What worries me is that they are not also slamming them for storing passwords in plaintext AGAIN. User passwords should not be stored anywhere on the system.
Possibly the system has (or had in the past) a requirement to be able to recover passwords. There are also systems which do something like "Give the second, third and sixth character of the password". The easiest way to do this is to store the plaintext. Even though such systems are often touted as "secure".
Bet they don't extradite Bob Diamond for overseeing the fraud of vast amounts of money that may actually have done real damage to US citizens, never mind the UK and the rest of the world.
He hasn't even been arrested. Last I heard they just wanted him to answer MPs' questions. Probably the best reason for extraditing/deporting him to the US is that he's a US citizen.
So if you do something that is not a crime in your own country, but is in another, yet you never set foot in that country, you can now be extradited? Wouldn't that fall under persecution grounds for asylum? Maybe I should check with the Equadorian Embassy...
Or possibly with New Zealand considering the recent high court ruling over the Megaupload mess. No doubt if the person concerned was a terrorist, child rapist or banker they'd have plenty of tax payer funded "human rights" lawyers to help them out. Especially if they had criminal convictions and/or were not a British citizen.
If porn were produced as literal re-enactments of specific Biblical (and Quranic!) texts, on what grounds could it be censored?
Lot turning out his daughters comes to mind as does Mohammed's marriage to Aisha.
Read on a little further in Genesis and you have both of Lot's daughters drugging and raping him. And this lot (pun unintended) were the "good guys" It would be quite easy for historical, fantasy, sci-fi, etc to run into problems with this. Since standards of "normal" vary hugely over both history and geography even when only humans are involved.
The biggest concern is they'll use it to chat to an unsavoury stranger,
It really should be a much bigger concern that they will meet some such person in the physical (real) world. Where real harm can happen. Just about every computer based chat system has an "ignore" function too. Using such systems is probably one of the least dangerous things someone can do. It also appears to be necessary that most abuse (including murder) of children is carried out by relatives (including step and "in law" relatives) of the victims.
That ignores that Iran is helping prop up the Syrian government
Countries such as the US and UK are very active in supporting a great many dodgy governments.
and that Iran has been one of the chief funders of Hezbollah and other organizations which have repeatedly attacked Israel.
Hezbollah are a Lebanese militia which came into existance when Israel was occupying Lebanon. Their role being to get the Israeli military out of Lebanon and keep them out. Something they appear to have done very well. Especially considering what happened the last time Israel tried to invade Lebanon. IIRC Israel would be in a worst state than Greece without the financial support of the US taxpayer too.
There was huge opposition against a similar law in Germany and it was repealed.
The real surprise is that it got passed in the first place. The Stasi (Ministerium für Staatssicherheit) isn't from a novel they are from recent history!
No disrespect to the developers of most OSS, but until they can find a way to "just download and run" no more fiddling with anything, a la Mac OSX, OSS Operating systems are Niche for end-users.
In a great many situations (e.g. just about any "enterprise" environment) you actually want a clear division between "user" and "administrator". Even discounting any malware issues random users being able to "just download and run" tends to be something unwanted.
You forgot to include the energy required to make, maintain, and regularly replace the solar panels/mirrors. Turns out when you do so, you cannot break even as it requires more energy to manufacture the solar panels than they can generate during their lifetime except when used in desert locales.
That's also before you factor in the required power grid (and associated maintanance) as well as the huge energy storage needed to address the basic problem that supply and demand will rarely match up with solar (or for that matter wind, tide, etc.)
This is also why we know that the excess carbon in the atmosphere is sourced from fossil fuels- gas and oil. Carbon has 3 sotopes 12, 13 and radioactive 14.Carbon in the atmosphere has all three in a certain percentage. Carbon that has been buried underground for a few million years - in the form of oil- has had all it's radioactive 14 changed to nitrogen. When it's burned again in our cars and smokestacks, the newly released non-14 carbon increases the percentage of isotopes 12 and 13 in the atmosphere relative to what it was.
Is anyone actually recording the carbon isotope ratios in fossil fuels? Or measuring the use of fossil fuels along with how well they are combusted What's actually needed to create carbon 14 are thermal neutrons. In the atmosphere the most common reaction is going to be nitrogen 14 gaining a neutron and losing a proton. With fossil fuels neutron capture by carbon 13 would produce carbon 14. Something which is likely to happen in coal than oil, considering that carbon is an effective neutron moderator. In the atmosphere carbon 14 is a very small fraction (something like 1 part per trillion) across all carbon containing gasses. You'd need to be very careful in both selecting and processing samples to avoid contamination. Ratios of oxygen isotopes (typically water) are a proxy for temperature. Has anyone checked if something similar occurs with methane or carbon dioxide?
Some governments might commit acts comparable to terrorism
Some governments, e.g. the US and UK, have been caught supporting, funding, even training terrorists. (Including turning a blind eye to them or releasing terrorist suspects from police custody.) Some governments, e.g. France, have been caught carrying out things which cannot be distinguished from those carried out by "terrorists".
(I'm ignoring the obvious questions like, what happens if my movie promo with a fake beheading gets flagged as illegal (even if it's not), and now suddenly it's banned from the internet and I can no longer show my promo)
If your promo is banned you could probably expect that the potential audience for your movie has increased by a couple of orders of magnitude. Which is what usually happens when a movie (or record) is banned. If your movie is very bad people might suspect that the ban was deliberate on your part though:)
Don't forget some psyops to get shit shut down that would otherwise be perfectly legal.
The US military pays (and it would be naive to think none of the EU militaries don't) "soldiers" to chat and post shit online...
It isn't just nation states doing this kind of thing. Nor are all the people involved are paid. Even nation states can have "fanboys" (including those with little obvious connection to the state in question.)
What's going to happen when the "wrong" kinds of terrorists start getting reported? What about when (n.b. not if) someone finds terrorists supported by a "friendly" (or possibly their own) government.
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html
Copying incident to a judicial proceeding qualifies as fair use, and I'm sure that prosecuting someone for copyright infringement qualifies as a judicial proceeding.
Since the copying took place in New Zealand that website is irrelevent. New Zealand law applies in New Zealand!
They didn't take the harddrives, they took the copied files.
Without even seeking, never mind getting, copyright holders' permission. Which according to the BSA, RIAA, MPAA, etc is worst than if they had just taken the physical media. Maybe the FBI would like to raid themselves for "piracy"...
They werent talking about nor being accused of theft, but of illegally accessing the evidence.
Various entities, including the MPAA, frequently call exactly what has happened "theft" and "piracy". Anyway we already know that the MPAA themselves are hypocrits here...
In this case the prosecuting organization is not the NZ Police (their job is solely to apprehend) but instead the "Crown" (the legal name representative of the NZ Government - since it represents authority from the Queen of England).
She's also the Queen of many other countries, including NZ.
If only there was a way to build nuclear plants that didn't take 10 to 20 years and require extensive construction work and hyper-specialized labor on site!
Possibly the same techniques used to build Calder Hall. Took less that 4 years to build and operated for the best part of 50.
Even in areas like the US where land per capita is relatively abundant they can't possibly supply all of the countries power needs on wind, hydro, and solar alone. At least not any time soon, and by soon I mean within the next 30-40 years, which is our immediate concern.
The major problem with wind (along with solar) is that supply and demand rarely match. It's rather optimistic to expect that a problem which has been around for thousands of years will suddenly be solved within a few decades.
And if anyone thinks that solar panels and wind turbines are going to supply Tokyo with even a fraction of its power needs, you've obviously never been there.
Even if the could on paper the problem with both systems of generation is that supply is variable and in no way matched to demand. About the only technology which can store a useful amount of energy to help with this is pumped hydro. It's rather harder to build even one of these in the sea...
You are certainly correct that FUD can have an impact on civil liberties, whether it's making people afraid to speak out or inducing them to give up their rights for perceived safety. But I am confused as to why you mention conspiracy theorists. Most of the FUD I encounter comes from the media. They are always telling us about terrorists and immigrants and criminals coming to kill us, marry our women and diddle our children.
The source of the conspiracy theories here being those spreading the FUD. There are probably a few less well known ones from the "intelligence" community too.
Slashdot Mirror
What worries me is that they are not also slamming them for storing passwords in plaintext AGAIN. User passwords should not be stored anywhere on the system.
Possibly the system has (or had in the past) a requirement to be able to recover passwords.
There are also systems which do something like "Give the second, third and sixth character of the password". The easiest way to do this is to store the plaintext. Even though such systems are often touted as "secure".
Bet they don't extradite Bob Diamond for overseeing the fraud of vast amounts of money that may actually have done real damage to US citizens, never mind the UK and the rest of the world.
He hasn't even been arrested. Last I heard they just wanted him to answer MPs' questions. Probably the best reason for extraditing/deporting him to the US is that he's a US citizen.
Whoops, that should have been accused paedophile
Accused in the US, but actually convicted in Ireland.
So if you do something that is not a crime in your own country, but is in another, yet you never set foot in that country, you can now be extradited? Wouldn't that fall under persecution grounds for asylum? Maybe I should check with the Equadorian Embassy...
Or possibly with New Zealand considering the recent high court ruling over the Megaupload mess.
No doubt if the person concerned was a terrorist, child rapist or banker they'd have plenty of tax payer funded "human rights" lawyers to help them out. Especially if they had criminal convictions and/or were not a British citizen.
If porn were produced as literal re-enactments of specific Biblical (and Quranic!) texts, on what grounds could it be censored?
Lot turning out his daughters comes to mind as does Mohammed's marriage to Aisha.
Read on a little further in Genesis and you have both of Lot's daughters drugging and raping him. And this lot (pun unintended) were the "good guys"
It would be quite easy for historical, fantasy, sci-fi, etc to run into problems with this. Since standards of "normal" vary hugely over both history and geography even when only humans are involved.
The biggest concern is they'll use it to chat to an unsavoury stranger,
It really should be a much bigger concern that they will meet some such person in the physical (real) world. Where real harm can happen.
Just about every computer based chat system has an "ignore" function too. Using such systems is probably one of the least dangerous things someone can do.
It also appears to be necessary that most abuse (including murder) of children is carried out by relatives (including step and "in law" relatives) of the victims.
That ignores that Iran is helping prop up the Syrian government
Countries such as the US and UK are very active in supporting a great many dodgy governments.
and that Iran has been one of the chief funders of Hezbollah and other organizations which have repeatedly attacked Israel.
Hezbollah are a Lebanese militia which came into existance when Israel was occupying Lebanon. Their role being to get the Israeli military out of Lebanon and keep them out. Something they appear to have done very well. Especially considering what happened the last time Israel tried to invade Lebanon. IIRC Israel would be in a worst state than Greece without the financial support of the US taxpayer too.
There was huge opposition against a similar law in Germany and it was repealed.
The real surprise is that it got passed in the first place. The Stasi (Ministerium für Staatssicherheit) isn't from a novel they are from recent history!
No disrespect to the developers of most OSS, but until they can find a way to "just download and run" no more fiddling with anything, a la Mac OSX, OSS Operating systems are Niche for end-users.
In a great many situations (e.g. just about any "enterprise" environment) you actually want a clear division between "user" and "administrator".
Even discounting any malware issues random users being able to "just download and run" tends to be something unwanted.
You forgot to include the energy required to make, maintain, and regularly replace the solar panels/mirrors. Turns out when you do so, you cannot break even as it requires more energy to manufacture the solar panels than they can generate during their lifetime except when used in desert locales.
That's also before you factor in the required power grid (and associated maintanance) as well as the huge energy storage needed to address the basic problem that supply and demand will rarely match up with solar (or for that matter wind, tide, etc.)
This is also why we know that the excess carbon in the atmosphere is sourced from fossil fuels- gas and oil. Carbon has 3 sotopes 12, 13 and radioactive 14.Carbon in the atmosphere has all three in a certain percentage. Carbon that has been buried underground for a few million years - in the form of oil- has had all it's radioactive 14 changed to nitrogen. When it's burned again in our cars and smokestacks, the newly released non-14 carbon increases the percentage of isotopes 12 and 13 in the atmosphere relative to what it was.
Is anyone actually recording the carbon isotope ratios in fossil fuels? Or measuring the use of fossil fuels along with how well they are combusted
What's actually needed to create carbon 14 are thermal neutrons. In the atmosphere the most common reaction is going to be nitrogen 14 gaining a neutron and losing a proton. With fossil fuels neutron capture by carbon 13 would produce carbon 14. Something which is likely to happen in coal than oil, considering that carbon is an effective neutron moderator.
In the atmosphere carbon 14 is a very small fraction (something like 1 part per trillion) across all carbon containing gasses. You'd need to be very careful in both selecting and processing samples to avoid contamination.
Ratios of oxygen isotopes (typically water) are a proxy for temperature. Has anyone checked if something similar occurs with methane or carbon dioxide?
Some governments might commit acts comparable to terrorism
Some governments, e.g. the US and UK, have been caught supporting, funding, even training terrorists. (Including turning a blind eye to them or releasing terrorist suspects from police custody.) Some governments, e.g. France, have been caught carrying out things which cannot be distinguished from those carried out by "terrorists".
(I'm ignoring the obvious questions like, what happens if my movie promo with a fake beheading gets flagged as illegal (even if it's not), and now suddenly it's banned from the internet and I can no longer show my promo)
:)
If your promo is banned you could probably expect that the potential audience for your movie has increased by a couple of orders of magnitude. Which is what usually happens when a movie (or record) is banned. If your movie is very bad people might suspect that the ban was deliberate on your part though
Don't forget some psyops to get shit shut down that would otherwise be perfectly legal.
The US military pays (and it would be naive to think none of the EU militaries don't) "soldiers" to chat and post shit online...
It isn't just nation states doing this kind of thing. Nor are all the people involved are paid. Even nation states can have "fanboys" (including those with little obvious connection to the state in question.)
What's going to happen when the "wrong" kinds of terrorists start getting reported? What about when (n.b. not if) someone finds terrorists supported by a "friendly" (or possibly their own) government.
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html
Copying incident to a judicial proceeding qualifies as fair use, and I'm sure that prosecuting someone for copyright infringement qualifies as a judicial proceeding.
Since the copying took place in New Zealand that website is irrelevent. New Zealand law applies in New Zealand!
They didn't take the harddrives, they took the copied files.
Without even seeking, never mind getting, copyright holders' permission. Which according to the BSA, RIAA, MPAA, etc is worst than if they had just taken the physical media.
Maybe the FBI would like to raid themselves for "piracy"...
They werent talking about nor being accused of theft, but of illegally accessing the evidence.
Various entities, including the MPAA, frequently call exactly what has happened "theft" and "piracy". Anyway we already know that the MPAA themselves are hypocrits here...
In this case the prosecuting organization is not the NZ Police (their job is solely to apprehend) but instead the "Crown" (the legal name representative of the NZ Government - since it represents authority from the Queen of England).
She's also the Queen of many other countries, including NZ.
Also, funny that the cop who was supposed to report the events 'went on vacation for a month' the day after.
:)
I thought that was SOP whenever police did something embarrassing
If only there was a way to build nuclear plants that didn't take 10 to 20 years and require extensive construction work and hyper-specialized labor on site!
Possibly the same techniques used to build Calder Hall. Took less that 4 years to build and operated for the best part of 50.
Even in areas like the US where land per capita is relatively abundant they can't possibly supply all of the countries power needs on wind, hydro, and solar alone. At least not any time soon, and by soon I mean within the next 30-40 years, which is our immediate concern.
The major problem with wind (along with solar) is that supply and demand rarely match. It's rather optimistic to expect that a problem which has been around for thousands of years will suddenly be solved within a few decades.
And if anyone thinks that solar panels and wind turbines are going to supply Tokyo with even a fraction of its power needs, you've obviously never been there.
Even if the could on paper the problem with both systems of generation is that supply is variable and in no way matched to demand. About the only technology which can store a useful amount of energy to help with this is pumped hydro. It's rather harder to build even one of these in the sea...
You are certainly correct that FUD can have an impact on civil liberties, whether it's making people afraid to speak out or inducing them to give up their rights for perceived safety. But I am confused as to why you mention conspiracy theorists. Most of the FUD I encounter comes from the media. They are always telling us about terrorists and immigrants and criminals coming to kill us, marry our women and diddle our children.
The source of the conspiracy theories here being those spreading the FUD. There are probably a few less well known ones from the "intelligence" community too.
So that's 30,000 that went through the courts, nice PR spin.
That's the number which were okayed by the courts. How many were actually presented to the courts?
How many surveillance ops were mounted WITHOUT court orders?
Probably quite a few were approved after the fact or used as precursors to court approved ones...