As I mentioned, the large number of hackers I know.
I have known four men who were remotely as sexually inappropriate as the people the article discusses. One was an investment banker, two were unskilled laborers, and one was a computer scientist that wasn't really a hacker but we'll count him. I know more hackers than investment bankers and unskilled laborers combined. My stats do not support the existence of a disproportionate number of sexually inappropriate people in the hacker culture, but I am accepting that portion of the hypothesis in the article because I cannot disprove it and the claims in the article seem both credible and disproportionate to me.
I know more than a dozen hackers off the top of my head who are oversensitive to the boundaries of others to a degree that I would call dysfunctional. As a culture, in my considerable experience, hackers are strongly biased toward social dysfunction, but the social dysfunction they exhibit most often is not violating the boundaries of others but excessively withdrawing from them.
For reasons that should be obvious, lots of social misfits wind up in computer security. Among the social misfits who wind up in computer security are people who fail to understand social boundaries. Those people harm others by their actions. Those harmful people have a disproportionately high representation in computer security populations.
It does not follow that most hackers fail to understand appropriate social boundaries or that the average hacker has a below-average understanding of social boundaries. In fact, all of the hackers I know (and I know a lot) are quite sensitive about violating the boundaries of others. In fact, being oversensitive is also disproportionately represented in computer security circles.
Beware of those who present a number of extreme individuals in a culture as a measure of the average mental makeup of the culture. It is bad math, and it is prejudice.
(The New York Times did note in a 2010 article that a self-driving car was rear-ended while stopped at a traffic light, so Google must not be counting the incidents that were the fault of flawed humans.)
Not sure which accident they're talking about, but in this accident the Google vehicle rear-ended a human-driven vehicle, causing a chain reaction that involved three more vehicles. Google claimed it was in human-driven mode, but with tens of millions of dollars on the line, there's no way they would say any different.
And that is also why most programmers...have no clue about why their SQL queries are taking 100x the resources they should take.
Speaking as mostly a middleware programmer who spent too many years expecting the database guys to "fix the database" when my shoddy queries ran slow, let me say, "Hallelujah, brother!"
I use a lot of math in my work. From ballparking load estimates using basic math to behavioral analysis using linear algebra to data analysis using calculus, I use it all the time. Set theory, logic, graph theory, statistics, on and on -- it all contributes significantly to getting the job done right the first time. Having a background in a variety of maths also helps to visualize problems and shape solutions. I've added as much to my math skills since becoming a professional programmer as I did in school.
There are fields in software, like interaction design, that don't require a strong higher math education, but if you have a good math background it will give you the freedom to explore more opportunities.
I used XFCE for a while years ago, after one of the bloatenings of Gnome. Switched back and had been pretty happy with Gnome until they started turning it into WebTV. Still struggled along with classic mode for a while, but they've been dumbing that as well. Switched back to XFCE and very pleased.
If you want a thin client for the cloud, Gnome/Windows 8/Mountain Lion/ChromeOS are all fine. If you want a computer, XFCE/Debian may be the best option.
I tend to think a divergence is inevitable. The masses don't want a computer and never did. They grudgingly used them because it was where all the good stuff was. Now that the oligarchs are offering convenience as an alternative to liberty, most people are lining up. The hardware manufacturers are falling right in line with UEFI, the network providers are pushing to cripple the nasty peer-to-peer design of the Internet, and everyone with an IQ below 120 (and a surprising percentage of those above) can easily be convinced they are happier this way. It's called progress.
Ummm, which is why I like XFCE... OK, bit of a digression there. But maybe that suggests a motto: "XFCE: Don't shuffle blandly into the decline."
Moreover, if your computers arenâ(TM)t already cloud-connected devices, they will be soon. Apple is working hard to get all of its customers to use iCloud. Googleâ(TM)s entire operating system is cloud-based. And Windows 8, the most cloud-centric operating system yet, will hit desktops by the tens of millions in the coming year. My experience leads me to believe that cloud-based systems need fundamentally different security measures. Password-based security mechanisms â" which can be cracked, reset, and socially engineered â" no longer suffice in the era of cloud computing.
Cloud services can be compromised without using your password, and the two big OS manufacturers are pushing people to entrust their most valuable information to the cloud. The problem with this, he observes, is that passwords are not sufficiently secure.
He writes for a technophile journal, making recommendations to people who trust his expertise, about how to use technology. He was just bitten, quite seriously, by the exact problem with trusting the cloud. He holds the specific role that is supposed to warn the humble masses about threats like this, and he blames password security.
How many people reading the data, which is sure to make its way to TV news as election coverage increases in the coming months, will be aware that Tweets can be manipulated?
My estimate is rough, but I would put it well under 20%, based on conversations about the topic with average non-technical people.
This is an example of one of the indirect perils of centralized communications. Even without the central authority controlling the content, the power implicit in comm centralization becomes a weapon against the free mind. If we don't replace Twitter, Facebook, G+, Hotmail, and the rest with decentralized alternatives, our society will increasingly be influenced by entities with the means and desire to alter public opinion.
We need to be running the chat servers, photo buckets, and mail servers used by our friends and family who are less technically skilled. We need to get Diaspora (or a competitor) nodes running on a much larger scale. I am doing some, and I am scaling up as quickly as I can.
Decentralized comm does not magically and completely solve the problem, but at least it would not serve up the means to manipulate public opinion on a silver platter.
The solution to AGW is not convincing people that they need to sacrifice and suffer for the common good. That won't work. Instead we need to do the R&D to come up with cost effective solutions that make economic sense even on a stand-alone-basis. We have already done that with wind power, CFLs, etc., and we need to do it for solar, electric vehicles, etc.
Most law is about making people suffer individually so that society can benefit overall. From traffic signals to taxes, genocide to homicide, and HAM licenses to fishing licenses, almost all law is about denying individuals the right to do as they please to satisfy the needs of society as a whole.
Suggesting that law which requires individual sacrifice for societal gain is counter-productive is saying that you believe most law should be abandoned.
In New York City alone, there were more than 26,000 incidents of electronics theft in the first 10 months of 2011
OHMYGODPANIC26,000ISABIGNUMBER!
Call it 30,000 per year at $200 per device average residual value. That's $6m per year. In a city of ten million, that's $0.60 per citizen, per year. The least expensive method of mitigating this problem may be to do no more than we are already doing. At $0.60 per year per person, do we really need to expend more resources on theft enforcement? Maybe we're doing well enough already.
Let's say you place some intangible value on the devices for the "sense of loss and invasion" that comes from stuff being stolen. Give it an outlandish price; call it $1000 total value per device. That's still only $3.00 per year per person.
People always talk about bloated government -- in the end, the only solution to bloated government is not asking for more government. Government is an important and necessary, but blunt weapon. At some level of enforcement you reach decreasing returns on a problem has been sufficiently solved. Enforcement is expensive; at some point, enough is enough.
Not only that, but the government believes it can continue to freeze Megaupload's assets and paralyze its operations even if the judge grants the motion to dismiss.
The message they are sending seems to be: If you do something that might piss off a powerful enough lobby in the United States, even if the legal system sides with you, get your money out of the country.
That doesn't seem like a very smart message to send.
the respect and protection of privacy and civil liberties, and the opposition to malicious and criminal behavior
I guess, in a sense, those are shared values. Both sides share the view that half of the above pair is a "nice to have" that can be infringed when it conflicts with the other half.
But I don't think the two sides agree on which half can be justly infringed.
If you look at it that way, it is such an elegant turn of phrase -- and in a context where riddles and half truths are held in such esteem -- that I almost think it must be intentional. Except what kind of scumbag would ever admit to being on the wrong side?
The team reports that much of the captured carbon was transported to the deep ocean, where it will remain sequestered for centuries - a 'carbon sink'
This sounds like a good quick patch (in the ecological time scale), but do we need that carbon? Seems like moving carbon from the Earth's crust to the deep ocean could have some long-term ramifications. I'm not sure I know enough about the subject even to qualify as an amateur, but it seems like it would be more profitable in the long run if we could grow plant life that would feed plankton or fish in the ocean example, other flora or fauna in general, or be harvested to make fuel. Turn the carbon back into a productive resource. Maybe harvest the algal blooms with a tide generator or wave generator powered filtration system.
But again, it sounds better than having steadily worse hurricanes for the time being, until we can figure out how to capture that carbon for production. Not criticizing -- just noodling.
Sure there is [something inherently evil about Christianity and Islam]: they both require you to put non-Bayesian means ahead of Bayesian means as a way of knowing reality, and that is the root of all evil.
Why? Why is this a bad thing? Because the organizational units are not based on geographic boundaries? This is just a new kind of nation-state that is forming in cyberspace, and they will establish their sovereignty using the same tools of diplomacy that we use in traditional geopolitics; force, propaganda, influence, and intimidation. These new entities don't all fall along traditional geopolitical boundaries, but that doesn't make them inherently evil. In fact, they may wind up being a particularly effective balance against multinationals and governments that act in concert via treaties.
Multinational corporations and governments are already arming themselves for cyber warfare. Corporations are wielding semantic analysis, shilling, and astroturfing to manipulate public perception and change the course of governments all over the world. Governments are bordering on open war in cyberspace.
Which is more dangerous: For citizens to be armed, or for oligarchs to go unchecked? Reading the Declaration of Independence may give you some insight into the conclusion reached by what became the most powerful nation-state in history.
If you are looking to see which is easier for you then you are a shitty programmer and you need to upgrade your skills
I'm guessing most of the replies are roasting you for one reason or another, but I've got to say: It's not exactly the kind of advice I'd want to say in public, or even particularly true in general, but boy, when it's right is sure is right -- and I've both had coworkers like that and even been that guy enough times that it made me laugh so hard that my eyes started watering. Thanks for the giggle.:)
Gotta love that firedoglake citation. One of the most wacko sites on the internet, not an easy accomplishment.
Don't mistake my citation of one article for vouching for the site. I hadn't heard of FDL before today, and I only looked at that one article to check for veracity. That article looks to have been fairly well researched and documented. I know nothing of any other content on the site.
We decry the loss of privacy in this country and yet when it's done for "art" some people are shocked that anybody could be upset.
It is a poignant question, isn't it? You have done a good job with the above statement of pointing out the hypocrisy from one perspective. Another worth a bit of exploration is the legal perspective.
Cell phones, network providers, and cloud services spy on people's most intimate activities, even when they have a far more reasonable expectation of privacy than people in a retail store, yet the law ignores them. This guy does it and calls it "art", and the law sees him (at the behest of one of the most powerful oligarchs) as deserving of Secret Service investigation.
I think both are wrong; this for-art spy and the for-profit spies. I think that they both deserve to be investigated, with the amount of federal investigative resources applied being in direct proportion to the number of people spied upon. If the law holds Verizon blameless for tracking me everywhere I go and recording every website I visit, but it brings in the Secret Service over a few photographs of people in a retail store, there is something going wrong. There is a red flag here and it is our duty as citizens to get on our soapboxes and bring it to the government's attention.
It's pretty cool, but right on the first page it pulls code from googleapis.com. Hit the front page and you send a request with the referrer URL to one of the biggest stalkers. Maybe it's still good, maybe it's not hard to redirect that js link to your own machine, but it just seems like they've missed the fundamental point of not giving your data away.
Slashdot Mirror
Anyone have any thoughts on Mombasa, Kenya? I don't want to color this with my own perceptions, so I'm just going to leave the question wide open.
As with Elucido's reply, your reply is well thought out and presents good food for thought. Thanks!
Your reply is well thought out and presents good food for thought. Thanks!
What stats do you have other than stereotypes?
As I mentioned, the large number of hackers I know.
I have known four men who were remotely as sexually inappropriate as the people the article discusses. One was an investment banker, two were unskilled laborers, and one was a computer scientist that wasn't really a hacker but we'll count him. I know more hackers than investment bankers and unskilled laborers combined. My stats do not support the existence of a disproportionate number of sexually inappropriate people in the hacker culture, but I am accepting that portion of the hypothesis in the article because I cannot disprove it and the claims in the article seem both credible and disproportionate to me.
I know more than a dozen hackers off the top of my head who are oversensitive to the boundaries of others to a degree that I would call dysfunctional. As a culture, in my considerable experience, hackers are strongly biased toward social dysfunction, but the social dysfunction they exhibit most often is not violating the boundaries of others but excessively withdrawing from them.
For reasons that should be obvious, lots of social misfits wind up in computer security. Among the social misfits who wind up in computer security are people who fail to understand social boundaries. Those people harm others by their actions. Those harmful people have a disproportionately high representation in computer security populations.
It does not follow that most hackers fail to understand appropriate social boundaries or that the average hacker has a below-average understanding of social boundaries. In fact, all of the hackers I know (and I know a lot) are quite sensitive about violating the boundaries of others. In fact, being oversensitive is also disproportionately represented in computer security circles.
Beware of those who present a number of extreme individuals in a culture as a measure of the average mental makeup of the culture. It is bad math, and it is prejudice.
(The New York Times did note in a 2010 article that a self-driving car was rear-ended while stopped at a traffic light, so Google must not be counting the incidents that were the fault of flawed humans.)
Not sure which accident they're talking about, but in this accident the Google vehicle rear-ended a human-driven vehicle, causing a chain reaction that involved three more vehicles. Google claimed it was in human-driven mode, but with tens of millions of dollars on the line, there's no way they would say any different.
Too terse, don't know what you're saying. The databases had explain.
And that is also why most programmers...have no clue about why their SQL queries are taking 100x the resources they should take.
Speaking as mostly a middleware programmer who spent too many years expecting the database guys to "fix the database" when my shoddy queries ran slow, let me say, "Hallelujah, brother!"
I use a lot of math in my work. From ballparking load estimates using basic math to behavioral analysis using linear algebra to data analysis using calculus, I use it all the time. Set theory, logic, graph theory, statistics, on and on -- it all contributes significantly to getting the job done right the first time. Having a background in a variety of maths also helps to visualize problems and shape solutions. I've added as much to my math skills since becoming a professional programmer as I did in school.
There are fields in software, like interaction design, that don't require a strong higher math education, but if you have a good math background it will give you the freedom to explore more opportunities.
I happened to be grabbing a fresh copy of Jetty and noticed that Codehaus's logo has the same keyhole.
I used XFCE for a while years ago, after one of the bloatenings of Gnome. Switched back and had been pretty happy with Gnome until they started turning it into WebTV. Still struggled along with classic mode for a while, but they've been dumbing that as well. Switched back to XFCE and very pleased.
If you want a thin client for the cloud, Gnome/Windows 8/Mountain Lion/ChromeOS are all fine. If you want a computer, XFCE/Debian may be the best option.
I tend to think a divergence is inevitable. The masses don't want a computer and never did. They grudgingly used them because it was where all the good stuff was. Now that the oligarchs are offering convenience as an alternative to liberty, most people are lining up. The hardware manufacturers are falling right in line with UEFI, the network providers are pushing to cripple the nasty peer-to-peer design of the Internet, and everyone with an IQ below 120 (and a surprising percentage of those above) can easily be convinced they are happier this way. It's called progress.
Ummm, which is why I like XFCE... OK, bit of a digression there. But maybe that suggests a motto: "XFCE: Don't shuffle blandly into the decline."
Moreover, if your computers arenâ(TM)t already cloud-connected devices, they will be soon. Apple is working hard to get all of its customers to use iCloud. Googleâ(TM)s entire operating system is cloud-based. And Windows 8, the most cloud-centric operating system yet, will hit desktops by the tens of millions in the coming year. My experience leads me to believe that cloud-based systems need fundamentally different security measures. Password-based security mechanisms â" which can be cracked, reset, and socially engineered â" no longer suffice in the era of cloud computing.
Cloud services can be compromised without using your password, and the two big OS manufacturers are pushing people to entrust their most valuable information to the cloud. The problem with this, he observes, is that passwords are not sufficiently secure.
He writes for a technophile journal, making recommendations to people who trust his expertise, about how to use technology. He was just bitten, quite seriously, by the exact problem with trusting the cloud. He holds the specific role that is supposed to warn the humble masses about threats like this, and he blames password security.
I think Woz understated the threat.
How many people reading the data, which is sure to make its way to TV news as election coverage increases in the coming months, will be aware that Tweets can be manipulated?
My estimate is rough, but I would put it well under 20%, based on conversations about the topic with average non-technical people.
This is an example of one of the indirect perils of centralized communications. Even without the central authority controlling the content, the power implicit in comm centralization becomes a weapon against the free mind. If we don't replace Twitter, Facebook, G+, Hotmail, and the rest with decentralized alternatives, our society will increasingly be influenced by entities with the means and desire to alter public opinion.
We need to be running the chat servers, photo buckets, and mail servers used by our friends and family who are less technically skilled. We need to get Diaspora (or a competitor) nodes running on a much larger scale. I am doing some, and I am scaling up as quickly as I can.
Decentralized comm does not magically and completely solve the problem, but at least it would not serve up the means to manipulate public opinion on a silver platter.
The solution to AGW is not convincing people that they need to sacrifice and suffer for the common good. That won't work. Instead we need to do the R&D to come up with cost effective solutions that make economic sense even on a stand-alone-basis. We have already done that with wind power, CFLs, etc., and we need to do it for solar, electric vehicles, etc.
Most law is about making people suffer individually so that society can benefit overall. From traffic signals to taxes, genocide to homicide, and HAM licenses to fishing licenses, almost all law is about denying individuals the right to do as they please to satisfy the needs of society as a whole.
Suggesting that law which requires individual sacrifice for societal gain is counter-productive is saying that you believe most law should be abandoned.
In New York City alone, there were more than 26,000 incidents of electronics theft in the first 10 months of 2011
OHMYGODPANIC26,000ISABIGNUMBER!
Call it 30,000 per year at $200 per device average residual value. That's $6m per year. In a city of ten million, that's $0.60 per citizen, per year. The least expensive method of mitigating this problem may be to do no more than we are already doing. At $0.60 per year per person, do we really need to expend more resources on theft enforcement? Maybe we're doing well enough already.
Let's say you place some intangible value on the devices for the "sense of loss and invasion" that comes from stuff being stolen. Give it an outlandish price; call it $1000 total value per device. That's still only $3.00 per year per person.
People always talk about bloated government -- in the end, the only solution to bloated government is not asking for more government. Government is an important and necessary, but blunt weapon. At some level of enforcement you reach decreasing returns on a problem has been sufficiently solved. Enforcement is expensive; at some point, enough is enough.
Not only that, but the government believes it can continue to freeze Megaupload's assets and paralyze its operations even if the judge grants the motion to dismiss.
The message they are sending seems to be: If you do something that might piss off a powerful enough lobby in the United States, even if the legal system sides with you, get your money out of the country.
That doesn't seem like a very smart message to send.
the respect and protection of privacy and civil liberties, and the opposition to malicious and criminal behavior
I guess, in a sense, those are shared values. Both sides share the view that half of the above pair is a "nice to have" that can be infringed when it conflicts with the other half.
But I don't think the two sides agree on which half can be justly infringed.
If you look at it that way, it is such an elegant turn of phrase -- and in a context where riddles and half truths are held in such esteem -- that I almost think it must be intentional. Except what kind of scumbag would ever admit to being on the wrong side?
The team reports that much of the captured carbon was transported to the deep ocean, where it will remain sequestered for centuries - a 'carbon sink'
This sounds like a good quick patch (in the ecological time scale), but do we need that carbon? Seems like moving carbon from the Earth's crust to the deep ocean could have some long-term ramifications. I'm not sure I know enough about the subject even to qualify as an amateur, but it seems like it would be more profitable in the long run if we could grow plant life that would feed plankton or fish in the ocean example, other flora or fauna in general, or be harvested to make fuel. Turn the carbon back into a productive resource. Maybe harvest the algal blooms with a tide generator or wave generator powered filtration system.
But again, it sounds better than having steadily worse hurricanes for the time being, until we can figure out how to capture that carbon for production. Not criticizing -- just noodling.
Sure there is [something inherently evil about Christianity and Islam]: they both require you to put non-Bayesian means ahead of Bayesian means as a way of knowing reality, and that is the root of all evil.
Outstanding. Thank you.
Let's hope resistance isn't futile.
Why? Why is this a bad thing? Because the organizational units are not based on geographic boundaries? This is just a new kind of nation-state that is forming in cyberspace, and they will establish their sovereignty using the same tools of diplomacy that we use in traditional geopolitics; force, propaganda, influence, and intimidation. These new entities don't all fall along traditional geopolitical boundaries, but that doesn't make them inherently evil. In fact, they may wind up being a particularly effective balance against multinationals and governments that act in concert via treaties.
Multinational corporations and governments are already arming themselves for cyber warfare. Corporations are wielding semantic analysis, shilling, and astroturfing to manipulate public perception and change the course of governments all over the world. Governments are bordering on open war in cyberspace.
Which is more dangerous: For citizens to be armed, or for oligarchs to go unchecked? Reading the Declaration of Independence may give you some insight into the conclusion reached by what became the most powerful nation-state in history.
If you are looking to see which is easier for you then you are a shitty programmer and you need to upgrade your skills
I'm guessing most of the replies are roasting you for one reason or another, but I've got to say: It's not exactly the kind of advice I'd want to say in public, or even particularly true in general, but boy, when it's right is sure is right -- and I've both had coworkers like that and even been that guy enough times that it made me laugh so hard that my eyes started watering. Thanks for the giggle. :)
Gotta love that firedoglake citation. One of the most wacko sites on the internet, not an easy accomplishment.
Don't mistake my citation of one article for vouching for the site. I hadn't heard of FDL before today, and I only looked at that one article to check for veracity. That article looks to have been fairly well researched and documented. I know nothing of any other content on the site.
I thought Goldman Sachs were the good guys?
They are! That's why the Hope & Change President decided to put change on hold and continue the long-standing tradition of stuffing the White House with Goldman alums and associates and sending administration people back.
We decry the loss of privacy in this country and yet when it's done for "art" some people are shocked that anybody could be upset.
It is a poignant question, isn't it? You have done a good job with the above statement of pointing out the hypocrisy from one perspective. Another worth a bit of exploration is the legal perspective.
Cell phones, network providers, and cloud services spy on people's most intimate activities, even when they have a far more reasonable expectation of privacy than people in a retail store, yet the law ignores them. This guy does it and calls it "art", and the law sees him (at the behest of one of the most powerful oligarchs) as deserving of Secret Service investigation.
I think both are wrong; this for-art spy and the for-profit spies. I think that they both deserve to be investigated, with the amount of federal investigative resources applied being in direct proportion to the number of people spied upon. If the law holds Verizon blameless for tracking me everywhere I go and recording every website I visit, but it brings in the Secret Service over a few photographs of people in a retail store, there is something going wrong. There is a red flag here and it is our duty as citizens to get on our soapboxes and bring it to the government's attention.
http://owncloud.org/
It's pretty cool, but right on the first page it pulls code from googleapis.com. Hit the front page and you send a request with the referrer URL to one of the biggest stalkers. Maybe it's still good, maybe it's not hard to redirect that js link to your own machine, but it just seems like they've missed the fundamental point of not giving your data away.