they're flying a fleet of 50 planes, doing dragnet surveillance by spoofing cell phone towers. Okay.
No they are not. They say they have the capability to do surveillance on cell phones, but nobody knows for sure that they are just out scooping up cell phone data willy nilly anytime it suits their fancy. We have some unnamed sources who claim to know, but we don't know anything about these sources. These sources then only really suspect this MIGHT be happening based on their observations, but they don't really know. Such "news" is really nothing more than rumor at this point. Something on par with that scandalous story the ladies where giggling about over in the corner at the last church put luck. It's just gossip...
I was addressing the PREVIOUS post where they where claiming that the apparent flights over Baltimore and Ferguson riots where scooping up cell phone data, not that the FBI doesn't have the capability to do it.
By the way, the WSJ article you are pointing too is pretty much just rumor without substantiation when it starts to talk about the FBI improperly collecting cell phone data. First, the source is not revealed, and although they claim to be well placed in the operation, we don't know exactly what role they play in the flights or what they really know. (It could be some FBO worker who just puts fuel in the aircraft for minimum wage and 20 hours a week, we just don't know.) Because of this, we really don't know how accurate this source's assumptions are or if they really understand the collections taking place and if they are warranted or not. We really just have a few non-disputed facts (the FBI has the capability) followed by speculation and rumor, which puts this story on par with that juicy bit of gossip about the preachers wife all the ladies where giggling about at the last pot luck. It's an interesting story, but it's not nearly as scandalous as your imagination has made it.
Not so fast... I was talking about the Baltimore/Ferguson flights over the riots.... Nobody I know of is admitting to sweeping up cell phone information there..
For goodness sake, that's a news story about general capabilities (which the FBI does admit to) and some "we think it's being inappropriately used" statement from an unknown, unidentified source who we are just supposed to assume knows what's going on and that his theories that the capability is being misused are actually true. Truth be told, even their source doesn't know and is just making assumptions and the story says as much if you pay attention.
Plus... This story is NOT about what they where doing during the riots in Baltimore and really amounts to about as much as that juicy rumor you overheard about the preacher's wife at the last church pot luck.
Re:hexadecimal floating point numbers?
on
Perl 5.22 Released
·
· Score: 2
What's the use case for hexadecimal floating point numbers? Seems like a "Why not" feature.
Oh no.. It's for the obfuscated Perl contest.... You can do amazing things with that..
You are just making blind assumptions. We don't know they are scooping up cell phone data, doing wire taps or just providing real time tactical data to law enforcement so they knew where to send reinforcements or the fire department....
In fact, WE DON'T KNOW what data they where collecting, though I have some plausible theories that don't involve needing a warrant to do.
Oh and one more thing... Remember that ALL evidence related to a case MUST be disclosed to the defense at trial, ALL of it, not just what is being used at the trial. This means if you collect illegally, the defense WILL know about it. No law enforcement officer wants to explain to a jury why they did such a thing and then have the defense use this as a way to impeach both the officer's testimony and any other evidence he might have collected. So they simply DON'T develop evidence which isn't 100% legal, obtaining warrants when necessary, the risks are too great.
Yes, but.. The courts have established that law enforcement CAN do surveillance in public areas and collect evidence of crimes. Plus, if they are doing warranted surveillance of one thing and happen to see evidence of an unrelated crime they can use that evidence. This is what the local traffic cop is doing when he drives around looking for speeders or people who blow though red lights and it's all perfectly legal.
So given that, if they are up taking video of a valid target from a public space (and they are), it's not a legal problem and doesn't violate the constitution. (So sayeth the courts which are charged with interpreting the meaning of the 4th and 5th amendments). Now if you are tapping his phone or putting video cameras in his house, you are going to need a warrant for that.
Also, the collection of evidence isn't a problem really, it's how you use it that matters. If you illegally obtain evidence, you cannot use it or you risk loosing everything subsequently collected based on this evidence. Law enforcement knows this so they usually are VERY careful about being legal, lest their case be thrown out for lack of evidence they can use in court. Not legally collecting evidence is a one way ticket to letting the bad guy off. Yes it happens, but rarely.
So, I don't see where it is a given they are violating folks constitutional rights here. There is a slim chance they might be, but I seriously doubt they are, despite what you might think it looks like.
Sssssh.... Just put the tinfoil back on, they won't be able to see you, but you can still hear them... They go Chirp Chirp, especially at night, just remember they are EVERYWHERE...
That's a big fleet of planes. Just think, one "not secret" program inside one bureau of one branch of our Federal Government controls 50 aircraft, and we're not even allow to know what this operation is called, as they smother the whole thing under shell companies.
I'm not saying it is, but I could see how this is a reasonable situation. Flying 50 Cessna 182's around isn't all that expensive considering.... Actually a 182's cost a drop in the bucket compared to an F-18's cost per hour...
I'll be the first to admit that it sure seems strange that they are doing this, but does anybody really know bad things are being done here?
If they are doing electronic based collections on cell phones and such and doing so without specific warrants, that's an issue. However, if they are just up flying in circles looking at what they can see from the air, how's that a problem even without a warrant?
The article behind the Slashdot story makes a number of "leaps of faith" and implies that the FBI is somehow engaged in illegal wiretapping and performing surveillance without warrants in ways that should require a warrant. However, truth be told we don't have any real evidence this is taking place. Does it look suspicious? Yes. Could they be up to no good? Absolutely.... But all we have is a bunch of assumptions about what's really going on and a little bit od intrigue into how the FBI is trying to hide their involvement.
I'm not saying if the FBI is or isn't doing something bad, but there just might be legitimate reasons for the things uncovered so far. The FBI may have a good reason to obfuscate their involvement in these flights, and the flights may have legitimate reasons to take place to do surveillance on specific targets and locations. It is also reasonable that the FBI might have good reason to not want to talk about what's going on, who they are looking at and why.
We need more information, information that the FBI reasonably cannot share right now. So lets not jump to conclusions either way, yet...
I'm just wondering, what do we think they are doing? Where I agree it looks bad, but do we have any real information about what they are doing and if the data, pictures or what have you being collected really is somehow a problem.
It's too bad we couldn't elect a president that promises transparency and who will work to end these practices...
Oh he heard about it in the news just like you and now he's focused like a laser on the problem.... We will get to the bottom of this, at least we will try for as long as the news cycle lasts.
But.... The Federally backed Student Loan program expansion happens to be associated with a HUGE increase in money borrowed for... Hold on to your hat... College education... Which just happened to take place at the SAME TIME as... Hold your hat again.... Tuition increases...
Say, could all that be somehow related? Might there be a cause and effect relationship between the Fed making more money available and students borrowing more for tuition AND THEN tuitions going up? I think so...
Same thing is going to happen with healthcare.. Total costs are going up... You can bet the farm on that.
Then you need to figure out another way because the "free market" isn't working.
Says who? By what measure? Seems to be working fine for me, I have the choice of 3 mainstream providers at my home... Plus, the vast majority of people have at least two choices here in the USA.... This doesn't seem like a problem to me.
Did the also fail you by giving Bush the 2000 election, or was that OK in your book?
By every objective measure, Gore lost. What the SCOTUS really decided on a 5 to 4 vote was that you couldn't alter the counting procedure AFTER the ballots where cast, which made the previous count (which Gore lost) the FINAL count. (And making all this hanging chad nonsense go away.) Scary actually that 4 judges actually thought it was OK to change the counting rules after the ballots where cast, but hey...
You can argue that the ACTUAL vote was different than the count, but everybody knew what the counting process was before the election so you play the game by the rules set out in advance. Further, NOBODY knows what the *real* count was or wasn't so you can argue anything you want to believe, but Gore lost, lost the recount, lost in court, lost the election, it's history now.
Yea, processing the payment for an illegal transaction so you can take your cut somehow doesn't make you an accessary.... Sorry, but if you have reason to believe a crime is being committed from a transaction you are making possible, you really have a duty to report the transaction or risk being seen as an accessary.
It's like driving the getaway car from an armed robbery.... If you know what they are doing inside the bank while you sit in the car waiting for your friends to get back, you get charged with the robbery too, as an accessary. You didn't rob the bank, but you knowingly helped others to do so.
No you can argue you didn't know, that they never told you what they where doing with the ski masks and guns at the First National Bank, but if you took your cut, who's going to believe you? Same with Ulbricht, he took his cut, full knowing what was being traded, he is guilty of a crime for each transaction... Now folks want to claim he didn't know? That's nuts...
Sorry you are so jaded.. Personally, Where I do feel there are times when the legal system in this country has issues (Like when judges legislate from the bench or invent "rights" which don't exist) the legal system in this country is among the best in the world and history. I find that the problem usually is that people don't understand the legal system, how it works and why.
But my real complaint is not about the courts or judges, but the law. Our elected legislators are way to fast to draft some law and be seen as supporters of some political cause and few take the time to understand existing laws or how their new one changes things. This leads to inconsistent and unintended side effects which the courts are forced to uphold. The law is too big, to complex and addresses too many things and the courts are left to sort out the mess into some kind of sensible way. It's no wonder they fail sometimes.
So place your blame on the right party, the nutcases who write the law, and not the courts.
IMHO - I prefer capitalism's problems over the alternatives...
What, like subsidized healthcare and education which actually benefits the citizens of the country?
Yea, just look at what government money has done to the price of college and how much debt subsidized student loans have created. Tell me the subsidies for healthcare aren't expensive... Government is rarely the correct answer, in fact, for me it is the answer of last resort in all but a limited number of constitutionally mandated situations.....
In the end you pay more for internet service if government owns the infrastructure... IMHO this is universally true, government is NOT efficient at ANYTHING. Oh your ISP bill may go down, but the cost of waste will be made up in some other way.
Slashdot Mirror
"millions of potential new subscribers" to the subscription-free service?
Marketing, Marketing.... Just don't think about it and pay up..
It's just like the "unlimited data plan" that gets you throttled if you use too much on AT&T... What's old is new again.
they're flying a fleet of 50 planes, doing dragnet surveillance by spoofing cell phone towers. Okay.
No they are not. They say they have the capability to do surveillance on cell phones, but nobody knows for sure that they are just out scooping up cell phone data willy nilly anytime it suits their fancy. We have some unnamed sources who claim to know, but we don't know anything about these sources. These sources then only really suspect this MIGHT be happening based on their observations, but they don't really know. Such "news" is really nothing more than rumor at this point. Something on par with that scandalous story the ladies where giggling about over in the corner at the last church put luck. It's just gossip...
I was addressing the PREVIOUS post where they where claiming that the apparent flights over Baltimore and Ferguson riots where scooping up cell phone data, not that the FBI doesn't have the capability to do it.
By the way, the WSJ article you are pointing too is pretty much just rumor without substantiation when it starts to talk about the FBI improperly collecting cell phone data. First, the source is not revealed, and although they claim to be well placed in the operation, we don't know exactly what role they play in the flights or what they really know. (It could be some FBO worker who just puts fuel in the aircraft for minimum wage and 20 hours a week, we just don't know.) Because of this, we really don't know how accurate this source's assumptions are or if they really understand the collections taking place and if they are warranted or not. We really just have a few non-disputed facts (the FBI has the capability) followed by speculation and rumor, which puts this story on par with that juicy bit of gossip about the preachers wife all the ladies where giggling about at the last pot luck. It's an interesting story, but it's not nearly as scandalous as your imagination has made it.
Not so fast... I was talking about the Baltimore/Ferguson flights over the riots.... Nobody I know of is admitting to sweeping up cell phone information there..
For goodness sake, that's a news story about general capabilities (which the FBI does admit to) and some "we think it's being inappropriately used" statement from an unknown, unidentified source who we are just supposed to assume knows what's going on and that his theories that the capability is being misused are actually true. Truth be told, even their source doesn't know and is just making assumptions and the story says as much if you pay attention.
Plus... This story is NOT about what they where doing during the riots in Baltimore and really amounts to about as much as that juicy rumor you overheard about the preacher's wife at the last church pot luck.
What's the use case for hexadecimal floating point numbers? Seems like a "Why not" feature.
Oh no.. It's for the obfuscated Perl contest.... You can do amazing things with that..
Nah.... Python replaced Fortran 77. At least in the significant white space arena.
Significant white space? Seriously?
Yea, what's old is new again!
It was a bad idea the first time folks, although there was justification back then due to restrictions in program size and character sets...
Stick around, I'm sure we will recycle a LOT of old ideas.... Trick is to line up the new name with the old...
Cloud Computing == Mainframe
Etc.. You try a few...
Perl6 is almost ready
Fifteen years in the oven, that better be one tasty cake!
Well.. You KNOW it won't be half baked..
Yes folks.. I'm here all week and we have no cover... Please tip the waitress..
You are just making blind assumptions. We don't know they are scooping up cell phone data, doing wire taps or just providing real time tactical data to law enforcement so they knew where to send reinforcements or the fire department....
In fact, WE DON'T KNOW what data they where collecting, though I have some plausible theories that don't involve needing a warrant to do.
Oh and one more thing... Remember that ALL evidence related to a case MUST be disclosed to the defense at trial, ALL of it, not just what is being used at the trial. This means if you collect illegally, the defense WILL know about it. No law enforcement officer wants to explain to a jury why they did such a thing and then have the defense use this as a way to impeach both the officer's testimony and any other evidence he might have collected. So they simply DON'T develop evidence which isn't 100% legal, obtaining warrants when necessary, the risks are too great.
Yes, but.. The courts have established that law enforcement CAN do surveillance in public areas and collect evidence of crimes. Plus, if they are doing warranted surveillance of one thing and happen to see evidence of an unrelated crime they can use that evidence. This is what the local traffic cop is doing when he drives around looking for speeders or people who blow though red lights and it's all perfectly legal.
So given that, if they are up taking video of a valid target from a public space (and they are), it's not a legal problem and doesn't violate the constitution. (So sayeth the courts which are charged with interpreting the meaning of the 4th and 5th amendments). Now if you are tapping his phone or putting video cameras in his house, you are going to need a warrant for that.
Also, the collection of evidence isn't a problem really, it's how you use it that matters. If you illegally obtain evidence, you cannot use it or you risk loosing everything subsequently collected based on this evidence. Law enforcement knows this so they usually are VERY careful about being legal, lest their case be thrown out for lack of evidence they can use in court. Not legally collecting evidence is a one way ticket to letting the bad guy off. Yes it happens, but rarely.
So, I don't see where it is a given they are violating folks constitutional rights here. There is a slim chance they might be, but I seriously doubt they are, despite what you might think it looks like.
So was it Perl 6 or you that failed?
Sssssh.... Just put the tinfoil back on, they won't be able to see you, but you can still hear them... They go Chirp Chirp, especially at night, just remember they are EVERYWHERE...
That's a big fleet of planes. Just think, one "not secret" program inside one bureau of one branch of our Federal Government controls 50 aircraft, and we're not even allow to know what this operation is called, as they smother the whole thing under shell companies.
I'm not saying it is, but I could see how this is a reasonable situation. Flying 50 Cessna 182's around isn't all that expensive considering.... Actually a 182's cost a drop in the bucket compared to an F-18's cost per hour...
I'll be the first to admit that it sure seems strange that they are doing this, but does anybody really know bad things are being done here?
If they are doing electronic based collections on cell phones and such and doing so without specific warrants, that's an issue. However, if they are just up flying in circles looking at what they can see from the air, how's that a problem even without a warrant?
The article behind the Slashdot story makes a number of "leaps of faith" and implies that the FBI is somehow engaged in illegal wiretapping and performing surveillance without warrants in ways that should require a warrant. However, truth be told we don't have any real evidence this is taking place. Does it look suspicious? Yes. Could they be up to no good? Absolutely.... But all we have is a bunch of assumptions about what's really going on and a little bit od intrigue into how the FBI is trying to hide their involvement.
I'm not saying if the FBI is or isn't doing something bad, but there just might be legitimate reasons for the things uncovered so far. The FBI may have a good reason to obfuscate their involvement in these flights, and the flights may have legitimate reasons to take place to do surveillance on specific targets and locations. It is also reasonable that the FBI might have good reason to not want to talk about what's going on, who they are looking at and why.
We need more information, information that the FBI reasonably cannot share right now. So lets not jump to conclusions either way, yet...
I'm just wondering, what do we think they are doing? Where I agree it looks bad, but do we have any real information about what they are doing and if the data, pictures or what have you being collected really is somehow a problem.
It's too bad we couldn't elect a president that promises transparency and who will work to end these practices...
Oh he heard about it in the news just like you and now he's focused like a laser on the problem.... We will get to the bottom of this, at least we will try for as long as the news cycle lasts.
After his FIRST or SECOND election?
But.... The Federally backed Student Loan program expansion happens to be associated with a HUGE increase in money borrowed for ... Hold on to your hat... College education... Which just happened to take place at the SAME TIME as ... Hold your hat again.... Tuition increases...
Say, could all that be somehow related? Might there be a cause and effect relationship between the Fed making more money available and students borrowing more for tuition AND THEN tuitions going up? I think so...
Same thing is going to happen with healthcare.. Total costs are going up... You can bet the farm on that.
Then you need to figure out another way because the "free market" isn't working.
Says who? By what measure? Seems to be working fine for me, I have the choice of 3 mainstream providers at my home... Plus, the vast majority of people have at least two choices here in the USA.... This doesn't seem like a problem to me.
Did the also fail you by giving Bush the 2000 election, or was that OK in your book?
By every objective measure, Gore lost. What the SCOTUS really decided on a 5 to 4 vote was that you couldn't alter the counting procedure AFTER the ballots where cast, which made the previous count (which Gore lost) the FINAL count. (And making all this hanging chad nonsense go away.) Scary actually that 4 judges actually thought it was OK to change the counting rules after the ballots where cast, but hey...
You can argue that the ACTUAL vote was different than the count, but everybody knew what the counting process was before the election so you play the game by the rules set out in advance. Further, NOBODY knows what the *real* count was or wasn't so you can argue anything you want to believe, but Gore lost, lost the recount, lost in court, lost the election, it's history now.
Yea, processing the payment for an illegal transaction so you can take your cut somehow doesn't make you an accessary.... Sorry, but if you have reason to believe a crime is being committed from a transaction you are making possible, you really have a duty to report the transaction or risk being seen as an accessary.
It's like driving the getaway car from an armed robbery.... If you know what they are doing inside the bank while you sit in the car waiting for your friends to get back, you get charged with the robbery too, as an accessary. You didn't rob the bank, but you knowingly helped others to do so.
No you can argue you didn't know, that they never told you what they where doing with the ski masks and guns at the First National Bank, but if you took your cut, who's going to believe you? Same with Ulbricht, he took his cut, full knowing what was being traded, he is guilty of a crime for each transaction... Now folks want to claim he didn't know? That's nuts...
Sorry you are so jaded.. Personally, Where I do feel there are times when the legal system in this country has issues (Like when judges legislate from the bench or invent "rights" which don't exist) the legal system in this country is among the best in the world and history. I find that the problem usually is that people don't understand the legal system, how it works and why.
But my real complaint is not about the courts or judges, but the law. Our elected legislators are way to fast to draft some law and be seen as supporters of some political cause and few take the time to understand existing laws or how their new one changes things. This leads to inconsistent and unintended side effects which the courts are forced to uphold. The law is too big, to complex and addresses too many things and the courts are left to sort out the mess into some kind of sensible way. It's no wonder they fail sometimes.
So place your blame on the right party, the nutcases who write the law, and not the courts.
IMHO - I prefer capitalism's problems over the alternatives...
What, like subsidized healthcare and education which actually benefits the citizens of the country?
Yea, just look at what government money has done to the price of college and how much debt subsidized student loans have created. Tell me the subsidies for healthcare aren't expensive... Government is rarely the correct answer, in fact, for me it is the answer of last resort in all but a limited number of constitutionally mandated situations.....
In the end you pay more for internet service if government owns the infrastructure... IMHO this is universally true, government is NOT efficient at ANYTHING. Oh your ISP bill may go down, but the cost of waste will be made up in some other way.