By "elitist sounding observation" I meant to say that the remark *sounds* as something that could come from an elitist, because it can be taken to be saying if we were all elite then we would have excellent media.
Now, I said "elitist sounding" because I am not making any accusations. I am just making an observation myself.
With that said, I agree elitist is a bad word. I probably used it just because I've been hearing it so much in the news regarding Obama.
That is certainly what the thinkers of the Enlightenment, including many of the US Founding Fathers, expected to happen in the course of time. I agree. However I think they missed 2 things.
Firstly, maybe when they came over in their boats they didn't realize how populous, diverse, and classified our society would become. Democracy works best when everyone is the same, and works worst with minorities, let alone a collection of minorities. Minorities get outvoted. Remember, with all due respect, the Founding Fathers didn't let women vote, and they had slaves.
Secondly, "educated" is relative to the less educated and there will always be more less educated people with how things are today. With time, the whole population might get smarter, but the gap will remain, and the "educated" will still find themselves outnumbered and outvoted by the less educated. I am not saying the majority will always be doomed. I am just saying there will always be a gap, and the trailers will always outnumber the leaders.
Make no mistake, things will get better with time, but that is only because the human condition allows us to recognize these problems and solve them. This won't happen naturally though, and the work that needs to be done will need to be done by us.
Just as we get the government we deserve (because we vote it in), This is a disturbingly popular view. When did you vote in your government? By the time we vote, "they" have already eliminated most of the candidates. The popular vote loses to the electoral vote, and votes themselves are strategically harvested by skilled campaign experts.
I don't deserve a president I didn't vote for.
we also get the media we deserve (because we buy it selectively). So is this the case where the "tabloid buyers" weigh down the "smart people"?
I don't deserve a media I didn't buy.
Only with a truly educated, rational, mature, objective citizenship can excellent media thrive. Not a solution, but rather an elitist souding observation.
The question is not what we have and how to live with it, but what we want and how we should implement it.
Here are some easy things that can be implemented immediately that would help eliminate the need for CAPTCHA.
1) Create limits for submission. Free Email? How about 1 account per day or 1 per client IP/OS signature. NO CAPTCHA.
2) Place cookies upon HUMAN detection. This is for sites like ticketmaster. If someone has ordered already, SCREW CAPTCHA. Don't keep asking if they're human!
3) Remove CAPTCHA for authenticated users. CAPTCHA should be for non-registered users only. If they're registered, 1 test is required at most.
4) Make a FLASH submit button. Most robots can't click.
5) Use email authentication and other verification methods. Phone, SMS, credit cards are all viable. Depends on the service.
6) Detect atomaton behavior and trigger hurdles. For example, any activity where pages are being requested systematically and rapidly; any forms submitting the same information multiple times. Upon detection, display the CAPTCHA or whatever the hell you want to do about it.
I admit 6 may require some skills to implement, but if you can afford a CAPTCHA system then maybe you can invest in something better.
Something tells me though, that Hotmail and Ebay could remove CAPTCHAs if they tried. They just don't think its that important.
Like airport security, CAPTCHA puts a tremendous burden on the innocent people just because they cannot detect the terrorists.
How is CAPTCHA broken and how is it "technology"?
It is not broken because it works as it is suppose to. I would think the correct term would be "solved" or "been overcome".
Technology-wise, CAPTCHA is a workaround, not a solution. The real problem is automated bots manipulating forms where the webmaster only wants humans. Detecting whether or not the visitor is an automaton would be the solution, but because people have apparently given up on this, they have resorted to trying to detect whether or not the visitor is human.
new disclosures of insider e-mails, which could "jeopardize Microsoft's goodwill" and "disrupt Microsoft's relationships with its business partners. LOL. What is microsoft doing that we aren't aware of already? Let alone its business partners!
It would be funny if microsoft abandoned email all together and resorted to paper and ink and barn fires for all their communications.
On the other hand, I am surprised that the White House did a better job of destroying emails that were suppose to be open, compared to these internal emails at Microsoft that were suppose to be proprietary!
The media is a business. If celebrity gossip and privacy abuse proves anything it proves that the media has absolutely no ethical boundaries. Every ethical boundary that appears to exist is already the product of someone putting up the money to put it there. You can pay them to say anything, and if they deny you, it simply means someone is paying them more already to say something else.
A system of collective intelligence will emerge that will tap directly into the sources of news. The media as we know it will die. We care about the truth.
Intelligence brings with it an element of self destruction. Life is rare, and intelligent life is rarer, but sustainable intelligent life is rarest, if not impossible. The further science takes us, the easier it will become to destroy ourselves, and it will only be a matter of time before someone or something kills us all, be it on purpose or by accident.
This would be the case for any intelligent life, so the chances for two surviving species to then meet would be pretty difficult even if alien life is considered a given.
upon gigabytes of information. It's like having a library in a box. They can't view every file, let alone guess any of your passwords correctly or know where to look for "hidden" files or encryption methods. They can't even distinguish a MacBook Air from a cutting board.
Airport security is a joke. They use x-rays to see what's in your bag, then a metal detector, and the occasional pat down. It is easy to shield something from radiation, plenty of destructive weapons can be made to pass metal detectors, and there have been demonstrations of how to conceal weapons in ways that cannot be felt. Oh take my shampoo! Flip the cap and ya, obviously you can make a bomb with this stuff that smells like head and shoulders.
Like always, millions of people will be inconvenienced by security measures that only catch clueless idiots.
Was this man a terrorist? No. He was a clueless idiot with child porn on his desktop. At least he could have hidden it somewhere safe. Even his wife would have found it, which would have been better for all of us because now he left us with this court ruling.
Although the Scientific community is thought of to be open by nature, some parts of it are extremely closed. Membership to certain groups, the journals that hog publication and distribution rights, and worst of all, the misrepresentation of research credit by professors (this is especially bad outside the USA).
Science 2.0 is a horrible name for something that has been bound to happen. If everyone blogs there is no hiding the truth. All of our observations can now be recorded and published without any sugar coating or room for manipulation, and this can be done for free. Add some portals (such as this MIT OpenWetWare specimen) and we have a self sustaining information machine that will have the latest dibs faster than anyone else directly from the source - much like, err, the internet.
So why the lag? I am guessing that we just had to wait for the internet generation to age and become professors. I do not credit Web 2.0 for any of this, and why you would call this Science 2.0 is beyond me. Maybe to impress the editor?
1. You don't need a widescreen laptop to hook up a widescreen monitor.
2. Width vs height is not that big of an issue.If you can have both, most of us would take it.
So if you work on your computer and want the best setup, I would consider buying a mid-sized laptop that doesn't sacrifice performance, buying the cradle that goes with it, and hooking it up to a huge LCD monitor.
At home you have a desktop setup. On the go, you just pull out the laptop from its cradle and you've got everything in your briefcase without having to unplug any cords.
Just do nothing. This standard does not serve a purpose.
FYI this is just stating the obivous:
A standard is all about industry experts/leaders reaching a consensus so that others can benefit from a newly found singularity and focus for a specific method.
I observe that regardless of ISO, this is still what *we want*. The industry will naturally try and reach standardization and agreement whether it be through ISO or not.
In this case, it seems clear that ISO recognition of this spec was *not* what we wanted, and not only that, it has been heavily publicized as such. No standard is useful unless it is used, and no standard body is viable unless it follows the desires of whom they represent.
Therefore I argue that not only is this standard already DEAD, it is harmful to ISO. The earlier ISO recognizes this the better. Only retracting the standard will help make up for their wrong doing.
The best part of this scandal is how easily the conspirators got caught. Anybody can blog the truth and their voice will spread and amplify instantly if what they say holds any weight. This is a great demonstration of a new paradigm of security.
This was never the case people!!
This kind of manipulation is as old as the voting system itself. It is possible, it works, and there are some who are extremely good at it. And until yesterday, they could easily get away with it as long as the press didn't side against them. Now, we don't even need the press. We no longer depend on journalists to tell us the story. Whistleblowers no longer wish to remain anonymous, and when an insider demonstrates wrong doing, we listen, we act, and we revolt.
It is only a matter of time before bloggers reach critical mass in politics and everywhere else.
I cannot wait for the day our president is a blogger.
Well, when is the last time you used the word? You can argue anything is technology (as demonstrated by your fire and wheel example), and that is what businesses have done. And that is why when we hear the word we need to know more, because it holds no weight. It is redundant.
This article seems to claim that there are tech lovers and tech haters. Even those who work for the RIAA have their fancy cell phones and laptops and iPods. Even music labels are tech savvy in that they are all over iTunes.
Another word? How about remove it where it is redundant, and use "feature" where it refers to something. Try it.
"IT" is the only word I would defend, since it refers to a category of jobs. I would never say "information technology" though.
technology is such an old and abused term I say we stop using it right now. The word is a total buzz kill. Computers and circuitry are already ubiquitous enough that we can just factor this "technology" reference out.
If in 20 years we still refer to our "toys" as "technology" I would be damned.
Absolutely agree. In fact, data is *usually* bad, regardless of medium. Even parents give their children bad advice at times.
On second thought, I suspect they had to do something to make this a story, because no one cares about Alexa really, and this wouldn't have gotten published by the WSJ of all people if it had an honest headline.
The company tracks the Internet habits of users of its browser toolbar... These rankings have long been criticized... because Alexa users may not behave like the Internet as a whole. Ya, who in the world uses the Alexa toolbar!?
FYI, phone and address are already published. You can request user information for those you have transacted with. I think this was available since the beginning.
Whether the info is true is another story of course.
Slashdot Mirror
Now, I said "elitist sounding" because I am not making any accusations. I am just making an observation myself.
With that said, I agree elitist is a bad word. I probably used it just because I've been hearing it so much in the news regarding Obama. That is certainly what the thinkers of the Enlightenment, including many of the US Founding Fathers, expected to happen in the course of time. I agree. However I think they missed 2 things.
Firstly, maybe when they came over in their boats they didn't realize how populous, diverse, and classified our society would become. Democracy works best when everyone is the same, and works worst with minorities, let alone a collection of minorities. Minorities get outvoted. Remember, with all due respect, the Founding Fathers didn't let women vote, and they had slaves.
Secondly, "educated" is relative to the less educated and there will always be more less educated people with how things are today. With time, the whole population might get smarter, but the gap will remain, and the "educated" will still find themselves outnumbered and outvoted by the less educated. I am not saying the majority will always be doomed. I am just saying there will always be a gap, and the trailers will always outnumber the leaders.
Make no mistake, things will get better with time, but that is only because the human condition allows us to recognize these problems and solve them. This won't happen naturally though, and the work that needs to be done will need to be done by us.
I don't deserve a president I didn't vote for. we also get the media we deserve (because we buy it selectively). So is this the case where the "tabloid buyers" weigh down the "smart people"?
I don't deserve a media I didn't buy. Only with a truly educated, rational, mature, objective citizenship can excellent media thrive. Not a solution, but rather an elitist souding observation.
The question is not what we have and how to live with it, but what we want and how we should implement it.
client IP/OS signature, not IP. There are many ways of creating highly unique signatures from what you can obtain through the server.
Here are some easy things that can be implemented immediately that would help eliminate the need for CAPTCHA.
1) Create limits for submission. Free Email? How about 1 account per day or 1 per client IP/OS signature. NO CAPTCHA.
2) Place cookies upon HUMAN detection. This is for sites like ticketmaster. If someone has ordered already, SCREW CAPTCHA. Don't keep asking if they're human!
3) Remove CAPTCHA for authenticated users. CAPTCHA should be for non-registered users only. If they're registered, 1 test is required at most.
4) Make a FLASH submit button. Most robots can't click.
5) Use email authentication and other verification methods. Phone, SMS, credit cards are all viable. Depends on the service.
6) Detect atomaton behavior and trigger hurdles. For example, any activity where pages are being requested systematically and rapidly; any forms submitting the same information multiple times. Upon detection, display the CAPTCHA or whatever the hell you want to do about it.
I admit 6 may require some skills to implement, but if you can afford a CAPTCHA system then maybe you can invest in something better.
Something tells me though, that Hotmail and Ebay could remove CAPTCHAs if they tried. They just don't think its that important.
buy craigslist and flip it on eBay for a quick buck!
Like airport security, CAPTCHA puts a tremendous burden on the innocent people just because they cannot detect the terrorists.
How is CAPTCHA broken and how is it "technology"?
It is not broken because it works as it is suppose to. I would think the correct term would be "solved" or "been overcome".
Technology-wise, CAPTCHA is a workaround, not a solution. The real problem is automated bots manipulating forms where the webmaster only wants humans. Detecting whether or not the visitor is an automaton would be the solution, but because people have apparently given up on this, they have resorted to trying to detect whether or not the visitor is human.
It would be funny if microsoft abandoned email all together and resorted to paper and ink and barn fires for all their communications.
On the other hand, I am surprised that the White House did a better job of destroying emails that were suppose to be open, compared to these internal emails at Microsoft that were suppose to be proprietary!
The media is a business. If celebrity gossip and privacy abuse proves anything it proves that the media has absolutely no ethical boundaries. Every ethical boundary that appears to exist is already the product of someone putting up the money to put it there. You can pay them to say anything, and if they deny you, it simply means someone is paying them more already to say something else.
A system of collective intelligence will emerge that will tap directly into the sources of news. The media as we know it will die. We care about the truth.
I am sorry. Another misinformed "+5 informative" post.
Complete abuse of the term "mathematically guaranteed". This is the exact same fluff that got people to believe aliens drew crop circles.
Intelligence brings with it an element of self destruction. Life is rare, and intelligent life is rarer, but sustainable intelligent life is rarest, if not impossible. The further science takes us, the easier it will become to destroy ourselves, and it will only be a matter of time before someone or something kills us all, be it on purpose or by accident.
This would be the case for any intelligent life, so the chances for two surviving species to then meet would be pretty difficult even if alien life is considered a given.
upon gigabytes of information. It's like having a library in a box. They can't view every file, let alone guess any of your passwords correctly or know where to look for "hidden" files or encryption methods. They can't even distinguish a MacBook Air from a cutting board.
Airport security is a joke. They use x-rays to see what's in your bag, then a metal detector, and the occasional pat down. It is easy to shield something from radiation, plenty of destructive weapons can be made to pass metal detectors, and there have been demonstrations of how to conceal weapons in ways that cannot be felt. Oh take my shampoo! Flip the cap and ya, obviously you can make a bomb with this stuff that smells like head and shoulders.
Like always, millions of people will be inconvenienced by security measures that only catch clueless idiots.
Was this man a terrorist? No. He was a clueless idiot with child porn on his desktop. At least he could have hidden it somewhere safe. Even his wife would have found it, which would have been better for all of us because now he left us with this court ruling.
I had invited the same telecom giants to a debate at my house. But guess what!!!
Never mind...
Although the Scientific community is thought of to be open by nature, some parts of it are extremely closed. Membership to certain groups, the journals that hog publication and distribution rights, and worst of all, the misrepresentation of research credit by professors (this is especially bad outside the USA).
Science 2.0 is a horrible name for something that has been bound to happen. If everyone blogs there is no hiding the truth. All of our observations can now be recorded and published without any sugar coating or room for manipulation, and this can be done for free. Add some portals (such as this MIT OpenWetWare specimen) and we have a self sustaining information machine that will have the latest dibs faster than anyone else directly from the source - much like, err, the internet.
So why the lag? I am guessing that we just had to wait for the internet generation to age and become professors. I do not credit Web 2.0 for any of this, and why you would call this Science 2.0 is beyond me. Maybe to impress the editor?
they were going to deny certain browsers, I said the terrorists won.
I take it back. PayPal are the terrorists.
1. You don't need a widescreen laptop to hook up a widescreen monitor.
2. Width vs height is not that big of an issue.If you can have both, most of us would take it.
So if you work on your computer and want the best setup, I would consider buying a mid-sized laptop that doesn't sacrifice performance, buying the cradle that goes with it, and hooking it up to a huge LCD monitor.
At home you have a desktop setup. On the go, you just pull out the laptop from its cradle and you've got everything in your briefcase without having to unplug any cords.
The reason security infrastructure sells is the same reason why security books don't. It is the same reason we want air bags, not driving lessons.
No one wants to learn anything, especially if it has nothing to do with the task at hand. We want it to just work, and it should.
Just prevent it, don't make us think about it unless you want some of us to make mistakes.
Just do nothing. This standard does not serve a purpose.
FYI this is just stating the obivous:
A standard is all about industry experts/leaders reaching a consensus so that others can benefit from a newly found singularity and focus for a specific method.
I observe that regardless of ISO, this is still what *we want*. The industry will naturally try and reach standardization and agreement whether it be through ISO or not.
In this case, it seems clear that ISO recognition of this spec was *not* what we wanted, and not only that, it has been heavily publicized as such. No standard is useful unless it is used, and no standard body is viable unless it follows the desires of whom they represent.
Therefore I argue that not only is this standard already DEAD, it is harmful to ISO. The earlier ISO recognizes this the better. Only retracting the standard will help make up for their wrong doing.
The best part of this scandal is how easily the conspirators got caught. Anybody can blog the truth and their voice will spread and amplify instantly if what they say holds any weight. This is a great demonstration of a new paradigm of security.
This was never the case people!!
This kind of manipulation is as old as the voting system itself. It is possible, it works, and there are some who are extremely good at it. And until yesterday, they could easily get away with it as long as the press didn't side against them. Now, we don't even need the press. We no longer depend on journalists to tell us the story. Whistleblowers no longer wish to remain anonymous, and when an insider demonstrates wrong doing, we listen, we act, and we revolt.
It is only a matter of time before bloggers reach critical mass in politics and everywhere else.
I cannot wait for the day our president is a blogger.
My cable connection sucks, because it is saturated!! They've already oversold their capacity and I am getting nowhere near the bandwidth I paid for.
So really, wtf is this guy talking about?!
Well, when is the last time you used the word? You can argue anything is technology (as demonstrated by your fire and wheel example), and that is what businesses have done. And that is why when we hear the word we need to know more, because it holds no weight. It is redundant.
This article seems to claim that there are tech lovers and tech haters. Even those who work for the RIAA have their fancy cell phones and laptops and iPods. Even music labels are tech savvy in that they are all over iTunes.
Another word? How about remove it where it is redundant, and use "feature" where it refers to something. Try it.
"IT" is the only word I would defend, since it refers to a category of jobs. I would never say "information technology" though.
technology is such an old and abused term I say we stop using it right now. The word is a total buzz kill. Computers and circuitry are already ubiquitous enough that we can just factor this "technology" reference out.
If in 20 years we still refer to our "toys" as "technology" I would be damned.
Absolutely agree. In fact, data is *usually* bad, regardless of medium. Even parents give their children bad advice at times.
On second thought, I suspect they had to do something to make this a story, because no one cares about Alexa really, and this wouldn't have gotten published by the WSJ of all people if it had an honest headline.
Ebay is one of the least innovative companies of this decade. Ebay should sell ebay.
On ebay.
FYI, phone and address are already published. You can request user information for those you have transacted with. I think this was available since the beginning.
Whether the info is true is another story of course.