We've done the "shooting the card sideways" shot just recently.
What, MIT has guns in school? How come the Mass. legislature lets that continue? Don't they know that some deranged engineer might climb into the clock tower and start picking off his fellow students?
This would be great. As an amployer, I'd no longer have to worry whether I was hiring someone with a congenital predisposition to, say, Tay-Sachs; I could just call up the DNA registry. My health insurance premiums will plummet. And when they finally figure out the gene responsible for being gay, I could keep those weepy flamers out too ('course, I'd have to make some other excuse since that sort of discrimination doesn't play well these days). And I'll just bet that there's a gene in there that makes one susceptible to alcoholism. Anyone having that won't be working at my place either, AA member or not.
Two articles on this subject in two days. What has you so scared? I think that once you have some children, you'll begin to see why some people are concerned with what they're exposed to. There are some horrific crimes being committed by children these days (a child of 5 thrown to his death from a high window by two other children because he wasn't willing to steal for them; a girl of 12 clubbing an elderly neighbor to death just because she wanted to see what it was like to kill someone; Columbine), and it's natural to wonder what might be behind it. And I don't think that it's necessarily a bad thing to examine all possible causes, including the net, violent games, violent movies and television, etc. I don't advocate indiscriminate banning of any of these, but a thoughtful process of study to determine their real effects would be smart. We've come to the justifiable conclusion that trying to keep alcohol and tobacco away from children is a good idea, and it's entirely possible that it might also be a good idea in the case of other things as well. Simply dismissing the notion out of hand is not going to improve the situation. Let's try to do something that might actually make sense.
I'll remind you that it was the present administration, with Al Gore's vocal approval, that signed into law the Child Online Protection Act, later found unconstitutional. After it was overturned, the Clinton administration said it wanted to enact a new law that would pass muster with the Supreme Court. Plenty of Democrats in Congress voted in favor of that bill. Even more recently, Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman has threatened the movie industry with legislation if it doesn't do more to keep its more violent/sexy material away from young people. Blaming the net for social decay isn't an activity limited to Republicans, nor is the desire to censor what people see.
What if you need to let another person talk? The only thing that will make you look stupider than sticking your finger in your own ear is putting it in someone else's... I see from the article too that you're supposed to control the phone by making various finger taps. I forsee a sudden rise in gang violence as you inadvertently give a hostile gangsign in the wrong neighborhood... The picture in the article shows something that looks like it would knock you unscious if you happened to raise your hand to wipe your brow...
That sounds good, but I'd be afraid of getting sucked into the lawsuit the RIAA has brought. My feeling is that if Napster I loses in court, all of the other servers that have sprung up are going to start drawing fire. A university can probably get away with telling the RIAA to stick it with their demands that the schools cut off access to Napster, but running actual servers might be beyond the pale.
I heard some caller to a radio show this morning claim that this rumor came about as a result of a Canadian bill 602P that was real. Someone repackaged it as though it were happening in the U.S. This is the first that I've ever heard this part of the legend, so I thought I'd pass it along. The whole idea of taxing emails is so absurd that I have difficulty believing that any legislative body would actually entertain it, but this is Canada after all:-)
There is no true defense against company snoops. Even if you used a super-duper encrypted email package, the company can still install a keystroke monitor on their computer. The safest course is to forget using the company machine and get your own email-capable device like one of the new 'pagers' or an email-equipped cell phone. And don't have the company pay for it. Then if they want to read your emails they'll have to subpoena them.
This is what the citizens of California get for electing a bunch of wacko socialists to the legislature. These people think the Constitution is just so much toilet paper when it gets in the way of achieving their utopian vision for us. If Governor Davis is dumb enough to sign this nonsense into law, I predict it'll be overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, assuming that it even makes it that far. Meanwhile, consider this just another indicator of how little these dolts value free speech.
The U.S. shares much of its recon data with its major allies like the UK, Australia, Germany, etc., so they're not about to do anything to jeopardize that relationship. In fact, systems like Echelon are joint efforts, so they'd be blowing up their own equipment. Besides, as I hear every so often by Statists regarding police searches, "if they're not doing anything wrong, why should they object if we surveille their every move?" (In case it isn't obvious, this is SARCASM (a registered tm of Microsoft)).
Having manners and taking responsibility for one's own actions is not brown-nosing. I couldn't care less if I get 'credit' or not; SlashDot can accept or reject my submissions as they please.
One interesting facet of this episode is how many people are ready to complain their asses off that a free service isn't being run satisfactorily. If you don't like it, tough.
You're absolutely right. Why don't you create a competing service and run it to your liking? Clearly you're someone who never makes mistakes, so it would be great, I'm sure.
Dallas Morning News president: People just love that CueCat!
"Our market research shows consumers love this product and can't wait to use it at home," says Robert W. Mong Jr., president and general manager of The Dallas Morning News. "I find that very reassuring." He should; his paper's parent has invested $40 million in the company making the device.
From RENEE HOPKINS: "You may have noticed that the Dallas Morning News':CueCat artice carries no byline, only the cryptic 'from staff reports.' That tells me that my former DMN coworkers didn't want anyone's name associated with this biased puff piece. If the DMN staffers had been allowed to actually report on the OTHER side of the story -- that the:CueCat has so far received negative reviews for being a fairly useless and hard-to-use piece of technology -- the story would have been bylined."
Any time you get big changes, you get big resistance. As Machiavelli noted in The Prince, "There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new."
I maintain that there are plenty of neo-Luddites out there, from the followers of Ralph Nader, to the labor unions who oppose the WTO, to the Clinton administration banning work on human cloning, to the evangelicals who would like to see all childhood instruction on morality and sex done within the family. These groups are reacting to change by attempting to drag things back to the way they were. It's not only natural, it's expected.
People in the US may compile it and play with it at home, but no commercial or noncommercial entity will be able to use it publicly.
Perhaps it will evolve in the way another package did in regard to strong encryption. (sorry, it's been a while so I don't recall exactly which one. Maybe Eudora.) You bought the main app, installed it, then the strong encryption was installed to it via the net from another country. It was designed that way to get around the U.S. restrictions on export of strong crypto, and allowed the package to be exported without violating U.S. laws. I can see the same sort of scheme evolving here.
The best part of this article is the MS reps argument about why this isn't spam "The e-mail you received was an invitation from MSN Explorer, sent on behalf of an existing user who changed their e-mail address and wants you to try MSN Explorer."
This reminds me of Microsoft's response when I pointed out a problem with one of their C++ libraries: "It isn't a bug. It's a limitation." That slogan was my.sig for years.
Wow. The HOWTO contained a link to a summary of crypto law thruout the world. Quite a resource, and definitely something that anyone contemplating this technique ought to be aware of. Here's the link.
Either that or go join some random right-wing kook group with their typical habit of making bald assertions that they have no clue about.
Yes, those kooky right-winger cut-ups. With their assertions about being the inspiration of Love Story, their mothers-in-law paying more for health care than their dogs, being lulled to sleep at age 27 by the "Look for the Union Label" song, and Clinton being the one of our "greatest Presidents." What a bunch of idiots.
The US government is corrupt BEYOND redemption. Instead of looking to the Constitution to reform it, we should write a NEW constitution that... blah blah blah.
Which, by your thesis, will also be ignored. If 'they' are using the original one for toilet paper, what's going to make 'them' respect a new one? If a new constitution is enforceable, why don't we just enforce the one we have?
If you reread my post, you'll see that I didn't say what the referenced material said. It was background info, since the questioner clearly hadn't heard of this story when it first came up, and asked for evidence for or against.
This is a hard story to believe. If there are backdoors, then there has to be a way for the NSA to transfer the information gleaned. Surely someone would have noticed activity like this. RealAudio certainly didn't get away with it for long. Not to mention the likelihood that someone in one of the companies is going to notice and talk. His hedging language ("may have backdoors"), means he has no direct knowledge. If that's the game, I can warn of lots of things the NSA "may" be doing as well. Did you know that the NSA may be secretly running SlashDot? (And apparently deliberately botching the job...)
Slashdot Mirror
What, MIT has guns in school? How come the Mass. legislature lets that continue? Don't they know that some deranged engineer might climb into the clock tower and start picking off his fellow students?
</SARCASM>
This would be great. As an amployer, I'd no longer have to worry whether I was hiring someone with a congenital predisposition to, say, Tay-Sachs; I could just call up the DNA registry. My health insurance premiums will plummet. And when they finally figure out the gene responsible for being gay, I could keep those weepy flamers out too ('course, I'd have to make some other excuse since that sort of discrimination doesn't play well these days). And I'll just bet that there's a gene in there that makes one susceptible to alcoholism. Anyone having that won't be working at my place either, AA member or not.
Two articles on this subject in two days. What has you so scared? I think that once you have some children, you'll begin to see why some people are concerned with what they're exposed to. There are some horrific crimes being committed by children these days (a child of 5 thrown to his death from a high window by two other children because he wasn't willing to steal for them; a girl of 12 clubbing an elderly neighbor to death just because she wanted to see what it was like to kill someone; Columbine), and it's natural to wonder what might be behind it. And I don't think that it's necessarily a bad thing to examine all possible causes, including the net, violent games, violent movies and television, etc. I don't advocate indiscriminate banning of any of these, but a thoughtful process of study to determine their real effects would be smart. We've come to the justifiable conclusion that trying to keep alcohol and tobacco away from children is a good idea, and it's entirely possible that it might also be a good idea in the case of other things as well. Simply dismissing the notion out of hand is not going to improve the situation. Let's try to do something that might actually make sense.
I'll remind you that it was the present administration, with Al Gore's vocal approval, that signed into law the Child Online Protection Act, later found unconstitutional. After it was overturned, the Clinton administration said it wanted to enact a new law that would pass muster with the Supreme Court. Plenty of Democrats in Congress voted in favor of that bill. Even more recently, Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman has threatened the movie industry with legislation if it doesn't do more to keep its more violent/sexy material away from young people. Blaming the net for social decay isn't an activity limited to Republicans, nor is the desire to censor what people see.
What if you need to let another person talk? The only thing that will make you look stupider than sticking your finger in your own ear is putting it in someone else's ... I see from the article too that you're supposed to control the phone by making various finger taps. I forsee a sudden rise in gang violence as you inadvertently give a hostile gangsign in the wrong neighborhood ... The picture in the article shows something that looks like it would knock you unscious if you happened to raise your hand to wipe your brow ...
That sounds good, but I'd be afraid of getting sucked into the lawsuit the RIAA has brought. My feeling is that if Napster I loses in court, all of the other servers that have sprung up are going to start drawing fire. A university can probably get away with telling the RIAA to stick it with their demands that the schools cut off access to Napster, but running actual servers might be beyond the pale.
I heard some caller to a radio show this morning claim that this rumor came about as a result of a Canadian bill 602P that was real. Someone repackaged it as though it were happening in the U.S. This is the first that I've ever heard this part of the legend, so I thought I'd pass it along. The whole idea of taxing emails is so absurd that I have difficulty believing that any legislative body would actually entertain it, but this is Canada after all :-)
There is no true defense against company snoops. Even if you used a super-duper encrypted email package, the company can still install a keystroke monitor on their computer. The safest course is to forget using the company machine and get your own email-capable device like one of the new 'pagers' or an email-equipped cell phone. And don't have the company pay for it. Then if they want to read your emails they'll have to subpoena them.
This is what the citizens of California get for electing a bunch of wacko socialists to the legislature. These people think the Constitution is just so much toilet paper when it gets in the way of achieving their utopian vision for us. If Governor Davis is dumb enough to sign this nonsense into law, I predict it'll be overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, assuming that it even makes it that far. Meanwhile, consider this just another indicator of how little these dolts value free speech.
The U.S. shares much of its recon data with its major allies like the UK, Australia, Germany, etc., so they're not about to do anything to jeopardize that relationship. In fact, systems like Echelon are joint efforts, so they'd be blowing up their own equipment. Besides, as I hear every so often by Statists regarding police searches, "if they're not doing anything wrong, why should they object if we surveille their every move?" (In case it isn't obvious, this is SARCASM (a registered tm of Microsoft)).
Wham! Wham! Wham! Wham! Wham! We Wham! Really Wham! Chuckle Wham! When Wham! You Wham! Mischevious Wham! Hackers Wham! Screw Wham! With Wham! Our Wham! Product. Wham! Wham! Wham! Wham! Wham! Wham! Wham! Wham! Wham! Wham! Wham! Wham! Wham! Wham! Wham! Wham! Wham! Wham! Wham! Wham! Wham! Wham! Wham! Wham! Wham!
Apropos of nothing (I hope), take a look here.
Why is Red Herring running the identical article as salon.com (here). I wasn't aware that these companies had a relationship.
One interesting facet of this episode is how many people are ready to complain their asses off that a free service isn't being run satisfactorily. If you don't like it, tough.
Have a nice day. (Just kidding).
You're absolutely right. Why don't you create a competing service and run it to your liking? Clearly you're someone who never makes mistakes, so it would be great, I'm sure.
Dallas Morning News president: People just love that CueCat! :CueCat artice carries no byline, only the cryptic 'from staff reports.' That tells me that my former DMN coworkers didn't want anyone's name associated with this biased puff piece. If the DMN staffers had been allowed to actually report on the OTHER side of the story -- that the :CueCat has so far received negative reviews for being a fairly useless and hard-to-use piece of technology -- the story would have been bylined."
"Our market research shows consumers love this product and can't wait to use it at home," says Robert W. Mong Jr., president and general manager of The Dallas Morning News. "I find that very reassuring." He should; his paper's parent has invested $40 million in the company making the device.
From RENEE HOPKINS: "You may have noticed that the Dallas Morning News'
I maintain that there are plenty of neo-Luddites out there, from the followers of Ralph Nader, to the labor unions who oppose the WTO, to the Clinton administration banning work on human cloning, to the evangelicals who would like to see all childhood instruction on morality and sex done within the family. These groups are reacting to change by attempting to drag things back to the way they were. It's not only natural, it's expected.
Perhaps it will evolve in the way another package did in regard to strong encryption. (sorry, it's been a while so I don't recall exactly which one. Maybe Eudora.) You bought the main app, installed it, then the strong encryption was installed to it via the net from another country. It was designed that way to get around the U.S. restrictions on export of strong crypto, and allowed the package to be exported without violating U.S. laws. I can see the same sort of scheme evolving here.
This reminds me of Microsoft's response when I pointed out a problem with one of their C++ libraries: "It isn't a bug. It's a limitation." That slogan was my .sig for years.
Wow. The HOWTO contained a link to a summary of crypto law thruout the world. Quite a resource, and definitely something that anyone contemplating this technique ought to be aware of. Here's the link.
And my favorite: "Who are these guys?" while pointing at busts of the founders. Stupid right-wingers.
Yes, those kooky right-winger cut-ups. With their assertions about being the inspiration of Love Story, their mothers-in-law paying more for health care than their dogs, being lulled to sleep at age 27 by the "Look for the Union Label" song, and Clinton being the one of our "greatest Presidents." What a bunch of idiots.
Which, by your thesis, will also be ignored. If 'they' are using the original one for toilet paper, what's going to make 'them' respect a new one? If a new constitution is enforceable, why don't we just enforce the one we have?
If you reread my post, you'll see that I didn't say what the referenced material said. It was background info, since the questioner clearly hadn't heard of this story when it first came up, and asked for evidence for or against.
This is a hard story to believe. If there are backdoors, then there has to be a way for the NSA to transfer the information gleaned. Surely someone would have noticed activity like this. RealAudio certainly didn't get away with it for long. Not to mention the likelihood that someone in one of the companies is going to notice and talk. His hedging language ("may have backdoors"), means he has no direct knowledge. If that's the game, I can warn of lots of things the NSA "may" be doing as well. Did you know that the NSA may be secretly running SlashDot? (And apparently deliberately botching the job ...)