The definition of "social media" varies but generally speaking the word implies online service that is centered around the social relations between the users. Social media builds on who you're interested in, not on what you're interested in. It's based more on the amount of communication as opposed to the content of communication.
For example, Slashdot isn't social media because I come here for the content (articles and the information and opinions found in comments section). Facebook is social media because I go there to see what people I'm interested in are up to - the content of our status updates and comments hold no value at all but rather the fact that we communicate and the metadata of the communication (tones, etc.) are what matters. Some services (Messageboards, IRC, etc.) CAN be used for communication that contains useful information and they CAN be used just for building and maintaining social relations. Generally, a service isn't labeled "social media" unless it is in some ways been clearly designed for that purpose (FB is clearly built for that purpose, IRC can be used in somewhat similar ways but hasn't been specifically designed around that).
Groupon does have some aspects that could technically be called "social" but they're not what the word meand in "social media".
I'm not an evolutionary scientist but based on my understanding, the lines between different species aren't drawn at which ones can't mate with each other but rather at which ones don't mate with each other when interacting in natural environment. For example, I remember reading about a species of birds that are currently in the process of diverging: There are two major color patterns and the birds of each have began treating members of the other color pattern as members of a different species (chasing them away during nesting seasons, etc.).
If that's the case, it could well be argued that humans already evolved into incompatible species: Many cultures all around the world used to consider people from other ethnic groups as lesser humans and certainly something that no respectable human should mate with. I would be willing to bet that 17th century Europeans or Africans, when seeing an Aborginal, would not have stated "Ah, there is my fellow human!".
Of course, then came the age of enlightenment and humans decided "Wait a minute. We could try not basing our world views on our first instincts and what 'feels' right or wrong. While we're at it, we could dismiss the notion that just because someone is weaker or different, they should be shunned!". At that point, we effectively distanced ourselves from the kind of evolution and survival of the fittest that animals go through and chose to define humanity ourselves. We still have natural selection but for the most part, we define the criteria ourselves (i.e., we make conscious decisions such as "that man's verbal skills mean more to me than his tendency for certain genetic illnesses").
This thing - observing where natural evolution took us and saying "No, this will not do" - is IMHO the greatest accomplishment that humans have achieved. It's what, in the 18th century, made humans special instead of just being crafty animals. Of course, some people (usually fans of "Idiocracy") see this progress as undesirable and desperately hope that we would return to a state where humanity in itself held little value and those with highest chances of survival (be that due to intelligence or physical prowess) were the most desirable partners.
Out of several people who've responded so far with somewhat similar arguments, I'll reply to you as your post was most civil. I think that your post can be broken down to two different points.
Why should people have a right not to be offended? They don't have to pay attention to the stuff this guy posts - that's their choice.
I agree there. However, our whole justice system is based on actions and intentions. It's thus important to see the difference between these two: 1) "You're punished for trying to hurt other people" 2) "You're punished because other people got hurt"
Essentially, you oppose the second statement, as do I. Our whole justice system is based on punishments (you get punished if you break the law) and you can't be punished for what other people do. Thus, we don't say "Driving under influence is illegal because other people might get hurt" as you don't have full control over whether they get hurt or not. Instead, we say "You aren't allowed to drive under influence because you would intentionally cause increased risk of harm to other people" as that's something you can control. It's what you do and what your motives are.
Similarly, I can't control whether someone is offended by this post or not. That's why I can't be punished based on whether anyone is offended or not. I can, however, control whether I intentionally try to hurt relatives of recently dead person because I get my own pleasure out of it so I can be punished based on that intention... whether I actually succeed in hurting them or not. The person in question wasn't punished because the relatives got hurt. He was punished for trying to hurt the relatives.
You may still say that you disagree about the law: That you think behavior like this should be prevented by other means (positive peer pressure comes to mind) than courts and jails. It's a valid opinion! But it's important to see the difference between saying that he was punished because other people got offended and that he was punished because he tried to hurt other people.
The government shouldn't be able to stop people talking about anything, because potentially the thing they are talking about could be something that the people want made legal. By stopping them talking about it, you make it impossible to vote for that idea, destroying the basis of democracy. Freedom of speech is important because without it you can't have democracy. You just have a government that lets you vote so long as you are voting for stuff they don't really hate. It's not the same thing. True democracy means allowing the Nazi party, allowing the paedophile party, and letting them talk about it all day long. It also includes letting this guy be an asshole, as long as he doesn't infringe on the other people's freedoms (punching them, for example, would be injuring them, and that would be wrong under the law).
This is the other argument you've made. However, I would like to quote you a few snippets from the constitution of my country:
No one shall, without an acceptable reason, be treated differently from other persons on the ground of sex, age,
origin, language, religion, conviction, opinion, health, disability or other reason that concerns his or her person...*snip*
Everyone has the freedom of expression. Freedom of expression entails the right to express, disseminate and
receive information, opinions and other communications without prior prevention by anyone...*snip*
Everyone has the right to arrange meetings and demonstrations without a permit, as well as the right to participate in them. Everyone has the freedom of association. Freedom of association entails the right to form an association without a permit, to be a member or not to be a member of an association and to participate in the activities of an association. The freedom to form trade unions and to organise in order to look after other interests is likewise guaranteed...*snip*
I can't wait for the people who'll come howling about censorship... which this wasn't.
If the guy would have punched the dead child's father, we would all be happy with throwing him to jail... for a good reason. We, as a society, have decided something along these lines: "If you cause other people harm and pain for no other reason than your personal amusement, you should be punished". We've then coded that principle to a more formal set of laws as well as we can. If you can cause other people just as much harm by impersonating their dead daughter as you could by punching them in the face, why treat it differently? Just because it's "on the internet" doesn't mean that the same principles and laws shouldn't apply.
I know that in USA there is a concept of "Free speech!" and some people are willing to chant about that like a mantra. In most of Europe, we don't think that everything that comes out of your mouth is sacred. For example, the constitution of my country doesn't contain anything about "Free speech" but instead states that people have the "freedom of opinion, expression and assembly". That is because we think that we want to punish pricks like in this story but we still want to prevent government from squashing unwanted political movements, etc... So, our constitution protects civil rights in a way that doesn't much apply to cases like this. Sure, you can use the slippery slope fallacy, but history shows that it hasn't realized here any more than it has in the USA (despite the "free speech" law).
It's even more complex than that. In USA, there is some sort of a mentality of "Government vs. the People". Even your constitution is designed to limit the government's authority. In Europe, government is seen as a tool of the people. For example, our constitution doesn't say that government can't prevent us from expressing our opinions... it says that government must protect our right to express our opinions if other people try to prevent us from doing so. So I can see why many americans might be saying "Ah! This is a private affair! Government isn't required to interfere in stuff like this so it shouldn't" while mindset of the population (though not necessarily the SlashDot population) on this side of the pond is "This is just the kind of stuff that we designed our government for". So it's a different philosophy between different cultures.
Ah... Why do I even try. We all know that roughly 25% of the comments will be nothing more than "But fascists are squashing FREE SPEECH here!"...
I'm still waiting for/. to start supporting IPoAC... RFC 1149 came out 21 years ago and was built on well established technology. It was updated over 12 years ago and the latest, IPv6-compatible version came out this spring.
1) Not everyone who disagrees with you is a crook hired by evil corporations. You could write your posts without filling them without paranoid name calling.
2) Whether mergers result in immediate job creation or destruction is irrelevant. What matters is the long-term effect for the society/industry/economy/people.
So, when we strip your post of all the hostile attitude, childish name calling, etc. what we have is this: "I don't think that the long-term effect of the merger is positive so the government maybe shouldn't have let it pass and certainly shouldn't have lobbied for it! I bet that the USA officials worked for the Oracle shareholders, not for us as the people...". That's a valid opinion and you could build up from that. I might not agree with it but we could perhaps discuss the matter like adults.
Why do you think so? The government should protect the people/economy/etc. by preventing undesirable outcomes (monopolies, anti-competitive practices, etc.) and advocating desirable outcomes (job-growth, etc.). If they determine that the merger going through is not negative, they don't need to prevent it. If they determine that it's positive, they can advocate it. I don't see any conflict there.
Lobbying isn't that bad. USA officials had arrived to one conclusion, felt that the issue was very important to them and communicated that to EU officials. Regular co-operative communication between officials of two political bodies. If EU officials then arrived to a result which (considering all things, including any political capital gained or lost) was bad for us as EU citizens, then our own officials are to blame. Personally, I don't think that they did and there is nothing in TFA that implies otherwise.
In other words, the cables show that EU and USA officials of corresponding organizations actually communicate with each other when handling international issues. Nothing to see here.
It is a piece of equipment that has been designed to help in a military operation. Why does it matter whether it is in itself armed or whether it "just" helps armed troops in attacking the other side more efficiently? When we get tangled up to such semantic differences, we see ridiculous claims about the newest military technology saving lives or stuff like that.
If the repo of you passwords leaks, one can assume the salt grains would leak too.
Current best practices (as defined by what Zend "The PHP Company" recommends, which is relevant here) is a combination of static and dynamic hash. Static is hard coded to your application and won't be compromised unless the whole codebase is compromised. Dynamic hashes are stored to the DB and are different for each user. If just the DB is compromised, attackers won't know the (static part of) salt. If both the DB and the application code are compromised you're obviously fucked in any case but even then it's very slow to find out all the passwords as you need to attack each user separately due to each having different (dynamic) salt.
As a citizen of the EU, I know that EU has a lot of flaws. The economic policies, the subsidies, etc... However, so far both the legislative branches and the courts have been simply awesome when it comes to not giving in to the lobbying of multinational companies. The courts have been handing fines for anti-competitive practices, privacy violations, etc. left and right (and yes, for european companies too) and the legislators have destroyed software patents, 3-strikes copyright laws, etc. at every occasion. When we do get horrible laws, they're generally based on "think of the children" or "terrorism".
So yeah... The software patents could be validated but frankly, I'm rather optimistic about this.
c.r.o.c.o wanted to use Open Office in the first place, he demonstrated knowledge of the common troubleshooting steps (running as administrator, changing permissions, tried different dictionary versions and even reinstalled [the newest version] of Windows)... If that level of skill isn't enough to operate a piece of office software, 90% of the target audience can't use it. So, we can reasonably establish that he is computer-literate enough that he should be able to use OO.org, don't you think? That is before checking his posting history (which appears to contain discussions about android mods and the like).
why do you assume the software has flaw?
When a person who knows enough about computers (as established above) really wants to use a piece of software and goes through a lot of trouble to make that happen but is unable to... something, somewhere is wrong. If you even can fuck something like this up when installing the software, something is wrong, but I don't think you can. So it must be a flaw.
I'm not going to post anonymous just because I point out uncomfortable truth.
But you don't do that. You really don't.:)
No one has that problem with LibreOffice of people I know, and that is dozens.
Really? Would they all tell you if they had? OO.org has numerous open bugs, some have been open for 8 years. Have dozens of people told you about how frustrated they are with each of those? Either they don't encounter all the bugs that are demonstrably there, or they don't report them all to you. In both cases, your anecdote is completely meaningless.
A minute tail end of the bell curve means nothing, except the tail has a problem. Tails don't wag the dog.
That's entirely different issue. That's no more about your original point of "If I and some of my friends don't encounter this bug, it doesn't exist and you've just fucked up" and more of "If only a small percentage of users encounter the bug, it doesn't need to be fixed", which is still silly. At least one person has already answered to the guy and said that he has encountered the same problem and offered one workaround. Now that I think of it, I actually might have run into this (or at least, some OO.org spellchecking trouble) myself but I'm not sure and really, it doesn't even matter. There is clearly some problem with the software and it clearly causes some people trouble so a kneejerk reaction to it is stupid.
If a computer-literate person can fuck up installing a piece of office software with just the basic modules, even after several tries and even on a fresh install of the OS, something is wrong with the software. A bug is a bug even if most of the people who use the software never encounter it. When someone explains problems they've had using the software, answering "Well, it works well for most of the userbase, so you just suck" is idiotic.
Next time, at least remember to click the "Post Anonymously" checkbox before spilling that kind of garbage.
The Research Institute for the Languages of Finland is a governmental linguistic research institute of Finland geared at studies of Finnish, Swedish (Cf. Finland Swedish), the Sami languages, Romani language, and the Finnish Sign Language. The institute is charged with the standardization of languages used in Finland.
The Swedish Language Council (Swedish: Språkrådet) is the primary regulatory body for the advancement and cultivation of the Swedish language. The council is partially funded by the Swedish government and has semi-official status. The council asserts control over the language through the publication of various books with recommendations in spelling and grammar as well as books on linguistics intended for a general audience, the sales of which are used to fund its operation.
You might also be interested in this rather long list of language regulators from other countries. So there are indeed words and ways to spell them which are considered official.
Okay, then. Let's see how far you're really ready to take that stance.
You agree that me shooting you should be illegal, I assume. Now, let's say that I point at you with a loaded gun, threaten to shoot you but then "pussy out" before actually pulling the trigger. Do you think that this should be completely legal and I shouldn't be punished in any way if I don't actually pull the trigger? I doubt you do. The thing is that by threatening you with a gun, I imply that I'm able and willing to commit a crime and I engage in risky behavior and thus cause you harm and terror even if I don't actually end up carrying it all out. That's why practically all countries recognize a crime that's called "illegal threat" or something along those lines.
Similarly, I believe you agree that a bunch of people breaking and entering into a shop to steal stuff in a time of civil unrest should be illegal... Do you really think that the same bunch of people organizing, planning and inciting that beforehand ("Let's break into [location] tonight at 11pm if no cops are around! We'll meet up 5 minutes earlier at [location]! Bring your friends!") should be legal if the action isn't carried out? That cops can't interfere before the first person actually breaks the window? The sole act of threatening such a crime causes harm to people (The police might need to put extra patrols to that area, the shopkeeper might need to hire extra guards, etc... Harm has been done even if the precautions taken end up with the action not taking place!).
We're all drawing the line at some point. Unless you think that there should be no such things as laws, you think that some actions should be illegal and some should be legal and you draw a line between them. I think that my stance of "You shouldn't be allowed to announce intent to commit illegal acts if such acts cause harm to someone, even if you end up pussying out" isn't any more arbitrary or fascistic that any other.
The line must be drawn here! This far and no further! -- Captain Picard
Of course that's alright. Censorship with qualifiers is all fine and good, right?
Actually, yes. For example, the constitution of my country guarantees me freedom of expression but such a freedom is applied only to the cases where I don't hurt others. e.g., it would be expression of my political opinion to punch certain representatives in the face but it's still good that my opinions can't be used as an excuse for hurting others. Similarly, the government shouldn't suppress people's ability to express their political opinions but they can and should restrict people's communications when it comes to planning crimes that cause harm to other people, such as openly planning violent riots.
The question is where to draw the line but I don't think it's that difficult: If you openly plan action that in itself is illegal, government can restrict that. If you don't, they can't.
I'm quite certain you can't see the brain by looking in through the ear canal.
Are you? If you press your palm against a strong flashlight, I bet you can see some illumination on the skin in the back of your hand as human tissue isn't that effective in blocking the light... If shining light to your brain really has some positive effect, it seems really plausible that powerful light deep in your ear might work!
That said, I've seen these products before (I live in Finland) and remember thinking "Yeah. Right. Seems as scientific as ab tronic".
TFA doesn't have any more info than the summary. PayPal hasn't apparently done any investigation themselves so why couldn't they have handed these over 11 months ago? Did they fear that it would cause a retribution and wanted to harden their systems first? Did they actually hand these over 11 months ago and simply announce it now? Did they just spend a year thinking whether to press charges or not (couldn't they have allowed FBI to start the investigation immediately, even if that was the case?)?
If you want a crime solved, it seems very odd to wait a year before handing the relevant data over to FBI... I refuse to believe that it took them a year to determine what traffic was actually part of the DDoS and what wasn't (it can even contain false positives if it's just the starting point for FBI)!
DropBox includes sharing functionality (you can choose that some of the files are accessible by anyone through browser) and DropBox doesn't want you to sue them for that so they need you to give them a permission to share your files. It's as simple as that and is the same reason why Google+ asks similar rights to all the content you upload. As for the dodgy security... When a program is configured to login automatically, it stores the login credentials somewhere that a hostile person with access to your files can probably copy. I doubt you get around this with DIY version...
Even ignoring those (=assuming that dropbox isn't to be trusted with your data and that their security sucks)...What problem do you want to solve that you can't solve with DropBox + encryption?
Slashdot Mirror
The definition of "social media" varies but generally speaking the word implies online service that is centered around the social relations between the users. Social media builds on who you're interested in, not on what you're interested in. It's based more on the amount of communication as opposed to the content of communication.
For example, Slashdot isn't social media because I come here for the content (articles and the information and opinions found in comments section). Facebook is social media because I go there to see what people I'm interested in are up to - the content of our status updates and comments hold no value at all but rather the fact that we communicate and the metadata of the communication (tones, etc.) are what matters. Some services (Messageboards, IRC, etc.) CAN be used for communication that contains useful information and they CAN be used just for building and maintaining social relations. Generally, a service isn't labeled "social media" unless it is in some ways been clearly designed for that purpose (FB is clearly built for that purpose, IRC can be used in somewhat similar ways but hasn't been specifically designed around that).
Groupon does have some aspects that could technically be called "social" but they're not what the word meand in "social media".
I'm not an evolutionary scientist but based on my understanding, the lines between different species aren't drawn at which ones can't mate with each other but rather at which ones don't mate with each other when interacting in natural environment. For example, I remember reading about a species of birds that are currently in the process of diverging: There are two major color patterns and the birds of each have began treating members of the other color pattern as members of a different species (chasing them away during nesting seasons, etc.).
If that's the case, it could well be argued that humans already evolved into incompatible species: Many cultures all around the world used to consider people from other ethnic groups as lesser humans and certainly something that no respectable human should mate with. I would be willing to bet that 17th century Europeans or Africans, when seeing an Aborginal, would not have stated "Ah, there is my fellow human!".
Of course, then came the age of enlightenment and humans decided "Wait a minute. We could try not basing our world views on our first instincts and what 'feels' right or wrong. While we're at it, we could dismiss the notion that just because someone is weaker or different, they should be shunned!". At that point, we effectively distanced ourselves from the kind of evolution and survival of the fittest that animals go through and chose to define humanity ourselves. We still have natural selection but for the most part, we define the criteria ourselves (i.e., we make conscious decisions such as "that man's verbal skills mean more to me than his tendency for certain genetic illnesses").
This thing - observing where natural evolution took us and saying "No, this will not do" - is IMHO the greatest accomplishment that humans have achieved. It's what, in the 18th century, made humans special instead of just being crafty animals. Of course, some people (usually fans of "Idiocracy") see this progress as undesirable and desperately hope that we would return to a state where humanity in itself held little value and those with highest chances of survival (be that due to intelligence or physical prowess) were the most desirable partners.
Out of several people who've responded so far with somewhat similar arguments, I'll reply to you as your post was most civil. I think that your post can be broken down to two different points.
Why should people have a right not to be offended? They don't have to pay attention to the stuff this guy posts - that's their choice.
I agree there. However, our whole justice system is based on actions and intentions. It's thus important to see the difference between these two:
1) "You're punished for trying to hurt other people"
2) "You're punished because other people got hurt"
Essentially, you oppose the second statement, as do I. Our whole justice system is based on punishments (you get punished if you break the law) and you can't be punished for what other people do. Thus, we don't say "Driving under influence is illegal because other people might get hurt" as you don't have full control over whether they get hurt or not. Instead, we say "You aren't allowed to drive under influence because you would intentionally cause increased risk of harm to other people" as that's something you can control. It's what you do and what your motives are.
Similarly, I can't control whether someone is offended by this post or not. That's why I can't be punished based on whether anyone is offended or not. I can, however, control whether I intentionally try to hurt relatives of recently dead person because I get my own pleasure out of it so I can be punished based on that intention... whether I actually succeed in hurting them or not. The person in question wasn't punished because the relatives got hurt. He was punished for trying to hurt the relatives.
You may still say that you disagree about the law: That you think behavior like this should be prevented by other means (positive peer pressure comes to mind) than courts and jails. It's a valid opinion! But it's important to see the difference between saying that he was punished because other people got offended and that he was punished because he tried to hurt other people.
The government shouldn't be able to stop people talking about anything, because potentially the thing they are talking about could be something that the people want made legal. By stopping them talking about it, you make it impossible to vote for that idea, destroying the basis of democracy. Freedom of speech is important because without it you can't have democracy. You just have a government that lets you vote so long as you are voting for stuff they don't really hate. It's not the same thing. True democracy means allowing the Nazi party, allowing the paedophile party, and letting them talk about it all day long. It also includes letting this guy be an asshole, as long as he doesn't infringe on the other people's freedoms (punching them, for example, would be injuring them, and that would be wrong under the law).
This is the other argument you've made. However, I would like to quote you a few snippets from the constitution of my country:
No one shall, without an acceptable reason, be treated differently from other persons on the ground of sex, age, origin, language, religion, conviction, opinion, health, disability or other reason that concerns his or her person...*snip*
Everyone has the freedom of expression. Freedom of expression entails the right to express, disseminate and receive information, opinions and other communications without prior prevention by anyone...*snip*
Everyone has the right to arrange meetings and demonstrations without a permit, as well as the right to participate in them. Everyone has the freedom of association. Freedom of association entails the right to form an association without a permit, to be a member or not to be a member of an association and to participate in the activities of an association. The freedom to form trade unions and to organise in order to look after other interests is likewise guaranteed...*snip*
As yo
I can't wait for the people who'll come howling about censorship... which this wasn't.
If the guy would have punched the dead child's father, we would all be happy with throwing him to jail... for a good reason. We, as a society, have decided something along these lines: "If you cause other people harm and pain for no other reason than your personal amusement, you should be punished". We've then coded that principle to a more formal set of laws as well as we can. If you can cause other people just as much harm by impersonating their dead daughter as you could by punching them in the face, why treat it differently? Just because it's "on the internet" doesn't mean that the same principles and laws shouldn't apply.
I know that in USA there is a concept of "Free speech!" and some people are willing to chant about that like a mantra. In most of Europe, we don't think that everything that comes out of your mouth is sacred. For example, the constitution of my country doesn't contain anything about "Free speech" but instead states that people have the "freedom of opinion, expression and assembly". That is because we think that we want to punish pricks like in this story but we still want to prevent government from squashing unwanted political movements, etc... So, our constitution protects civil rights in a way that doesn't much apply to cases like this. Sure, you can use the slippery slope fallacy, but history shows that it hasn't realized here any more than it has in the USA (despite the "free speech" law).
It's even more complex than that. In USA, there is some sort of a mentality of "Government vs. the People". Even your constitution is designed to limit the government's authority. In Europe, government is seen as a tool of the people. For example, our constitution doesn't say that government can't prevent us from expressing our opinions... it says that government must protect our right to express our opinions if other people try to prevent us from doing so. So I can see why many americans might be saying "Ah! This is a private affair! Government isn't required to interfere in stuff like this so it shouldn't" while mindset of the population (though not necessarily the SlashDot population) on this side of the pond is "This is just the kind of stuff that we designed our government for". So it's a different philosophy between different cultures.
Ah... Why do I even try. We all know that roughly 25% of the comments will be nothing more than "But fascists are squashing FREE SPEECH here!"...
I'm still waiting for /. to start supporting IPoAC... RFC 1149 came out 21 years ago and was built on well established technology. It was updated over 12 years ago and the latest, IPv6-compatible version came out this spring.
1) Not everyone who disagrees with you is a crook hired by evil corporations. You could write your posts without filling them without paranoid name calling.
2) Whether mergers result in immediate job creation or destruction is irrelevant. What matters is the long-term effect for the society/industry/economy/people.
So, when we strip your post of all the hostile attitude, childish name calling, etc. what we have is this: "I don't think that the long-term effect of the merger is positive so the government maybe shouldn't have let it pass and certainly shouldn't have lobbied for it! I bet that the USA officials worked for the Oracle shareholders, not for us as the people...". That's a valid opinion and you could build up from that. I might not agree with it but we could perhaps discuss the matter like adults.
Why do you think so? The government should protect the people/economy/etc. by preventing undesirable outcomes (monopolies, anti-competitive practices, etc.) and advocating desirable outcomes (job-growth, etc.). If they determine that the merger going through is not negative, they don't need to prevent it. If they determine that it's positive, they can advocate it. I don't see any conflict there.
No alternative has been offered in place of FTP, such as the more secure SFTP.
From TFA.
Lobbying isn't that bad. USA officials had arrived to one conclusion, felt that the issue was very important to them and communicated that to EU officials. Regular co-operative communication between officials of two political bodies. If EU officials then arrived to a result which (considering all things, including any political capital gained or lost) was bad for us as EU citizens, then our own officials are to blame. Personally, I don't think that they did and there is nothing in TFA that implies otherwise.
In other words, the cables show that EU and USA officials of corresponding organizations actually communicate with each other when handling international issues. Nothing to see here.
It is a piece of equipment that has been designed to help in a military operation. Why does it matter whether it is in itself armed or whether it "just" helps armed troops in attacking the other side more efficiently? When we get tangled up to such semantic differences, we see ridiculous claims about the newest military technology saving lives or stuff like that.
If the repo of you passwords leaks, one can assume the salt grains would leak too.
Current best practices (as defined by what Zend "The PHP Company" recommends, which is relevant here) is a combination of static and dynamic hash. Static is hard coded to your application and won't be compromised unless the whole codebase is compromised. Dynamic hashes are stored to the DB and are different for each user. If just the DB is compromised, attackers won't know the (static part of) salt. If both the DB and the application code are compromised you're obviously fucked in any case but even then it's very slow to find out all the passwords as you need to attack each user separately due to each having different (dynamic) salt.
As a citizen of the EU, I know that EU has a lot of flaws. The economic policies, the subsidies, etc... However, so far both the legislative branches and the courts have been simply awesome when it comes to not giving in to the lobbying of multinational companies. The courts have been handing fines for anti-competitive practices, privacy violations, etc. left and right (and yes, for european companies too) and the legislators have destroyed software patents, 3-strikes copyright laws, etc. at every occasion. When we do get horrible laws, they're generally based on "think of the children" or "terrorism".
So yeah... The software patents could be validated but frankly, I'm rather optimistic about this.
Why do you assume computer literacy?
c.r.o.c.o wanted to use Open Office in the first place, he demonstrated knowledge of the common troubleshooting steps (running as administrator, changing permissions, tried different dictionary versions and even reinstalled [the newest version] of Windows)... If that level of skill isn't enough to operate a piece of office software, 90% of the target audience can't use it. So, we can reasonably establish that he is computer-literate enough that he should be able to use OO.org, don't you think? That is before checking his posting history (which appears to contain discussions about android mods and the like).
why do you assume the software has flaw?
When a person who knows enough about computers (as established above) really wants to use a piece of software and goes through a lot of trouble to make that happen but is unable to... something, somewhere is wrong. If you even can fuck something like this up when installing the software, something is wrong, but I don't think you can. So it must be a flaw.
I'm not going to post anonymous just because I point out uncomfortable truth.
But you don't do that. You really don't. :)
No one has that problem with LibreOffice of people I know, and that is dozens.
Really? Would they all tell you if they had? OO.org has numerous open bugs, some have been open for 8 years. Have dozens of people told you about how frustrated they are with each of those? Either they don't encounter all the bugs that are demonstrably there, or they don't report them all to you. In both cases, your anecdote is completely meaningless.
A minute tail end of the bell curve means nothing, except the tail has a problem. Tails don't wag the dog.
That's entirely different issue. That's no more about your original point of "If I and some of my friends don't encounter this bug, it doesn't exist and you've just fucked up" and more of "If only a small percentage of users encounter the bug, it doesn't need to be fixed", which is still silly. At least one person has already answered to the guy and said that he has encountered the same problem and offered one workaround. Now that I think of it, I actually might have run into this (or at least, some OO.org spellchecking trouble) myself but I'm not sure and really, it doesn't even matter. There is clearly some problem with the software and it clearly causes some people trouble so a kneejerk reaction to it is stupid.
If a computer-literate person can fuck up installing a piece of office software with just the basic modules, even after several tries and even on a fresh install of the OS, something is wrong with the software. A bug is a bug even if most of the people who use the software never encounter it. When someone explains problems they've had using the software, answering "Well, it works well for most of the userbase, so you just suck" is idiotic.
Next time, at least remember to click the "Post Anonymously" checkbox before spilling that kind of garbage.
Speak for your own country. In Finland, at least, we have Research Institute for the Languages of Finland.
The Research Institute for the Languages of Finland is a governmental linguistic research institute of Finland geared at studies of Finnish, Swedish (Cf. Finland Swedish), the Sami languages, Romani language, and the Finnish Sign Language. The institute is charged with the standardization of languages used in Finland.
Emphasis mine. In Swedish, there is a very similar body of Swedish Language Council.
The Swedish Language Council (Swedish: Språkrådet) is the primary regulatory body for the advancement and cultivation of the Swedish language. The council is partially funded by the Swedish government and has semi-official status. The council asserts control over the language through the publication of various books with recommendations in spelling and grammar as well as books on linguistics intended for a general audience, the sales of which are used to fund its operation.
You might also be interested in this rather long list of language regulators from other countries. So there are indeed words and ways to spell them which are considered official.
Okay, then. Let's see how far you're really ready to take that stance.
You agree that me shooting you should be illegal, I assume. Now, let's say that I point at you with a loaded gun, threaten to shoot you but then "pussy out" before actually pulling the trigger. Do you think that this should be completely legal and I shouldn't be punished in any way if I don't actually pull the trigger? I doubt you do. The thing is that by threatening you with a gun, I imply that I'm able and willing to commit a crime and I engage in risky behavior and thus cause you harm and terror even if I don't actually end up carrying it all out. That's why practically all countries recognize a crime that's called "illegal threat" or something along those lines.
Similarly, I believe you agree that a bunch of people breaking and entering into a shop to steal stuff in a time of civil unrest should be illegal... Do you really think that the same bunch of people organizing, planning and inciting that beforehand ("Let's break into [location] tonight at 11pm if no cops are around! We'll meet up 5 minutes earlier at [location]! Bring your friends!") should be legal if the action isn't carried out? That cops can't interfere before the first person actually breaks the window? The sole act of threatening such a crime causes harm to people (The police might need to put extra patrols to that area, the shopkeeper might need to hire extra guards, etc... Harm has been done even if the precautions taken end up with the action not taking place!).
We're all drawing the line at some point. Unless you think that there should be no such things as laws, you think that some actions should be illegal and some should be legal and you draw a line between them. I think that my stance of "You shouldn't be allowed to announce intent to commit illegal acts if such acts cause harm to someone, even if you end up pussying out" isn't any more arbitrary or fascistic that any other.
The line must be drawn here! This far and no further! -- Captain Picard
Of course that's alright. Censorship with qualifiers is all fine and good, right?
Actually, yes. For example, the constitution of my country guarantees me freedom of expression but such a freedom is applied only to the cases where I don't hurt others. e.g., it would be expression of my political opinion to punch certain representatives in the face but it's still good that my opinions can't be used as an excuse for hurting others. Similarly, the government shouldn't suppress people's ability to express their political opinions but they can and should restrict people's communications when it comes to planning crimes that cause harm to other people, such as openly planning violent riots.
The question is where to draw the line but I don't think it's that difficult: If you openly plan action that in itself is illegal, government can restrict that. If you don't, they can't.
I'm quite certain you can't see the brain by looking in through the ear canal.
Are you? If you press your palm against a strong flashlight, I bet you can see some illumination on the skin in the back of your hand as human tissue isn't that effective in blocking the light... If shining light to your brain really has some positive effect, it seems really plausible that powerful light deep in your ear might work!
That said, I've seen these products before (I live in Finland) and remember thinking "Yeah. Right. Seems as scientific as ab tronic".
TFA doesn't have any more info than the summary. PayPal hasn't apparently done any investigation themselves so why couldn't they have handed these over 11 months ago? Did they fear that it would cause a retribution and wanted to harden their systems first? Did they actually hand these over 11 months ago and simply announce it now? Did they just spend a year thinking whether to press charges or not (couldn't they have allowed FBI to start the investigation immediately, even if that was the case?)?
If you want a crime solved, it seems very odd to wait a year before handing the relevant data over to FBI... I refuse to believe that it took them a year to determine what traffic was actually part of the DDoS and what wasn't (it can even contain false positives if it's just the starting point for FBI)!
DropBox includes sharing functionality (you can choose that some of the files are accessible by anyone through browser) and DropBox doesn't want you to sue them for that so they need you to give them a permission to share your files. It's as simple as that and is the same reason why Google+ asks similar rights to all the content you upload. As for the dodgy security... When a program is configured to login automatically, it stores the login credentials somewhere that a hostile person with access to your files can probably copy. I doubt you get around this with DIY version...
Even ignoring those (=assuming that dropbox isn't to be trusted with your data and that their security sucks)...What problem do you want to solve that you can't solve with DropBox + encryption?