The anti government sentiment on Slashdot has gotten my blood boiling in the last few days, but we must realize that this is not the work of the federal government, nor do these actions in any way enhance our security.
I have defended, and will continue to defend, the propriety of the FBI and other agencies having increased latitude in this new world. But the actions of this private company are simply not related to those other efforts. These restrictions are misguided and un-American.
You say, perhaps for dramatic effect, "Rather than wait for the government assault..." Well, I'm confident that we will not see this type of assault from the government. Banning songs is not a security measure, nor is it a warfighting tactic. Until the government actually DOES something like this (and they won't,) don't attribute this type of idiocy to them.
What the government is seeking to do is to monitor DOMESTIC communications in bulk...
I disagree. What the government is seeking to do is enable internet communications to be tapped similar to how phones can be tapped. Same protections, same controls, same situations, same vital link in law enforcement (and now, warfighting.)
If a known terrorist was in the country, would you have any problem with the FBI coming in daily to check the email logs of that person? Would you have a problem with the FBI obtaining a warrant to copy all communications to and from that person? Carnivore would simply automate these tasks.
I think you're being overly dramatic. We need to keep in mind that the "loss of liberty" that so many people are complaining about are proposed in an effort to catch increasingly sophisticated and capable criminals who are committing crimes THAT HAVE ALWAYS BEEN ILLEGAL. These measures are required to catch barbaric, murderous criminals; additional authority and leeway are not being sought by government agencies to criminalize our existing liberties, as your post suggests. They are being sought in an attempt to actually catch these bastards.
Let me give you a hypothetical: you are an FBI agent whose job it is to prevent terrorist attacks. You hear from our intelligence agencies that a known terrorist is entering the country (we know, of course, that the intelligence agenies themselves cannot track him once he gets in the country, because, my God, that would be an unthinkable loss of our freedom.) Anyway, he enters the country (along with 75 or so of his friends) and disappears into the fabric of our society. I ask you, what do you propose we do? You know his name and his aliases, but you are unable to search the ISP logs of his associates to help find him. You know his face, but you are unable to use software coupled with common security video to keep a lookout for him.
Please tell me your proposed methods for finding and catching such individuals.
because her kids would look at the underwear section. Now we are flooded with all types of much more graphic imagery from numerous sources. It's the onward march of technology, and we have to take the good with the bad.
I find it interesting that so many people here on Slashdot are opposed to the restriction of technology that may be used for fraudulent purposes, such as copying DVD's or bypassing software security features, but seem to have no problem pushing for restrictions on other technology that may be used for such sinister purposes as "strangers calling you by name" or "shops pulling up your credit report when you walk in."
This is the Age of Information. The shape of your face is just another piece of information. If we need restrictions, we should restrict uses rather than capabilities.
Read that again: We should restrict uses rather than capabilities. Try thinking about that concept in different contexts that are important to you: facial recognition, copyright protection, encryption, decryption. Does it mean the same thing in each context, or do you change your opinion based on whether the technology benefits YOU?
I have to close with this gem from the essay: "For example, the press cannot publish pictures of
most people in personally sensitive situations that have no legitimate news value." What?! And this guy is worried about Big Brother?
FR tags _you_ simply 'cause you _look like_ some shoplifter/thug/pedophile/terrorist. Congratulations... you now must _prove_ your innocence!
That's no different than being "tagged" by a security person who thinks he recognizes you. No different at all. The same thing could happen in a store with no cameras and no computers.
At worst... shot dead.
Pulease! The much more likely scenario is that his face is recognized (by a person or by a computer, makes no difference,) and he is approached by security to ask him for identification, which shows that he is indeed the person who has been banned from the store (which is private property,) then he gets belligerent and begins fighting with the officer, until another officer shows up, at which time the shopper pulls a knife and holds it to the throat of the first officer. At which time he is shot dead by the second officer. At which time people flood the chatrooms and message boards with claims that he was shot "because his face was recognized by a computer."
I think it's pretty abhorrent to have a computer decide who's guilty and who's innocent...
This is not at all a part of the FR scenario. The technology simply helps security personal recognize known offenders, in order to watch them more closely. AGAIN: it's no different than a security guard sitting there with a stack of photographs (a method which has been used for many years.) Any abuse that you can dream up for the FR technology could also happen with the 'guy with stack of photographs' technology.
what the hell is wrong with face recognition software? What's the difference between that and having some guy watch a security monitor for known offenders? Do people think when the software recognizes a face, it's going to send the person off to jail with no human intervention? Of course not...it's just going to notify a security person to keep an eye on the individual. If they don't take anything, no big deal. If they aren't who the computer thought they were, no big deal.
Same with red light cameras. What's the difference between using them and having someone stationed at the intersection to watch for offenders? I've been caught by one myself...I'm now more careful about pushing the yellow lights. By the way, the photo led to a civil fine, not criminal, and there was no possiblity of it affecting my driving record. A fair tradeoff, I think.
Rule of thumb: if you are in a public place, people will be able to see you, whether they do it with their eyes, through a camera, or assisted by software. Enough with the paranoia already.
Sounds like a corrupt cop stole your illegal drugs from you. Is your point, then, that this cop was no better than you? Is it safe to describe you with the same language you used to describe him?
...a staple feature of newspaper reporters in big cities is to go to local airports annually and test security procedures by carrying toy guns, knives or unloaded weapons into terminals.
Sorry, but I find this extremely difficult to believe. Can anyone show me a story by or about a reporter trying to sneak unloaded weapons into the secure area of an airport? I'll settle for a link to a story about even fake weapons, because I doubt that has happened either.
I'm not talking about professional security auditors, mind you. I'm referring to reporters, those guardians of the Constitution that were mentioned in the commentary.
Not that it changes the thrust of the article, but I'm pretty sure the "boneheaded exec" was probably just declining to participate in an unsolicited phone call. How many times has someone you don't know called you up and said "But don't you want to learn more about...?"
I'm fairly certain that they will find a way to stick their products into our faces. I wouldn't be surprised at all to find TiVO or future equivalents selling time on your box. This new effort will be a marriage with the "targeted demographic" technology discussed in this forum recently, and will be billed as a "special service", because consumers "like to hear about products that interest them."
By the way, anyone else out there starting to see commercials, I mean real commercials, before movies in theaters? At my megaplex, they have the nerve to call it "pre-feature entertainment." I want to start a campaign of booing during these commercials, to show how disgusted we are. Maybe if this "pre-feature entertainment" became a traditional subject of derision and ridicule, the advertisors would stop spending money there.
paying the content providers, instead of all the money going to mere handlers
I think the current model is quite reasonable. Content providers receive something for their time and effort, be it monetary (sales and advertising,) exposure (providing a free service to attract people to your site or company,) or personal (sharing information with a group of like-minded people, as in hobby sites or political sites.)
The role of the access provider is entirely separate, and I think it's appropriate to pay them even if the content is free.
Think of it like a billboard: the company putting up the ad foots the bill. The only person who gets paid is the folks who own the sign; people driving by don't have to pay to look. Yet.
Come to think of it, using that model, the content providers should pay the ISP's, and access to the public should be free!
I may have missed out on some technical discussions, but I've had @home for about 16 months, and I've had no problems with Linux. I was even running apache for a while. What limitations are you worried about?
LUXURY! In my day, we'd have collapsed and cried tears of joy if we had ones and zeros that could be moved from one place to another. I remember clutching a bit of steel in my gnarled hands, broken and bleeding, carving endless strings of bits onto unyielding granite. We only had one chisel between us 18 kids, so the ones without used nails if we could find 'em, or chips of wood if we couldn't. When someone wanted our data, we'd recite our ones and zeros straight from our feeble, half starved brains! If the cruel bloke asked for a checksum, we simply fell broken to the floor and died on the spot!
MailStart is (was?) good, but for God's sake don't send your mother to StartMail to check her email. She'll be treated to 6 or 8 popup porn pages. Same with StarMail.
I may be wrong on this, and I invite non-flame instruction if I am, but my impression of server hosting is that you get the hardware and the wire, and the rest is up to you. It would be nice for the hosting company to issues security bulletins, but I certainly wouldn't expect them to administer my server for me. I think you are confused about the terms 'ISP' and 'Dedicated Server.'
Slashdot Mirror
The anti government sentiment on Slashdot has gotten my blood boiling in the last few days, but we must realize that this is not the work of the federal government, nor do these actions in any way enhance our security.
I have defended, and will continue to defend, the propriety of the FBI and other agencies having increased latitude in this new world. But the actions of this private company are simply not related to those other efforts. These restrictions are misguided and un-American.
You say, perhaps for dramatic effect, "Rather than wait for the government assault..." Well, I'm confident that we will not see this type of assault from the government. Banning songs is not a security measure, nor is it a warfighting tactic. Until the government actually DOES something like this (and they won't,) don't attribute this type of idiocy to them.
Man-a-roni, that gave me the creeps. An excerpt from the last post in your link:
If the building managed to fall, there might be 5 or 6 thousand dead.
What the government is seeking to do is to monitor DOMESTIC communications in bulk...
I disagree. What the government is seeking to do is enable internet communications to be tapped similar to how phones can be tapped. Same protections, same controls, same situations, same vital link in law enforcement (and now, warfighting.)
If a known terrorist was in the country, would you have any problem with the FBI coming in daily to check the email logs of that person? Would you have a problem with the FBI obtaining a warrant to copy all communications to and from that person? Carnivore would simply automate these tasks.
I think you're being overly dramatic. We need to keep in mind that the "loss of liberty" that so many people are complaining about are proposed in an effort to catch increasingly sophisticated and capable criminals who are committing crimes THAT HAVE ALWAYS BEEN ILLEGAL. These measures are required to catch barbaric, murderous criminals; additional authority and leeway are not being sought by government agencies to criminalize our existing liberties, as your post suggests. They are being sought in an attempt to actually catch these bastards.
Let me give you a hypothetical: you are an FBI agent whose job it is to prevent terrorist attacks. You hear from our intelligence agencies that a known terrorist is entering the country (we know, of course, that the intelligence agenies themselves cannot track him once he gets in the country, because, my God, that would be an unthinkable loss of our freedom.) Anyway, he enters the country (along with 75 or so of his friends) and disappears into the fabric of our society. I ask you, what do you propose we do? You know his name and his aliases, but you are unable to search the ISP logs of his associates to help find him. You know his face, but you are unable to use software coupled with common security video to keep a lookout for him.
Please tell me your proposed methods for finding and catching such individuals.
..I don't think Osama used America Online.
(cheerful voice)
You've got Fatwa!
to touch my mouse while surfing pr0n?
because her kids would look at the underwear section. Now we are flooded with all types of much more graphic imagery from numerous sources. It's the onward march of technology, and we have to take the good with the bad.
I find it interesting that so many people here on Slashdot are opposed to the restriction of technology that may be used for fraudulent purposes, such as copying DVD's or bypassing software security features, but seem to have no problem pushing for restrictions on other technology that may be used for such sinister purposes as "strangers calling you by name" or "shops pulling up your credit report when you walk in."
This is the Age of Information. The shape of your face is just another piece of information. If we need restrictions, we should restrict uses rather than capabilities.
Read that again: We should restrict uses rather than capabilities. Try thinking about that concept in different contexts that are important to you: facial recognition, copyright protection, encryption, decryption. Does it mean the same thing in each context, or do you change your opinion based on whether the technology benefits YOU?
I have to close with this gem from the essay: "For example, the press cannot publish pictures of
most people in personally sensitive situations that have no legitimate news value." What?! And this guy is worried about Big Brother?
FR tags _you_ simply 'cause you _look like_ some shoplifter/thug/pedophile/terrorist. Congratulations... you now must _prove_ your innocence!
That's no different than being "tagged" by a security person who thinks he recognizes you. No different at all. The same thing could happen in a store with no cameras and no computers.
At worst... shot dead.
Pulease! The much more likely scenario is that his face is recognized (by a person or by a computer, makes no difference,) and he is approached by security to ask him for identification, which shows that he is indeed the person who has been banned from the store (which is private property,) then he gets belligerent and begins fighting with the officer, until another officer shows up, at which time the shopper pulls a knife and holds it to the throat of the first officer. At which time he is shot dead by the second officer. At which time people flood the chatrooms and message boards with claims that he was shot "because his face was recognized by a computer."
I think it's pretty abhorrent to have a computer decide who's guilty and who's innocent...
This is not at all a part of the FR scenario. The technology simply helps security personal recognize known offenders, in order to watch them more closely. AGAIN: it's no different than a security guard sitting there with a stack of photographs (a method which has been used for many years.) Any abuse that you can dream up for the FR technology could also happen with the 'guy with stack of photographs' technology.
what the hell is wrong with face recognition software? What's the difference between that and having some guy watch a security monitor for known offenders? Do people think when the software recognizes a face, it's going to send the person off to jail with no human intervention? Of course not...it's just going to notify a security person to keep an eye on the individual. If they don't take anything, no big deal. If they aren't who the computer thought they were, no big deal.
Same with red light cameras. What's the difference between using them and having someone stationed at the intersection to watch for offenders? I've been caught by one myself...I'm now more careful about pushing the yellow lights. By the way, the photo led to a civil fine, not criminal, and there was no possiblity of it affecting my driving record. A fair tradeoff, I think.
Rule of thumb: if you are in a public place, people will be able to see you, whether they do it with their eyes, through a camera, or assisted by software. Enough with the paranoia already.
I have it on good authority that Hotmail is actually running on a cluster of hacked -up Audreys.
I read his account, and I don't think his case has much merit. But I'm quite impressed that he was able to figure out how to get his HP case open.
Sounds like a corrupt cop stole your illegal drugs from you. Is your point, then, that this cop was no better than you? Is it safe to describe you with the same language you used to describe him?
Hi! How are you?
I send you this bill in order to have your advice.
See you later. Thanks.
...a staple feature of newspaper reporters in big cities is to go to local airports annually and test security procedures by carrying toy guns, knives or unloaded weapons into terminals.
Sorry, but I find this extremely difficult to believe. Can anyone show me a story by or about a reporter trying to sneak unloaded weapons into the secure area of an airport? I'll settle for a link to a story about even fake weapons, because I doubt that has happened either.
I'm not talking about professional security auditors, mind you. I'm referring to reporters, those guardians of the Constitution that were mentioned in the commentary.
Not that it changes the thrust of the article, but I'm pretty sure the "boneheaded exec" was probably just declining to participate in an unsolicited phone call. How many times has someone you don't know called you up and said "But don't you want to learn more about...?"
I'm fairly certain that they will find a way to stick their products into our faces. I wouldn't be surprised at all to find TiVO or future equivalents selling time on your box. This new effort will be a marriage with the "targeted demographic" technology discussed in this forum recently, and will be billed as a "special service", because consumers "like to hear about products that interest them."
By the way, anyone else out there starting to see commercials, I mean real commercials, before movies in theaters? At my megaplex, they have the nerve to call it "pre-feature entertainment." I want to start a campaign of booing during these commercials, to show how disgusted we are. Maybe if this "pre-feature entertainment" became a traditional subject of derision and ridicule, the advertisors would stop spending money there.
I'm fed up. End of rant.
is putting a PCMCIA slot on your desktop to make 5G of data easily portable to your laptop.
paying the content providers, instead of all the money going to mere handlers
I think the current model is quite reasonable. Content providers receive something for their time and effort, be it monetary (sales and advertising,) exposure (providing a free service to attract people to your site or company,) or personal (sharing information with a group of like-minded people, as in hobby sites or political sites.)
The role of the access provider is entirely separate, and I think it's appropriate to pay them even if the content is free.
Think of it like a billboard: the company putting up the ad foots the bill. The only person who gets paid is the folks who own the sign; people driving by don't have to pay to look. Yet.
Come to think of it, using that model, the content providers should pay the ISP's, and access to the public should be free!
It would be more like rock climbing.
Looks like the founder, Johnny Deep, even stole his name from that actor guy.
Sorry...I'll just go back to sipping my Piet Depsi.
I may have missed out on some technical discussions, but I've had @home for about 16 months, and I've had no problems with Linux. I was even running apache for a while. What limitations are you worried about?
LUXURY! In my day, we'd have collapsed and cried tears of joy if we had ones and zeros that could be moved from one place to another. I remember clutching a bit of steel in my gnarled hands, broken and bleeding, carving endless strings of bits onto unyielding granite. We only had one chisel between us 18 kids, so the ones without used nails if we could find 'em, or chips of wood if we couldn't. When someone wanted our data, we'd recite our ones and zeros straight from our feeble, half starved brains! If the cruel bloke asked for a checksum, we simply fell broken to the floor and died on the spot!
MailStart is (was?) good, but for God's sake don't send your mother to StartMail to check her email. She'll be treated to 6 or 8 popup porn pages. Same with StarMail.
I may be wrong on this, and I invite non-flame instruction if I am, but my impression of server hosting is that you get the hardware and the wire, and the rest is up to you. It would be nice for the hosting company to issues security bulletins, but I certainly wouldn't expect them to administer my server for me. I think you are confused about the terms 'ISP' and 'Dedicated Server.'