"This sounds pretty cool. But it has a very large problem: if any four devices conspire, they can break the security of the system.
To see how, let's do an example. Suppose that Alice, Bob, Charlie, and Diane conspire, and that the conspiracy wants to figure out the secret vector of some innocent victim, Ed. Ed's addition rule is "[1]+[4]", and his secret vector is, of course, a secret."
In response: people have a right to do what they want so long as they do not exercise force against others. This right is absolute.
The only absolute thing is that your argument is completely flawed. People can do many bad things without exercising force - they can cheat, steal, sell deadly products, incite hatered etc. Nobody gives them any right (far less absolute) to do these things. Quite the contrary, people have a right to exercise force against those who cannot live in or with a civilized society.
agree. Google has become an essential part of the Internet infrastructure, so punishing a web site like that is scary. Let's be serious here - when I am searching for "BMW germany", I want to find bmw.de, so what Google did almost seems like an arbitrary abuse of power.
I have a great idea which might help you with your problem: if you're so keen on finding bmw.de, then I strongly encourage you to type "http://www.bmw.de" in the address bar of your web browser, then hit "Enter". Magic!
You should remember that:
Google is not a public service; they don't get funded by the taxpayer, so they're free to rank pages in any way they see fit
Even if they did something unethical (such as censoring in China), it's pretty futile to complain that "you're worried about their misuse of power". Nobody cares! It ain't a public service! If you're that worried, you can use a competitor (yahoo.com), or maybe start your own search engine company, or maybe write to your elected representative and lobby for a public web search engine.
I'm frankly pissed off with web sites who get listed by google's search results and when I try to navigate them I find out there's some registration required (but not for google's crawler) or it simply doesn't have the content I was looking for (and if you select all the text in the page you see a ton of hidden repetitive junk). That is unethical, it's "web spam" for lack of a better description, and if google is working to combat it they're welcome as far as I'm concerned. And rules do apply to BMW as well.
This is a tall order, especially with regard to finding AT&T an agent of the government. I suspect it's the equivalent of the following: you work at the DMV, and a policeman comes in, shows you his badge, and asks you to run the plates of a certain car and tell you the owner's address, because he's investigating a certain crime. He's asked you to do this many times before, you know for a fact he works for the PD, and you know for a fact the crime he mentions exists, because you saw it on the news. But -- alas -- it turns out the cop was not acting officially. He was merely sneakily finding out where his ex-girlfriend was living. So the ex-GF sues you for violating her Fourth Amendment rights. Is the Court going to back her up? Mmm, sounds unlikely. Sounds like you were just doing your job and responded to what any reasonable person would think was a legal order from law enforcement.
I think your example forgets something very important: if normally the policeman in question has to provide some sort of paper trail to the DMV, but this time he doesn't, and the DMV guy closes his eyes and still releases the data, then you can't really argue he was doing his job. He should have questioned the order and the lack of legal documentation.
It's the same with AT&T. I don't know the standard operating practice, but if AT&T should have seen warrants before doing anything, and they obviously didn't - while still complying with the government request, they are a guilty party. They should have opposed the government and gone to court, since they were in their right fighting an illegal order. They should have gone to the press and kicked a huge fuss. But they chickened out and complied.
Re:Why economic equality is sometimes bad
on
The New Boom
·
· Score: 1
If I had control over my assets in the dotcom era (I was still in high school), I'd have made almost $1,000,000 before taxes and would have ended up keeping the bulk of it after the bubble burst.
I feel you man. I too have often severe 20-20 hindsight regrets, but the shrink says I should just let it go.
I'm sorry but these tools are greatly at a loss for explaining much of what is required to explaining how people behave, how they think and how they should live. Science does not have the answers for any of these and unfortunately is not even close.
While it's true that science doesn't have all the answers, it has plenty of answers! Scientists never ever say they have all the answers, they just keep looking! This is a major distinction: we keep looking, we don't say "well, this can't explain everything" so let's just give up and believe something arbitrary.
Modern science is the root of wonderful things - medicine being one of them. I'm grateful society didn't evolve by your rules - i.e. ditch science, pray the Lord, heaven will be better anyway - as I'd be long dead by now. (pneumonia when I was 11)
Also, the problem with people like you is that you think that everyone in the world needs to know that evolution makes more sense from a scientific perspective than ID/creationism. That's where you are wrong.
ID/creationism makes no scientific sense whatsoever, because they start from the premise of a supernatural power. This is fundamentally unscientific, because it's completely unprovable and arbitrary. I could say a Flying Spaghetti Monster created the world - can you disprove that? Does it move the discussion forward? No it doesn't.
How many people do you think really understand the idea of special relativity. Don't you think it'd be equally important for people to realize that the clocks they use to make daily life possible aren't really perfect for synchronization and time isn't really what we intuitively believe it is? Hell NO, why? because it won't make a damned difference to them and to life on this planet? are these people idiots?? No!
I'm not sure I follow, but if you think that special relativity has anything to do with people's clocks not being synchronized, then I think I can rest my case.
We cannot discard ID as an explanation, of course. Magic is always a possible explanation! But we can fully discard it as an explanation from a scientific point of view. It is so because it doesn't offer a shred of proof in its support. You pointed to a page where allegations are made against evolutionism. Even if evolutionism is not complete enough to explain everything, it doesn't make ID true.
You're completely missing the point. One thing has nothing to do with the other. Supporters of evolutionism do not say "It's impossible that God or an intelligent being created life or species". They say "it's possible, but we have no proof of it. However, look at these fossils, look at how genes combine etc".
It's very simple really. We could be living in a simulated Matrix-like world. But we have no proof to support that possibility, just like we have no proof to support intelligent design. Therefore I believe this world is real, because it's the easiest explanation, and in evolution, because there's a lot of scientific proof behind it. Doesn't prove everything, but it's better than nothing.
When will you scientists and "scientists" eventually understand that ID advocates are usually not against science. The conscious among them (yes, there are) are only against calling any unproven (e.g. Darwin's with all its patches and make-ups) theory a "fact".
The theory of evolution is exactly what it says on the tin, i.e. a theory. Nobody said it's the absolute truth, but it's the best we have.
You and ID supporters hang tightly on this word, mistakenly believing that if it's only a "theory" it has as much truth as any other solution we could throw at the problem - for example divine intervention, intelligent design, magic.
However, while it's true that this is a "theory", it's pretty well - and scientifically - documented. The fact that it's imprecise and cannot explain everything doesn't make it any less scientific or true. Physics, for example, is somewhat in the same boat - it cannot explain everything. Classical mechanics (Newtonian physics) is still taught in schools - it's imprecise and has holes, but it doesn't make it less of a science.
If I let go a small object out of my hand it will fall to the floor. I can believe it's God Himself who moved that object, or I could believe in something called "gravity".
You can choose magic, or whatever else you want - don't get so upset when others believe in rational explanations.
P.S. A deep, unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something - as someone has said...
Challenging the status quo has a lot of merit and can indeed produce original results, no doubt. However as soon as we replace reasoning with faith science no longer applies to the topic at hand.
I made the mistake of buying Counter-Strike: Condition Zero using Steam. I really wanted the CD version but I reckoned I should be nice to Valve, for producing such cool games. I got burnt, as they charged me more than the advertised price (added some tax which I didn't find out about until I got the receipt), which made the game more expensive than the retail version! Maybe Valve doesn't know it's illegal to advertise a different price than the final sail price in most EU countries, making their actions credit card fraud. Which is funny, as we're talking about a company with a really tough stance on software piracy. How's this for theft? Not only that, but it's inconvenient to download hundreds of megs (in the case of Half-Life 2 it's gigs) every time you want to install the game, as it happened to me.
So, this distribution mode sucks for two reasons: 1. it's relatively inconvenient; basically they shifted the cost for transporting the game to my computer from them (printing the CDs) to me, since I pay for my net connection. Never mind the time it would take to download >2Gb! I agree that people do get some satisfaction from being able to preload a game, but it's a fairly shallow and costly one if you think about it. 2. it's more expensive than retail! - at least, judging from the CS:CZ experience. This is really hard to explain by anything by sheer unadulterated greed, if after removing the publisher's and shop's profit you can't provide any sort of price reduction.
While I have little appreciation for Mr. Bush and his policies, this time I'm not sure I agree with the article. To paraphrase "The Dish" - "this is science's chance to be daring". While we can argue about economic benefits, clearly unmanned explorations lack the extraordinary sense of accomplishment which - if you remember the moon landing - can touch nearly everybody on this planet. Like in many other things, a balance is needed between what's exciting and what's sensible. A 100% sensible life would kill people with sheer boredom.
I recently rented "Undercover Brother", and I noticed something very interesting on the disc. There's a clip made by FACT (Federation Against Copyright Theft) at the end of the movie which claims, among other things, that illegal copies "burn a hole in your pocket" (LOL) and that copyright pirates "fund terrorism" (!!).
Stunning, how far would they go.
Re:what is it good for?
on
2.2 GHz Xeon
·
· Score: 1
I've got an AMD K6-2 450 at home (among others) and trying to play Max Payne was a sad, daunting experience, going under 5fps at times. And I have a decent enough videocard.
Get a grip, serious gamers need serious speed and anything >2GHz sounds like it does the job! [for now]
Slashdot Mirror
From the article:
"This sounds pretty cool. But it has a very large problem: if any four devices conspire, they can break the security of the system.
To see how, let's do an example. Suppose that Alice, Bob, Charlie, and Diane conspire, and that the conspiracy wants to figure out the secret vector of some innocent victim, Ed. Ed's addition rule is "[1]+[4]", and his secret vector is, of course, a secret."
Yes, I can just see a pack of fully armed F22s asking us to surrender our cheese!
The only absolute thing is that your argument is completely flawed. People can do many bad things without exercising force - they can cheat, steal, sell deadly products, incite hatered etc. Nobody gives them any right (far less absolute) to do these things. Quite the contrary, people have a right to exercise force against those who cannot live in or with a civilized society.
I have a great idea which might help you with your problem: if you're so keen on finding bmw.de, then I strongly encourage you to type "http://www.bmw.de" in the address bar of your web browser, then hit "Enter". Magic!
You should remember that:
I think your example forgets something very important: if normally the policeman in question has to provide some sort of paper trail to the DMV, but this time he doesn't, and the DMV guy closes his eyes and still releases the data, then you can't really argue he was doing his job. He should have questioned the order and the lack of legal documentation.
It's the same with AT&T. I don't know the standard operating practice, but if AT&T should have seen warrants before doing anything, and they obviously didn't - while still complying with the government request, they are a guilty party. They should have opposed the government and gone to court, since they were in their right fighting an illegal order. They should have gone to the press and kicked a huge fuss. But they chickened out and complied.
I feel you man. I too have often severe 20-20 hindsight regrets, but the shrink says I should just let it go.
While it's true that science doesn't have all the answers, it has plenty of answers! Scientists never ever say they have all the answers, they just keep looking! This is a major distinction: we keep looking, we don't say "well, this can't explain everything" so let's just give up and believe something arbitrary.
Modern science is the root of wonderful things - medicine being one of them. I'm grateful society didn't evolve by your rules - i.e. ditch science, pray the Lord, heaven will be better anyway - as I'd be long dead by now. (pneumonia when I was 11)
ID/creationism makes no scientific sense whatsoever, because they start from the premise of a supernatural power. This is fundamentally unscientific, because it's completely unprovable and arbitrary. I could say a Flying Spaghetti Monster created the world - can you disprove that? Does it move the discussion forward? No it doesn't.
I'm not sure I follow, but if you think that special relativity has anything to do with people's clocks not being synchronized, then I think I can rest my case.
I say that whoever wrote it doesn't understand entropy or thermodynamics in general.
We cannot discard ID as an explanation, of course. Magic is always a possible explanation! But we can fully discard it as an explanation from a scientific point of view. It is so because it doesn't offer a shred of proof in its support. You pointed to a page where allegations are made against evolutionism. Even if evolutionism is not complete enough to explain everything, it doesn't make ID true.
You're completely missing the point. One thing has nothing to do with the other. Supporters of evolutionism do not say "It's impossible that God or an intelligent being created life or species". They say "it's possible, but we have no proof of it. However, look at these fossils, look at how genes combine etc".
It's very simple really. We could be living in a simulated Matrix-like world. But we have no proof to support that possibility, just like we have no proof to support intelligent design. Therefore I believe this world is real, because it's the easiest explanation, and in evolution, because there's a lot of scientific proof behind it. Doesn't prove everything, but it's better than nothing.
The theory of evolution is exactly what it says on the tin, i.e. a theory. Nobody said it's the absolute truth, but it's the best we have.
You and ID supporters hang tightly on this word, mistakenly believing that if it's only a "theory" it has as much truth as any other solution we could throw at the problem - for example divine intervention, intelligent design, magic.
However, while it's true that this is a "theory", it's pretty well - and scientifically - documented. The fact that it's imprecise and cannot explain everything doesn't make it any less scientific or true. Physics, for example, is somewhat in the same boat - it cannot explain everything. Classical mechanics (Newtonian physics) is still taught in schools - it's imprecise and has holes, but it doesn't make it less of a science.
If I let go a small object out of my hand it will fall to the floor. I can believe it's God Himself who moved that object, or I could believe in something called "gravity".
You can choose magic, or whatever else you want - don't get so upset when others believe in rational explanations.
Challenging the status quo has a lot of merit and can indeed produce original results, no doubt. However as soon as we replace reasoning with faith science no longer applies to the topic at hand.
Duh... didn't you read the patch notes? Shielding/invulnerability no longer protects you from environmental damage!
Who said anything about getting undercut?
I made the mistake of buying Counter-Strike: Condition Zero using Steam. I really wanted the CD version but I reckoned I should be nice to Valve, for producing such cool games. I got burnt, as they charged me more than the advertised price (added some tax which I didn't find out about until I got the receipt), which made the game more expensive than the retail version! Maybe Valve doesn't know it's illegal to advertise a different price than the final sail price in most EU countries, making their actions credit card fraud. Which is funny, as we're talking about a company with a really tough stance on software piracy. How's this for theft? Not only that, but it's inconvenient to download hundreds of megs (in the case of Half-Life 2 it's gigs) every time you want to install the game, as it happened to me.
So, this distribution mode sucks for two reasons:
1. it's relatively inconvenient; basically they shifted the cost for transporting the game to my computer from them (printing the CDs) to me, since I pay for my net connection. Never mind the time it would take to download >2Gb! I agree that people do get some satisfaction from being able to preload a game, but it's a fairly shallow and costly one if you think about it.
2. it's more expensive than retail! - at least, judging from the CS:CZ experience. This is really hard to explain by anything by sheer unadulterated greed, if after removing the publisher's and shop's profit you can't provide any sort of price reduction.
My humble advice - order the CD version.
While I have little appreciation for Mr. Bush and his policies, this time I'm not sure I agree with the article. To paraphrase "The Dish" - "this is science's chance to be daring". While we can argue about economic benefits, clearly unmanned explorations lack the extraordinary sense of accomplishment which - if you remember the moon landing - can touch nearly everybody on this planet. Like in many other things, a balance is needed between what's exciting and what's sensible. A 100% sensible life would kill people with sheer boredom.
</symphara>
...a glorified piece of coal they don't need and which serves no purpose at all
I take it that you don't have a girlfriend!
</symphara>
I recently rented "Undercover Brother", and I noticed something very interesting on the disc. There's a clip made by FACT (Federation Against Copyright Theft) at the end of the movie which claims, among other things, that illegal copies "burn a hole in your pocket" (LOL) and that copyright pirates "fund terrorism" (!!).
Stunning, how far would they go.
I've got an AMD K6-2 450 at home (among others) and trying to play Max Payne was a sad, daunting experience, going under 5fps at times. And I have a decent enough videocard.
Get a grip, serious gamers need serious speed and anything >2GHz sounds like it does the job! [for now]