I think we can probably work things out here. All you have to do is make sure that the petition or initiative sponsor thinks that this is a good idea. Consider:
Pass a law that says that no matter where you get the names, there must be a formal presentation to the government. At this formal presentation, any citizen may challenge to keep the petition from the voters. This challenge may be overidden by the originator, if they can convince the government they are serious. Proof of serious intent is by cutting off and laying down one minor body part, say, a finger.
1. It proves that you are serious.
2. Your ability to sponsor petitions is self-limiting.
Not exactly the most delicate of methods, but should ideally suit folks in a country where the favored write-in name for an entire province was "Bob".
The reason that ribbon cables are flat is to preserve the phase relationships of multiple signals in a cable while at the same time reducing in-cable interference to a reasonable level. As speeds for data transfer become higher and higher, this becomes more and more important. Fortunately, most data transfers are now intelligent enough that error correction takes care of most of the glitches that used to stop systems in their tracks.
Rounding cables like this is a time-wasting method of destroying all that paid-for engineering. Try one of these instead:
1. Look in the Newark (or similar) catalog and buy one, for pity sake.
2. Take the long section (what you are most concerned with), carefully fold it up lengthwise, and slide it into a length of half-inch split loom tube (any good parts store for about fifteen cents).
Either of these will get you where you wanted to be, which was moving that cable out of the way. Also note that IDE and especially ATA cables must be cut to a certain length to avoid possible SWR problems. You might also look up the proper folding and routing of ribbon cables, which seems to be a lost art among PC manufacturers these days.
Most modern hard drives store the low-level volume data (track good/bad, compensation, timing info) in flash ram or eeprom on the printed circuit board.
There are known problems with using either of these technologies within a high radiation flux. Secondary scattering from the device case may produce particles that can effect flash ram, and soft xrays may be able to produce a similar effect to ultraviolet light that affects eeprom (or even eprom).
While these technologies are used in spacecraft and radiation area, I know that much effort is placed in shielding such (special "heavy metals free" plastic and ceramics for cases, special epoxies, different device packaging forms).
Magnetic flux densities used in hard drive with modern evaporated or plated media are fairly high, even though the power required is quite small due to the incredibly tiny spot size. This, plus the shielding of the case, plus distance fom magnetic source, makes it unlikely that the focus coils or power supply of an xray generator would have much of an effect.
I will have to start wondering about my Visor, though. Has anybody made any tests?
I'm sure this will get somebodies backing...
on
Smart Flying Robots
·
· Score: 2
"The robots' mission is to fly into a disaster area complete with fire, water and smoke hazards,"
Like a battlefield?
"to locate and avoid threats to itself, to find bodies, distinguish from survivors and the dead,"
So it can save ammunition?
"identify hazardous materials containers, determine if the container contents are radioactive, biohazardous, or explosive (by reading the labels),"
So it can identify vehicles which look like large metal containers, and to IFF by reading their markings?
"generate a detailed map of the disaster area, photograph the area, and return safely back to base."
Its really hard to get money to tap folks phone lines and read their mail (or listen to their microwaves, or watch their heat blooms, etc.)
We know that most of the threat is miles and miles off-shore from the continental US, but TERRORISTS could be anywhere, even in your own back yard
"{Knock knocK}"
"Yes, can I help you?"
"Uhm, well, me and the lads here, we're terrorists, you know, and we'd like to go into your back yard, 'cause we've noticed you've got a covered patio, like, and there is going to be a satellite pass real soon now, and we thought we could duck under there and get out of view for a few minutes."
"Well, all right, just shut the gate when you leave."
"Oh, thank you sir..."
As I was saying, they could be anywhere at all. So lets use them as an excuse and get some money so that we can get really good sat photos and intercept data. After all, I've played enough Command and Conquer to know how valuable that GDI satellite view is 8-).
Good question. The Outer Space Treaty of 1966 (67?) may have changed this.
A good place to look would be the American Society of International Law. I read a while back that they had opinions about how to legally arrest extraterrestrials.
Firstly, IANAL.
I have been involved with the sat industry for some time, and as I recall, the sovereign boundaries of nations are defined by both treaty and precedent as conic solid stretching from the center of the earth, through the boundary of the country, off into infinity, more or less. Thus the concept of a country's airspace. That country's laws apply within.
However, trying to get an peace officer of one of these countries to arrest someone in the Clarke orbit may be another story.
If I recall correctly, a UN treaty gives equatorial countries certain payments in return for the use of geosynchronous orbits that inhabit their airspace.
The day after I stepped out of my office and was barraged with enough Nerf and rubber bands to cover the hallway floor. Declared my and the general manager's offices as UN inspectable, to be verified weapons free.
I was impressed, however, at the ingenuity some of the guys had worked up. One individual had run a compressed air line up from the shop and attached it to the back of a Nerfball gun. The other favorite was frozen Nerf, where a Nerf (or other foam) whatever was soaked down in freeze spray and then launched, slipped, stuffed, dropped, or otherwise planted on unsuspecting victims.
Yes, I know that these folks are just one step up from being lower than a snake's belly in Death Valley, but dollar for dollar, the money you spend on these folks will save you incredible amounts of grief down the road.
You don't have to spend a lot. Look around. Find a lawyer that has just passed the bar and is looking for corporate work. To you it is confusing, but to him/her this is not rocket science.
Find an accountant the same way, and tell him your main interest is in asset preservation/tax elimination. It really sucks to work you buns off, get rich, and watch the IRS suck it all down. Don't think it can't happen to you.
Ge the insurance agent to find you some general liability insurance. They will probably insist on errors and ommissions insurance along with it, depending on the kind of work you take on. Try to wiggle out of it, but keep the general liability. Note that the insurance company may limit the kinds of jobs you can do, and this may be for good reason.
The above, a business plan, marketing, and thousands of hours of hard work and you cannot go wrong.
These folks THINK they know where networks are and traffic comes from. Consider:
Most large companies have private or public address space, and rely upon thier own network of leased lines to move this address space around the world. You will find that, to simplify routing, etc. most of them have only one or two gateways out to the rest of what we call the internet.
Consider the case of a big green and yellow oil company. The headquarters are in Britain, major distribution, fields, and refineries in Belgium, Russia, China, Alaska, Austral-Asia, Japan. Main internet gateway in Texas, because it's cheaper there.
Think this "geocoded IP address" company and their product know and account for this? I suspect that the folks in Japan would get a lot of Texas-oriented web content, don't you think?
Our "unauthorized school tabloid" (hated that term, after all, I authorized it...) never had any attention until we "fixed" our presentation. After that, we only had to make a few copies.
Web pages don't fit as well on the wall, but certainly have improved the reach of such journalism. These kids can do a reasonable job with the tools that are now available at their level. This sort of thing has to be encouraged, as I can't afford to hire untrained sheep.
Registrant:
Programming, Consulting (FREEVOTE-DOM)
9350 SW 175th Ave.
Beaverton, OR 97007
US
Domain Name: FREEVOTE.COM
Maybe they should just leave it alone. It doesn't happen to be in Canada, so I can't see how it is any of their business.
The fact that their kiddies had to leave the country to do this doesn't speak well of their free speech efforts.
If I leave the US and go to a country where laws are different, and I do something that is illegal here in the US but isn't there, I have broken no laws in the US and am not treated as a lawbreaker here (most of the time. I grant there are exceptions, dammit...). Maybe Canada is different?
1. Does the fact that somebody may have the newly patented gene sequence in their body constitute prior art?
2. Since most human gene sequences are destined to make chemicals by way of insertion splicing, etc. does this mean that we as humans are violating German patent law by using these same genes ourselves?
3. Given the verbose qualities of the German language, how are they going to get the word for "patent" and the number onto the gene?
Designing a storage-area-network that has better performance than a traditional client-server storage model is not a trivial task. Yes, you can put all the pieces together in the right ways, but can you make it go faster and hold more?
A major part of the operation of this sort of system is tuning it to the actual data and use patterns of your particular users. Note that not all of your users are the same, and that you will probably have to compromise on the tuning. Even though systems like this are supposed to be redundant, don't forget to build in enough network capacity for data backup servers.
Best bet is to buy a Network Appliance or one of the SUN arrays, and get it over with. Of the two I would go with the Net App boxes.
The other factor is the networking outside of your SAN, that is, now that you have the data online how do your processors get to it? If you are doing image-at-a-time load-work-save sorts of work patterns, then you will have less of a traffic load. If you are doing batch image processing one-right-after-another, then you are going to need all the bandwidth you can get. Doing larger geo models, we found that gigabit ethernet was needed from workstations (SGI Octanes) down to the storage farm. Trunked ethernet just didn't do it.
YMMV. Get a sniffer and do a study on your traffic to get a feel for what you need.
One wonders if these filtering systems are programmed to pick up more than just porn? What about subjects like Satanism and devil worship? Or Tantric Yoga? Or Wiccan? Or Paganism?
Think for a moment about the kind of people who dream up and program the content lists for these filters, and those who add to these list by request. What do you think?
I propose a simple test. Use the filtering system to look up the subject "Babtist" or maybe "Catholic". Then use same system to look up "Satanism" or "Witchcraft". Check returned entries to see if they are merely references or actual data.
Has anybody actually done this? One would think, with the separation of church and state being such a big deal and all, that a school would be under the onus to make sure that ALL references to differing religion were treated equally. If replies came back in a stilted manner, perhaps the best solution would be to set the filtering software to exclude all references to religion and religious materials, regardless of type.
Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.
Sounded like a pretty reasonable list of demands until you got right down to that last one. The costs of noncompliance on a subpoena are pretty stiff. The company would need a good law firm and lots of it, and would have to employ a number of legalistic methods (==loopholes) to stay in operation (international location, journalistic business credentials, etc.)
Even so, the cost of the first court order will pretty well wipe out that "few hundred dollars per year" for about ten years or so, and since this business would tend to attract others with similar needs, I really don't see how it could be profitable without a massive rate. Plus the attention that it might gather from certain governmental agencies would be another cost for the owners to bear, one that simply could not be ignored.
If you want to remain relatively secure, don't do anything anybody would notice. Get that numbered AOL account off of their CD, get a mail forwarder (maybe), and encrypt your mail with garden variety PGP, nothing fancy. Don't attract attention. Get shell emulation utilities in place of TELNET, or grab a *nix box and do it yourself if you absolutely need.
Actually, what is measured in most "retina pattern" scanners is the venous system at the back of the eye. Reduction in fluid pressure after removal from the orbital cavity causes severe distortion of these, producing an invalid scan. So does very low blood pressure, especially after dismemberment of the head, or death of the individual. High blood pressure has the same effect, as in the case of one engineer who couldn't get back into the work area after a management meeting
You need the whole individual, in working order. Thus, you must convince him or her to cooperate. Nothing elaborate. Simply threaten family or friends, cause some pain, confuse them sufficiently, use drugs, black bag over the head and show them some high places, keep them awake for three or four days, or use the traditional two big guys and a knife at the throat.
When the question is put to you or yours in this manner, the answer is that nothing you work with or own is worth the price. Don't think it doesn't happen.
Besides, the security folks would rather have you safe, in one piece, and ready to report the damage.
Don't build systems that use biometrics for authentication.
Anytime you make a system that distributes real value (money, information, control) in exchange for authentication (bio or otherwise) you, as a basic safety feature, must ensure that the authenticating method and device can be handed-off to anyone in functioning condition.
To do otherwise is to invite coersion of the authenticating individual. You have to be able to take the smart-card (or whatever) out of the wallet, lay it down on the ground, tell the coercer the codes, and then back away. As funny as it may seem in our movie-plot-soaked society, most criminals (or professionals, depends on who is doing the coercing...) are only interested in your assets, not you personally. Once they have what they came for, the rest is none of their concern. Muggers would rather be whacking your card for cash and moving on than beating you up (there are exceptions).
Don't think that body parts are sacred. "I don't need you, I only need your thumb...", and systems that require a living bioauthenticator are the worst (ugly image of what people will do to somebody else for twenty thou tastefully not inserted here).
This is not to say that biometrics are not useful. I for one would love to view 3-d images made by a computer that measured your pupil distances and adjusted the display accordingly. Or which figured out who I am, so as to route my telephone calls to whichever room I am in.
How many times do people have to be told? You are not anonymous unless they can't tell who is connected. Then it makes no difference that the ISP hands over the records. You're not in them.
You wouldn't walk into FEDEX to send an anonymous letter, would you? Better maybe if you mailed it from a post box in the suburbs?
You want to be anonymous? Do what you have to do. Fill out that AOL CD mailer with you best friend in high-school's dog's name. Sign up for that free dialup account from [insert name of phone company here] Internet Service. Use a terminal at a branch library and be sure they know your name is Eustace P. Farnsworthy. Find a dial-in stack that doesn't have no-caller-id reject working (harder and harder).
And don't include identifying material in your posts. Like you name...
Slashdot Mirror
Cross-talk interference in the cable will increase in both cases, but with IDE this may not be a limiting factor due to error correction.
Pass a law that says that no matter where you get the names, there must be a formal presentation to the government. At this formal presentation, any citizen may challenge to keep the petition from the voters. This challenge may be overidden by the originator, if they can convince the government they are serious. Proof of serious intent is by cutting off and laying down one minor body part, say, a finger.
1. It proves that you are serious.
2. Your ability to sponsor petitions is self-limiting.
Not exactly the most delicate of methods, but should ideally suit folks in a country where the favored write-in name for an entire province was "Bob".
Rounding cables like this is a time-wasting method of destroying all that paid-for engineering. Try one of these instead:
1. Look in the Newark (or similar) catalog and buy one, for pity sake.
2. Take the long section (what you are most concerned with), carefully fold it up lengthwise, and slide it into a length of half-inch split loom tube (any good parts store for about fifteen cents).
Either of these will get you where you wanted to be, which was moving that cable out of the way. Also note that IDE and especially ATA cables must be cut to a certain length to avoid possible SWR problems. You might also look up the proper folding and routing of ribbon cables, which seems to be a lost art among PC manufacturers these days.
There are known problems with using either of these technologies within a high radiation flux. Secondary scattering from the device case may produce particles that can effect flash ram, and soft xrays may be able to produce a similar effect to ultraviolet light that affects eeprom (or even eprom).
While these technologies are used in spacecraft and radiation area, I know that much effort is placed in shielding such (special "heavy metals free" plastic and ceramics for cases, special epoxies, different device packaging forms).
Magnetic flux densities used in hard drive with modern evaporated or plated media are fairly high, even though the power required is quite small due to the incredibly tiny spot size. This, plus the shielding of the case, plus distance fom magnetic source, makes it unlikely that the focus coils or power supply of an xray generator would have much of an effect.
I will have to start wondering about my Visor, though. Has anybody made any tests?
Like a battlefield?
"to locate and avoid threats to itself, to find bodies, distinguish from survivors and the dead,"
So it can save ammunition?
"identify hazardous materials containers, determine if the container contents are radioactive, biohazardous, or explosive (by reading the labels),"
So it can identify vehicles which look like large metal containers, and to IFF by reading their markings?
"generate a detailed map of the disaster area, photograph the area, and return safely back to base."
Somebody wants this, and it isn't the Boy Scouts.
We know that most of the threat is miles and miles off-shore from the continental US, but TERRORISTS could be anywhere, even in your own back yard
"{Knock knocK}"
"Yes, can I help you?"
"Uhm, well, me and the lads here, we're terrorists, you know, and we'd like to go into your back yard, 'cause we've noticed you've got a covered patio, like, and there is going to be a satellite pass real soon now, and we thought we could duck under there and get out of view for a few minutes."
"Well, all right, just shut the gate when you leave."
"Oh, thank you sir..."
As I was saying, they could be anywhere at all. So lets use them as an excuse and get some money so that we can get really good sat photos and intercept data. After all, I've played enough Command and Conquer to know how valuable that GDI satellite view is 8-).
A good place to look would be the American Society of International Law. I read a while back that they had opinions about how to legally arrest extraterrestrials.
Back in the fifties there was a lot of wrangling between the UN and the US about such, and the moon was specifically declared international territory.
Folks around the world thought it was plenty funny, until we actually went there.
However, trying to get an peace officer of one of these countries to arrest someone in the Clarke orbit may be another story.
If I recall correctly, a UN treaty gives equatorial countries certain payments in return for the use of geosynchronous orbits that inhabit their airspace.
I was impressed, however, at the ingenuity some of the guys had worked up. One individual had run a compressed air line up from the shop and attached it to the back of a Nerfball gun. The other favorite was frozen Nerf, where a Nerf (or other foam) whatever was soaked down in freeze spray and then launched, slipped, stuffed, dropped, or otherwise planted on unsuspecting victims.
Yes, I know that these folks are just one step up from being lower than a snake's belly in Death Valley, but dollar for dollar, the money you spend on these folks will save you incredible amounts of grief down the road.
You don't have to spend a lot. Look around. Find a lawyer that has just passed the bar and is looking for corporate work. To you it is confusing, but to him/her this is not rocket science.
Find an accountant the same way, and tell him your main interest is in asset preservation/tax elimination. It really sucks to work you buns off, get rich, and watch the IRS suck it all down. Don't think it can't happen to you.
Ge the insurance agent to find you some general liability insurance. They will probably insist on errors and ommissions insurance along with it, depending on the kind of work you take on. Try to wiggle out of it, but keep the general liability. Note that the insurance company may limit the kinds of jobs you can do, and this may be for good reason.
The above, a business plan, marketing, and thousands of hours of hard work and you cannot go wrong.
Most large companies have private or public address space, and rely upon thier own network of leased lines to move this address space around the world. You will find that, to simplify routing, etc. most of them have only one or two gateways out to the rest of what we call the internet.
Consider the case of a big green and yellow oil company. The headquarters are in Britain, major distribution, fields, and refineries in Belgium, Russia, China, Alaska, Austral-Asia, Japan. Main internet gateway in Texas, because it's cheaper there.
Think this "geocoded IP address" company and their product know and account for this? I suspect that the folks in Japan would get a lot of Texas-oriented web content, don't you think?
Web pages don't fit as well on the wall, but certainly have improved the reach of such journalism. These kids can do a reasonable job with the tools that are now available at their level. This sort of thing has to be encouraged, as I can't afford to hire untrained sheep.
Maybe they should just leave it alone. It doesn't happen to be in Canada, so I can't see how it is any of their business.
The fact that their kiddies had to leave the country to do this doesn't speak well of their free speech efforts.
If I leave the US and go to a country where laws are different, and I do something that is illegal here in the US but isn't there, I have broken no laws in the US and am not treated as a lawbreaker here (most of the time. I grant there are exceptions, dammit...). Maybe Canada is different?
2. Since most human gene sequences are destined to make chemicals by way of insertion splicing, etc. does this mean that we as humans are violating German patent law by using these same genes ourselves?
3. Given the verbose qualities of the German language, how are they going to get the word for "patent" and the number onto the gene?
A major part of the operation of this sort of system is tuning it to the actual data and use patterns of your particular users. Note that not all of your users are the same, and that you will probably have to compromise on the tuning. Even though systems like this are supposed to be redundant, don't forget to build in enough network capacity for data backup servers.
Best bet is to buy a Network Appliance or one of the SUN arrays, and get it over with. Of the two I would go with the Net App boxes.
The other factor is the networking outside of your SAN, that is, now that you have the data online how do your processors get to it? If you are doing image-at-a-time load-work-save sorts of work patterns, then you will have less of a traffic load. If you are doing batch image processing one-right-after-another, then you are going to need all the bandwidth you can get. Doing larger geo models, we found that gigabit ethernet was needed from workstations (SGI Octanes) down to the storage farm. Trunked ethernet just didn't do it.
YMMV. Get a sniffer and do a study on your traffic to get a feel for what you need.
Think for a moment about the kind of people who dream up and program the content lists for these filters, and those who add to these list by request. What do you think?
I propose a simple test. Use the filtering system to look up the subject "Babtist" or maybe "Catholic". Then use same system to look up "Satanism" or "Witchcraft". Check returned entries to see if they are merely references or actual data.
Has anybody actually done this? One would think, with the separation of church and state being such a big deal and all, that a school would be under the onus to make sure that ALL references to differing religion were treated equally. If replies came back in a stilted manner, perhaps the best solution would be to set the filtering software to exclude all references to religion and religious materials, regardless of type.
Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.
Even so, the cost of the first court order will pretty well wipe out that "few hundred dollars per year" for about ten years or so, and since this business would tend to attract others with similar needs, I really don't see how it could be profitable without a massive rate. Plus the attention that it might gather from certain governmental agencies would be another cost for the owners to bear, one that simply could not be ignored.
If you want to remain relatively secure, don't do anything anybody would notice. Get that numbered AOL account off of their CD, get a mail forwarder (maybe), and encrypt your mail with garden variety PGP, nothing fancy. Don't attract attention. Get shell emulation utilities in place of TELNET, or grab a *nix box and do it yourself if you absolutely need.
You need the whole individual, in working order. Thus, you must convince him or her to cooperate. Nothing elaborate. Simply threaten family or friends, cause some pain, confuse them sufficiently, use drugs, black bag over the head and show them some high places, keep them awake for three or four days, or use the traditional two big guys and a knife at the throat.
When the question is put to you or yours in this manner, the answer is that nothing you work with or own is worth the price. Don't think it doesn't happen.
Besides, the security folks would rather have you safe, in one piece, and ready to report the damage.
Anytime you make a system that distributes real value (money, information, control) in exchange for authentication (bio or otherwise) you, as a basic safety feature, must ensure that the authenticating method and device can be handed-off to anyone in functioning condition.
To do otherwise is to invite coersion of the authenticating individual. You have to be able to take the smart-card (or whatever) out of the wallet, lay it down on the ground, tell the coercer the codes, and then back away. As funny as it may seem in our movie-plot-soaked society, most criminals (or professionals, depends on who is doing the coercing...) are only interested in your assets, not you personally. Once they have what they came for, the rest is none of their concern. Muggers would rather be whacking your card for cash and moving on than beating you up (there are exceptions).
Don't think that body parts are sacred. "I don't need you, I only need your thumb...", and systems that require a living bioauthenticator are the worst (ugly image of what people will do to somebody else for twenty thou tastefully not inserted here).
This is not to say that biometrics are not useful. I for one would love to view 3-d images made by a computer that measured your pupil distances and adjusted the display accordingly. Or which figured out who I am, so as to route my telephone calls to whichever room I am in.
Pretty much says it all. The project and data were more interesting than a good first-run movie, and probably cost less to make than same.
You wouldn't walk into FEDEX to send an anonymous letter, would you? Better maybe if you mailed it from a post box in the suburbs?
You want to be anonymous? Do what you have to do. Fill out that AOL CD mailer with you best friend in high-school's dog's name. Sign up for that free dialup account from [insert name of phone company here] Internet Service. Use a terminal at a branch library and be sure they know your name is Eustace P. Farnsworthy. Find a dial-in stack that doesn't have no-caller-id reject working (harder and harder).
And don't include identifying material in your posts. Like you name...
Beagle Swirl?
Equine Chunk?
Nah. This was lame...
Looks hard to train. Probably can't teach it to hole a rabbit too easily.