Maybe I'm wrong, but I honestly don't think that there are tremendous gains in automobile aerodynamics on the horizon. Automobile manufacturers can already greatly increase the aerodynamics of their product, but only at a sacrifice to ergodynamics and practicality.
In the USA, the real problem is that SUVs, trucks and mini-vans don't lend themselves to aerodynamic styling. This is caused by cheap gas and the fact that cars are subsidized heavily by the corporate sponsored government - if you don't believe me, think about who pays for roads, stoplights, etc. We need to remove the road warrior mentality that biggest and fastest are best. Since gas is too cheap here, the public has no incentive to stop using gas guzzlers.
Aerodynamic technology has existed for a long time and is rarely used because aerodynamic vehicles require small cars which are nearly extinct on US roads.
Think of how much money goes into car racing. Rocket racing would be an incredible spectacle.
Yes, but think about the audience for auto racing - namely rednecks. Rednecks like auto racing because they drive too and watching people drive cars fast apparently makes them think their dick will become larger when they drive their trucks fast. I say apparently because I don't know since I think auto racing is boring and stupid.
Rocket racing won't have an audience because rednecks *don't drive rockets*. Despite the obvious phallic look of rockets, rednecks will not go to rocket races in droves.
Furthermore, auto races are confined to small stadiums where the cars tediously go around and around the same tiny track many times. Rockets cannot be confined to such a small sanitized "track" and instead will blast-off in a few seconds never to be seen again. I suppose rocket racing is more akin to the even more boring drag racing which has a much smaller audience.
Geeks, the only remaining potential audience for this will go to something significant like STS launches. STS = the space shuttle program for those not in the know.
That leaves redneck geeks as the only people who will go to rocket races!
Why not just have a database of terrorists, wanted criminals etc. At a security checkpoint your face is scanned and compared to those in the database.
Oh I definitely agree to put them in there too.
I guess I'm saying that the system would work better if it wasn't simply a filter out system so much as a filter in system. Kinda like accepting email only from people you know, rather than trying to filter out spam email.
The people not known to the system could be either not allowed on planes at all (very paranoid) or at least double checked when they show up.
These layoffs are the latest move in Carly Fiorina's brilliant plan to run HP into the ground so she can have an excuse to leave and get a golden parachute on the way out and retire to the Bahamas. The last move she made was to buy Compaq.
While I agree what you saying is possible. It is highly unlikely.
You make it sound like killing someone and getting away with it is easy. It's not (I have no first hand proof though:^). It certainly makes them much more likely to get caught before their attack.
Finding someone who looks like you is very hard too. I've only ever heard of people who look like me - much less seen anyone.
The 9/11 hijackers eliminated the victims' entire families to keep their replacement from being noticed. This was in a wartime situation, though, where a family could disappear without being remarked on; but still, it's a chilling situation.
I have no idea what you are talking about here. The 911 hijackers didn't kill anyone *before* their attacks. In fact, they laid *very low* and tried to not cause any trouble. Plus, you can't just kill entire families in the USA and get away with it. It would be all over the news. You wouldn't need a Biometric system for the gate security to recognize if one of the family members apparently showed up at the airport.
Also you are talking about a single hijacker. I'm talking about groups of people like the actual hijackings. The problem is not a lone hijacker. A single guy trying to hijack a plane today would get mauled by everyone on the plane. Even if he had a gun!
The system wouldn't be foolproof, nothing is. It simply would improve security greatly.
I'm not sure if an optical cable would prevent the copy protection 'features' though.
Don't worry, it can't. All I have to do is feed the optical cable into the optical in on my (expensive) sound card and copy the input sound stream. I'd have to mark the tracks myself like I already do with LPs though. So while it would be a pain, like MP3ing my old vinyl is today, it is certainly copyable.
So if I wanted to hijack an airplane, I'd need to find someone who looked very much like me, and then kill him, take his ID, and use that to board a plane.
That wouldn't work because the person would be listed as missing by his wife/loved ones already. So all dead/missing people should be added to the list of people flagged by the system.
Anyways, suggesting that 19 potential hijackers kill 19 people that *look like them* - which already means their own kind of people, Muslims. And do that without getting caught just before 4 simultaneous flights is impossible.
Having to kill similar looking people would make hijacking *much* more difficult for a group of hijackers to pull off.
I believe that Biometrics at airports can work if we give it a backbone.
Scan everyone at the security checkpoints. This will allow for adding the proper light and getting more laboratory like results.
Only allow people through who are recognized as being who their driver's license says they are.
Obviously this requires a nationwide database of pictures for everyone. This may seem impossible to compile except when you consider we already do it in the form of driver's licenses! So basically we need to nationalize the driver's license process and create a central database of the photos.
You're a Euro aren't you? I bet you think that David Hasslehoff is a "skilled singer" and "his ballads remain as fresh as ever".
Oh those silly Europeans who worship talentless beautiful icons unlike us intellectual and very cultured Americans who worship enormously talented people like Jennifer Lopez, The Backstreet Boys, In Sync, Arnold Schwar... whatever, sports icons, and whoever else self-interested corporations tell us to like.
Moreover, cracking for the purpose of killing is murder, and cracking with the unintentional side effect of killing is negligent homicide. I'm not sure exactly how terrorism is defined, but I would bet that cracking and killing people for the purposes of terror would be terrorism.
I think you misunderstood the intent of my original post. I meant to say that I *don't* believe that cracking can kill people.
Cracking is not terrorism in most cases, but if you crack some critical systems, it can get people killed.
OK, I'll bite. Give an example of this. This is simply not the case, cracking cannot actually get people killed. All truly critical systems such as defense systems, ICBMs, FAA computers, etc. are *not on the internet or attached to dial-in modems*. Thus they cannot be cracked in the traditional sense. Obviously people could physically break in and do things, but I wouldn't really consider that "cracking".
Cracking is definitely bad and should be punished, but these right-wing over-reactionary witchhunts have simply got to stop.
Encryption is *not* the problem. It didn't cause any damage. The only technology that caused the damage was the jet airplane! Come on, please blame the correct technology here and don't blame people for inventing encryption.
Heck, let's take this silly theme even further and blame the inventor of language for bringing about the means to coordinate the terrorists nefarious deeds.
Re:There already is such an organization
on
Slashdot in Politics?
·
· Score: 3, Informative
The EFF is a non-profit organization. As such, they are prohibited by law from any lobbying activities.
This is an oversimplification and not true. The bottom line is that they can with some restrictions - it also depends on whether or not they receive federal funding. Since the EFF does not, they are not restricted very much. That said, I don't think the EFF should be lobbying because that is not their purpose. I believe, as others have called for, we do need a separate organization for this purpose.
Look at all the posts on the message boards 2 years ago. Don't like the way your employer twirls his fingers counter clockwise (you like clockwise only); well you don't have any responsibility to your employer f'them, you don't need to give any notice just go where the money rolls. After all that, jumping to 5 different jobs in a single year, people are now wondering why employers are looking after them?
People were talking about leaving their job because their employer sucked! I've never worked for a company that actually cared about it's employee's and I've worked at a number of Fortune 500 companies - in fact I do right now.
Don't blame geek employees for this. The rich corporate executives made a work environment that sucks. I'm sick of sub-standard chairs, monitors, cube farms, etc. I'm sick of being bored to death with financial programming. I'm sick of maintaining crappy software written by people who left because they weren't paid enough and were given impossible deadlines and shifting goals.
Employees' job hopping in droves was *caused* by the stupid suits in the first place. Don't blame this on us.
I am a contractor now. It's normal for me to job hop. I've done it 4 times in as many years. Plus I'm not a victim of stupid corporate policy.
I'll be loyal to a company just as soon as the CEO stops getting pay raises in quarters where they lose money. And when the CEO isn't making over 100 times what I make and gets to use the company box-seats at Yankee stadium with his "secretary". And when the executives play golf on Fridays for business meetings while I'm at my cubicle.
The real issue with this, and why this is a very bad thing (tm), is that it potentially allows M$ to shut down any site that disparages them if they used FrontPage to make it. So basically it leverages their software to control the internet.
I suspect that M$ is acting badly again now that the already lenient administration is distracted with other problems.
I'll bet that the B-52 is dirtier and the SR-71 is louder.
Certainly, and the Space Shuttle is probably loudest of all when it is returning to Earth in airplane mode - gotta love the double sonic booms! Granted it is completely clean because it is gliding at this point.
I imagine that there are good stories being rejected so I can spend time reading this story.
A. No one says you have to read every article on Slashdot. In fact if you do, consider that fact that you have no life.
B. There are other sites on the internet. Use them to find what you consider to be "good" stories and stop complaining.
And the worse part, its a multipart Katz column!!
Why do so many people complain about Katz? He's the only person on Slashdot who actually contributes original content. Slashdot is often criticized for being a linking site. Well you can't please everyone. If you don't like his articles *don't read them*, but more importantly stop whining.
Why do you believe that you have a right to privacy while employed and paid by someone else, and while using their equipment, internet connection, etc?
If you want to make private communications, then do it on your own time, with your own resources.
Why? So the CEO of the company can use this precious company money to go golfing? Or so executives can go to corporate sponsored dinners? Or so they can go to company bought seating at sports arenas?
Why do you care so little for your rights while the rich and privileged certainly enjoy those rights?
Oh wait, you must be a one of those undercover M$ executives posting as a regular person.
I've been reading the arguments back and forth about this issue. Some people think that lives are sacred and hence breaking the (IP) law is OK. Others say that the ends does not justify the means and other arguments.
Well *forget* the morality of the issue and look at it from a practical viewpoint. If countries are going to break international law to distribute medicine, then what reason will drug companies have to find cures or even treatments to these diseases? None. As it is, a cure is completely unprofitable to large drug companies because Brazil and other 3rd world countries who can't develop or afford it themselves would simply "pirate" it. But they will suffer come the next great epidemic. The drug companies will ignore the big diseases because they are not profitable, instead they will stick to the profit centers of headache/pain relief and fat reducing drugs. IOW drugs that don't save lives but only make you feel better *without actually helping anyone*.
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Maybe I'm wrong, but I honestly don't think that there are tremendous gains in automobile aerodynamics on the horizon. Automobile manufacturers can already greatly increase the aerodynamics of their product, but only at a sacrifice to ergodynamics and practicality.
In the USA, the real problem is that SUVs, trucks and mini-vans don't lend themselves to aerodynamic styling. This is caused by cheap gas and the fact that cars are subsidized heavily by the corporate sponsored government - if you don't believe me, think about who pays for roads, stoplights, etc. We need to remove the road warrior mentality that biggest and fastest are best. Since gas is too cheap here, the public has no incentive to stop using gas guzzlers.
Aerodynamic technology has existed for a long time and is rarely used because aerodynamic vehicles require small cars which are nearly extinct on US roads.
Think of how much money goes into car racing. Rocket racing would be an incredible spectacle.
Yes, but think about the audience for auto racing - namely rednecks. Rednecks like auto racing because they drive too and watching people drive cars fast apparently makes them think their dick will become larger when they drive their trucks fast. I say apparently because I don't know since I think auto racing is boring and stupid.
Rocket racing won't have an audience because rednecks *don't drive rockets*. Despite the obvious phallic look of rockets, rednecks will not go to rocket races in droves.
Furthermore, auto races are confined to small stadiums where the cars tediously go around and around the same tiny track many times. Rockets cannot be confined to such a small sanitized "track" and instead will blast-off in a few seconds never to be seen again. I suppose rocket racing is more akin to the even more boring drag racing which has a much smaller audience.
Geeks, the only remaining potential audience for this will go to something significant like STS launches. STS = the space shuttle program for those not in the know.
That leaves redneck geeks as the only people who will go to rocket races!
For those of you comparing prices with Tivo. Here's a comparable hacked Tivo unit with 250 hours of (lowest quality) recording time for $925.
Why not just have a database of terrorists, wanted criminals etc. At a security checkpoint your face is scanned and compared to those in the database.
Oh I definitely agree to put them in there too.
I guess I'm saying that the system would work better if it wasn't simply a filter out system so much as a filter in system. Kinda like accepting email only from people you know, rather than trying to filter out spam email.
The people not known to the system could be either not allowed on planes at all (very paranoid) or at least double checked when they show up.
These layoffs are the latest move in Carly Fiorina's brilliant plan to run HP into the ground so she can have an excuse to leave and get a golden parachute on the way out and retire to the Bahamas. The last move she made was to buy Compaq.
Damn she's good!
While I agree what you saying is possible. It is highly unlikely.
You make it sound like killing someone and getting away with it is easy. It's not (I have no first hand proof though :^). It certainly makes them much more likely to get caught before their attack.
Finding someone who looks like you is very hard too. I've only ever heard of people who look like me - much less seen anyone.
The 9/11 hijackers eliminated the victims' entire families to keep their replacement from being noticed. This was in a wartime situation, though, where a family could disappear without being remarked on; but still, it's a chilling situation.
I have no idea what you are talking about here. The 911 hijackers didn't kill anyone *before* their attacks. In fact, they laid *very low* and tried to not cause any trouble. Plus, you can't just kill entire families in the USA and get away with it. It would be all over the news. You wouldn't need a Biometric system for the gate security to recognize if one of the family members apparently showed up at the airport.
Also you are talking about a single hijacker. I'm talking about groups of people like the actual hijackings. The problem is not a lone hijacker. A single guy trying to hijack a plane today would get mauled by everyone on the plane. Even if he had a gun!
The system wouldn't be foolproof, nothing is. It simply would improve security greatly.
I'm not sure if an optical cable would prevent the copy protection 'features' though.
Don't worry, it can't. All I have to do is feed the optical cable into the optical in on my (expensive) sound card and copy the input sound stream. I'd have to mark the tracks myself like I already do with LPs though. So while it would be a pain, like MP3ing my old vinyl is today, it is certainly copyable.
So if I wanted to hijack an airplane, I'd need to find someone who looked very much like me, and then kill him, take his ID, and use that to board a plane.
That wouldn't work because the person would be listed as missing by his wife/loved ones already. So all dead/missing people should be added to the list of people flagged by the system.
Anyways, suggesting that 19 potential hijackers kill 19 people that *look like them* - which already means their own kind of people, Muslims. And do that without getting caught just before 4 simultaneous flights is impossible.
Having to kill similar looking people would make hijacking *much* more difficult for a group of hijackers to pull off.
I believe that Biometrics at airports can work if we give it a backbone.
Obviously this requires a nationwide database of pictures for everyone. This may seem impossible to compile except when you consider we already do it in the form of driver's licenses! So basically we need to nationalize the driver's license process and create a central database of the photos.
I think it would be doable.
You're a Euro aren't you? I bet you think that David Hasslehoff is a "skilled singer" and "his ballads remain as fresh as ever".
Oh those silly Europeans who worship talentless beautiful icons unlike us intellectual and very cultured Americans who worship enormously talented people like Jennifer Lopez, The Backstreet Boys, In Sync, Arnold Schwar... whatever, sports icons, and whoever else self-interested corporations tell us to like.
P.S. Yes, I'm being sarcastic.
I'd call telephone dispatch systems critical.
I totally agree with you here.
Merely doing a DOS attack and flooding an exchange might prevent, say, the 911 emergency dispatch system from working.
You can't DOS the phone service unless you get all your friends to call 911 at the same time - and that, my friend, is not cracking!
Anyway, let's not argue, I think we're on the same side here :).
OK, sorry I misunderstood you. I totally agree with you too. I wasn't arguing anyway :^).
Moreover, cracking for the purpose of killing is murder, and cracking with the unintentional side effect of killing is negligent homicide. I'm not sure exactly how terrorism is defined, but I would bet that cracking and killing people for the purposes of terror would be terrorism.
I think you misunderstood the intent of my original post. I meant to say that I *don't* believe that cracking can kill people.
Were it possible, I would agree with you.
Cracking is not terrorism in most cases, but if you crack some critical systems, it can get people killed.
OK, I'll bite. Give an example of this. This is simply not the case, cracking cannot actually get people killed. All truly critical systems such as defense systems, ICBMs, FAA computers, etc. are *not on the internet or attached to dial-in modems*. Thus they cannot be cracked in the traditional sense. Obviously people could physically break in and do things, but I wouldn't really consider that "cracking".
Cracking is definitely bad and should be punished, but these right-wing over-reactionary witchhunts have simply got to stop.
If the average consumer were as savy as the average business operator we could do away with the whole pennies thingy.
I don't think so. I would never pay $1 for a gumball.
Encryption is *not* the problem. It didn't cause any damage. The only technology that caused the damage was the jet airplane! Come on, please blame the correct technology here and don't blame people for inventing encryption.
Heck, let's take this silly theme even further and blame the inventor of language for bringing about the means to coordinate the terrorists nefarious deeds.
The EFF is a non-profit organization. As such, they are prohibited by law from any lobbying activities.
This is an oversimplification and not true. The bottom line is that they can with some restrictions - it also depends on whether or not they receive federal funding. Since the EFF does not, they are not restricted very much. That said, I don't think the EFF should be lobbying because that is not their purpose. I believe, as others have called for, we do need a separate organization for this purpose.
hypocrisy and jealousy on slashdot are pathetic.
Blanket labeling of everyone on Slashdot is worse.
M$ apologists go away!
Look at all the posts on the message boards 2 years ago. Don't like the way your employer twirls his fingers counter clockwise (you like clockwise only); well you don't have any responsibility to your employer f'them, you don't need to give any notice just go where the money rolls. After all that, jumping to 5 different jobs in a single year, people are now wondering why employers are looking after them?
People were talking about leaving their job because their employer sucked! I've never worked for a company that actually cared about it's employee's and I've worked at a number of Fortune 500 companies - in fact I do right now.
Don't blame geek employees for this. The rich corporate executives made a work environment that sucks. I'm sick of sub-standard chairs, monitors, cube farms, etc. I'm sick of being bored to death with financial programming. I'm sick of maintaining crappy software written by people who left because they weren't paid enough and were given impossible deadlines and shifting goals.
Employees' job hopping in droves was *caused* by the stupid suits in the first place. Don't blame this on us.
I am a contractor now. It's normal for me to job hop. I've done it 4 times in as many years. Plus I'm not a victim of stupid corporate policy.
I'll be loyal to a company just as soon as the CEO stops getting pay raises in quarters where they lose money. And when the CEO isn't making over 100 times what I make and gets to use the company box-seats at Yankee stadium with his "secretary". And when the executives play golf on Fridays for business meetings while I'm at my cubicle.
The real issue with this, and why this is a very bad thing (tm), is that it potentially allows M$ to shut down any site that disparages them if they used FrontPage to make it. So basically it leverages their software to control the internet.
I suspect that M$ is acting badly again now that the already lenient administration is distracted with other problems.
I have a Motorola Timeport, and it came with TrueSync syncing software on CD-ROM. Needless to say, I loaded it immediately
Me too. Unbelievably, this software is windoze only! I have a Mac. Hello, *Motorola*, you supply processors for which computer now?!?!?
Fortunately Virtual PC works, though, so I can use my precious Mac.
I'll bet that the B-52 is dirtier and the SR-71 is louder.
Certainly, and the Space Shuttle is probably loudest of all when it is returning to Earth in airplane mode - gotta love the double sonic booms! Granted it is completely clean because it is gliding at this point.
I imagine that there are good stories being rejected so I can spend time reading this story.
A. No one says you have to read every article on Slashdot. In fact if you do, consider that fact that you have no life.
B. There are other sites on the internet. Use them to find what you consider to be "good" stories and stop complaining.
And the worse part, its a multipart Katz column!!
Why do so many people complain about Katz? He's the only person on Slashdot who actually contributes original content. Slashdot is often criticized for being a linking site. Well you can't please everyone. If you don't like his articles *don't read them*, but more importantly stop whining.
Why do you believe that you have a right to privacy while employed and paid by someone else, and while using their equipment, internet connection, etc?
If you want to make private communications, then do it on your own time, with your own resources.
Why? So the CEO of the company can use this precious company money to go golfing? Or so executives can go to corporate sponsored dinners? Or so they can go to company bought seating at sports arenas?
Why do you care so little for your rights while the rich and privileged certainly enjoy those rights?
Oh wait, you must be a one of those undercover M$ executives posting as a regular person.
I've been reading the arguments back and forth about this issue. Some people think that lives are sacred and hence breaking the (IP) law is OK. Others say that the ends does not justify the means and other arguments.
Well *forget* the morality of the issue and look at it from a practical viewpoint. If countries are going to break international law to distribute medicine, then what reason will drug companies have to find cures or even treatments to these diseases? None. As it is, a cure is completely unprofitable to large drug companies because Brazil and other 3rd world countries who can't develop or afford it themselves would simply "pirate" it. But they will suffer come the next great epidemic. The drug companies will ignore the big diseases because they are not profitable, instead they will stick to the profit centers of headache/pain relief and fat reducing drugs. IOW drugs that don't save lives but only make you feel better *without actually helping anyone*.