I do understand the point. People are doing their jobs here, but I merely wish to point out that Big Brother is watching. I might even suggest that you are missing my point.
Unfortunately I do not have any sympathy for large corporations. OK, I admit it, I am an anti-capitalist.
These sorts of issues can be looked at from several different pov's ie
1) The law is the law is the law and that is the bottom line. I smoke pot, but I disagree with the opinion that regardless of whether I like this law or not I must obey it.
2) I am the victim sysadmin and I have to do my job, these hackers must be punished. Yes, they must be stopped, but how serious is altering a bunch of 1's and 0's? Does the attacker really deserve the hefty punishments pushed by corporate entities? Yes, you may stop this particular 'criminal' from offending again, but remember: there are another 500 would be hackers waiting in the wings that don't see this as a deterrent. Lessons should be learned from the already failing criminal system. The justice system (I am only referring to the web defacement departments here - I agree that rapists, murderers, burglars etc should be dealt with quite seriously - though differently from what we do today) only works in the sense that it:
a) Retrieves monetary compensation for the victim.
b) Creates political propaganda for the current government by pretending it is on top of things.
c) Gives the media some fodder to fatten up the bulls**t that it has to sell.
3) I am a human being with definite moral principles. I disagree that corporations have power over people. Capitalism was created to give power to the individual, but somehow, in the process of greed and egomania, we have created these monsters that control the government that control us. I am not bending over for MicroSoft, the Yankees, Amazon, AT&T etc etc.
BTW: I share the 3rd pov. I am not a programmer, a hacker, a scr1pt k1dd13, or anything other than a concerned member of Planet Earth. I am concerned for the future. What direction are we taking society in? This is definitely the wrong one. How many laws will there be in a hundred years? Seriously ask yourself that. How much MORE power will the corporations have in a hundred years? What role will the individual have to play in society in a hundred years. These are but a few questions that 99% of the planet have failed to even realise as questions let alone ask them....What sort of world do you want your grandchildren to live in?
Don't get me wrong, I am not accusing you or anyone else of ignorance in these areas. (Or of not having an opinion.) It is just that I see this particular story (as well as many others) as a vivid account of the perversion of humanity. A radical view I admit, but nonetheless a reasoned and educated view.
Checking out defaced websites is both fun and funny. (Running a vulnerable version of a ware on a live box is pretty funny - we all do it occassionally, but you can't cry when you get hacked).
It is the admins responsibility to secure a box. If it gets hacked it is the admins problem. Sure, if one can catch the hacker then great! Bust them whatever...the hacker accepted that risk when he/she alters the first file.
This IS big brother, this is about rights. Don't be fooled into thinking otherwise. We are fast becoming dopey little sheep that kowtow and bend over every time the "government" (corporations such as m$ and the Yankees) want to sodomise us.
'#72524!!!! Stand up straight!!! You are being charged with crimes against the state!! You are sentenced to......'
Whoopdey-doo! Audio transmission...pretty new. Lets make some other 'new' interesting items to feature on slashdot...
(1) MP3 Phone - Simply place our specially designed handset near your PC speaker and transmit mp3's across the world at the same quality as realaudio but without glitches or buffering problems!!
(2) MP3 PPP - With our advanced audio technology, you can transmit audio to any point in your building without terminating any cables!!! Simply place our patented TransCan(tm) in front of your audio speaker and the RecieveCan (tm) at ear or microphone of recipient. Pull the string tight and you have clean uninterrupted MP3!
(3) MP3 Wheel - This new Solid Object Design (SOD) is designed to roll much better than a normal square cement slab thanks to our super advanced manufacturing technology. It doesn't play MP3, but I figure that if you put those three letters in a post, it somehow becomes relevant.
'When I was young I prayed to God for a bicycle.....Then I learnt that God does not work that way - so I stole one and asked him for forgiveness instead.'
I do agree with you in that Penrose does, as you say, throw a curveball at a crucial point in the book. His arguments do appear to be that of a mathematician as opposed to a physicist. The fact that I point to is that with regards to the presence of the soul in living beings such as humans, it is as yet unexplained how the two are inter-related. In my opinion, Penrose does not so much conjure some mumbo-jumbo inferences within this field, but rather poses some interesting questions and illustrates the borders of our current understanding of the mind.
Prejudices aside (ie windows comments) it is interesting to ponder the unknown relationships. between physical brain activity and consciousness. People should read Roger Penrose's books Shadows of the Mind and the Emperors New Mind for interesting thoughts in this area. Just imagine a poor sentient (or conscious - I can think of no other way to describe it) soul having to endure the mundane tasks of acting as a word processor or whatever. Maybe one day a computer will turn around and say "I'm sorry, but I can't let you do that."
An intersing aside is whether or not this sort of technology would allow for non-computable processes to actually take place ie outside the confines of coventional Turing computation....
Slashdot Mirror
I do understand the point. People are doing their jobs here, but I merely wish to point out that Big Brother is watching. I might even suggest that you are missing my point.
Unfortunately I do not have any sympathy for large corporations. OK, I admit it, I am an anti-capitalist.
These sorts of issues can be looked at from several different pov's ie
1) The law is the law is the law and that is the bottom line. I smoke pot, but I disagree with the opinion that regardless of whether I like this law or not I must obey it.
2) I am the victim sysadmin and I have to do my job, these hackers must be punished. Yes, they must be stopped, but how serious is altering a bunch of 1's and 0's? Does the attacker really deserve the hefty punishments pushed by corporate entities? Yes, you may stop this particular 'criminal' from offending again, but remember: there are another 500 would be hackers waiting in the wings that don't see this as a deterrent. Lessons should be learned from the already failing criminal system. The justice system (I am only referring to the web defacement departments here - I agree that rapists, murderers, burglars etc should be dealt with quite seriously - though differently from what we do today) only works in the sense that it:
a) Retrieves monetary compensation for the victim.
b) Creates political propaganda for the current government by pretending it is on top of things.
c) Gives the media some fodder to fatten up the bulls**t that it has to sell.
3) I am a human being with definite moral principles. I disagree that corporations have power over people. Capitalism was created to give power to the individual, but somehow, in the process of greed and egomania, we have created these monsters that control the government that control us. I am not bending over for MicroSoft, the Yankees, Amazon, AT&T etc etc.
BTW: I share the 3rd pov. I am not a programmer, a hacker, a scr1pt k1dd13, or anything other than a concerned member of Planet Earth. I am concerned for the future. What direction are we taking society in? This is definitely the wrong one. How many laws will there be in a hundred years? Seriously ask yourself that. How much MORE power will the corporations have in a hundred years? What role will the individual have to play in society in a hundred years. These are but a few questions that 99% of the planet have failed to even realise as questions let alone ask them....What sort of world do you want your grandchildren to live in?
Don't get me wrong, I am not accusing you or anyone else of ignorance in these areas. (Or of not having an opinion.) It is just that I see this particular story (as well as many others) as a vivid account of the perversion of humanity. A radical view I admit, but nonetheless a reasoned and educated view.
Checking out defaced websites is both fun and funny. (Running a vulnerable version of a ware on a live box is pretty funny - we all do it occassionally, but you can't cry when you get hacked).
It is the admins responsibility to secure a box. If it gets hacked it is the admins problem. Sure, if one can catch the hacker then great! Bust them whatever...the hacker accepted that risk when he/she alters the first file.
This IS big brother, this is about rights. Don't be fooled into thinking otherwise. We are fast becoming dopey little sheep that kowtow and bend over every time the "government" (corporations such as m$ and the Yankees) want to sodomise us.
'#72524!!!! Stand up straight!!! You are being charged with crimes against the state!! You are sentenced to......'
Whoopdey-doo! Audio transmission...pretty new. Lets make some other 'new' interesting items to feature on slashdot...
(1) MP3 Phone - Simply place our specially designed handset near your PC speaker and transmit mp3's across the world at the same quality as realaudio but without glitches or buffering problems!!
(2) MP3 PPP - With our advanced audio technology, you can transmit audio to any point in your building without terminating any cables!!! Simply place our patented TransCan(tm) in front of your audio speaker and the RecieveCan (tm) at ear or microphone of recipient. Pull the string tight and you have clean uninterrupted MP3!
(3) MP3 Wheel - This new Solid Object Design (SOD) is designed to roll much better than a normal square cement slab thanks to our super advanced manufacturing technology. It doesn't play MP3, but I figure that if you put those three letters in a post, it somehow becomes relevant.
'When I was young I prayed to God for a bicycle.....Then I learnt that God does not work that way - so I stole one and asked him for forgiveness instead.'
I do agree with you in that Penrose does, as you say, throw a curveball at a crucial point in the book. His arguments do appear to be that of a mathematician as opposed to a physicist. The fact that I point to is that with regards to the presence of the soul in living beings such as humans, it is as yet unexplained how the two are inter-related. In my opinion, Penrose does not so much conjure some mumbo-jumbo inferences within this field, but rather poses some interesting questions and illustrates the borders of our current understanding of the mind.
Prejudices aside (ie windows comments) it is interesting to ponder the unknown relationships. between physical brain activity and consciousness. People should read Roger Penrose's books Shadows of the Mind and the Emperors New Mind for interesting thoughts in this area. Just imagine a poor sentient (or conscious - I can think of no other way to describe it) soul having to endure the mundane tasks of acting as a word processor or whatever. Maybe one day a computer will turn around and say "I'm sorry, but I can't let you do that."
An intersing aside is whether or not this sort of technology would allow for non-computable processes to actually take place ie outside the confines of coventional Turing computation....