off-the-shelf part to a functional device - more insterested in the radio part than e.g. the USB interface)
Thanks for your patience with these questions.
Yeah, right. Sez them. For all we know that was written by the same flak that writes all the rest of their crud. For all we know the "anonymity" is just a cover for some failed wannabe in a crummy hotel room with a typewriter and a bottle of cheap gin. Probably in Toronto...
If there really is more than one of them, they should at least use pen names.
I was going to tell you to STFU so as not to give them any ideas, but ...
... I see you're onto the Master Plan; a key factor you didn't mention, though (I can say this because it's already been leaked elsewhere): It won't just be fines, for individuals.
Fines are for gigantic corps (except for M$ - their "Windows Networking" P2P software will go unpunished along with the anti-trust "mis-understanding". I'm not clear on why, but I think it has something to do with Gate's head being better than average; or perhaps it's just youthful exuberence)...
Use of TCP/IP on a machine not under the direct control of a corporation will be defined as Terrorism, and we're working up to the Death penalty for that; fines are for wimpy states; Real Men who are Not Girly Terminate the criminals/terrorists/ ....
Can this be considered "defamation" yet? Regardless, California is lost...
Fwiw, I have a NetGear WG111 USB thing working (nominally - haven't used it for much yet) on a cheapo laptop using ndiswrapper, the windows driver for the chip, and SuSE 9.2.~ It might be turn out to be unstable - but I was able to ping the iMac, which made me happy... hth
I can sympathize w/ your (and the FCC) argument against allowing all the l33t hx0rs access to the frequency and output amp controll registers, but would it really add cost to just hardwire those settings?
IANAHGPS (I am not a h/w geek, per se) but I was figuring these dongles I've been getting (e.g. Prism2 802.11b for $10US) are basically a single IC with with the registers wired to the USB bus. Seems like it would be pretty trivial to just tie them to some value, no? And aren't these chips commercially available? How much trouble can a private citizen get into by buying the (unpackaged) chip hooking it to a battery and some light switches? I'm guessing there's the small matter of some Federal Laws, but does anyone really care how one abuses the frequency spectrum in the privacy of ones own home (not that I have a home, you understand, but in principle....)?
So isn't it the power control that's the potential for problem, really? I mean, any Red-Bleeding Amerikan should be Free to build widgets that cause strange phenomena on their own t.v. screen and perhaps explode the microwave oven provided the neighbor's signals are not affected. At least, so one might be forgiven for believing up until a few years ago...
Doable, you think?
And once done, will the FBI be sent overseas to the home of the individual who published the schematic onto the internet and - citing the sponsorship of Sony corp and the precedent of DeCSS - drag the perpetrator in irons back to the US to stand for punishment in a kangaroo court?
Enquiring minds are blinded with outrage...
STFU! Damnit! Now you've given them the idea... Somebody mod that shit down before Michael Powell sees it...
Since Propaganda - practically by definition - implies Profit to the party or parties disseminating it, one might guess that non-profit sources would be more apt to purvey truth, or at least accuracy. But if that's the case, how are the the purveyors of accurtate News supposed to make a profit.
Iirc, that dilemma is how we wound up in this situation to start with - at least in television.
At one time (before cable t.v.) television news was still considered Jounalism, and there were certain codes that applied to the practice of the trade. "Who/What/Where/When/Why?" Injection of Opinion into News was considered bad form - Opinion was reserved for editorial pieces. The news departments of the networks were not expected to be major profit centers - news was something that was (supposedly) done as a "public service" and hence did not have to be entertaining... the networks weree expected to pay fo the News out of the profits from their regular (entertainment) programming.
With the advent of cable news we have seen News morphing gradually bit inexorably into Entertainment. It is defintitely a part of that process that Journalism is devalued in favour of Popular saleability. News stories get pushed or quashed not for truth value, but for financial consideration (obvisous recent examles).
I don't have a solution here, just agreeing that propaganda sells, and news reporting currently is based on sales, not on any non-fiscal objective values.
It may well be possible to address these kinds of issues thru internet distribution channels, but the Internet is just as vulnerable to propaganda for profit as any other information channel.
Okay, I read that headline as "LSD possibly in to ICE. EiieeeeeEEEEE!!!" - a second scan yeilded "L[east] S[ignificant] B[yte] written to CD [iso] is 0xEEEEEEE".
I'm logging off now. Call me when I wake up, or when the drugs wear off, whichever comes first....
C'mon, now - these "buttons" (as you call them) are newfangled tom-foolery - mere bells and whistles ...
The <ISINDEX> element, anyone?
Besides, the aliens didn't start programming the abductees with HTML skillz until XHTML 1.0 came out, so HTML is one you just had to learn on your own, back in the day. Take a look at the terabytes of crappy HTML now dragging the WWW into oblivion and it's no surprise the Google developers didn't know it - no one else did, either. The majority still don't, near as I can tell - fer certain no one working in .com knows it...
Screw all this "aych-teetee-pee-colon-whack-whack" shite, anyway... I'd use Google more if they'd fix their Gopher server.
I don't know - I tried to be real careful with the first one, but that cup of cream and sugar (well, it had some coffee in it) shorted the video leads and fried the motherboard (genuine tears shed, there). Damn thing didn't last a week. I'm all callus and devil-may-care with the biatches, now. They like it when you slap 'em a little bit around once in awhile... *flex* *belch* *big shiteating grin*
I saw a guy on the plane the other day who I thought had the right idea: He didn't have a case - just stuck the notebook in the seat-back pocket.
I got a big anti-static bag from one of the lab techs that should be sufficient to protect it from such "weather" as it might encounter, and I figure to keep the power brick in my purse/pocket/whatever...
Laptop cases are an anachronism.
And who is the idiot who put all this stuff into a single directory? What sort of permissions does that user/application/group have, and how may they be revoked - 'cause they should be. Dataset design should come before creation - that will alleviate a lot of your (spurious, here) permissions problems...
Actually, they were convicted of Anti-Trust violations - that's violations of the Law, not the mish-mash you enumerate. All the things you name there - and their motives - are matters of opinion. The conviction is a matter of legal record. The lack of punishment for those crimes is also a matter of public record. Denial is not a river, etc.
Unconsitutional? You want to try to make that argument? Have at. I am unaware of any violations of the constitution that had a bearing on Microsoft's conviction. I know of several that have led to Microsoft's not being sentenced, but none that led to the conviction.
Actually, it's no delusion. It's demonstrable, as we shall see. Again, you're in denial. Take a step back and look at the big picture. Mentally ill is arguable, regardless. It certainly has nothing to do with the topic here, and you're showing all the standard Right-wing tendencies of an attempt to defend a terminally flawed position by engaging in personal attack, as you continue to demostrate, below...
Apparently not. At least, that can't be seen from your stated opinions concerning violations of Law, here.
The death penalty. Or did you forget, already? Who is not taking whosse medication here?
The advocates of slavery typically do accuse those who promote liberty as "corprate bull(ies)" and "mega-coroprate" asses.
Actually, the advocates of slavery typically throw out all reasoned thought in favor of sneering remarks about their opponents' competence or lack thereof. If you've never been bullied by a corporation, it's probably because you are one. I am not advocating slavery. Never have. I simply advocated punishment for the convicted. Nothing more, nothing less. You just got bent out of shape because I reminded you that Microsoft is, in fact, guilty, and has not been punished. Now you're raving, which - to a saner mind - might indicate that you're afraid of something - probably people who can think clearly enough to have seen the problem here, but that's just a guess.
Well, you're wrong about Microsoft (if you don't believe it, just ask them). As for Halliburton, if you really don't think they need your tax dollars, you should agreeing with me, not acting like a little bitch, cause tax dollars is what they're getting. Note that they haven't been convicted of anything, yet, to the best of my knowledge. They will have to be, though, to get their snout out of the public trough.
I never suggested that non-violence was an approach to handling violent crime. I was simply making the point that you - for all your assertion that I should be killed - are so much of a wuss that you'd rather execute a person than speak out against things like corporate abuses. That's a measure of the fear you live in. Fear of your corporate masters. Sorry to have to spell it out for you, but you are one of those thugs, by your own admission.
I guess that depend on how closely you want to look. If you look only at the CNET puchase, you won't verify much. If you go back a little further you will find that CNET purchased mp3.com from Viacom. Ask how Viacom got it.
I'm sorry, but if you didn't even bother to check who CNET got it from, and where they got it, and who owns CNET, you just don't fit my definition of either cynical or suspicious. Well, cynical, maybe, since cynicism seems to be the opposite of the pre-cursor state to suspicion: curiosity.
Fwiw, it has been my observation that cynicism and suspicion don't typically go together on the same topic. A person will usually be either cynical or suspicious, but not both, on any given subject. I am suspicious about things concerning which I am *not* cynical - and I am suspicious about them because I'm curious, not because I'm cynical ....
Anyway. You might consider asking "Why did CNET want mp3.com to go away?"
Afaik the business did quite well up until the RIAA judgement against them. I believe it was that judgement that enabled Viacom (the RIAA by proxy) to buy mp3.com, at which point the company was on a downhill slide, since Viacom immediately began pushing RIAA-signed material thru the mp3.com portal. I believe that it is at that point that customers began to lose interest.
I'm still curious about why Robertson decided to allow the placement of RIAA material on the site (my.mp3.com). I know there was demand for it, but it is the one move that killed the business which could have survived - even thrived - without it.
I suspect he may have simply thought that what he was doing was within the Law (it was, according to my understanding of Copyrights, but I've never been bribed by the RIAA to say that it wasn't, as presumably the courts were) and that the RIAA would not spend as much as they did just to remove a bunch of independant artists from the market.
Or they (the RIAA) may have outright lied to him about it in order to get him into a position where they could move against mp3.com. Either way, I think if RIAA-owned material had not been introduced, then mp3.com would be doing better than ever right now, and the artists using it would be competing seriously for "airtime" on radio and tv. I think the RIAA realized that - that they would be in a serious financial hurt within 10 years unless mp3.com went away - and they moved to neutralize the threat to their monopoly.
This is good. Very to the point. Is there such a mechanism in place?
But yes, clearly that is the issue with punishing corporate misbehaviour and is the reason for my suggestion that a "death penalty" is needed for corporate entities.
Measures like the proposed 2.6M outpay by Diebold do abosolutely nothing to address recidivism by criminal corporations. Another example: the judgement (late 1970's? '80's? I'm not sure) against American Family Life Insuance (former incarnation of AFLAC) for fraudulent cancer insurance - the principals paid a fine, changed the corporate identity, and proceeded to spend their fraudulently-gained "profits" - this is stolen money, now - to secure a dominant position in the industry world-wide.
Yes, they were tried and convicted, but the fine was more of a payoff to the court system than any sort of punishment. Not even a slap on the wrist...
In genenral I think penalties against corporations need to be far more severe. Typically, even if a case is made against one and won, the penalties fall far short of anything that might serve as a deterrent - and often don't even address victim compensation - or address it completely unrealisticly. So-called "tort reform" is going to exacerbate this problem.
We don't need to prevent civil actions, we need to supplement them with criminal actions. And the penalty phases should have some teeth. Corps are making a mockery of Law and government by buying off key individuals. This "settlement" is just another examle of that, imo.
Huh?
Actually, I was referring more to the "what happened to part" than to the MP3.com business model. MP3.com was destroyed by the "music industry" leaving thousands of independant artists without an outlet, and millions of consumers without recourse against the RIAA. I'm wondering what is going to stop RIAA from taking similar action against Midawn?
*sigh* ... WAKE UP!
Your question is badly phrased, but I will respond to what I believe the spirit of it to be...
The argument is a legal one, and resides under the Law. IANAL, but I do consider Samuel Adams to be "pretty decent for a domestic beer" so I'll try to hit the high points. Remember: You asked.
The argument for treason is that these corporations have been and continue to systematically engage in activities designed to destroy the Federal Government of the United States of America.
These behaviours are not patriotic (they go against the fundation of the Republic) or revolutionary (they don't fight to overthrow oppression), therefore, such actions against the state can only be treason.
The actions of these corporation are widespread and insidious, some of them taking place covertly at the State and Municiple level. Nevertheless, the pattern of effect is clear: while such actions and activities may support individual participants in the governmental process - they are as a whole determintal to the structure and operation of the government as an entity. and destructive to both the letter and the spirit of the Law.
(which government must be defined by the founding documents of the country - specificly the Constitution of the United States of America), and is particularly detrimental to the well-being of the population of the country, standing as they do to withhold or otherwise abrogate the fundamental Rights of the citizenry - Life, Liberty, etc as definned in the Constitution, etc etc...)
Your attempt to ask what verification of their actions exist is both disingenous and badly couched, as well ...
Diebold has been systematicly undermining democracy in the US for years. Look it up. Your implication that I may have supported a candidate in some "election" is spurious and beside the point.
Halliburton has been using their relationship with a US head of state to rob the US treasury and (further) endanger the lives of US citizens. You implication concerning my personal support for any given military operations is ill-concieved and not germaine to the issues surrounding Halliburton.
If you want to talk about my positions on the given points of own agenda, please be more direct. AC trolling makes you look like a girly man. Responding to it is poor form on my part.
Well, the evidence is everywhere you look, but it is is not "mine", and I didn't claim to have it. I simply said it is "arguable" - which it is. Get your head out fo the boob toob and take a look around.
Diebold
Tthe Diebold issue is not (just) in California (the only part of it that CNN seems to be willing to report on - Fox doesn't appear to be covering it at all), it's nationwide (although it's being fought in Ohio, right now).
See also: http://www.nightweed.com/usavotefacts.html
And as if that were not enough for an indictment (I've seen cases were far less was considered sufficient):
I figured that should be true, but didn't know it for sure. So it sounds like I'm not the first person have thought along these lines. I don't suppose you could give me a clue as to e.g. the last time a US govt did something along those lines? I'd like to look into this a bit more ...
Funny, I was just sitting here wondering if maybe I'd just had enough and it was time to end my Life, and you suggest that you may be willing to help. Such synchronicity...
LoL. Real men get convicted of anti-trust violations Yeah. Well, that's a new one, to me, anyway. Iirc, M$ was, in fact, convicted.
In fact, they may trivially be expected to be grateful to Diebold for installing politicians which lack sufficient balls to exectute the a sentence against them (recall Dubya's campaign promise that M$ would not be punished for the violations of which the have been convicted.
I get the distinct impression you do not favor a Rule of Law where corporations, like any other legal entity, are held to standards of behaaviour under the Law. You are, of course, entitled to your opinion.
You are not, however, entitled to impose your deluded beliefs on me (or anyone else) absent some overwhelming evidence akin to, say, the kind of evidence that has accumulated around the criminal cororpate entities I named ...
Hah. You and every other panty-waist corprate bully on the block. Keep nuzzling that mega-coroprate ass, partisan, you'll go far. Really. Microsoft needs your continued support. So does Haliburton. Without people like you, they could not exist...
And who is going to execute your attempt at unilateral judgement? You don't even have the cojones to organize or execute an effective non-violent action against the people who are oppressing you - killing you and your loved ones, even as we speak (type). But you're going to - what, whack off my head? Send me to the guillutine? Uh-huh. Well, Be prepared to wait in line... You're not the first half-wit to want me dead, believe me.
Fwiw, I don't really consider a desire to see Justice in the matter of criminals who just happen to be corporate entities to be "deluded". Nor do I believe that that it is deluded to possess and understanding of corporations, economics, and government sufficient to support the knowledge that corporate crime requires punishment just as surely as crimes by individuals. If you believe those concepts are "deluded", I submit that you are delusional and are probably a danger to yourself and others.
Anyway. You're talking about a "death penalty" - which implies laws and due process, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and not lump you completely into the crowd of whackos who are issuing simple death threats...
Oooooo. Wow. So radical. You oppose violence by Government. Wow. How would oppose that violence? With more violence? Very good, partisan. You are what you hate...
Let me say that I unequivicly support your nihlistic desires and believe that you have every right to destroy yourself. I do support the Right to Die, after all... just don't go trampling the Rights of others in the process, mind.
I will state for the record that my beliefs are hardly deluded, and that furthermore, you have done nothing to show otherwise.
Furthermore, it is inherent to the nature of humanity and their inclination to form governments that not only will I continue to impose my beliefs on companies, I have every Right to do so.
The companies are not the victims. They may not require me to be a consumer, and you wil
Given recent history - Enron, Global Crossing, Diebold, Microsoft, Haliburton - I think we should implement a corporate death penalty for certain corporate crimes (esp e.g. Diebold and Haliburton - both arguably guilty of treason).
"Settlements" are bullshit. The corp pays to a set of politicians some money - those same polititicians that Diebold was cnotracted to install in office? Sounds a lot more like a kick-back than a settlement.
It's interesting that this California peice made the news - a place where apparently the politicos are willing to let Diebold settle. The situation in certain other states - Ohio, Georgia, Florida, for instance - is indicative of outright criminal activity for which the company should be brought up on charges. Treason is not to strong a word.
In order for that to work, though, there would have to be a mechanism to impose a sentence appropriate to the crime upon the corporation. Maybe seizure of assets, nullification of incorporation status, revocation of licenses. The corporate officers should also be charged and incarcerated, banned from participating in corporations or sitting on boards for some period of time.
In a case like Diebold, the siezed assets would have to be distrubuted to someone besides the politicians who paid Diebold (with public funds) to put them in office - perhaps the money could be used to finance eclections, pay for audits and recounts, etc.
What, Michael Robertson making money? C'mon. Grow up. Take a look at the Big Picture...