I've bought precisely ONE lottery ticket my whole life (knowing statistically that my likelihood of winning is the maximum at that point*).
How do you figure? Each ticket has the same chance of winning, the more you buy the more likely you are to win. But the odds are such that the expected return over the long run is less than what you would pay in.
But compared to these people, the worst in American government are like boy scouts
Not really. One example you gave was "anyone from a Mexican drug cartel". But mexican drug cartels are only dangerous because drugs are illegal. Those who vote to keep drugs illegal are just as responsible for those deaths as the cartels are. Further, they're responsible for every death caused by impure drugs, or drugs of unknown concentration.
leaving far too little time for life to form in primordial Earth oceans under any sort of process currently envisioned.
While any of the individual chemical reactions required for abiogenesis would be exceedingly rare, you have to consider that they were taking place in parallel across the surface of the Earth. The Miller-Uray experiment ran for a week in a few small flasks. You can expect much less frequent reactions to happen, at least once, when you do the same thing in the entire volume of the oceans over the course of 100 million years.
Unless of course you are looking for an individual (or small group) who pulls off a coup of some sort.
Yes, that is the type we're talking about here. By the time you have a popular uprising, the social relationship is already destroyed.
In which case, you'd be equally wrong. The Assassination of MLK Jr, while it (helped) affected change, it wasn't the change the assassin was aiming for.
And that's exactly the effect the authors of the essay are warning against. Small scale political violence is counter-productive.
Political violence doesn't work to actually implement social change. It only plays into the hands of authoritarians who rule by fear, in this case fear of you. Kill Bernanke, and they have a great propaganda tool against your cause. And they can replace Bernanke with no trouble. And you haven't actually done anything to harm the people whose interests Bernanke is protecting.
When left-wing terrorism is being carried out in a consistent way in society, it gives the state extra leverage in using political repression against individuals and the left in general.
When by their own actions terrorists serve such ends, they are contributing to the destruction of politics and the closing of various options for the spreading of ideas before they have been fully utilised.
Of course, the state will readily use various repressive methods if it meets any substantial resistance or if it has to handle a social crisis which is creating resistance. Terrorism and guerrilla-ism cannot be attacked just because they produce repression. Even more important is the fact that there is nothing to have made it worthwhile. In the end the guerrillas get wiped out and there is nothing left but repression (and a law and order mentality amongst the people).
I thought it was obvious, but the majority of congress critters were unaware of how pervasive NSA spying is.
I thought it was obvious, but Congress has been deliberately violating the 4th amendment since they granted retroactive immunity to telcos for violating wiretap laws in 2008. A bill which Senator Obama voted for.
All three branches of government are conspiring against the Constitution. The rule of law is well and truly dead in America.
Congress is working on what exactly? Amending the Constitution? That's what it would take to make any of this generalized warrantless surveillance legal.
I'm a programmer who paid $500 for a very expensive phone. For that price, I need it to be the perfect phone. In other words, to be able to make and receive calls and text messages without fail.
Then why did you buy a smart phone? That's what dumb phones are for. Why did you spend 10X the price on features you don't need?
Okay, let's zero out your expected take from SS and Medicare when you are too old to fund yourself. And while we're at it, it would be okay if Grandma moved in with you, right? Her meds only run a few thou a month, but that's a small price for you to pay to be freed of the Fed. Gov. Let's remove NiH, because you will never get cancer, contract a food born illness, or get nailed by the next pandemic. You'll let the mentally ill live with you, 'cause they'll need a place to stay. They usually need meds too.
Let's also turn the world over to the Chinese because in 20 years, we'll be entirely self-sufficient and won't need any open trading partners. And while we're at it, lets get rid of NTSA and the FAA, you won't die in an airline accident because the airlines cut corners.
You're all good up to here.
Let's abolish the SEC, Wall Street and the Banks have your best interests at heart.
The SEC exists to legitimize financial fraud. When the banks steal billions of dollars, we can all blame the SEC for not doing its job, instead of blaming the people committing the fraud. They've done absolutely nothing to reign in banks, and don't intend to.
And let's get rid of that awful FBI, if your father gets whacked, you won't need no stinking investigation as to whom did it.
The much bigger threat is people dying because of bad diets, because of federal ag subsidies. Or people dying from the side effects of drugs they don't need because of a profit driven pharmaceutical industry. Or people dying in needless wars of agression. I'm much more concerned about the FBI causing deaths because they infiltrate and disrupt groups trying to advocate for reforms that would help people.
The FBI exists only to add a thin veneer of "we're here to protect you" that covers up a massive amount of corruption that harms us far more than helps us. They exist to ensure that entrenched power remains entrenched.
The sound of typing tells you that the person on the other end is doing something. e.g. you call someone up with a question. They say "hold on, let me look that up". In this case, intermittant typing lets you know that something is happening. It's a lot better than dead air.
Much of the justification lately for not decriminalizing drugs
They don't bother to justify drug policy these days. They just refuse to talk about it. Petition Obama to ask why Cannabis can't be treated like alcohol, and you get a response that says "drugs are bad, mmmkay" and doesn't mention alcohol at all. They know they can't win, so they simply stonewall.
In cases like that the courts will use a 'reasonable person' test.
I don't see how any reasonable person can determine that a publicly facing web server without any sort of authentication is not free to access. Authentication is how authorization is implemented on the internet. Any other policy will break the internet.
If there was a link off of att.com
How do you know you are authorized to visit att.com in the first place? You submit a query, and see if you get a response. Exactly what weev did.
The police do not need authorization to access data that has been exposed, intentionally or not.
The police need a warrant supported by probable cause to access anything a private individual can not. If it's illegal for weev to use a script to access unprotected files on a web server, it's illegal for the police to use a script to access unprotected files on a P2P server.
He had scripts that sent millions of possible imei's to the server to get information for that specific user.
Sure, and if I write a script that sends millions of requests to slashdot.org, from "http://slashdot.org/~a" to "http://slashdot.org/~ZZZZZZZZ", so what?
He was convicted because he use IMEI's that did not belong to him
How is that any different from me accessing "http://slashdot.org/~jklovanc"? I'm using a username that does not belong to me.
All approaches for human authentication rely on at least one of the following:
Something you know (eg. a password). This is the most common kind of authentication used for humans. We use passwords every day to access our systems. Unfortunately, something that you know can become something you just forgot. And if you write it down, then other people might find it.
Something you have (eg. a smart card). This form of human authentication removes the problem of forgetting something you know, but some object now must be with you any time you want to be authenticated. And such an object might be stolen and then becomes something the attacker has.
Something you are (eg. a fingerprint). Base authentication on something intrinsic to the principal being authenticated. It's much harder to lose a fingerprint than a wallet. Unfortunately, biometric sensors are fairly expensive and (at present) not very accurate.
AT&Ts site did not ask for any of these things. There was no authentication.
Certainly, there are many high-profile unauthenticated web services which are intended to be free for the public to use. However, this doesn't necessarily mean that all are.
The widely employed social convention is that they are.
Similarly, there are plenty of closed doors which are perfectly fine for the general public to open (doors to stores, public buildings, hotel lobbies, etc.), while there are plenty of doors that are not.
Tresspass laws require you post notice.
Note that this doesn't apply to the article since P2P software effectively advertises its existence
How is entering "preteen" into a P2P app any different than entering(e.g.) "http://att.com/db/user=43265" into an URL bar?
the use of P2P software implies consent to access the contents
Using a web server implies consent to access the contents.
Are you even aware of the particulars of the script kiddie attack that Weev did to get that data?
Weev wrote a script. In this case the police used "an automated P2P query-response tool". What's the difference?
By your logic just because someone has something on a web server they are sharing it with everyone
If you fail to put any authentication on it, then yes. How else is the web supposed to function?
Let me guess, you think credit cards and health records are fair game too?
If you post your credit card number on a public website, then yes it's totally fair game for me to download that information. Using that information to commit fraud is still illegal of course.
Slashdot Mirror
Ubuntu is hardly a successor to Debian. It's more of a hanger on. Debian will be around long after Canonical goes bankrupt.
XMMS is long dead. And Audacious has relegated the winamp interface to second class status.
I've bought precisely ONE lottery ticket my whole life (knowing statistically that my likelihood of winning is the maximum at that point*).
How do you figure? Each ticket has the same chance of winning, the more you buy the more likely you are to win. But the odds are such that the expected return over the long run is less than what you would pay in.
But compared to these people, the worst in American government are like boy scouts
Not really. One example you gave was "anyone from a Mexican drug cartel". But mexican drug cartels are only dangerous because drugs are illegal. Those who vote to keep drugs illegal are just as responsible for those deaths as the cartels are. Further, they're responsible for every death caused by impure drugs, or drugs of unknown concentration.
leaving far too little time for life to form in primordial Earth oceans under any sort of process currently envisioned.
While any of the individual chemical reactions required for abiogenesis would be exceedingly rare, you have to consider that they were taking place in parallel across the surface of the Earth. The Miller-Uray experiment ran for a week in a few small flasks. You can expect much less frequent reactions to happen, at least once, when you do the same thing in the entire volume of the oceans over the course of 100 million years.
Unless of course you are looking for an individual (or small group) who pulls off a coup of some sort.
Yes, that is the type we're talking about here. By the time you have a popular uprising, the social relationship is already destroyed.
In which case, you'd be equally wrong. The Assassination of MLK Jr, while it (helped) affected change, it wasn't the change the assassin was aiming for.
And that's exactly the effect the authors of the essay are warning against. Small scale political violence is counter-productive.
Political violence doesn't work to actually implement social change. It only plays into the hands of authoritarians who rule by fear, in this case fear of you. Kill Bernanke, and they have a great propaganda tool against your cause. And they can replace Bernanke with no trouble. And you haven't actually done anything to harm the people whose interests Bernanke is protecting.
There is an excellent essay on the topic, dating from the 1970s, titled You Can't Blow up a Social Relationship. From the preamble:
I thought it was obvious, but the majority of congress critters were unaware of how pervasive NSA spying is.
I thought it was obvious, but Congress has been deliberately violating the 4th amendment since they granted retroactive immunity to telcos for violating wiretap laws in 2008. A bill which Senator Obama voted for.
All three branches of government are conspiring against the Constitution. The rule of law is well and truly dead in America.
Congress is working on what exactly? Amending the Constitution? That's what it would take to make any of this generalized warrantless surveillance legal.
I'm a programmer who paid $500 for a very expensive phone. For that price, I need it to be the perfect phone. In other words, to be able to make and receive calls and text messages without fail.
Then why did you buy a smart phone? That's what dumb phones are for. Why did you spend 10X the price on features you don't need?
Okay, let's zero out your expected take from SS and Medicare when you are too old to fund yourself. And while we're at it, it would be okay if Grandma moved in with you, right? Her meds only run a few thou a month, but that's a small price for you to pay to be freed of the Fed. Gov. Let's remove NiH, because you will never get cancer, contract a food born illness, or get nailed by the next pandemic. You'll let the mentally ill live with you, 'cause they'll need a place to stay. They usually need meds too.
Let's also turn the world over to the Chinese because in 20 years, we'll be entirely self-sufficient and won't need any open trading partners. And while we're at it, lets get rid of NTSA and the FAA, you won't die in an airline accident because the airlines cut corners.
You're all good up to here.
Let's abolish the SEC, Wall Street and the Banks have your best interests at heart.
The SEC exists to legitimize financial fraud. When the banks steal billions of dollars, we can all blame the SEC for not doing its job, instead of blaming the people committing the fraud. They've done absolutely nothing to reign in banks, and don't intend to.
And let's get rid of that awful FBI, if your father gets whacked, you won't need no stinking investigation as to whom did it.
The much bigger threat is people dying because of bad diets, because of federal ag subsidies. Or people dying from the side effects of drugs they don't need because of a profit driven pharmaceutical industry. Or people dying in needless wars of agression. I'm much more concerned about the FBI causing deaths because they infiltrate and disrupt groups trying to advocate for reforms that would help people.
The FBI exists only to add a thin veneer of "we're here to protect you" that covers up a massive amount of corruption that harms us far more than helps us. They exist to ensure that entrenched power remains entrenched.
Clearly they have a cooling effect.
All this seems to suggest is that God cooks up lumpy pudding.
That makes me feel a lot better about how my pudding turns out.
The sound of typing tells you that the person on the other end is doing something. e.g. you call someone up with a question. They say "hold on, let me look that up". In this case, intermittant typing lets you know that something is happening. It's a lot better than dead air.
There's a pretty clear copyright claim here. Every poster owns the copyright to their posts, and there is no license granted to anyone but Dice.
Of course, to pursue such action we'd have to have a government that obeyed the rule of law. But that is not the case.
Traitors like James Clapper presumably passed the polygraph with flying colors as well.
Much of the justification lately for not decriminalizing drugs
They don't bother to justify drug policy these days. They just refuse to talk about it. Petition Obama to ask why Cannabis can't be treated like alcohol, and you get a response that says "drugs are bad, mmmkay" and doesn't mention alcohol at all. They know they can't win, so they simply stonewall.
In cases like that the courts will use a 'reasonable person' test.
I don't see how any reasonable person can determine that a publicly facing web server without any sort of authentication is not free to access. Authentication is how authorization is implemented on the internet. Any other policy will break the internet.
If there was a link off of att.com
How do you know you are authorized to visit att.com in the first place? You submit a query, and see if you get a response. Exactly what weev did.
The police do not need authorization to access data that has been exposed, intentionally or not.
The police need a warrant supported by probable cause to access anything a private individual can not. If it's illegal for weev to use a script to access unprotected files on a web server, it's illegal for the police to use a script to access unprotected files on a P2P server.
Weev was convicted of identity fraud
Weev was unjustly convicted.
he was lying about who he was to get access to data he was not authorized to access
He wasn't lying about who he was, any more than I'm lying about who I am when I access "http://slashdot.org/~bws111"
He had scripts that sent millions of possible imei's to the server to get information for that specific user.
Sure, and if I write a script that sends millions of requests to slashdot.org, from "http://slashdot.org/~a" to "http://slashdot.org/~ZZZZZZZZ", so what?
He was convicted because he use IMEI's that did not belong to him
How is that any different from me accessing "http://slashdot.org/~jklovanc"? I'm using a username that does not belong to me.
Using a tool to facilitate the collection of published information doesn't constitute unauthorized access.
Isn't that exactly what weev did?
AT&Ts site DID have authentication.
Authentication is something you know, have, or are
AT&Ts site did not ask for any of these things. There was no authentication.
Weev no more lied about who he was than I'm lying about who I am when I access "http://slashdot.org/~geekoid".
Certainly, there are many high-profile unauthenticated web services which are intended to be free for the public to use. However, this doesn't necessarily mean that all are.
The widely employed social convention is that they are.
Similarly, there are plenty of closed doors which are perfectly fine for the general public to open (doors to stores, public buildings, hotel lobbies, etc.), while there are plenty of doors that are not.
Tresspass laws require you post notice.
Note that this doesn't apply to the article since P2P software effectively advertises its existence
How is entering "preteen" into a P2P app any different than entering(e.g.) "http://att.com/db/user=43265" into an URL bar?
the use of P2P software implies consent to access the contents
Using a web server implies consent to access the contents.
Are you even aware of the particulars of the script kiddie attack that Weev did to get that data?
Weev wrote a script. In this case the police used "an automated P2P query-response tool". What's the difference?
By your logic just because someone has something on a web server they are sharing it with everyone
If you fail to put any authentication on it, then yes. How else is the web supposed to function?
Let me guess, you think credit cards and health records are fair game too?
If you post your credit card number on a public website, then yes it's totally fair game for me to download that information. Using that information to commit fraud is still illegal of course.