I thought Woz and Jobs got along pretty well even now, but I can't imagine this sort of thing making their relationship any better.
Every once in awhile you can find comments from Woz about what its like having a friendship with Jobs. Or Woz's opinions on Apple products. Woz tends to put forward a generally positive view of most things he comments on - to include both Jobs and Apple. But he has said that Jobs can be difficult for people to get along with at times. And he's spoken against the expected Apple line in the past. And its not the first time he's made comments that could be perceived as negative towards the iPhone.
In the end, when you talk to Jobs, you're talking to Apple. When you talk to Woz, you're not talking to Apple. You're talking to a guy who likes technology and practical jokes. A guy who's an Apple insider that isn't in the inner circle of Apple. You're talking to someone who's linked deeply to Silicon Valley and Apple culture. And you're talking to a hacker who's hacks were part of a revolution. But you're not talking to Apple.
It has come to the good Minister's attention, via very earnest talks with telecom industry representatives, that the Internet is not a lorry. You just don't dump a movie on to the Internet without it getting mixed up with everyone's emails. And in fact, unlike when you mail a DVD, a movie on the Internet is not a single package. A movie can be many hundreds of thousands of packages. In fact, with the help of a very complex Powerpoint slide, the Honourable Minister was able to understand that merely even beginning to send a movie on the Internet requires a "three way handshake" which is, in effect, three whole messages being sent back and forth on the Internet. Meanwhile, the poor, near impoverished telecoms have been fooled in to under-charging by at least 1/3 of what they should be owed. They have attempted to make this up by charging the service provider and the user but that is only 2 of the fair 3 charges owed; and that's just this handshake. It doesn't even take account all the other packets involved. Clearly someone has made a mistake and it will take government to step in and rectify the situation. To further educate the Honourable Minister, the British Phonographic Industry attended the presentation and noted that the thousands of packets noted by the telecom industry each represents a lost sale and is largely the cause of the Spice Girls entering retirement.
I disagree with your assessment that no greater threat exists now than in the past. The threat that presently exists is a public willingness to roll over and do nothing.
Yes - because that has never, ever happened before. This is a completely new facet of human behavior unique to recent history.
Why go through every possible event no matter how improbable? Are we going to reduce this conversation to conspiracy theories?
Isn't that what this whole conversation is? There's no evidence. There's some observations. But most of this conversation is pure speculation - to include comments on any given agent's "resolve".
Yes. Which they do grow around Valdosta. Granted - tobacco is a pretty big crop around there too. But I never ran in to anyone boasting about the tobacco crop.
Other than Onions, Valdosta is best known for their university and air patch. Neither the university or air base are all that large. It isn't a region known for forward thinking.
GPS would give them the same data, though. It's just a matter of being able to use WiFi instead of or to augment GPS data. In short, they had a solution, thought it'd be cool to use another, now are in hot water.
Ya know - now that I look at what you wrote, I noticed the emoticon. Humor; ar ar. And so here I am being all serious and unintentionally trolled. Unfortunately, it seems that all kidding aside, there are way too many people who are fearful due to a lack of understanding of the topic(s).
I think you're right; for Google all this is a moot point. But for the rest of us, I think there's a good opportunity to educate the public (and ourselves) on the issues involved. We do that with the full understanding that education always has limited effect and not everyone will benefit.
Having played with Kismet (which is what Google is using), it seems to me that it's really easy to accidentally capture packet payloads. Kismet will dump payloads in to handy pcaps by default.
Wardriving generally sucks for data capture. It's good for surveying (its interesting to see the proliferation of WAPs and secured APs at that... and some people choose really amusing SSIDs). But driving around alters signal strength which means losing packets. You're also channel hopping which means losing packets. If you really want to log people's data, you wardrive first to identify targets then come back and listen to just that (or a very small subset) of targets.
In all seriousness, they should have used GPS and this would have been a non-issue.
They're not trying to figure out where THEY are. They're collecting data so when I (since I do have an Android device) walk along that same street, my device has another data source to figure out where I am. Google's Streetview vans are zipping along making snapshots. They're also wardriving; recording what WAPs they find and where (via GPS and triangulation). With that data, my device can do some triangulation on several WAP signals and get a pretty decent idea where I am as well.
Google is scary. They keep showing us how powerful collected data can be. It's the public's view in to that world and it's frightening. Some members of that public start thinking about all the projects Google is involved with and all the additional data that goes through their systems and their even more frightened. Then they go to post about that fear on Facebook.
Why the heck does FF need the GPS location? *sigh* I really wish Android had a way to turn features off, not that I'm overly paranoid or anything...
You CAN turn that stuff off. I often do. But there are times when location is handy. For example, if I'm in an area of town that I'm not familiar with and find I've got some time to kill and want to do it with a cup of coffee.
Clinging to fantasy isn't insight. By your reasoning, one is "sticking your head in the sand" if one doesn't entertain the idea that orcs and elves were responsible.
All the "suspicious" circumstances have been addressed time and time again. The only ones who still list them as something strange are the ones who want to believe in conspiracy itself. At which point, you might as well spend the same amount of energy on The Time Cube for all the good it will do you or anyone else.
How do you codify this better understanding? Write it into a law? Or do you just let each individual cop, prosecutor, judge, and jury apply their own 'better understanding'?
Isn't that how it works now? Cop makes an arrest based on his interpretation of the law. Prosecutor decides if there is a case and then makes that case. Judge listens to the prosecutor's case and your lawyer's case, ensuring legal requirements are met and giving instructions to the jury. Jury makes a decision based on what they heard in court (and their own biases). A court ruling is given. A precedent is set. The next time this hits a court, that precedent will be referenced.
While I appreciate the desire to improve our legal framework, the reality is that legal framework is rather ponderous and slow to catch up with the pace of technology. Laws take time to write. And they go through enough hands that your intent isn't always what gets codified. Laws are rarely cut-and-dry and often interpreted anyway. So what you end up with is a constantly out-of-date yet increasingly complex system of law full of loopholes and pitfalls that only an expert can hope to keep up with, much less understand.
Huh?! Crime will always seek new avenues of least resistance. New technology creates new opportunities, and not just for consumers but for those with base motives. Once we figure out what we don't want to happen, we have to create laws against it.
The methods and avenues of attack may be new, but the crimes themselves tend to be very old. Fraud, harassment, trespassing, etc. We often don't need new laws but rather simply a better understanding of existing law applies to new technology. And an increased awareness of criminal use of that technology.
You might want to go back over your history a bit. There were criminal cases against intruders well before computer trespass laws hit the books (and the laws that exist are not universal). The B&E bit is a red herring. The real issue back then was being able to demonstrate damages; something that's changed drastically with more recent precedents set for incident handling man-hours being added to the damages tally.
Billboards talk sternly about special penalties for "gun crime," and in the UK the phrase "knife crime" is common, too. (I've heard that one a few times in the U.S., but not often. But over there, there's http://www.knifecrimes.org/uk-knife-crime-victims.html)
A distinction to be drawn, I think: there are pure category crime descriptions that people *don't* object to (I'm thinking of "white collar crime" / "violent crime"), but these seem different than "gun crime" or "knife crime" (no one talks about "car crime," despite the huge number of vehicular homicides, etc.), because these describe a crime according to its impact / immediate level of fear or risk, rather than on the instrumentalities used to perpetrate it.
It seems to me that the distinction is then political in nature. These labels are used to push agendas.
Because cyber-crime doesn't refer to a mere specialized type of crime, but an entirely different paradigm. This new paradigm of crime not only requires completely new types of training and skill-building, it will require well-written and clear laws that don't yet exist if we're ever going to get out of the "wild west" in which we currently reside.
New laws? Ahhh - I see. You're part of the problem.
Al Qaeda was not only in the Taliban's back yard, but there by agreement and in active participation with the Taliban. US forces in the region are a foreign entity in every sense of the word. While it's not a given that the Taliban could root out Al-Qaeda if they wanted to, they are hardly in the same situation as the US.
But again - not the point. I suppose I shouldn't have picked Afghanistan. There are far too many knee-jerk responses associated with it.
Not trying to cast aspersions on either group, just saying a lot of people have a pretty whacked sense of perspective.
Fair enough point. However, I don't see any significance to my point. What I was trying to point out is that people from distant corners of the world can have an impact on yours; no matter how unlikely one would think it.
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I thought Woz and Jobs got along pretty well even now, but I can't imagine this sort of thing making their relationship any better.
Every once in awhile you can find comments from Woz about what its like having a friendship with Jobs. Or Woz's opinions on Apple products. Woz tends to put forward a generally positive view of most things he comments on - to include both Jobs and Apple. But he has said that Jobs can be difficult for people to get along with at times. And he's spoken against the expected Apple line in the past. And its not the first time he's made comments that could be perceived as negative towards the iPhone.
In the end, when you talk to Jobs, you're talking to Apple. When you talk to Woz, you're not talking to Apple. You're talking to a guy who likes technology and practical jokes. A guy who's an Apple insider that isn't in the inner circle of Apple. You're talking to someone who's linked deeply to Silicon Valley and Apple culture. And you're talking to a hacker who's hacks were part of a revolution. But you're not talking to Apple.
It has come to the good Minister's attention, via very earnest talks with telecom industry representatives, that the Internet is not a lorry. You just don't dump a movie on to the Internet without it getting mixed up with everyone's emails. And in fact, unlike when you mail a DVD, a movie on the Internet is not a single package. A movie can be many hundreds of thousands of packages. In fact, with the help of a very complex Powerpoint slide, the Honourable Minister was able to understand that merely even beginning to send a movie on the Internet requires a "three way handshake" which is, in effect, three whole messages being sent back and forth on the Internet. Meanwhile, the poor, near impoverished telecoms have been fooled in to under-charging by at least 1/3 of what they should be owed. They have attempted to make this up by charging the service provider and the user but that is only 2 of the fair 3 charges owed; and that's just this handshake. It doesn't even take account all the other packets involved. Clearly someone has made a mistake and it will take government to step in and rectify the situation. To further educate the Honourable Minister, the British Phonographic Industry attended the presentation and noted that the thousands of packets noted by the telecom industry each represents a lost sale and is largely the cause of the Spice Girls entering retirement.
I disagree with your assessment that no greater threat exists now than in the past. The threat that presently exists is a public willingness to roll over and do nothing.
Yes - because that has never, ever happened before. This is a completely new facet of human behavior unique to recent history.
Why go through every possible event no matter how improbable? Are we going to reduce this conversation to conspiracy theories?
Isn't that what this whole conversation is? There's no evidence. There's some observations. But most of this conversation is pure speculation - to include comments on any given agent's "resolve".
Yes. Which they do grow around Valdosta. Granted - tobacco is a pretty big crop around there too. But I never ran in to anyone boasting about the tobacco crop.
Other than Onions, Valdosta is best known for their university and air patch. Neither the university or air base are all that large. It isn't a region known for forward thinking.
Didn't we already do this pissing contest earlier this week?
GPS would give them the same data, though. It's just a matter of being able to use WiFi instead of or to augment GPS data. In short, they had a solution, thought it'd be cool to use another, now are in hot water.
Ya know - now that I look at what you wrote, I noticed the emoticon. Humor; ar ar. And so here I am being all serious and unintentionally trolled. Unfortunately, it seems that all kidding aside, there are way too many people who are fearful due to a lack of understanding of the topic(s).
I think you're right; for Google all this is a moot point. But for the rest of us, I think there's a good opportunity to educate the public (and ourselves) on the issues involved. We do that with the full understanding that education always has limited effect and not everyone will benefit.
Having played with Kismet (which is what Google is using), it seems to me that it's really easy to accidentally capture packet payloads. Kismet will dump payloads in to handy pcaps by default.
Wardriving generally sucks for data capture. It's good for surveying (its interesting to see the proliferation of WAPs and secured APs at that... and some people choose really amusing SSIDs). But driving around alters signal strength which means losing packets. You're also channel hopping which means losing packets. If you really want to log people's data, you wardrive first to identify targets then come back and listen to just that (or a very small subset) of targets.
So... wardriving is evil?
In all seriousness, they should have used GPS and this would have been a non-issue.
They're not trying to figure out where THEY are. They're collecting data so when I (since I do have an Android device) walk along that same street, my device has another data source to figure out where I am. Google's Streetview vans are zipping along making snapshots. They're also wardriving; recording what WAPs they find and where (via GPS and triangulation). With that data, my device can do some triangulation on several WAP signals and get a pretty decent idea where I am as well.
Google is scary. They keep showing us how powerful collected data can be. It's the public's view in to that world and it's frightening. Some members of that public start thinking about all the projects Google is involved with and all the additional data that goes through their systems and their even more frightened. Then they go to post about that fear on Facebook.
Well, of course not. The last thing the US needs is a weapons riding gap.
Remember - the Internet is killing investigative journalism.
Slim Pickens rode a bomb not a missile.
Even after the Cold War, the US Military maintains the ability to ride any weapons delivery system in to Armageddon.
Why the heck does FF need the GPS location? *sigh* I really wish Android had a way to turn features off, not that I'm overly paranoid or anything...
You CAN turn that stuff off. I often do. But there are times when location is handy. For example, if I'm in an area of town that I'm not familiar with and find I've got some time to kill and want to do it with a cup of coffee.
Clinging to fantasy isn't insight. By your reasoning, one is "sticking your head in the sand" if one doesn't entertain the idea that orcs and elves were responsible.
All the "suspicious" circumstances have been addressed time and time again. The only ones who still list them as something strange are the ones who want to believe in conspiracy itself. At which point, you might as well spend the same amount of energy on The Time Cube for all the good it will do you or anyone else.
We can't all play the conspiracy theorist. Some of us have to remain rooted in reality.
How do you codify this better understanding? Write it into a law? Or do you just let each individual cop, prosecutor, judge, and jury apply their own 'better understanding'?
Isn't that how it works now? Cop makes an arrest based on his interpretation of the law. Prosecutor decides if there is a case and then makes that case. Judge listens to the prosecutor's case and your lawyer's case, ensuring legal requirements are met and giving instructions to the jury. Jury makes a decision based on what they heard in court (and their own biases). A court ruling is given. A precedent is set. The next time this hits a court, that precedent will be referenced.
While I appreciate the desire to improve our legal framework, the reality is that legal framework is rather ponderous and slow to catch up with the pace of technology. Laws take time to write. And they go through enough hands that your intent isn't always what gets codified. Laws are rarely cut-and-dry and often interpreted anyway. So what you end up with is a constantly out-of-date yet increasingly complex system of law full of loopholes and pitfalls that only an expert can hope to keep up with, much less understand.
Huh?! Crime will always seek new avenues of least resistance. New technology creates new opportunities, and not just for consumers but for those with base motives. Once we figure out what we don't want to happen, we have to create laws against it.
The methods and avenues of attack may be new, but the crimes themselves tend to be very old. Fraud, harassment, trespassing, etc. We often don't need new laws but rather simply a better understanding of existing law applies to new technology. And an increased awareness of criminal use of that technology.
You might want to go back over your history a bit. There were criminal cases against intruders well before computer trespass laws hit the books (and the laws that exist are not universal). The B&E bit is a red herring. The real issue back then was being able to demonstrate damages; something that's changed drastically with more recent precedents set for incident handling man-hours being added to the damages tally.
Billboards talk sternly about special penalties for "gun crime," and in the UK the phrase "knife crime" is common, too. (I've heard that one a few times in the U.S., but not often. But over there, there's http://www.knifecrimes.org/uk-knife-crime-victims.html)
A distinction to be drawn, I think: there are pure category crime descriptions that people *don't* object to (I'm thinking of "white collar crime" / "violent crime"), but these seem different than "gun crime" or "knife crime" (no one talks about "car crime," despite the huge number of vehicular homicides, etc.), because these describe a crime according to its impact / immediate level of fear or risk, rather than on the instrumentalities used to perpetrate it.
It seems to me that the distinction is then political in nature. These labels are used to push agendas.
Because cyber-crime doesn't refer to a mere specialized type of crime, but an entirely different paradigm. This new paradigm of crime not only requires completely new types of training and skill-building, it will require well-written and clear laws that don't yet exist if we're ever going to get out of the "wild west" in which we currently reside.
New laws? Ahhh - I see. You're part of the problem.
I mean, yeah, its a pain in the ass and unfortunate, but its not like we didn't get anything out of the deal.
And continuing to get something out of the deal. Namely - "web" sites that are really IE6 sites.
Al Qaeda was not only in the Taliban's back yard, but there by agreement and in active participation with the Taliban. US forces in the region are a foreign entity in every sense of the word. While it's not a given that the Taliban could root out Al-Qaeda if they wanted to, they are hardly in the same situation as the US.
But again - not the point. I suppose I shouldn't have picked Afghanistan. There are far too many knee-jerk responses associated with it.
Not trying to cast aspersions on either group, just saying a lot of people have a pretty whacked sense of perspective.
Fair enough point. However, I don't see any significance to my point. What I was trying to point out is that people from distant corners of the world can have an impact on yours; no matter how unlikely one would think it.