There seems to be some confusion about my earlier post.
I was talking ONLY about dual-booting Apple MacOS 10 and Microsoft Windows XP on Apple hardware using BootCamp. I was not talking about virtualization or any other scenario. In this scenario, and this scenario only, there is NO WAY you can get first-party support for the Windows install. Apple will not support it and Microsoft will not.
Based on these FACTS I consider it disingenuous to state "Running Windows (32-bit) on a Mac is supported." because it isn't. Sure the BOOTLOADER is supported, but that's just the bootloader. Once you've got Windows installed you're on your own. Even if you CAN'T get it installed you're on your own because Apple doesn't support Windows installation problems. This is no different from saying "Running Ubuntu on a Mac is supported." (I'm assuming BootCamp supports OS' other than Windows). Yeah, maybe you can get it to work, but you're basically on your own.
That's why I don't consider the situation to be significantly different from OSX86. Apple supports BootCamp in the sense they'll give you support if it eats your OSX install by telling to you reinstall OSX (this is the sum total of the phone support I've personally seen for BootCamp), but that's it.
Apple will NOT provide support for the Windows install on a Mac.
Microsoft will not support Retail copies of Windows installed in a multi-boot environment unless all of the installed operating systems are Windows. IOW, no MacOS/Windows dual-boots. You can lie to MS I suppose, but if they find out you're dual-booting you'll lose support.
You have to pay a third-party for LEGAL Windows support on MacOS. I'm not aware of any such third-parties.
So, in practice, Windows on MacOS is really in the same boat as OSX86.
Israel's deterrence worked great for years until the UN and US started "expressing concern" whenever they tried to take out terrorist groups. When was this? The only time in the past 50 years Israel has not been under constant attack was during a brief period before and after the Oslo accords from about 1992 to about 1996, and that was entirely due to an effective two-way ceasefire. When it became clear that the Israeli government was unwilling to implement the accords, the ceasefire collapsed. Israel has not, and will not, achieve security in the Holy Land through sheer force of arms.
No one is using torture as deterrence. You fail to understand the purpose of torture. Torture does not produce useful information, everyone knows this. The purpose of torture is to, literally, "terrorize" the subjects of torture. It is to intimidate the victim specifically and the public generally. "Don't act against us or we'll torture you."
There are plenty of NGOs that read the papers in full and publish their own summaries. Individuals don't need the kind of information you're asking for. They don't understand enough about the military to interpret the data, though the NGOs I mentioned do. So you think this information should be released to any NGO that asks, and that's NOT a security risk, but shouldn't be given out to individuals because that IS a security risk? I think there's a contradiction here.
BTW, You're wrong. This information isn't "released" to anybody. The NGOs analyze the kinds of leaks posted to Wikileaks.
Breaking news about how your particular government does it does not justify risking the lives of our soldiers to do it. Lives are worth more than this. This is a false dilemma. Even if releasing this information risked the lives of soldiers, and without a shadow of a doubt it does not, the lives of soldiers do not have UNLIMITED value. Is it worth $100 billion for an operation to save the life of the President or ? Fuck no it isn't! NOBODY'S life is worth that much.
Nor is it worthwhile to spend $100 billion to save the lives of 10,000 soldiers. That money is much better spent on medical care that will save the lives of MILLIONS. If a nation is passing away all it's money on the military it won't have money for other things.
Secondly, the citizens know how much the army is spending as a black-box. No, they don't. The Pentagon goes to great lengths to hide their actual total budget.
If they don't like the amount they can always pressure their representatives on this point. No, they can't. In recent years the Pentagon has refused to give any details of their budgets to Congress. Look into it.
Again, civilians don't know enough about the military to judge for themselves what is proper use of the money. Yes, they do. As I pointed out earlier their are countless academics, researchers, hobbyists, etc. qualified to make these judgments.
How am I supposed to know whether spending $200 million on a particular Jet is normal or pissing money away? 15 minutes with Google? It doesn't take an aviation expert to know that Joint Strike is a huge ripoff.
You need to stop being so paranoid. I'm not being paranoid. It's called C.Y.A., or "Cover Your Ass". We've given the military the ability to make all their mistakes secret and they use it at every opportunity. Look at Abu Graib. If you could make all your mistakes secret you'd be doing it too. Have you ever worked in or with the US military?
Independent NGOs don't need to know specifics about how we got our intelligence (i.e. who are our sources) or what is the specific working schedule of our military. Independent auditors need to be able to... AUDIT. If all they get is summary reports generated FOR THEM by the military, do you really think those summary reports will show any malfeasance? Yes, they need to know the deployments because the Pentagon lies about them. Yes, they need to know about sources because the Pentagon ALMOST ALWAYS lies about them.
I think he's trying to imply that these researchers are "fronting" for technology companies. I think he's wrong. University academics in Europe tend to promote all sorts of weird ideas about personal technology, like cell phones causing brain cancer, because academics in Europe have a strong luddite/anti-corporate streak. These are the same idiots attacking "frankenfoods".
As for your "blanks still cost $20" issue, that is largely irrelevant. P2P distribution is usually done so it can be viewed on a PC, not burned to a disc. The vast majority of video/movie pirating is DVD-R copies of DVD movies sold on the street. For this market, the primary market, the cost of blanks is very relevant. And most people don't have their fancy HDTV hooked up to their desktop (and increasing number do, but most don't) so they might want to play the movie on their standalone player. Or maybe they just don't want to waste 20GB of hard disc space.
a garden-variety BD+ hack Alright, I was a little confused. I thought you meant AACS which has been completely cracked. BD+ has been mostly cracked (ex. the AnyDVD crack) and a complete crack should follow shortly.
too much ego on the line for the person or group who gets to it first. You're a little naive. Organized crime makes a fortune off pirate DVDs. They also want to make a fortune off pirate Blu-Ray discs. Who do you think AnyDVD works for?
Deterrence is an example of a decent psychological or intelligence-based warfare that you can't make use of if citizens insist of being told every minute detail of our military capability. In order for deterrence to work the ENEMY must have a very good idea of the capabilities of their opponent. If you keep all of your fancy weapons secret the enemy won't know about them so they'll have no deterrence value. Israel speak publicly about their NBC stockpile because they're in violation of numerous treaties, but they certainly wink and nod about them. This 'deterrence' hasn't worked very well. They're still the subject of constant attack.
And 'deterrence' can backfire. The main point of torture is deterrence, "Mess with us and we'll torture you." Of course, this kind of belligerence can also foster resentment and ATTRACT attackers. Someone walking around heavily armed is "looking for trouble". Nobody accuses Sweden of being fascists.
John Smith does not give a rat's ass about specific military details. He cares for a general summary of how well we're doing and if we did anything wrong. And who writes that summary? People in the Pentagon a.k.a. professional liars. The specific military details need to be leaked because the Pentagon is dishonest when dealing with the American people and Congress.
It is fine for whistle-blowers to point out if our troops do anything wrong, but doing so does not necessitate revealing sensitive information. What counts as "doing something wrong"? Does "pissing away money" count? Because if it does, it should be fine to point out virtually everything the military does because almost all of it involves pissing away large sums of money. Anything you can do, the Pentagon can do it half as well for three times the cost.
The level of information you are asking for is utterly useless to anyone without a military background. This is simply wrong, there are plenty of non-military analysts that can process this information. And that's the whole point: INDEPENDENT analysis. The Pentagon can't be trusted.
once BD+ is cracked BD+ has already been cracked. You don't see pirate Blu-ray movies widely distributed because the file sizes (20 GB+) are too large for P2P and blanks still cost $20. When the blanks come down in price expect to see pirate Blu-ray movies on the street in Hong Kong.
I visited Samsung back when DVD technology was still in the labs and their guys were very keen to show it off. They all referred to it as a Digital Versatile Disc. He's not wrong. The SPEC was originally called "Digital Video Disc" and it was changed to "Digital Versatile Disc" during development. However, the term Digital Video Disc was widely used in promotional materials, particularly by the DVD Forum. So "Digital Video Disc" became semi-official. You can still find new discs labeled Digital Video Disc. I saw this on some DVD-Rs I bought the other day.
Linux is not spreading on the desktop because it's a nightmare for OEMs to support. Being free doesn't help. The problem is that Linux desktops are marketed as "ultra low cost" PCs with essentially no support and very crappy hardware. This leads non-tech savvy consumers to be very wary of Linux which, based on these experiences, they perceive as buggy and poorly supported.
Linux is a pain to support due to poor documentation and nearly insoluble problems with multimedia and device support. Customers call in and ask, "Why doesn't my new printer work?" and it's because they don't have the right driver. When you tell him it's incompatible the customer asks "Why don't you list compatible printers on your web site" without realizing it's a bit much to ask a manufacturer to exhaustively list everything that DOES work.
What Linux needs more than anything is a cheap hardware certification program that all distros agree to follow. Good luck with that.
You can't mount a decent psychological or intelligence-based warfare against an enemy if you publish what you're going to do every step of the way. I'm not trying to advocate censorship here but I'd love to hear a *serious* answer as to how you expect any country to mount this sort of effort under the limitations of full disclosure. There is no such thing as "decent psychological or intelligence-based warfare". The notion that we SHOULD be terrorizing and torturing Iraqis for information and then using that information to kick down more doors and terrorize and torture more Iraqis is wrongheaded. It can't work. It won't work. There must be a political settlement in Iraq which means making concessions to the jihadis. Our current strategy of handing the nation over to Iran and the Shite militias is not a good one.
None of the documents leaked to Wikileaks reveal sensitive operational material. If you think they do, you don't know what "sensitive operational material" is. There are no names or precise locations of anything in the Wikileaks documents ("Baghdad" is not a precise location).
What is the point of publishing Coalition "soft spots" to the public? Aren't you just begging for terrorists to attack them? "The terrorists" already know. They do have eyes, you know. None of the information posted to Wikileaks is a secret to Iraqi residents.
What is the point of publishing real-time army positions and schedules to the public? To inform the American public about how THEIR military is being utilized. Again, the Iraqis have eyeballs. They already know where the troops are deployed.
My point is that Wikileaks or others have published certain information in the past that has absolutely no benefit to anyone except the very people trying to kill our troops. Again, wrong. The US government has a long history of LYING to the American people about the manner in which military forces are deployed in their name. Every American citizen has a RIGHT to know every detail of how the American military is deployed. It is incumbent upon the military and government to demonstrate, in each individual case, that it is absolutely necessary to not to reveal that information because it could lead to the deaths of American servicemen.
Classification is used way too much for CYA. There IS legitimate secret information: the identities of undercover agents, the source code for avionics, launch codes for nuclear weapons, etc. But it's a tiny subset of what they claim should be "secret". All of their fake secrecy actually makes it harder to protect the REAL secrets.
my point is that you can't compare it to a bunch of religious zealots from the 20's that wanted to ban alcohol (just my personal opinion there). The organization today that most closely resembles the temperance organizations of old is Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), that basically lobbies for anti-drinking laws. And no, not just drunk driving laws. MADD lobbies for anti-bar zoning laws, higher alcohol taxes, a higher drinking age, etc.
As for Adolf Hitler, you are correct that he wasn't atheist, but he was not Christian either I consider a "Christian" to be anyone who calls himself one. Adolph Hitler identified himself as a Christian right up until his death. He was never excommunicated by the Catholic Church. His views on Christianity were clearly "unorthodox" and should have been cause for his excommunication from the Catholic Church, but he was not. Various Protestant groups like the Society of Friends and the Amish also have unorthodox views, but I doubt that you would refuse to call them Christians.
Since BPI is insisting that ISPs act as their agents AND expect the ISPs to soak up all the liability and other costs for doing so it seems reasonable for the ISPs to simply insist on "processing fees" for each copyright violation and cutoff request from BPI. Somehow I think BPI would be a lot more reluctant to send out bogus cutoff requests if they knew each one cost them $1000.
If I were the ISPs I would just patiently wait for the the law to get passed, make sure there are no provisions against charging fees, and then charge BPI up the ass.
He's a whore. No one would make such a proposal if they did not have ties to big media. Simply because he's not publicly announcing them doesn't mean they aren't there. He's probably been bribed by EMI.
Comcast is not doing deep packet inspection. If your IP connects to too many hosts within a given timeframe (ex. You open 100 connections in less than 1 minute, I don't know what the actual thresholds are) their Sandvine boxes start sending TCP RSTs to both ends of the connection. They're not actually looking for P2P. ANY application (like Lotus Notes) that makes "too many" connections is affected.
DPI DOES NOT WORK TO BLOCK BITTORRENT. I repeat, deep packet inspection is useless for blocking Bittorrent traffic. Bittorrent traffic is now encrypted and uses randomized ports SPECIFICALLY to defeat DPI. And it works very well. This is why Comcast has resorted to this crude TCP RST approach.
It will not work. It's easily defeated by shimming your network stack to ignore TCP RSTs on particular ports (the ones you use for Bittorrent). As soon as standardized tools become available to do this (it's already being patched into clients) this approach will be finished. Assuming the Bittorrent people don't switch to UDP, which they're also working on.
I've actually talked to Comcast directly about this and suggested the OBVIOUS solution, QoS for Bittorrent. They can prioritize hosts within their own network for Bittorrent by messing with the packet latency. This will reduce traffic on their upstream pipes AND increase download rates for users, which is why they'll use the ports Comcast recommends rather than trying to bypass it. Hell, if they were willing I'd have them host there own trackers that only share within Comcast's network. They would be so much faster than most trackers I seriously doubt it would take much convincing to get users to use the Comcast trackers.
AA was formed around well after Prohibition He said "AA like". Prohibition was the result of religious pressure groups, most notably the "Women's Christian Temperance Union", similar to AA.
The primary objection most people have to AA is that in some countries attending AA is a mandatory punishment for drunk driving, etc. even though AA is a religious organization and, more importantly, does not actually work.
The Nazis were atheists, and you relate them to religion. The Nazis were not atheists. The Nazi Party was a Christian religious organization according to their charter, their leaders, and their membership. Virtually every member of the Nazi party was a Christian. Many Lutheran Christian leaders endorsed the party. Many Nazis (including Adolph Hitler) were Catholic, and the Catholic Church supported the Nazi party in indirect ways.
They simply call themselves a religion in order to attempt to shield themselves from "interference" from government This is an important point. Scientology originally started as a pseudoscience. L. Ron Hubbard, which is on record as saying he wrote Dianetics as a "get rich quick" scheme, originally promoted Scientology and his "e-meters" as a "wonder cure" that could not only cure all psychological ailments, but all diseases as well. He claimed it cured cancer, etc. It is only when the "evil" (from his perspective) FDA started demanding he prove his wild claims that he retreated to the LEGAL protection of religion. LRH never considered Scheintology to be a religion, he ALWAYS considered it to be a "science".
As has been pointed out before, there is little to keep Google from selling your web surfing habits to potential employers, banks, private investigators, and, increasingly, various governments. If you don't think the contents of your browser history (effectively) might reveal deleterious information then you can feel free to hand it out to anyone who asks. Some of us are more concerned about our privacy.
ANYONE who tries any kind of hankypanky will get the shit beat out of them instantly by the other passengers. Plus, you would have to be completely crazy to do this because the mere act of carrying explosives on a plane is a "lifetime without parole" offense or more likely a "slowly torture you to death in Guantanamo Bay" offense. And I seriously doubt that the guy who is willing to try this (he's basically committing suicide in an elaborate way) would be very successful.
You stand a much better chance of getting murdered by some crackhead robbing a liquor store than dying in a terrorist plane crash, True, but crime is exaggerated too. You're more likely to kill yourself falling in the shower than you are to get murdered by a mugger. More kids every year are killed by ASPIRIN than are killed by "predators".
I got a lot of flak in another/. post where I pointed out that it's basically impossible to transport liquid explosives onto a plane because they're too volatile. EVERYONE who has even limited explosive experience knows this. Furthermore, I refuse to chalk this to to TSA incompetence because this policy has been going on for YEARS now and numerous explosives experts (many from the FBI) have informed the TSA this scenario is impossible. For these reasons it's very difficult to believe that the real reason for restricting liquids was/is explosives.
I have been told by airline personnel that the real reason for the liquid ban is to restrict use of the bathrooms because maintainance of the in-flight bathrooms is expensive. While this seems very plausible to me, I've been ridiculed for it.
So, knowing that "liquid explosives" are DEFINITELY NOT the reason for the liquid ban, tell me what YOU think the reason is?
The postage charges are stated in advance. If you don't like them, then don't buy from them! It's not like they're hidden - they're shown to you on the very same screen where you bid! Some sellers do not post their shipping rates. Others bury them in a text block in their listing trying to hide the shipping costs. As far as I'm concerned, if you're not using the shipping tools for eBay AND you don't have the shipping price in bold text in a font at least twice as large as the rest of the text in the listing then you're TRYING to deceive the customer.
If a (literally) retarded person looks at the web page and is unclear about what the shipping price is, the seller fucked up.
Most arguments on eBay seem to result from people agreeing to the terms by bidding, then suddenly changing their mind for no legitimate reason. Most arguments on eBay result from sellers trying to scam buyers one way or another. That is a fact. I live across the street from eBay HQ. I know one of the founders, I'm close to people in their security department. ALMOST ALL of their complaints are from buyers that have been deceived by sellers. Most commonly the item they are sent is different from what was described, or had a deceptive description. They buy an authentic item and get a knockoff instead. They buy something as new and they get something used instead. etc.
For example, iPods. So many fake iPods are sold on eBay that eBay THEMSELVES say not to buy iPods off eBay anymore.
I made my living off eBay for 2 years People like you are what's wrong with eBay. eBay was SUPPOSED to be a national garage sale, not a discount retail outlet. That's what Yahoo! Shopping is for. NOBODY is supposed to "make a living" buying crap at Wal-Mart, marking it up with scammy bidding and hidden shipping fees, and then selling it on eBay.
Want to get something for free of eBay? Buy with PayPal and use the magic words "not as described". Send back an empty box (for proof of return) and PayPal will automatically give the money back. Happened to us multiple times. Oh, and "not as described" works for cases of buyers remorse too, even if it was completely accurately described and you have a no return policy. After all, eBay doesn't know and doesn't give a shit. You have just described how ALL retail sales works. In the US, virtually all burden for fraud in on the MERCHANT. eBay is unusual in that it gives the seller any protections whatsoever.
This is because in the US we recognize that fraudulent merchants (know widely as "snake-oil salesmen") are a FAR larger problem than fraudulent buyers because as professional con artists they're better equipped to "play the game" than buyers. You might not want to believe that, but it's reality.
We sold literally millions of dollars of products on eBay, they made hundreds of thousands of dollars on our work, had a 99.6% positive feedback and eBay treated us like garbage the whole time. Ever dealt with the credit card companies? If you think eBay treats you like dirt you have no idea what Visa will put you through.
The seller has the money. But only the buyer knows that the money has been paid WHAT?!? This makes no sense at all.
and the item arrived and there wasn't any damage in transit and the description was accurate to the buyer's satisfaction and... How is any of this relevant to the SELLER leaving feedback for the BUYER? How does the item being damaged in transit, or the description being inaccurate, etc. reflect badly on the BUYER? The only conceivable reason is retaliation. Ex. The Seller sends a working item to the buyer, the Buyer leaves a negative feedback claiming the item is defective, the Seller leaves a negative feedback for the Buyer saying it WASN'T defective.
What if the buyer complains the item isn't new, when the auction clearly stated it was used? What if the buyer claims the item never arrived, when the seller has a tracking number from the shipping service saying it was delivered? Inappropriate negative feedback from buyers can be removed if the seller files a complaint with eBay.
Especially given the way PayPal operates outside the normal banking system and credit card charges can be disputed, Chargebacks are a factor for ALL credit cards, not just PayPal. The risk of chargebacks is part of the risk of accepting credit card transactions for the seller. This is due to the recognition in the United States that, generally, seller fraud is as much bigger problem than buyer fraud. If you don't like it, insist on cash or money orders. I don't generally fuck my buyers, and I know chargebacks are a big hassle, so I accept credit cards.
As a buyer, I don't expect the seller to leave feedback until I provide feedback indicating the transaction is complete. This is not typical. I usually receive a request for feedback from the seller the moment I complete a transaction.
As a seller, I don't leave feedback until the buyer does the same. Fine, but this is tit-for-tat feedback. You're basically admitting that as a seller, you will always give negative feedback to someone who gives you negative feedback which is EXACTLY what eBay is trying to stop.
What is the #1 problem on eBay? Seller fraud. I wouldn't doubt that over 95% of the cases on eBay involved seller fraud. And most of those fraudulent sellers abuse the feedback system. Problems with buyers are, relatively speaking, nonexistent. Many of my friends no longer use eBay due to the widespread fraud.
So what eBay really needs to do is get the seller fraud under control. I know how to do this, easily, but eBay and the sellers will never agree to it. And that's bonding the sellers, or a buyer insurance program the sellers have to pay into.
You can't determine the security of an OS, any OS, by this kind of limited one-off testing. REAL testing is systematic and time consuming, and involves completely the opposite rationale. Conventioal testing involves attacking a single target until it breaks, this "test" involves attacking a bunch of different systems and seeing which fails "first". This doesn't really evaluate "security" because the critical factor is THE ORDER IN WHICH THE EXPLOITS WERE TRIED. If the attacker just happens to hit the right exploit on his first attempt, he would hack that box "faster". Along the same lines, # of exploits doesn't really mean shit either. What matters is HOW SEVERE the exploits are.
I'd argue that the Linux box is likely to fall first, simply because the attackers are most familiar with hacking Linux boxes. The limited permissions structure of Linux means that if an attack succeeds, you very likely have root as opposed to Windows attacks which may just expose the service. A lot of the weaknesses in Windows and MacOS are application-specific, if you don't have those apps installed you don't have the vulnerabilities. Since Linux, by default, is likely to have a lot more apps installed it's likely to have more vulnerabilities as well.
The big reason not to do this is because there is no data recovery mechanism. If you loose the password you're fucked. If the drive crashes you can give up any hope of data recovery because you went out of your way to mangle the data (by encrypting it).
True, in the narrow edge case where sales agents are carrying COPIES of customer data (that is backed up on another server) on company laptops and the data is considered more valuable than the laptop, this makes sense.
Otherwise it just makes disaster recovery impossible.
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There seems to be some confusion about my earlier post.
I was talking ONLY about dual-booting Apple MacOS 10 and Microsoft Windows XP on Apple hardware using BootCamp. I was not talking about virtualization or any other scenario. In this scenario, and this scenario only, there is NO WAY you can get first-party support for the Windows install. Apple will not support it and Microsoft will not.
Based on these FACTS I consider it disingenuous to state "Running Windows (32-bit) on a Mac is supported." because it isn't. Sure the BOOTLOADER is supported, but that's just the bootloader. Once you've got Windows installed you're on your own. Even if you CAN'T get it installed you're on your own because Apple doesn't support Windows installation problems. This is no different from saying "Running Ubuntu on a Mac is supported." (I'm assuming BootCamp supports OS' other than Windows). Yeah, maybe you can get it to work, but you're basically on your own.
That's why I don't consider the situation to be significantly different from OSX86. Apple supports BootCamp in the sense they'll give you support if it eats your OSX install by telling to you reinstall OSX (this is the sum total of the phone support I've personally seen for BootCamp), but that's it.
This is not true.
Apple will NOT provide support for the Windows install on a Mac.
Microsoft will not support Retail copies of Windows installed in a multi-boot environment unless all of the installed operating systems are Windows. IOW, no MacOS/Windows dual-boots. You can lie to MS I suppose, but if they find out you're dual-booting you'll lose support.
You have to pay a third-party for LEGAL Windows support on MacOS. I'm not aware of any such third-parties.
So, in practice, Windows on MacOS is really in the same boat as OSX86.
BTW, You're wrong. This information isn't "released" to anybody. The NGOs analyze the kinds of leaks posted to Wikileaks. Breaking news about how your particular government does it does not justify risking the lives of our soldiers to do it. Lives are worth more than this. This is a false dilemma. Even if releasing this information risked the lives of soldiers, and without a shadow of a doubt it does not, the lives of soldiers do not have UNLIMITED value. Is it worth $100 billion for an operation to save the life of the President or ? Fuck no it isn't! NOBODY'S life is worth that much.
Nor is it worthwhile to spend $100 billion to save the lives of 10,000 soldiers. That money is much better spent on medical care that will save the lives of MILLIONS. If a nation is passing away all it's money on the military it won't have money for other things. Secondly, the citizens know how much the army is spending as a black-box. No, they don't. The Pentagon goes to great lengths to hide their actual total budget. If they don't like the amount they can always pressure their representatives on this point. No, they can't. In recent years the Pentagon has refused to give any details of their budgets to Congress. Look into it. Again, civilians don't know enough about the military to judge for themselves what is proper use of the money. Yes, they do. As I pointed out earlier their are countless academics, researchers, hobbyists, etc. qualified to make these judgments. How am I supposed to know whether spending $200 million on a particular Jet is normal or pissing money away? 15 minutes with Google? It doesn't take an aviation expert to know that Joint Strike is a huge ripoff. You need to stop being so paranoid. I'm not being paranoid. It's called C.Y.A., or "Cover Your Ass". We've given the military the ability to make all their mistakes secret and they use it at every opportunity. Look at Abu Graib. If you could make all your mistakes secret you'd be doing it too. Have you ever worked in or with the US military? Independent NGOs don't need to know specifics about how we got our intelligence (i.e. who are our sources) or what is the specific working schedule of our military. Independent auditors need to be able to... AUDIT. If all they get is summary reports generated FOR THEM by the military, do you really think those summary reports will show any malfeasance? Yes, they need to know the deployments because the Pentagon lies about them. Yes, they need to know about sources because the Pentagon ALMOST ALWAYS lies about them.
I think he's trying to imply that these researchers are "fronting" for technology companies. I think he's wrong. University academics in Europe tend to promote all sorts of weird ideas about personal technology, like cell phones causing brain cancer, because academics in Europe have a strong luddite/anti-corporate streak. These are the same idiots attacking "frankenfoods".
And 'deterrence' can backfire. The main point of torture is deterrence, "Mess with us and we'll torture you." Of course, this kind of belligerence can also foster resentment and ATTRACT attackers. Someone walking around heavily armed is "looking for trouble". Nobody accuses Sweden of being fascists. John Smith does not give a rat's ass about specific military details. He cares for a general summary of how well we're doing and if we did anything wrong. And who writes that summary? People in the Pentagon a.k.a. professional liars. The specific military details need to be leaked because the Pentagon is dishonest when dealing with the American people and Congress. It is fine for whistle-blowers to point out if our troops do anything wrong, but doing so does not necessitate revealing sensitive information. What counts as "doing something wrong"? Does "pissing away money" count? Because if it does, it should be fine to point out virtually everything the military does because almost all of it involves pissing away large sums of money. Anything you can do, the Pentagon can do it half as well for three times the cost. The level of information you are asking for is utterly useless to anyone without a military background. This is simply wrong, there are plenty of non-military analysts that can process this information. And that's the whole point: INDEPENDENT analysis. The Pentagon can't be trusted.
Linux is not spreading on the desktop because it's a nightmare for OEMs to support. Being free doesn't help. The problem is that Linux desktops are marketed as "ultra low cost" PCs with essentially no support and very crappy hardware. This leads non-tech savvy consumers to be very wary of Linux which, based on these experiences, they perceive as buggy and poorly supported.
Linux is a pain to support due to poor documentation and nearly insoluble problems with multimedia and device support. Customers call in and ask, "Why doesn't my new printer work?" and it's because they don't have the right driver. When you tell him it's incompatible the customer asks "Why don't you list compatible printers on your web site" without realizing it's a bit much to ask a manufacturer to exhaustively list everything that DOES work.
What Linux needs more than anything is a cheap hardware certification program that all distros agree to follow. Good luck with that.
None of the documents leaked to Wikileaks reveal sensitive operational material. If you think they do, you don't know what "sensitive operational material" is. There are no names or precise locations of anything in the Wikileaks documents ("Baghdad" is not a precise location). What is the point of publishing Coalition "soft spots" to the public? Aren't you just begging for terrorists to attack them? "The terrorists" already know. They do have eyes, you know. None of the information posted to Wikileaks is a secret to Iraqi residents. What is the point of publishing real-time army positions and schedules to the public? To inform the American public about how THEIR military is being utilized. Again, the Iraqis have eyeballs. They already know where the troops are deployed. My point is that Wikileaks or others have published certain information in the past that has absolutely no benefit to anyone except the very people trying to kill our troops. Again, wrong. The US government has a long history of LYING to the American people about the manner in which military forces are deployed in their name. Every American citizen has a RIGHT to know every detail of how the American military is deployed. It is incumbent upon the military and government to demonstrate, in each individual case, that it is absolutely necessary to not to reveal that information because it could lead to the deaths of American servicemen.
Classification is used way too much for CYA. There IS legitimate secret information: the identities of undercover agents, the source code for avionics, launch codes for nuclear weapons, etc. But it's a tiny subset of what they claim should be "secret". All of their fake secrecy actually makes it harder to protect the REAL secrets.
Since BPI is insisting that ISPs act as their agents AND expect the ISPs to soak up all the liability and other costs for doing so it seems reasonable for the ISPs to simply insist on "processing fees" for each copyright violation and cutoff request from BPI. Somehow I think BPI would be a lot more reluctant to send out bogus cutoff requests if they knew each one cost them $1000.
If I were the ISPs I would just patiently wait for the the law to get passed, make sure there are no provisions against charging fees, and then charge BPI up the ass.
He's a whore. No one would make such a proposal if they did not have ties to big media. Simply because he's not publicly announcing them doesn't mean they aren't there. He's probably been bribed by EMI.
Comcast is not doing deep packet inspection. If your IP connects to too many hosts within a given timeframe (ex. You open 100 connections in less than 1 minute, I don't know what the actual thresholds are) their Sandvine boxes start sending TCP RSTs to both ends of the connection. They're not actually looking for P2P. ANY application (like Lotus Notes) that makes "too many" connections is affected.
DPI DOES NOT WORK TO BLOCK BITTORRENT. I repeat, deep packet inspection is useless for blocking Bittorrent traffic. Bittorrent traffic is now encrypted and uses randomized ports SPECIFICALLY to defeat DPI. And it works very well. This is why Comcast has resorted to this crude TCP RST approach.
It will not work. It's easily defeated by shimming your network stack to ignore TCP RSTs on particular ports (the ones you use for Bittorrent). As soon as standardized tools become available to do this (it's already being patched into clients) this approach will be finished. Assuming the Bittorrent people don't switch to UDP, which they're also working on.
I've actually talked to Comcast directly about this and suggested the OBVIOUS solution, QoS for Bittorrent. They can prioritize hosts within their own network for Bittorrent by messing with the packet latency. This will reduce traffic on their upstream pipes AND increase download rates for users, which is why they'll use the ports Comcast recommends rather than trying to bypass it. Hell, if they were willing I'd have them host there own trackers that only share within Comcast's network. They would be so much faster than most trackers I seriously doubt it would take much convincing to get users to use the Comcast trackers.
The primary objection most people have to AA is that in some countries attending AA is a mandatory punishment for drunk driving, etc. even though AA is a religious organization and, more importantly, does not actually work. The Nazis were atheists, and you relate them to religion. The Nazis were not atheists. The Nazi Party was a Christian religious organization according to their charter, their leaders, and their membership. Virtually every member of the Nazi party was a Christian. Many Lutheran Christian leaders endorsed the party. Many Nazis (including Adolph Hitler) were Catholic, and the Catholic Church supported the Nazi party in indirect ways.
As has been pointed out before, there is little to keep Google from selling your web surfing habits to potential employers, banks, private investigators, and, increasingly, various governments. If you don't think the contents of your browser history (effectively) might reveal deleterious information then you can feel free to hand it out to anyone who asks. Some of us are more concerned about our privacy.
Please mod the parent up.
/. post where I pointed out that it's basically impossible to transport liquid explosives onto a plane because they're too volatile. EVERYONE who has even limited explosive experience knows this. Furthermore, I refuse to chalk this to to TSA incompetence because this policy has been going on for YEARS now and numerous explosives experts (many from the FBI) have informed the TSA this scenario is impossible. For these reasons it's very difficult to believe that the real reason for restricting liquids was/is explosives.
I got a lot of flak in another
I have been told by airline personnel that the real reason for the liquid ban is to restrict use of the bathrooms because maintainance of the in-flight bathrooms is expensive. While this seems very plausible to me, I've been ridiculed for it.
So, knowing that "liquid explosives" are DEFINITELY NOT the reason for the liquid ban, tell me what YOU think the reason is?
If a (literally) retarded person looks at the web page and is unclear about what the shipping price is, the seller fucked up. Most arguments on eBay seem to result from people agreeing to the terms by bidding, then suddenly changing their mind for no legitimate reason. Most arguments on eBay result from sellers trying to scam buyers one way or another. That is a fact. I live across the street from eBay HQ. I know one of the founders, I'm close to people in their security department. ALMOST ALL of their complaints are from buyers that have been deceived by sellers. Most commonly the item they are sent is different from what was described, or had a deceptive description. They buy an authentic item and get a knockoff instead. They buy something as new and they get something used instead. etc.
For example, iPods. So many fake iPods are sold on eBay that eBay THEMSELVES say not to buy iPods off eBay anymore.
This is because in the US we recognize that fraudulent merchants (know widely as "snake-oil salesmen") are a FAR larger problem than fraudulent buyers because as professional con artists they're better equipped to "play the game" than buyers. You might not want to believe that, but it's reality. We sold literally millions of dollars of products on eBay, they made hundreds of thousands of dollars on our work, had a 99.6% positive feedback and eBay treated us like garbage the whole time. Ever dealt with the credit card companies? If you think eBay treats you like dirt you have no idea what Visa will put you through.
What is the #1 problem on eBay? Seller fraud. I wouldn't doubt that over 95% of the cases on eBay involved seller fraud. And most of those fraudulent sellers abuse the feedback system. Problems with buyers are, relatively speaking, nonexistent. Many of my friends no longer use eBay due to the widespread fraud.
So what eBay really needs to do is get the seller fraud under control. I know how to do this, easily, but eBay and the sellers will never agree to it. And that's bonding the sellers, or a buyer insurance program the sellers have to pay into.
You can't determine the security of an OS, any OS, by this kind of limited one-off testing. REAL testing is systematic and time consuming, and involves completely the opposite rationale. Conventioal testing involves attacking a single target until it breaks, this "test" involves attacking a bunch of different systems and seeing which fails "first". This doesn't really evaluate "security" because the critical factor is THE ORDER IN WHICH THE EXPLOITS WERE TRIED. If the attacker just happens to hit the right exploit on his first attempt, he would hack that box "faster". Along the same lines, # of exploits doesn't really mean shit either. What matters is HOW SEVERE the exploits are.
I'd argue that the Linux box is likely to fall first, simply because the attackers are most familiar with hacking Linux boxes. The limited permissions structure of Linux means that if an attack succeeds, you very likely have root as opposed to Windows attacks which may just expose the service. A lot of the weaknesses in Windows and MacOS are application-specific, if you don't have those apps installed you don't have the vulnerabilities. Since Linux, by default, is likely to have a lot more apps installed it's likely to have more vulnerabilities as well.
The big reason not to do this is because there is no data recovery mechanism. If you loose the password you're fucked. If the drive crashes you can give up any hope of data recovery because you went out of your way to mangle the data (by encrypting it).
True, in the narrow edge case where sales agents are carrying COPIES of customer data (that is backed up on another server) on company laptops and the data is considered more valuable than the laptop, this makes sense.
Otherwise it just makes disaster recovery impossible.