Regarding online safety, security through obscurity should not be overlooked.
As I've been saying here on Slashdot for years; the mantra so often chanted here ("security through obscurity is no security at all"), is dead wrong. Security professionals well know that obscurity is a valuable part of their arsenal - because an intruder or attacker cannot prepare in advance for a defensive or security measure he does not know is there.
Your post has far more deceitful or simply uninformed bits but I believe these facts I've pointed out are enough to get a clear picture of the case.
Except, you haven't actually pointed out any significant facts - just handwaving, accusations, and hysteria. You've grossly oversimplified as bad as the OP, just in the opposite direction.
I'm not disagreeing with you or the judge. I think their mention of any right to privacy in the case of subpoena's is utterly ridiculous.
You misunderstand the meaning of the word 'privacy' in this respect. What the judge is saying is that your ISP subscriber information is no different than your utility subscriber information and records or your telephone subscription information and records - in each case the company is bound to give up the information when legally required and properly ordered to do so. (The suit was brought because some people whose IP addresses and subscriber information was being sought in conjunction with another suit mistakenly believed that such a request violated their privacy rights, so those people sued to prevent their information from being released.)
Because if I have "no expectation of privacy" from my ISP, then that means they could publish all my information on their website in public view of everyone.
Try actually reading and comprehending the issue in question - which isn't the ability of the ISP to publish whatever it wants, but rather the requirement of ISP's to give up your information when subpoenaed.
Maybe it's time for us engineers/programmers to quit our jobs and become lawyers/judges because it's clear the current persons don't know jack about technology (see yesterday's ruling that says software can not be resold by a customer).
With your lack of reading comprehension, you shouldn't be complaining about other people not knowing jack. (See yesterdays ruling that says you cannot resell software you have agreed to destroy.)
Try actually reading TFA then, and you'll find that is *exactly* what the ruling is about. (Hint: In "file downloading and distribution", "distribution" means "making available for download".)
Since ISPs are basically Common Carriers (in every sense except the legal one)
In other words, they aren't common carriers.
a good analogy would be "by giving your personal information to your phone company, you agree to allow others to listen in on your phone conversations".
No, that's an analogy that has nothing whatsoever to do with the ruling. An actual analogy would be that by giving your subscriber information to the phone company you agree to allow the phone company to give up a list of the calls you've made and received when so ordered to do so via subpoena.
This ruling is so bizarre and out of "left field" I have a hard time imagining that it will stand up to scrutiny or appeals.
That would pretty much be because you're utterly and completely clueless.
As a matter of privacy-rights, I think this judge is off his/her rocker. Seriously.
Why? As someone recently said in a discussion on software and business method patents, adding "on a computer" changes nothing significant. Making something available for download is no different than putting a garage sale sign in your front yard - you've voluntarily given up your right to privacy by announcing to the world that you have something available for the public to take advantage of.
Nor is this really any different than someone in a civil case who has your license plate number subpoenaing the DMV for your name and address, or subpoenaing your credit card records. (Both of these happen all the time.) You can't create a 'right' (to privacy) out of thin air or contrary to other principles of the law.
I have yet to meet a single "garage tinkerer" who made an invention, went through the patent process, and made any money at all
I've never met a black lesbian either. But, unlike you, I'm neither conceited enough nor self centered enough to assume that just because there are none among the people I've met (a vanishingly small fraction of the entire population of the US) that none exist.
It also is important for anybody to realize that once you patent an idea, that the number of companies who are interested in your idea usually goes down after getting the patent.
This represents an opinion, not a fact. There is a difference.
Well, there's Flickr for one. (I just spent about half an hour there moderating several groups, commenting on new photographs, replying to message threads, etc... etc...) Then there's Yahoo!'s Finance page, where I spend an hour or so each month monitoring my portfolio's. Then there's my Yahoo! mail account that I still use for a few things, so that consumes a couple of hours a month...
And that's only a fraction of the services Yahoo! offers and only a portion of the services I regularly use.
I know the Google fans on Slashdot have a hard time accepting this - but outside of a few offerings Google tends to be a distant third (behind Yahoo! and MSN) or a wavering second contender on the web. Outside of search and a small number of other offerings, Google has proven to be generally pretty inept at gaining and keeping eyeballs. They do have deep penetration among the nerd sector, but that's mostly based on the nerd belief that Google is L33T, not on the quality of their overall offerings.
Then, quite frankly, you're deluded. Because if those successful transfers and accounts didn't exist, neither would Pay Pal. eBay wouldn't have bought them, Elon Musk wouldn't be a multi-zillionaire, Google Checkout and Amazon's equivalent would have flourished. Etc. etc..
Ask *anyone* who sells frequently on eBay, and you'll hear a story about how they've been screwed by PayPal. It is a cost of doing business, like paying protection money to the mob. If you complain about it too loudly, they lock your account and take it all.
Horsecrap. Tens (hundreds?) of thousands of sellers on eBay - and all but a vanishingly small minority silent because of conspiracy? Time to get a new tinfoil beanie mate.
But somehow you never seem to think about the other 99.999999% of the transactions and accounts - the ones that never have any problems.
That's because they don't exist. Even if the statistics back you up (and I'll bet every penny I've ever spent via Paypal they don't) we hear about the illegitimate business practices and not the few successes.
The few successes? Really? If that were true, almost nobody would continue to use them and they'd soon go out of business. eBay would never have spent the big bucks to acquire them. Google Checkout and Amazon's equivalent would have flourished.
Or, in short, even the most cursory examination of reality shows you to be deluded.
This is truly a breakthrough, but not one with which I am particularly thrilled. I am definitely not comfortable with my life being in the hands of a doctor half way around the world with only a small view of what is going on
Even though it's pretty much the same view as an anesthesiologist in the same room has.
Also, if something goes wrong that is beyond the scope of what the robot is capable of, how am I guaranteed a competent doctor will be right there locally ready to step in and take over?
Even though an anesthesiologist in the same room can't do anything that the robot can't do.
Every time I start thinking about creating a PayPal account because it would be nice to give money to some of the web places that I frequent, but only accept PayPal some story comes along about how willing they are to screw you over.
But somehow you never seem to think about the other 99.999999% of the transactions and accounts - the ones that never have any problems.
The thing is, Iraq really did have WMDs at one point. This is a verifiable, widely known fact.
Saddam was more than happy to play the cat-n-mouse/shell game with inspectors which played right into intelligence reports. Reports, which seemingly, indirectly, verified Saddam has biological weapons to hide, much of which was on the basis of Saddam's cat-n-mouse/shell game.
The morale of the story? When your country is on the brink of invasion, don't play games which create the illusion you have what they are looking for, when people are looking to avoid the invasion in the first place.
Indeed - that's what the "never had any WMD" crowd misses completely. I used to frame it to my anti-war friends in a scenario than ran like this:
Yesterday morning, a man walked into a bank, shot three people with a pistol, and walked out with the cash. The cops have this on video clear as day. Yesterday afternoon, the same man was spotted running with what looked like a machine gun. Today, the cops have his house surrounded. He can be seen inside pointing what looks like a gun of some sort out his windows at the neighbors and occasionally through the picture window in the living room he can be see waving and pointing what appears to be a gun of some sort at someone you can't clearly see.
Negotiations with the man have completely failed.
What would you have the cops do?
Almost invariably the response was - "rush the motherf____r" or "have a sniper take the shot". If I added "and the guy is on parole after a previous armed robbery" the responses became even more vehement.
But when I'd point out that this was exactly the situation in Iraq - you could almost see the blinders coming down. Instantly the dogma make out, "Saddam doesn't have any WMD, never did", etc..
The difference being that Carl Sagan said it (and he said a lot of things), this study has shown it. One is PR puffery, one is science. There is a difference.
The net result of all of that is, well, you get what you pay for. Telcos are expensive, but you are pretty much guaranteed a good call every time. Most of the gear you probably own was built to analog specifications, and the telcos are good at maintaining that spec.
For most of us, cell or VoIP is sufficient. We're OK with slight delays, a less-than-perfect reproduction of our voices, the occasional errant DTMF tone, etc.
Describing Wal-Mart's business model to a 'T' - you're willing to put up with almost anything so long as you're getting it at a reduced price. Or in other words, the reality is that 'most of us' are willing to put up with the faults you describe mostly because it's cheap.
What I find ironic is that I know many people who live the 'Wal-Mart mentality', but they're among the loudest complainers of how 'everything is crap nowadays'.
If you run a business and you strongly feel that clear telephony is a vital part of your business, then it's probably worth paying for in your case, or at least paying for a REALLY good Internet connection and high-end VoIP gear, not consumer-grade stuff.
The problem is, you can spend big buck$ on a high end connection and high end gear - and still have a crappy VOIP connection. No matter how much or how little you spend on your end, what's between you and the other caller affects your call quality. And if it's crappy gear, they're going to experience crappy calls.
While time and temperature specifications aren't perfect (nor are they intended to be)
They may not be intended to be - but they make no effort to appear that they aren't.
No doubt experienced cooks have certain time and temperature categories internalized, but reading them shouldn't lead to different results other than making you a little slower.
Oh it certainly can and often will lead to different results - cook two seemingly identical roasts at the same temperature for the same amount of time and it's not at all unusual for one to be underdone while the other is overdone. The cook who knows this, and pays attention to his food and understands the performance of his equipment, will pull them each at the appropriate time. The cook who just slavishly follows the 'rules' and 'procedures' outlined in his cookbooks will pull them at the same time - and be frustrated because he believes he must have made a mistake. After all, he followed the 'rules' and 'procedures'!
Believe me, I've seen this mistake time and again. It's *the* key reason why so many people have such a hard time learning to cook and believe that they cannot cook. Cookbooks work very hard to give the impression that they are authoritative and that if you follow their recipes, you are guaranteed success - when nothing could be further from the truth.
"Anyone who is interested in cooking will learn from this book."
Probably not. I outgrew entry level cookbooks a decade or more ago and purged my cookbook collection of kitsch and crap nearly as long ago.
I also see, that like most cookbooks, it teaches you to cook by time and temperature - which would be great if food were digital and standardized. But food, like much of the rest of the real world, is analog and variable. Real cooks cook with their senses, resorting to instrument only when the senses aren't up to the job.
"Although one of the strengths of the book is the systematic organization, there are useful tips spread throughout. For example, keeping a pizza stone permanently in your oven will help even out heat distribution"
No it doesn't - it minimizes temperature variation. (And actually only does so if the oven is preheated long enough for the stone to fully heat.)
Or, in short, you've done exactly what the mainstream media does - reduced the whole issue to one neat soundbite. That's great if all you want is a ritualistic Two Minutes Hate so you can get on with what's really important in your life - the next soundbite, the next meme, the next ritualistic Two Minutes hate.
It's not really useful for actually trying to understand what happened, and how (if possible) to fix things so that it doesn't happen again.
A 20 meter asteroid is not all that small... if it actually hit the earth, it could potentially make a few million people have a really bad day.
The worst effects I could generate using the asteroid impact calculator, the equivalent yield was around a megaton. Nasty for sure - but the only way it make a 'few million people have a really bad day' would be for it to hit a densely populated urban core. (Which cover so little of the Earth's surface that they're lost in the noise.)
For all the ribbing it takes, my experience with Wikipedia is that it's generally pretty reliable. In the subjects of my narrow areas of expertise, I've found it to be pretty accurate--or at least as accurate as any other conventional source (i.e. Britannica).
In my areas of expertise, I've found Wikipedia to be at least as accurate any conventional source as well... Or in other words, wildly inaccurate.
Of course, scholars don't like it because they don't get paid to write articles for it (the way they often do in encyclopedias) and writing for it gets them no tenure-track kudos in the publish-or-perish world. That means most scholars are never going to be happy with Wikipedia. And that has nothing to do with its purported lack of accuracy, but rather scholarly politics.
Yes, of course. It's all politics. It's always politics. The poor writing, byzantine policies, and the need to level up within WikiPedia:The Roleplaying Game in order to get anything significant done has nothing to do with it.
Slashdot Mirror
As I've been saying here on Slashdot for years; the mantra so often chanted here ("security through obscurity is no security at all"), is dead wrong. Security professionals well know that obscurity is a valuable part of their arsenal - because an intruder or attacker cannot prepare in advance for a defensive or security measure he does not know is there.
Except, you haven't actually pointed out any significant facts - just handwaving, accusations, and hysteria. You've grossly oversimplified as bad as the OP, just in the opposite direction.
You misunderstand the meaning of the word 'privacy' in this respect. What the judge is saying is that your ISP subscriber information is no different than your utility subscriber information and records or your telephone subscription information and records - in each case the company is bound to give up the information when legally required and properly ordered to do so. (The suit was brought because some people whose IP addresses and subscriber information was being sought in conjunction with another suit mistakenly believed that such a request violated their privacy rights, so those people sued to prevent their information from being released.)
Try actually reading and comprehending the issue in question - which isn't the ability of the ISP to publish whatever it wants, but rather the requirement of ISP's to give up your information when subpoenaed.
With your lack of reading comprehension, you shouldn't be complaining about other people not knowing jack. (See yesterdays ruling that says you cannot resell software you have agreed to destroy.)
Try actually reading TFA then, and you'll find that is *exactly* what the ruling is about. (Hint: In "file downloading and distribution", "distribution" means "making available for download".)
In other words, they aren't common carriers.
No, that's an analogy that has nothing whatsoever to do with the ruling. An actual analogy would be that by giving your subscriber information to the phone company you agree to allow the phone company to give up a list of the calls you've made and received when so ordered to do so via subpoena.
That would pretty much be because you're utterly and completely clueless.
Why? As someone recently said in a discussion on software and business method patents, adding "on a computer" changes nothing significant. Making something available for download is no different than putting a garage sale sign in your front yard - you've voluntarily given up your right to privacy by announcing to the world that you have something available for the public to take advantage of.
Nor is this really any different than someone in a civil case who has your license plate number subpoenaing the DMV for your name and address, or subpoenaing your credit card records. (Both of these happen all the time.) You can't create a 'right' (to privacy) out of thin air or contrary to other principles of the law.
I've never met a black lesbian either. But, unlike you, I'm neither conceited enough nor self centered enough to assume that just because there are none among the people I've met (a vanishingly small fraction of the entire population of the US) that none exist.
This represents an opinion, not a fact. There is a difference.
Because, as is usual on Slashdot, the focus is on bias and politics - not on fixing the actual problem.
Well, there's Flickr for one. (I just spent about half an hour there moderating several groups, commenting on new photographs, replying to message threads, etc... etc...) Then there's Yahoo!'s Finance page, where I spend an hour or so each month monitoring my portfolio's. Then there's my Yahoo! mail account that I still use for a few things, so that consumes a couple of hours a month...
And that's only a fraction of the services Yahoo! offers and only a portion of the services I regularly use.
I know the Google fans on Slashdot have a hard time accepting this - but outside of a few offerings Google tends to be a distant third (behind Yahoo! and MSN) or a wavering second contender on the web. Outside of search and a small number of other offerings, Google has proven to be generally pretty inept at gaining and keeping eyeballs. They do have deep penetration among the nerd sector, but that's mostly based on the nerd belief that Google is L33T, not on the quality of their overall offerings.
Then, quite frankly, you're deluded. Because if those successful transfers and accounts didn't exist, neither would Pay Pal. eBay wouldn't have bought them, Elon Musk wouldn't be a multi-zillionaire, Google Checkout and Amazon's equivalent would have flourished. Etc. etc..
Horsecrap. Tens (hundreds?) of thousands of sellers on eBay - and all but a vanishingly small minority silent because of conspiracy? Time to get a new tinfoil beanie mate.
The few successes? Really? If that were true, almost nobody would continue to use them and they'd soon go out of business. eBay would never have spent the big bucks to acquire them. Google Checkout and Amazon's equivalent would have flourished.
Or, in short, even the most cursory examination of reality shows you to be deluded.
Even though it's pretty much the same view as an anesthesiologist in the same room has.
Even though an anesthesiologist in the same room can't do anything that the robot can't do.
But somehow you never seem to think about the other 99.999999% of the transactions and accounts - the ones that never have any problems.
Indeed - that's what the "never had any WMD" crowd misses completely. I used to frame it to my anti-war friends in a scenario than ran like this:
Negotiations with the man have completely failed.
What would you have the cops do?
Almost invariably the response was - "rush the motherf____r" or "have a sniper take the shot". If I added "and the guy is on parole after a previous armed robbery" the responses became even more vehement.
But when I'd point out that this was exactly the situation in Iraq - you could almost see the blinders coming down. Instantly the dogma make out, "Saddam doesn't have any WMD, never did", etc..
The difference being that Carl Sagan said it (and he said a lot of things), this study has shown it. One is PR puffery, one is science. There is a difference.
Describing Wal-Mart's business model to a 'T' - you're willing to put up with almost anything so long as you're getting it at a reduced price. Or in other words, the reality is that 'most of us' are willing to put up with the faults you describe mostly because it's cheap.
What I find ironic is that I know many people who live the 'Wal-Mart mentality', but they're among the loudest complainers of how 'everything is crap nowadays'.
The problem is, you can spend big buck$ on a high end connection and high end gear - and still have a crappy VOIP connection. No matter how much or how little you spend on your end, what's between you and the other caller affects your call quality. And if it's crappy gear, they're going to experience crappy calls.
They may not be intended to be - but they make no effort to appear that they aren't.
Oh it certainly can and often will lead to different results - cook two seemingly identical roasts at the same temperature for the same amount of time and it's not at all unusual for one to be underdone while the other is overdone. The cook who knows this, and pays attention to his food and understands the performance of his equipment, will pull them each at the appropriate time. The cook who just slavishly follows the 'rules' and 'procedures' outlined in his cookbooks will pull them at the same time - and be frustrated because he believes he must have made a mistake. After all, he followed the 'rules' and 'procedures'!
Believe me, I've seen this mistake time and again. It's *the* key reason why so many people have such a hard time learning to cook and believe that they cannot cook. Cookbooks work very hard to give the impression that they are authoritative and that if you follow their recipes, you are guaranteed success - when nothing could be further from the truth.
In other words, all you want is Two Minutes Hate that confirms your worldview - and you'll trivialize and hand wave until you get it.
I'm not smarter than the rest of the world, I'm more knowledgeable than the reviewer and the author. There is a difference.
When you grow up, you'll realize this.
Actually, it's just six years old - a completely revised version was issued in 2004.
"Anyone who is interested in cooking will learn from this book."
Probably not. I outgrew entry level cookbooks a decade or more ago and purged my cookbook collection of kitsch and crap nearly as long ago.
I also see, that like most cookbooks, it teaches you to cook by time and temperature - which would be great if food were digital and standardized. But food, like much of the rest of the real world, is analog and variable. Real cooks cook with their senses, resorting to instrument only when the senses aren't up to the job.
"Although one of the strengths of the book is the systematic organization, there are useful tips spread throughout. For example, keeping a pizza stone permanently in your oven will help even out heat distribution"
No it doesn't - it minimizes temperature variation. (And actually only does so if the oven is preheated long enough for the stone to fully heat.)
Or, in short, you've done exactly what the mainstream media does - reduced the whole issue to one neat soundbite. That's great if all you want is a ritualistic Two Minutes Hate so you can get on with what's really important in your life - the next soundbite, the next meme, the next ritualistic Two Minutes hate.
It's not really useful for actually trying to understand what happened, and how (if possible) to fix things so that it doesn't happen again.
The worst effects I could generate using the asteroid impact calculator, the equivalent yield was around a megaton. Nasty for sure - but the only way it make a 'few million people have a really bad day' would be for it to hit a densely populated urban core. (Which cover so little of the Earth's surface that they're lost in the noise.)
In my areas of expertise, I've found Wikipedia to be at least as accurate any conventional source as well... Or in other words, wildly inaccurate.
Yes, of course. It's all politics. It's always politics. The poor writing, byzantine policies, and the need to level up within WikiPedia:The Roleplaying Game in order to get anything significant done has nothing to do with it.
To show a flaw in your logic requires that you first provide some logic. Handwaving, smokescreens, envy, and assumptions aren't logic.