1) If it did happen that wouldn't stop it. You can't stop Bitcoin any more than you can stop torrents.
2) They won't do this as it would be most inconvenient to those with wealth. Wealth controls the power structure of the world today. Once adoption of Bitcoin takes place, it would be protected by those who have it.
Desert Snow encouraged state and local patrol officers to post seizure data along with photos of themselves with stacks of currency and drugs
Law enforcement doing their job — and bragging about it — is fine. All professions do that, it is normal.
I don't even mind them seizing the (illegal) drugs, but possession of cash is not against the law. Unfortunately, a loophole in the American legal thinking (as well as the British, which we inherited) does not provide much protection to a person's property. Nowhere near as much as to the person himself.
The Executive can seize cash, vehicles, and even real estate without Judiciary oversight or approval — and that ought to stop. Their justification — that what they are seizing things was used for "criminal activity" — comes into play, before anyone is convicted in any criminality.
That must stop. A judge may impose limitations on using of the suspect property (and fund-transfer) — the same way movement limitations are imposed on a person, while investigation is ongoing or a trial is pending. But no seizures ought to be permitted until a "Guilty" verdict is pronounced and the sentencing enumerates, what's to be seized as a punishment.
It's time to start carrying a form of money that cannot be seized by authorities. (That is, as long as you can keep your private key a secret.) Oh dear... what are the authoritarians going to do when Bitcoin adoption goes maintream?
This smacks of the same crap Id is trying to pull off on Carmack (http://popcultureblog.dallasnews.com/2014/05/zenimax-and-id-software-have-filed-a-lawsuit-against-oculus-vr-and-dallas-based-john-carmack-is-in-the-middle.html/). Apparently employers think they own any knowledge an employee gains while on the job. Sure, secrets are secrets. But is *everything* they learned on the job is a secret?
Unless you have remote administration enabled, this exploit is only achievable from a system within the local network. This attack is not an internet threat.
Think how much the spammers and data miners would pay for such a simulated brain. Typical anti-spammer challenges on the web involve presentation of a picture of a sequence of characters and digits, which you must identify and repeat back as ASCII text. This simulated brain could easily accomplish that task. What challenge system will we switch to next...
Interesting. Reporting to a central authority. Now I can see why they opted for this path rather than have a device check its surroundings. They benefit from making devices a bit simpler and collecting information on the useful idiots at the same time. Genius.
To be honest, I'd rather my devices have a modicum of intelligence and look around to find the best frequency to use. To do otherwise leaves the whole system open to attack. What happens if this central authority server goes down? What happens if a rogue device doesn't report to the server? I'd like my robots with eyes and ears please, not being remote controlled from D.C.
Are you actually claiming that Democrats favor non-regulation in general? This smells more like a step toward the free market principles being championed by the Tea Party.
Statistically speaking, when someone else is covering for your mistakes, you take more risks. Management of risk versus reward is a business requirement. When someone lops off a giant portion of your risk, you are suddenly free to increase that risk further in the pursuit of more reward.
As far as your higher prices, if only one player in the market is saddled with increased costs, and this player does not make up the majority of the market by itself, the market should remain little changed. That would ensure BP could not pass its fines and cleanup costs to its customers.
Would you extend this line of thinking to the price at the pump. Let's say, hypothetically, that the end result of this is a ten cent rise in a gallon of gas, should BP be forced to make up the difference? What if the price of diesel jumps up and thus the price of fresh veggies and other consumer products jumps? Should BP also be on the hook for that? Just how much should the market and the wider society have to pay for BP's massive error? And what if BP cannot in fact entirely clean up the Gulf coast? What if the fishery is ruined for decades? Should BP be forced to pay an annual wage that averages out to be what fishermen would have received if they had been able to fish? Should BP be forced to pay for higher fish prices at restaurants and fish markets?
There are other oil companies that are not required to pay for this cleanup. Their prices will remain low. To be competitive, BP will be forced to continue selling at the same price as everyone else. So they will be unable to pass the costs on to consumers buying gasoline.
That said, BP should be responsible for *all* of these costs through damages to be awarded in court after each claimant shows proof to the court. Ideally, noone should be able to show any increase in gasoline prices due to this problem, as other oil companies remain unaffected by fines and clenaup costs, and BP has many so many other sources of oil, that this will not dramatically affect the amount of oil on the market. But anyone who can show proof of damages to the court should be compensated.
> The existing laws basically protect BP from catastrophic payments. The system is designed to allow oil companies vast profits with only marginal risk.
Then this is another broken system brought to you by government intervention. BP should be completely liable for all damages it causes. Anything else is patently unfair. If government intervention allows this excessive risk by covering BP, then this cannot be an indication of failure of Laissez-Faire economics by any stretch of the imagination. Only the threat of consequences keep most in line. If government intervention removes/reduces that threat, you shouldn't be surprised to see risks jump way out of line.
Some here are using this as an excuse to push for new government regulation and claim that Laissez-Faire economics does not work. I believe increased government regulation and protection has actually contributed to the problem of excessive risks being taken by many, including BP. Failure is no longer feared because of government bailouts. Remove the bailouts, and fear of failure will keep risks better controlled.
As far as this specific failure, this kind of highly unlikely failure is what insurance was invented for. Government regulations didn't stop this from happening. The government can only regulate and control that which it foresees. This usually means it adds regulations *after* something bad happens. Thus governments tend to be reactive.
At any rate, existing law covers this type of situation just fine. The harmed governments, industries, companies, and individuals will sue and win large settlements from BP and its insurers. Losses due to payments and increased insurance costs will hit the share price, punishing the owners (shareholders) of BP for what has happened. None of this requires new regulation. In fact, any new regulation will result in punishment being distributed beyond BP to others who were not responsible. This will likely lead to increased prices at the pump, which will then mean you and I are the ones being punished. Is this the fairness you propose?
> If you are in the intersection before the light turns red, you have not run it
If they can't get you on running a red light, then they will get you on blocking an intersection. Either way, they'll get you in your end.
Not really. If the remote server software was written for the same platform as the client software, all they'd need to do is ship the server software in a patch.
But this is besides the point. They don't have to guarantee the game will work forever. They can lease it to you for a limited time period. Most software with an EULA these days already contain a clause indicating you own the physical medium but are only leasing the software on it. So this isn't a big stretch.
If some significant portion of the game was actually computed on the remote server, then "cracking" it would not be possible. One could attempt to "hack" a user account on the remote server to get the free play, or a shady developer could attempt to reverse engineer the networking protocol and implement a fake remote server others could run. The latter would only prove useful if the portion of the game run by the server was trivial. Otherwise, the developer would essentially be reimplementing vast portions of the game him/herself and should just make their own game anyhow.
IE8 is still fairly new. My workplace hasn't yet authorized its use, as some of the web applications used in our business do not work properly with it. Thus, we are all stuck with IE7 for the time being. My recommendation is to support the last two major versions of each browser. There are very good reasons why users may not yet be able to use the latest version.
*knock knock* Excuse me sir. Please don't mind the 29 other people behind me. They're in my raiding party. It would seem that our MMORPG has placed a boss mob in what I can only assume might be your living room. Would you mind terribly if we played through? Also, we're going to be farming this boss mob until our entire guild is outfitted properly. Can we put you down for the same time every Thursday?
Please note: Wolfram did not promise computing that *correctly* answers questions.
Tribute to Douglas Adams: Perhaps his next endeavor should involve providing the question that goes with the answer.
"ComObjectCast and a group of partners have released a set of tools designed to help broadband providers and researchers determine the algorithms used by Net Neutrality Measuring Tools. The set of tools, at MeasurementLabSucks.net, includes an enduser diagnostic tool, an enduser pathfinding diagnostic tool, and a tool to determine is the enduser is measuring whether the user's broadband provider is slowing BitTorrent peer-to-peer (P-to-P) traffic. Coming soon to the M-Lab-Sucks applications is a tool to determine whether an enduser is using a tool to determine that a broadband provider is giving some traffic a lower priority than other traffic, and a tool to determine if an enduser is using a tool to determine whether a provider is degrading certain users or applications. 'Obfuscation is our goal,' said Argle-bargle GlypfpGlopf, Chief obfuscation evangelist at ComObjectCast and a co-developer of ROFL/MAO. 'Our intent is to make more [information] visible for all who are interested in keeping customers from using what they paid for.'"
Slashdot Mirror
Someone mod this up so it's not lost.
1) If it did happen that wouldn't stop it. You can't stop Bitcoin any more than you can stop torrents. 2) They won't do this as it would be most inconvenient to those with wealth. Wealth controls the power structure of the world today. Once adoption of Bitcoin takes place, it would be protected by those who have it.
Law enforcement doing their job — and bragging about it — is fine. All professions do that, it is normal.
I don't even mind them seizing the (illegal) drugs, but possession of cash is not against the law. Unfortunately, a loophole in the American legal thinking (as well as the British, which we inherited) does not provide much protection to a person's property . Nowhere near as much as to the person himself.
The Executive can seize cash, vehicles, and even real estate without Judiciary oversight or approval — and that ought to stop. Their justification — that what they are seizing things was used for "criminal activity" — comes into play, before anyone is convicted in any criminality.
That must stop. A judge may impose limitations on using of the suspect property (and fund-transfer) — the same way movement limitations are imposed on a person, while investigation is ongoing or a trial is pending. But no seizures ought to be permitted until a "Guilty" verdict is pronounced and the sentencing enumerates, what's to be seized as a punishment.
It's time to start carrying a form of money that cannot be seized by authorities. (That is, as long as you can keep your private key a secret.) Oh dear... what are the authoritarians going to do when Bitcoin adoption goes maintream?
Using blockchain technology for decentralized consensus. Let's take the power from the corrupt and place it back with the people.
This smacks of the same crap Id is trying to pull off on Carmack (http://popcultureblog.dallasnews.com/2014/05/zenimax-and-id-software-have-filed-a-lawsuit-against-oculus-vr-and-dallas-based-john-carmack-is-in-the-middle.html/). Apparently employers think they own any knowledge an employee gains while on the job. Sure, secrets are secrets. But is *everything* they learned on the job is a secret?
Written by true Skynet operatives... we know who you are!
Unless you have remote administration enabled, this exploit is only achievable from a system within the local network. This attack is not an internet threat.
Think how much the spammers and data miners would pay for such a simulated brain. Typical anti-spammer challenges on the web involve presentation of a picture of a sequence of characters and digits, which you must identify and repeat back as ASCII text. This simulated brain could easily accomplish that task. What challenge system will we switch to next...
Interesting. Reporting to a central authority. Now I can see why they opted for this path rather than have a device check its surroundings. They benefit from making devices a bit simpler and collecting information on the useful idiots at the same time. Genius.
To be honest, I'd rather my devices have a modicum of intelligence and look around to find the best frequency to use. To do otherwise leaves the whole system open to attack. What happens if this central authority server goes down? What happens if a rogue device doesn't report to the server? I'd like my robots with eyes and ears please, not being remote controlled from D.C.
Are you actually claiming that Democrats favor non-regulation in general? This smells more like a step toward the free market principles being championed by the Tea Party.
Equal Protection for Black Space!
Statistically speaking, when someone else is covering for your mistakes, you take more risks. Management of risk versus reward is a business requirement. When someone lops off a giant portion of your risk, you are suddenly free to increase that risk further in the pursuit of more reward. As far as your higher prices, if only one player in the market is saddled with increased costs, and this player does not make up the majority of the market by itself, the market should remain little changed. That would ensure BP could not pass its fines and cleanup costs to its customers.
Would you extend this line of thinking to the price at the pump. Let's say, hypothetically, that the end result of this is a ten cent rise in a gallon of gas, should BP be forced to make up the difference? What if the price of diesel jumps up and thus the price of fresh veggies and other consumer products jumps? Should BP also be on the hook for that? Just how much should the market and the wider society have to pay for BP's massive error? And what if BP cannot in fact entirely clean up the Gulf coast? What if the fishery is ruined for decades? Should BP be forced to pay an annual wage that averages out to be what fishermen would have received if they had been able to fish? Should BP be forced to pay for higher fish prices at restaurants and fish markets?
There are other oil companies that are not required to pay for this cleanup. Their prices will remain low. To be competitive, BP will be forced to continue selling at the same price as everyone else. So they will be unable to pass the costs on to consumers buying gasoline.
That said, BP should be responsible for *all* of these costs through damages to be awarded in court after each claimant shows proof to the court. Ideally, noone should be able to show any increase in gasoline prices due to this problem, as other oil companies remain unaffected by fines and clenaup costs, and BP has many so many other sources of oil, that this will not dramatically affect the amount of oil on the market. But anyone who can show proof of damages to the court should be compensated.
> The existing laws basically protect BP from catastrophic payments. The system is designed to allow oil companies vast profits with only marginal risk.
Then this is another broken system brought to you by government intervention. BP should be completely liable for all damages it causes. Anything else is patently unfair. If government intervention allows this excessive risk by covering BP, then this cannot be an indication of failure of Laissez-Faire economics by any stretch of the imagination. Only the threat of consequences keep most in line. If government intervention removes/reduces that threat, you shouldn't be surprised to see risks jump way out of line.
Some here are using this as an excuse to push for new government regulation and claim that Laissez-Faire economics does not work. I believe increased government regulation and protection has actually contributed to the problem of excessive risks being taken by many, including BP. Failure is no longer feared because of government bailouts. Remove the bailouts, and fear of failure will keep risks better controlled.
As far as this specific failure, this kind of highly unlikely failure is what insurance was invented for. Government regulations didn't stop this from happening. The government can only regulate and control that which it foresees. This usually means it adds regulations *after* something bad happens. Thus governments tend to be reactive.
At any rate, existing law covers this type of situation just fine. The harmed governments, industries, companies, and individuals will sue and win large settlements from BP and its insurers. Losses due to payments and increased insurance costs will hit the share price, punishing the owners (shareholders) of BP for what has happened. None of this requires new regulation. In fact, any new regulation will result in punishment being distributed beyond BP to others who were not responsible. This will likely lead to increased prices at the pump, which will then mean you and I are the ones being punished. Is this the fairness you propose?
> If you are in the intersection before the light turns red, you have not run it If they can't get you on running a red light, then they will get you on blocking an intersection. Either way, they'll get you in your end.
Wonderful. Now that we can destroy cancer cells, where can I sign up to have my telemeres refreshed? I'm not getting any younger here... yet.
Not really. If the remote server software was written for the same platform as the client software, all they'd need to do is ship the server software in a patch. But this is besides the point. They don't have to guarantee the game will work forever. They can lease it to you for a limited time period. Most software with an EULA these days already contain a clause indicating you own the physical medium but are only leasing the software on it. So this isn't a big stretch.
If some significant portion of the game was actually computed on the remote server, then "cracking" it would not be possible. One could attempt to "hack" a user account on the remote server to get the free play, or a shady developer could attempt to reverse engineer the networking protocol and implement a fake remote server others could run. The latter would only prove useful if the portion of the game run by the server was trivial. Otherwise, the developer would essentially be reimplementing vast portions of the game him/herself and should just make their own game anyhow.
IE8 is still fairly new. My workplace hasn't yet authorized its use, as some of the web applications used in our business do not work properly with it. Thus, we are all stuck with IE7 for the time being. My recommendation is to support the last two major versions of each browser. There are very good reasons why users may not yet be able to use the latest version.
*knock knock* Excuse me sir. Please don't mind the 29 other people behind me. They're in my raiding party. It would seem that our MMORPG has placed a boss mob in what I can only assume might be your living room. Would you mind terribly if we played through? Also, we're going to be farming this boss mob until our entire guild is outfitted properly. Can we put you down for the same time every Thursday?
Please note: Wolfram did not promise computing that *correctly* answers questions. Tribute to Douglas Adams: Perhaps his next endeavor should involve providing the question that goes with the answer.
"ComObjectCast and a group of partners have released a set of tools designed to help broadband providers and researchers determine the algorithms used by Net Neutrality Measuring Tools. The set of tools, at MeasurementLabSucks.net, includes an enduser diagnostic tool, an enduser pathfinding diagnostic tool, and a tool to determine is the enduser is measuring whether the user's broadband provider is slowing BitTorrent peer-to-peer (P-to-P) traffic. Coming soon to the M-Lab-Sucks applications is a tool to determine whether an enduser is using a tool to determine that a broadband provider is giving some traffic a lower priority than other traffic, and a tool to determine if an enduser is using a tool to determine whether a provider is degrading certain users or applications. 'Obfuscation is our goal,' said Argle-bargle GlypfpGlopf, Chief obfuscation evangelist at ComObjectCast and a co-developer of ROFL/MAO. 'Our intent is to make more [information] visible for all who are interested in keeping customers from using what they paid for.'"