Did Absolute actually intercept communications? Is gathering data from a laptop 'intercepting communications' according to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA)? The second article says
In this process, one of Absolute’s employees obtained real-time access to what was happening on the stolen computer. He was able to collect keystrokes of the sexually explicit communications, and gather three screen shots of plaintiff and her boyfriend, both naked, fooling around on the webcam.
If you are gathering data from a camera/keyboard on a stolen laptop, does that suddenly become illegal when the camera/keyboard starts to be used for a live chat? What if the user saves a file that is emailed a few days later but downloaded in the intervening period. Is that a communications interception?
I really don't think you (or your representative) should be done/sued for gathering data off your stolen laptop that you have tracked down, even if that data then goes on to be communicated, when the purpose is simply to recover stolen goods. This is surely common sense but, I suppose, that isn't law. I hope some lawyer ends up out of pocket to reduce this nonsense happening in future. In the case of this unfortunate couple, they should just accept that it was bad luck.
There's a culture where safety does not come first on the priority list. One suspects authoritarianism is ultimately to blame: individuals afraid to make decisions themselves perhaps?
The DOD procured Ada which became a standard in 83, much improved in 95. For _critical embedded systems_, it is a very suitable language. Also very suitable if you are thinking of changing the hardware on which it runs.. perhaps a 30+ year military project might involve a change of platform at some point? Civilian contractors didn't like it, presumably because it wasn't fashionable. (Anyone who can write a program in C is clever enough to learn Ada within a month. It's a question of will.) And the customer (supposedly "always right") eventually caved in and no longer mandated it, presumably on short-term cost grounds. Just one example of the government/military not knowing enough to make a stand.
I feel like I'm looking at some sort of weird creature, like something from The Thing. A laptop with two screens? It's like someone with two mouths or three eyes... (Don't think it would be as bad if it was one very wide screen.)
Interestingly, for the Millennium Bridge, it wasn't actually the frequency of people's footsteps that caused the problem. (This can be a problem when people step in time and some other London bridges have signs that troops should break time.) The main issue with the Millennium Bridge was that the resonance was lateral, i.e. side to side, which was not well known about, and there was positive feedback: small lateral movements, within normal limits, became amplified because the way people naturally corrected their balance induced the resonant frequency.
I haven't read enough about this topic to know whether there was any positive feedback, i.e. whether the movement of the building was affecting their Tae Bo workout (or other people in the building) which in turn amplified the tremors.
Well, that would explain it! It would be a terrible decision to drop network transparency, unless they're just interested in converting Windows and Mac users...
For me, Ubuntu the wrong direction. Loss of the network transparent graphical environment was the final straw.
With future Ubuntu, are you saying that e.g. in a secure shell on another machine (ssh -Y me@othermachine) I can't run a graphical application using my X server? Perhaps I have misunderstood what you meant by network transparent. I thought any graphical environment was built on X11 and so just worked over the network...
Marty: Whoa, this is heavy.
Doc: There's that word again, heavy. Why are things so heavy in the future? Is there a problem with the Earth's gravitational pull?
(Based on my highly limited knowledge of the subject) it enables observations about the earth to be compensated for non-uniform gravitational pull, so you can get a better idea of what is really happening and stand a better chance of explaining why. For example, now we know where water is effectively flowing uphill and downhill, we can better estimate the actual ocean current forces from the observed currents, so start to guess at what is causing them.
I suspect that these auto-driving systems would only have a simplified view of the world, increasing the scope for misinterpretation and making invalid assumptions about what it 'sees'. (What the computer thought was a leaf blowing in the wind turned out to be the flag of a recumbent cyclist...) The more controlled the environment becomes, the more you can safely make assumptions about what your sensors tell you. (For example, consider the atmosphere and systems used in aeroplanes.) I suspect safety cases for auto-driven systems would lead to separation of auto-driven traffic so that assumptions that a computer makes are valid. (Perhaps it would be ok to mix modes of transport if e.g. cyclists had electronic beacons to identify themselves to the sensors on cars.)
We're all individuals and safety is handled rationally by individuals!
Even if the overall number of people dying would go down, when I devolve my safety to a machine like an autopilot, I want to make sure that I am just as safe as when I drive myself. That fact that I am safer than hundreds of thousands of other people is no consolation and irrelevant to me. An argument about the benefit to the masses may hold for e.g. ants but is likely to fall down for people.
Of course, people always have an irrational view that nothing could possibly be a better driver than themselves...
for the +1 operator: succ.
It's unfortunate that we feel the need to verbize everything these days because I just wouldn't feel right succing people because they're succing me, in a sort of mutual succing arrangement, just so we feel better about ourselves.
Slashdot Mirror
Did Absolute actually intercept communications? Is gathering data from a laptop 'intercepting communications' according to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA)? The second article says
In this process, one of Absolute’s employees obtained real-time access to what was happening on the stolen computer. He was able to collect keystrokes of the sexually explicit communications, and gather three screen shots of plaintiff and her boyfriend, both naked, fooling around on the webcam.
If you are gathering data from a camera/keyboard on a stolen laptop, does that suddenly become illegal when the camera/keyboard starts to be used for a live chat? What if the user saves a file that is emailed a few days later but downloaded in the intervening period. Is that a communications interception?
I really don't think you (or your representative) should be done/sued for gathering data off your stolen laptop that you have tracked down, even if that data then goes on to be communicated, when the purpose is simply to recover stolen goods. This is surely common sense but, I suppose, that isn't law. I hope some lawyer ends up out of pocket to reduce this nonsense happening in future. In the case of this unfortunate couple, they should just accept that it was bad luck.
We'd all have to wear plastic safety specs too...
...we're creating even more carbon emissions!
There's a culture where safety does not come first on the priority list. One suspects authoritarianism is ultimately to blame: individuals afraid to make decisions themselves perhaps?
The DOD procured Ada which became a standard in 83, much improved in 95. For _critical embedded systems_, it is a very suitable language. Also very suitable if you are thinking of changing the hardware on which it runs.. perhaps a 30+ year military project might involve a change of platform at some point? Civilian contractors didn't like it, presumably because it wasn't fashionable. (Anyone who can write a program in C is clever enough to learn Ada within a month. It's a question of will.) And the customer (supposedly "always right") eventually caved in and no longer mandated it, presumably on short-term cost grounds. Just one example of the government/military not knowing enough to make a stand.
I feel like I'm looking at some sort of weird creature, like something from The Thing. A laptop with two screens? It's like someone with two mouths or three eyes... (Don't think it would be as bad if it was one very wide screen.)
Interestingly, for the Millennium Bridge, it wasn't actually the frequency of people's footsteps that caused the problem. (This can be a problem when people step in time and some other London bridges have signs that troops should break time.) The main issue with the Millennium Bridge was that the resonance was lateral, i.e. side to side, which was not well known about, and there was positive feedback: small lateral movements, within normal limits, became amplified because the way people naturally corrected their balance induced the resonant frequency. I haven't read enough about this topic to know whether there was any positive feedback, i.e. whether the movement of the building was affecting their Tae Bo workout (or other people in the building) which in turn amplified the tremors.
to the sound of the word 'bitcoin'. So I am claiming prior fart.
Quite... it's just N T-junctions off a small circular road. (Sometimes so small, there's no island, just a road marking.) How hard can it be?
But I loathe rotaries when there's a lot of traffic. You can sit there for a lot longer than you would at a red light.
In Britain, some busier roundabouts have part-time traffic lights for that very reason. (And, yes, the lights are used at busy times only... :)
Remember Ubuntu is ditching X11
Well, that would explain it! It would be a terrible decision to drop network transparency, unless they're just interested in converting Windows and Mac users...
For me, Ubuntu the wrong direction. Loss of the network transparent graphical environment was the final straw.
With future Ubuntu, are you saying that e.g. in a secure shell on another machine (ssh -Y me@othermachine) I can't run a graphical application using my X server? Perhaps I have misunderstood what you meant by network transparent. I thought any graphical environment was built on X11 and so just worked over the network...
Marty: Whoa, this is heavy.
Doc: There's that word again, heavy. Why are things so heavy in the future? Is there a problem with the Earth's gravitational pull?
Better to be prepared...
(Based on my highly limited knowledge of the subject) it enables observations about the earth to be compensated for non-uniform gravitational pull, so you can get a better idea of what is really happening and stand a better chance of explaining why. For example, now we know where water is effectively flowing uphill and downhill, we can better estimate the actual ocean current forces from the observed currents, so start to guess at what is causing them.
I suspect that these auto-driving systems would only have a simplified view of the world, increasing the scope for misinterpretation and making invalid assumptions about what it 'sees'. (What the computer thought was a leaf blowing in the wind turned out to be the flag of a recumbent cyclist...) The more controlled the environment becomes, the more you can safely make assumptions about what your sensors tell you. (For example, consider the atmosphere and systems used in aeroplanes.) I suspect safety cases for auto-driven systems would lead to separation of auto-driven traffic so that assumptions that a computer makes are valid. (Perhaps it would be ok to mix modes of transport if e.g. cyclists had electronic beacons to identify themselves to the sensors on cars.)
We're all individuals and safety is handled rationally by individuals! Even if the overall number of people dying would go down, when I devolve my safety to a machine like an autopilot, I want to make sure that I am just as safe as when I drive myself. That fact that I am safer than hundreds of thousands of other people is no consolation and irrelevant to me. An argument about the benefit to the masses may hold for e.g. ants but is likely to fall down for people. Of course, people always have an irrational view that nothing could possibly be a better driver than themselves...
but to really foul things up beyond your worst nightmares, you need a computer driving a car.
for the +1 operator: succ. It's unfortunate that we feel the need to verbize everything these days because I just wouldn't feel right succing people because they're succing me, in a sort of mutual succing arrangement, just so we feel better about ourselves.