FTA: "As we explored different approaches for opting-out access points from the Google Location Server, we found that a method based on wireless network names provides the right balance of simplicity as well as protection against abuse. Specifically, this approach helps protect against others opting out your access point without your permission."
Obviously, allowing anyone to enter any MAC address into a web field doesn't work. You'd have to validate ownership of the MAC address. How would Google do that?
The fact that this approach would require initial radio-imaging (CT/MRI/PET) doesn't take away from its value. Most cancer patients have to have several rounds of CT/MRI/PET scans anyway. It's required to do the initial diagnosis/prognosis/staging/etc. So treating cancer in many cases is already about making this trade off. Radio-therapy (radiation) is a great example. You can kill off any remaining cancer cells, but you do so knowing there is a much greater probability for certain cancers down the road (particularly those cancers related to the thyroid).
The current model of Nexus S should work fine in the UK, since it has a GSM radio. I would second this recommendation. If you wanted to save a few bucks, you could also pick up a used Nexus One on swappa or ebay. Both Nexus phones are unlockable, meaning they are not locked to a specific carrier AND you can unlock the boatloader and install custom roms, radios, kernels, etc.
They may be referring to "Attachment B", which is quoted several times in comments below. I do agree though that subpoenaed users should expect notification based on Twitter's statements.
Well, let's take a closer look at this sentence from Attachment B:
1. records of user activity for any connections made to or from the Account, including the date, 1. time, length, and method of connections, data transfer volume, user name, and source and destination Internet Protocol address(es);
Assuming the "Account" refers to the named twitter users like Wikileaks, Julian Assange and Bradley Manning, the subpoena could be interpreted as requesting all information regarding all connections made to these accounts. This would most certainly include their 600,000+ followers, and could even include casual visitors to twitter.com/wikileaks, if Twitter keeps connection logs of this sort including the IP addresses.
Honestly, it's not clear cut. This overarching language seems vague enough that it will get argued by lawyers on both sides.
I'd agree were it not for the following http://twitter.com/wikileaks post yesterday: "WARNING all 637,000 @wikileaks followers are a target of US gov subpoena against Twitter, under section 2. B http://is.gd/koZIA" [redirect to PDF of the subpoena hosted on salon.com].
I once helped with a telescope installation project in New Mexico, and the rats were going to town on the wires (and leaving a huge mess on the inside of the telescope!) Acting on a tip from a local, we sealed all the entry points to the scope with steel wool, and moved all the exposed wire (which was outside of the scope, but inside of a dome with plenty of openings for little critters to get into) into pvc pipe, sealing off the ends of that as well. It made a huge difference!
Sycraft-fu has a very valid and insightful point. Complaints about this stuff on Internet forums can be incredibly misleading. People that don't have problems don't usually go out of their way to post about it. It's the small percentage of people with some esoteric issue that often seek out an audience on public forums. I'm not saying problems don't exist, but it's mostly a problem of perception.
Just as a point of reference, I have an nVidia 8800 GTS running in Vista without any problems. I haven't had a single lockup since installing Vista.
I'm not a huge gamer, but the games I have tried so far (WoW, Company of Heroes, Flight Sim X) are performing exceptionally well under Vista. I'm getting over 100 FPS in IronForge right now.;-)
"I don't know what you're talking about. I scrolled through the clips a load of times and didn't get one ad - just the rss feeds I subsribed to."
Well, consider yourself lucky... for now. The ads are there. They will say "Sponsored Link" on the right side instead of "Web Clip", but otherwise they are identical in appearance.
great, more ads
on
Gmail Gets RSS
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Another way to shove AdSense down our throats. So far, it seems like roughly 1 of every 3 clips is an advertisement.
Does anyone else find this totally unexciting? Thank god you can turn this feature off.
How easy is it for Bill Gates to say "our software doesn't have to be perfect, install a firewall, and install the patches we provide you? At the average rate of almost one patch per week for the past year! MS security bulletins
Easy, apparently. Bill has an army of minions around to patch his entire corporate network... probably an entire department specifically for applying software patches. Why would he care, just another business expense, not like MS can't afford it.
But try that on a small business budget, or a non-profit budget. I work at a mid size non-profit that has been around for 110 years. We are well-respected and well-funded, but our technology budget does not allow for the full time job required to patch all of our Win 9x/NT/200x/XP machines. So we get out of date on one freaking Outlook patch; an email comes through with an auto-executing vbscript that isn't blocked by Outlook; the virus then spreads through the unpatched RPC hole onto 10 other unpatched machines. You get the point. Even a perfect firewall is USELESS when your email client and OS are swiss cheese! And come on, you have to let some stuff through; take email for an example!
Firewalls and ever-constant patching are not the answer!
We need more QA (Quality Assurance, a.k.a., bug-testing) in the software industry, no doubt about it. The current trend in software is upgrade, upgrade, upgrade (which drives hardware in turn, and vice versa). That is the business model that currently pulls in the big $$$ for Microsoft and the other big industry leaders.
Problem is, they don't test anything, they just throw it out there, and then let US test it out for them. If we're lucky, we'll get the patch from MS, and install it, *before* the exploit comes out.
Slashdot Mirror
FTA: "As we explored different approaches for opting-out access points from the Google Location Server, we found that a method based on wireless network names provides the right balance of simplicity as well as protection against abuse. Specifically, this approach helps protect against others opting out your access point without your permission."
Obviously, allowing anyone to enter any MAC address into a web field doesn't work. You'd have to validate ownership of the MAC address. How would Google do that?
The backlash and negative PR actually had an effect.
The fact that this approach would require initial radio-imaging (CT/MRI/PET) doesn't take away from its value. Most cancer patients have to have several rounds of CT/MRI/PET scans anyway. It's required to do the initial diagnosis/prognosis/staging/etc. So treating cancer in many cases is already about making this trade off. Radio-therapy (radiation) is a great example. You can kill off any remaining cancer cells, but you do so knowing there is a much greater probability for certain cancers down the road (particularly those cancers related to the thyroid).
The current model of Nexus S should work fine in the UK, since it has a GSM radio. I would second this recommendation. If you wanted to save a few bucks, you could also pick up a used Nexus One on swappa or ebay. Both Nexus phones are unlockable, meaning they are not locked to a specific carrier AND you can unlock the boatloader and install custom roms, radios, kernels, etc.
They may be referring to "Attachment B", which is quoted several times in comments below. I do agree though that subpoenaed users should expect notification based on Twitter's statements.
Well, let's take a closer look at this sentence from Attachment B:
1. records of user activity for any connections made to or from the Account, including the date, 1. time, length, and method of connections, data transfer volume, user name, and source and destination Internet Protocol address(es);
Assuming the "Account" refers to the named twitter users like Wikileaks, Julian Assange and Bradley Manning, the subpoena could be interpreted as requesting all information regarding all connections made to these accounts. This would most certainly include their 600,000+ followers, and could even include casual visitors to twitter.com/wikileaks, if Twitter keeps connection logs of this sort including the IP addresses.
Honestly, it's not clear cut. This overarching language seems vague enough that it will get argued by lawyers on both sides.
I'd agree were it not for the following http://twitter.com/wikileaks post yesterday: "WARNING all 637,000 @wikileaks followers are a target of US gov subpoena against Twitter, under section 2. B http://is.gd/koZIA" [redirect to PDF of the subpoena hosted on salon.com].
you don't want "bra" results popping up when you're looking for information on "bran".
Speak for yourself!
+1 for steel wool.
I once helped with a telescope installation project in New Mexico, and the rats were going to town on the wires (and leaving a huge mess on the inside of the telescope!) Acting on a tip from a local, we sealed all the entry points to the scope with steel wool, and moved all the exposed wire (which was outside of the scope, but inside of a dome with plenty of openings for little critters to get into) into pvc pipe, sealing off the ends of that as well. It made a huge difference!
Sycraft-fu has a very valid and insightful point. Complaints about this stuff on Internet forums can be incredibly misleading. People that don't have problems don't usually go out of their way to post about it. It's the small percentage of people with some esoteric issue that often seek out an audience on public forums. I'm not saying problems don't exist, but it's mostly a problem of perception.
;-)
Just as a point of reference, I have an nVidia 8800 GTS running in Vista without any problems. I haven't had a single lockup since installing Vista.
I'm not a huge gamer, but the games I have tried so far (WoW, Company of Heroes, Flight Sim X) are performing exceptionally well under Vista. I'm getting over 100 FPS in IronForge right now.
"I don't know what you're talking about. I scrolled through the clips a load of times and didn't get one ad - just the rss feeds I subsribed to."
Well, consider yourself lucky... for now. The ads are there. They will say "Sponsored Link" on the right side instead of "Web Clip", but otherwise they are identical in appearance.
Another way to shove AdSense down our throats. So far, it seems like roughly 1 of every 3 clips is an advertisement.
Does anyone else find this totally unexciting? Thank god you can turn this feature off.
Easy, apparently. Bill has an army of minions around to patch his entire corporate network... probably an entire department specifically for applying software patches. Why would he care, just another business expense, not like MS can't afford it.
But try that on a small business budget, or a non-profit budget. I work at a mid size non-profit that has been around for 110 years. We are well-respected and well-funded, but our technology budget does not allow for the full time job required to patch all of our Win 9x/NT/200x/XP machines. So we get out of date on one freaking Outlook patch; an email comes through with an auto-executing vbscript that isn't blocked by Outlook; the virus then spreads through the unpatched RPC hole onto 10 other unpatched machines. You get the point. Even a perfect firewall is USELESS when your email client and OS are swiss cheese! And come on, you have to let some stuff through; take email for an example!
Firewalls and ever-constant patching are not the answer!
We need more QA (Quality Assurance, a.k.a., bug-testing) in the software industry, no doubt about it. The current trend in software is upgrade, upgrade, upgrade (which drives hardware in turn, and vice versa). That is the business model that currently pulls in the big $$$ for Microsoft and the other big industry leaders. Problem is, they don't test anything, they just throw it out there, and then let US test it out for them. If we're lucky, we'll get the patch from MS, and install it, *before* the exploit comes out.
Bill Gates, this is crap. Worst. Policy. Ever.