Funny, neoconservatives constantly accuse the working class of feeling entitled (and to frivolities like health care, not dying in stupid foreign wars, and getting to actually elect the president, no less!) And yet it's the CEOs and other super-rich people that expect a bunch of extra favours from society.
Nah, it's just human nature. All people tend towards a certain level of self-interested entitlement. Of course the working class feeling entitled to frivolous things like free health care might have something to do with the government taking 40% of our money, but hey, they need it for... things and stuff. Personally, I tend towards a more libertarian mindset, but I think that if the gov't is going to take as much money from us as they do in "socialist" countries, maybe we SHOULD get free health care. I mean, the argument that they shouldn't be taking the kind of money from me that it'd take to fund such a system is essentially moot since they already are taking that much...
All the envious "higher ups get there because they steal ha ha ha" comments aside, I think there's a simpler explanation. The more money you make, the smaller the theft seems. A buck to someone making a million a year is not the same as someone who has to watch every dollar and appreciates it.
In my experience, the opposite is true. You get rich by being conscious of income and expenditures at all times. Really, you have to work at it. Personaly, I'm not one of those dopes who thinks rich people got that way by inheriting it. There are a few, to be sure, but nearly every wealthy person I've met got that way by working 80+ hours a week, and what they do for most of that time is think about how every little thing affects the bottom line. I'm fairly certain that execs who grab "free" stuff like that aren't doing it because the value is below their cognizance, but because the value is below a certain threshold that they "know won't matter, so why not choose the action that benefits me".
Seriously, this is the biggest problem with being well off I see in observing the lives of the wealthy. It's extremely difficult to get rich without thinking about money all the time. Thinking constantly about money is a thoroughly unsatisfying way to live, because money can't really make you happy-- all it can do is bribe the more direct causes of unhappiness into staying away (ha ha). I'd have to say that the happiest people I have met have been pretty solidly lower-middle class folks who didn't allow the pursuit of money to dominate their lives.
However, to this day I have never met anyone who has so much unbelievable wealth or life style that they care not for meager possessions. I'm sure they are out there somewhere, but it all comes back to one of my friends best lines.
"They didn't get rich by wasting their money."
Having spent most of the last 10 years doing work for people with money, I'd say that line is pretty dead on accurate for most wealthy folks. We have clients who are multi millionaires who complain about the price of a $120 door lock; who stall for three or four months before paying their bills; who say "let's wait until the old crappy one breaks to install a decent [whatever]". This is the narm, unfortunately. Clients with money who say "just do it right and install what you think it needs" are treasured rare jewels we bend over backwards to please. They get quality work at reasonable rates. The cheapskates get half-assed work with substandard materials and complain endlessly about how good workmanship in this country has declined. To them I say "you get what you PAY for, you fucking tightwads!"
Who steals the lunches in the office fridge? You have NO idea what's there or how long it's been there!
When I worked at a university, we had to put a lock on the fridge to keep students from stealing our food. Seriously, students will steal anything that's not nailed down. This is understandable as most students live in absurd poverty. I just figure that some people come out of college and never recover from that experience, doomed forever to steal leftovers by their insane compulsion.
The bit I found perplexing was that this chap was a hard core Christian (born again, I think). He was the last one I expected it to be..
A friend of mine works as a teacher at a private college and his observation is that the worst thieves (everything from simply stealing food to swiping scanners, computers, etc) are all kinda weirdo born-agains. His theory is that the greater someone's propensity towards immoral behavior, the greater likelihood that they'll seek some sort of organized system that in theory "forces" them to act morally. Just as one finds people with a hard-core capacity for drinking at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting (which is all about NOT drinking), it's not at all illogical to expect to find people with a tendency towards immoral behavior attracted to a very strict religious organization.
Sounds like you can extract and install files so how do we know he didn't put the files on there himself? For all we know these are guys on forums he doesn't like or ebay sellers who have done him wrong. This is a slippery slope and vigilante justice. These are hackers, they're not the most law abiding citizens, not sure if I'd trust a hacker to not install kiddie porn on some guy's PC for kicks, especially if he believes the guy has done him wrong.
Believe it or not, some of the people working for the FBI are at least as smart as YOU and have already thought of that. They don't drag these people off to rot in the gulag/gitmo based solely on an anonymous tip. They generally just put them under surveilance. When they catch the guy in the act of sharing/collecting kiddie porn, that's when they arrest them.
It doesn't matter if this evidence nets 1 or 1,000 convictions, every last one of them will be overturned on any number of grounds and the prosecuting agencies that utlizie this evidence will open themselves up to quite a bit of litigation and will probably eat some heavy judgments against them.
Nonsense. 4th amendment doesn't protect you from burglars who catch you growing pot in your basement and tip off the cops. Just like it's not a 1st amendment violation for your boss to tell you to shut up and get back to work. The convicted pedophiles are free to press trespassing charges against this guy from their jail cells, if they wish, but that's about the limit of their recourse. It's not illegal for the FBI to catch you in the act of collecting/trading child porn because the methods of the tipster are questionable. The two issues are actually unrelated.
The real question is, will this evidence hold up in court? IANAL, but it would seem that an easy defense would be to go after this information.
They're not prosecuting based solely on an email attachment full of hints. You can be fairly sure they're only using it to observe the guy and get a warrant. The evidence they convict with is probably more like the actual hard drive full of kiddy porn from the guy's system and chat logs of undercover agents getting child porn from the guy. Hard to argue it was planted if you're sharing it freely.
To hack anyone as long as you say you are hacking to catch "pedophiles"? Sounds more like the FBI trying to side-step normal limitations of spying on people.
The FBI isn't doing anything but opening their mail, though. What should they be doing? Throwing out genuinely incriminating information purely on principle or something? Vigilantism is an awkward area. Doubly so when the vigilante is in a country outside your jurisdiction. Triply so when the guy seems to only be targeting pedophiles. Technically what he's doing is illegal, but only a feet-planted-firmly-in-the-air pure theoretical academic idealist would say assault charges are warranted against a man who tackles some loser he sees knock down an old lady and run off with her purse. How different is this? Different enough matter?
I don't think the police should be allowed to use illicitly gained information or that they should be allowed to encourage private citizens to commit felonies.
Thing is, 4th Amendment protections only prohibit the government from illegally searching your property. If a burglar breaks into your house and steal a sack of the counterfeit money you're printing then later gets caught and fingers you, the 4th Amendment doesn't apply. They still need a warrant to search your place, but the sack of C-notes with damp ink are easily enough to get one. Now, if the government hires a burglar, that's a 4th Amendment no-no; otherwise, you can press charges for criminal trespass if you like-- from your prison cell. The moral of this story is that if you're a criminal, be careful about protecting your stuff from other criminals, particularly if they "have it in for you". Nothing new there.
I am rather thankful about all the dropped "features" as they tend not to be so good until v3.0 and tend to be less than standard implementations (Internet Explorer) of technology that simply displaces 3rd party functional products.
Where's the 3rd party product that implements a database-like file system with tagging rather than hierarchy-style directories then? Honestly, the fancy WinFS functionality was the only thing Vista had going for it, feature wise.
This is untrue - the US won't do business with countries who trade with cuba. That publication is pushing lies.
Incorrect. Canada is Cuba's largest trade partner. Guess who is the United States' largest trade partner? Canada. You're not just wrong, but ridiculously wrong.
Revolutions are generally only successful when the majority of the population are grossly dissatisfied with the current government and feel the armed struggle is the only option left open to them.
I would make a minor amendment to the above, changing "the majority" to "a suficiently large minority". For the most part, the majority of the people, even during a revolution, really really just want to be left alone. So long as Batistas goons weren't actully dragging them away in the night, they were willing to put up with it. This isn't just Cuba, either. Look at any revolution. Most people were for whichever side was armed, standing in front of them, and asking.
I work in a building full of PhD's in all kinds of areas. The help desk folks refer to them as PhD retards. They may know everything in the universe about tax law or a specific kind of rock, but they can't always find the power button on their PC
I have had the misfortune to work for several such PhDs. The common thread seems to be some sort of delusion of infallibility. We "regular folks" with 4-year degrees know just enough to realize we're idiots about all sorts of things and defer to those more knowledgeable in those areas. PhDs seem to have spent so much time thinking about nothing but the subject of their thesis that they forget that there are things they aren't experts on (I won't even get into those "PhuDs" who are totally off the reservation in their own field of study-- they're scary). It's as if their brains calcify into a state of "know-it-all-ness".
That's something that any good locksmith will tell you -- if they can install it, they can bypass it. And so can any other person with access to the right tools and knowledge.
Damn straight. I'm a locksmith and that's what I tell everyone, particularly the ones that want a second deadbolt on their front door. Extra locks just tell the perp "good stuff here", then they throw a brick through a window or kick in the panel covering the dog door.
You would think that a bent piece of music wire would do the trick. All the key provides is a series of ramps and torque. A zigzag can provide both, though a second wire might be better for torque. So much for that obstacle.
I guarantee you can neither bend piano wire accurately enough, nor hold it in the correct position well enough to use it for bumping. This is why keys work so well. The key only slides laterally because it is properly milled to do so by design. The "ramps" at the edges of the cut will all be nearly perfectly spaced and contact the bottom pins at the same time. You just can't do that with bent wire. sorry.
Don't ever leave something lying unsecured on your dashboard while driving. Sooner or later, its sliding WILL distract you enough to get you into an accident if there's one to be had right then.
Go away, safety nazi! Those intelligent enough to secure their phones when placed on the dash don't need your advice, and those too dumb to secure their phones certainly won't heed advice from J. Random Slashdotter.
Oh, and the thing is described as "biometric" which can't be right, as they've never taken any biometrics from me.
From www.passport.gov.uk
"How will facial biometrics work?
Facial recognition will map various features on the face, for example, the distances between eyes, nose, mouth and ears. The measurements will be digitally coded and held on an electronic chip secured in the passport page."
Your passport required a picture, right? Congradulations! You have been biometricized!
I ask because I thought there was already a story in the news how at defcon they hacked a passport ID system.
Bitwise copying the content of an RFID chip that's part of a biometric ID system yields a duplicate passport that can still only be used by the person the original was issued to. Grunwald is a grandstander. He should come back when he can actually modify the content.
Of course they are. But, how long before people can duplicate your passport, and then update it with a new picture?
Who knows? That depends entirely on the encryption. Point is, you brought up the fact that some guy cloned a passport RFID chip as if it was somesort of evidence that the scheme had been partially cracked or something. Bitwise copying is a trivial acomplishment. It's like saying "they've already opened the door and walked into the bank, how long can it be before they've pilfered the safe?"
I don't say "don't do it", I say "actually THINK before doing it"
I suspect they did think about it, as opposed to you. Maybe you should come back when you have actual, arguable objections to the system, rather than vague but dire predictions of some unenumerated "fiasco".
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Seriously, this is the biggest problem with being well off I see in observing the lives of the wealthy. It's extremely difficult to get rich without thinking about money all the time. Thinking constantly about money is a thoroughly unsatisfying way to live, because money can't really make you happy-- all it can do is bribe the more direct causes of unhappiness into staying away (ha ha). I'd have to say that the happiest people I have met have been pretty solidly lower-middle class folks who didn't allow the pursuit of money to dominate their lives.
"How will facial biometrics work? Facial recognition will map various features on the face, for example, the distances between eyes, nose, mouth and ears. The measurements will be digitally coded and held on an electronic chip secured in the passport page."
Your passport required a picture, right? Congradulations! You have been biometricized!