Naturally - why should they bury the cable in a swamp? How long do you think that you'll have no power when the insulation breaks down from sitting in a flooded conduit?
For the longest time, the industry was pretty much unregulated. Now that the FTC is empowered to regulate them, companies like Choicepoint are faced with a choice - they can operate in a haphazard way or they can pay attention to the rules and tighten up their business. I'm no expert in the business, but I'd bet money that the companies are tightening up their business practices. Violations will happen. That's when the FTC steps in, makes a determination based on the nature of the violation and the circumstances surrounding it - and based upon the limits of the law.
That's what happened in the Choicepoint case. You want them out of business? If the FTC had done that, the company would have appealed the punishment and it would have been reduced or waived.
If you really can't tell the difference between Choicepoint and its ilk and the 419 gang, then you've got a problem, I'd say. You may not like what Choicepoint does (I'm no fan, either), but they're not criminals. Their industry probably deserves closer regulation than it gets - I know that my congressional delegation has been trying to get that done for quite a while. Maybe someday...
But driving a company out of business as punishment is a slippery slope that isn't worth sliding down. If we decide that Choicepoint and its ilk should be put out of our misery, then who's next? How bad does the offense have to be to put a company out of business? What category of companies do we go after? Do we take a poll across the nation and close down the companies that the majority of us don't like? I guess that would take care of the lawyers...maybe bill collectors, too. Insurance companys? Probably. Used car lots, too. There are plenty of businesses out there that just have a bad feel to them. That's just the way it is.
I'd say that what happened is just. You give them a sting to convince them not to do it again and to send a wakeup call to their compadres in the business. If it happens again, well, maybe that's a different story.
What repercussions? Did they lose business? Sure they got hit with a 10 million dollar fine but look at their financial statements, that is barely a drop in the bucket for them.
It was a total of $15 million, plus another $4 million in other obligations imposed by the FTC (like third party auditing). Insurance covered $11 million of the $19 million, but Choicepoint had to pony up $8 million of their own money. If you look at their financial statments, you'll see that it's no slap on the wrist - it represented half of their cash. In terms of yearly income, it's about 7% of what the company makes. Plus, I suspect that their insurer will either raise their liability insurance rates or drop them altogether.
I'd say that the penalty was fair. It's not necessary to drive the company out of business - just necessary to give them a sting so that they don't do it again.
Through hole components can only be mechanically placed if the pick and place machine can physically process them. Not everything fits in a pick and place machine. The company I work for used to own a large contract manufacturing business. The answer to the problem of components that wouldn't fit the pick and place machines was easy - they didn't take the contract. The only case that I know of in which they did take the contract was to produce a motherboard that the company used in its own computer, and probably only because it would have been a little embarassing to contract out our motherboard to a third party. But they didn't make many of them - too bad, because at the time, it was the highest performance PC you could buy.
You judged him on the argument he made, but refuse to debate that argument even when asked to repeatedly.
Ah, I see your misunderstanding. He suggested that I would think that he was a troll, but didn't give any reason why I would think that. I told him that I thought that I thought that he was something else, also giving no reason why I thought that.
Fair's fair. My opinion is my own and I don't owe it to anyone to offer justification for it, particularly when my comments were not addressed to anyone else.
Now, I think that the OP knew that his position was extreme or else he wouldn't have prefaced it with the "troll" statement. That really precludes an honest debate. Besides, I'm not particularly interested in presenting a case for moderation when the OP's position is so extreme that common sense ought to suggest to a rational person that what he suggests is so unlikely as to not really be worth my time.
As it is, I think that I've spent far more time on a nice Saturday afternoon discussing this topic than it's really worth. Clearly you're just looking for an argument and I'm not interested in arguing, so let me take the opportunity to thank everyone for their input, such as it is. It hasn't changed my mind, but, then again, I wasn't trying to change anybody else's mind, either.
By the way, another opinion that I have is that you've tried to make a mountain out of a molehill. My advice, free, so take it for what it's worth, is to get over it and move on. That's what I'm doing - it's nice and sunny today, so I'm heading outside.
Does the FCC have the authority to levy taxes? Isn't the FCC an executive agency? Have we stopped even pretending that we have a constitutional government?
The FCC has the authority to determine who supports the Safe Harbor fund. Congress gave them that authority and established its limits, primarily users of PSTN systems. So, the FCC says that VOIP services that use PSTN have to contribute to the fund. All very constitutional. Incidentally, the tax on DSL is being dropped by the FCC, so I guess they giveth and they taketh away.
What seems kind of loopy to me, though, is the forumula that the FCC imposed to determine what percentage of long distance calls are made by the three PSTN users. Somehow I think that cell phone users are getting a free(er) ride than landlines or VOIP.
I'm with Commissioner Tate (as I'm sure everybody here is, too) when she says that the government should treat emerging technologies like VOIP with a light touch.
Rather, you seem to be refusing to debate it, also with people who are actively trying to hear your argument.
Huh? What argument? He said I might think he's a troll. I said that I thought that he was something else. No argument, no debate. As I said earlier, I didn't address his manifesto, only what he suggested that I might think of his state of mind.
The poster asserted that the information to prevent it was in fact there. This was confirmed even by the official report on 9/11, so there is very little reason to doubt it.
Going from there to 'the CIA and NSA allowed it to happen' isn't such a stretch either but it does not in itself explain why they 'allowed this to happen'.
Nothing happens in a vacuum. He mistakes bureaucratic incompetence for intention. Going from incompetence to intention is a huge stretch and implies a serious misunderstanding of how the career employees of the federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies do their jobs. I leave to you the exercise of determining how such a thing could be covered up, given the number of people that would have been involved.
That said, allowing such an incident in order to control the population is far from unheard of, rather, it is a very well documented 'trick' that has seen a lot of use throughout history. With that in mind, suspecting a government of doing the same might be wrong in this case, but isn't exactly a matter of paranoia.
Whose history? US history? You're saying that the US government has allowed something like the 9/11 attacks to occur in the past just to inflame the populace? Now I'll admit that our government isn't run by a bunch of boy scouts, but I think that you're pulling something out of thin air here.
Incidentally, at some point, you claimed that I was dismissing the OP's comments by saying that he was paranoid. On the contrary, as I've already mentioned, he did the job himself. I was just challenging his own assertion that I might consider him a troll. I don't think that he's a troll at all. I never addressed his comments, though, because I really didn't think that they were worthy of discussion - at least on my part. Perhaps I was wrong.
Not at all. The original post suggested that I might dismiss him as a troll. I simply corrected his misunderstanding of my position. He's free to shout to the rooftops whatever is on his mind. It doesn't scare me, nor do I feel the need to deny what he says. It seems to me that he unwittingly makes his own case for the absurdity of his statement.
I'm just as sure that nothing that I say will change his mind - thus, I can hardly bully him into submission. He said his piece, I said mine. I wasn't debating the issue - if I was debating, you'd know it.
But thanks for trying to psychoanalyze me. Alas, you've missed the mark.
Nope, I'm sticking with paranoid wingnut. Being taken seriously by the/. crowd isn't really high on my list anyway. Besides, I suspect that I'm not in the minority with my viewpoint. I'm just not afraid to post non-AC.
Warren Buffett? His annual salary is $100,000. His typical yearly compensation from Berkshire Hathaway is $300,000. He's a perennial pick for the "Most Underpaid CEO in America". Pick a different target.
Used a made-up term for free trade - check Proper capitalization for the Destruction of the Middle Class - check Advocate trying CEOs for treason without knowing what treason really is - check Put the important words in ALL CAPS - check Twisted isolated incidents into an indictment of the entire system - check
Might I suggest going to, say, their web site and reading the plain-English ByLaws page? In particular, "ARTICLE 3 - PURPOSE", which contains a bulleted list of, well, what they do.
Looks to me like they mostly make a stink about H1B programs, like the OP said. Not that there's anything wrong with that...
The news program All Things Considered interviewed the undersecretary responsible for the program yesterday (6/24/06). The interviewer didn't really pull any punches and the answers were pretty interesting. I highly recommend going to NPR's web site and listening to it.
When asked what layers of security were in place to prevent misuse, the reply was that in order to perform a search, the analyst had to show that the individual or group being queried had been identified as having a potential terrorism link. That request had to be vetted by a supervisor, then by a representative from SWIFT. Then, when the query is performed, if no evidence is found, then the information is discarded at the analyst's level. A government auditing team reviews the information that is gleaned and a third party auditing team (from Booz Allen) audits the government.
The undersecretary said that they did remove an analyst earlier this year for abusing the system. The auditing system caught him.
The undersecretary also said that about 10% of the searches performed provided evidence of links to terrorist organizations. That, he said, was a very high rate compared to other intelligence methods.
For me, personally, if that's the way that the government is using the SWIFT database, I don't have a problem with it. If the queries are targeted, as opposed to a broad sweep, it strikes me as a legitimate use of an intelligence asset.
Interestingly enough, the general attitude of the security and privacy experts that ATC interviewed was fairly positive about the program.
This story once again highlights the importance of making sure something is legitimate before letting it run loose on your system, even if it appears to be coming from a reputable source.
Timothy, Zonk and the rest of you guys, are you paying attention?
I guess that when you own your own coffee shop you can have your own rules. Me? If the guy spent three months parked in the parking lot piggybacking the Internet service that I provided for the customers, it'd be pretty clear that he wasn't a customer and probably wasn't going to be one. As business decisions go, it's a neutral one. He's not going to spend any money in the coffee shop and giving him the boot (with the help of the local law enforcement) isn't going to lose me any customers. If nothing else, it frees up a parking space.
Some guy who pulls up at random and logs in to check his email and then splits? No problem. I'll bet that it happens all the time. A three month habitual user? No - if only because it's not the right thing for someone to do.
Slashdot Mirror
Naturally - why should they bury the cable in a swamp? How long do you think that you'll have no power when the insulation breaks down from sitting in a flooded conduit?
-h-
For the longest time, the industry was pretty much unregulated. Now that the FTC is empowered to regulate them, companies like Choicepoint are faced with a choice - they can operate in a haphazard way or they can pay attention to the rules and tighten up their business. I'm no expert in the business, but I'd bet money that the companies are tightening up their business practices. Violations will happen. That's when the FTC steps in, makes a determination based on the nature of the violation and the circumstances surrounding it - and based upon the limits of the law.
That's what happened in the Choicepoint case. You want them out of business? If the FTC had done that, the company would have appealed the punishment and it would have been reduced or waived.
If you really can't tell the difference between Choicepoint and its ilk and the 419 gang, then you've got a problem, I'd say. You may not like what Choicepoint does (I'm no fan, either), but they're not criminals. Their industry probably deserves closer regulation than it gets - I know that my congressional delegation has been trying to get that done for quite a while. Maybe someday...
But driving a company out of business as punishment is a slippery slope that isn't worth sliding down. If we decide that Choicepoint and its ilk should be put out of our misery, then who's next? How bad does the offense have to be to put a company out of business? What category of companies do we go after? Do we take a poll across the nation and close down the companies that the majority of us don't like? I guess that would take care of the lawyers...maybe bill collectors, too. Insurance companys? Probably. Used car lots, too. There are plenty of businesses out there that just have a bad feel to them. That's just the way it is.
I'd say that what happened is just. You give them a sting to convince them not to do it again and to send a wakeup call to their compadres in the business. If it happens again, well, maybe that's a different story.
-h-
Oops, I forgot where I was...I promise I won't do it again!
Because most online retailers won't open the box to tell you what version you're buying, as I unfortunately found out the other day.
All they have to do is look at the box. It's not like the model number is a secret or anything. It's printed on the box!
-h-
What repercussions? Did they lose business? Sure they got hit with a 10 million dollar fine but look at their financial statements, that is barely a drop in the bucket for them.
It was a total of $15 million, plus another $4 million in other obligations imposed by the FTC (like third party auditing). Insurance covered $11 million of the $19 million, but Choicepoint had to pony up $8 million of their own money. If you look at their financial statments, you'll see that it's no slap on the wrist - it represented half of their cash. In terms of yearly income, it's about 7% of what the company makes. Plus, I suspect that their insurer will either raise their liability insurance rates or drop them altogether.
I'd say that the penalty was fair. It's not necessary to drive the company out of business - just necessary to give them a sting so that they don't do it again.
-h-
It nearly made me snort diet coke out of my nose - and that would have hurt! Clearly Business 2.0 didn't RTF/..
-h-
Through hole components can only be mechanically placed if the pick and place machine can physically process them. Not everything fits in a pick and place machine. The company I work for used to own a large contract manufacturing business. The answer to the problem of components that wouldn't fit the pick and place machines was easy - they didn't take the contract. The only case that I know of in which they did take the contract was to produce a motherboard that the company used in its own computer, and probably only because it would have been a little embarassing to contract out our motherboard to a third party. But they didn't make many of them - too bad, because at the time, it was the highest performance PC you could buy.
-h-
And they did a better job of it, too. A much better article.
-h-
You judged him on the argument he made, but refuse to debate that argument even when asked to repeatedly.
Ah, I see your misunderstanding. He suggested that I would think that he was a troll, but didn't give any reason why I would think that. I told him that I thought that I thought that he was something else, also giving no reason why I thought that.
Fair's fair. My opinion is my own and I don't owe it to anyone to offer justification for it, particularly when my comments were not addressed to anyone else.
Now, I think that the OP knew that his position was extreme or else he wouldn't have prefaced it with the "troll" statement. That really precludes an honest debate. Besides, I'm not particularly interested in presenting a case for moderation when the OP's position is so extreme that common sense ought to suggest to a rational person that what he suggests is so unlikely as to not really be worth my time.
As it is, I think that I've spent far more time on a nice Saturday afternoon discussing this topic than it's really worth. Clearly you're just looking for an argument and I'm not interested in arguing, so let me take the opportunity to thank everyone for their input, such as it is. It hasn't changed my mind, but, then again, I wasn't trying to change anybody else's mind, either.
By the way, another opinion that I have is that you've tried to make a mountain out of a molehill. My advice, free, so take it for what it's worth, is to get over it and move on. That's what I'm doing - it's nice and sunny today, so I'm heading outside.
-h-
Does the FCC have the authority to levy taxes? Isn't the FCC an executive agency? Have we stopped even pretending that we have a constitutional government?
The FCC has the authority to determine who supports the Safe Harbor fund. Congress gave them that authority and established its limits, primarily users of PSTN systems. So, the FCC says that VOIP services that use PSTN have to contribute to the fund. All very constitutional. Incidentally, the tax on DSL is being dropped by the FCC, so I guess they giveth and they taketh away.
What seems kind of loopy to me, though, is the forumula that the FCC imposed to determine what percentage of long distance calls are made by the three PSTN users. Somehow I think that cell phone users are getting a free(er) ride than landlines or VOIP.
I'm with Commissioner Tate (as I'm sure everybody here is, too) when she says that the government should treat emerging technologies like VOIP with a light touch.
-h-
Rather, you seem to be refusing to debate it, also with people who are actively trying to hear your argument.
Huh? What argument? He said I might think he's a troll. I said that I thought that he was something else. No argument, no debate. As I said earlier, I didn't address his manifesto, only what he suggested that I might think of his state of mind.
Yes, your behavior really suggests that.
I guess I struck a nerve.
-h-
The poster asserted that the information to prevent it was in fact there. This was confirmed even by the official report on 9/11, so there is very little reason to doubt it.
Going from there to 'the CIA and NSA allowed it to happen' isn't such a stretch either but it does not in itself explain why they 'allowed this to happen'.
Nothing happens in a vacuum. He mistakes bureaucratic incompetence for intention. Going from incompetence to intention is a huge stretch and implies a serious misunderstanding of how the career employees of the federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies do their jobs. I leave to you the exercise of determining how such a thing could be covered up, given the number of people that would have been involved.
That said, allowing such an incident in order to control the population is far from unheard of, rather, it is a very well documented 'trick' that has seen a lot of use throughout history. With that in mind, suspecting a government of doing the same might be wrong in this case, but isn't exactly a matter of paranoia.
Whose history? US history? You're saying that the US government has allowed something like the 9/11 attacks to occur in the past just to inflame the populace? Now I'll admit that our government isn't run by a bunch of boy scouts, but I think that you're pulling something out of thin air here.
Incidentally, at some point, you claimed that I was dismissing the OP's comments by saying that he was paranoid. On the contrary, as I've already mentioned, he did the job himself. I was just challenging his own assertion that I might consider him a troll. I don't think that he's a troll at all. I never addressed his comments, though, because I really didn't think that they were worthy of discussion - at least on my part. Perhaps I was wrong.
-h-
Not at all. The original post suggested that I might dismiss him as a troll. I simply corrected his misunderstanding of my position. He's free to shout to the rooftops whatever is on his mind. It doesn't scare me, nor do I feel the need to deny what he says. It seems to me that he unwittingly makes his own case for the absurdity of his statement.
I'm just as sure that nothing that I say will change his mind - thus, I can hardly bully him into submission. He said his piece, I said mine. I wasn't debating the issue - if I was debating, you'd know it.
But thanks for trying to psychoanalyze me. Alas, you've missed the mark.
-h-
Nope, I'm sticking with paranoid wingnut. Being taken seriously by the /. crowd isn't really high on my list anyway. Besides, I suspect that I'm not in the minority with my viewpoint. I'm just not afraid to post non-AC.
-h-
Warren Buffett? His annual salary is $100,000. His typical yearly compensation from Berkshire Hathaway is $300,000. He's a perennial pick for the "Most Underpaid CEO in America". Pick a different target.
-h-
Let's see...
Used a made-up term for free trade - check
Proper capitalization for the Destruction of the Middle Class - check
Advocate trying CEOs for treason without knowing what treason really is - check
Put the important words in ALL CAPS - check
Twisted isolated incidents into an indictment of the entire system - check
Excellent job! Your manifesto is complete!
-h-
Might I suggest going to, say, their web site and reading the plain-English ByLaws page? In particular, "ARTICLE 3 - PURPOSE", which contains a bulleted list of, well, what they do.
Looks to me like they mostly make a stink about H1B programs, like the OP said. Not that there's anything wrong with that...
-h-
The news program All Things Considered interviewed the undersecretary responsible for the program yesterday (6/24/06). The interviewer didn't really pull any punches and the answers were pretty interesting. I highly recommend going to NPR's web site and listening to it.
When asked what layers of security were in place to prevent misuse, the reply was that in order to perform a search, the analyst had to show that the individual or group being queried had been identified as having a potential terrorism link. That request had to be vetted by a supervisor, then by a representative from SWIFT. Then, when the query is performed, if no evidence is found, then the information is discarded at the analyst's level. A government auditing team reviews the information that is gleaned and a third party auditing team (from Booz Allen) audits the government.
The undersecretary said that they did remove an analyst earlier this year for abusing the system. The auditing system caught him.
The undersecretary also said that about 10% of the searches performed provided evidence of links to terrorist organizations. That, he said, was a very high rate compared to other intelligence methods.
For me, personally, if that's the way that the government is using the SWIFT database, I don't have a problem with it. If the queries are targeted, as opposed to a broad sweep, it strikes me as a legitimate use of an intelligence asset.
Interestingly enough, the general attitude of the security and privacy experts that ATC interviewed was fairly positive about the program.
-h-
And before you dismiss this as a troll...
I don't dismiss it as a troll, but rather as the ravings of a paranoid wingnut.
-h-
April 11, 2005? You've got to be kidding me!
-h-
This story once again highlights the importance of making sure something is legitimate before letting it run loose on your system, even if it appears to be coming from a reputable source.
Timothy, Zonk and the rest of you guys, are you paying attention?
Oh yeah? Well my offsite backups are encrypted, then put on CD, then locked in a lead-lined steel box! So there!
Maybe they're just mostly gay.
-h-
I guess that when you own your own coffee shop you can have your own rules. Me? If the guy spent three months parked in the parking lot piggybacking the Internet service that I provided for the customers, it'd be pretty clear that he wasn't a customer and probably wasn't going to be one. As business decisions go, it's a neutral one. He's not going to spend any money in the coffee shop and giving him the boot (with the help of the local law enforcement) isn't going to lose me any customers. If nothing else, it frees up a parking space.
Some guy who pulls up at random and logs in to check his email and then splits? No problem. I'll bet that it happens all the time. A three month habitual user? No - if only because it's not the right thing for someone to do.
-h-
Time to see the doctor. Something is wrong with your sense of perspective. It's turning into hyperbole.
-h-