I would be happy if they released a motherboard with a user programmable TPM chip. In particular, I am looking for a chip that can be used for general purpose cryptographic functions, that can be reprogrammed with a different (user known) endorsement keys, and that can permanently disable remote attestation and other chip dependent remote and/or configuration based DRM functions.
The next logical step is to "Just Add DRM". I can imagine the start up text now:
"There is nothing wrong with your computer. Do not attempt to restart the machine. We are now controlling its operation. We control the hardware and the software. We can deluge you with a thousand windows or expand one single image to crystal clarity - and beyond. We can shape your computing experience to anything our imagination can conceive. For the next session we will control all that you see and hear. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the deepest inner mind to... The Microsoft Computer. Please stand by."
As for myself, I think I will pass on the Microsoft flavored Kool-Aid. I tend to get upset when machines start telling me that I can not do [function or feature] with the new [media type or gadget] that I bought because the MAFIAA thinks that disabling [function or feature] is in _their_ best interest.
For reasons we are still trying to figure out what was supposed to be a well planned attempt to clean up a few journals that were violating LiveJournal's policies that protect minors turned into a total mess. I can only say I'm sorry, explain what we did wrong and what we are doing to correct these problems and explain what we were trying to do but messed up so completely.
What we did wrong;
1) Over the last couple of days we have suspended (not deleted) about 500 journals out of many millions on LJ.
2) It is now clear that in an unfortunate number of cases these journals were suspended for easily correctable problems in their profiles that would then allow them to be reinstated and that this was not communicated to the journal or community owners at all.
3) Further, because of miscommunication these journals were taken down before review could be completed to avoid mistakes.
How we are fixing it.
1) Over the next few hours we will review the journals that were taken down and wherever appropriate we will restore these journals or communities before 12 noon PDT. Sorry it will take that long but we do not want to reinstate true and clear violators of community policy.
2) In some cases Journals that were restored will be asked to clarify their profiles to avoid the appearance that they are soliciting or encouraging illegal activities.
3) Journals that we do not restore will be journals that we are fairly sure are actually intended to encourage activities that put minors at risk but we will review them if requested by their owner to be certain that we did not make a mistake.
4) In cases that we ask owners to clarify their profiles and they fail to do so within 7 days we will suspend their journals again.
So what were we trying to do when we messed up so badly?
As most of you know, LJ has a zero tolerance policy toward content that supports child abuse, pedophilia, or sexual violence. In implementation of this zero tolerance policy there were two issues that made it hard to apply these policies consistently;
Issue one was profiles.
There were a number of profiles that expressed "interest" in activities that most of us would agree put children at risk, notably pedophilia and child rape. Both in the instructions for profiles and in other places on the site we make it clear that interests listed should be evaluated within the context of "I like x", "I'm in favor of x" or "I support x". As many profiles are the only public part of a private journal and profiles serve partly as an advertisement for people of like interests, it is important that the content of a profile can be evaluated as if it stands alone. If your profile were to express interest in pedophilia with no other content that describes this interest as in helping survivors or protecting children from it we must read the profile as "I like or I support or I'm in favor of it." For this reason we suspended profiles that meet this criteria.
Another issue we needed to deal with was journals that used a thin veneer of fictional or academic interest in events and storylines that include child rape, pedophilia, and similar themes in order to actually promote these activities. While there are stories, essays, and discussions that include discussion of these issues in an effort to understand and prevent them, others use a pretext to promote these activities. It's often very hard to tell the difference. As such, we have suspended reported journals that do not clearly and substantially object to these activities while at the same time portraying them.
We recently received a complaint from outside the community about a number of journals. When we receive such complaints it is our obligation to look into them but it is our sta
I believe this DRM will not last long. Why? Because it violates the First Sale Doctrine. As this system is presented now, it clearly is designed to deny the users to rent or sell their DVDs, which is a violation of the First Sale Doctrine.
> [...] what I wouldn't give for a network for real computer geeks. Some Linux shows, watching people write code and secure systems. Fun for all ages! But they probably won't create a show for 5 people to watch. Oh well.
The is already a now defunct show for this purpose: http://www.thebroken.org/ . Rumor is the show will be restarting again sometime in the future.
I personally think this is just an attempt to get Microsoft Janus on televisions. I imagine that watching IPTV will be much like the title segment of "The Outer Limits" television show.
Does this mean that I am now going to get sued by the RIAA/MPAA for downloading the World of Warcraft Beta that I received from Blizzard? Maybe I should start investing in some high power defense lawyers.
I think it is amazing how the smallest section of the bill got the greatest amount of publicity. However, you can tell they are avoiding mentioning the copyright act by using language such as "The oak bill was passed as part of another bill that was approved by voice vote." I am thinking that the politicians are afraid of the outcry caused by such a bill. If that is true and this activity does hit mass media, it could gain enough mass to make a difference.
SHORT TITLE(S) AS INTRODUCED: Piracy Deterrence and Education Act of 2004 ART Act Artist's Rights and Theft Prevention Act of 2004 [I like how they are playing the "artist's rights" card again. Problem is, this bill benefits the Copyright Cartel 95% of the time, not the artists.]
SUMMARY AS OF: 3/31/2004--Introduced.
Piracy Deterrence and Education Act of 2004 - Requires the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to: (1) develop a program (including suitable warnings) to deter the public from committing acts of copyright infringement through the Internet; and (2) facilitate the sharing among law enforcement agencies, Internet service providers, and copyright owners of information concerning copyright infringement activities.
[More FBI Warnings before movies! How fun. However, (2) is a bit more scary. It makes me wonder if this "sharing" will become compulsory and secret (AKA PATRIOT Act Style).]
Directs the Attorney General to ensure that any unit in the Department of Justice responsible for investigating computer hacking or intellectual property crimes is assigned at least one support agent who has received training in the investigation and enforcement of such crimes.
[Forget terrorism, we have pirates to bust! Great use of resources there. However, the increased emphasis on computer hacking would be welcome.]
Establishes within the Office of the Associate Attorney General an Internet Use Education Program for educating the public about the value of copyrighted works and the effects of their theft.
[More FBI Warnings! However, the only "value of copyrighted work" is given by the government by creating a monopoly on the work. Article I Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution states that copyright's function is: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;" In this case, the monopoly granted is supposed to help advance the arts and sciences by giving a financial incentive to do so. However, as the current copyright law inhibits the advancement of arts and sciences by allowing copyright holders to continue to reuse and sell old material to the public instead of actually creating something new. Also, if we are going to educate people on how to "use" the Internet, maybe we could include some virus/spyware prevention training.]
Artists' Rights and Theft Prevention Act of 2004 or ART Act - Amends Federal criminal law to provide criminal penalties for the unauthorized use of an audiovisual recording device in a motion picture theater in order to transmit or make a copy of such motion picture or other copyrighted work.
[Now we can have FBI agents with night vision in the local theatre checking everyone just "in case" they might be making an illegal camcorder recording. This personally makes me want to go to the theatre less than I did before.]
Expresses the sense of Congress that: (1) responsible software developers should be commended for their efforts to protect consumers; (2) illegal and dangerous activity on publicly accessible peer-to-peer file sharing services is harmful; and (3) all appropriate measures to protect consumers and children and prevent such illegal activity should be considered.
[This might as well read: "Expresses the sense of Congress that: (1) DRM is good; (2) public peer-to-peer copyright infringement is bad; and (3) all appropriate DRM measures should be considered".]
Amends Federal copyright law to provide criminal penalties, as well as civil remedies in damages, for the willful infringement of copyrighted works, including illegal distribution to the public by electronic means.
[Again, we can now have the FBI busting people for copyright infringement rather than hunting down real criminals (like terrorists). Welcome to the Second Drug War.]
Directs the United States Sentencing Commission to review and, if appropriate, amend its s
Microsoft made two graphical chat programs, both a result of Microsoft Research's Social Computing Group:
Microsoft Chat (AKA Comic Chat) - An IRC program that used a 2D comic strip to display the action. Features included gestures and custom avatar selection. The program was also was famous for spamming IRC rooms with useless metadata text like "# Appears as AVATARNAME". For more information, read this paper.
Microsoft V-Chat - A 3D chat program which allowed avatars to interact with in 3D space. Features were similar to MS Chat and included gestures and custom avatar selection.
Mozilla Firefox recently added some nice anti-phishing features to the 1.0 branch. Some features include:
-Display of the site domain name in the status bar while in secure mode. (Bug #245406) -A warning box that displays when a site is using unnecessary http authentication in the URL (ex. http://example.net@example.com/ ) (Bug #232567)
I believe it is a good thing that Firefox is starting to implement some anti-phish features and hope that other browsers will start doing the same.
[NOTE: You will have to cut and paste the above links due to bugzilla.mozilla.org rejecting slashdot.org referrers.]
One of the claims in their oldest patent, 5132992, is:
"1. A transmission system for providing information to be transmitted to remote locations, the transmission system comprising: library means for storing items containing information; identification encoding means for retrieving the information in the items from the library means and for assigning a unique identification code to the retrieved information; conversion means, coupled to the identification encoding means, for placing the retrieved information into a predetermined format as formatted data; ordering means, coupled to the conversion means, for placing the formatted data into a sequence of addressable data blocks; compression means, coupled to the ordering means, for compressing the formatted and sequenced data blocks; compressed data storing means, coupled to the data compression means, for storing as files the compressed, sequenced data blocks received from the data compression means with the unique identification code assigned by the identification encoding means; and transmitter means, coupled to the compressed data storing means, for sending at least a portion of one of the files to one of the remote locations."
From this description, it sounds like web, ftp and gopher servers fall under the patent. However, I would think that, since the method that is described was first published in 1971 in RFC 114, 21 years BEFORE the this patent was filed, this patent would be disqualified via the prior art argument.
As for the other patents, you can find their IP list here and the USPTO patent search engine here. Have fun.
Also, make sure to cancel at least 8 days before your subscription is up. Transgaming automatically charges you 7 days before your subscription expires.
I had the unfortunate experience of learning this the hard way.
Re:My experiences with Gmail invitations
on
Gmail in the News
·
· Score: 1
Seeing that the GMail craze has hit Slashdot now, I think I will jump off the big bridge as well.
One Card to rule them all, one Card to find them One Card to bring them all and in the darkness bind them In the Land of Cameleon Network where the Shadows lie.
1. TIA/MATRIX/etc. - The last thing we need is a "democratic" government starting up 24/7 survelience on everyone. The whole scheme stinks of facist and police state policies.
2. DRM/Palladium/Trusted Computing/etc. - This technology is appearing in more and more retail devices and computer software. When I buy devices or software, I expect them to work... Not lock me out because I might be some pirate.
3. RFID Customer Products - This technology might be good for mass inventory scans, but it starts becoming scary when it starts being implemented in the retail product. I do not like the idea of my good broadcasting what they are to anyone that asks.
In order to get this PC, you would have to watch 90 minutes (1 and 1/2 hours) minimum of advertising each month. I am not sure the PC is worth sitting through that amount of advertising.
"American Express makes the RFID reader verify the card's authenticity with a "challenge-response" exchange that depends on 128-bit encryption encoded on the chip. That strength of encryption is considered safe against "brute force" attacks, in which a hacker tries every possible combination."
This seems like a big mess waiting to happen. All it takes is one leak or crack of the secret key and the entire RFID credit card system will come crashing down.
Once the secret key gets out, we'll see thieves with mobile RFID scanners sniffing the cards and then putting the information into a database. The rate of credit card fraud will go up exponentially.
I will personally try and avoid these cards. They seem like a disaster waiting to happen.
The Bush Administration seems to be having public relations trouble. Besides the creation of LifeAndLiberty.Gov, the administration has also created Freedom.Gov, a site dedicated to glorifying Operation Iraqi Freedom.
I believe that the creation of these sites indicates that the Bush Administration is taking a new approach to their critics. Instead of answering their critics directly, the administration is using websites to bypass them and sell their propaganda to the American Public. By wrapping their issues in pseudo patriotism, they believe that the average American will overlook the opposition and support the administration because it is the "American thing to do".
I also believe that the administration is starting to see opposition in Congress. On the LifeAndLiberty.Gov site, there are two sections dedicated to Congressional Opposition. I believe this indicates that the PATRIOT Act is starting to see more criticism from Congress.
As of 6:28 PM CDT (23:28 UTC), the wildcard entries in both.NET and.COM appear to be gone. All my dnstracer queries to the GTLD servers indicate that all GTLD servers are reporting NXDOMAIN for invalid domains.
I think its funny how our culture has so rapidly changed in the last few years. Since the 2001 attack, you can practically get away with selling anything if you claim it makes you "safe" from "terrorism". Even the Bush Administration has used this war to repeatedly justify its misguided "War on Terror" campaigns and ominous "Homeland Security Department".
I personally think it is sad that America has let the terrorist win. Thanks to media and government hysteria, terrorists have become the "boogie man" that everyone seems to fear. In sustaining this hysteria, the US Government has created an environment where they can do practically anything as long as it is keeping the country "safe" from "terrorism".
The good news is that this environment is starting to slowly change. Some of the government's massive corruption is starting to get questioned by members of Congress. I think this marks the first steps in stopping the legacy of tyranny the Bush Administration has caused and restoring the values on which America was founded on.
Slashdot Mirror
I would be happy if they released a motherboard with a user programmable TPM chip. In particular, I am looking for a chip that can be used for general purpose cryptographic functions, that can be reprogrammed with a different (user known) endorsement keys, and that can permanently disable remote attestation and other chip dependent remote and/or configuration based DRM functions.
The next logical step is to "Just Add DRM". I can imagine the start up text now:
"There is nothing wrong with your computer. Do not attempt to restart the machine. We are now controlling its operation. We control the hardware and the software. We can deluge you with a thousand windows or expand one single image to crystal clarity - and beyond. We can shape your computing experience to anything our imagination can conceive. For the next session we will control all that you see and hear. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the deepest inner mind to... The Microsoft Computer. Please stand by."
As for myself, I think I will pass on the Microsoft flavored Kool-Aid. I tend to get upset when machines start telling me that I can not do [function or feature] with the new [media type or gadget] that I bought because the MAFIAA thinks that disabling [function or feature] is in _their_ best interest.
Repost from http://news.livejournal.com/99159.html ...
Well we really screwed this one up...
For reasons we are still trying to figure out what was supposed to be a well planned attempt to clean up a few journals that were violating LiveJournal's policies that protect minors turned into a total mess. I can only say I'm sorry, explain what we did wrong and what we are doing to correct these problems and explain what we were trying to do but messed up so completely.
What we did wrong;
1) Over the last couple of days we have suspended (not deleted) about 500 journals out of many millions on LJ.
2) It is now clear that in an unfortunate number of cases these journals were suspended for easily correctable problems in their profiles that would then allow them to be reinstated and that this was not communicated to the journal or community owners at all.
3) Further, because of miscommunication these journals were taken down before review could be completed to avoid mistakes.
How we are fixing it.
1) Over the next few hours we will review the journals that were taken down and wherever appropriate we will restore these journals or communities before 12 noon PDT. Sorry it will take that long but we do not want to reinstate true and clear violators of community policy.
2) In some cases Journals that were restored will be asked to clarify their profiles to avoid the appearance that they are soliciting or encouraging illegal activities.
3) Journals that we do not restore will be journals that we are fairly sure are actually intended to encourage activities that put minors at risk but we will review them if requested by their owner to be certain that we did not make a mistake.
4) In cases that we ask owners to clarify their profiles and they fail to do so within 7 days we will suspend their journals again.
So what were we trying to do when we messed up so badly?
As most of you know, LJ has a zero tolerance policy toward content that supports child abuse, pedophilia, or sexual violence. In implementation of this zero tolerance policy there were two issues that made it hard to apply these policies consistently;
Issue one was profiles.
There were a number of profiles that expressed "interest" in activities that most of us would agree put children at risk, notably pedophilia and child rape. Both in the instructions for profiles and in other places on the site we make it clear that interests listed should be evaluated within the context of "I like x", "I'm in favor of x" or "I support x". As many profiles are the only public part of a private journal and profiles serve partly as an advertisement for people of like interests, it is important that the content of a profile can be evaluated as if it stands alone. If your profile were to express interest in pedophilia with no other content that describes this interest as in helping survivors or protecting children from it we must read the profile as "I like or I support or I'm in favor of it." For this reason we suspended profiles that meet this criteria.
Another issue we needed to deal with was journals that used a thin veneer of fictional or academic interest in events and storylines that include child rape, pedophilia, and similar themes in order to actually promote these activities. While there are stories, essays, and discussions that include discussion of these issues in an effort to understand and prevent them, others use a pretext to promote these activities. It's often very hard to tell the difference. As such, we have suspended reported journals that do not clearly and substantially object to these activities while at the same time portraying them.
We recently received a complaint from outside the community about a number of journals. When we receive such complaints it is our obligation to look into them but it is our sta
I believe this DRM will not last long. Why? Because it violates the First Sale Doctrine. As this system is presented now, it clearly is designed to deny the users to rent or sell their DVDs, which is a violation of the First Sale Doctrine.
> [...] what I wouldn't give for a network for real computer geeks. Some Linux shows, watching people write code and secure systems. Fun for all ages! But they probably won't create a show for 5 people to watch. Oh well.
The is already a now defunct show for this purpose: http://www.thebroken.org/ . Rumor is the show will be restarting again sometime in the future.
If anyone wants a look into the darker (and funny) side of Eve Online, try:
The Great Scam
It is a long read and contains some "R" rated language, but gives you an idea of what the game can be like.
This worm gives new meaning to the term "viral marketing"...
I personally think this is just an attempt to get Microsoft Janus on televisions. I imagine that watching IPTV will be much like the title segment of "The Outer Limits" television show.
Does this mean that I am now going to get sued by the RIAA/MPAA for downloading the World of Warcraft Beta that I received from Blizzard? Maybe I should start investing in some high power defense lawyers.
TiVo's Plan For Success:
1. Make a great product.
2. Remove the features that make the product great.
3. ???
4. Profit!
I think it is amazing how the smallest section of the bill got the greatest amount of publicity. However, you can tell they are avoiding mentioning the copyright act by using language such as "The oak bill was passed as part of another bill that was approved by voice vote." I am thinking that the politicians are afraid of the outcry caused by such a bill. If that is true and this activity does hit mass media, it could gain enough mass to make a difference.
SHORT TITLE(S) AS INTRODUCED:
Piracy Deterrence and Education Act of 2004
ART Act
Artist's Rights and Theft Prevention Act of 2004
[I like how they are playing the "artist's rights" card again. Problem is, this bill benefits the Copyright Cartel 95% of the time, not the artists.]
SUMMARY AS OF:
3/31/2004--Introduced.
Piracy Deterrence and Education Act of 2004 - Requires the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to: (1) develop a program (including suitable warnings) to deter the public from committing acts of copyright infringement through the Internet; and (2) facilitate the sharing among law enforcement agencies, Internet service providers, and copyright owners of information concerning copyright infringement activities.
[More FBI Warnings before movies! How fun. However, (2) is a bit more scary. It makes me wonder if this "sharing" will become compulsory and secret (AKA PATRIOT Act Style).]
Directs the Attorney General to ensure that any unit in the Department of Justice responsible for investigating computer hacking or intellectual property crimes is assigned at least one support agent who has received training in the investigation and enforcement of such crimes.
[Forget terrorism, we have pirates to bust! Great use of resources there. However, the increased emphasis on computer hacking would be welcome.]
Establishes within the Office of the Associate Attorney General an Internet Use Education Program for educating the public about the value of copyrighted works and the effects of their theft.
[More FBI Warnings! However, the only "value of copyrighted work" is given by the government by creating a monopoly on the work. Article I Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution states that copyright's function is: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;" In this case, the monopoly granted is supposed to help advance the arts and sciences by giving a financial incentive to do so. However, as the current copyright law inhibits the advancement of arts and sciences by allowing copyright holders to continue to reuse and sell old material to the public instead of actually creating something new. Also, if we are going to educate people on how to "use" the Internet, maybe we could include some virus/spyware prevention training.]
Artists' Rights and Theft Prevention Act of 2004 or ART Act - Amends Federal criminal law to provide criminal penalties for the unauthorized use of an audiovisual recording device in a motion picture theater in order to transmit or make a copy of such motion picture or other copyrighted work.
[Now we can have FBI agents with night vision in the local theatre checking everyone just "in case" they might be making an illegal camcorder recording. This personally makes me want to go to the theatre less than I did before.]
Expresses the sense of Congress that: (1) responsible software developers should be commended for their efforts to protect consumers; (2) illegal and dangerous activity on publicly accessible peer-to-peer file sharing services is harmful; and (3) all appropriate measures to protect consumers and children and prevent such illegal activity should be considered.
[This might as well read: "Expresses the sense of Congress that: (1) DRM is good; (2) public peer-to-peer copyright infringement is bad; and (3) all appropriate DRM measures should be considered".]
Amends Federal copyright law to provide criminal penalties, as well as civil remedies in damages, for the willful infringement of copyrighted works, including illegal distribution to the public by electronic means.
[Again, we can now have the FBI busting people for copyright infringement rather than hunting down real criminals (like terrorists). Welcome to the Second Drug War.]
Directs the United States Sentencing Commission to review and, if appropriate, amend its s
Microsoft made two graphical chat programs, both a result of Microsoft Research's Social Computing Group:
Microsoft Chat (AKA Comic Chat) - An IRC program that used a 2D comic strip to display the action. Features included gestures and custom avatar selection. The program was also was famous for spamming IRC rooms with useless metadata text like "# Appears as AVATARNAME". For more information, read this paper.
Microsoft V-Chat - A 3D chat program which allowed avatars to interact with in 3D space. Features were similar to MS Chat and included gestures and custom avatar selection.
Mozilla Firefox recently added some nice anti-phishing features to the 1.0 branch. Some features include:
-Display of the site domain name in the status bar while in secure mode. (Bug #245406)
-A warning box that displays when a site is using unnecessary http authentication in the URL (ex. http://example.net@example.com/ ) (Bug #232567)
I believe it is a good thing that Firefox is starting to implement some anti-phish features and hope that other browsers will start doing the same.
[NOTE: You will have to cut and paste the above links due to bugzilla.mozilla.org rejecting slashdot.org referrers.]
One of the claims in their oldest patent, 5132992, is:
"1. A transmission system for providing information to be transmitted to remote locations, the transmission system comprising:
library means for storing items containing information; identification encoding means for retrieving the information in the items from the library means and for assigning a unique identification code to the retrieved information;
conversion means, coupled to the identification encoding means, for placing the retrieved information into a predetermined format as formatted data;
ordering means, coupled to the conversion means, for placing the formatted data into a sequence of addressable data blocks;
compression means, coupled to the ordering means, for compressing the formatted and sequenced data blocks;
compressed data storing means, coupled to the data compression means, for storing as files the compressed, sequenced data blocks received from the data compression means with the unique identification code assigned by the identification encoding means; and
transmitter means, coupled to the compressed data storing means, for sending at least a portion of one of the files to one of the remote locations."
From this description, it sounds like web, ftp and gopher servers fall under the patent. However, I would think that, since the method that is described was first published in 1971 in RFC 114, 21 years BEFORE the this patent was filed, this patent would be disqualified via the prior art argument.
As for the other patents, you can find their IP list here and the USPTO patent search engine here. Have fun.
Also, make sure to cancel at least 8 days before your subscription is up. Transgaming automatically charges you 7 days before your subscription expires.
I had the unfortunate experience of learning this the hard way.
Seeing that the GMail craze has hit Slashdot now, I think I will jump off the big bridge as well.
Send invites to: gmail[AT]valendomain[DOT]org
Thank you for your patronage and time.
One Card to rule them all, one Card to find them
One Card to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Cameleon Network where the Shadows lie.
Here is my "worst" list:
1. TIA/MATRIX/etc. - The last thing we need is a "democratic" government starting up 24/7 survelience on everyone. The whole scheme stinks of facist and police state policies.
2. DRM/Palladium/Trusted Computing/etc. - This technology is appearing in more and more retail devices and computer software. When I buy devices or software, I expect them to work... Not lock me out because I might be some pirate.
3. RFID Customer Products - This technology might be good for mass inventory scans, but it starts becoming scary when it starts being implemented in the retail product. I do not like the idea of my good broadcasting what they are to anyone that asks.
In order to get this PC, you would have to watch 90 minutes (1 and 1/2 hours) minimum of advertising each month. I am not sure the PC is worth sitting through that amount of advertising.
"American Express makes the RFID reader verify the card's authenticity with a "challenge-response" exchange that depends on 128-bit encryption encoded on the chip. That strength of encryption is considered safe against "brute force" attacks, in which a hacker tries every possible combination."
This seems like a big mess waiting to happen. All it takes is one leak or crack of the secret key and the entire RFID credit card system will come crashing down.
Once the secret key gets out, we'll see thieves with mobile RFID scanners sniffing the cards and then putting the information into a database. The rate of credit card fraud will go up exponentially.
I will personally try and avoid these cards. They seem like a disaster waiting to happen.
The Bush Administration seems to be having public relations trouble. Besides the creation of LifeAndLiberty.Gov, the administration has also created Freedom.Gov, a site dedicated to glorifying Operation Iraqi Freedom.
I believe that the creation of these sites indicates that the Bush Administration is taking a new approach to their critics. Instead of answering their critics directly, the administration is using websites to bypass them and sell their propaganda to the American Public. By wrapping their issues in pseudo patriotism, they believe that the average American will overlook the opposition and support the administration because it is the "American thing to do".
I also believe that the administration is starting to see opposition in Congress. On the LifeAndLiberty.Gov site, there are two sections dedicated to Congressional Opposition. I believe this indicates that the PATRIOT Act is starting to see more criticism from Congress.
As of 6:28 PM CDT (23:28 UTC), the wildcard entries in both .NET and .COM appear to be gone. All my dnstracer queries to the GTLD servers indicate that all GTLD servers are reporting NXDOMAIN for invalid domains.
I think its funny how our culture has so rapidly changed in the last few years. Since the 2001 attack, you can practically get away with selling anything if you claim it makes you "safe" from "terrorism". Even the Bush Administration has used this war to repeatedly justify its misguided "War on Terror" campaigns and ominous "Homeland Security Department".
I personally think it is sad that America has let the terrorist win. Thanks to media and government hysteria, terrorists have become the "boogie man" that everyone seems to fear. In sustaining this hysteria, the US Government has created an environment where they can do practically anything as long as it is keeping the country "safe" from "terrorism".
The good news is that this environment is starting to slowly change. Some of the government's massive corruption is starting to get questioned by members of Congress. I think this marks the first steps in stopping the legacy of tyranny the Bush Administration has caused and restoring the values on which America was founded on.
John Hammond: All major theme parks have delays. When they opened Disneyland in 1956, nothing worked.
Ian Malcolm: Yeah, but John, if the Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don't eat the tourists.