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User: blueg3

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  1. Re:By this logic on Federal Judge Says E-mail Not Protected By 4th Amendment · · Score: 1

    In the US, you can't be compelled to provide a decryption key anyway.

  2. Re:TFA talks about notification not access on Federal Judge Says E-mail Not Protected By 4th Amendment · · Score: 1

    No, it's not. "Security through obscurity" specifically refers to a system (procedure, protocol, what have you) being secure on the basis that its inner workings are not known. It's only helpful if it's actually obscure and an attacker is not sufficiently interested in your system to determine the inner workings. Encryption is entirely different -- it is secure despite the fact that how it works is well-known.

    It's a trick of English. Though encryption is certainly good at obscuring data, and it's critical to the encryption that the attacker not know a particular piece of information (the key), it is not "security through obscurity".

  3. Re:Bank Records? on Federal Judge Says E-mail Not Protected By 4th Amendment · · Score: 1

    In the situation discussed here, there is a warrant for the e-mails. In that case, the ISP is, in fact, being compelled by law. What this ruling says is that the police are not required to notify you of the warrant (they need only notify the ISP).

  4. Re:I wonder if you can use the DMCA to your advant on Federal Judge Says E-mail Not Protected By 4th Amendment · · Score: 1

    Right, or they'd need a warrant for the mail on your server -- in which case you, as the owner of the server, would be informed of the search.

  5. Re:I wonder if you can use the DMCA to your advant on Federal Judge Says E-mail Not Protected By 4th Amendment · · Score: 1

    Sending an e-mail doesn't require a password at all. Neither does receiving an e-mail.

    Now, many providers of e-mail services only permit you to access your mail by authenticating with them using a username and password (and usually your username and e-mail address are connected in some obvious way), but that has very little to do with how e-mail is actually sent and stored.

  6. Re:Geeks may say on Federal Judge Says E-mail Not Protected By 4th Amendment · · Score: 1

    He doesn't conclude that at all. All he says is that when they serve the warrant, they have to notify the person who owns the servers on which the data is held (the person who must grant access), but not the account holder (the person whose communications they are accessing). It's patently obvious that if your e-mail is stored on your own mail server, and a warrant is issued to retrieve the mail from that server, than you, as the owner of the server, will be informed.

  7. Re:How about on Fixing Bugs, But Bypassing the Source Code · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Your claim to expertise is having read a single popular book, but you can't spot the common error of claiming because a general solution can't exist, no specific solution can exist?

  8. Re:pencil/paper on How To Enter Equations Quickly In Class? · · Score: 1

    I could type for a week without getting tired; you don't have to tightly grip a keyboard.

    Handwriting is just too physically draining for what you get out of it.

    Fortunately you don't have to write for a week without getting tired; you only need to write for something like four hours a day. If you can't write for four hours a day, five days a week, then you ought to learn how to write properly.

  9. Re:How about on Fixing Bugs, But Bypassing the Source Code · · Score: 1

    The relevance here?

  10. Re:It's "Niels" on Physics Rebel Aims To Shake Up the Video Game World · · Score: 1

    My point is, your view has been considered (in fact, nearly any neophyte physicist has the same thought). It is a testably incorrect view.

  11. Re:I could see this as true on Bad Driving May Have Genetic Basis · · Score: 1

    That theory's really going to throw a wrench into their studies of brain-derived neurotrophic factor.

  12. Re:First... define worse... on Bad Driving May Have Genetic Basis · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Wow, defining the problem! I wonder if the researchers thought of such a novel concept?

    If only there was some sort of written description of the research, longer than a summary, that might shed light on if they independently came to the same conclusion that problem-definition might be worthwhile and, if so, what they defined as "better" and "worse"...

  13. Re:Not Centigrade, either. on Thermonuclear Reactor To Use Coconut Shells · · Score: 1

    Electron temperature is a measure, not a unit. Degrees Centigrade is a unit.

  14. Re:It's "Niels" on Physics Rebel Aims To Shake Up the Video Game World · · Score: 1

    It's possible to formulate tests that differentiate between "we lack information about the object or the theory, and so can only describe it's position statistically" and "the object's state is not a discrete position and momentum, but a wavefunction that can be interpreted as a statistical distribution". These test have, of course, been formulated and conducted. I think you can guess how they turn out.

    Don't confuse "quantum mechanics is difficult to understand" with "quantum mechanics must be wrong".

  15. Re:Stupd rationale on Study Says US Needs Fewer Science Students · · Score: 4, Funny

    Isn't imposing your opinion on how they should pay employees, rather than letting employers set wages as they see fit, rather anti-Free Market?

  16. Wheatstone bridge on French Branch of Scientology Is Convicted of Fraud · · Score: 1
  17. Re:BS? on Reliability of PC Flash SSDs? · · Score: 1

    The package certainly indicates not to use them on a dimmer switch.

  18. Re:Can we finally start denying it again? on Save the Planet, Eat Your Dog · · Score: 2, Informative

    Right now we are treated as holocaust deniers if we dare question if CO2 is really what we should focus on.

    Evolution-deniers is a more apt comparison.

    Is the microscopic amount of CO2 release actually created by humans compared to the Oceans, Volcanoes, and Bacteria really significant enough to warm the globe?

    It's not microscopic at all, and yes.

  19. Re:bring back the pr0n! on Cyberterror Not Yet a Credible Threat, Says Policy Thinktank · · Score: 1

    Another thing is that it's quite hard to launch such a catastrophic, large-scale attack against the internet.

    That's not the attack of interest.

    Also isn't terror's one meaning to cause, well, terror? What are you going to on the internet, put a scary picture on google.com (if you even could hack it - I bet there have been many that have tried)? It just doesn't sum up.

    While stealing, destroying, or maliciously altering important data -- financial or medical records, for example, or military technology -- are interesting attacks, most of the interesting cyberterrorism scenarios involve disabling or damaging non-Internet infrastructure, such as power generation.

  20. Re:Unions are outraged! on Mandatory H1N1 Vaccine For NY Health Workers Suspended · · Score: 1

    I probably did not mean to respond to you. :-P Like any organization, there are plenty of unions with corrupt leadership that don't function as they are intended, and there's no problem with that complaint -- it's just not the usual complaint.

  21. Re:Vodka on A Tale of Two Windows 7s · · Score: 1

    Are the only people who purchase computers soccer moms?

    If so, who the hell is buying all the Macs?

    Do none of the kids on our local campus, of which about half have Macintoshes, play soccer? Or, if they play soccer, does that imply they have no mothers? (Maybe it implies that their fathers do all the computer shopping.)

    On a more serious note, you seem to be falling in to the trap that if a particular type of customer most values a certain trait, then no product without that trait is of interest to any customer.

  22. Re:BUSTED! on Mandatory H1N1 Vaccine For NY Health Workers Suspended · · Score: 1

    There was a recent story about this. It's not that influenza-vaccine studies are flawed, but that these researchers performed a flawed study showing a bias among flu-shot recipients. However, this has no bearing on the result of blinded vaccine effectiveness studies, as the blinded studies have no selection bias.

  23. Re:BUSTED! on Mandatory H1N1 Vaccine For NY Health Workers Suspended · · Score: 1

    You mean Tamiflu? There's plenty of that. In fact, if you get sick and are in a high risk group for flu complications, even if the rapid flu test comes back negative, they'll give you Tamiflu on the off chance that the flu test was wrong.

  24. Re:BUSTED! on Mandatory H1N1 Vaccine For NY Health Workers Suspended · · Score: 2, Funny

    It's not like polio ever paralyzed anyone.

  25. Re:Unions are outraged! on Mandatory H1N1 Vaccine For NY Health Workers Suspended · · Score: 1

    Damn right. People should have the right to bargain independently, free of government regulation, for the best pay and benefits they can receive for their job. And they should be able to make contracts, free of government regulation, provided all parties to the contract agree. Unless this contract is to form a labor group capable of collectively bargaining for the best pay and benefits they can receive for their job. Then it's socialism.