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User: chihowa

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  1. Re:Seems expensive on Google Nearline Delivers Some Serious Competition To Amazon Glacier · · Score: 1

    Spideroak. Still closed source five years after they said that they would open it. Never independently audited. All expectations of security and privacy are derived solely from marketing claims. Even the "zero knowledge" claim is more marketing speak than truth. Caveat emptor.

    Closed source all-in-one crypto and cloud storage is almost never the right answer.

  2. Re:1st Amendment on Cody Wilson Wants To Help You Make a Gun · · Score: 1

    Enable 3D printed prosthetics! [enablingthefuture.org]

    And yet your sig advocates the 3D printing of arms! Make up your mind. ;)

  3. Re:Clear to me on Clinton Regrets, But Defends, Use of Family Email Server · · Score: 2

    You couldn't have described the fucked up state of American politics and government any more succinctly if you tried.

  4. Re:Wild guess, 5 stars on Strange Stars Pulse To the Golden Mean · · Score: 1

    Or something's gone terribly wrong with the Puppeteers' Fleet of Worlds...

    Neutrino beams used for stellar morse code does sound a bit desperate.

  5. Re:Fourty Years Ago on Sugar Industry Shaped NIH Agenda On Dental Research · · Score: 5, Funny

    No kidding! It's a good thing stuff like that doesn't happen anymore. And even if it does, we can all be completely apathetic about it in forty years.

  6. Re:"Good News" is Relative on Game of Drones: As US Dithers, Rivals Get a Head Start · · Score: 1

    Property rights do extend to the airspace immediately above the land. For example, hovering a helicopter ten feet above somebody else's house would still constitute trespass. If the GP was complaining about a buzzing drone, this test would also be relevant:

    An entry above the surface of the earth, in the air space in the possession of another, by a person who is traveling in an aircraft, is privileged if the flight is conducted... at such a height as not to interfere unreasonably with the possessor’s enjoyment of the surface of the earth and the air space above it

    from here. Of course, this is specifically about occupied aircraft.

    There are plenty of established cases in the linked article dealing with trespass in the air above the property of others. There is also established case law regarding destruction of non-human trespassers. There's nothing specific to drones, but it's not exactly alien terrain.

  7. Re:Sure about the Louvre? on Major Museums Start Banning Selfie Sticks · · Score: 2

    Well, if my exposure to people has taught me anything, a huge amount of those visitors would be using flash photography while simultaneously getting annoyed by other people also using flash photography.

    "All this flashing is really annoying," the tourist says just before flashing their camera.

  8. Re:Conspiracies on Tor Project Aims To Eclipse US Government Funding · · Score: 1

    Am I the only one who thinks "the government" is actually made up of lots of independent minds, each with their own idealism and morality? A functional conspiracy to secretly undermine a project like Tor would need to involve a significant portion of the American population.

    Your description applies to any organization of any size. The organization that you work for may have taken actions that you don't agree with, despite you possessing your own idealism and morality. You may have even actively participated in these activities, knowingly or not. In many (most?) large organizations, a few people make the big decisions and the ranks below them make those happen.

    It's almost as if the idealism and morality of any organization is largely irrelevant to the actual actions of that organization. Even further, in a highly compartmentalized organization like the military or the intelligence agencies (or any random large company), the individual workers may not be fully aware of the big picture goals of their day's work. No grand conspiracy needed.

  9. Re:People are correctly annoyed by this on Google Chrome Requires TSYNC Support Under Linux · · Score: 1

    So how did Chrome work prior to last October? Why not just take advantage of TSYNC if the kernel supports it and do without it if it doesn't? At least until distributions have had a chance to properly adopt the new kernels.

    A hard dependency on a few month old feature is a little insane. No other application operates like this.

  10. Re: People are correctly annoyed by this on Google Chrome Requires TSYNC Support Under Linux · · Score: 1

    It only hit the kernel a few months ago, don't be surprised if every single process on Linux is using it.

    Any other applications that adopt it will likely do so in a much more sane manner, though: use it if it is present and function without it if it isn't. Having a hard dependency on an optional feature that's only a few months old is kind of an insane approach. Who programs like that?

  11. Re:Is this a good thing??? on Make Those Brown Eyes Blue · · Score: 2

    Yeah, functionally, blue eyes kind of suck. Sunny summer or snowy winter, I can't leave home without sunglasses. I remember the first time I went skiing with a guy from Korea and he found out that we don't just wear sunglasses to look "styling".

  12. Re:With unencrypted passwords? :) on Hands-On With the Vivaldi Browser · · Score: 1

    3) Use the OS or DE-provided password storage features.

    And this is almost always the correct approach, with fallback to 1 or 2 on unsupported platforms. Between Windows, Mac, KDE, and Gnome's managed keystores, you've covered over 90% of all users. Every browser reinventing the wheel, poorly, is not the best solution.

  13. Re:Uh ...wat? on Former MLB Pitcher Doxes Internet Trolls, Delivers Real-World Consequences · · Score: 1

    I feel like you're missing the forest for the trees here. The reason people engage in vigilante activities is because there isn't a legal remedy available to them. Do you disagree with that?

    The practical details of budgeting issues, qualifications for police employment, and prioritization of investigations of course plays a role in why there is no legal remedy available. Those details, however, have no bearing on why people choose vigilante justice over no justice.

    Our choices, as a society, are to provide some sort of legal venue to pursue justice whenever people feel wronged or accept that those people will find another way to right the wrong. Of course, the third option is to provide no legal means to pursue justice, but crack down hard on anyone who tried to handle it on their own. There are long-term consequences to that approach as well.

  14. Re:IANAL, but my answer would be no on Quebecker Faces Jail For Not Giving Up Phone Password To Canadian Officials · · Score: 1

    I agree with the AC here. The defendant is at an extreme disadvantage when up against the state and shouldn't be compelled to cooperate in his conviction.

    This applies doubly during police interrogation, where there is no time to consider how your statements may be used against you and the police are certainly not sharing their facts and theories with you. Admitting to anything prior to discovery could build a case against yourself, even if your intent was to prove your innocence.

  15. Re:Obstruction is a wild overstatement on Quebecker Faces Jail For Not Giving Up Phone Password To Canadian Officials · · Score: 1

    Given that we are left to guess due to the lack of details, I would conclude that as he was returning from the Dominican Republic and that they were after his phone, he was likely suspected of having sex with minors and being in the possession of child porn. However, without any real details, this is only speculation.

    Which is an example of why hard cases make bad law. Jurisprudence shouldn't be tossed out the window just because the subject matter is revolting or sympathetic.

    A case which absolutely requires the cooperation of the defendant is what is commonly known as a flimsy case. Doubling down on coercing the defendant to enable access to evidence against himself isn't the proper way forward.

  16. Re:Right to remain silent where? on Quebecker Faces Jail For Not Giving Up Phone Password To Canadian Officials · · Score: 2

    For example, the police caution used in England and Wales since 1994 includes "it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court", a concept of guilt by omission that doesn't apply in the States.

    Which seems like a pretty dangerous exemption to me, when you're faced with police who can add/drop charges as they like. You shouldn't need to cooperate with your prosecution at such an early stage in the case and where you are at such an extreme disadvantage. They're not sharing all of their evidence with the accused during the interrogation, so why should the accused be compelled to spill everything out of court?

  17. Re:Pales to UE4 on Source 2 Will Also Be Free · · Score: 1

    ...8 spiders on LSD and meth in zero-grav can't create a bigger mess....

    That's not quite the insult you were aiming for (well, except the meth part).

  18. Re:Pandora's Box on Former MLB Pitcher Doxes Internet Trolls, Delivers Real-World Consequences · · Score: 1

    All of what you are saying is true, but the existence of vigilantism doesn't depend on lofty ideals and solid foundations. If a society refuses to uniformly and fairly allocate justice, people will take it into their own hands. It's inevitable. If society wants to reliably keep people from handling their own justice, it must work together to fix the state's apparatus or expect vigilante actions to continue. A wronged party with no legal remedy isn't just going to let it drop.

    In other words, it's not just the wronged person's responsibility to single-handedly "change the system". It's your responsibility, too. By allowing the system to remain broken, you are culpable for the existence of vigilante justice, too. Expecting every wronged person to change the system in order to get their justice is just condoning vigilantism, while still claiming the moral high ground.

  19. Re:What I find unbelievable... on New Zealand Spied On Nearly Two Dozen Pacific Countries · · Score: 3, Informative

    So they're going to destroy your reputation at a moments notice, by disclosing that they illegally spied on you and open themselves up to law suits.

    Sounds great. I could do with a few million to retire on.

    Please NSA, disclose who I send text messages to.

    You will never get evidence to use against them.

  20. Re:Uh ...wat? on Former MLB Pitcher Doxes Internet Trolls, Delivers Real-World Consequences · · Score: 1

    And yet, if you asked people how best to allocate police resources, do you think "sitting in speed traps" would be at the top of anyone's list? There are certainly understandable explanations for why police seem to be useless unless someone is murdered or a big corporation has an extremely urgent minor complaint, but that doesn't in any way invalidate my point.

    People only turn to vigilante justice because the alternative is no justice. As a society, we either need to address the crimes that concern people or accept that they will address them by themselves.

  21. Re:Pandora's Box on Former MLB Pitcher Doxes Internet Trolls, Delivers Real-World Consequences · · Score: 1

    just because democracy and the state do not work as you would like them to, it does not mean you can take the matter in your own hands.

    It actually does mean exactly that. If a state wishes to assert legitimacy, the onus lies with the state to ensure that justice is uniformly and fairly carried out. The state is ultimately accountable to the citizens, not the other way around. Justice is far more important than the unchallenged authority of the state.

    Of course, there can/will be consequences for taking the law into your own hands (which can't often be said for agents of the state). Of course, a regular process for determining guilt and dispensing retribution is preferred.

  22. Re:Pandora's Box on Former MLB Pitcher Doxes Internet Trolls, Delivers Real-World Consequences · · Score: 1

    And what happens when the police departments show complete disinterest to your problem?

    Change the system. Sorry there isn't an easier answer, but that's the price of living in a democracy.

    While it is in many ways (far) less than ideal, there is an easier answer: vigilantism.

    One man can solve his "justice" problems by himself, but one man can't change the system by himself. If society at large decides that vigilante "justice" is not something that we want, then we can change the system together. There is a recurring progression to these things that isn't easily short-circuited.

  23. Re:Uh ...wat? on Former MLB Pitcher Doxes Internet Trolls, Delivers Real-World Consequences · · Score: 1

    What is the best thing he could do, then? Vigilante responses only start to look attractive when official responses are withheld. If police actually investigated crime that is important to citizens, rather than wasting their time going after drug users and speed limit violations, vigilante responses would be less attractive. The police magically appear at the corporations' behest when someone tries to report a security vulnerability; where are they when citizens need them?

  24. Re:Health risks? on Ultra-Low Power Radio Transceiver Enables Truly Wireless Earbuds · · Score: 1

    Or you're being paid by the annoying-headphone-wire-lobby to keep sales from dropping. Or the deleterious health effects caused by headphone wires are still being suppressed for their huge impending class action suit. Wow, this is easy...

  25. Re:NSA involvement ? on BlackPhone, In Wake of Gemalto Fallout, Receives $50 Million In Funding · · Score: 2

    Silent Circle was partially founded by Philip Zimmermann, so that's supposed to lend some credibility to the operation. The company, and PZ in general, still operate on the premise that trust in them should be enough for anybody, so the operation will be opaque and the source closed.

    I really respect a lot of what Zimmermann has done, but we're finding out more and more that our trust in institutions was ill placed. I don't think his model works in our current world. Finding out in twenty years that Silent Circle was an NSA front wouldn't really surprise me that much, despite Zimmermann's involvement. "Trust me, I'm one of the good guys," doesn't fly anymore.