The point wasn't whether I thought TiVo would sell the data, use the data, or whatever. The statement was made that they would not be able to. That statement was not correct. There is a world of difference between can not and will not. I would only be comfortable with the "can not" type system, and don't trust any entity whose sole motivation is to "maximize shareholder value" to have the integrity not to change their minds later. Mind you, nothing specific about TiVo--I wouldn't place my trust in any corporation.
Actually, I don't--broadcast TV only, and not much of that. Most of TV is complete and utter crap and not worth the investment of time. If I watched more of it, though, I sure wouldn't use any technology that reported back what I was watching.
(i.e. no one can personally identify you from the data)
Boldface is mine. This should say will--since each TiVo has a unique identifier, and you have to register to get a subscription, you rely on TiVo's integrity to preserve your privacy. Note that even if you can verify that the TiVo ID isn't transmitted in the data stream, there is ANI available which identifies your telephone number used to dial TiVo, which also makes a pretty good identifier.
While I have no reason to doubt their integrity, it's not quite correct to say that no one can personally identify you from the data.
. . . is Data Junction. It can grab and aggregate multiple sources of data, in addition to understanding and dealing with metadata. I have no affiliation with the company and haven't used the product.
. . . of blackmail. Sure, you can sue us. Of course, some of the information we collected might come out in discovery. Like that site in the Christmas Island domain that's always in your HTTP_REFERRER, and that you spend an awful lot of time on the Victoria's Secret site putting items in your shopping cart that are much too big for your wife. It would be regrettable for it to come to this, wouldn't it? I thought so. So, you pay our attorney's fees and we forget this whole sordid incident.
The moderator who knocked you down should check with his supplier with regard to the quality of his rock.
That being said, I concur, and I also think this will contribute to the downfall of Office 20nn as a business standard. A significant part of Office's dominance is its status as a lingua franca--a file format that is pretty much guaranteed to be readable in any corporate environment.
MS, by heading towards a mandatory subscription model, is risking losing their position as the standard. Alternative office suite vendors and, yes, free software writers, will eventually succeed in reverse engineering the current set of O2K file formats--the current standard. Meanwhile, there is hesitation to upgrade to Office nnnn because of the subscription model, causing companies to stick with the current file formats.
This will give time for an alternative, free or otherwise, to take hold in the marketplace. And poof, no more MS Office hegemony. I'll admit to more than a little wishful thinking in this regard, but I believe it could really happen this way if MS continues to try to extract a tithe from business--that cannot last forever.
Schools have no business taking disciplinary action against students that fail to produce the correct theatre for them. If they think they were embarrassed by his rejecting the crown, I imagine they realize they've made a more serious mistake now.
Also, I hope the administrators at Mira Costa are named personally in the suit, as well. Their disruptive activity by failing to use appropriate channels to "express dissatisfaction" with this student should not go unpunished.
Damn shame I'll have to start to drink something else now. I probably drank a stout a week or so (granted, not big consumption, but something) until today. Until they reverse this, I'll have to drink McKewan's Scotch Ale. If they never do, well, I guess they'll be OK, but without my money.
And then Bill's precious source that the "stolen" open source code has to come out in discovery. And how can Bill prove that Microsoft didn't copy the open source program, the other way around? Unless there's an independently verified copy of the alleged MS source from prior to the release of the version of the open source program in question, there's no way to prove such an allegation.
I deserve (-1, Flamebait) for my previous post, looking at it again. I flew off the handle for no good reason and I apologize. (Moderators, do your duty.)
It'd be possible to use sampling to get it within a decent margin of error, possibly saving a boat load of money while still getting good enough (+/- 1%? 5%? 10%?) results to fairly apportion representatives, federal money, etc.
There is a tradeoff between sample size and error--it is intuitive that as sample size increases, the probability of the sample being like the population increases. It won't be dead on--100% confidence would require sampling the whole population. (Apologies to mathematicians everywhere, but I think this sums up sampling.)
However, I don't believe we get it dead on now, either--slammed doors, lost forms, data entry errors, (hopefully few) derelict enumerators . . . (And it won't get any better with U.S. Representatives saying things like Dan Miller did.)
I think the biggest problem with using sampling would be ensuring the data were good and that the administration wasn't pushing an agenda--it wouldn't take falsifying nearly as many census forms to change the outcome when a sample is being used as it would when it wasn't.
And, while some would still indeed be "selected" to fill out the forms, identifying data could be eliminated from the form (what value would sampled identifying data be?), rather than kept to be released in 72 years (or when the Census Bureau just gives it up anyway). This alone might be enough incentive to get better data. A blind signature voting protocol could be used--tickets could be assigned to those selected, those selected could be known. But the responses of those selected could not be associated with an individual who has responded. (This could be used with a full count approach, as well--the hard part is implementing the protocol in a way that every person could easily perform it.)
I definitely agree with those here that say the census will be useless in the future if this data is misused now. There are already plenty of good reasons not to trust the government, but this would be a serious and unforgiveable breach of the people's trust.
There was a time when I had to ask people at my command to fill out the military version of the census, which was through the Census Bureau but done as a collateral duty by people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time:>.
There was one gentleman (in the best sense of the word--a great shipmate) from Tennessee. I thought he was just being obstinate when he answered my request to fill out the form with "four," citing the Consitution as his justification.
Just because you don't understand enough math to know what sampling is doesn't mean it's a bad way to get at the data. And, hell, it'd help with privacy, too.
My thought on this: the first time the press reports that a {pornographer|fraudster|slashdot troll} went to jail becuase police managed to obtain the real identity behind a Freedom nym, with or without ZKS's cooperation, ZKS is out of business. Unless that happens, I figure "they" haven't nailed anyone.
It's not mathematical proof, but it's good enough for me.
If you used a commercial news server, you would have to have purchased an account. If you purchased an account, you (probably) used a credit card. What could using Freedom to access that commercial news server do for you, besides slow down your binaries and make it so your dialup/cable/DSL provider didn't know what exactly that is that's saturating your connection. Enquiring minds want to know!
AND forced into decision-by-committee where busybodies from marketing get to make IT decisions(!)
It's precisely this attitude--that IT's customers are busybodies, that causes them to be an obstacle to be worked around rather than the servants to the organization they're supposed to be. That one word speaks volumes.
Network management by Diktat works in BOFH stories (and is quite entertaining there). Things are different in real life with real people.
This makes me wonder if it's possible to use the Duck Hunt gun with an emulator. Since I have read about hacks that allow you to use the NES controllers, and monitors still emit light, this should work. I can't think of too many NES things with more hack value than playing Duck Hunt in an X11 window and shooting at the ducks in the office.
Where in my post did I say I was not following the rules? I have the good fortune to work in an environment where eye-tee doesn't (successfully) dictate terms to the people they serve.
While there are often legitimate reasons to constrain operating environments, rhetoric (to steal your word) about firing people who dare to install a "non-standard" operating system or application is inflammatory and, in most shops, unenforcable as well. (Often, IT has a job to do other than micro-monitor the users--if they have time for that, they're ripe for downsizing and/or outsourcing.)
While there's an awful lot that can be read into what I posted, the fact is that I only said open source tools that are useful will displace closed source tools that aren't as much so, whether IT likes it or not. Ultimately people with the best interest of the whole organization are in control, not the self serving people in some IT departments that want to follow some particular vendor's line because it makes their jobs easier.
Translation: IT would often like to dictate platform and get paid for mindlessly implementing a single (or few) vendor system to the exclusion of better tools. The people forced to use inferior tools will, (in organizations that aren't dysfunctional, within and outside of the "rules") get around having to use them. Then the rules will change.
(Also, your reference to Brezhnev is quite appropriate--the Soviet Union didn't make a profit, and other organizations run that way won't be making much money in the long run, either. (Although Shapiro is more like a wannabe Stalin, but I digress.))
What all this comes down to is that IS in some organizations (like "Mr. 'Destroy their servers and fire them'," a top flight CIO from a Tennessee school district) is on a power trip.
As someone here pointed out, the glass house saw PC's as a threat to their power base, and IT created policies against them. They're doing the same thing with Linux--it's something they don't understand, don't want to learn, that cuts into their power base.
The article chronicles Netware sneaking in when mainframes dominated. Then NT slithering in when Novell dominated. Now Linux is permeating (currently) NT dominated shops.
Anyone else see a pattern here? Ultimately, Linux, FreeBSD, or other open source tools will come to dominate because they meet the needs of the organization.
Just like computing managers saying things like "PC's are just a fad, big iron and dumb terminals are where it's at" adapted or left, those saying "Linux is non-standard, unauthorized, and a fireable offense" won't be able to stay in denial forever.
In Missouri, much hay is being made in the current gubernatorial campaign about just that. True, lotto proceeds do go to education. However, that amount is curiously offset by a large decrease in general fund appropriations for education. I'm sure the same game is played in the other states that say the same thing.
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The point wasn't whether I thought TiVo would sell the data, use the data, or whatever. The statement was made that they would not be able to. That statement was not correct. There is a world of difference between can not and will not. I would only be comfortable with the "can not" type system, and don't trust any entity whose sole motivation is to "maximize shareholder value" to have the integrity not to change their minds later. Mind you, nothing specific about TiVo--I wouldn't place my trust in any corporation.
Actually, I don't--broadcast TV only, and not much of that. Most of TV is complete and utter crap and not worth the investment of time. If I watched more of it, though, I sure wouldn't use any technology that reported back what I was watching.
Boldface is mine. This should say will--since each TiVo has a unique identifier, and you have to register to get a subscription, you rely on TiVo's integrity to preserve your privacy. Note that even if you can verify that the TiVo ID isn't transmitted in the data stream, there is ANI available which identifies your telephone number used to dial TiVo, which also makes a pretty good identifier.
While I have no reason to doubt their integrity, it's not quite correct to say that no one can personally identify you from the data.
. . . is Data Junction. It can grab and aggregate multiple sources of data, in addition to understanding and dealing with metadata. I have no affiliation with the company and haven't used the product.
. . . of blackmail. Sure, you can sue us. Of course, some of the information we collected might come out in discovery. Like that site in the Christmas Island domain that's always in your HTTP_REFERRER, and that you spend an awful lot of time on the Victoria's Secret site putting items in your shopping cart that are much too big for your wife. It would be regrettable for it to come to this, wouldn't it? I thought so. So, you pay our attorney's fees and we forget this whole sordid incident.
The moderator who knocked you down should check with his supplier with regard to the quality of his rock.
That being said, I concur, and I also think this will contribute to the downfall of Office 20nn as a business standard. A significant part of Office's dominance is its status as a lingua franca--a file format that is pretty much guaranteed to be readable in any corporate environment.
MS, by heading towards a mandatory subscription model, is risking losing their position as the standard. Alternative office suite vendors and, yes, free software writers, will eventually succeed in reverse engineering the current set of O2K file formats--the current standard. Meanwhile, there is hesitation to upgrade to Office nnnn because of the subscription model, causing companies to stick with the current file formats.
This will give time for an alternative, free or otherwise, to take hold in the marketplace. And poof, no more MS Office hegemony. I'll admit to more than a little wishful thinking in this regard, but I believe it could really happen this way if MS continues to try to extract a tithe from business--that cannot last forever.
Who's the client? I could tell you who it is, but then I'd have to kill you :).
The article's naming those things as other acts that could draw a suspension. This student did none of those things.
Schools have no business taking disciplinary action against students that fail to produce the correct theatre for them. If they think they were embarrassed by his rejecting the crown, I imagine they realize they've made a more serious mistake now.
Also, I hope the administrators at Mira Costa are named personally in the suit, as well. Their disruptive activity by failing to use appropriate channels to "express dissatisfaction" with this student should not go unpunished.
Damn shame I'll have to start to drink something else now. I probably drank a stout a week or so (granted, not big consumption, but something) until today. Until they reverse this, I'll have to drink McKewan's Scotch Ale. If they never do, well, I guess they'll be OK, but without my money.
Because this wasn't the Olympic bombing, I guess.
And then Bill's precious source that the "stolen" open source code has to come out in discovery. And how can Bill prove that Microsoft didn't copy the open source program, the other way around? Unless there's an independently verified copy of the alleged MS source from prior to the release of the version of the open source program in question, there's no way to prove such an allegation.
In a public school? In a country with compulsory education? That's paid for by citizens with tax dollars? Darn right it's evil.
I deserve (-1, Flamebait) for my previous post, looking at it again. I flew off the handle for no good reason and I apologize. (Moderators, do your duty.)
It'd be possible to use sampling to get it within a decent margin of error, possibly saving a boat load of money while still getting good enough (+/- 1%? 5%? 10%?) results to fairly apportion representatives, federal money, etc.
There is a tradeoff between sample size and error--it is intuitive that as sample size increases, the probability of the sample being like the population increases. It won't be dead on--100% confidence would require sampling the whole population. (Apologies to mathematicians everywhere, but I think this sums up sampling.)
However, I don't believe we get it dead on now, either--slammed doors, lost forms, data entry errors, (hopefully few) derelict enumerators . . . (And it won't get any better with U.S. Representatives saying things like Dan Miller did.)
I think the biggest problem with using sampling would be ensuring the data were good and that the administration wasn't pushing an agenda--it wouldn't take falsifying nearly as many census forms to change the outcome when a sample is being used as it would when it wasn't.
And, while some would still indeed be "selected" to fill out the forms, identifying data could be eliminated from the form (what value would sampled identifying data be?), rather than kept to be released in 72 years (or when the Census Bureau just gives it up anyway). This alone might be enough incentive to get better data. A blind signature voting protocol could be used--tickets could be assigned to those selected, those selected could be known. But the responses of those selected could not be associated with an individual who has responded. (This could be used with a full count approach, as well--the hard part is implementing the protocol in a way that every person could easily perform it.)
I definitely agree with those here that say the census will be useless in the future if this data is misused now. There are already plenty of good reasons not to trust the government, but this would be a serious and unforgiveable breach of the people's trust.
There was a time when I had to ask people at my command to fill out the military version of the census, which was through the Census Bureau but done as a collateral duty by people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time :>.
There was one gentleman (in the best sense of the word--a great shipmate) from Tennessee. I thought he was just being obstinate when he answered my request to fill out the form with "four," citing the Consitution as his justification.
Turns out Roger was right, after all.
Just because you don't understand enough math to know what sampling is doesn't mean it's a bad way to get at the data. And, hell, it'd help with privacy, too.
~~~
My thought on this: the first time the press reports that a {pornographer|fraudster|slashdot troll} went to jail becuase police managed to obtain the real identity behind a Freedom nym, with or without ZKS's cooperation, ZKS is out of business. Unless that happens, I figure "they" haven't nailed anyone.
It's not mathematical proof, but it's good enough for me.
If you used a commercial news server, you would have to have purchased an account. If you purchased an account, you (probably) used a credit card. What could using Freedom to access that commercial news server do for you, besides slow down your binaries and make it so your dialup/cable/DSL provider didn't know what exactly that is that's saturating your connection. Enquiring minds want to know!
I see. Lost the argument, but don't want to lose karma. Who's the luser again?
And you are? Thought so.
AND forced into decision-by-committee where busybodies from marketing get to make IT decisions(!)
It's precisely this attitude--that IT's customers are busybodies, that causes them to be an obstacle to be worked around rather than the servants to the organization they're supposed to be. That one word speaks volumes.
Network management by Diktat works in BOFH stories (and is quite entertaining there). Things are different in real life with real people.
This makes me wonder if it's possible to use the Duck Hunt gun with an emulator. Since I have read about hacks that allow you to use the NES controllers, and monitors still emit light, this should work. I can't think of too many NES things with more hack value than playing Duck Hunt in an X11 window and shooting at the ducks in the office.
Where in my post did I say I was not following the rules? I have the good fortune to work in an environment where eye-tee doesn't (successfully) dictate terms to the people they serve.
While there are often legitimate reasons to constrain operating environments, rhetoric (to steal your word) about firing people who dare to install a "non-standard" operating system or application is inflammatory and, in most shops, unenforcable as well. (Often, IT has a job to do other than micro-monitor the users--if they have time for that, they're ripe for downsizing and/or outsourcing.)
While there's an awful lot that can be read into what I posted, the fact is that I only said open source tools that are useful will displace closed source tools that aren't as much so, whether IT likes it or not. Ultimately people with the best interest of the whole organization are in control, not the self serving people in some IT departments that want to follow some particular vendor's line because it makes their jobs easier.
Translation: IT would often like to dictate platform and get paid for mindlessly implementing a single (or few) vendor system to the exclusion of better tools. The people forced to use inferior tools will, (in organizations that aren't dysfunctional, within and outside of the "rules") get around having to use them. Then the rules will change.
(Also, your reference to Brezhnev is quite appropriate--the Soviet Union didn't make a profit, and other organizations run that way won't be making much money in the long run, either. (Although Shapiro is more like a wannabe Stalin, but I digress.))
What all this comes down to is that IS in some organizations (like "Mr. 'Destroy their servers and fire them'," a top flight CIO from a Tennessee school district) is on a power trip.
As someone here pointed out, the glass house saw PC's as a threat to their power base, and IT created policies against them. They're doing the same thing with Linux--it's something they don't understand, don't want to learn, that cuts into their power base.
The article chronicles Netware sneaking in when mainframes dominated. Then NT slithering in when Novell dominated. Now Linux is permeating (currently) NT dominated shops.
Anyone else see a pattern here? Ultimately, Linux, FreeBSD, or other open source tools will come to dominate because they meet the needs of the organization.
Just like computing managers saying things like "PC's are just a fad, big iron and dumb terminals are where it's at" adapted or left, those saying "Linux is non-standard, unauthorized, and a fireable offense" won't be able to stay in denial forever.
In Missouri, much hay is being made in the current gubernatorial campaign about just that. True, lotto proceeds do go to education. However, that amount is curiously offset by a large decrease in general fund appropriations for education. I'm sure the same game is played in the other states that say the same thing.