1. american culture breeds lots of criminals Relative to Northern Europe, yes.
2. american justice is puritanical and extreme Again, relative to Northern Europe, yes.
3. the usa does a better job of catching criminals than other countries do American criminal justice certainly likes to make this claim, but this is something notoriously difficult to measure. Conviction rates really only tell you how biased the system is towards the prosecution/defense. Matching actual crimes to convictions is extremely difficult for outside researchers due to the unwillingness of police agencies to release accurate records and the lack of independent records.
The reality is that US law enforcement is very good at catching certain TYPES of criminals, like petty drug offenders (BTW, most people in jail for gun offenses are really there for drug offenses). Because of "conspiracy" laws it's now incredibly easy to pin drug crimes on people, so we have very high conviction rates for this particular crime. We have very low conviction rates for corporate fraud, for example, because those people can actually hire/bribe police, lawyers, judges, politicians, etc.
i wouldn't expect one country or another to have a lot more criminals than the next. This is batshit crazy. Do you really think the cultural environment doesn't contribute to the level of crime? Do you REALLY think their are the same number criminals per capita in, say, Iraq, Congo, or even Russia as there are in the USA?
scandinavian countries and finland are dark and cold. the people there are usually morbid or drunk. hey, that's not a smear, don't take my word for it, ask any swede or dane or finn, they'll tell you the same. so the criminals there are passed out or its too cold to go outside Well, I'm of Danish descent and I find this pretty offensive. Yeah, Danes drink a lot. Americans drink a lot too and it seems the drunker they are the more crimes they want to commit, so this reasoning doesn't follow.
Most American criminals are in jail for drugs. One big difference between Denmark and the USA is that marijuana, cocaine, heroin, etc. are either de-facto legal or the penalties are very low. This alone could account for the low rate of incarceration in Denmark, but there's more to the story. Most people who end up in jail are effectively there because they're poor (this is easily proven). Danish society is much more egalitarian than the USA, so poor people that would turn to street crime in the USA (like drug addicts) have access to public assistance, housing assistance, and drug treatment. Prostitution is also legal in DK. So all of this together means there is little street crime. Relatively tight regulations means less fraud (though higher costs). Law enforcement tends to concentrate on teenagers, domestic violence (pretty uncommon in DK), traffic, and the occasional serious crime (like murder).
Of course in the marketplace of ideas, you're allowed to try to sell anything no matter how quirky. But that does not mean that all ideas will sell equally well. Freedom of the press only exists for those that own one. Debate in the USA is limited mainly by the opinions of the owners of the presses. That's why there is very little serious criticism of the US economy, US military, US business, and most of all, US trade in the media. Media companies are big corporations, and more importantly, they accept billions in advertising dollars from big businesses who pointedly insist that they not produce anything critical.
Of course if I were on the far left or the far right this process would work very much against me. But to me that's the point of democracy, a few people at the fringes of the political spectrum end up not having any power at all ever and the vast mass of centrists get to compete for it. I HATE this line of reasoning. There is no such thing as a "center". There are issues and people have opinions on them. That's it. The notion that some issues are "right" or "left" are political tools used to divide people. "You shouldn't believe in that because only dope smoking leftist hippies believe in that." or the converse of "You shouldn't believe in that because only racist crazy right-wingers believe in that."
Nobody is 100% "right" or 100% "left". These are merely political labels, not reality.
i think you will find that people living in places with low prison populations and huge corruption would love to see some more american style prison population levels So you're saying people in these places want their corrupt officials to imprison them? Really?
If you look at American prisons you'll find they're not filled with corrupt officials. It's mostly petty street criminals that are given excessively long sentences due to "3 strikes", mandatory minimums, and elimination of parole.
Thus is exactly the kind of person poorly supervised police officers are likely want to target. Please mod the parent up. One of the biggest problems with police is that they're LAZY (like everyone else) and would rather go after the "easy" criminals (vagrants, shoplifters, corner drug dealers, etc.) than the "tough" criminals (professional gangsters, con artists, banks, etc.) because the "tough" criminals are more difficult to catch and many are actually dangerous.
This is EXTREMELY illegal, if done for reasons other than sound financial judgment (and I can't believe Craigslist has a legit reason for issuing more shares, if that is what they've been doing). "We need to offer financial incentives to employees in order to attract the best employees in the competitive market of the Bay Area".
This literally happens EVERY SINGLE DAY in tech companies and is very easy to defend. As others have pointed out, this is almost certainly a hostile move as Craigslist is eBay's #1 competitor.
Every game release that has a PS3 version and an XBox360 version is better on the XBox360, without fail. Check the reviews. This simply isn't true. For example, the preferred version of Assassin's Creed is the PS3 version. The big problem is that Blu-Ray is very slow at loading data off the disc (compared to DVD-ROM) and designers have to take that into account, usually by caching data on the hard disc. In theory, this means that PS3 games can actually perform better, but only when they're loading game data off the hard disc.
The 360's online service is also generally regarded as better than the PS3's, so online-heavy games (like Call of Duty 4) tend to have an edge on the 360.
But for games that don't have an large online component and know how to leverage the hard drive, the PS3 can have an edge in performance and playability.
They called, asking to speak to me, then informed me
Further, any time I've contacted them, it's always the last four numbers of my SSN and a password I have on file. So your original post was BS, as I've been saying.
Actually, a few years ago (quite a few, actually) I had occassion to seriously study confidence games and scams and most have relatively obvious patterns. Like I said earlier, I find this attitude really amusing. I can think of no way to make yourself more vulnerable to scams than to insist you're invulnerable.
So much so that my bank and credit card company have both already told me in advance that they will NEVER send me an email asking for verification of account information. Are you SERIOUSLY saying that your credit card company called you, didn't even ask your name, and then told you "Bob Smith's credit card was stolen. We're sending a replacement. "? Was it automated?
You said previously that "no company" would "ever" send an email or PHONE CALL (emphasis mine) asking for any verification information whatsoever including Mother's maiden name, ZIP code, etc. As I can think of literally 100s of American companies that do this, including the phone and power companies, so I stand by my statement that you'd have a tough time getting by if you refused to do this.
I think that the fact your bank makes no attempt to verify your identity when emailing or calling you to be distressing and insecure (assuming that's actually true, which I seriously doubt).
I think these "I'm too smart to be tricked" claims I keep hearing from people are really amusing.
Of course, that is the primary function. But it isn't a function that trumps civil liberties, due process, freedom of speech, freedom of association, or many other rights. Societies in which protection from crime and violence trumps these individual rights are totalitarian and undemocratic, and I will fight people like you trying to turn our society into such a police state. Wanting to punish con artists and thieves makes me a totalitarian? Are you serious?
Besides, there ARE no societies that protect citizens from crime at the expense of civil rights because the purpose of removing those civil rights is not to reduce crime, but to crush dissent. Do you really think there is less crime (of any sort) in China or Russia? If it makes you feel better, this applies to the USA too. The USAPATRIOT Act (for example) has absolutely nothing to do with fighting "terrorism" and everything to do with crushing dissenting voices, like pro-Jihad voices.
In particular, you should not be able to limit my freedoms because I might hypothetically do something to you. If you ROB me then you haven't "hypothetically" done something, you have LITERALLY taken my money.
Except for possibly adjusting penalties on trademark enforcement, we don't need new laws to deal with on-line crime. There are also serious jurisdictional issues here. For example, Many phishers come from Russia. Russia refuses to extradite criminals to the US. Rather than go along with this, I think the US should just kidnap the criminals off the streets of Russia and transport them back for trial in the US. This is called "rendition" and is currently illegal. It's also currently illegal for US law enforcement to engage in counterattacks, I think they should be allowed to do this too.
And we also need more cops. The FBI cybercrimes unit isn't cutting it. I think we need an agency dedicated to cybercrime so the agents won't be diverted by "terrorism", drugs, "satanic ritual abuse", or the current political crime de jure.
You have heard of SSL, haven't you? You do know it's possible to spoof an SSL cert, right? We do it here all the time.
Yet, as rtechie also says, crime existed long before computers. It always has and always will exist and adapt itself to the technologies and circumstances du jour. No amount of law enforcement or technological advancement has ever or will ever fully eliminate it. We hope to put the burden on the criminal, but will never be 100% successful. There's no use pretending otherwise. Nonsense. There used to be a thing in the USA called "banditry". If you went out into the countryside, roving gangs would rob you. This is near-nonexistent now. Lynch mobs are a thing of the past as well. Why? Because the police in various states banded together to hunt down bandits (so they couldn't just flee to another state) and the Feds cracked down on local police that encouraged lynching. So it certainly *IS* possible to eliminate or greatly reduce crimes if there is a strong enough incentive to do it. Youth gangs and youth violence have also plummeted too.
Again, just because it's not EASY, doesn't mean it's not the correct solution.
If I receive an e-mail claiming to be from my bank which states that my account information has changed or that otherwise there is some input/information needed from me, I am not going to take it seriously nor am I going to click on any links in that e-mail or allow any Javascript/etc contained in it to execute.... While I do understand URL redirection and DNS spoofing... Basically your advice boils down to "Never click a link in email, IM, or on many websites." I'm a security professional, and *I* do not do this. I think it's absurdly unreasonable.
Have you ever done professional tech support? Do you REALLY think it's reasonable or possible to get children or the elderly to do this? Or is your response "fuck old people"?
The "hard way", going after the criminals and punishing them, is the RIGHT way and the only way that will actually work.
What happens if your Windows PC has a bust? You either beat your head against the wall until it's fixed (yes, you have to do that with Linux also) or you pay someone who can fix it for you. One important point that always seems to be lost in Linux vs. Windows debates is that because Windows runs on 90% of the computers out there is vastly more technical support available simply because the popularity is such that it's far more likely numerous people have encountered your EXACT problem. Because of all the users and bug reports many people don't seem to grasp that Windows is by far the most extensively QA'd operating system available. Very rarely do you run into a problem that's truly "unknown" in Windows. There might not be a good solution or easy workaround for the problem, but it's almost always "known" by Microsoft and they have a Knowledge Base article or (if it's really obscure) forum post about it. Given the complexity of modern operating systems this is a point Windows doesn't get enough credit for.
You also bring up the point of "paying someone to fix it for you". Which do you think is easier to find in Tulsa, Oklahoma; a Windows expert or a Ubuntu expert? I live in Silicon Valley, it's not hard for me to find a Linux expert (hell, I AM a Linux expert). But I suspect that isn't true in much of the United States. And most of the companies I've worked with overseas used Windows extensively as well.
You could probably count me as a mini-mini power user. I am not afraid to wipe a hard drive and install an OS. But on a regular basis, I try to stay away from the command line as much as possible and I can't code anything. I think you're selling yourself short. You're already obviously above 90% of computer users in knowledge, which makes you far from typical. Frankly, I do IT and tech support for a living and based on my experience, 90% of users have serious problems managing their Windows desktops at home. The ones that fare best typically get help from their company's IT or they have a kid or friend that's good with Windows. Because, in practice, few people can afford to pay for truly competent private tech support.
There is yet to be ANY evidence that infallible ID of every citizen leads to better security, better safety, or in fact anything better. While I am against these ID schemes, I do have to say that the ability to quickly verify the identity of suspects is of enormous value to law enforcement. It would be very useful for law enforcement to be able to pull up a very accurate police reports, criminal history, etc. on suspects at the touch of a button. For example, heavier reliance on DNA evidence in rape cases has dramatically lowered the rate of innocents convicted. DNA is also very useful for identifying lost or disabled people (I think it's less useful for children than, say, Alzheimer's patients). DNA ID is likely to reduce identity theft, which is becoming an increasingly serious problem. The claims I've heard in other parts of this thread (DNA evidence is unreliable, it doesn't help tracking people down, etc.) really don't stand up to scrutiny.
The same things that make universal ID useful to law enforcement make it dangerous for civil liberties. It becomes VERY easy to create blacklists for purposes OTHER than legitimate law enforcement. For example, the Bush administration has placed numerous peace activists on the "do not fly" list in order to restrict their political activities.
How much intelligence does it take to never, ever assume an email or a call from a company asking for information or "verification" is actually from said company? If you truly hold this position you will have great difficulty using most remote services, like phone banking, mail order, etc. because this is effectively insisting on one-way communication with companies. What happens when (for example) you bank calls you to report a problem? That customer service person WILL ask you for personal information like your mother's maiden name, ZIP code, SSN, etc. to verify your identity. Using your method you would refuse to give that information and you would never learn (for example) that your credit card was stolen, or that an important payment bounced, etc.
There's also such a thing as painting a bulls-eye on your chest and turning yourself into a target. I don't consider (for example) using PayPal to be the equivalent of painting a bull's eye on your chest. Clicking on a link in an email is a NORMAL internet task.
Of course, the perpetrator is the guilty party, and the victim is the innocent party. But were discussing policy, not guilt, so that doesn't mean that we need to protect the victim. It isn't the government's function to protect everybody from anything that might happen to them. I STRONGLY disagree with this assertion. I believe the PRIMARY function of government, far more important than any other aspect, is to protect the public from crime and violence.
Again, I do not understand why some people consider computer crimes to be fundamentally different from other types of crime. You seem to be going farther and saying that even though you agree that phishing is morally wrong, you don't think it should be illegal because...? My guess that you think it shouldn't be illegal because enforcement is impractical. I disagree.
I don't use anti-phishing technology because all those technologies themselves have serious problems, and they are completely unnecessary: for any important site, I just type the URL or use a bookmark. So how do you protect yourself from DNS spoofing?
If you understand the basic concepts of how the internet works and apply critical judgment in your transactions, you don't need to have encyclopedic knowledge of every scam in human history -- that's the whole point. I strongly disagree with the notion that "understanding the basic concepts of how the internet works" will protect users from scams, including phishing scams, in any way whatsoever. Understanding the tricks phishers use (for example) generally involves understanding URL redirection and DNS spoofing which are advanced networking topics that even many experts do not understand. And as I said earlier, even if we magically eliminated phishing tomorrow, or educated every user in every imaginable aspect of phishing, the scammers would simply switch to a different scam that was less well understood.
Experience has taught me that that even computer experts get infected with viruses and troyjans, fall for scams, etc. If mere general computer knowledge was really an adequate defense against these scams this wouldn't happen. But in my experience this happens all the time.
And as I said earlier, the logic here is very strained. People who blame end users for computer scams NEVER apply this reasoning to any other types of scams or crimes. They somehow consider computer crimes to be completely different from other kinds of crimes, and that computer crimes do not require law enforcement.
There are many forms of stupidity. For some reason, intelligence keeps getting confused with wisdom. I'm honestly not sure if that confusion is deliberately encouraged in order to obscure the issue or if most people really have no working knowledge of what the difference is. I'm confused by the way you use the term "wisdom" (which seems to be similar to "common sense"). Please give YOUR definition of "wisdom". How does one acquire "wisdom"? Are young children expected to have "wisdom"?
You can be very smart without understanding that your area of expertise consists of having memorized the ins and outs of a particular inventory of knowledge and that you lack the practical, working knowledge component of true understanding. This is gibberish. What you're trying to say is that it's possible to have a inventory of knowledge about a topic like medicine (for example) without knowing how to apply that knowledge in a practical manner (as a doctor would). I agree with this insight, but I do not understand how it is applicable to the current discussion. Very few people have a large inventory of abstract information about scams and no experience whatsoever in how those scams are applied. I'd argue the same is true of most computer experts as well.
Knowing how to use the telephone shows that you have memorized a small bit of intellectual knowledge. Understanding that there are dishonest people in the world and that therefore, not everyone who calls you is truly who they claim to be demonstrates a working knowledge of the world and of the limitations of the telephone network; that is, a bit of wisdom. So why the need to apologize for people who can't tell the difference? I can't tell the difference because you haven't defined your terms in any way.
Your analogy is flawed because once someone is stabbed, the laws of physics dictate that there is going to be a wound and it will probably be a serious one. It's not like a stabbing victim can decide "hmm, the point of a knife just struck my body with considerable force... should I let that injure me or not?" Are seriously going to argue that it's impossible for a human being to dodge out of the way of a knife thrust? I specifically used a knife in this example instead of a gun to drive this point home. Simply because it is POSSIBLE to avoid a crime does not mean someone is stupid or ignorant for not doing so.
Just because you receive a phishing attempt, there is no law of physics that forces you to give your personal information to a complete stranger without first performing some due diligence to verify that the stranger is who he/she claims to be. So while you might think you just made some profound point, you have compared an apple to an orange and have effectively made the claim that people must accept everything at face value and believe every lie someone tells them. I'll use a different analogy if it makes you feel better:
A person dressed as a police officer comes to your door saying he has a warrant and needs to search your house. You ask to view his credentials and warrant, both APPEAR to be authentic, but you're not an expert and really can't tell the difference between a real warrant and a fake one. You let the "police officer" in and it turns out he's secretly a serial killer and he shoots you in the head once he goes inside.
I think the above situation is very similar to phishing. You have a person disguised as an authority who makes demands on you. Yes, you could choose to ignore the police officer and refuse to let him inside, but you face the risk of being arrested. In a similar fashion, phishing scams often claim that something bad will happen (like your account being compromised) if you DON'T give your personal information.
People who fall for phishing scams are not stupid. They are often very smart people. Mere general intelligence is no defense against scams. Even being a scam artist or security expert yourself isn't a guarantee because NOBODY has encyclopedic knowledge of every scam in human history. If they run across a scam they're not familiar with they're just as vulnerable as "stupid" people.
Knowing how to use the tools offers no protection against scams. Knowing how to use a telephone does not protect you from callers that contact you and attempt to scam you. Knowing how to open a door does not protect you from people who come to your door and try and scam you.
You have a "blame the victim" mentality. It's clearly the fault of the stabbing victim that he got stabbed. He should have jumped out of the way. It's willful helplessness, plain and simple.
Scammers existed long before computers. If you created a free tool that would 100% stop all phishing under all circumstances the scammers would just switch to a different scam. The PROBLEM is the scammers. Period. Crime is the fault of criminals, not the victims.
other examples of unlawful combatants are terrorists, civilians taking arms against a lawful combatant. "Terrorists" are not "civilians taking arms against a lawful combatant". "civilians taking arms against a lawful combatant" are called "irregular militia" as opposed to "regular military". The distinction has to do with uniforms and training. There is no law that says that "irregular militia" should be treated any differently from "regular military".
The term "unlawful combatants" in the Geneva convention refers ONLY to spies and saboteurs, combatants trying to impersonate the other side. "Unlawful combatants" may be tried under CIVILIAN LAW for spying, acts of sabotage, etc. which are considered "war crimes". This term does not appear in other applicable laws, like the UN Convention Against Torture and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. And the Geneva conventions specifically say that, other than being charged for "war crimes", "unlawful combatants" must be treated EXACTLY like other POW. Which means no interrogation whatsoever.
And finally, the term "uniform" is to be interpreted as broadly as possible. The checked turbans of the Taliban, for example, count as a "uniform".
civilians are normally not combatants, and if they are, they become unlawful ones for the most part. the whole idea behind this is to limit civilian casualties. So torturing the "terrorists" that "hide" among the civilians limits civilian casualties... how exactly? Remember that the "terrorists" are civilians as well.
I worked on Xandros Desktop, which is a boxed retail product that customers install on their own hardware. Xandros, as far as I'm aware, did not ship any hardware whatsoever. I'm not even sure if we had any OEM partners (at least for Desktop). I never talked to anyone who had a preinstalled Xandros box.
You are changing the subject. The original post alleged, we waterboarded POWs. We did not. International and domestic law, as well as centuries of tradition, divides EVERYONE ON EARTH into two categories: military/combatant and civilian. There are two LEGAL tracks for dealing with prisoners: military tribunals or domestic criminal law. NEITHER allow any coerced interrogation whatsoever. The Geneva Conventions do not allow ANY interrogation whatsoever. Under US law it is illegal for anyone to use coercive interrogations on anyone for any purpose.
The Bush regime created the category of "unlawful combatant" in an attempt to create a legal limbo that somehow LEGALLY allowed him to interrogate and torture prisoners. He directed his lawyers to construct a legal justification for torture and then instructed his AG to give all torturers a pass.
The Bush administration tortured prisoners of war, or if you prefer, domestic prisoners, because "unlawful combatants" do not exist.
Linux is far easier to support than is Windows. Have you ever done professional technical support i.e. you were paid by a real company to do support, not a mom & pop? I have, for both Xandros and Windows.
Supporting Xandros was nigh-impossible. The biggest problem? Huge swaths of hardware not working. Notably about 90% of the printers on the market, most modems, and most wireless cards. We simply wouldn't support Xandros on laptops because so much was broken. Home users tended to be very frustrated by this. The corporate customers had a much easier time of it because they were almost always running a couple apps (like Crossover Office) on fixed desktops, almost like kiosks. Package management generally worked well, but occasionally customers would completely muck up their install by overwriting libraries they weren't supposed to. I had many more people on Xandros reinstall than I did on Vista.
Windows was completely different. I did Vista Beta support and most of the problems amounted to "this particular app doesn't work right", most of the time it had to do with registry or UAC problems. Occasionally there were weird hardware bugs with video and sound cards. And reminding people that the minimum hardware requirements are the minimum to run Vista like crap. In reality you need a 2GHz CPU, 2GB of memory, and a DirectX 9 video card to do anything useful. I can't think of a single occasion where anyone hosed their system so bad that they had to reinstall (except one guy who manually fucked up the storage drivers, and that was probably fixable). The worst problems I ran into were a few people who had written custom apps in such a way that they caused race conditions in UAC. One of 'em basically locked the system, it was amusing.
Generally, my experience was that Xandros had fewer bugs, but they tended to be major showstoppers. Vista Beta had lots of bugs, but they tended to be relatively trivial.
Shah Pahlavi was the last in a line of Iranian kings that goes back hundreds, and arguably thousands of years. Pahlavi's claim to the Iranian throne was always suspect. His father overthrew the previous Shah and he himself was appointed by the West to replace his father. Monarchs, who are dictators, have no valid mandate to rule anyone. Monarchies are inherently tyrannical.
The Shah, as head of the constitutional monarchy removed Mossadeq from his position as head of parliament after he 1) demanded full control of the military, 2) moved to abolish anonymity in popular voting, and 3) moved to dissolve parliament, a power reserved for the Shah. It was, in fact, Mossadeq who was trying to install himself as dictator. Except that the Shah was also a dictator who was moving to overthrow him.
The real issue was the fact that parliament, and Mossadeq in particular, nationalized the British oil company (now BP) that owned the Iranian oil industry. The population of Iran overwhelmingly supported nationalization and therefore they supported Mossadeq. Mossadeq refused to negotiate with the British to give them a share of Iranian oil profits. In response, the British prevented all oil exports from Iran by blockading the country. In fact, the British threated to invade if Mossadeq was not overthrown.
It's considered a US "coup" because the US backed the Shah with money and other resources (in part to stave off a British invasion). So, at the very least, they intervened on the Shah's side in a civil war in a quid pro quo for oil concessions.
yes, that's the same as arming revolutionaries to storm the presidential mansion! In fact, this is EXACTLY what the CIA did in Iran.
The USA has publicly admitted on numerous occasions that they organized a coup against the Shah. This is simply not controversial.
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The reality is that US law enforcement is very good at catching certain TYPES of criminals, like petty drug offenders (BTW, most people in jail for gun offenses are really there for drug offenses). Because of "conspiracy" laws it's now incredibly easy to pin drug crimes on people, so we have very high conviction rates for this particular crime. We have very low conviction rates for corporate fraud, for example, because those people can actually hire/bribe police, lawyers, judges, politicians, etc. i wouldn't expect one country or another to have a lot more criminals than the next. This is batshit crazy. Do you really think the cultural environment doesn't contribute to the level of crime? Do you REALLY think their are the same number criminals per capita in, say, Iraq, Congo, or even Russia as there are in the USA? scandinavian countries and finland are dark and cold. the people there are usually morbid or drunk. hey, that's not a smear, don't take my word for it, ask any swede or dane or finn, they'll tell you the same. so the criminals there are passed out or its too cold to go outside Well, I'm of Danish descent and I find this pretty offensive. Yeah, Danes drink a lot. Americans drink a lot too and it seems the drunker they are the more crimes they want to commit, so this reasoning doesn't follow.
Most American criminals are in jail for drugs. One big difference between Denmark and the USA is that marijuana, cocaine, heroin, etc. are either de-facto legal or the penalties are very low. This alone could account for the low rate of incarceration in Denmark, but there's more to the story. Most people who end up in jail are effectively there because they're poor (this is easily proven). Danish society is much more egalitarian than the USA, so poor people that would turn to street crime in the USA (like drug addicts) have access to public assistance, housing assistance, and drug treatment. Prostitution is also legal in DK. So all of this together means there is little street crime. Relatively tight regulations means less fraud (though higher costs). Law enforcement tends to concentrate on teenagers, domestic violence (pretty uncommon in DK), traffic, and the occasional serious crime (like murder).
Nobody is 100% "right" or 100% "left". These are merely political labels, not reality.
If you look at American prisons you'll find they're not filled with corrupt officials. It's mostly petty street criminals that are given excessively long sentences due to "3 strikes", mandatory minimums, and elimination of parole.
This literally happens EVERY SINGLE DAY in tech companies and is very easy to defend. As others have pointed out, this is almost certainly a hostile move as Craigslist is eBay's #1 competitor.
The 360's online service is also generally regarded as better than the PS3's, so online-heavy games (like Call of Duty 4) tend to have an edge on the 360.
But for games that don't have an large online component and know how to leverage the hard drive, the PS3 can have an edge in performance and playability.
Further, any time I've contacted them, it's always the last four numbers of my SSN and a password I have on file. So your original post was BS, as I've been saying. Actually, a few years ago (quite a few, actually) I had occassion to seriously study confidence games and scams and most have relatively obvious patterns. Like I said earlier, I find this attitude really amusing. I can think of no way to make yourself more vulnerable to scams than to insist you're invulnerable.
This is because, for the most part, MS server protocols are based on well established standards. RPC, SMB, Kerberos, etc.
Doesn't everybody know this?
It's not like we need stealth to defeat "the terrorists".
You said previously that "no company" would "ever" send an email or PHONE CALL (emphasis mine) asking for any verification information whatsoever including Mother's maiden name, ZIP code, etc. As I can think of literally 100s of American companies that do this, including the phone and power companies, so I stand by my statement that you'd have a tough time getting by if you refused to do this.
I think that the fact your bank makes no attempt to verify your identity when emailing or calling you to be distressing and insecure (assuming that's actually true, which I seriously doubt).
I think these "I'm too smart to be tricked" claims I keep hearing from people are really amusing.
Besides, there ARE no societies that protect citizens from crime at the expense of civil rights because the purpose of removing those civil rights is not to reduce crime, but to crush dissent. Do you really think there is less crime (of any sort) in China or Russia? If it makes you feel better, this applies to the USA too. The USAPATRIOT Act (for example) has absolutely nothing to do with fighting "terrorism" and everything to do with crushing dissenting voices, like pro-Jihad voices. In particular, you should not be able to limit my freedoms because I might hypothetically do something to you. If you ROB me then you haven't "hypothetically" done something, you have LITERALLY taken my money. Except for possibly adjusting penalties on trademark enforcement, we don't need new laws to deal with on-line crime. There are also serious jurisdictional issues here. For example, Many phishers come from Russia. Russia refuses to extradite criminals to the US. Rather than go along with this, I think the US should just kidnap the criminals off the streets of Russia and transport them back for trial in the US. This is called "rendition" and is currently illegal. It's also currently illegal for US law enforcement to engage in counterattacks, I think they should be allowed to do this too.
And we also need more cops. The FBI cybercrimes unit isn't cutting it. I think we need an agency dedicated to cybercrime so the agents won't be diverted by "terrorism", drugs, "satanic ritual abuse", or the current political crime de jure. You have heard of SSL, haven't you? You do know it's possible to spoof an SSL cert, right? We do it here all the time.
Again, just because it's not EASY, doesn't mean it's not the correct solution.
Have you ever done professional tech support? Do you REALLY think it's reasonable or possible to get children or the elderly to do this? Or is your response "fuck old people"?
The "hard way", going after the criminals and punishing them, is the RIGHT way and the only way that will actually work.
You also bring up the point of "paying someone to fix it for you". Which do you think is easier to find in Tulsa, Oklahoma; a Windows expert or a Ubuntu expert? I live in Silicon Valley, it's not hard for me to find a Linux expert (hell, I AM a Linux expert). But I suspect that isn't true in much of the United States. And most of the companies I've worked with overseas used Windows extensively as well. You could probably count me as a mini-mini power user. I am not afraid to wipe a hard drive and install an OS. But on a regular basis, I try to stay away from the command line as much as possible and I can't code anything. I think you're selling yourself short. You're already obviously above 90% of computer users in knowledge, which makes you far from typical. Frankly, I do IT and tech support for a living and based on my experience, 90% of users have serious problems managing their Windows desktops at home. The ones that fare best typically get help from their company's IT or they have a kid or friend that's good with Windows. Because, in practice, few people can afford to pay for truly competent private tech support.
The same things that make universal ID useful to law enforcement make it dangerous for civil liberties. It becomes VERY easy to create blacklists for purposes OTHER than legitimate law enforcement. For example, the Bush administration has placed numerous peace activists on the "do not fly" list in order to restrict their political activities.
Again, I do not understand why some people consider computer crimes to be fundamentally different from other types of crime. You seem to be going farther and saying that even though you agree that phishing is morally wrong, you don't think it should be illegal because...? My guess that you think it shouldn't be illegal because enforcement is impractical. I disagree. I don't use anti-phishing technology because all those technologies themselves have serious problems, and they are completely unnecessary: for any important site, I just type the URL or use a bookmark. So how do you protect yourself from DNS spoofing?
Experience has taught me that that even computer experts get infected with viruses and troyjans, fall for scams, etc. If mere general computer knowledge was really an adequate defense against these scams this wouldn't happen. But in my experience this happens all the time.
And as I said earlier, the logic here is very strained. People who blame end users for computer scams NEVER apply this reasoning to any other types of scams or crimes. They somehow consider computer crimes to be completely different from other kinds of crimes, and that computer crimes do not require law enforcement.
A person dressed as a police officer comes to your door saying he has a warrant and needs to search your house. You ask to view his credentials and warrant, both APPEAR to be authentic, but you're not an expert and really can't tell the difference between a real warrant and a fake one. You let the "police officer" in and it turns out he's secretly a serial killer and he shoots you in the head once he goes inside.
I think the above situation is very similar to phishing. You have a person disguised as an authority who makes demands on you. Yes, you could choose to ignore the police officer and refuse to let him inside, but you face the risk of being arrested. In a similar fashion, phishing scams often claim that something bad will happen (like your account being compromised) if you DON'T give your personal information.
People who fall for phishing scams are not stupid. They are often very smart people. Mere general intelligence is no defense against scams. Even being a scam artist or security expert yourself isn't a guarantee because NOBODY has encyclopedic knowledge of every scam in human history. If they run across a scam they're not familiar with they're just as vulnerable as "stupid" people.
Knowing how to use the tools offers no protection against scams. Knowing how to use a telephone does not protect you from callers that contact you and attempt to scam you. Knowing how to open a door does not protect you from people who come to your door and try and scam you.
You have a "blame the victim" mentality. It's clearly the fault of the stabbing victim that he got stabbed. He should have jumped out of the way. It's willful helplessness, plain and simple.
Scammers existed long before computers. If you created a free tool that would 100% stop all phishing under all circumstances the scammers would just switch to a different scam. The PROBLEM is the scammers. Period. Crime is the fault of criminals, not the victims.
The term "unlawful combatants" in the Geneva convention refers ONLY to spies and saboteurs, combatants trying to impersonate the other side. "Unlawful combatants" may be tried under CIVILIAN LAW for spying, acts of sabotage, etc. which are considered "war crimes". This term does not appear in other applicable laws, like the UN Convention Against Torture and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. And the Geneva conventions specifically say that, other than being charged for "war crimes", "unlawful combatants" must be treated EXACTLY like other POW. Which means no interrogation whatsoever.
And finally, the term "uniform" is to be interpreted as broadly as possible. The checked turbans of the Taliban, for example, count as a "uniform". civilians are normally not combatants, and if they are, they become unlawful ones for the most part. the whole idea behind this is to limit civilian casualties. So torturing the "terrorists" that "hide" among the civilians limits civilian casualties... how exactly? Remember that the "terrorists" are civilians as well.
I worked on Xandros Desktop, which is a boxed retail product that customers install on their own hardware. Xandros, as far as I'm aware, did not ship any hardware whatsoever. I'm not even sure if we had any OEM partners (at least for Desktop). I never talked to anyone who had a preinstalled Xandros box.
The Bush regime created the category of "unlawful combatant" in an attempt to create a legal limbo that somehow LEGALLY allowed him to interrogate and torture prisoners. He directed his lawyers to construct a legal justification for torture and then instructed his AG to give all torturers a pass.
The Bush administration tortured prisoners of war, or if you prefer, domestic prisoners, because "unlawful combatants" do not exist.
Supporting Xandros was nigh-impossible. The biggest problem? Huge swaths of hardware not working. Notably about 90% of the printers on the market, most modems, and most wireless cards. We simply wouldn't support Xandros on laptops because so much was broken. Home users tended to be very frustrated by this. The corporate customers had a much easier time of it because they were almost always running a couple apps (like Crossover Office) on fixed desktops, almost like kiosks. Package management generally worked well, but occasionally customers would completely muck up their install by overwriting libraries they weren't supposed to. I had many more people on Xandros reinstall than I did on Vista.
Windows was completely different. I did Vista Beta support and most of the problems amounted to "this particular app doesn't work right", most of the time it had to do with registry or UAC problems. Occasionally there were weird hardware bugs with video and sound cards. And reminding people that the minimum hardware requirements are the minimum to run Vista like crap. In reality you need a 2GHz CPU, 2GB of memory, and a DirectX 9 video card to do anything useful. I can't think of a single occasion where anyone hosed their system so bad that they had to reinstall (except one guy who manually fucked up the storage drivers, and that was probably fixable). The worst problems I ran into were a few people who had written custom apps in such a way that they caused race conditions in UAC. One of 'em basically locked the system, it was amusing.
Generally, my experience was that Xandros had fewer bugs, but they tended to be major showstoppers. Vista Beta had lots of bugs, but they tended to be relatively trivial.
The real issue was the fact that parliament, and Mossadeq in particular, nationalized the British oil company (now BP) that owned the Iranian oil industry. The population of Iran overwhelmingly supported nationalization and therefore they supported Mossadeq. Mossadeq refused to negotiate with the British to give them a share of Iranian oil profits. In response, the British prevented all oil exports from Iran by blockading the country. In fact, the British threated to invade if Mossadeq was not overthrown.
It's considered a US "coup" because the US backed the Shah with money and other resources (in part to stave off a British invasion). So, at the very least, they intervened on the Shah's side in a civil war in a quid pro quo for oil concessions. yes, that's the same as arming revolutionaries to storm the presidential mansion! In fact, this is EXACTLY what the CIA did in Iran.
The USA has publicly admitted on numerous occasions that they organized a coup against the Shah. This is simply not controversial.