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User: Unequivocal

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  1. Re:News flash! on Android Data Stealing App Downloaded By Millions · · Score: 1

    Thanks. It seems like a relatively trivial engineering activity to suppress the malicious behavior until the developer puts a "green light" beacon on his website. Having the app phone home wouldn't look suspicious on the wire during Apple's app review, and then once Apple signs off on the app, turn the beacon green and start stealing data. As you say it's only a matter of time. Unless you want to analyze every app's source code which seems ludicrous for a bunch of reasons.

    Thanks again for a little more insight into how all this is working.

  2. Re:Jail time on Suspected Mariposa Botnet Creator Arrested · · Score: 1

    From what I hear a lot of Federal prisons (aka Club Fed) are the only prisons where you have some hope of not being assaulted while inside. These are mostly white collar facilities I believe.. This is all third or fourth hand info so I'd welcome anyone who has better info.

  3. Re:Not much here yet... on Suspected Mariposa Botnet Creator Arrested · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm not an expert in international law, but I think they could try him in Slovenia on charges relevant there (what illegal actions he took there) and then hand him off to Spain, rinse/repeat and onward to USA. No double jeopardy if the crimes are committed are new in each country (and not sure how each of these countries weighs double jeopardy in light of extradition after trial..)

    Anyone with more info - please enlighten us.

  4. Re:News flash! on Android Data Stealing App Downloaded By Millions · · Score: 1

    Unless they read the code (do they?) they'd be hard pressed to detect this exact malicious behavior before it occurred.. Anyone know how this works on Apple's store?

  5. Re:WHAT app? on Android Data Stealing App Downloaded By Millions · · Score: 1

    Awesome name. I'll just remember hi-jackeey..

  6. Re:You've been deceived on WikiLeaks Publishes Afghan War Secrets · · Score: 1

    Great resource/link - thanks. Do you think this impacts the discussion above: do you (or anyone reading this) think part of the reason for the Afghan war was to gain access to whatever amount of mineral wealth we thought was stored in Afghanistan? It seems to me that there may be very few "honest" wars (in the sense that the stated reason for the war maps to the actual reason for the war), but the 2001 Afghanistan invasion is one of them.

    I feel like GW/DC *wanted* to go to war in Iraq before the oppty arose, and the 9/11 attack and the Afgan invasion gave them that slender pretext. (A dishonest war if ever there was one).

    I find it less credible that we decided to invade or were motivated to stay in Afghanistan for the mineral wealth..

  7. Re:Try reading the article first on Cell Phone Interception At Def Con · · Score: 1

    Yeah really. And what about those basement hotel conferences where there is NO cell phone reception at all. The perils!

    Jeez - GP should lighten up. Thanks for setting him straight.

  8. Re:You've been deceived on WikiLeaks Publishes Afghan War Secrets · · Score: 1

    You make some good points there. But I don't think we went to Afghanistan for mineral rights b/c we didn't know that mineral rights were worth such a tremendous amount of money until we started the war in 2001 (or they started it depending on how you look at it).

  9. Re:Get the government out of schools on Louisiana, Intelligent Design, and Science Classes · · Score: 1

    Also, here's a bit more on the general state of the int'l angle:

    https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Separation_of_church_and_state#International_views

  10. Re:Get the government out of schools on Louisiana, Intelligent Design, and Science Classes · · Score: 1

    Huh, thanks - you made me go look it up. Here's what one random, but reasonably-credible website had to say:

    http://www.religioustolerance.org/sep_cs_can.htm

    I suspect you may have greater robustness in practice but perhaps the fundamentals are not as deeply embedded in your constitution?

  11. Re:You've been deceived on WikiLeaks Publishes Afghan War Secrets · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Why do we profit in Afghanistan? And why didn't we profit in the Sudan (where we didn't invade, but which seems to have similar if not worse issues than Afghanistan)?

    Seems like there was more to this than money (though I agree that this is usually the case). Seems like it was also about revenge, political theater ("doing something"), etc.. An unusual case, but that's b/c the 9/11 attack was unusual too.

  12. Re:Get the government out of schools on Louisiana, Intelligent Design, and Science Classes · · Score: 1

    I believe that most countries have less separate between church and state than we do - many have "state religions" in fact. Our country is notable for that separation. I heard a public debate/lecture in Canada on education where one presenter said (paraphasing) "Well, that may be true, but we don't want to end up with a separation of church and state like the US."

    Someone correct me if I'm wrong of course..

  13. Re:If this precedent holds... on Court Rules That Bypassing Dongle Is Not a DMCA Violation · · Score: 1

    Wait - as far as I can tell that use is still a violation of copyright law, just not DMCA? So Joe Average is making a copy while his license on the DVD says no copying? Maybe that's better b/c DMCA is harsher on penalties than traditional copyright law?

    Those question marks are really questions.. Any clarification appreciated..

  14. Re:In Soviet Russia... on Top Authors Make eBook Deal, Bypassing Publishers · · Score: 1

    I new it!

    Either he's whooshing us or vice versa..

  15. Re:Good! on Top Authors Make eBook Deal, Bypassing Publishers · · Score: 1

    Which is what I love about Ross and similar stores. They buy the scraps that don't sell and re-sell them. Intercepting the clothes before they hit the dumpster. A classic case of bottom feeding profit - a great business innovation, imo. It allows Macy's to not worry about overbuying b/c they can dump overages on Ross for at/near cost and everyone wins.

  16. Re:Good! on Top Authors Make eBook Deal, Bypassing Publishers · · Score: 3, Funny

    You sir sound like someone who knows how businesses are run. What are you doing on slashdot?

  17. Re:A good idea on Top Authors Make eBook Deal, Bypassing Publishers · · Score: 1

    Wow - you've got a long memory! And I mean that in a nice way. I was also p-o'ed about 1-click when it came out but have left it behind b/c I don't even want to use it on Amazon (not due to protest but due to lack of utility - I like confirmations). So it's a dumb patent but it seems like it's dumb b/c no one misses the functionality they locked down. But I agree it's still a patent that shouldn't exist (but same goes for that reverse auction patent that priceline got way back when)..

  18. Re:At that price.. on India's $35 Tablet Computer · · Score: 1

    I think around here it works like:

    1) Hype
    2) Type

  19. Re:WTF on GOP Senators Move To Block FCC On Net Neutrality · · Score: 1

    They aren't pushing people to access the internet over wireless. They are pushing to get poor people and communities without good middle mile to get access to broadband by the lowest cost means available (almost always that's landline). The plan that drives this policy is called the National Broadband Plan, and the goal is to get people access to speeds in excess of dialup. Cf. www.broadband.gov

  20. Re:WTF on GOP Senators Move To Block FCC On Net Neutrality · · Score: 1

    Uh - universal service doesn't have anything directly to with spectrum allocation or use. The chairman's proposal has nothing directly to do with spectrum (and in most cases nothing at all to do with it). U.S. is just a technique for diverting funds (probably from regular people's internet bill) to poor people so they can get access to cheap, basic internet (probably sub-1 meg).. That's how universal lifeline (part of universal service) works for phone service today.

    The chairman didn't mention spectrum use, I didn't mention it, but you did - I don't know where you got that..

  21. Re:WTF on GOP Senators Move To Block FCC On Net Neutrality · · Score: 1

    Well said - mod up!

  22. Re:WTF on GOP Senators Move To Block FCC On Net Neutrality · · Score: 1

    How about FCC's programs: E-rate and universal lifeline service. The former helped schools and libraries get connected at the expense of higher prices on cell and landline phone bills. Universal lifeline gives low cost phones to poor people. I heard the chairman of the fcc speak on Thursday about potentially changing universal service so that it also offers broadband services to poor people or underserved communities (where they don't have the middle mile backbone to offer internet service to anyone living there).

    To be fair, e-rate ends up back in telcos pockets frequently, but FCC recently introduced proposed rule changes to make it possible for schools/libraries to obtain lower cost i-net services from sewer companies, hospitals, city gov'ts or other "anchor institutions" who might already have fiber or other assets to available to reduce costs.. So they are honestly trying (at least under the current chairman).

  23. Re:The firmware is installed over seas / the syste on Dell Ships Infected Motherboards · · Score: 1

    Why should I be any more confident that a BIOS update is less likely to have malware than the OEM BIOS that ships with the hardware? I'm really asking.

  24. Re:What did you expect? on Dell Ships Infected Motherboards · · Score: 1

    What do you mean by literacy? Where do you get your 99% literate number? I work in education and believe that the percent of our population who is functionally literate (able to read and write at an 8th grade level) is much lower than that..

  25. Re:Sphinx or Lucene on Developing a Niche Online-Content Indexing System? · · Score: 1

    Check out: http://xtf.sourceforge.net/

    I think it uses lucene on the backend. It's designed to map meta-data sources to meta-data outputs via XSL templates. I talked with some of the developers recently and it sounds reasonable. If your inputs are binary then it's probably not much help but for XML-like inputs it might give you some of the capabilities you're looking for. HTH