That's not what I said. Here's where I went in response to your original post that we're identified when we get our boarding pass:
1. Not all boarding passes are accompanied by positive ID, such as when they're printed from a computer at home. 2. Such boarding passes may be modified by altering the HTML and redisplaying locally and then printing. Alternately, they can be altered in a graphical editor. 3. At the moment, boarding passes are not validated by TSA. I just flew last weekend and while they ran my license under a black-light, they just made sure the flight information made sense before sending me through to the scanners. 4. Someone can go--and some people have gone--through security on forged passes. They cannot get on a plane and (theoretically) cannot get proscribed items through, but they can get into the "sterile" area of the airport. 5. Validating the boarding pass, simple enough to do with a barcode scanner, would prevent this hole. 6. The hole that cannot be closed is the use of a refundable ticket that is canceled shortly before the flight departs. Since purchasing activities are tracked, this would probably be flagged if it became a habit, and aside from any security issues, airlines may decline to do business with such people on the basis of financial burden.
I didn't touch on anything about the rights of anyone to travel anonymously before this, and the issue of pass validation is independent of the ID requirement. They want only people who are actually flying to be in the sterile area, and to do so they should be checking that the boarding pass is valid for that day, whether or not a name is attached to it. In fact, it's possible to do so, as you can fly without identification (if you lost it, it was stolen, whatever), though you still have to give name, birth date, etc. You just have to go through more security. Some people have even found this to be a faster way of traveling through certain airports because they go to the front of the line. I actually saw someone do it a few years ago at LAX, getting through in about five minutes after I'd spent more than 20 in line. It used to involve mandatory wanding and pat-down as well as a deeper inspection of both checked and carry-on luggage, so whatever the max is now is probably in place as well.
You can get through security with an altered boarding pass; you can not get on a plane that way without somehow sneaking past the gate. The TSA does not currently validate the boarding pass, but the airline does at the gate. An invalid pass means at the least that you're delayed getting on the plane, and at worst, you're getting arrested on at least counterfeit document charges, if not something far more serious.
There is still one loophole that cannot be closed: the refundable ticket. Say you want to see your significant other off at the gate. You buy a refundable ticket (which is expensive, but you're going to cancel it anyway), go through security, see the other off, call the airline and cancel your ticket, and then go home. That's a different issue which is tougher to address but it's tracked at the airline and probably in the Sabre database. Anyone testing airline security (or seeing off their SO regularly) this way is probably going to get flagged for higher security inspection measures or perhaps declined business (refunds cost time and money for the airlines).
I get most of my boarding passes from my computer. It's delivered in HTML, which I can easily edit and view, changing the date to a different one and getting through security because they don't check the validity of the pass. Several people have done this, including some reporters. It's a significant gap, one that can be easily closed with almost no issue for the traveler, and one that makes a lot more sense than the 3oz rule, the shoe rule, or the scanning rule.
Nisus? Wow... I haven't heard that name in years. I used to use Nisus Writer on a Mac Plus and loved it because it was far smaller than Word (it ran from a floppy, two if you wanted the dictionary), very powerful, and easy to use. I still kind of miss it.
"Chainsaw Al" Dunlap is another, nearly destroying Sunbeam. Once known for quality products, Dunlap's constant mass firings of the most experienced employees resulted in Sunbeam becoming yet another bottom-shelf manufacturer.
Certain aggravating factors can escalate a crime to first-degree. They vary by jurisdiction, but often include murder during rape, killing a member of law enforcement, or being party to a crime such as burglary or robbery where one of the accomplices is killed.
Entering any password, right or wrong, will generate an image. That image has to be parsed by the CAPTCHA, taking up considerably more cycles than running through the next possible password. On top of that, there's a chance of a false negative--thinking that there's no valid CAPTCHA when there is one, which breaks the entire run.
The CAPTCHAs may be reused but the background patterns change based on the password input. Even if the CAPTCHA is broken, it may slow brute force attempts due to the additional processing required to decode the CAPTCHA.
I only added my name to an anti-SOPA petition because the list stood a chance of being read on the Senate floor as part of a filibuster. Senators are allowed threaten a filibuster to slow consideration, but I prefer it when they actually get up there and speak until 61 others tell them to shut it and this seemed like a worthy example. Other than that, I pretty much never add my name to such things.
I wouldn't mind the members of most of these organizations if they wrote their own letters. I'm not certain about this particular campaign, but in so many of the past, they simply copy and paste what they're told to send. That mindlessness is more akin to a cult than an activist group.
Maybe other activist groups are the same way. I guess that's why I'm hesitant to be a part of any of them on any side.
I'm not saying I agree with it. It's what Valve has proposed. It's the only way that publishers seem to be willing to even consider changing their contracts with Valve. But without widespread support, they're not interested in adding it to Steam, so they can't sell their own games, either. (Yes, I know it may be a weak excuse, but it's probably their view.)
Valve has said that they would like to be able to resell games, but their license agreements generally prohibit it, so they've not implemented it. They have talked about it, though, in such a way as Steam, the publisher, and the original buyer all get a cut (with the largest going to the original buyer). It's not perfect, but the idea does open up the possibility of resale.
This will be changing soon. The 787 is the first airliner to be pressurized to 6,000 feet and the follow-up projects in the Yellowstone portfolio will have similar environments. It will also have a higher humidity level (up to 15%, around four times higher than other planes) because the carbon fiber will not corrode in the same way as current metal structures. It's still relatively dry air, but it won't be the moisture vacuum that are the current airborne environments.
Somalia does have a government, the Transitional Federal Government, which does have UN backing. It just doesn't hold the entire country. Puntland and Somaliland are autonomous areas of the country. Though Somaliland has declared independence, something no nation has formally acknowledged, Puntland seems to be in part waiting for the rest of the country to get its act together. The TFG controls a few provinces in the center of the country and part of Mogadishu, and Al Shabaab controls most of the south.
Despite waging an effective war against the TFG for a while, drought and declining revenues from criminal activities such as kidnapping and extorting pirates seem to be taking their toll on the group, and it's been fracturing. They also seem to have made the mistake of pissing off Kenya by conducting operations there (kidnappings, bombings, etc.) in an effort to dissuade the Kenyan government from getting involved. Precisely the opposite has happened, and Kenyan forces invaded a few months ago with the support of the TFG. Depending on who you listen to, Al Shabaab losses have either been heavy or they have merely ceded territory in strategic withdrawals.
The country still has a long way to go, but it's at probably the brightest point in the last two decades. Somaliland is still a potential problem as it wants to be its own country, but the TFG is unlikely to allow it, and both sides may have to settle for autonomy. There is at least reason to hope that the wars might be winding down and in a few years the country may again see unity, at least at a very high level.
Being entertaining is not a requirement. Being engaging is. If you can be entertaining at the same time, bonus points for you. I've seen it done and it works really well.
I saw something recently about training. When you're up in front of people for eight hours, six or more of them actually speaking, you can't get by on the things that work in a 15-minute presentation. Holding someone's attention for a quarter of an hour is a lot easier than holding it for the effective workday. Some useful ideas for presentations of any length that were mentioned:
- Don't stand completely still the whole time, but don't move like a caged tiger (that's just distracting) and especially not like a metronome (you just lull them to sleep faster).
- Along with the above, don't read the material from the screen. Bullet points are there to give the audience a broad idea of what's being discussed right now and to give you some memory trigger points.
- Consider opening up with something related to the topic but not the topic itself, such as something in the news (internally or externally) relating to it.
- Have a few anecdotes that may bring a different perspective on things, but don't try to force them all in. When I do presentations on network security, I work in stories from my experience as a pilot (meager though it is) because many of the same concepts apply to flying a plane but the different perspective and the common experience (most people have been in a plane) creates a link with the audience.
- For all that is holy and good, know your audience. Don't get into technical details with managers who haven't ever touched a command line, and don't maintain high-level discussions with technical people itching to get at the underlying details.
- PRACTICE. Don't walk in completely cold on an important topic. Sometimes this is unavoidable, but in most cases you get at least a few days' notice. I try to practice in front of one or two people to get the presentation and flow right and tweak things along the way, sometimes running through a given slide five or six times by the time I'm satisfied with it.
I once created a discussion that was an attempt to explain to people how we in network security see the world. I specifically wrote it to not be technical, not be training material, and above all to not be a lecture. I intended to run 45 minutes with the remainder of the hour for questions, presented to the CTO and a few other senior management people. It turned into a running discussion that lasted more than three hours that extended into e-mail over the next few days. I've since learned to use what I did right there as a basis for how to handle other presentations and gotten much better responses judging by both interactivity and the smaller number of people doing things with their phones.
The CIA had ditched a lot of the human intelligence back in the 1990s because it meant that the US was providing money to informants who had some very disreputable backgrounds and Congress found this to be a bad thing. The CIA warned that getting intelligence on bad people often meant associating with said bad people, but Congress figured the same thing could be done electronically, nevermind that it's hard to hear from space what's going on between two people in a hut.
The Wikipedia entry disputes this story, saying that while the tale is centuries old, it is unlikely to be true. The source material agrees with this and explains that it really meant the eye of a needle. The camel likely meant the animal, but it could have meant a rope made of camel hair. In either case, it was intended to be an impossibility of getting something through an opening a fraction of an inch in size.
The study results do not detect autism (which most people will read as a diagnosis). When looking back over the scans, differences from normal development could be seen starting as early as six months, but this is retrospective after it was diagnosed at the common ages. This study may at least provide some clues on how autism develops even if it doesn't provide a means of diagnosing it earlier.
You approach my position as though I'm somewhere on the other side of Ron Paul. I assure you that I am not. Corporations will often (not always) bow to public pressure faster than government will.
Means for changing government policy are there (theoretically), but they require a great deal more time an effort. Let's say it's the month after a normal election and someone wants to get something changed, but the elected group isn't (as a group) willing to make the change. One must now wait between one and four years to elect a group that is willing to make that change (and I'm not even getting into the effort required there). Even then, there are procedures involving public discussion, debates, and authorizations. Then the relevant body must change its regulations, often holding public hearings, and then finally make the changes, which are still subject to a possible court challenge.
In corporations, the policy may change much more quickly, especially if the executives perceive a problem. They are still required to ensure that laws are followed, but they often have enough wiggle room to allow for situations like this. In this case, should the executives get involved, it might take no more than a few days for a new policy clarification to come down and be implemented--much faster than the possible years it could take otherwise.
I get good customer service from airlines on a regular basis. For the most recent example, because TSA made us miss our flight by ten seconds (we were at the airport an hour before the flight and the door closed that long before we were able to run up to the kiosk), three United gate reps worked to get us booked on other Star Alliance flights (and even offered to go to other airlines at one point though the odds were no better). It took the better part of two hours to get things worked out and we flew standby twice, but they went far above and beyond what was necessary.
I have also walked up to the gate when it's not crowded and asked if there were any better seats than I'd been assigned or even selected and been provided Economy Plus without extra charge on two or three occasions even without being a serious frequent flyer. My fiancee who has back problems and migraines from a military injury is regularly able to get handicap boarding on just her word, though she carries her placard and paperwork with her for backup just in case.
I sympathize with the airline staff. They have to deal with surly customers who start with the presumption that the airlines are out to get them. I start with the presumption that the people behind the desk are just trying to do their job as best they can (usually right, sometimes wrong) and I get much further with that.
It does make a difference. For all the complaining that the corporations and the government are the same, it's a lot easier to get corporate policy changed than government. If this brings enough attention, the airline may choose to clarify its policy or retrain the individual who refused to accept the passport.
There are times when the letter of corporate policy should give way to good customer service.
Slashdot Mirror
That's not what I said. Here's where I went in response to your original post that we're identified when we get our boarding pass:
1. Not all boarding passes are accompanied by positive ID, such as when they're printed from a computer at home.
2. Such boarding passes may be modified by altering the HTML and redisplaying locally and then printing. Alternately, they can be altered in a graphical editor.
3. At the moment, boarding passes are not validated by TSA. I just flew last weekend and while they ran my license under a black-light, they just made sure the flight information made sense before sending me through to the scanners.
4. Someone can go--and some people have gone--through security on forged passes. They cannot get on a plane and (theoretically) cannot get proscribed items through, but they can get into the "sterile" area of the airport.
5. Validating the boarding pass, simple enough to do with a barcode scanner, would prevent this hole.
6. The hole that cannot be closed is the use of a refundable ticket that is canceled shortly before the flight departs. Since purchasing activities are tracked, this would probably be flagged if it became a habit, and aside from any security issues, airlines may decline to do business with such people on the basis of financial burden.
I didn't touch on anything about the rights of anyone to travel anonymously before this, and the issue of pass validation is independent of the ID requirement. They want only people who are actually flying to be in the sterile area, and to do so they should be checking that the boarding pass is valid for that day, whether or not a name is attached to it. In fact, it's possible to do so, as you can fly without identification (if you lost it, it was stolen, whatever), though you still have to give name, birth date, etc. You just have to go through more security. Some people have even found this to be a faster way of traveling through certain airports because they go to the front of the line. I actually saw someone do it a few years ago at LAX, getting through in about five minutes after I'd spent more than 20 in line. It used to involve mandatory wanding and pat-down as well as a deeper inspection of both checked and carry-on luggage, so whatever the max is now is probably in place as well.
You can get through security with an altered boarding pass; you can not get on a plane that way without somehow sneaking past the gate. The TSA does not currently validate the boarding pass, but the airline does at the gate. An invalid pass means at the least that you're delayed getting on the plane, and at worst, you're getting arrested on at least counterfeit document charges, if not something far more serious.
There is still one loophole that cannot be closed: the refundable ticket. Say you want to see your significant other off at the gate. You buy a refundable ticket (which is expensive, but you're going to cancel it anyway), go through security, see the other off, call the airline and cancel your ticket, and then go home. That's a different issue which is tougher to address but it's tracked at the airline and probably in the Sabre database. Anyone testing airline security (or seeing off their SO regularly) this way is probably going to get flagged for higher security inspection measures or perhaps declined business (refunds cost time and money for the airlines).
I get most of my boarding passes from my computer. It's delivered in HTML, which I can easily edit and view, changing the date to a different one and getting through security because they don't check the validity of the pass. Several people have done this, including some reporters. It's a significant gap, one that can be easily closed with almost no issue for the traveler, and one that makes a lot more sense than the 3oz rule, the shoe rule, or the scanning rule.
Nisus? Wow... I haven't heard that name in years. I used to use Nisus Writer on a Mac Plus and loved it because it was far smaller than Word (it ran from a floppy, two if you wanted the dictionary), very powerful, and easy to use. I still kind of miss it.
Actually, K-Mart bought Sears, not the other way around.
"Chainsaw Al" Dunlap is another, nearly destroying Sunbeam. Once known for quality products, Dunlap's constant mass firings of the most experienced employees resulted in Sunbeam becoming yet another bottom-shelf manufacturer.
Certain aggravating factors can escalate a crime to first-degree. They vary by jurisdiction, but often include murder during rape, killing a member of law enforcement, or being party to a crime such as burglary or robbery where one of the accomplices is killed.
Entering any password, right or wrong, will generate an image. That image has to be parsed by the CAPTCHA, taking up considerably more cycles than running through the next possible password. On top of that, there's a chance of a false negative--thinking that there's no valid CAPTCHA when there is one, which breaks the entire run.
The CAPTCHAs may be reused but the background patterns change based on the password input. Even if the CAPTCHA is broken, it may slow brute force attempts due to the additional processing required to decode the CAPTCHA.
Because such petitions are pointless.
I only added my name to an anti-SOPA petition because the list stood a chance of being read on the Senate floor as part of a filibuster. Senators are allowed threaten a filibuster to slow consideration, but I prefer it when they actually get up there and speak until 61 others tell them to shut it and this seemed like a worthy example. Other than that, I pretty much never add my name to such things.
I wouldn't mind the members of most of these organizations if they wrote their own letters. I'm not certain about this particular campaign, but in so many of the past, they simply copy and paste what they're told to send. That mindlessness is more akin to a cult than an activist group.
Maybe other activist groups are the same way. I guess that's why I'm hesitant to be a part of any of them on any side.
I'm not saying I agree with it. It's what Valve has proposed. It's the only way that publishers seem to be willing to even consider changing their contracts with Valve. But without widespread support, they're not interested in adding it to Steam, so they can't sell their own games, either. (Yes, I know it may be a weak excuse, but it's probably their view.)
Valve has said that they would like to be able to resell games, but their license agreements generally prohibit it, so they've not implemented it. They have talked about it, though, in such a way as Steam, the publisher, and the original buyer all get a cut (with the largest going to the original buyer). It's not perfect, but the idea does open up the possibility of resale.
This will be changing soon. The 787 is the first airliner to be pressurized to 6,000 feet and the follow-up projects in the Yellowstone portfolio will have similar environments. It will also have a higher humidity level (up to 15%, around four times higher than other planes) because the carbon fiber will not corrode in the same way as current metal structures. It's still relatively dry air, but it won't be the moisture vacuum that are the current airborne environments.
Planes can land on water with waves. It's hard to do, but it is possible. The smaller the plane, the better the success rate.
Somalia does have a government, the Transitional Federal Government, which does have UN backing. It just doesn't hold the entire country. Puntland and Somaliland are autonomous areas of the country. Though Somaliland has declared independence, something no nation has formally acknowledged, Puntland seems to be in part waiting for the rest of the country to get its act together. The TFG controls a few provinces in the center of the country and part of Mogadishu, and Al Shabaab controls most of the south.
Despite waging an effective war against the TFG for a while, drought and declining revenues from criminal activities such as kidnapping and extorting pirates seem to be taking their toll on the group, and it's been fracturing. They also seem to have made the mistake of pissing off Kenya by conducting operations there (kidnappings, bombings, etc.) in an effort to dissuade the Kenyan government from getting involved. Precisely the opposite has happened, and Kenyan forces invaded a few months ago with the support of the TFG. Depending on who you listen to, Al Shabaab losses have either been heavy or they have merely ceded territory in strategic withdrawals.
The country still has a long way to go, but it's at probably the brightest point in the last two decades. Somaliland is still a potential problem as it wants to be its own country, but the TFG is unlikely to allow it, and both sides may have to settle for autonomy. There is at least reason to hope that the wars might be winding down and in a few years the country may again see unity, at least at a very high level.
Being entertaining is not a requirement. Being engaging is. If you can be entertaining at the same time, bonus points for you. I've seen it done and it works really well.
I saw something recently about training. When you're up in front of people for eight hours, six or more of them actually speaking, you can't get by on the things that work in a 15-minute presentation. Holding someone's attention for a quarter of an hour is a lot easier than holding it for the effective workday. Some useful ideas for presentations of any length that were mentioned:
- Don't stand completely still the whole time, but don't move like a caged tiger (that's just distracting) and especially not like a metronome (you just lull them to sleep faster).
- Along with the above, don't read the material from the screen. Bullet points are there to give the audience a broad idea of what's being discussed right now and to give you some memory trigger points.
- Consider opening up with something related to the topic but not the topic itself, such as something in the news (internally or externally) relating to it.
- Have a few anecdotes that may bring a different perspective on things, but don't try to force them all in. When I do presentations on network security, I work in stories from my experience as a pilot (meager though it is) because many of the same concepts apply to flying a plane but the different perspective and the common experience (most people have been in a plane) creates a link with the audience.
- For all that is holy and good, know your audience. Don't get into technical details with managers who haven't ever touched a command line, and don't maintain high-level discussions with technical people itching to get at the underlying details.
- PRACTICE. Don't walk in completely cold on an important topic. Sometimes this is unavoidable, but in most cases you get at least a few days' notice. I try to practice in front of one or two people to get the presentation and flow right and tweak things along the way, sometimes running through a given slide five or six times by the time I'm satisfied with it.
I once created a discussion that was an attempt to explain to people how we in network security see the world. I specifically wrote it to not be technical, not be training material, and above all to not be a lecture. I intended to run 45 minutes with the remainder of the hour for questions, presented to the CTO and a few other senior management people. It turned into a running discussion that lasted more than three hours that extended into e-mail over the next few days. I've since learned to use what I did right there as a basis for how to handle other presentations and gotten much better responses judging by both interactivity and the smaller number of people doing things with their phones.
For your information, carriers are still steam-driven. The reactors heat the water and the steam is sent into steam turbines.
But then, with such a high IQ and a propensity to do your own research, you knew that already.
The CIA had ditched a lot of the human intelligence back in the 1990s because it meant that the US was providing money to informants who had some very disreputable backgrounds and Congress found this to be a bad thing. The CIA warned that getting intelligence on bad people often meant associating with said bad people, but Congress figured the same thing could be done electronically, nevermind that it's hard to hear from space what's going on between two people in a hut.
The Wikipedia entry disputes this story, saying that while the tale is centuries old, it is unlikely to be true. The source material agrees with this and explains that it really meant the eye of a needle. The camel likely meant the animal, but it could have meant a rope made of camel hair. In either case, it was intended to be an impossibility of getting something through an opening a fraction of an inch in size.
The study results do not detect autism (which most people will read as a diagnosis). When looking back over the scans, differences from normal development could be seen starting as early as six months, but this is retrospective after it was diagnosed at the common ages. This study may at least provide some clues on how autism develops even if it doesn't provide a means of diagnosing it earlier.
You approach my position as though I'm somewhere on the other side of Ron Paul. I assure you that I am not. Corporations will often (not always) bow to public pressure faster than government will.
Means for changing government policy are there (theoretically), but they require a great deal more time an effort. Let's say it's the month after a normal election and someone wants to get something changed, but the elected group isn't (as a group) willing to make the change. One must now wait between one and four years to elect a group that is willing to make that change (and I'm not even getting into the effort required there). Even then, there are procedures involving public discussion, debates, and authorizations. Then the relevant body must change its regulations, often holding public hearings, and then finally make the changes, which are still subject to a possible court challenge.
In corporations, the policy may change much more quickly, especially if the executives perceive a problem. They are still required to ensure that laws are followed, but they often have enough wiggle room to allow for situations like this. In this case, should the executives get involved, it might take no more than a few days for a new policy clarification to come down and be implemented--much faster than the possible years it could take otherwise.
I get good customer service from airlines on a regular basis. For the most recent example, because TSA made us miss our flight by ten seconds (we were at the airport an hour before the flight and the door closed that long before we were able to run up to the kiosk), three United gate reps worked to get us booked on other Star Alliance flights (and even offered to go to other airlines at one point though the odds were no better). It took the better part of two hours to get things worked out and we flew standby twice, but they went far above and beyond what was necessary.
I have also walked up to the gate when it's not crowded and asked if there were any better seats than I'd been assigned or even selected and been provided Economy Plus without extra charge on two or three occasions even without being a serious frequent flyer. My fiancee who has back problems and migraines from a military injury is regularly able to get handicap boarding on just her word, though she carries her placard and paperwork with her for backup just in case.
I sympathize with the airline staff. They have to deal with surly customers who start with the presumption that the airlines are out to get them. I start with the presumption that the people behind the desk are just trying to do their job as best they can (usually right, sometimes wrong) and I get much further with that.
It does make a difference. For all the complaining that the corporations and the government are the same, it's a lot easier to get corporate policy changed than government. If this brings enough attention, the airline may choose to clarify its policy or retrain the individual who refused to accept the passport.
There are times when the letter of corporate policy should give way to good customer service.