...officials say they will require the personnel to use special protective measures such as a visual scan for marine mammals and shutting down the sonar if the animals are detected.
Noble theory, but I do not see that happening in practice because it's a sure bet that sub captains will exploit this to the hilt.
Quite so. In the trade of submarine warfare, as has been amply evidenced, stealth is everything. If you find yourself needing to use an active sytstem, it is fairly certain you have bigger concerns on your mind than its effect on local fauna.
There are times when keeping things secret is a good thing. Our government seems incapable of doing so most of the time.
Which I find most unfortunate. Sometimes I think that problem would rectify itself if the leakers had to face the consequences of their actions. To borrow an example from fiction - specifically Clancy's 'Clear and Present Danger' - Ritter (the CIA's Deputy Director (Operations)) - was able to get the Senate Intelligence Oversight Committee to agree on his SAHO rule after, among other things, confronting the committee with the wife and six-year-old daughter of an operative who was killed as a result of one member's talkativeness.
(on a side note this is why I don't buy into most conspiracy theories-- the govt. is way too inefficient at keeping things quiet)
On the other hand, this seeming incapability could well be a carefully wrought screen. You know, throw up these things for everyone to point at and laugh, providing cover for... other, cool programs ('Firefox' neural link, anyone? A fully operational battle station in orbit, like Drax had in Moonraker?).
There is a good reason companies have moved away from such centralization of resources: Murphy's Law. Under the setup you are putting foward, a single failure would cause major disruptions.
Plus, as has been said, people are not machines... I highly doubt you will find anybody repeat anybody who can work comfortably under such conditions.
Not sure if anyone's put this up, but the BBC has put up an article in their Sci-Tech section on this matter. I'm guessing that if people with backgrounds in international law weren't looking at this before, they sure are now. This is also where I remind people to write and/call their elected representatives and let them know just what they think of this proposal. It also wouldn't hurt if people voted with their pocketbooks... that is, if a record label or movie studio is found to be doing this, don't give them your money.
While content owners now can try to block access to intellectual property pirates, they cannot use the range of technological options that they want, chiefly because some tactics are illegal under state and federal law. Berman's bill would legalize some techniques over the protests of file-sharing advocates.
Various other posters have cited this proposed legislation as yet another example of the old adage 'money talks'; I happen to agree with them. The way I read this - feel free to correct me if I am wrong - is that this legislation would give content owners (who are not necessarily the same as content creators) untrammeled authourity to take the sort of actions usually within the purview of law-enforcement agencies, without having to deal with such things as due process. It is especially noisome that the content creators wanted free rein to perform acts that are already classified as illegal.
Using the same apparent logic behind the owners' ideal of this proposal, a company suffering from a DDoS incident would be able to, for instance, track down the owners of X number of zombie machines and confiscate their equipment... or maybe 'arrange' for those owners to suffer 'accidents'... to set an example. Or, if they are so inclined, put out a contract on the ultimate authour of the attack. We have laws, agencies to enforce them, and a legal system to interpret them, for a reason last time I checked.
And then, of course, it seems that content owners and the good Sen. Burman have forgotten that the Net is a transnational entity, and that as such no one nation can impose its own laws upon it.
I do not, repeat not, see this being viable. Quite aside from technical issues, this sort of fishing expedition is illegal, as is the idea of an autonomous program altering people's systems or bank accounts. Sure, they may say they're only looking for X, but what's to prevent these bots from being subverted by other entities - note that these 'entities' can be external to or within whichever body creates/deploys these things - for their own purposes?
Looney Tunes? Star Wars? Granted, although we never saw much in the way of orbit-to-surface weaponry in the movies. However, mention of these 'thunder rods' puts me in mind of one of my favorite and oh-so-hard-to-find-nowadays games:
Synidcate Wars.
Specifically, the weapon referred to therein as 'Satellite Rain'. Ah, memories...
Does this mean the electron maces, persuadertrons, graviton guns, and spider mechs are next? Cool!
I'm sure it's been brought up elsewhere, but it is my understanding that advertisers pay the networks in return for space in which to deliver their message. What happens to the message once it gets to views' homes, however, is not guaranteed. Is it not true that people already use ad time for such tasks as, oh I don't know, getting snacks or tapping kidneys or what-have-you? In other words, people are already tuning out the commercials; given that, I fail to see what this man's beef with PVRs is.
As is the case with 'Ooga ooga' (the ad technology that reaches into a computer and alters browser settings) this development from Radlight is beyond the pale - these people have no business whatsoever interfering with computers in this manner. By their 'logic', Netscape could include in their installation.exe a subroutine that uninstalls other browsers that might be resident on a system; or Windows Media Player updates might go and remove, oh, Winamp.
Ummm... no. Not just no, but... you get the idea.
Amusing, true; however, it is also incomprehensible to the average person, and - happening as it does to fall under the category of 'leetspeak' - irritating to many people regardless of whether or not they can read it.
Good call... in fact, the cexx.org folks say that this is already happening in some cases. To complement this, I would also suggest a campaign for concise and comprehensible EULAs that explicitly list any and all of these 'extras'. These 'extras' should, of course, then be readily and entirely uninstallable, and not a requisite for the functioning of whatever program the user has downloaded.
Note to webmasters: Ooga Ooga, like a couple of other advertising tools that originated among certain adult sites, should be rejected outright for the simple reason that it actually reaches into the viewer's computer and mucks about with its settings without their consent. Legally questionable, at best.
Note to Opera: kudos for making available a browser with enough controls (i.e. forcing all popups to the back, overriding document color settings, only loading cached graphics, etc.) to allow users to mitigate the annoyance factor posed by many current advertising tools. That being said, I add my voice to those recommending that you ensure that your browser remains totally immune to Ooga Ooga and other such intrusions.
Hmmm... I am reminded of Blizzard Entertainment's problem with a certain sportscar (I forget which company makes it) being called 'Diablo'. Intellectual property is, in principle, a well and good concept, but examples like this take it to absurdity. Just as I fail to see how someone could confuse a nonprofit yoga institution with a major chipmaker, I cannot see how a sportscar and a computer game can be mistaken for one another. Even if the game's eponymous major villain is red, and even if that also happens to be a common color for sports cars.
But that's the point. When the project is coordinated among 10+ squabbling nation states it becomes hard to implement backdoors in secret.
Imagine the reaction of the French if they caught Germany trying to sneak in a backdoor for EADS Deutschland or BND (or vice versa, Dassault Aviation and DRM)
I suppose so. On the other hand, all that squabbling does make for natural cover. That question aside, though...
Whoo, this'd make great technothriller fodder... no doubt some enterprising authours have already taken notice of that little fact; thanks for bringing it up.
They should use Galileo [bbc.co.uk] because it will be a multinational, civilian controlled system and thus not susceptible to military/intelligence community people just walking in and demanding decryption with a government issued, carte blanche, "national security" mandate.
Or, at least, it would seem to not have such a backdoor. It's likely there - quite well-hidden, but there. And, for extra laughs, distinct from the corporate backdoor(s)... can't forget about those, can we?
Don't know about the rest of you, but I'd trust representatives of the military and intelligence communities more than I would some of the politicians and CEOs of late.
And that, in turn, makes me wonder about the extent of collective amnesia, both inside the Beltway and in EntertainmentIndustryLand, regarding the spiritual ancestors of the current debate. People have pointed at the introduction of the videotape, others to audiotapes, still others (thank you, K8Fan) to radio... all of which, if I recall correctly, were inicially decried as blatant invitations to piracy.
Let's see... if the experts all agree that what the entertainment indrustry wants is impractical in the extreme (for reasons already well-cited elsewhere), and if we, the end users, put our money where our collective mouths are, it is fairly likely that Common Sense(tm) will prevail.
I wonder, also, how many artists - that's right, the ones who actually do the creative work - actually think that this proposed ludicrousity is a good idea. Not that many, as I recall, seem to be outspoken against music sharing...
Interesting that the French often try and do something about Internet problems (e.g. Nazis) whereas the Americans simply sit there, throw their hands up and claim that 'nothing can be done'. The French are showing us the way forward here, we would do well to learn from them.
Not a bad analogy, except that Net free-speech isues are a whole different can o' worms (and won't be addressed here) than the creation of proposed 'dead zones' for cellular reception. While education of the public would be theoretically the best approach, if a hardware fix must be implemented to supplement it, I would prefer to see something that forces the phone/pager/etc into 'vibration alert only' mode within the effect radius... Failing that, do recall that establishments have the right to define standards of acceptable behavior... and most people would seem to agree that inconsiderate use of cellular phones is right up there with the unclever person who insists on blaring the boombox...
Really now, I fail to see how this can possibly be scary... in fact, I think it rather cool, and hope it's undergoing 'black' development in Dreamland or wherever. Personally, I like to believe that the actual state-of-the-art is at least a half-generation ahead of what is officially claimed as such.
What might be somewhat scary, on the other hand, is the plasma-yield warhead described in Dale Brown's novel 'Battle Born'. Imagine, if you will, a weapon that basically vaporizes everything within a fixed radius, with no overpressure and very little heat or radiation, along with a lot less sound than you might thing. I command reference to his website for details.
You've hit the nail on the head. We both know that it's 'easier' for people to blame someone else rather than admit their own failings. The people perpetrating such fearmongering, additionally, fall into one of two categories:
those who think the gaming audience's opinion doesn't matter;
those who would sue at the drop of the hat (and know that the actual perpetrators don't usually have money>
In the midst of all this, I ask if there has ever been an objective and scientific study of the alleged problem.
First off, I find the assumption that everyone and their Metroid has one or more credit cards tiresome... I have zero, and plan on keeping it that way for the foreseeable future. What are these people thinking, asking that email address be matched up with phone numbers/credit card numbers? They want to make things easier for stalkers or what? (crack ISP, pull joe@isp.org's phone number, etc.)
I can think of several of the novels that would've been a far better basis for a D&D movie - the Dark Elf trilogy comes to mind immediately - than... well, this... thing. With all that is in the D&D worlds, the movie is a disappointment.
Two thumbs down.
Telephone companies should not be trying to regulate voice-over-IP. No way, nohow - it would be like the oil industry being allowed to regulate alternate-fuel vehicles (a proposition I am quite sure would be seen as ludicrous). Besides, many of these companies are getting into the Net-access business, so it's not like voice-over-IP is really hurting them any.
Slashdot Mirror
Quite so. In the trade of submarine warfare, as has been amply evidenced, stealth is everything. If you find yourself needing to use an active sytstem, it is fairly certain you have bigger concerns on your mind than its effect on local fauna.
On the other hand, this seeming incapability could well be a carefully wrought screen. You know, throw up these things for everyone to point at and laugh, providing cover for... other, cool programs ('Firefox' neural link, anyone? A fully operational battle station in orbit, like Drax had in Moonraker?).
Kudos to you for not only the insight, but on showing initiative in developing a workable compromise for your environment. Bravo, indeed.
There is a good reason companies have moved away from such centralization of resources: Murphy's Law. Under the setup you are putting foward, a single failure would cause major disruptions.
Plus, as has been said, people are not machines... I highly doubt you will find anybody repeat anybody who can work comfortably under such conditions.
Not sure if anyone's put this up, but the BBC has put up an article in their Sci-Tech section on this matter. I'm guessing that if people with backgrounds in international law weren't looking at this before, they sure are now. This is also where I remind people to write and/call their elected representatives and let them know just what they think of this proposal. It also wouldn't hurt if people voted with their pocketbooks... that is, if a record label or movie studio is found to be doing this, don't give them your money.
Various other posters have cited this proposed legislation as yet another example of the old adage 'money talks'; I happen to agree with them. The way I read this - feel free to correct me if I am wrong - is that this legislation would give content owners (who are not necessarily the same as content creators) untrammeled authourity to take the sort of actions usually within the purview of law-enforcement agencies, without having to deal with such things as due process. It is especially noisome that the content creators wanted free rein to perform acts that are already classified as illegal. Using the same apparent logic behind the owners' ideal of this proposal, a company suffering from a DDoS incident would be able to, for instance, track down the owners of X number of zombie machines and confiscate their equipment... or maybe 'arrange' for those owners to suffer 'accidents'... to set an example. Or, if they are so inclined, put out a contract on the ultimate authour of the attack. We have laws, agencies to enforce them, and a legal system to interpret them, for a reason last time I checked.
And then, of course, it seems that content owners and the good Sen. Burman have forgotten that the Net is a transnational entity, and that as such no one nation can impose its own laws upon it.
I do not, repeat not, see this being viable. Quite aside from technical issues, this sort of fishing expedition is illegal, as is the idea of an autonomous program altering people's systems or bank accounts. Sure, they may say they're only looking for X, but what's to prevent these bots from being subverted by other entities - note that these 'entities' can be external to or within whichever body creates/deploys these things - for their own purposes?
Looney Tunes? Star Wars? Granted, although we never saw much in the way of orbit-to-surface weaponry in the movies. However, mention of these 'thunder rods' puts me in mind of one of my favorite and oh-so-hard-to-find-nowadays games:
Synidcate Wars.
Specifically, the weapon referred to therein as 'Satellite Rain'. Ah, memories...
Does this mean the electron maces, persuadertrons, graviton guns, and spider mechs are next? Cool!
I'm sure it's been brought up elsewhere, but it is my understanding that advertisers pay the networks in return for space in which to deliver their message. What happens to the message once it gets to views' homes, however, is not guaranteed. Is it not true that people already use ad time for such tasks as, oh I don't know, getting snacks or tapping kidneys or what-have-you? In other words, people are already tuning out the commercials; given that, I fail to see what this man's beef with PVRs is.
As is the case with 'Ooga ooga' (the ad technology that reaches into a computer and alters browser settings) this development from Radlight is beyond the pale - these people have no business whatsoever interfering with computers in this manner. By their 'logic', Netscape could include in their installation .exe a subroutine that uninstalls other browsers that might be resident on a system; or Windows Media Player updates might go and remove, oh, Winamp.
Ummm... no. Not just no, but... you get the idea.
Amusing, true; however, it is also incomprehensible to the average person, and - happening as it does to fall under the category of 'leetspeak' - irritating to many people regardless of whether or not they can read it.
...here's the BBC's take on the matter. It's always good to have multiple views on these things.
Good call... in fact, the cexx.org folks say that this is already happening in some cases. To complement this, I would also suggest a campaign for concise and comprehensible EULAs that explicitly list any and all of these 'extras'. These 'extras' should, of course, then be readily and entirely uninstallable, and not a requisite for the functioning of whatever program the user has downloaded.
Note to webmasters: Ooga Ooga, like a couple of other advertising tools that originated among certain adult sites, should be rejected outright for the simple reason that it actually reaches into the viewer's computer and mucks about with its settings without their consent. Legally questionable, at best.
Note to Opera: kudos for making available a browser with enough controls (i.e. forcing all popups to the back, overriding document color settings, only loading cached graphics, etc.) to allow users to mitigate the annoyance factor posed by many current advertising tools. That being said, I add my voice to those recommending that you ensure that your browser remains totally immune to Ooga Ooga and other such intrusions.
Hmmm... I am reminded of Blizzard Entertainment's problem with a certain sportscar (I forget which company makes it) being called 'Diablo'. Intellectual property is, in principle, a well and good concept, but examples like this take it to absurdity. Just as I fail to see how someone could confuse a nonprofit yoga institution with a major chipmaker, I cannot see how a sportscar and a computer game can be mistaken for one another. Even if the game's eponymous major villain is red, and even if that also happens to be a common color for sports cars.
Whoo, this'd make great technothriller fodder... no doubt some enterprising authours have already taken notice of that little fact; thanks for bringing it up.
Or, at least, it would seem to not have such a backdoor. It's likely there - quite well-hidden, but there. And, for extra laughs, distinct from the corporate backdoor(s)... can't forget about those, can we?
Don't know about the rest of you, but I'd trust representatives of the military and intelligence communities more than I would some of the politicians and CEOs of late.
And that, in turn, makes me wonder about the extent of collective amnesia, both inside the Beltway and in EntertainmentIndustryLand, regarding the spiritual ancestors of the current debate. People have pointed at the introduction of the videotape, others to audiotapes, still others (thank you, K8Fan) to radio... all of which, if I recall correctly, were inicially decried as blatant invitations to piracy.
Let's see... if the experts all agree that what the entertainment indrustry wants is impractical in the extreme (for reasons already well-cited elsewhere), and if we, the end users, put our money where our collective mouths are, it is fairly likely that Common Sense(tm) will prevail.
I wonder, also, how many artists - that's right, the ones who actually do the creative work - actually think that this proposed ludicrousity is a good idea. Not that many, as I recall, seem to be outspoken against music sharing...
Really now, I fail to see how this can possibly be scary... in fact, I think it rather cool, and hope it's undergoing 'black' development in Dreamland or wherever. Personally, I like to believe that the actual state-of-the-art is at least a half-generation ahead of what is officially claimed as such.
What might be somewhat scary, on the other hand, is the plasma-yield warhead described in Dale Brown's novel 'Battle Born'. Imagine, if you will, a weapon that basically vaporizes everything within a fixed radius, with no overpressure and very little heat or radiation, along with a lot less sound than you might thing. I command reference to his website for details.
- those who think the gaming audience's opinion doesn't matter;
- those who would sue at the drop of the hat (and know that the actual perpetrators don't usually have money>
In the midst of all this, I ask if there has ever been an objective and scientific study of the alleged problem.First off, I find the assumption that everyone and their Metroid has one or more credit cards tiresome... I have zero, and plan on keeping it that way for the foreseeable future. What are these people thinking, asking that email address be matched up with phone numbers/credit card numbers? They want to make things easier for stalkers or what? (crack ISP, pull joe@isp.org's phone number, etc.)
I can think of several of the novels that would've been a far better basis for a D&D movie - the Dark Elf trilogy comes to mind immediately - than... well, this... thing. With all that is in the D&D worlds, the movie is a disappointment.
Two thumbs down.
Telephone companies should not be trying to regulate voice-over-IP. No way, nohow - it would be like the oil industry being allowed to regulate alternate-fuel vehicles (a proposition I am quite sure would be seen as ludicrous). Besides, many of these companies are getting into the Net-access business, so it's not like voice-over-IP is really hurting them any.