For instance, if I play a video game that teaches me how to use various weapons, and skills for killing others, I am in fact 'training' to use those weapons and tactics.
Jack Thompson, is that you?
Only people who have never actually fired a weapon would believe that a video game could effectively train you to actually use one.
Bombs+weapons+expressed desire to use them = probably a bad guy. "Probably" should not be enough for prison, though.
So if I see someone walking down the street with a bomb and expressing his desire to use it, but he hasn't yet.. I should just let him walk by?
Sorry but there is a point where "probably" has to be good enough.
Rephrasing to reflect the actual facts: "So if I see someone walking down the street with a USB stick and expressing his desire to use the information on it, but he hasn't yet.. I should just let him walk by?"
Well, yeah. But you might want to keep an eye on him.
How about conspiracy to commit murder? I'm pretty sure it is illegal in most places even if the target doesn't actually get attacked. As I posted earlier though, it is in fact against the law to have the information in the UK unless you have "a reasonable excuse". Buddy with "I want to do jihad" letters and weapons price lists would have a pretty hard time coming up with a reasonable excuse.
The only way he could have killed someone with the evidence used to convict him is if he baked the USB stick into a cake and they choked to death on it.
Pardon, and before anyone gleefully points out my error, I meant to write bomb _instructions_ and weapon _shopping lists_, not actual bombs and weapons. My point still stands.
They ALSO uncovered letters where he stated he was prepared for jihad and was seeking guidance, plus he'd gone so far as to spec and price out his weaponry.
He wasn't just some curious chemist who happened to have an arabic-sounding name.
Reading TFA and commenting on anything but the skewed summary is discouraged.
Bombs+weapons+expressed desire to use them = probably a bad guy. "Probably" should not be enough for prison, though.
As is your assumption of government incompetence. Your bad day at the DMV is not evidence, nor are right wing exaggerations pointed at the same big government they created... which should be compared to the publicly funded, private enterprises like Lockheed that are even more inefficient.
You say govt = inept, but im sure you agree they are doing great for their big business constituents that cycle profits back into elections, etc etc.
My opinion is not based on being a DMV customer. It's based on the work I did with the DoD. The idea that two branches of the federal government built a criminal case against Megaupload with coordinated international law enforcement in response to a public backlash against pending Congressional votes is obviously ridiculous.
The servers can be seized as evidence and the service shut down to prevent additional harm being done while the case is decided. It's effectively very similar to a restraining order. It's a civil thing, so innocent until proven guilty doesn't apply, but rather until the issue is determined, the justice department moves to ensure more harm is not done. The idea is that to do so it should be pretty damn clear that policies are not being followed and the indictment does a pretty good job of documenting how they were not.
This is a criminal case, not a civil case. It's not similar to a restraining order. Evidence was seized so that it can be used to prosecute the accused. I wish them good luck with their defense. They're sure going to need it.
Get a load of that coincidence. it 'coincides' just 2 days after sopa protests, and involves almost all major technology companies that have major stakes on internet. Just like how the megaupload bust 'coincided' a day after sopa protests, yesterday.
Your assumptions of government competence are staggering.
The A5 chip has yet to be jailbreaked. You also can't jailbreak an iOS device and thus access vulnerabilities with a rogue program.
The iPad2, which runs the A5 CPU, certainly has an untethered jailbreak. Whether the vulnerability is in the CPU or the OS is irrelevant. Root is root no matter how you get it. You get root on an Android phone using similar methods.
In terms of secondary exploits, how about all the Jailbroken iPhones where sshd was enabled by default and the password was "alpine"? Remember the worm that changed wallpaper to Rick Astley? They could have done much nastier things than that.
I'm not saying this is Apple's fault since the secondary vulnerability was a result of the user purposefully running the initial exploit themselves. Most security vulnerabilities these days require the user to take some kind of action. What I'm saying is that the perception that the iPhone is more secure than an Android phone is simply a false dichotomy. They both have had vulnerabilities with every release. Otherwise there would be no jailbreaking/rooting at all.
Don't forget the security aspect. We see threads on/. daily about Android malware. iOS is pretty much 100% secure when it comes down to incidences of compromised devices.
Your point is partially valid, although exaggerated. I'll make two in return:
1) Apple is hardly 100% secure. Every jailbreak method that has ever existed exploits an unpatched vulnerability in their software. 2) The upside to Apple playing the role of Morality Police is that it reduces app malware to manageable levels. The downside is that apps that disagree with their social views or with the desires of their carrier partners are not approved or are quickly removed.
With great power comes great responsibility. The difference is that Android largely endows the customer with that power, while Apple largely reserves it for themselves. There are benefits and drawbacks to both.
1) Court rules it legal to install GPS trackers on cars you don't own, as long as they're publicly accessible. 2) Install 3G-connected GPS trackers on any unattended police cruisers. 3) Incorporate current live location of police vehicles into iPhone/Android app. 4) Profit!
This makes perfect sense to me. The same argument applies to the.08% BAC "drunk" definition. I heard a sheriff on the radio say that 25% of the people driving on a holiday are drunk. My first thought was "that's not true" and my second thought was "maybe it is, but only if we've defined 'drunk' incorrectly". Because clearly 25% of these drunks aren't so impaired to the point where they are driving dangerously. Not trying to be flamebait and I've never been popped for DWI, just don't like stupid laws created by lobbyists.
When I was a kid in the 70s, nearly everyone I knew had a CB radio in their cars and trucks (I grew up in a family of truckers in the country). So how are hands-free phones different than CB radios? Actually, CBs aren't even hands free. Is there something different behind the mentality of using a CB radio vs a cellphone? Or was using a CB always dangerous and just not used by as many people? I can't remember any conversations ever about the possible dangers of using a CB radio.
Suppose I put my phone on speaker and then pugged in a mic that had a curly wire and button I pressed to talk, making it basically function like a CB radio. Would the danger level of using it decrease (when compared to using it entirely hands free)?
CB radios were never as pervasive as cell phones are today.
That being said, handsfree versus not-handsfree makes no difference whatsoever.
Anyone who was in the peanut gallery in 1998 was a little more clued in. The audience wasn't nearly as wide then. You could expect that people had a little bit more of a clue by virtue of the fact that they were even aware of the Internet.
Truth, but we all know the only constant is change. There are still good comments out there, they're just a lot harder to find.
We are talking about a business here that has regularly ripped off its own artists. I keep up to date on Robert Fripp's struggles with UMG/Universal. They just do whatever they want, and when he demands accounting information and information on how songs that he never gave permission to be placed on download services ended up there, he basically enters that evil realm of lawyer/accountant double-talk.
However bad music piracy may be, the biggest pirates of them all have always been the record companies. They'll even try to steal of big name acts. Both Pink Floyd and the Beatles have had to go to court to retrieve royalties or to enforce contractual requirements.
At least the label doesn't pretend that they're somehow helping while ripping you off.
"As is often the case in the early stages of a new technology, results are better on some topics than on others -- mainly computer-related issues."
Uh, no. Google became a search juggernaut because it provided better results. Otherwise there would be no motivation to switch from Yahoo. And, since this solves a problem most people don't care about, it's doomed.
8.0 is release. 9.0 is beta. 10.0 is alpha. When a new version goes gold, as happened with 8.0 a short time ago, the beta and alpha versions bump up. It's standard practice for software but for some reason pisses everyone on Slashdot off with Firefox.
The story isn't interesting. The comments aren't interesting. All the same things were posted for the last three releases. I'd take a Jon Katz submission over this.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm tempted to have your excessive hyperbole beaten out of you.
Uh, clearly my reading comprehension is off today since you were making this exact point. Sorry about that. Dammit, where's my "edit" button?
For instance, if I play a video game that teaches me how to use various weapons, and skills for killing others, I am in fact 'training' to use those weapons and tactics.
Jack Thompson, is that you?
Only people who have never actually fired a weapon would believe that a video game could effectively train you to actually use one.
Bombs+weapons+expressed desire to use them = probably a bad guy. "Probably" should not be enough for prison, though.
So if I see someone walking down the street with a bomb and expressing his desire to use it, but he hasn't yet.. I should just let him walk by?
Sorry but there is a point where "probably" has to be good enough.
Rephrasing to reflect the actual facts: "So if I see someone walking down the street with a USB stick and expressing his desire to use the information on it, but he hasn't yet.. I should just let him walk by?"
Well, yeah. But you might want to keep an eye on him.
How about conspiracy to commit murder? I'm pretty sure it is illegal in most places even if the target doesn't actually get attacked. As I posted earlier though, it is in fact against the law to have the information in the UK unless you have "a reasonable excuse". Buddy with "I want to do jihad" letters and weapons price lists would have a pretty hard time coming up with a reasonable excuse.
The only way he could have killed someone with the evidence used to convict him is if he baked the USB stick into a cake and they choked to death on it.
Pardon, and before anyone gleefully points out my error, I meant to write bomb _instructions_ and weapon _shopping lists_, not actual bombs and weapons. My point still stands.
They ALSO uncovered letters where he stated he was prepared for jihad and was seeking guidance, plus he'd gone so far as to spec and price out his weaponry.
He wasn't just some curious chemist who happened to have an arabic-sounding name.
Reading TFA and commenting on anything but the skewed summary is discouraged.
Bombs+weapons+expressed desire to use them = probably a bad guy. "Probably" should not be enough for prison, though.
As is your assumption of government incompetence. Your bad day at the DMV is not evidence, nor are right wing exaggerations pointed at the same big government they created... which should be compared to the publicly funded, private enterprises like Lockheed that are even more inefficient.
You say govt = inept, but im sure you agree they are doing great for their big business constituents that cycle profits back into elections, etc etc.
My opinion is not based on being a DMV customer. It's based on the work I did with the DoD. The idea that two branches of the federal government built a criminal case against Megaupload with coordinated international law enforcement in response to a public backlash against pending Congressional votes is obviously ridiculous.
The servers can be seized as evidence and the service shut down to prevent additional harm being done while the case is decided. It's effectively very similar to a restraining order. It's a civil thing, so innocent until proven guilty doesn't apply, but rather until the issue is determined, the justice department moves to ensure more harm is not done. The idea is that to do so it should be pretty damn clear that policies are not being followed and the indictment does a pretty good job of documenting how they were not.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/78786408/Mega-Indictment - around page 30 is the most damning part.
This is a criminal case, not a civil case. It's not similar to a restraining order. Evidence was seized so that it can be used to prosecute the accused. I wish them good luck with their defense. They're sure going to need it.
Get a load of that coincidence. it 'coincides' just 2 days after sopa protests, and involves almost all major technology companies that have major stakes on internet. Just like how the megaupload bust 'coincided' a day after sopa protests, yesterday.
Your assumptions of government competence are staggering.
The A5 chip has yet to be jailbreaked. You also can't jailbreak an iOS device and thus access vulnerabilities with a rogue program.
The iPad2, which runs the A5 CPU, certainly has an untethered jailbreak. Whether the vulnerability is in the CPU or the OS is irrelevant. Root is root no matter how you get it. You get root on an Android phone using similar methods.
In terms of secondary exploits, how about all the Jailbroken iPhones where sshd was enabled by default and the password was "alpine"? Remember the worm that changed wallpaper to Rick Astley? They could have done much nastier things than that.
I'm not saying this is Apple's fault since the secondary vulnerability was a result of the user purposefully running the initial exploit themselves. Most security vulnerabilities these days require the user to take some kind of action. What I'm saying is that the perception that the iPhone is more secure than an Android phone is simply a false dichotomy. They both have had vulnerabilities with every release. Otherwise there would be no jailbreaking/rooting at all.
Don't forget the security aspect. We see threads on /. daily about Android malware. iOS is pretty much 100% secure when it comes down to incidences of compromised devices.
Your point is partially valid, although exaggerated. I'll make two in return:
1) Apple is hardly 100% secure. Every jailbreak method that has ever existed exploits an unpatched vulnerability in their software.
2) The upside to Apple playing the role of Morality Police is that it reduces app malware to manageable levels. The downside is that apps that disagree with their social views or with the desires of their carrier partners are not approved or are quickly removed.
With great power comes great responsibility. The difference is that Android largely endows the customer with that power, while Apple largely reserves it for themselves. There are benefits and drawbacks to both.
1) Court rules it legal to install GPS trackers on cars you don't own, as long as they're publicly accessible.
2) Install 3G-connected GPS trackers on any unattended police cruisers.
3) Incorporate current live location of police vehicles into iPhone/Android app.
4) Profit!
This makes perfect sense to me. The same argument applies to the .08% BAC "drunk" definition. I heard a sheriff on the radio say that 25% of the people driving on a holiday are drunk. My first thought was "that's not true" and my second thought was "maybe it is, but only if we've defined 'drunk' incorrectly". Because clearly 25% of these drunks aren't so impaired to the point where they are driving dangerously. Not trying to be flamebait and I've never been popped for DWI, just don't like stupid laws created by lobbyists.
When I was a kid in the 70s, nearly everyone I knew had a CB radio in their cars and trucks (I grew up in a family of truckers in the country). So how are hands-free phones different than CB radios? Actually, CBs aren't even hands free. Is there something different behind the mentality of using a CB radio vs a cellphone? Or was using a CB always dangerous and just not used by as many people? I can't remember any conversations ever about the possible dangers of using a CB radio.
Suppose I put my phone on speaker and then pugged in a mic that had a curly wire and button I pressed to talk, making it basically function like a CB radio. Would the danger level of using it decrease (when compared to using it entirely hands free)?
CB radios were never as pervasive as cell phones are today.
That being said, handsfree versus not-handsfree makes no difference whatsoever.
Anyone who was in the peanut gallery in 1998 was a little more clued in. The audience wasn't nearly as wide then. You could expect that people had a little bit more of a clue by virtue of the fact that they were even aware of the Internet.
Truth, but we all know the only constant is change. There are still good comments out there, they're just a lot harder to find.
We are talking about a business here that has regularly ripped off its own artists. I keep up to date on Robert Fripp's struggles with UMG/Universal. They just do whatever they want, and when he demands accounting information and information on how songs that he never gave permission to be placed on download services ended up there, he basically enters that evil realm of lawyer/accountant double-talk.
However bad music piracy may be, the biggest pirates of them all have always been the record companies. They'll even try to steal of big name acts. Both Pink Floyd and the Beatles have had to go to court to retrieve royalties or to enforce contractual requirements.
At least the label doesn't pretend that they're somehow helping while ripping you off.
Cue defense of music/software piracy in 3....2....1...
Why should I pay when self-delusional bullshit rationalizations cost nothing?
"As is often the case in the early stages of a new technology, results are better on some topics than on others -- mainly computer-related issues."
Uh, no. Google became a search juggernaut because it provided better results. Otherwise there would be no motivation to switch from Yahoo. And, since this solves a problem most people don't care about, it's doomed.
Sorry to ask you, but what exactly Ghandy achieved? I am not saying that he is not extraordinary man, but, did he actually change anything at all???
Other than India's change from a British colony to a sovereign nation, you mean? Are you serious?
8.0 is release. 9.0 is beta. 10.0 is alpha. When a new version goes gold, as happened with 8.0 a short time ago, the beta and alpha versions bump up. It's standard practice for software but for some reason pisses everyone on Slashdot off with Firefox.
The story isn't interesting. The comments aren't interesting. All the same things were posted for the last three releases. I'd take a Jon Katz submission over this.
Yes, quite a large difference between "possible” and "plausible", right?
Yeah, mortgages are retarded. Unless you want to own a home. Then they're pretty damn useful.
I gotta say, I'm impressed. I just hope they all go after the cell phone companies next.
Yeah, let's all switch to coop-owned infrastructure! Oh, wait, there isn't any.