From the SomethingAwful take: Making money isn't bad. The pursuit of money isn't bad. Money isn't bad. Failing to question companies that prey on you is bad. Google doesn't care about you or me or the Internet as a whole, unless one or all of these things can somehow make them another dollar. They are just like every other company and should be treated as such. Microsoft receives strict scrutiny for every move they make, which is a damn good thing because it keeps their company in check. Google doesn't, and this is what led to the release of their Web Accelerator program. Bending over to worship at the feet of a company just gives them a better chance to step on your back and boost themselves higher. Google is just another Microsoft without the bad reputation.
I've never been a huge fan of LowTax, but he's got a very good point here. As you can see from their privacy statement: To enhance Google Web Accelerator's performance, Google temporarily caches cookies from third party sites that are used in your Web requests. For more information, please see our FAQ.
Common courtesy is not even in consideration here. There is absolutely no reason why they decided to cache your cookier other than because they can. Yes, caching a cookie might get them more info, but a server administrator that caches a cookie does so for a reason, and there is no legitimate reason why Google should be doing this as well.
Although, it might be safe to say that CMS and other web application developers should be designing their software to create UNIQUE cookies that are bound to semi-static variables, like IP, so that a third party organization like Google can't do this kind of crap.
The geek community as a whole needs to wake up and realize that Google is exploiting their unwaivering defense to step further and further into their privacy.
All that remains is for you to continue to trust Google and let the government "regulate" them to establish 1984. Then the government has your trust, and you won't dare humiliate yourself by switching into a Google basher. If you don't think the FBI and CIA are making log requests on a daily basis to Google (which it is happily providing), then you haven't been keeping up to date on current events.
Of note: 1) Google spokesman Nathan Tyler replied: "I cannot confirm whether they're using our technology." [Comment on the FBI involvement in Google]
2) From the empty Gmail trash window: "No conversations in the trash. Who needs to delete when you have over 2000 MB of storage?!" [Repeated inquiries to Google about the validity of the "purging" from the trash have went unanswered despite the fact that they still serve me ads about painkillers and my conversation with my roommate about his hospitalization has been purged for a month now]
3) From the Gmail privacy policy: "Google employees do not access the content of any mailboxes unless you specifically request them to do so (for example, if you are having technical difficulties accessing your account) or if required by law, to maintain our system, or to protect Google or the public." [#3: "to maintain our system" and #4: "to protect Google or the public" are so blatantly vague, you should be ashamed if you don't think they'd abuse it]
For a good history on jedi and sith, there is another page on the same site: http://www.jedipurge.com/
The reason I mention this? There is a bit of history about lightsaber development that is pretty intriguing, including a "yellow" saber that has the ability to "actually slice through any other light saber". Good stuff if you're willing to deal with a few spoilers (mostly events between Episode 2 & 3) to learn more about the history of the Jedi and Sith.
It gave me a new outlook on the prequels, and I'm finding that Phantom Menace really isn't as bad as I thought it was around 1999.
I agree. Which is why I find evolution being purported as "fact" as a problem. Students should be aware of both evolution and ID and the FLAWS inherent in both of them. For example, let's take your argument, "examination" and apply it to evolution:
1) Where in animal evolution did the eye develop? All "animals" have eyes, despite their functionality (deep sea fish, bats). Why such a rigid system?
2) Where are the fossils of non-vertebrate to vertebrate creatures? We don't have any conclusive evidence that a living organism ever evolved a vertebrate.
3) Where did gender come into play? What species first developed both male and female reproductive systems and then spawned off creatures with only one or the other?
4) When did we evolve from chemicals to bacteria? More importantly, why hasn't this been observed in a lab?
Micro-evolution is what is commonly accepted and should be taught, but where did macro-evolution come from, and why shouldn't valid alternatives be proposed with the condition that NONE currently meet the requirement of being proven scientifically?
This affects a lot of consumers. I wonder what the involvement of each individual retailer was? Well, here's what Dell did. My guess is that most just paid up, or took Dell's route and closed certain models and re-released. It looks like Apple actually raised the price of a few models to compensate.
A good deal of them actually just side-stepped the companies altogether after some time. A few million is pocket change to a company like Hynix with a market cap of 5.8 billion. They'll just release a few hundred thousand new shares or so. Doesn't look like their stock price has been affected at all. Up 4.99% today.
Oh ok, so the court costs taking a huge chunk of the 185 million isn't going to the government, who enforces the DMCA. I get it. The original poster asked where the money is going to go, and I answered the question for him. It'll go to a ton of places, DMCA enforcement being one of them. Is that really all that hard to believe?
Enforcing DMCA litigation in San Francisco. What?!? Did you really think the government would give it back to you?
Of the 185 million, half goes to the court costs on the part of the government (92.5 million). Half of that goes to lawyers (46 million). Half of that goes to the expert witnesses (23 million). Half of that goes to the "betterment of society" committee, that takes a look at how RAM prices affect San Francisco's children (11 million).
Another half gets lost in the bureaucratic mix (6 million). Half of that goes to fun a failed municipal wireless project (3 million). And the other 3 million goes back to the good citizen's of San Francisco in the form of a park or statue or something else people can look at and talk proudly of how their government provides them with so much.
Just makes you damn proud to be an American, doesn't it? I know I am!
It was like RAM was a commodity. I was buying RAM on huge price drops on Pricewatch and selling a few sticks a couple months later when the price ran back up on Ebay. It was great. I wasn't aware that it was just a Korean issue though, I thought some Hong Kong and Taiwan companies were involved.
I understand what you're saying with #1, but my argument is one of convention. When you're thinking along the lines of a giant like MS, the developers WANT users to ditch old versions like yesterdays news.
And yes, I do realize the #2 reason you stated was the intended purpose for the long term, but it does seem like additional work just to justify remaining compatible with old versions. Especially when MS is likely to drop support for older versions quicker than usual once Longhorn comes out.
It's not that he's given up fighting Linux, it's just that they are trying to make the best possible product, and what good is VirtualServer 2005 if it doesn't support *nix? Seriously, what other operating system are you going to run on x86 that isn't open source or a derivative of the "communist" OS?
No one has the leads that the military does. I'm just saying that extraordinary "hackers" such as the military may claim to have could probably do such a feat.
al-Qaeda, and I'll explain why in two parts below:
The entirety of Terrorist networks is based on communication. They HAVE no structure otherwise. If you take away their ability to communicate, they lose the entire system in one fell swoop.
So, if you hack the system that stores the GPS coordinates and communication methods for contacting the Osama bin Laden's of the group, you destroy the entire organization. If you're measuring "most to lose" by which group is entirely routed out, the answer is always going to be al-Qaeda.
The second part of the equation is the actual impact a hacker can have on the US, China, etc. Hackers have already compromised US computers. The stories show up in the press and then they die just as fast. Or the military keeps quiet about them.
I probe for fun, testing web application security and trying to compromise my own PHP coded apps from time to time. One individual, like myself, is never going to be able to do anything more than perhaps compromise a few.mil domains and take a network out for a day. Perhaps I can get a PGP (used as comparison) private key or two. The US military is NOT going to go down over something as insignificant as that.
However, suppose I compromise two private keys for al-Queda staff? And I fake reports/messages? Or suppose I introduce new recruits into the organization? There's a great deal of trust in a very small group, it may not take more than a week for me (one person using the private key of someone else) to find the Osama bin Laden's of the world.
Keep in mind that these terrorist organizations don't have the luxury of a "recruit.com" and "securenetwork.mil". Instead, they have a lot of their "join us" propaganda run by individuals that are maybe once removed from the guys calling the shots.
Why hasn't Congress passed a bill to force Paramount to keep Enterprise alive!?
Because Paramount said that one time Enterprise told it that it wanted to die if it was ever as dull as it is now. And since Paramount is Enterprise's "BFF" (Best Friend Forever), this is a very serious situation.
get a free PSP
I think I might question your motives for pulling the plug on Enterprise though, Paramount.
(Note: If you have not seen the South Park episode 4 of season 9, none of my comment will make any sense. If you have, you'll realize just how hilarious the parent's comment and sig really are.)
Officer: Captain! A group of geeks and Canadians are so willing to help our fledgling Enterprise that they have expressed interest in even helping to pay for our ship's repairs!
Captain: Excellent! Bring them aboard, make them Ensigns, then set course for Romulus! Warp 9!
lol, I love "On the Road"! Well, I take that back cause I never read the whole thing. But his descriptions of events and travelogues in general fascinate me. It's the book that defines the beatniks, so your parents must have loved the free life that existed then.
No, I'm not criticizing Cryptonomicon. I said I haven't read it so I can't speak about it. But Neuromancer is ALWAYS mentioned as some SF masterpiece when the story itself wasn't good, but the world and environment were.
I just don't see what the hoopla is. I keep seeing Neuromancer mentioned in geek circles as if it's on the level of Foundation, Mote in God's Eye, Stranger in a Strange Land, and other Science Fiction novels. It's a REALLY bad story, but beautiful world and environment.
I hope Gibson has improved since, but no part of me cares to read anymore of his work to find out.
Actually I hate the people that talk loudly after watching the movie like they are arrogant too. But I keep seeing Neuromancer mentioned in geek circles as if it's on the level of Foundation, Mote in God's Eye, Stranger in a Strange Land, and other Science Fiction novels. It's a REALLY bad story. I hope Gibson has improved since, but no part of me cares to read anymore to find out.
2. NSLookup, Whois, etc. I even go so far as to use GeoIP to get city, state, ISP, etc. Get email addresses to send to.
3. Look for open proxies on the address in the case of SPAM. If so, just drop the search there.
4. Nessus check for potential vulns that might have been exploited by common/known worms. Essentially, find how they were exploited, and if there is no known reason, assume they are malicious.
5. Take necessary actions to blacklist or block the IP on the offending protocol, or in some rare cases, kill the IP altogether. (rarer cases, the subnet)
6. Google. You'd be amazed at what I can do here. I put in the direct IP, I put in email addresses I've collected to find out where the person posts, etc. I get to know the individual, who they are, and further deduce if they are malicious. I used to even go so far as to imiate someone of the opposite sex their age and talk to them on their favorite IM and ask them if they are a h4x0r and can help me "get back at my brother, the bully at school, the girl that stole my boyfriend" etc. (never assume the gender of a/. poster)
7. Email at a minimum 5 people, including Incident Response (https://forms.us-cert.gov/report/), the offending ISP, any emails off of the website of the IP in question, etc. Half the emails I CC just so that the individuals take the email seriously. Occasionally these will contain logs, IM logs, who the person is, what they do in their spare time, what forums they visit, their picture (if any) and etc. I do this from a TOR-accessed Hushmail account, so no one knows who the hell it is. One time I sent the email to the offender's mother. He sure thanked me with some profanities on that one (which were subsequently forwarded to his mother).
There's ways of "attacking back" in such a way that script kiddies die out, but you have to totally overwhelm them with your sheer capability to outsmart them.
Let's face it, we're all guilty of being lax in our network activity and leave IP trails on logs that Google indexes. It makes no sense to sit back and complain about script kiddies when it's quite obvious that we're unwilling to take them to task when they probe. The information is there, you just gotta do some digging and learn how to use Google's Advanced features. It's important to make your response to their actions overwhelming, so they are never tempted to turn back to random probing again.
Slashdot Mirror
From the SomethingAwful take:
Making money isn't bad. The pursuit of money isn't bad. Money isn't bad. Failing to question companies that prey on you is bad. Google doesn't care about you or me or the Internet as a whole, unless one or all of these things can somehow make them another dollar. They are just like every other company and should be treated as such. Microsoft receives strict scrutiny for every move they make, which is a damn good thing because it keeps their company in check. Google doesn't, and this is what led to the release of their Web Accelerator program. Bending over to worship at the feet of a company just gives them a better chance to step on your back and boost themselves higher. Google is just another Microsoft without the bad reputation.
I've never been a huge fan of LowTax, but he's got a very good point here. As you can see from their privacy statement:
To enhance Google Web Accelerator's performance, Google temporarily caches cookies from third party sites that are used in your Web requests. For more information, please see our FAQ.
Common courtesy is not even in consideration here. There is absolutely no reason why they decided to cache your cookier other than because they can. Yes, caching a cookie might get them more info, but a server administrator that caches a cookie does so for a reason, and there is no legitimate reason why Google should be doing this as well.
Although, it might be safe to say that CMS and other web application developers should be designing their software to create UNIQUE cookies that are bound to semi-static variables, like IP, so that a third party organization like Google can't do this kind of crap.
The geek community as a whole needs to wake up and realize that Google is exploiting their unwaivering defense to step further and further into their privacy.
All that remains is for you to continue to trust Google and let the government "regulate" them to establish 1984. Then the government has your trust, and you won't dare humiliate yourself by switching into a Google basher. If you don't think the FBI and CIA are making log requests on a daily basis to Google (which it is happily providing), then you haven't been keeping up to date on current events.
Of note:
1) Google spokesman Nathan Tyler replied: "I cannot confirm whether they're using our technology." [Comment on the FBI involvement in Google]
2) From the empty Gmail trash window: "No conversations in the trash. Who needs to delete when you have over 2000 MB of storage?!" [Repeated inquiries to Google about the validity of the "purging" from the trash have went unanswered despite the fact that they still serve me ads about painkillers and my conversation with my roommate about his hospitalization has been purged for a month now]
3) From the Gmail privacy policy: "Google employees do not access the content of any mailboxes unless you specifically request them to do so (for example, if you are having technical difficulties accessing your account) or if required by law, to maintain our system, or to protect Google or the public." [#3: "to maintain our system" and #4: "to protect Google or the public" are so blatantly vague, you should be ashamed if you don't think they'd abuse it]
WARNING: SPOILERS
l ers.html
http://www.supershadow.com/starwars/episode3/spoi
For a good history on jedi and sith, there is another page on the same site:
http://www.jedipurge.com/
The reason I mention this? There is a bit of history about lightsaber development that is pretty intriguing, including a "yellow" saber that has the ability to "actually slice through any other light saber". Good stuff if you're willing to deal with a few spoilers (mostly events between Episode 2 & 3) to learn more about the history of the Jedi and Sith.
It gave me a new outlook on the prequels, and I'm finding that Phantom Menace really isn't as bad as I thought it was around 1999.
I agree. Which is why I find evolution being purported as "fact" as a problem. Students should be aware of both evolution and ID and the FLAWS inherent in both of them. For example, let's take your argument, "examination" and apply it to evolution:
1) Where in animal evolution did the eye develop? All "animals" have eyes, despite their functionality (deep sea fish, bats). Why such a rigid system?
2) Where are the fossils of non-vertebrate to vertebrate creatures? We don't have any conclusive evidence that a living organism ever evolved a vertebrate.
3) Where did gender come into play? What species first developed both male and female reproductive systems and then spawned off creatures with only one or the other?
4) When did we evolve from chemicals to bacteria? More importantly, why hasn't this been observed in a lab?
Micro-evolution is what is commonly accepted and should be taught, but where did macro-evolution come from, and why shouldn't valid alternatives be proposed with the condition that NONE currently meet the requirement of being proven scientifically?
Reminds me of a bash.org IRC quote:
Zanthis(ALE): AFK, tornado
Has a whole other meaning in this context.
Who came up with the names for the parts of the brain? Basal Ganglia, Medulla Oblongata, Corpus Callosum, etc? Sounds like characters from a D&D game.
No problem. I see what you're saying now that I re-read it. Sorry for any confusion.
This affects a lot of consumers. I wonder what the involvement of each individual retailer was?
Well, here's what Dell did. My guess is that most just paid up, or took Dell's route and closed certain models and re-released. It looks like Apple actually raised the price of a few models to compensate.
A good deal of them actually just side-stepped the companies altogether after some time. A few million is pocket change to a company like Hynix with a market cap of 5.8 billion. They'll just release a few hundred thousand new shares or so. Doesn't look like their stock price has been affected at all. Up 4.99% today.
Oh ok, so the court costs taking a huge chunk of the 185 million isn't going to the government, who enforces the DMCA. I get it. The original poster asked where the money is going to go, and I answered the question for him. It'll go to a ton of places, DMCA enforcement being one of them. Is that really all that hard to believe?
Enforcing DMCA litigation in San Francisco. What?!? Did you really think the government would give it back to you?
Of the 185 million, half goes to the court costs on the part of the government (92.5 million). Half of that goes to lawyers (46 million). Half of that goes to the expert witnesses (23 million). Half of that goes to the "betterment of society" committee, that takes a look at how RAM prices affect San Francisco's children (11 million).
Another half gets lost in the bureaucratic mix (6 million). Half of that goes to fun a failed municipal wireless project (3 million). And the other 3 million goes back to the good citizen's of San Francisco in the form of a park or statue or something else people can look at and talk proudly of how their government provides them with so much.
Just makes you damn proud to be an American, doesn't it? I know I am!
$185 bucks says that $185 million will go towards funding DMCA litigation in San Francisco.
It was like RAM was a commodity. I was buying RAM on huge price drops on Pricewatch and selling a few sticks a couple months later when the price ran back up on Ebay. It was great. I wasn't aware that it was just a Korean issue though, I thought some Hong Kong and Taiwan companies were involved.
Following links have more info:
http://tinyurl.com/8umy3
http://tinyurl.com/b4k7m
I understand what you're saying with #1, but my argument is one of convention. When you're thinking along the lines of a giant like MS, the developers WANT users to ditch old versions like yesterdays news.
And yes, I do realize the #2 reason you stated was the intended purpose for the long term, but it does seem like additional work just to justify remaining compatible with old versions. Especially when MS is likely to drop support for older versions quicker than usual once Longhorn comes out.
Just something to think about.
It's not that he's given up fighting Linux, it's just that they are trying to make the best possible product, and what good is VirtualServer 2005 if it doesn't support *nix? Seriously, what other operating system are you going to run on x86 that isn't open source or a derivative of the "communist" OS?
No one has the leads that the military does. I'm just saying that extraordinary "hackers" such as the military may claim to have could probably do such a feat.
al-Qaeda, and I'll explain why in two parts below:
.mil domains and take a network out for a day. Perhaps I can get a PGP (used as comparison) private key or two. The US military is NOT going to go down over something as insignificant as that.
The entirety of Terrorist networks is based on communication. They HAVE no structure otherwise. If you take away their ability to communicate, they lose the entire system in one fell swoop.
So, if you hack the system that stores the GPS coordinates and communication methods for contacting the Osama bin Laden's of the group, you destroy the entire organization. If you're measuring "most to lose" by which group is entirely routed out, the answer is always going to be al-Qaeda.
The second part of the equation is the actual impact a hacker can have on the US, China, etc. Hackers have already compromised US computers. The stories show up in the press and then they die just as fast. Or the military keeps quiet about them.
I probe for fun, testing web application security and trying to compromise my own PHP coded apps from time to time. One individual, like myself, is never going to be able to do anything more than perhaps compromise a few
However, suppose I compromise two private keys for al-Queda staff? And I fake reports/messages? Or suppose I introduce new recruits into the organization? There's a great deal of trust in a very small group, it may not take more than a week for me (one person using the private key of someone else) to find the Osama bin Laden's of the world.
Keep in mind that these terrorist organizations don't have the luxury of a "recruit.com" and "securenetwork.mil". Instead, they have a lot of their "join us" propaganda run by individuals that are maybe once removed from the guys calling the shots.
Look at it this way: Dreamweaver is considered to be about the best commercial HTML editor out there.
NOTEPAD.EXE is the most used HTML editor, I'd have to disagree with your sentiments above.
No offense, but you're a sucker for shopping at Best Buy when you can use Pricewatch instead.
Why hasn't Congress passed a bill to force Paramount to keep Enterprise alive!?
Because Paramount said that one time Enterprise told it that it wanted to die if it was ever as dull as it is now. And since Paramount is Enterprise's "BFF" (Best Friend Forever), this is a very serious situation.
get a free PSP
I think I might question your motives for pulling the plug on Enterprise though, Paramount.
(Note: If you have not seen the South Park episode 4 of season 9, none of my comment will make any sense. If you have, you'll realize just how hilarious the parent's comment and sig really are.)
Officer: Captain! A group of geeks and Canadians are so willing to help our fledgling Enterprise that they have expressed interest in even helping to pay for our ship's repairs!
Captain: Excellent! Bring them aboard, make them Ensigns, then set course for Romulus! Warp 9!
lol, I love "On the Road"! Well, I take that back cause I never read the whole thing. But his descriptions of events and travelogues in general fascinate me. It's the book that defines the beatniks, so your parents must have loved the free life that existed then.
No, I'm not criticizing Cryptonomicon. I said I haven't read it so I can't speak about it. But Neuromancer is ALWAYS mentioned as some SF masterpiece when the story itself wasn't good, but the world and environment were.
And your username would indicate so. :)
I just don't see what the hoopla is. I keep seeing Neuromancer mentioned in geek circles as if it's on the level of Foundation, Mote in God's Eye, Stranger in a Strange Land, and other Science Fiction novels. It's a REALLY bad story, but beautiful world and environment.
I hope Gibson has improved since, but no part of me cares to read anymore of his work to find out.
Actually I hate the people that talk loudly after watching the movie like they are arrogant too. But I keep seeing Neuromancer mentioned in geek circles as if it's on the level of Foundation, Mote in God's Eye, Stranger in a Strange Land, and other Science Fiction novels. It's a REALLY bad story. I hope Gibson has improved since, but no part of me cares to read anymore to find out.
Awesome, thanks! I was also told to read Snowcrash for good SF.
In order (somewhat):
/. poster)
1. NMAP the offender.
2. NSLookup, Whois, etc. I even go so far as to use GeoIP to get city, state, ISP, etc. Get email addresses to send to.
3. Look for open proxies on the address in the case of SPAM. If so, just drop the search there.
4. Nessus check for potential vulns that might have been exploited by common/known worms. Essentially, find how they were exploited, and if there is no known reason, assume they are malicious.
5. Take necessary actions to blacklist or block the IP on the offending protocol, or in some rare cases, kill the IP altogether. (rarer cases, the subnet)
6. Google. You'd be amazed at what I can do here. I put in the direct IP, I put in email addresses I've collected to find out where the person posts, etc. I get to know the individual, who they are, and further deduce if they are malicious. I used to even go so far as to imiate someone of the opposite sex their age and talk to them on their favorite IM and ask them if they are a h4x0r and can help me "get back at my brother, the bully at school, the girl that stole my boyfriend" etc. (never assume the gender of a
7. Email at a minimum 5 people, including Incident Response (https://forms.us-cert.gov/report/), the offending ISP, any emails off of the website of the IP in question, etc. Half the emails I CC just so that the individuals take the email seriously. Occasionally these will contain logs, IM logs, who the person is, what they do in their spare time, what forums they visit, their picture (if any) and etc. I do this from a TOR-accessed Hushmail account, so no one knows who the hell it is. One time I sent the email to the offender's mother. He sure thanked me with some profanities on that one (which were subsequently forwarded to his mother).
There's ways of "attacking back" in such a way that script kiddies die out, but you have to totally overwhelm them with your sheer capability to outsmart them.
Let's face it, we're all guilty of being lax in our network activity and leave IP trails on logs that Google indexes. It makes no sense to sit back and complain about script kiddies when it's quite obvious that we're unwilling to take them to task when they probe. The information is there, you just gotta do some digging and learn how to use Google's Advanced features. It's important to make your response to their actions overwhelming, so they are never tempted to turn back to random probing again.