No, I'm advocating treatment for people who partake in kiddie porn. I'm not asking for some Orwellian society...I don't want someone to have access to child pornography, get hooked on it, and discover later that his computer just isn't giving him enough of a rise, so he decides to lure some neighborhood kid into his house. What is so wrong about that?
There's nothing particularly wrong with what you want. However, I believe that the desire that what you're expressing is based upon a faulty assertion. I seriously doubt that a person without pedophillic tendencies will stumble upon child pornography, become hooked on it like it's some sort of drug, and then just become a pedophile. As a non-pedophile, I'm repulsed by child pornography, and no amount of it will change that. Similarly, no amount of scat porn or snuff films will turn me onto these either.
What we're talking about is banning possession of a certain type of data. This is in place to weed out people who have tendencies toward a certain behavior that is a titanic-sized taboo in our society. I have a feeling that people with these tendencies don't choose them. This is similar to how homosexuals don't simply choose their sexuality. This can be extended to just about any sexual preference (BDSM, erotic asphyxiation, foot fettishes, etc). I'm not saying that prosecuting these people is done with 'evil' intentions. This is under the guise of protecting children -- but how far is too far?
Furthermore, your assertion is based on a correlation rather than causation; a common logical fallacy. If you can show that child pornography causes pedophiles to abuse children, I'd be right there with you. However, I am only aware of a correlation between child abusers and their use of child pornography.
Finally, I have a hard time with the fact that in a free society where one has sufficient liberty publish instructions for building a weapon of mass destruction, we designate certain information (be it text, an image, audio, or video) as forbidden. The motivation for this equates to persecuting individuals for thought crimes. In a free society, I just don't believe that mere possession of forbidden information equates to felonious behavior.
How do you propose that we treat these people? Currently, the only option is prison. So by my numbers, we're putting people in prison to treat them for thought crimes. Since this offense is a sex crime, that person must register as a sex offender for the rest of their lives. The stigma of being permanantly labelled as a convicted felon, a sex offender, and a pedophile (who may have never abused a child) will continue to punish that person for the rest of their life. We're not talking about something like schizophrenia, which can be treated in a voulentary and discreet manner unless it leads to an actual crime or real evidence that the individual will do harm to themselves or others. Do you have a better way?
I do, however, believe that individuals who manufacture or distribute child pornography should be prosecuted. I just draw a line in how far we should go in order to protect children.
Someone having a desire for this material alone is an illness that needs to be addressed.
Ah, so you are advocating mandatory "treatment" for those who partake in thought crimes or possess forbidden information? Remember that in our society, "treatment" equals incarceration. "Diagnosis" equals a conviction, which requires the individual to register as a sex offender and carries a stigma for life (and limits individuals to live outside of many townships as well as carrying restraining orders from schools, etc). I think that George Orwell would have a field day on this one. I'd suggest that you carefully rethink your position on this if you care anything about any kind of freedom.
I'm surprised that it took this long for advertisers to figure out that popunders/popups increase traffic. Back around 2000 when I was working for dot-coms, the ad-revenue based groups lived and died by traffic ratings (unique page impressions, etc) like Jupiter Media Metrics. When popunders started to reach critical mass, x10.com was pushed from nowhere into the top 5 -- overnight. I'm sure it cost them a pretty penny, but the result was evident over 6 years ago.
Let's hope that advertisers take another 6 years to catch onto the next big thing.
Amen! I work in a building in downtown, which you would think would have pretty good coverage. We're literally almost right on top of the Georgia Tech campus (as in, the Tech dorms are around two blocks away), which I would think should have very good coverage.
Amen to your amen. My company has an office in a large downtown office building on Peachtree St, and we use Cingular exclusively. Even on a high floor near a window, GSM devices don't work very well.
That being said, there's a reason why we chose Cingular over the other providers. We're a mid-sized organization with around 1500 employees and about 100 mobile devices. Due to the nature of our business, we have quite a bit of turnover and no full time telco employee; so individual device contracts won't work for us. Cingular (ATTWS at that time) was willing to enter into an agreement where our phones didn't each carry individual contracts. VZW (and a few other providers) wouldn't touch that deal. Verizon suggested that when an employee turns over, I should call and have their account moved back to a minimum voice plan ($5/mo) and reissue the phone to their successor. Upon reissue, move the plan back to a regular one. I mentioned that what she suggested amounted to what seemed like a whole lot of time on hold. I asked my sales rep if she was willing to manage those transitions for me. Considering that this was a minor part of my job, I didn't have that kind of time to invest. She snorted at this (I'm not kidding) and told me that it wasn't her job to do that. I told her that she'd have to work a little harder than that for our business.
Later, when I called her to tell her that our business was going to Cingular and explained why (a courtesy, IMO) she became frustrated with me -- as if I had wasted her time by asking her to bid and not automatically awarding our business to her. She explained that by allowing small/medium business customers to work with minimal contracts, AT&T allowed themselves to be purchased by Cingular. She explained further that Verizon invests more money into their network than any other provider in the marketplace and that it shows based on their network coverage and dropped calls. I thanked her for her time and reminded her that our requirements (as laid out in writing) wasn't strictly about the network. The fact was that the sales people at other carriers had enough flexibility to do the deal that we wanted. Verizon didn't, and were neither apologetic nor accommodating about it. She had some other sort of adversarial quips for me, so I thanked her for her time and quickly ended the call.
Verizon is a smug organization. They provide excellent coverage, but that's it. I think that other carriers can quickly catch up to VZW, especially if the GSM providers can get their peering/roaming arrangements together. These competing carriers offer more customer-friendly policies (no crippled devices) without the smugness.
FWIW, I carry a Cingular work device and a VZW personal device. I can put up with the smugness on my personal device because I need the coverage. Managing that for 100 other individuals? No thanks. If they need VZW, they can expense it.
What's even worse then that are the admins without a clue that silently drop e-mail. The sender has no idea that it was rejected and the recipient never received it. I know of at least one major university that was doing this for awhile. E-mails sent with attachments that they deemed 'dangerous' (zip files!) were silently dropped.
I drop tons of messages that come into my company. Anything that looks spammy gets quarantined, and all high ranking spam gets dropped with no rejection notice in either case. Given the incoming volume of spam, reject notices to phoney recipients will just fill my outgoing mail queues and advertise legitimate mailboxes to the few spammers with actual email addresses.
We keep a pretty sane policy, since false positives can really cost a business money. But in my organization, bounce or warning messages are useless. The vast majority of my users would never think to read the contents of the message. Unless it's a legitimate bounce or delay, they'll just cause mass confusion.
You may not like it, but automatic dropping of messages has become necessary for the average user. Especially where I work, where the userbase is not savvy and could not be bothered to read through quarantine reports. I'm sure that bounce messages, user managed quarantine lists, along with user managed white/blacklists are great. However; in the rest of the world, these things don't fly.
The closest the US gov't has come to regulating the domestic use of encryption was the aborted "clipper chip" fiasco. Traditionally government spooks have relied upon the eggheads at the NSA to be one step ahead of civilian encryption, not secretly leaning on manufacturers to force them to put in back doors.
Riiiiiight. And I'm guessing they take encryption a lot less seriously than paper printed on laserjets. Right? You know, where they are in bed with the inkjet/laserjet printer manufacturers that secretly print out the serial number of the printer [eff.org], and the date on each page they print.
As a side note, even if the NSA has already broken the cryptographic algorithm de jour, it is extermely unlikely that anyone would tip their hat to it. If they did, that crypto scheme would fall out of use and another would be used/developed. The NSA wouldn't be able to listen anymore. In the case that (insert crypto algorithm here) was broken, the powers that be would continue to use whatever legal and legislative measures possible to keep encryption out of Joe public's hands. In this case, legislation would be proposed/ratified with counterintelligence purposes in mind. If vulnerable large scale encryption did get into the unwitting public's hands, concerns would be largely mitigated, but you had better believe that they would keep up the same front.
Why are you sensitive about a question that nobody ever asked you? These are simply the qualities that the gpp looks for in an employee. It's not like you're interviewing to work in his group or anything.
One way or another, these are all reasonable things to investigate in order to find out whether or not a perspective employee will fit in at the company. Would you want to start at a new job and find out that you just can't work within their culture? In any case, I know that if I were interviewing you and I heard answers like that; I wouldn't hire you.
Exactly. I don't vote for either party at it irks me when I hear Dems say "Keep your morals off my body!" when referring to abortion or drugs and then demand universal healthcare or public smoking bans because it's the moral/humane thing for the government to do.
Sorry, you have to choose whether it's ok to legislate morality. I'd prefer to avoid it myself, but unfortunately I guess that's just another set of morals, right?
Right on! The Republicans tend to be comprised by people who view themselves as the moral elite. They want to control how we think. On the other hand, the Democrats tend to be comprised of people who view themselves as the intellectual elite. They want to control how we think.
Notice anything in common? What the hell happened to freedom, or was that lost as a result of litigation and/or legislature taking advangate of a popular fear of terra?
I don't know about you, but I *liked* Dodgeball and Redrover. Damn modern parents and their precious kids; can't bleed a little for their fun. Don't feel pain! Don't feel discomfort! Don't feel loss! Bah! There's nothing that makes you feel alive so much as getting clotheslined...especially when you are ten years old.
From the movie Dodgeball: A True underdog Story
But remember, dodgeball is a sport of violence, exclusion and degradation. So, when you're picking players in gym class, remember to pick the bigger, stronger kids for your team. That way, you can all gang up on the weaker ones, like Winston here.
What if, what if, what if. Don't put yourself in those positions and you wouldn't have to worry about it. People need to learn to accept the consequences of their actions, and if they're worried about the consequences, stay out of the situations.
I did not argue that people should not be held responsible for their actions. I only suggested that the law shouldn't be so cut-and-dry. I also provided examples of a murder and/or rape conviction that should probably not result in a life sentence. Further, I went on to suggest that 6 years is not the easy sentence that you implied.
I'm not defending anyone's actions, or suggest that the punishment that was doled out was either appropriate or inappropriate. I am simply refuting the absloutism that you expressed desire for in our justice system. I stand by that -- I'm glad that our justice system doesn't work the way you would like.
The man made enough money selling ripped-off software to have to pay $4million in restitution, and while the article doesn't say exactly how much more he ripped off, that gives you an order of magnitude. If this means he has major problems getting a job, renting a house, or buying another Lamborghini, well, that seems perfectly appropriate. If he's a pariah because of his felony, it's not like he didn't earn it.
I neither argued against the felony conviction nor the sentence. I was simply arguing against the black-and-white logic of the GPP.
Or imagine that you accidentally illegally sold enough software to buy yourself an airplane and a Lamborghini, do you really deserve to be locked up for six years?
I'm not suggesting that the guy either deserved or didn't deserve 6 years. My reply was more of a reply to the black-and-white justice system that the GPP suggested. I'm still glad that these things are decided on a case-by-case basis.
I also disagree. 6 years is nothing. He should've gotten more. All jail terms in this country are too piddly. Murders and Rapists should instantly get life, instead of these crappy plea deals, and early parroll.
It sounds like you've never worked in corrections. Ever stepped foot inside of an American correctional facility? 6 years in a Florida prison is decidedly not 'nothing'. My company contracts with the FL DOC and a day in one of those facilities would be too much for me.
Also remember that once a felon, always a felon. A convicted felon has major obstacles in housing, employment, etc for the rest of their life. I'm not saying that I have a better way, but lock 'em up and throw away the keys isn't any kind of solution. After spending 6 years in the pokey, this gentleman will have a very difficult time re-entering society.
Finally, the law is simply not black-and-white. Dealing in absolutes is a frightening thing, and most judges tend to understand this (fortunately). Prosecutors tend to go for the maximum available sentence. Imagine getting into a bar fight and by way of a freak accident, you kill a man with a single punch. Do you think that you deserve to get locked up for life? What about for a consentual sex act and your partner changes their mind about it after the fact and presses charges? Does that justify rotting away in prison for the rest of your life?
While I think that our justice system is flawed, I can't think of a better way. However, the absolute and totalitarian justice system that you envision is pretty frightening to me. I'm sure glad that's not the country that we live in.
Viruses are definitely part of the umbrella concept we often call "security." I've heard it mentioned many times that Macs do not suffer from viruses because they have a smaller market share, and virus authors invest their time into attacking more dominant systems. People who say this generally go on to say that as the Mac gains a larger market share, the number of viruses available for it will grow. I think this is of little consequence.
IMO, this is a tired argument, especially considering what many modern worms actually do. I say this as a Unix systems administrator, so I'm not defending Windows inherent lack of security as a Windows user. I'm more trying to kill an argument from lazy Unix admins that just doesn't make much sense when considering the latest trends in malware. The reason why malware is so scary is that there is a real commercial interest in using remote computer resources on a massive level. It can be spam zombies, or a spyware'd box with amazon commission redirects. Even massive ddos'es can be staged from owned user accounts. All that's necessary is a socket. The fact is that the user versus superuser argument completely ignores modern trends. It's also a convenient argument for Mac users who love to spout how their systems are Unix and therefore impervious to attack (and they're actually not Unix, but this is really just a trademark issue and little more). I'll explain my position on security a little further below.
First of all, how many Windows desktops in the workplace actually have more than one user? What about MacOS desktops? I'd bet that it's actually a pretty small number. Own the user account, and you control most of what that system is used for.
Modern malware tends to only require a user account anyway. Need to create a spam zombie? Why would you need to root a box when a regular user acccount can spew email all day long (unless/usr/bin/sendmail is executable by root only, but nobody does that)? Further, as things utilities like sudo become commonplace, one can run a keystroke logger in the userland shell to own the user account and thus the box. Need to create an IRC bot? Why would one need a superuser-level account in order to do this? Furthermore, even without sudo access, if one really wants to own a box, a userland account is a great way to evaluate and expolit a box to escalate priveleges. Many of these are things that can be done with a simple trojan -- even a shell script can begin the process. A user just needs to be tricked into using this. After working in an office with many basic users, this is really easy to do -- regardless of the system.
Many of the anti-Windows arguments come from default permissions which can easily be closed by most admins (even those who are only partially competent). No system is better than the person (or people) running it. A perfect example is the author of the article. He took a Windows system and just dropped it on the public internet, then acted surprised that his system was rooted. I wouldn't do that with any of my Unix systems. Was there any reason why his 'Server' service was accepting traffic from the public internet? Why wasn't it firewalled at the border *and* on the system? Could I call a Mac inherently insecure if a user configures their system with plaintext auth (an FTP server, let's say) and passwords are sniffed from another owned box on the LAN?
Further, you haven't really addressed the most basic issue of social engineering. Are Mac users somehow more savvy and less click-happy? In my experience, OsX machines have a great way to install applications in kernel space. Just type your password, and the system automagically runs sudo and installs the app as root. The Windows run-as doesn't always work quite as well. Basic users aren't as vigilant as seasoned admins. They'll do or type anything that an installer tells them in order to get that cool fishie screensaver that their coworker in the next c
Quite a difference, if you ask me. Unless you are a sensationalist, of course.
If one were to register micosoft.com, mirosoft.com, and mcrosoft.com, that would be typo-squatting on Microsoft.com, no?
In adding a redirect for.cm, with a wildcard redirect for all nonregistered entries, it seems that Cameroon is typo squatting on a TLD. It's the same idea as the Verisign deal, it's just that this one is doing it on a tld that could easily be a typo for.com. Why could this not be classified as being both a Sitefinder-type redirect, and a TLD typo squat?
It seems to me that rather than being bullshit, the headline is getting to the meat of the story.
I think everyone here is forgetting that a lot of people buy Sports Utility Vehicles for the Utility aspect...When you move out of your mothers basement and own a home or get hobby (other than gaming), you may find you have a need for some utility in your vehicle also.
Was your post directed at me (the post that you replied to)? It seems that we are on the same page -- in my post, I said:
SUV's have their place, and I won't argue that they don't.
You're starting to sound a little defensive around someone who prefers different cars, but doesn't give a damn what you drive.
Do you want $2 on a gallon of gas to put towards finding an alternative? Hell No! No Gov, local or otherwise, is going to impose that tax because they won't get re-elected, and when the problem does hit they'll all be nicely retired from the fray, so why bother now - right?
Well, has your $3-5 tax per gallon found an alternative yet? How long have you been paying out massive fuel taxes?
Some Americans believe that our government's best skill is wasting our money. Some of us want less taxes, and more private businesses to develop these technologies. It is sort of a fundamental difference in governing philosophy which may account for the difference in opinion for how to best handle the problem.
This happens to be a 4 banger (I'm an eco-nut), so it's not sports car by any means.
Not to be argumentative, but back in the day, most sports cars were 4-bangers. All of the original cheap British sports cars in the 50's and early 60's were 4-bangers, as were all early Porsches until the 911. Even now, many sports cars employ 4-cylinder motors (including the Mazda Miata, Toyota MR-Spyder, and Honda S2000). In fact, manufacturers trying to build more eco-friendly cars are embracing the philosophy of early sports cars (and the better current ones - e.g. Lotus Elise) -- make it lighter. The lighter a car, the more fuel efficient it can be. Further, the better it can stop, accelerate, and turn (see Newton's Laws of Motion). In any case, sports cars and eco-friendly are closer than you might think.
Oh, and to keep this on-topic to your post, I'm all about having a nimble vehicle that can avoid the collision in the first place. SUV's have their place, and I won't argue that they don't. However, like you, I prefer smaller cars.
I just don't see how Americans can be so ignorant as to think that $3/gal is expensive gas. Most of Europe is, what, $8-9/gal converted?
Because most Americans don't live in Europe, our gas prices are relative to...our gas prices. Europe's gas prices aren't necessarily relevant to ours, and are generally high because of very high taxes on fuel. Remember that 8 years ago, a gallon of regular unleaded was going for as low as $0.97/gal in the United States.
Further, we're simply not Europe. We are a big, sprawled out country with lots of open space where public transportation isn't as feasible as it is in much of western Europe. After WWII, Americans were encouraged to move out to suburbs and commute into the urban centers where they worked. This has been how much of the country has lived for the last 50 years or so. I understand why fuel prices are getting higher here, and I'm not complaining about it (I drive small fuel efficient cars and ride motorcycles anyway). However, when fuel prices triple over an 8-year period, I can understand how one could be caught off guard and maybe even be a little upset about it.
...the sooner my fellow Americans will quit buying SUVs.
Right, then Americans with big families will start buying minivans and people like you will complain about those. Then, station wagons will become popular again -- people like you you will complain about those. Then, SUV's will come back into fashion and people like you will complain about those all over again.
We live in a big country with lots of open space. It is not all densely populated, so public transportation isn't feasible everywhere. People with families need big cars. SUV's are very good big cars (along with station wagons and minivans). These people-haulers are heavy vehicles due to their size. Heavy vehicles need larger powerplants which produce more torque and thus consume more fuel. Do you want people to stop having families, or just be as well off as you so they can afford a second/third/fourth car? Do you have an alternative to SUV's for people who need a big car (remembering that all heavy vehicles need more energy to propel themselves)?
I don't even own an SUV/large vehicle and this is a no-brainer to me...or is this just a convenient way to feel superior to other people?
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I tried to use that in front of a judge to get out of a speeding ticket. It didn't work.
There's nothing particularly wrong with what you want. However, I believe that the desire that what you're expressing is based upon a faulty assertion. I seriously doubt that a person without pedophillic tendencies will stumble upon child pornography, become hooked on it like it's some sort of drug, and then just become a pedophile. As a non-pedophile, I'm repulsed by child pornography, and no amount of it will change that. Similarly, no amount of scat porn or snuff films will turn me onto these either.
What we're talking about is banning possession of a certain type of data. This is in place to weed out people who have tendencies toward a certain behavior that is a titanic-sized taboo in our society. I have a feeling that people with these tendencies don't choose them. This is similar to how homosexuals don't simply choose their sexuality. This can be extended to just about any sexual preference (BDSM, erotic asphyxiation, foot fettishes, etc). I'm not saying that prosecuting these people is done with 'evil' intentions. This is under the guise of protecting children -- but how far is too far?
Furthermore, your assertion is based on a correlation rather than causation; a common logical fallacy. If you can show that child pornography causes pedophiles to abuse children, I'd be right there with you. However, I am only aware of a correlation between child abusers and their use of child pornography.
Finally, I have a hard time with the fact that in a free society where one has sufficient liberty publish instructions for building a weapon of mass destruction, we designate certain information (be it text, an image, audio, or video) as forbidden. The motivation for this equates to persecuting individuals for thought crimes. In a free society, I just don't believe that mere possession of forbidden information equates to felonious behavior.
How do you propose that we treat these people? Currently, the only option is prison. So by my numbers, we're putting people in prison to treat them for thought crimes. Since this offense is a sex crime, that person must register as a sex offender for the rest of their lives. The stigma of being permanantly labelled as a convicted felon, a sex offender, and a pedophile (who may have never abused a child) will continue to punish that person for the rest of their life. We're not talking about something like schizophrenia, which can be treated in a voulentary and discreet manner unless it leads to an actual crime or real evidence that the individual will do harm to themselves or others. Do you have a better way?
I do, however, believe that individuals who manufacture or distribute child pornography should be prosecuted. I just draw a line in how far we should go in order to protect children.
Ah, so you are advocating mandatory "treatment" for those who partake in thought crimes or possess forbidden information? Remember that in our society, "treatment" equals incarceration. "Diagnosis" equals a conviction, which requires the individual to register as a sex offender and carries a stigma for life (and limits individuals to live outside of many townships as well as carrying restraining orders from schools, etc). I think that George Orwell would have a field day on this one. I'd suggest that you carefully rethink your position on this if you care anything about any kind of freedom.
I'm surprised that it took this long for advertisers to figure out that popunders/popups increase traffic. Back around 2000 when I was working for dot-coms, the ad-revenue based groups lived and died by traffic ratings (unique page impressions, etc) like Jupiter Media Metrics. When popunders started to reach critical mass, x10.com was pushed from nowhere into the top 5 -- overnight. I'm sure it cost them a pretty penny, but the result was evident over 6 years ago.
Let's hope that advertisers take another 6 years to catch onto the next big thing.
Amen to your amen. My company has an office in a large downtown office building on Peachtree St, and we use Cingular exclusively. Even on a high floor near a window, GSM devices don't work very well.
That being said, there's a reason why we chose Cingular over the other providers. We're a mid-sized organization with around 1500 employees and about 100 mobile devices. Due to the nature of our business, we have quite a bit of turnover and no full time telco employee; so individual device contracts won't work for us. Cingular (ATTWS at that time) was willing to enter into an agreement where our phones didn't each carry individual contracts. VZW (and a few other providers) wouldn't touch that deal. Verizon suggested that when an employee turns over, I should call and have their account moved back to a minimum voice plan ($5/mo) and reissue the phone to their successor. Upon reissue, move the plan back to a regular one. I mentioned that what she suggested amounted to what seemed like a whole lot of time on hold. I asked my sales rep if she was willing to manage those transitions for me. Considering that this was a minor part of my job, I didn't have that kind of time to invest. She snorted at this (I'm not kidding) and told me that it wasn't her job to do that. I told her that she'd have to work a little harder than that for our business.
Later, when I called her to tell her that our business was going to Cingular and explained why (a courtesy, IMO) she became frustrated with me -- as if I had wasted her time by asking her to bid and not automatically awarding our business to her. She explained that by allowing small/medium business customers to work with minimal contracts, AT&T allowed themselves to be purchased by Cingular. She explained further that Verizon invests more money into their network than any other provider in the marketplace and that it shows based on their network coverage and dropped calls. I thanked her for her time and reminded her that our requirements (as laid out in writing) wasn't strictly about the network. The fact was that the sales people at other carriers had enough flexibility to do the deal that we wanted. Verizon didn't, and were neither apologetic nor accommodating about it. She had some other sort of adversarial quips for me, so I thanked her for her time and quickly ended the call.
Verizon is a smug organization. They provide excellent coverage, but that's it. I think that other carriers can quickly catch up to VZW, especially if the GSM providers can get their peering/roaming arrangements together. These competing carriers offer more customer-friendly policies (no crippled devices) without the smugness.
FWIW, I carry a Cingular work device and a VZW personal device. I can put up with the smugness on my personal device because I need the coverage. Managing that for 100 other individuals? No thanks. If they need VZW, they can expense it.
I drop tons of messages that come into my company. Anything that looks spammy gets quarantined, and all high ranking spam gets dropped with no rejection notice in either case. Given the incoming volume of spam, reject notices to phoney recipients will just fill my outgoing mail queues and advertise legitimate mailboxes to the few spammers with actual email addresses.
We keep a pretty sane policy, since false positives can really cost a business money. But in my organization, bounce or warning messages are useless. The vast majority of my users would never think to read the contents of the message. Unless it's a legitimate bounce or delay, they'll just cause mass confusion.
You may not like it, but automatic dropping of messages has become necessary for the average user. Especially where I work, where the userbase is not savvy and could not be bothered to read through quarantine reports. I'm sure that bounce messages, user managed quarantine lists, along with user managed white/blacklists are great. However; in the rest of the world, these things don't fly.
No way! I saw Orgazmo and the Orgazmotron that they used worked instantaneously.
Riiiiiight. And I'm guessing they take encryption a lot less seriously than paper printed on laserjets. Right? You know, where they are in bed with the inkjet/laserjet printer manufacturers that secretly print out the serial number of the printer [eff.org], and the date on each page they print.
As a side note, even if the NSA has already broken the cryptographic algorithm de jour, it is extermely unlikely that anyone would tip their hat to it. If they did, that crypto scheme would fall out of use and another would be used/developed. The NSA wouldn't be able to listen anymore. In the case that (insert crypto algorithm here) was broken, the powers that be would continue to use whatever legal and legislative measures possible to keep encryption out of Joe public's hands. In this case, legislation would be proposed/ratified with counterintelligence purposes in mind. If vulnerable large scale encryption did get into the unwitting public's hands, concerns would be largely mitigated, but you had better believe that they would keep up the same front.
Why are you sensitive about a question that nobody ever asked you? These are simply the qualities that the gpp looks for in an employee. It's not like you're interviewing to work in his group or anything.
One way or another, these are all reasonable things to investigate in order to find out whether or not a perspective employee will fit in at the company. Would you want to start at a new job and find out that you just can't work within their culture? In any case, I know that if I were interviewing you and I heard answers like that; I wouldn't hire you.
Right on! The Republicans tend to be comprised by people who view themselves as the moral elite. They want to control how we think. On the other hand, the Democrats tend to be comprised of people who view themselves as the intellectual elite. They want to control how we think.
Notice anything in common? What the hell happened to freedom, or was that lost as a result of litigation and/or legislature taking advangate of a popular fear of terra?
Bah, I've got a new hybrid head which allows me to walk 450 miles on that same 14 gallons of shampoo...and it makes me better than you.
From the movie Dodgeball: A True underdog Story
But remember, dodgeball is a sport of violence, exclusion and degradation. So, when you're picking players in gym class, remember to pick the bigger, stronger kids for your team. That way, you can all gang up on the weaker ones, like Winston here.
LOL! I roll with Chuck Norris and Mr. T. We get into spontaneous bar brawls and then hook up with random women.
I did not argue that people should not be held responsible for their actions. I only suggested that the law shouldn't be so cut-and-dry. I also provided examples of a murder and/or rape conviction that should probably not result in a life sentence. Further, I went on to suggest that 6 years is not the easy sentence that you implied.
I'm not defending anyone's actions, or suggest that the punishment that was doled out was either appropriate or inappropriate. I am simply refuting the absloutism that you expressed desire for in our justice system. I stand by that -- I'm glad that our justice system doesn't work the way you would like.
I neither argued against the felony conviction nor the sentence. I was simply arguing against the black-and-white logic of the GPP.
I'm not suggesting that the guy either deserved or didn't deserve 6 years. My reply was more of a reply to the black-and-white justice system that the GPP suggested. I'm still glad that these things are decided on a case-by-case basis.
It sounds like you've never worked in corrections. Ever stepped foot inside of an American correctional facility? 6 years in a Florida prison is decidedly not 'nothing'. My company contracts with the FL DOC and a day in one of those facilities would be too much for me.
Also remember that once a felon, always a felon. A convicted felon has major obstacles in housing, employment, etc for the rest of their life. I'm not saying that I have a better way, but lock 'em up and throw away the keys isn't any kind of solution. After spending 6 years in the pokey, this gentleman will have a very difficult time re-entering society.
Finally, the law is simply not black-and-white. Dealing in absolutes is a frightening thing, and most judges tend to understand this (fortunately). Prosecutors tend to go for the maximum available sentence. Imagine getting into a bar fight and by way of a freak accident, you kill a man with a single punch. Do you think that you deserve to get locked up for life? What about for a consentual sex act and your partner changes their mind about it after the fact and presses charges? Does that justify rotting away in prison for the rest of your life?
While I think that our justice system is flawed, I can't think of a better way. However, the absolute and totalitarian justice system that you envision is pretty frightening to me. I'm sure glad that's not the country that we live in.
IMO, this is a tired argument, especially considering what many modern worms actually do. I say this as a Unix systems administrator, so I'm not defending Windows inherent lack of security as a Windows user. I'm more trying to kill an argument from lazy Unix admins that just doesn't make much sense when considering the latest trends in malware. The reason why malware is so scary is that there is a real commercial interest in using remote computer resources on a massive level. It can be spam zombies, or a spyware'd box with amazon commission redirects. Even massive ddos'es can be staged from owned user accounts. All that's necessary is a socket. The fact is that the user versus superuser argument completely ignores modern trends. It's also a convenient argument for Mac users who love to spout how their systems are Unix and therefore impervious to attack (and they're actually not Unix, but this is really just a trademark issue and little more). I'll explain my position on security a little further below.
First of all, how many Windows desktops in the workplace actually have more than one user? What about MacOS desktops? I'd bet that it's actually a pretty small number. Own the user account, and you control most of what that system is used for.
Modern malware tends to only require a user account anyway. Need to create a spam zombie? Why would you need to root a box when a regular user acccount can spew email all day long (unless /usr/bin/sendmail is executable by root only, but nobody does that)? Further, as things utilities like sudo become commonplace, one can run a keystroke logger in the userland shell to own the user account and thus the box. Need to create an IRC bot? Why would one need a superuser-level account in order to do this? Furthermore, even without sudo access, if one really wants to own a box, a userland account is a great way to evaluate and expolit a box to escalate priveleges. Many of these are things that can be done with a simple trojan -- even a shell script can begin the process. A user just needs to be tricked into using this. After working in an office with many basic users, this is really easy to do -- regardless of the system.
Many of the anti-Windows arguments come from default permissions which can easily be closed by most admins (even those who are only partially competent). No system is better than the person (or people) running it. A perfect example is the author of the article. He took a Windows system and just dropped it on the public internet, then acted surprised that his system was rooted. I wouldn't do that with any of my Unix systems. Was there any reason why his 'Server' service was accepting traffic from the public internet? Why wasn't it firewalled at the border *and* on the system? Could I call a Mac inherently insecure if a user configures their system with plaintext auth (an FTP server, let's say) and passwords are sniffed from another owned box on the LAN?
Further, you haven't really addressed the most basic issue of social engineering. Are Mac users somehow more savvy and less click-happy? In my experience, OsX machines have a great way to install applications in kernel space. Just type your password, and the system automagically runs sudo and installs the app as root. The Windows run-as doesn't always work quite as well. Basic users aren't as vigilant as seasoned admins. They'll do or type anything that an installer tells them in order to get that cool fishie screensaver that their coworker in the next c
If one were to register micosoft.com, mirosoft.com, and mcrosoft.com, that would be typo-squatting on Microsoft.com, no?
In adding a redirect for .cm, with a wildcard redirect for all nonregistered entries, it seems that Cameroon is typo squatting on a TLD. It's the same idea as the Verisign deal, it's just that this one is doing it on a tld that could easily be a typo for .com. Why could this not be classified as being both a Sitefinder-type redirect, and a TLD typo squat?
It seems to me that rather than being bullshit, the headline is getting to the meat of the story.
Was your post directed at me (the post that you replied to)? It seems that we are on the same page -- in my post, I said:
You're starting to sound a little defensive around someone who prefers different cars, but doesn't give a damn what you drive.
Well, has your $3-5 tax per gallon found an alternative yet? How long have you been paying out massive fuel taxes?
Some Americans believe that our government's best skill is wasting our money. Some of us want less taxes, and more private businesses to develop these technologies. It is sort of a fundamental difference in governing philosophy which may account for the difference in opinion for how to best handle the problem.
Not to be argumentative, but back in the day, most sports cars were 4-bangers. All of the original cheap British sports cars in the 50's and early 60's were 4-bangers, as were all early Porsches until the 911. Even now, many sports cars employ 4-cylinder motors (including the Mazda Miata, Toyota MR-Spyder, and Honda S2000). In fact, manufacturers trying to build more eco-friendly cars are embracing the philosophy of early sports cars (and the better current ones - e.g. Lotus Elise) -- make it lighter. The lighter a car, the more fuel efficient it can be. Further, the better it can stop, accelerate, and turn (see Newton's Laws of Motion). In any case, sports cars and eco-friendly are closer than you might think.
Oh, and to keep this on-topic to your post, I'm all about having a nimble vehicle that can avoid the collision in the first place. SUV's have their place, and I won't argue that they don't. However, like you, I prefer smaller cars.
Because most Americans don't live in Europe, our gas prices are relative to...our gas prices. Europe's gas prices aren't necessarily relevant to ours, and are generally high because of very high taxes on fuel. Remember that 8 years ago, a gallon of regular unleaded was going for as low as $0.97/gal in the United States.
Further, we're simply not Europe. We are a big, sprawled out country with lots of open space where public transportation isn't as feasible as it is in much of western Europe. After WWII, Americans were encouraged to move out to suburbs and commute into the urban centers where they worked. This has been how much of the country has lived for the last 50 years or so. I understand why fuel prices are getting higher here, and I'm not complaining about it (I drive small fuel efficient cars and ride motorcycles anyway). However, when fuel prices triple over an 8-year period, I can understand how one could be caught off guard and maybe even be a little upset about it.
Right, then Americans with big families will start buying minivans and people like you will complain about those. Then, station wagons will become popular again -- people like you you will complain about those. Then, SUV's will come back into fashion and people like you will complain about those all over again.
We live in a big country with lots of open space. It is not all densely populated, so public transportation isn't feasible everywhere. People with families need big cars. SUV's are very good big cars (along with station wagons and minivans). These people-haulers are heavy vehicles due to their size. Heavy vehicles need larger powerplants which produce more torque and thus consume more fuel. Do you want people to stop having families, or just be as well off as you so they can afford a second/third/fourth car? Do you have an alternative to SUV's for people who need a big car (remembering that all heavy vehicles need more energy to propel themselves)?
I don't even own an SUV/large vehicle and this is a no-brainer to me...or is this just a convenient way to feel superior to other people?
Sharp also sells the PN-655U, another 65" 1080p LCD.