Every now and then my G1 will insist that I am somewhere in Oregon. Usually I am clued in by the weather app giving a clearly erroneous temperature on the front screen. Perhaps my phone is just asking for a trip to someplace cool, since Vegas gets pretty hot in the summer. So far the phone has always come to its senses in a few hours.
But this summer, Brown got too ambitious for his own good, allegedly stealing a $47,900 camera from an HBO crew and a camcorder from a CNN employee, authorities said.
Steal from Joe Sixpack and Lizzy Hockeymom all you want. But don't screw with corporate media!
"Technology that makes communications interceptable by Good Guys probably makes communications interceptable by Bad Guys." Obvious, when you think about it.
If you want to create some scary implications, Blackwater is starting its own "intelligence" agency. Being a private entity, 4th and 5th Amendment rules about search warrants and self-incrimination do not apply, although one must assume that any local/state/federal laws regarding monitoring and/or recording of communications would apply. You know, if they get caught. And since Blackwater has done contract work for the United States government in the past, one must assume that the United States is a potential customer of Blackwater Total Intelligence Solutions.
Then why are teeth different? It's common for United States residents to have their teeth cleaned by a professional hygienist and looked at by a dentist (doctor of dental surgery) twice per year.
Because it's an opportunity for your dentist to upsell you. First that cleaning comes with a complete checkup with x-rays and everything; that will be $75 (minimum). As long as you're here, let's talk about teeth whitening, or braces, or getting rid of this wisdom tooth that is someday maybe gonna cause a problem.
Maybe I am a horrible cynic, but my purely anecdotal experience is that the people who do have their teeth cleaned at the dentist's office are the people who seem to have the most dental problems. A coincidence? Maybe. Iatrogenic? Also maybe.
So it's ok with you if I pretend to be you, so I can get ahold of your cell phone records or information about your internet account, for example? Because that is what this bill was supposed to be about. How about if I pretend to be you to find out how much you owe on your car, or your student loans, or when your lease/mortgage ends? Or get your college transcript sent to me? Sure, I'd need your SSN for that, but I can think of a half dozen ways I could find that out, some of them even legal.
I personally think this is not ok. Furthermore, I think it's pathetic that legislatures are that pwned by business interests, inasmuch as businesses don't vote.
When I was a kid UI was able to build an entire rebel base for my star wars figures with a blanket and lego bricks but today I have to buy a $75 kit. Todays sets appear to be more of a model kit than a creative toy.
$75? Yeah there are sets you can buy for that little. Check out Lego shop-at-home and you will see that lego sets can run up to $249 for the Mindstorms NXT. There are probably pricier sets I am not thinking of.
Inasmuch as I can get 5 new release video games or 12 older games for that money, no wonder Lego is having a hard time competing.
Unrelated, but it's worth noting that the Seattle Nordic Heritage Museum has some fabulous Lego displays, all made before Lego came out with the Viking series.
You know somebody isn't a repair tech if they're wearing a tie.
If memory serves, IBM field techs used to have a no-real-tie policy. They all wore clip-ons for safety reasons. If your tie gets caught in a printer, do you want to lose your tie or lose your neck?
Of course that was in the days where computer rooms had raised floors and separate air conditioning systems. Dinosaurs may also have been roaming the earth, but I was a child at the time.
That's good and all, but how are they supposed to be able to identify child porn anyway? Sure some of it is obvious. Quite frankly some of it isn't.
It's worse that that, really. The Law says that porn is at least partly determined by whether the "average person" considers it porn. Sure, there's a long list of things that are explicitly listed, but the gray area is little more than "huh, does this look like porn to you?"
A slight shift in community standards -- or an overzealous cop -- and pretty much every diaper ad becomes kiddy porn.
When the author referred to the victims of this crime as being the government agencies and not the taxpayers, I stopped reading.
They are only the biggest victim. You may not be aware that unemployment benefits are subject to Federal income tax. So you might get a 1099-G saying you received this money, the IRS knows about it, and you'd better enter it on your 1040.
Or worse yet, the 1099-G goes to the same fraudulent address as the unemployment checks for which you never applied. IRS still gets the information, however. So next year the IRS audits you and charges you taxes plus interest and penalties.
The long version makes it clear that most of the goodies are made by, developed by, or otherwise courtesy of Wayne Enterprises. Now, granted, it's his company, and he can afford an accounting firm that can figure out how to write off $3.3 Million.
But you would think somebody in R&D would at some point read the latest press on Batman say "Hey! I remember working on that project!"
I also find it pretty funny that the bible-thumping types that are always so vocal about porn had a conference in some hotel a while back, and that hotel reported a 600% increase of their in-room porn rentals over that weekend... pot, meet kettle.
That's just research. They need to be able to make educated opinions about porn, after all.;-)
Hello! Has it occured to these medical geniuses in the making that Gollum is not human? That his physiology and biochemistry might be naturally very different from what their textbooks suggest is "normal"? Unless these people also happen to have degrees in veterinary science and xenobiology, any "conclusions" they reach is pure conjecture.
Oh yeah, and if that weren't enough, Gollum is fictional.
In the immortal words of a thousand Fark headlines, "Still no cure for cancer."
Management only needs to make sure that there are no ex-disgruntled employees
There it is, the most important thing to remember.
And the easiest way to do that is not to hire nutcases that are apt to become disgruntled former employees. This involves better checking of applications than many people are really interested in doing. Take this guy for example: mental health counselor takes pit bulls to office in hurricane, orders them to attack others (coworkers?), goes out to his car. He has previously been arrested for almost every type of assault you can think of. It should not have been too difficult to filter this guy's resumé out of the applicant pool. Preventing disgruntled employees is about more than data security, it's about plain old fashioned general security.
Of course there is also a lot to be said for terminating passwords and accounts immediately when terminating an employee, even a really nice one.
More importantly, fingerprint biometrics have a failure rate of about 2%. That means that if they have 1000 locker uses in a day, they should expect 20 failures. There were 3,240,307 visits in 2003. Lets say for the sake of argument that 10% use the lockers, or 324,000 people. That means roughly 6480 failures.
I wonder what the proceedure is for getting your stuff back should you be one of those 2%.
Simply put, the hospital would like to get paid, preferably in a timely fashion. Hospitals are large enough to insource billing, as opposed to hiring an outside service. However, the data still has to be electronically submitted either to a clearinghouse or directly to insurance companies. Medicare requires electronic submission of claims from most "providers". Yes, sure, things could have been set up for a secure modem number, but they weren't.
Slashdot Mirror
It should be illegal to own robocall equipment unless you are a school or government agency (such as a police/fire department).
Every now and then my G1 will insist that I am somewhere in Oregon. Usually I am clued in by the weather app giving a clearly erroneous temperature on the front screen. Perhaps my phone is just asking for a trip to someplace cool, since Vegas gets pretty hot in the summer. So far the phone has always come to its senses in a few hours.
I am so glad I am not in charge of moving him and his stuff! What daunting logistics.
But this summer, Brown got too ambitious for his own good, allegedly stealing a $47,900 camera from an HBO crew and a camcorder from a CNN employee, authorities said.
Steal from Joe Sixpack and Lizzy Hockeymom all you want. But don't screw with corporate media!
Scientific proof that women love bastards.
"Technology that makes communications interceptable by Good Guys probably makes communications interceptable by Bad Guys." Obvious, when you think about it.
If you want to create some scary implications, Blackwater is starting its own "intelligence" agency. Being a private entity, 4th and 5th Amendment rules about search warrants and self-incrimination do not apply, although one must assume that any local/state/federal laws regarding monitoring and/or recording of communications would apply. You know, if they get caught. And since Blackwater has done contract work for the United States government in the past, one must assume that the United States is a potential customer of Blackwater Total Intelligence Solutions.
Yet another technology initiative that has come in late and over-budget.
Then why are teeth different? It's common for United States residents to have their teeth cleaned by a professional hygienist and looked at by a dentist (doctor of dental surgery) twice per year.
Because it's an opportunity for your dentist to upsell you. First that cleaning comes with a complete checkup with x-rays and everything; that will be $75 (minimum). As long as you're here, let's talk about teeth whitening, or braces, or getting rid of this wisdom tooth that is someday maybe gonna cause a problem.
Maybe I am a horrible cynic, but my purely anecdotal experience is that the people who do have their teeth cleaned at the dentist's office are the people who seem to have the most dental problems. A coincidence? Maybe. Iatrogenic? Also maybe.
Pretending to be a everyday/normal person - fine
So it's ok with you if I pretend to be you, so I can get ahold of your cell phone records or information about your internet account, for example? Because that is what this bill was supposed to be about. How about if I pretend to be you to find out how much you owe on your car, or your student loans, or when your lease/mortgage ends? Or get your college transcript sent to me? Sure, I'd need your SSN for that, but I can think of a half dozen ways I could find that out, some of them even legal.
I personally think this is not ok. Furthermore, I think it's pathetic that legislatures are that pwned by business interests, inasmuch as businesses don't vote.
When I was a kid UI was able to build an entire rebel base for my star wars figures with a blanket and lego bricks but today I have to buy a $75 kit. Todays sets appear to be more of a model kit than a creative toy.
$75? Yeah there are sets you can buy for that little. Check out Lego shop-at-home and you will see that lego sets can run up to $249 for the Mindstorms NXT. There are probably pricier sets I am not thinking of.
Inasmuch as I can get 5 new release video games or 12 older games for that money, no wonder Lego is having a hard time competing.
Unrelated, but it's worth noting that the Seattle Nordic Heritage Museum has some fabulous Lego displays, all made before Lego came out with the Viking series.
You know somebody isn't a repair tech if they're wearing a tie.
If memory serves, IBM field techs used to have a no-real-tie policy. They all wore clip-ons for safety reasons. If your tie gets caught in a printer, do you want to lose your tie or lose your neck?
Of course that was in the days where computer rooms had raised floors and separate air conditioning systems. Dinosaurs may also have been roaming the earth, but I was a child at the time.
That's good and all, but how are they supposed to be able to identify child porn anyway? Sure some of it is obvious. Quite frankly some of it isn't.
It's worse that that, really. The Law says that porn is at least partly determined by whether the "average person" considers it porn. Sure, there's a long list of things that are explicitly listed, but the gray area is little more than "huh, does this look like porn to you?"
A slight shift in community standards -- or an overzealous cop -- and pretty much every diaper ad becomes kiddy porn.
There are 3 ways I can think of off the top of my head that Google information can become evidence:
1. As in this case, information on what was searched from his own computer
2. Information on what was searched from Google via search warrant.
3. Google the people involved and follow some relevant links.
It should be obvious how one's cyber-life can provide clues, motives, evidence, or even alibis.
When the author referred to the victims of this crime as being the government agencies and not the taxpayers, I stopped reading.
They are only the biggest victim. You may not be aware that unemployment benefits are subject to Federal income tax. So you might get a 1099-G saying you received this money, the IRS knows about it, and you'd better enter it on your 1040.
Or worse yet, the 1099-G goes to the same fraudulent address as the unemployment checks for which you never applied. IRS still gets the information, however. So next year the IRS audits you and charges you taxes plus interest and penalties.
The Bottom Line
Final Cost: $3,365,449
The long version makes it clear that most of the goodies are made by, developed by, or otherwise courtesy of Wayne Enterprises. Now, granted, it's his company, and he can afford an accounting firm that can figure out how to write off $3.3 Million.
But you would think somebody in R&D would at some point read the latest press on Batman say "Hey! I remember working on that project!"
Now we can mess up a whole new environment. At least we don't have native species to deal with.
April Fools Day is also curable with sufficient b33r.
(Drink until loss of consciousness, hope this doesn't happen.)
I also find it pretty funny that the bible-thumping types that are always so vocal about porn had a conference in some hotel a while back, and that hotel reported a 600% increase of their in-room porn rentals over that weekend... pot, meet kettle.
;-)
That's just research. They need to be able to make educated opinions about porn, after all.
I think this one is newer than what you seek (skip "Robot Warriors Made From Junk", blech!), but this might be it.
Hello! Has it occured to these medical geniuses in the making that Gollum is not human? That his physiology and biochemistry might be naturally very different from what their textbooks suggest is "normal"? Unless these people also happen to have degrees in veterinary science and xenobiology, any "conclusions" they reach is pure conjecture.
Oh yeah, and if that weren't enough, Gollum is fictional.
In the immortal words of a thousand Fark headlines, "Still no cure for cancer."
Management only needs to make sure that there are no ex-disgruntled employees
There it is, the most important thing to remember.
And the easiest way to do that is not to hire nutcases that are apt to become disgruntled former employees. This involves better checking of applications than many people are really interested in doing. Take this guy for example: mental health counselor takes pit bulls to office in hurricane, orders them to attack others (coworkers?), goes out to his car. He has previously been arrested for almost every type of assault you can think of. It should not have been too difficult to filter this guy's resumé out of the applicant pool. Preventing disgruntled employees is about more than data security, it's about plain old fashioned general security.
Of course there is also a lot to be said for terminating passwords and accounts immediately when terminating an employee, even a really nice one.
when some company comes out with the cell phone that doubles as an mp3 player (downloads songs as easily as ringtones), bye-bye iPod.
I wouldn't say it's quite as easy as having an iPod, but Nokia has multiple mp3 playing phone models. And the original N-Gage plays games too.
Maybe we can start outsourcing economists, too.
More importantly, fingerprint biometrics have a failure rate of about 2%. That means that if they have 1000 locker uses in a day, they should expect 20 failures. There were 3,240,307 visits in 2003. Lets say for the sake of argument that 10% use the lockers, or 324,000 people. That means roughly 6480 failures.
I wonder what the proceedure is for getting your stuff back should you be one of those 2%.
Why are they even accessible on the internet?
Electronic Billing Systems.
Simply put, the hospital would like to get paid, preferably in a timely fashion. Hospitals are large enough to insource billing, as opposed to hiring an outside service. However, the data still has to be electronically submitted either to a clearinghouse or directly to insurance companies. Medicare requires electronic submission of claims from most "providers". Yes, sure, things could have been set up for a secure modem number, but they weren't.