I'm going to tie this into the Florida TIA article and that previous article on the college undergrad that made the matrix-like infrastructure map of the US, and say that since the transmitters are often accessible (with a little intelligence) to maintenance people, and since this is something that could easily be written up as an accident (as mentioned, just a subtle bend), an infoterrorist could do a lot of infrastructure damage in a dificult-to-detect and difficult-to-diagnose way, simply by twisting the cables into a sharp bend. This has a lot of benefits over more obvious (and more immediate) vandalism like physically cutting a line, which tends to be much more easily traceable back to the place where it happened, and thus has a lot more risk for the vandal.
I know that everyone is scared about the TIA initiative, and we all pretty much agree that it's a bad thing. But please RTFA, and think about this a little bit:
They are using information that has ALWAYS been available to Law Enforcement. Now, granted, the question we all ask is "How do we know that it will be restricted to use by Law Enforcement?" and "How do we know it won't be abused?", but really, you don't -- and you never did. People always abuse systems, and sometimes they get caught and sometimes they don't, but this particular initiative is not inherently evil.
It is just technology, and to combat it is Luddite.
Hell, this system could be enormously beneficial, especially if it lets citizens check what info the system has on them! You know how hard it is to track down black marks and shit on your record right now? The paperwork is insane. This system brings it all together.
It's just technology. The technology is inevitable. What people should be concerned with is, not trying to cripple or deny funding to these initiatives. They are truly inevitable. Instead, embrace them and try to make sure that the RIGHT laws get passed.
I think that as long as laws are passed -- ironclad laws -- that specify EXACTLY who can use this system and when, everything will be ok. Really, if it is restricted to traditional Law Enforcement agencies (within the state), I don't see a problem. Now when they start tracking our travel and our purchases, like TIA wanted, I worry. But stuff like what car you drive (DMV), your picture (driver's license, DMV), where you live (anywhere), your criminal history (same ol' same ol') -- none of this is new, and it's not particularly sinister. In fact, it kicks ass.
. . . somewhere out there, someone is going to not realize that the parent is a form rant.;) Fortunately, nobody uses Contiki, so there should be no counterflames.
That is exactly why they won't make things 'pluggable'.
They will include a simple control panel to disable the features, and thus cripple part of the computer's functionality. Making things 'pluggable' invites competition -- a big no-no. Instead, they'll just say "fine, you don't like it? Here's how to rip it out. Object to the way we put this feature in? Ok, here's how to cripple your product so that's not an issue."
Right, but when push comes to shove, 'Justice' goes out the window.
In this case, I think the official stance of Britain is that Sealand is a man-constructed object -- and as such, must be covered by the same laws as the only other man-constructed objects to ply the seas. (boats)
Is that somewhat ludicrous -- yes. But that's the way the chips would fall if push came to shove. They would rule that a man-created object CANNOT be it's own sovereign nation, regardless of how silly or arbitrary that sounds.
Britain doesn't do anything about Sealand mostly because it's such a small, harmless band of kooks, partly because of the unjustified hassle over who should deal with it and how long that would take, partly because the general public tends to side heavily with the romanticism that this situation conjurs up, and to a much, much, much, much lesser extent, because there is legal validity to their claim.
The bottom line is, though, that as soon as they stop being harmless kooks and start bringing ANY pressure whatsoever to bear against themselves, they go down. I mean, if worst came to absolute worst, the cheapest way for Britain to resolve this whole thing would be to send in the Commandos and take over the 'country'. Nobody fucks with the Commandos. (That's my American romanticism, probably, but it seems like the commandos are, in fact, 'the shit').
That is a very funny question, and I have to think that the only business that could consider it seriously would be a casino. That kind of flashiness would seem to fit right in. I can hear the TV ads now:
"Wanna know just how Exciting our Online Gambling Site is? OUR site is hosted on a rusting gun tower 6 miles off of the coast of England, run by a man that claims it as his own sovereign nation. That's right -- this gambling site is hosted out of a basketball-court-sized country called Sealand!" "Reliability? Security? Just remember that all of your financial transactions are subject to the whims of a man that fancies himself a king!"
I mean, ok, it had it's sins. The acting was sometimes atrocious, the special effects were sometimes laughable, and many of the attempts at creating a Tolkienesque sense of wonder and history and weight failed as a result.
But those sins are more than wiped out -- a dozen times over -- by the moments of pure, unadulterated brilliance. And most of the time, the acting was good, and the directing was top-notch, and the special effects did their job, and more than anything else (and more than any other scifi series), Babylon 5, with it's rich pallette of characters and deeply personal storylines, felt like a real place.
I have every single B5 episode . . . but, you know, I really want them on DVD now. I haven't watched them in the longest time . . .
Haven't you heard of "geek chic"? (Not Geek Chick; they are very rare and are an entirely different quantity).
As a serious tip, I will relate some advice my 5 years younger, much cooler, much more in-shape 10th-grade brother gave me, advice that changed my life:
"See, if you're going to be a skinny computer geek, you have to buy some of those black-rimmed Weezer glasses, and wear short-sleeved dress shirts with jeans. Oh, and wear cool shoes, either those hiking boot looking ones that rappers wear or lowtops like Vans or Curt Cobain shoes" -- I think he means Converse All-Stars -- "and MOST IMPORTANT, you've got to comb your hair forward and spike it like Brad Pitt did in Fight Club" -- actually some kind of 'bed head', not all spikes, with the hair swooping up in the front. He assured me that "girls are gonna be all over you, man. Girls LOVE Weezer glasses".
Now, normally, when someone gives me fashion advice -- especially about my hair -- I thank them sincerely, and do the exact opposite. I always have my hair cut short right when long hair starts coming back, and vice versa. But I swear to God --- the little bastard was right on. Girls love Weezer glasses. I have perfect, pristine vision, and I got a pair of fake glasses to wear when I go out to parties and things (I say that they are a weak prescription if anyone asks, or puts them on:)) -- I swear, they work like a charm.
I should really write an article for Slashdot, or something -- "My Cool Little Brother Answers Your Fashion Queries".
One other thing, for skinny guys like me: KEEP THE SIDES OF YOUR HAIR SHORT if you aren't planning on really, really growing your hair out. Otherwise, it makes your head look even wider, which makes your head look weirdly proportioned and oversized for your frame.
This should really be moderated to something like (+6, Listen To His Younger Brother Or You Will Continue To Look Like A Chess Club Member, Unless You Are At Uni In Which Case You Have Probably Already Got Geek Chic Going On, Along With Those Horrible 'Ironic' Retro T-Shirts From Goodwill That You Think Make You Look So Urbane.)
This is miles better than outright piracy in terms of hurting Microsoft.:)
Granted, few people are going to go to the trouble to do this. But even if you don't plan to install Linux, and you have to use Windows on that shiny new box, you might consider getting the refund anyway (zinging the OEM for a good $435 with court/filing costs), and then installing a pirated copy of Windows.
Even if you accepted the company's offer of $299 after the filing (which the guy in the article declined to do; he went for $299 plus court costs of $135), you would be up approximately one hundred and sixty-five dollars. You would have increased the OEM's cost on that Windows-loaded system by $300, and you would have made that system a good $165 cheaper for yourself.
And if you remain a scurvy pirate, you can do all of that without even losing the 'convenience' of Windows.
If you're cheap, think of it as a rebate. If you hate MS, think of it as eroding their greatest benefit -- their OEM share. If you hate a major OEM, think of it as, well, hurting them, since they're obviously the most direct victims.
If you hate complexity, however, you might just avoid the whole mess, and have a nice spot of tea.
The IC7-MAX3 is tuned up and ready to rumble. With ABIT's Game Acceleration Technology, users have the choice of three performance modes: Turbo, Street Racer and F1 to boost performance up to 17%.
Ok, maybe it's not a marketing lie. But. How seriously can you take anything with the settings 'Turbo', 'Street Racer' and 'F1'?
Personal computers with built-in hardware encryption is going to make life hell for support technicians.
I mean, I like the idea. I just don't like the idea of having to deal with impenetrable security on top of everything else that I have to deal with when my little brother's friend fries his computer again and I have to slap a new HD or mobo etc in it.
oh, and sorry about the Perl applications thing. That is for my friend, who has stopped responding to instant messenger or email because he's mad at me. I'm pretty sure he Slashdot, though.;)
He was always talking about how he would be a Perl application developer, because Perl was so leet. I think it's leet, but only really shines for duct tape work.
Jeremy, if you are reading this -- stop being such a little bitch and respond to my emails, dammit!:) We gotta set something up the next time I'm in the area, a LAN or something.
The ridged top surface and the nondescript gray color will ultimately make this the final revision of duct tape before it dies a slow death.
Execution will be drastically slowed by the difficulty in ripping the tape by hand, and the gray color will make it blend in with metal components, making interoperability harder and harder.
I mean, come on. Everyone whose job description involves building entire apps in Perl, please raise your hand. Then bring it down sharply into your groin, because you should not reproduce.
Perl is still the best damn duct tape money can buy, and will be for years to come.
I would suggest that you let some GWB/Saddam manufacture your cyborg parts that change the way you think, but you obviously don't. ("heyooooo!")And I am intrigued by the concept of how implants could make you "a all time greatest terrorist".
I would continue to try to make sense of this post, but you've evidently equipped it with a Stupidity Protection Scheme, and I don't want to circumvent the DMCA.
(the real kind, based on a radioactive isotope, not some cheap software imitation)
And that would be more random than Mathematica's CA-generated random numbers because . . . . because we know enough about the nature of things to say that the numbers we get "based on a radioactive isotope" are really more random than those based on simple systems? I don't think we're there yet. As far as statistical analysis of the output goes (which is really just analysis without understanding), Mathematica is perfectly capable of producing random numbers that test as close to a perfectly random distribution as any numbers taken from the real world. Hell, I would prefer a software solution if one is available -- because we understand how and why Mathematica's random numbers are generated. We have nowhere near the necessary understanding of the physical world to make the kind of definite, absolute statements that we can about mathematics.
A minor quibble (quibble is a great word that I started using when I first read Nero Wolfe), but, what the hell, it's Slashdot.
But then I noticed -- maybe it's just my imagination -- but the cyborg's seems bigger than the human's.
No wonder it "coalesced" into a movement. Before, it was just a few random, scattered geeks. Then, when they were running with the idea, they said to themselves "Hey . . . if I could get a bigger, stronger, artificial bicep, then what about my . .."
That's why I said "relevant", not "accurate". I made no implications about accuracy.
The trading data for the stock market on any given day is "currently relevant". It gives us a lot of market noise, but it gives us a lot of useful information, too.
There may be more noise in a system like this, particularly at first. But eventually, useful information emerges. Trends emerge. Relating them to important events is a huge job, but at some point, if this is funded and run for a while, the market WILL reflect in some way the "mood" of the market, and WILL give us meaningful data. There are ways to filter for statistical "noise" in the current markets, and this one is no different.
There are a million benefits. The fact of the matter is that the data won't lie. The terrorists could try to ignore this, but someone in their ranks might not be able to. Ok, right there you've got the stated purpose.
If the terrorists try to play the system, they are giving themselves away, planting records, leaving data trails. If they try to corrupt the data (place misleading bets to screw with the data), use it for misdirection -- they are still doing this! It's all in the data.
A lot of the purported capability of this system might be shroom-induced statistical mumbo-jumbo. Statistics are the science of imprecision. But it's better to have a system like this, gathering this data, than NOT to have it. And I MUCH prefer this to other "ooh, data!" ideas -- like the TIA -- which would gather an enormous baseline of data on people that are not necessarily interested or involved with the Middle East, terrorism, or anything that is in any way relevant to the "War on Terror"!
That's funny, because I do, and you're right. I should have said "The statisticians may not find anything except shroom-induced fantasy". And it would be more on-target.
I see a lot of comments on how this is "sick", on how immoral it is that people -- potentially terrorists, but ANY people -- will be reacting with glee to a suicide bombing that kills people, because they won a bet.
I agree. To my moral sense, it is sick.
But once I remove my moral indignation, my own personal opinion and preferences, I don't see how the government could not do this.
It is morally ambiguous for some of those that use it, but that is for them to worry about. Intelligence is an amoral game, and this system will be not only harnessing the relevant, focused input of thousands of informed people, it will be creating, in a sense, freelance operatives.
The people that get addicted, that play this game to win, who may have had no dealings with terrorists previously, are going to be trying to find out everything they can, in order to benefit from this themselves. Someone is going to stumble across a terrorist newsgroup, and whether that individual will try to keep it to themselves and play with insider information, or tip off the feds like a good little boy, doesn't matter. Because there are going to be thousands of people looking for this information, swapping tips and information and searching tirelessly and chatting with people from the Middle East, and they will be betting on this system.
In this game, "insider trading" could mean a life sentence.
If someone finds out about an impending attack, doesn't inform the US government, and profits from that knowledge -- and does so over time -- they will eventually draw attention to themselves, and the methods that they use will become known. Moreover, depending on their level of involvement, they may well have serious charges levelled against them, but that is a separate issue.
If someone finds out about an impending attack, and does inform the government, they still have a choice. They can bet that an attack will NOT happen, that the US will prevent it. Or they can bet that it will happen anyway, in spite of the US' best efforts. They may still stand to profit off of the death of their fellow beings, but with an ultimate benefit to counter-terrorism intelligence.
The organization is likely not going to be that stupid. The terror organization is not going to be saying, "Hmm, ok, we're planning to topple the Empire State -- should we place a couple bets on that, to make it even more fun?"
But with any large and involved scheme, there are going to be potentially hundreds of people involved, such as in the 9/11 tragedy -- hundreds that either knew for certain or had a very, very strong suspicion about what was going to happen.
Can you assure me that not one of them is going to be tempted? This scheme plays the self-interest of individual terrorists against the greater secrecy of the terror organization. Which is one of the things that makes it truly powerful.
The potential benefits of this system are immense. The outlay -- insignificant.
You just nailed one of a major benefits of this system.
At the very least, this system would provide statisticians with a massive, currently relevant pool of opinions on the likelihood of any particular kind of terrorist attack occurring. The statisticians may not find anything, but honestly, for the price of running a single secure website, they're gathering an insane amount of valuable data.
That's at the very least. If it does just what it is intended to, and no more. At best . ..
At best, it is a honeypot. If something major is in the works, like 9/11, what are the odds that someone, somewhere along the line wouldn't have placed some serious bets? Maybe not the terrorist himself, but what about his family? The people he stayed with in the US? Not everyone involved is going to be a Q'ran-thumping martyr. This scheme plays the self-interest of individual terrorists against the greater secrecy of terrorist proceedings, and it has the potential to be extremely revealing in that respect, simply as a massive, relatively cheap method of adding to ordinary intelligence information.
I mean, honestly, I know it sucks that they might tap your phone because of a $1,000 bet, but if you were just some guy exercising free speech, and proclaimed to the world that you would bet anyone $1,000 that there would be a major biological attack in Israel within the next week, and it got bandied about in a newspaper, your phone would be fuckin' tapped. Nothing happens, they intrude your life a little, and realize you're a crank or a nut or just a weirdo, and they leave you alone. It sucks, but at least this is something you can avoid and expect -- I mean, you do know who is running this thing, right?
It marked the death of the frontier. (I know, blah blah Indians were there first, but the population density was never that great and there were always massive sections of uninhabited land). The remaining frontiers are largely closed to the ordinary man, and are unlikely to ever be truly opened again to the point where you can just go somewhere, stake off a chunk of land, and just LIVE there, and have it be LEGAL.
I know, I know. Progress. We live 1.6 times as long, that's a good thing. Diseases can be treated better.
But, still . . . the death of the frontier marked the inability for a man to be physically independent. Now our lives are played out within the boundaries of 'The System', while our freedom must exist only in our minds.
Slashdot Mirror
Hmm. I don't think this is a troll.
I'm going to tie this into the Florida TIA article and that previous article on the college undergrad that made the matrix-like infrastructure map of the US, and say that since the transmitters are often accessible (with a little intelligence) to maintenance people, and since this is something that could easily be written up as an accident (as mentioned, just a subtle bend), an infoterrorist could do a lot of infrastructure damage in a dificult-to-detect and difficult-to-diagnose way, simply by twisting the cables into a sharp bend. This has a lot of benefits over more obvious (and more immediate) vandalism like physically cutting a line, which tends to be much more easily traceable back to the place where it happened, and thus has a lot more risk for the vandal.
They should put some Pantene Pro-V on them fibers.
/me pulls fire alarm.
It works for me!
No, wait . . . ok, well, at least that stuff isn't flammable.
No, wait . . . shit.
I know that everyone is scared about the TIA initiative, and we all pretty much agree that it's a bad thing. But please RTFA, and think about this a little bit:
They are using information that has ALWAYS been available to Law Enforcement. Now, granted, the question we all ask is "How do we know that it will be restricted to use by Law Enforcement?" and "How do we know it won't be abused?", but really, you don't -- and you never did. People always abuse systems, and sometimes they get caught and sometimes they don't, but this particular initiative is not inherently evil.
It is just technology, and to combat it is Luddite.
Hell, this system could be enormously beneficial, especially if it lets citizens check what info the system has on them! You know how hard it is to track down black marks and shit on your record right now? The paperwork is insane. This system brings it all together.
It's just technology. The technology is inevitable. What people should be concerned with is, not trying to cripple or deny funding to these initiatives. They are truly inevitable. Instead, embrace them and try to make sure that the RIGHT laws get passed.
I think that as long as laws are passed -- ironclad laws -- that specify EXACTLY who can use this system and when, everything will be ok. Really, if it is restricted to traditional Law Enforcement agencies (within the state), I don't see a problem. Now when they start tracking our travel and our purchases, like TIA wanted, I worry. But stuff like what car you drive (DMV), your picture (driver's license, DMV), where you live (anywhere), your criminal history (same ol' same ol') -- none of this is new, and it's not particularly sinister. In fact, it kicks ass.
. . . somewhere out there, someone is going to not realize that the parent is a form rant. ;) Fortunately, nobody uses Contiki, so there should be no counterflames.
That is exactly why they won't make things 'pluggable'.
They will include a simple control panel to disable the features, and thus cripple part of the computer's functionality. Making things 'pluggable' invites competition -- a big no-no. Instead, they'll just say "fine, you don't like it? Here's how to rip it out. Object to the way we put this feature in? Ok, here's how to cripple your product so that's not an issue."
Right, but when push comes to shove, 'Justice' goes out the window.
In this case, I think the official stance of Britain is that Sealand is a man-constructed object -- and as such, must be covered by the same laws as the only other man-constructed objects to ply the seas. (boats)
Is that somewhat ludicrous -- yes. But that's the way the chips would fall if push came to shove. They would rule that a man-created object CANNOT be it's own sovereign nation, regardless of how silly or arbitrary that sounds.
Britain doesn't do anything about Sealand mostly because it's such a small, harmless band of kooks, partly because of the unjustified hassle over who should deal with it and how long that would take, partly because the general public tends to side heavily with the romanticism that this situation conjurs up, and to a much, much, much, much lesser extent, because there is legal validity to their claim.
The bottom line is, though, that as soon as they stop being harmless kooks and start bringing ANY pressure whatsoever to bear against themselves, they go down. I mean, if worst came to absolute worst, the cheapest way for Britain to resolve this whole thing would be to send in the Commandos and take over the 'country'. Nobody fucks with the Commandos. (That's my American romanticism, probably, but it seems like the commandos are, in fact, 'the shit').
I need some pie now.
That is a very funny question, and I have to think that the only business that could consider it seriously would be a casino. That kind of flashiness would seem to fit right in. I can hear the TV ads now:
"Wanna know just how Exciting our Online Gambling Site is? OUR site is hosted on a rusting gun tower 6 miles off of the coast of England, run by a man that claims it as his own sovereign nation. That's right -- this gambling site is hosted out of a basketball-court-sized country called Sealand!"
"Reliability? Security? Just remember that all of your financial transactions are subject to the whims of a man that fancies himself a king!"
I like those odds.
B5 had totally faded from my consciousness.
I mean, ok, it had it's sins. The acting was sometimes atrocious, the special effects were sometimes laughable, and many of the attempts at creating a Tolkienesque sense of wonder and history and weight failed as a result.
But those sins are more than wiped out -- a dozen times over -- by the moments of pure, unadulterated brilliance. And most of the time, the acting was good, and the directing was top-notch, and the special effects did their job, and more than anything else (and more than any other scifi series), Babylon 5, with it's rich pallette of characters and deeply personal storylines, felt like a real place.
I have every single B5 episode . . . but, you know, I really want them on DVD now. I haven't watched them in the longest time . . .
Ugly, out-of-shape and uncool?
:)) -- I swear, they work like a charm.
We'll be paying full price for our duds.
'We', huh? Speak for yourself. I am dead secksi.
Haven't you heard of "geek chic"? (Not Geek Chick; they are very rare and are an entirely different quantity).
As a serious tip, I will relate some advice my 5 years younger, much cooler, much more in-shape 10th-grade brother gave me, advice that changed my life:
"See, if you're going to be a skinny computer geek, you have to buy some of those black-rimmed Weezer glasses, and wear short-sleeved dress shirts with jeans. Oh, and wear cool shoes, either those hiking boot looking ones that rappers wear or lowtops like Vans or Curt Cobain shoes" -- I think he means Converse All-Stars -- "and MOST IMPORTANT, you've got to comb your hair forward and spike it like Brad Pitt did in Fight Club" -- actually some kind of 'bed head', not all spikes, with the hair swooping up in the front. He assured me that "girls are gonna be all over you, man. Girls LOVE Weezer glasses".
Now, normally, when someone gives me fashion advice -- especially about my hair -- I thank them sincerely, and do the exact opposite. I always have my hair cut short right when long hair starts coming back, and vice versa. But I swear to God --- the little bastard was right on. Girls love Weezer glasses. I have perfect, pristine vision, and I got a pair of fake glasses to wear when I go out to parties and things (I say that they are a weak prescription if anyone asks, or puts them on
I should really write an article for Slashdot, or something -- "My Cool Little Brother Answers Your Fashion Queries".
One other thing, for skinny guys like me: KEEP THE SIDES OF YOUR HAIR SHORT if you aren't planning on really, really growing your hair out. Otherwise, it makes your head look even wider, which makes your head look weirdly proportioned and oversized for your frame.
This should really be moderated to something like (+6, Listen To His Younger Brother Or You Will Continue To Look Like A Chess Club Member, Unless You Are At Uni In Which Case You Have Probably Already Got Geek Chic Going On, Along With Those Horrible 'Ironic' Retro T-Shirts From Goodwill That You Think Make You Look So Urbane.)
This is miles better than outright piracy in terms of hurting Microsoft. :)
Granted, few people are going to go to the trouble to do this. But even if you don't plan to install Linux, and you have to use Windows on that shiny new box, you might consider getting the refund anyway (zinging the OEM for a good $435 with court/filing costs), and then installing a pirated copy of Windows.
Even if you accepted the company's offer of $299 after the filing (which the guy in the article declined to do; he went for $299 plus court costs of $135), you would be up approximately one hundred and sixty-five dollars. You would have increased the OEM's cost on that Windows-loaded system by $300, and you would have made that system a good $165 cheaper for yourself.
And if you remain a scurvy pirate, you can do all of that without even losing the 'convenience' of Windows.
If you're cheap, think of it as a rebate.
If you hate MS, think of it as eroding their greatest benefit -- their OEM share.
If you hate a major OEM, think of it as, well, hurting them, since they're obviously the most direct victims.
If you hate complexity, however, you might just avoid the whole mess, and have a nice spot of tea.
The IC7-MAX3 is tuned up and ready to rumble. With ABIT's Game Acceleration Technology, users have the choice of three performance modes: Turbo, Street Racer and F1 to boost performance up to 17%.
Ok, maybe it's not a marketing lie. But. How seriously can you take anything with the settings 'Turbo', 'Street Racer' and 'F1'?
Personal computers with built-in hardware encryption is going to make life hell for support technicians.
I mean, I like the idea. I just don't like the idea of having to deal with impenetrable security on top of everything else that I have to deal with when my little brother's friend fries his computer again and I have to slap a new HD or mobo etc in it.
oh, and sorry about the Perl applications thing. That is for my friend, who has stopped responding to instant messenger or email because he's mad at me. I'm pretty sure he Slashdot, though. ;)
:) We gotta set something up the next time I'm in the area, a LAN or something.
He was always talking about how he would be a Perl application developer, because Perl was so leet. I think it's leet, but only really shines for duct tape work.
Jeremy, if you are reading this -- stop being such a little bitch and respond to my emails, dammit!
Or, to paraphrase:
The ridged top surface and the nondescript gray color will ultimately make this the final revision of duct tape before it dies a slow death. Execution will be drastically slowed by the difficulty in ripping the tape by hand, and the gray color will make it blend in with metal components, making interoperability harder and harder.
I mean, come on. Everyone whose job description involves building entire apps in Perl, please raise your hand. Then bring it down sharply into your groin, because you should not reproduce.
Perl is still the best damn duct tape money can buy, and will be for years to come.
. . . What the fuck did you just say?
I would suggest that you let some GWB/Saddam manufacture your cyborg parts that change the way you think, but you obviously don't. ("heyooooo!")And I am intrigued by the concept of how implants could make you "a all time greatest terrorist".
I would continue to try to make sense of this post, but you've evidently equipped it with a Stupidity Protection Scheme, and I don't want to circumvent the DMCA.
(the real kind, based on a radioactive isotope, not some cheap software imitation) And that would be more random than Mathematica's CA-generated random numbers because . . . . because we know enough about the nature of things to say that the numbers we get "based on a radioactive isotope" are really more random than those based on simple systems? I don't think we're there yet. As far as statistical analysis of the output goes (which is really just analysis without understanding), Mathematica is perfectly capable of producing random numbers that test as close to a perfectly random distribution as any numbers taken from the real world. Hell, I would prefer a software solution if one is available -- because we understand how and why Mathematica's random numbers are generated. We have nowhere near the necessary understanding of the physical world to make the kind of definite, absolute statements that we can about mathematics. A minor quibble (quibble is a great word that I started using when I first read Nero Wolfe), but, what the hell, it's Slashdot.
Hmmm. I was going to rate this a troll.
."
But then I noticed -- maybe it's just my imagination -- but the cyborg's seems bigger than the human's.
No wonder it "coalesced" into a movement. Before, it was just a few random, scattered geeks. Then, when they were running with the idea, they said to themselves "Hey . . . if I could get a bigger, stronger, artificial bicep, then what about my . .
And suddenly, it's a movement.
That's why I said "relevant", not "accurate". I made no implications about accuracy.
The trading data for the stock market on any given day is "currently relevant". It gives us a lot of market noise, but it gives us a lot of useful information, too.
There may be more noise in a system like this, particularly at first. But eventually, useful information emerges. Trends emerge. Relating them to important events is a huge job, but at some point, if this is funded and run for a while, the market WILL reflect in some way the "mood" of the market, and WILL give us meaningful data. There are ways to filter for statistical "noise" in the current markets, and this one is no different.
It's just more serious.
I agree, 100%.
There are a million benefits. The fact of the matter is that the data won't lie. The terrorists could try to ignore this, but someone in their ranks might not be able to. Ok, right there you've got the stated purpose.
If the terrorists try to play the system, they are giving themselves away, planting records, leaving data trails. If they try to corrupt the data (place misleading bets to screw with the data), use it for misdirection -- they are still doing this! It's all in the data.
A lot of the purported capability of this system might be shroom-induced statistical mumbo-jumbo. Statistics are the science of imprecision. But it's better to have a system like this, gathering this data, than NOT to have it. And I MUCH prefer this to other "ooh, data!" ideas -- like the TIA -- which would gather an enormous baseline of data on people that are not necessarily interested or involved with the Middle East, terrorism, or anything that is in any way relevant to the "War on Terror"!
Keep that tie cinched up!
Give it a few years, and you won't be bothered by their offensive fashion statements any more.
Hell, no one around here wears a tie, and this article has convinced me to START!
Ha!
/. let me edit my post!" whines.
That's funny, because I do, and you're right. I should have said "The statisticians may not find anything except shroom-induced fantasy". And it would be more on-target.
Cue the "if only
I see a lot of comments on how this is "sick", on how immoral it is that people -- potentially terrorists, but ANY people -- will be reacting with glee to a suicide bombing that kills people, because they won a bet.
I agree. To my moral sense, it is sick.
But once I remove my moral indignation, my own personal opinion and preferences, I don't see how the government could not do this.
It is morally ambiguous for some of those that use it, but that is for them to worry about. Intelligence is an amoral game, and this system will be not only harnessing the relevant, focused input of thousands of informed people, it will be creating, in a sense, freelance operatives.
The people that get addicted, that play this game to win, who may have had no dealings with terrorists previously, are going to be trying to find out everything they can, in order to benefit from this themselves. Someone is going to stumble across a terrorist newsgroup, and whether that individual will try to keep it to themselves and play with insider information, or tip off the feds like a good little boy, doesn't matter. Because there are going to be thousands of people looking for this information, swapping tips and information and searching tirelessly and chatting with people from the Middle East, and they will be betting on this system.
In this game, "insider trading" could mean a life sentence.
If someone finds out about an impending attack, doesn't inform the US government, and profits from that knowledge -- and does so over time -- they will eventually draw attention to themselves, and the methods that they use will become known. Moreover, depending on their level of involvement, they may well have serious charges levelled against them, but that is a separate issue.
If someone finds out about an impending attack, and does inform the government, they still have a choice. They can bet that an attack will NOT happen, that the US will prevent it. Or they can bet that it will happen anyway, in spite of the US' best efforts. They may still stand to profit off of the death of their fellow beings, but with an ultimate benefit to counter-terrorism intelligence.
That is just where you're wrong.
The organization is likely not going to be that stupid. The terror organization is not going to be saying, "Hmm, ok, we're planning to topple the Empire State -- should we place a couple bets on that, to make it even more fun?"
But with any large and involved scheme, there are going to be potentially hundreds of people involved, such as in the 9/11 tragedy -- hundreds that either knew for certain or had a very, very strong suspicion about what was going to happen.
Can you assure me that not one of them is going to be tempted? This scheme plays the self-interest of individual terrorists against the greater secrecy of the terror organization. Which is one of the things that makes it truly powerful.
The potential benefits of this system are immense. The outlay -- insignificant.
You just nailed one of a major benefits of this system.
.
At the very least, this system would provide statisticians with a massive, currently relevant pool of opinions on the likelihood of any particular kind of terrorist attack occurring. The statisticians may not find anything, but honestly, for the price of running a single secure website, they're gathering an insane amount of valuable data.
That's at the very least. If it does just what it is intended to, and no more. At best . .
At best, it is a honeypot. If something major is in the works, like 9/11, what are the odds that someone, somewhere along the line wouldn't have placed some serious bets? Maybe not the terrorist himself, but what about his family? The people he stayed with in the US? Not everyone involved is going to be a Q'ran-thumping martyr. This scheme plays the self-interest of individual terrorists against the greater secrecy of terrorist proceedings, and it has the potential to be extremely revealing in that respect, simply as a massive, relatively cheap method of adding to ordinary intelligence information.
I mean, honestly, I know it sucks that they might tap your phone because of a $1,000 bet, but if you were just some guy exercising free speech, and proclaimed to the world that you would bet anyone $1,000 that there would be a major biological attack in Israel within the next week, and it got bandied about in a newspaper, your phone would be fuckin' tapped. Nothing happens, they intrude your life a little, and realize you're a crank or a nut or just a weirdo, and they leave you alone. It sucks, but at least this is something you can avoid and expect -- I mean, you do know who is running this thing, right?
The turn of the century SUCKED.
It marked the death of the frontier. (I know, blah blah Indians were there first, but the population density was never that great and there were always massive sections of uninhabited land). The remaining frontiers are largely closed to the ordinary man, and are unlikely to ever be truly opened again to the point where you can just go somewhere, stake off a chunk of land, and just LIVE there, and have it be LEGAL.
I know, I know. Progress. We live 1.6 times as long, that's a good thing. Diseases can be treated better.
But, still . . . the death of the frontier marked the inability for a man to be physically independent. Now our lives are played out within the boundaries of 'The System', while our freedom must exist only in our minds.
cue matrix analogies.