I could make the same argument for randomly trying passwords against accounts. "I'm just checking to see if this key happens to work in this door...."
To flesh out this analogy a bit: suppose I contract with AT&T to come up with a system of cleaning my house every week. AT&T sends maids each week, and installs a front door on my house to facilitate the maids, and tells me that the door is "safe". Then along comes this guy who has realized that any kid with a slide ruler can easily open every one of these allegedly "safe" doors.
And the vulnerability is so obvious that AT&T either knew all about it or was so stupid that it rises to gross negligence. To me it's practically immaterial whether he made any effort to tell AT&T (don't know if he did), but based on AT&T prosecuting him, I'm willing to believe AT&T was in no mood to do jack squat about their "error".
Well, the last two quarters they were outselling all other smartphones on every U.S. carrier that carried them.
Even if this were true, what an incredibly misleading statement. Android has 75% of the smartphone market outright, and rising FAST. I have no idea if Apple somehow outsells every other *individual* model of cellphone (or however else your statement might be twisted to be "true"), but the raw numbers most definitely support the rhetorical asking/observation "where's Apple in all this".
And all those cores are of little use without software to use them. iOS still has a huge quality and power lead in apps.
I'd ask for substantiation, but this quote is too subjective to warrant it.
This guy murdered some cop's innocent kid and the cop's kid's fiancee.
Can you prove that? What if it was done by someone intending to frame him? At this point we only have our presumptions about what he may or may not have done.
What seems to always get overlooked, it seems to me, is that the root of the systematic problem in the US political system is the dire need for campaign finance reform.
To this, I would add that another reform that would have profound positive consequences would be run-off voting... essentially, the ability for a voter to rank several candidates, so that the concept of "throwing one's vote away" is eradicated.
Oops, I misread your original post. I thought you asked if "disembowelment" was a fitting punishment, whereas I see you actually asked about "disbarment". I don't really have an opinion about the disbarment.
Swartz did something wrong, for sure, he used a script to download documents
I must go on record as disagreeing with you about this point. As far as I'm concerned, Swartz did *nothing* wrong and was in fact foresighted and courageous. We could use a million more just like him.
I agree with your main point(s) about how "riddled with security holes" is an overdramatization. But about the following:
Sort of offtopic but why are we following this so closely? I mean, I understand he's challenging world governments by doing this again but do we have to watch every little step and misstep of Kim Dotcom? He's starting to rub me the wrong way as a sort of attention whore.
... you sort of lose me in this part. You start off wondering why people are paying attention, and that's a fine/debatable question to kick around with the interested, but then you invert it and attribute people paying attention to KDC being an attention whore. I read this transition as going from "what's interesting about this and why does (e.g.) slashdot keep covering it" to "I don't like KDC's behavior".
If you don't like KDC, stop reading articles covering it. If you take issue with slashdot covering it, take your shot at the slashdot editors.
Personally, I don't see KDC's behavior as attention whoring any more than, say, Julian Assange's. One might be tired of hearing about Julian, but I think it's a real stretch (an impossible stretch, actually) to claim Julian is simply trying to garner media attention for the sake of no end but his own limelight. Ditto KDC. And if you let KDC's name-change cloud your assessment of the real substance of what he's doing, I guess that would suggest to me a disapointing lack of perspective on your part.
Ask yourself just some simple preliminary questions such as: If the resulting semi-human is self aware, what rights will it/he/she have? Will it/he/she be a cage animal? Will it be sterilized or allowed to reproduce? And if so, with which other species or semi-species? Is this fair to it/he/she? Will it/he/she be allowed to vote? To own property? Be allowed or required to work? To choose a field of education? To be free of staring, poking prodding?
Seems like the same kind of questions that one can ask about babies that have been verified in vitro to be born with various genetic deformities and mental disabilities. Different people have different answers.
I don't mean to sound too flippant about this, but isn't this around the time in the movie that a Morgan Freeman type of character says "People were not meant to play at god!"?
You mean the way we played god when we invented the toilet, which has had the greatest impact on longevity of any technology ever? Yes, let's stop playing god and get rid of all the toilets. Every time you flush, it makes baby jesus cry.
Whether the person is a suicide risk should not be a factor in the charges that are brought.
Agreed. Neither should political aspirations be a factor, but unfortunately they are. The import of pointing out that the prosecutors knew he was a suicide risk is that their failure to curb their political aspirations even in the face of this knowledge makes their self-promotion even more loathable, and even more deserving of harsh punishment.
Yahoo is *not* first, but what does order matter anyhow?.. this isn't a food labeling issue where ingredients are listed in order of proportion. There are ten sources listed explicitly, and the page says that those are ten of nearly 50 sources. I'm going to have to conclude that for some reason you want to equate DuckDuckGo with Bing, but you don't have the goods. Thanks for playing.
If you don't agree with the terms, don't use it. No one's forcing you to.
Consider this similar logic: "If you don't like the Patriot act, don't live in the USA. No one's forcing you to."
This "free market" response to such issues is bullshit. The free market works when there is a lot of varied competition and when there is near-zero cost to transitioning from vendor to vendor. Neither is true in the case of picking a place to live, and neither is true in the case of Instagram. And when you try to pretend that free markets solve all and therefor nobody should give a damn, you make me want to blow your ass away with my 12-guage. Don't like it? Go live on a planet without guns.
I disagree with xkcd's take on this. Xkcd is proposing that the instagram situation is captured in this analogy:
* Paul puts lots of stuff in Iggy's garage * Iggy gets sick of Paul freeloading, because Iggy has limited garage space and the agreement between Paul and Iggy was either unspecified or for limited-term, and Iggy feels that whatever length of time Paul's stuff has been there exceeds social etiquette / good taste. * Iggy notifies Paul that he (Iggy) will get rid of Paul's stuff if he doesn't clear it out in a month.
I feel the analogy sucks because in reality, Instagram has tons of storage space, and the agreement between Instagram and its users was very well defined, even before these terms changed, and because Instagram made a massive pile of dough in no small part because of that original arrangement. A much better analogy is:
* Iggy solicits people to store personal writings into his boundless garage, because of benefits Iggy can derive from mass exposure. * Iggy in fact benefits extremely handsomely when Fred comes along and purchases Iggy's garages. Iggy remains on in a capacity somewhere between consultant and semi-autonomous steersman. * Fred-Iggy now tells all people who put stuff into the garages and contributed to the wealth that the terms are changing and their personal writings will be sold and used and appropriated in any way Fred-Iggy wants and profits from. * And, xkcd comes along and uses an analogy that portrays people as freeloaders, and as selfish for wanting the agreement they signed up for to not be yanked away from them.
This isn't the first time I've found xkcd on the wrong side of an issue, and for me, this has rubbed me the wrong way to the point that I've actually decided to stop reading xkcd. Don't worry about telling me xkcd won't miss me, it's mutual.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm entitled to tell you to fuck off.
To flesh out this analogy a bit: suppose I contract with AT&T to come up with a system of cleaning my house every week. AT&T sends maids each week, and installs a front door on my house to facilitate the maids, and tells me that the door is "safe". Then along comes this guy who has realized that any kid with a slide ruler can easily open every one of these allegedly "safe" doors.
And the vulnerability is so obvious that AT&T either knew all about it or was so stupid that it rises to gross negligence. To me it's practically immaterial whether he made any effort to tell AT&T (don't know if he did), but based on AT&T prosecuting him, I'm willing to believe AT&T was in no mood to do jack squat about their "error".
That's not "ironic", it's "what happened".
Even if this were true, what an incredibly misleading statement. Android has 75% of the smartphone market outright, and rising FAST. I have no idea if Apple somehow outsells every other *individual* model of cellphone (or however else your statement might be twisted to be "true"), but the raw numbers most definitely support the rhetorical asking/observation "where's Apple in all this".
I'd ask for substantiation, but this quote is too subjective to warrant it.
Little Bobby Tables, we'll call him.
... is John Broder. In his hands, this car would never have gotten out of the parking lot, let alone reached 125mph.
Riiiiiiight.
They're good enough friends that he'll accept a RIM job.
Can you prove that? What if it was done by someone intending to frame him? At this point we only have our presumptions about what he may or may not have done.
How is it obvious the cost will come down a lot?
To this, I would add that another reform that would have profound positive consequences would be run-off voting... essentially, the ability for a voter to rank several candidates, so that the concept of "throwing one's vote away" is eradicated.
Oops, I misread your original post. I thought you asked if "disembowelment" was a fitting punishment, whereas I see you actually asked about "disbarment". I don't really have an opinion about the disbarment.
Yes. Your move.
I must go on record as disagreeing with you about this point. As far as I'm concerned, Swartz did *nothing* wrong and was in fact foresighted and courageous. We could use a million more just like him.
If you don't like KDC, stop reading articles covering it. If you take issue with slashdot covering it, take your shot at the slashdot editors.
Personally, I don't see KDC's behavior as attention whoring any more than, say, Julian Assange's. One might be tired of hearing about Julian, but I think it's a real stretch (an impossible stretch, actually) to claim Julian is simply trying to garner media attention for the sake of no end but his own limelight. Ditto KDC. And if you let KDC's name-change cloud your assessment of the real substance of what he's doing, I guess that would suggest to me a disapointing lack of perspective on your part.
Seems like the same kind of questions that one can ask about babies that have been verified in vitro to be born with various genetic deformities and mental disabilities. Different people have different answers.
You mean the way we played god when we invented the toilet, which has had the greatest impact on longevity of any technology ever? Yes, let's stop playing god and get rid of all the toilets. Every time you flush, it makes baby jesus cry.
Agreed. Neither should political aspirations be a factor, but unfortunately they are. The import of pointing out that the prosecutors knew he was a suicide risk is that their failure to curb their political aspirations even in the face of this knowledge makes their self-promotion even more loathable, and even more deserving of harsh punishment.
Yahoo is *not* first, but what does order matter anyhow?.. this isn't a food labeling issue where ingredients are listed in order of proportion. There are ten sources listed explicitly, and the page says that those are ten of nearly 50 sources. I'm going to have to conclude that for some reason you want to equate DuckDuckGo with Bing, but you don't have the goods. Thanks for playing.
ixquick is also excellent, and very privacy minded.
Not according to DuckDuckGo itself. If you have citations to offer, I'd be curious to see them.
Consider this similar logic: "If you don't like the Patriot act, don't live in the USA. No one's forcing you to."
This "free market" response to such issues is bullshit. The free market works when there is a lot of varied competition and when there is near-zero cost to transitioning from vendor to vendor. Neither is true in the case of picking a place to live, and neither is true in the case of Instagram. And when you try to pretend that free markets solve all and therefor nobody should give a damn, you make me want to blow your ass away with my 12-guage. Don't like it? Go live on a planet without guns.
I disagree with xkcd's take on this. Xkcd is proposing that the instagram situation is captured in this analogy:
* Paul puts lots of stuff in Iggy's garage
* Iggy gets sick of Paul freeloading, because Iggy has limited garage space and the agreement between Paul and Iggy was either unspecified or for limited-term, and Iggy feels that whatever length of time Paul's stuff has been there exceeds social etiquette / good taste.
* Iggy notifies Paul that he (Iggy) will get rid of Paul's stuff if he doesn't clear it out in a month.
I feel the analogy sucks because in reality, Instagram has tons of storage space, and the agreement between Instagram and its users was very well defined, even before these terms changed, and because Instagram made a massive pile of dough in no small part because of that original arrangement. A much better analogy is:
* Iggy solicits people to store personal writings into his boundless garage, because of benefits Iggy can derive from mass exposure.
* Iggy in fact benefits extremely handsomely when Fred comes along and purchases Iggy's garages. Iggy remains on in a capacity somewhere between consultant and semi-autonomous steersman.
* Fred-Iggy now tells all people who put stuff into the garages and contributed to the wealth that the terms are changing and their personal writings will be sold and used and appropriated in any way Fred-Iggy wants and profits from.
* And, xkcd comes along and uses an analogy that portrays people as freeloaders, and as selfish for wanting the agreement they signed up for to not be yanked away from them.
This isn't the first time I've found xkcd on the wrong side of an issue, and for me, this has rubbed me the wrong way to the point that I've actually decided to stop reading xkcd. Don't worry about telling me xkcd won't miss me, it's mutual.
So this guy's name is "A. Noyes". I find that fitting somehow.
(I usually don't go for the ad hominem humor, but can't help myself in this case, sorry)