Or, you know, identify your targets before shooting at them? In some cases, that's impossible. In the case of the Apache helicopter attack, the Apache wasn't being shot at, and at their range, they should have been able to make out the camera tripods.
The footage in question has communications from several different parties with different views of the situation. The gunships might not have been shot at, but there were ground troops involved and they were certainly in possible danger. The distance for the gunship is misleading.
Secondly, you'd be amazed at how dangerous a camera can look. I've been playing paintball with photographers on the field and sworn that they were opposing teammates shooting at us. Paintball has little to do with combat. But the effect of confirmation bias is very clear and clearly played a roll in this incident.
Well, how else are we to get both sides of the story? If journalists are only embedded on one side, then we're only getting half of the story, no? Journalism should be neutral, unless you're implying that we shouldn't hear their side unless it came directly from us. At that point, it is no longer journalism. Instead, it is full blown-out propaganda.
At the same time, we have to be aware that propaganda exists on all fronts. There is certainly value is seeking out all sides of a given story. But one has to consider the sources involved. What one could be witnessing is simply competing propaganda fed by opposing agendas.
You should read some history, too, as Iraq asked the US if it'd mind if it invaded Kuwait to secure the oil fields that were engaging in slant-drilling into Iraqi oilfields, to which the US responded that it doesn't have any opinion on Arab-Arab actions. If they'd said no, there's a very good chance that Iraq never would have invaded. I wonder if the US would sit by if a neighboring country would steal their resources?
This whole series of history seems to be amazing examples of miscommunication. The US had previously been willing to protect Kuwaiti tankers being attacked by Iranian silkworm platforms. It boggles my mind that they weren't able to use more forceful language. But then, in diplomatic language, sound-bites can be misleading. Iraq had long-standing complaints against Kuwait and a massive war debt to them. The slant-drilling issue (which I don't think has ever been confirmed) was just one of several issues leading to friction between Iraq and Kuwait. Perhaps the US didn't have a clear picture as to what extent Saddam was willing to go to solve Iraq's Kuwaiti problems.
I also have to wonder about the mental state of Saddam. He always mis-calculated the situation and US intentions. During the Gulf War, the majority of the Iraqi air force (hardened in the Iran-Iraq war) was evacuated to Iran with the idea that this "mother of all battles" would bring them back in to play at a later time. And despite repeated warnings from the US, Saddam was always willing to push the US to carry out its threats. For example, with the whole weapons inspection issue, Saddam claims that he believed he had induced enough of a question as to the existence of chemical weapons to give Iran pause while showing enough to convince the US that those weapons didn't exist. The gambit obviously didn't work.
The "enemies" you say were fucking journalists, and some guys with AK-47s (perfectly legal in Iraq).
At the time, those journalists were identified as enemy combatants. That's the first fuck-up. The second fuck-up would be identifying the civilians rendering aid as also collecting weapons. If what had been identified was actually happening, there would be no issue.
The TV show didn't catch because it was originally aired out of sequence.
I see this whenever Firefly is mentioned. But I don't agree. I thought the airing sequence worked fine.
I didn't see Firefly when it aired. But before it came out on DVD, I got some recordings and watched in the airing sequence. Yes - there was a disjointed feel. But I found myself wanting to know more about these characters and why they interact the way they did. So when episodes showed character histories, I felt like it was a treat - another layer of mystery revealed.
This went from "it was an accident" to "there's nothing in the data anyway" to "hey, will you look at that! How'd that get in there??"
It's all about how the situation is being presented. Keep in mind that there are a lot of voices involved and a lot of different interpretations. Even your use of quotes that aren't actually quotes is an example of how the situation is being mis-presented. Another interesting example is the quote from the article:
"However, we can already state that [...] Google did indeed record email access passwords [and] extracts of the content of email messages," CNIL said.
The use of the word "extracts" implies that Google has gone through to extract data out of the raw packet captures. That would be potentially damning as it certainly would imply that this is more than a simple by-product of the software / process they were following to catalog WAPs. But if this is like other examples, further digging will show that this is not the case. That what exists is simply raw packet captures.
I would occasionally run kistmet on my daily commute to see what SIDs I could find. My application of choice was Kismet - the same tool found in Google's digital toolbox. From Kismet's docs:
By default Kismet will log the pcap file, gps log, alerts, and network log in XML and plaintext.
By default, Kismet will try to log to pcapfiles using the PPI per-packet header. The PPI header is a well-documented header supported by Wireshark and other tools, which can contain spectrum data, radio data such as signal and noise levels, and GPS data.
Now, I was primarily interested in SIDs (you can find some amusing names). But since I was running Kismet default, I was also logging captured packets. Once in awhile I went through that data (most of the time it took up space so I deleted it). Most of the time it was junk. Once I picked up a partial web page for a boat supply store. Another time I gleaned someone's POP password. Who knows what else was on my HD that I deleted. If I had been more interested in the packet information, I probably would have had a lot more sensitive data hanging around. And I suspect that's the situation Google ended up in.
Everything is correct, but in this case also reconrding is not passive. They set up the equipment to record the packets, my computer does not record packets of unencrypted networks unless I tell it to do so.
It also probably doesn't listen for WiFi packets unless you tell it to do so either. That's not what being passive is about. The issue is whether you're having to induce behavior or interact with a network to get this information. That is, those packets are being transmitted whether you're there to record them or not. Tricking the system to provide traffic or joining the network in order to see traffic would be interactive.
Let's compare the locked door/unlocked door analogy to collecting WiFi data. My parents know if there doors are locked or not unlocked. They have absolutely no fucking clue if what they transmit across there WiFi is secure or not. They assume it is, but as long as the website opens up they are blissful and ignorant to it. I'd be willing to bet that a huge majority of majority of people are in this boat. What makes what Google is doing so bad is they are driving around exploiting this. Is it illegal? I don't know. Is it morally questionable? Certainly. For a company that proclaims 'Do No Evil', sure seems a bit on the evil side guy.
You might have a point if you can demonstrate that Google has been indexing personal data gleened from traffic captures. But I haven't seen anything that indicates that the traffic isn't simply a byproduct of their real intent - indexing wireless access points (I've done the exact same thing indexing sites using Kismet with default configs). I'd have a hard time seeing anything threatening in listing the SID and location of my WAP.
And to be clear - I get it. Yes - people were clueless. Yes - people are surprised, embarrassed, and maybe even angry about it. The natural reaction to that is to lash out. Big deal. Educate the public and fix the problem rather than try and hang Google for doing something benign. The next ones (the ones that have probably been doing this for some time) might be doing something entirely different than Google.
The fact that your parents understand how locks work but don't understand how WiFi works has nothing to do with this. I know how windows work. One of the walls to my living room is, essentially, glass (a series of windows and double glass doors). But since that wall faces a bunch of trees, I wasn't too worried about it. Then one night, I'm taking a walk with my family and we cut across a back road that goes past the back of the house. I was surprised to find that at night, I could see clear through the living room in to the kitchen despite all the obstacles I thought would block the view. I went and got window coverings that week. I bet I had neighbors with a clear view in to our house but I didn't go and bang on their door over it.
I use a Plantronics Voyager Pro coupled with a Droid. It uses dual noise-canceling microphones that handle background noise pretty good - including the data center.
You're allowed your opinion of them - heck I don't like them because right now, their a net harm on the games playability for everybody else. The reality though - is that quite a lot of them really are in a state of - if I do this my kids eat tonight, if I don't they don't and working for a salary, it's their bosses who make the money.
If Activision began selling gold at an outright exchange rate, I wouldn't mind gold farmers. At that point, it's all fair game. Of course, I'd probably also quite playing WoW.
I always thought the concept of the stereotypical gold farmer was very cyber-punk. There's something intriguing about an economically disadvantaged individual making a living producing entirely arbitrary virtual tokens. But at the end of the day, these individuals are just as much a part of the system as those who create the demand for the market they feed.
None of this however is particularly important to the premise of the book. The book is about sweatshop labor and economics, the games are a mileu of workers united via the internet - which is a core plot requirement, but the particular ethics of gold farming is really not relevant to the point of the book, so while it's an interesting discussion, it's not interesting as part of a discussion about the book in question.
Since when has relevancy been a guide in discussion?;) But yeah - very true. Sadly, the closest the book comes to this discussion, and thus representing folks like me, is labeling me as a racist rich player who hunts them out of spite. Which I suppose is how I'd be viewed by the average gold farmer.
The problem isn't entirely Microsoft solutions. The problem is a lot of applications that rely on Microsoft solutions that just have no real alternative that will run on a FOSS OS.
Yes and no. Our shop will avoid a Microsoft-only solution as much as possible. There are times when the Microsoft (or Microsoft-dependent) solution works so well for us that it over-rides that bias. But there have been plenty of times where we scratched the surface, found Microsoft, and went with a competitor with no regrets. Almost every time we've ended up with something based on Microsoft products, we've had to have additional Microsoft products to properly use / manage it.
Of course, devil's in the details. YMMV. My industry view (admittedly entirely IT focused) may not reflect any other given industry who's niche might be entirely served solely by something built on Microsoft products.
Microsoft is entrenched in every industry. I work IT at an accounting office, and it would be chaos trying to replace the functionality we would lose if we switched everyone to linux.
Sure - any industry that relies on IT is going to trip over Microsoft products in one way or another. In other words, Microsoft's entrenchment in IT means it is likewise entrenched elsewhere as well.
I should note that in some cases, Microsoft's solution works fine. But in my case, there are usually plenty of other solutions that work just as well and it is the fact that Microsoft is involved that demands that I have to use additional Microsoft products to interact with another.
A few points of import. The goldfarmers in the novel never steal accounts. They just play the game, and build up large banks of gold to sell. While all WoW players know that a significant part of the banks that the goldsellers sell were acquired through account-theft, these are not the people that FTW is about.
I don't think you can call playing the game 18 hours a day a crime. The fact that they subsequently sell the gold - well that's only a crime in the concept of breaking a EULA... which is not something I have EVER heard a/. poster speaking AGAINST.
I hated gold farmers before their industry started turning to compromising accounts. I don't mind if someone wants to dedicate an inordinate amount of their time to playing the game and amassing in-game wealth; that's playing the game. But buying that wealth with currency outside the game is crossing the line. I like the EULA on this point. Buying gold is cheating. I don't condone cheating. And gold farmers are feeding a market for it.
Incidentally, Blizzard began to do a good job at shutting down gold farmer bots. I suspect that put a crimp on the market that spurred on the tactic to compromise accounts. Not only are those accounts an immediate source of wealth (liquidating gear and bank accounts), but they act as mules (moving gold and items between servers using character transfers), and utility accounts (spamming advertisements, running bots / exploits to amass wealth) before those accounts get shut down. I've had a couple handfuls of guild mates get compromised over the years and it's interesting to watch what their stolen characters are doing and getting reports on their locations and/or inventory once they are returned to their owners.
Furthermore, the world in the book is a bit different, it's set a few years in the future - and the games are no longer MEANT to be a closed economy there.
Doctorow seems to like writing stories set "20 minutes in to the future" (to borrow from Max Headroom).
The only people I can understand thinking they need ms are the gamers, and really that's on them to vote with their dollars and make the game publishers release for more platforms. They don't, for the same reason I don't cancel my netflix membership and tell them it's because of silverlight -- because it's very inconvenient. Though I have sent about a dozen emails telling them the silverlight choice sucks...
Right now, I'm typing this on my work laptop that's running Linux. I have a VirtualBox config that runs WinXP. That exists solely because of a select few pieces of enterprise IT software that only exists in Windows and doesn't play nice with WINE. Occasionally I'll fire up Outlook on it to do something particularly annoying calendar operation on Exchange that doesn't work well in Evolution or Exchange OWA. And then there's the odd Word doc that borks under OpenOffice (more so with the latest MS Office that they're kicking around right now).
I've played this game for years now. The only reason I ever have a need for Microsoft is because Microsoft is entrenched in the IT industry. Most of the time we've been able to avoid this trap. But once in awhile, someone sticks their foot in to it and I'm guaranteed to need a VMWare (or now VirtualBox) setup for another X years.
Are there some charlatans out there? Of course. Are there also legitimate treatments that the U.S. FDA just doesn't recognize yet? Of course. Why is it a good thing to take away people's freedom to decide for themselves which is which?
Because there are far more charlatans out there than legitimate treatments awaiting approval. And while I'm a big fan of personal freedom, there are some things that we are simply not equipped to determine. That's why I am not my own doctor (heck - even doctors aren't always the best at self-medicating).
The herbal market in the US is rife with snake oil. And while it's all very nice to look at it as freedom, there's real danger the unwitting "customer" who buys in to these scams. Glymetrol is a great example. How many diabetics have substituted legitimate, effective treatment for this scam?
I'm not calling for FDA jurisdiction over herbal remedies. However, clearly, "buyer beware" isn't the be-all and end-all in medicine. Shutting down scam artists that prey on people who desperately need hope is certainly a "positive development."
Belay that order; Cory Doctorow is the John Katz of the Internet 2.0. Avoid at all costs.
To each their own. I disagree. Doctorow's stuff is worth a read. However, I don't think he's an amazing author. A lot of his stuff leaves me with the impression of being a little under-done; a little raw, in need of a bit more baking to be done. But he writes some cool stuff based on some interesting ideas. And he gives it away free if you're not inclined to buy it.
As for self promotion... well, sure. He's an author. He makes a living writing stuff. You don't sell writing without getting people to read it. And to do that, you have to both get the word out and get people interested. Doctorow's thing is to write about current ideas (I don't even agree with everything all of those). But I've never heard of him claiming that he is, himself, the font from which all modern wisdom originates.
I also heard him give credit during some radio interview. I'd imagine after giving numerous interviews to promote a book, one would slip up on some details here and there while covering the same ground so many times.
It's not just the actions of a third party. The civilians in this case took action as well. And as well intentioned as they might be, they put themselves in harms way. Civilians stop being civilians when they take part in the conflict (in so far as they're defending their homeland if I remember right - that's the difference between lawful and unlawful combatants which is an entirely different kettle of fish).
The real issue here is that the military personnel misidentified the status of those civilians. The key distinguishing feature is whether they're armed. And in the video, civilians are identified as armed at multiple times when there is clearly nothing that indicates that they are armed (not even mistaking camera gear as weapons - which I find to be believable). That mistake leads to the go-ahead to open fire (and the second issue - the military's apparent in-ability to own up to the fact that they screwed up).
The US following the Geneva Conventions is a complete red herring.
The civilians were following the stipulations of the Conventions. The American soldiers were not. You seem to be agreeing with the person you are objecting to.
Don't get me wrong - this incident was, at best, a horrible mistake. The US military screwed up in this engagement. These people shouldn't have been killed.
I'm finding your statement interesting. What makes you say that the civilians were following the stipulations of the Conventions?
The main issues I see is first, determining if someone is a civilian or not. And secondly, that the civilians not take part in hostilities. I don't believe the combatants are covered by the Conventions in this case. And so if a civilian looks like a combatant, and participates in the conflict, they're going to be identified as combatants.
Yes, the insurgents do not follow the Convention. However, the Convention is binding on a party which signed it in any war, even if that war is with someone who didn't sign the convention.
Only if that other party follows the stipulations of the Conventions.
Of course, when that other party doesn't follow it - such as, say, combatants not wearing uniform or other form of identification - then the Convention does not protect them. But all other protections remain in effect, including those of civilians.
I'm not sure that's so clear. If your opposing force doesn't follow the Geneva Convention, then nobody has to. The issue here is that we have militants dressed like civilians. And we can't even really be sure if any given civilian population is represented by a given militant organization.
Are you, basically, saying that US has a right to suspend or ignore the Convention when it finds it convenient to do that, despite its signature?
I'm saying the Convention doesn't apply as clearly to these situations as critics would have us believe. Now - having said that... it'd be a generally good idea to do so despite a lack of requirement. But I see it as a very difficult thing to do in that environment.
I'll repeat myself - read what the Geneva Convention(s) have to say. If you cannot tell if someone is a combatant or not, you have to assume that he is a civilian and thus protected. Helping wounded combatants does not make a non-combatant a combatant. Unless the aircrew actually saw the men pick up weapons, they where not allowed to open fire on them.
Which is all nice as long as everyone is following the Geneva Convention - including wearing uniforms. Unfortunately, there's one side that dresses like civilians. That's only one issue with invoking the rules of war as a criticism. The Geneva Convention is not a be-all, end-all definition on how to conduct warfare.
In the same way that a guy with a fleet of fishing trawlers is passively collecting fish but the guy with a fly rod is interacting with them?
Not at all. Your analogy seems more focused on magnitude. After all, the fishermen are certainly interacting with the waters and fish (medium and data) involved. I would say it's closer to whale watching. You need to go to a location where the whales can be found. And then you have to look for them. You might employ tools like a boat, binoculars, and whale-spotting guide. But seeing a whale surface has no impact on the whale's activities and doesn't involve getting the whale to do anything that it wasn't already doing on it's own.
Contrary to what you may think, I also don't find what google has done outrageous, but I would like the current legality of the practice cleared up so geeks like you and I know where we stand. I don't see anyone with any sort of political clout suggesting we outlaw sniffers. I see a perfectly reasonable investigation into the practice to determine if google broke existing laws.
Pity it takes lots of posturing from Government officials to define the legal standing of an activity.:)
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Or, you know, identify your targets before shooting at them? In some cases, that's impossible. In the case of the Apache helicopter attack, the Apache wasn't being shot at, and at their range, they should have been able to make out the camera tripods.
The footage in question has communications from several different parties with different views of the situation. The gunships might not have been shot at, but there were ground troops involved and they were certainly in possible danger. The distance for the gunship is misleading.
Secondly, you'd be amazed at how dangerous a camera can look. I've been playing paintball with photographers on the field and sworn that they were opposing teammates shooting at us. Paintball has little to do with combat. But the effect of confirmation bias is very clear and clearly played a roll in this incident.
Well, how else are we to get both sides of the story? If journalists are only embedded on one side, then we're only getting half of the story, no? Journalism should be neutral, unless you're implying that we shouldn't hear their side unless it came directly from us. At that point, it is no longer journalism. Instead, it is full blown-out propaganda.
At the same time, we have to be aware that propaganda exists on all fronts. There is certainly value is seeking out all sides of a given story. But one has to consider the sources involved. What one could be witnessing is simply competing propaganda fed by opposing agendas.
You should read some history, too, as Iraq asked the US if it'd mind if it invaded Kuwait to secure the oil fields that were engaging in slant-drilling into Iraqi oilfields, to which the US responded that it doesn't have any opinion on Arab-Arab actions. If they'd said no, there's a very good chance that Iraq never would have invaded. I wonder if the US would sit by if a neighboring country would steal their resources?
This whole series of history seems to be amazing examples of miscommunication. The US had previously been willing to protect Kuwaiti tankers being attacked by Iranian silkworm platforms. It boggles my mind that they weren't able to use more forceful language. But then, in diplomatic language, sound-bites can be misleading. Iraq had long-standing complaints against Kuwait and a massive war debt to them. The slant-drilling issue (which I don't think has ever been confirmed) was just one of several issues leading to friction between Iraq and Kuwait. Perhaps the US didn't have a clear picture as to what extent Saddam was willing to go to solve Iraq's Kuwaiti problems.
I also have to wonder about the mental state of Saddam. He always mis-calculated the situation and US intentions. During the Gulf War, the majority of the Iraqi air force (hardened in the Iran-Iraq war) was evacuated to Iran with the idea that this "mother of all battles" would bring them back in to play at a later time. And despite repeated warnings from the US, Saddam was always willing to push the US to carry out its threats. For example, with the whole weapons inspection issue, Saddam claims that he believed he had induced enough of a question as to the existence of chemical weapons to give Iran pause while showing enough to convince the US that those weapons didn't exist. The gambit obviously didn't work.
The "enemies" you say were fucking journalists, and some guys with AK-47s (perfectly legal in Iraq).
At the time, those journalists were identified as enemy combatants. That's the first fuck-up. The second fuck-up would be identifying the civilians rendering aid as also collecting weapons. If what had been identified was actually happening, there would be no issue.
Why this is being given such legal scrutiny.
"I say! There's a bandwagon out there and we're not on it!"
"Are people paying attention to it?"
"Whole throngs of people."
"I'll get my hat..."
The TV show didn't catch because it was originally aired out of sequence.
I see this whenever Firefly is mentioned. But I don't agree. I thought the airing sequence worked fine.
I didn't see Firefly when it aired. But before it came out on DVD, I got some recordings and watched in the airing sequence. Yes - there was a disjointed feel. But I found myself wanting to know more about these characters and why they interact the way they did. So when episodes showed character histories, I felt like it was a treat - another layer of mystery revealed.
This went from "it was an accident" to "there's nothing in the data anyway" to "hey, will you look at that! How'd that get in there??"
It's all about how the situation is being presented. Keep in mind that there are a lot of voices involved and a lot of different interpretations. Even your use of quotes that aren't actually quotes is an example of how the situation is being mis-presented. Another interesting example is the quote from the article:
"However, we can already state that [...] Google did indeed record email access passwords [and] extracts of the content of email messages," CNIL said.
The use of the word "extracts" implies that Google has gone through to extract data out of the raw packet captures. That would be potentially damning as it certainly would imply that this is more than a simple by-product of the software / process they were following to catalog WAPs. But if this is like other examples, further digging will show that this is not the case. That what exists is simply raw packet captures.
I would occasionally run kistmet on my daily commute to see what SIDs I could find. My application of choice was Kismet - the same tool found in Google's digital toolbox. From Kismet's docs:
By default Kismet will log the pcap file, gps log, alerts, and network
log in XML and plaintext.
By default, Kismet will try to log to pcapfiles using the PPI per-packet
header. The PPI header is a well-documented header supported by
Wireshark and other tools, which can contain spectrum data, radio data
such as signal and noise levels, and GPS data.
Now, I was primarily interested in SIDs (you can find some amusing names). But since I was running Kismet default, I was also logging captured packets. Once in awhile I went through that data (most of the time it took up space so I deleted it). Most of the time it was junk. Once I picked up a partial web page for a boat supply store. Another time I gleaned someone's POP password. Who knows what else was on my HD that I deleted. If I had been more interested in the packet information, I probably would have had a lot more sensitive data hanging around. And I suspect that's the situation Google ended up in.
Just wait until they add Muhammad as a new livestock.
And so begins the pitch...
Everything is correct, but in this case also reconrding is not passive. They set up the equipment to record the packets, my computer does not record packets of unencrypted networks unless I tell it to do so.
It also probably doesn't listen for WiFi packets unless you tell it to do so either. That's not what being passive is about. The issue is whether you're having to induce behavior or interact with a network to get this information. That is, those packets are being transmitted whether you're there to record them or not. Tricking the system to provide traffic or joining the network in order to see traffic would be interactive.
Let's compare the locked door/unlocked door analogy to collecting WiFi data. My parents know if there doors are locked or not unlocked. They have absolutely no fucking clue if what they transmit across there WiFi is secure or not. They assume it is, but as long as the website opens up they are blissful and ignorant to it. I'd be willing to bet that a huge majority of majority of people are in this boat. What makes what Google is doing so bad is they are driving around exploiting this. Is it illegal? I don't know. Is it morally questionable? Certainly. For a company that proclaims 'Do No Evil', sure seems a bit on the evil side guy.
You might have a point if you can demonstrate that Google has been indexing personal data gleened from traffic captures. But I haven't seen anything that indicates that the traffic isn't simply a byproduct of their real intent - indexing wireless access points (I've done the exact same thing indexing sites using Kismet with default configs). I'd have a hard time seeing anything threatening in listing the SID and location of my WAP.
And to be clear - I get it. Yes - people were clueless. Yes - people are surprised, embarrassed, and maybe even angry about it. The natural reaction to that is to lash out. Big deal. Educate the public and fix the problem rather than try and hang Google for doing something benign. The next ones (the ones that have probably been doing this for some time) might be doing something entirely different than Google.
The fact that your parents understand how locks work but don't understand how WiFi works has nothing to do with this. I know how windows work. One of the walls to my living room is, essentially, glass (a series of windows and double glass doors). But since that wall faces a bunch of trees, I wasn't too worried about it. Then one night, I'm taking a walk with my family and we cut across a back road that goes past the back of the house. I was surprised to find that at night, I could see clear through the living room in to the kitchen despite all the obstacles I thought would block the view. I went and got window coverings that week. I bet I had neighbors with a clear view in to our house but I didn't go and bang on their door over it.
I use a Plantronics Voyager Pro coupled with a Droid. It uses dual noise-canceling microphones that handle background noise pretty good - including the data center.
You're allowed your opinion of them - heck I don't like them because right now, their a net harm on the games playability for everybody else.
The reality though - is that quite a lot of them really are in a state of - if I do this my kids eat tonight, if I don't they don't and working for a salary, it's their bosses who make the money.
If Activision began selling gold at an outright exchange rate, I wouldn't mind gold farmers. At that point, it's all fair game. Of course, I'd probably also quite playing WoW.
I always thought the concept of the stereotypical gold farmer was very cyber-punk. There's something intriguing about an economically disadvantaged individual making a living producing entirely arbitrary virtual tokens. But at the end of the day, these individuals are just as much a part of the system as those who create the demand for the market they feed.
None of this however is particularly important to the premise of the book. The book is about sweatshop labor and economics, the games are a mileu of workers united via the internet - which is a core plot requirement, but the particular ethics of gold farming is really not relevant to the point of the book, so while it's an interesting discussion, it's not interesting as part of a discussion about the book in question.
Since when has relevancy been a guide in discussion? ;) But yeah - very true. Sadly, the closest the book comes to this discussion, and thus representing folks like me, is labeling me as a racist rich player who hunts them out of spite. Which I suppose is how I'd be viewed by the average gold farmer.
The problem isn't entirely Microsoft solutions. The problem is a lot of applications that rely on Microsoft solutions that just have no real alternative that will run on a FOSS OS.
Yes and no. Our shop will avoid a Microsoft-only solution as much as possible. There are times when the Microsoft (or Microsoft-dependent) solution works so well for us that it over-rides that bias. But there have been plenty of times where we scratched the surface, found Microsoft, and went with a competitor with no regrets. Almost every time we've ended up with something based on Microsoft products, we've had to have additional Microsoft products to properly use / manage it.
Of course, devil's in the details. YMMV. My industry view (admittedly entirely IT focused) may not reflect any other given industry who's niche might be entirely served solely by something built on Microsoft products.
Microsoft is entrenched in every industry. I work IT at an accounting office, and it would be chaos trying to replace the functionality we would lose if we switched everyone to linux.
Sure - any industry that relies on IT is going to trip over Microsoft products in one way or another. In other words, Microsoft's entrenchment in IT means it is likewise entrenched elsewhere as well.
I should note that in some cases, Microsoft's solution works fine. But in my case, there are usually plenty of other solutions that work just as well and it is the fact that Microsoft is involved that demands that I have to use additional Microsoft products to interact with another.
A few points of import. The goldfarmers in the novel never steal accounts. They just play the game, and build up large banks of gold to sell. While all WoW players know that a significant part of the banks that the goldsellers sell were acquired through account-theft, these are not the people that FTW is about.
I don't think you can call playing the game 18 hours a day a crime. The fact that they subsequently sell the gold - well that's only a crime in the concept of breaking a EULA... which is not something I have EVER heard a /. poster speaking AGAINST.
I hated gold farmers before their industry started turning to compromising accounts. I don't mind if someone wants to dedicate an inordinate amount of their time to playing the game and amassing in-game wealth; that's playing the game. But buying that wealth with currency outside the game is crossing the line. I like the EULA on this point. Buying gold is cheating. I don't condone cheating. And gold farmers are feeding a market for it.
Incidentally, Blizzard began to do a good job at shutting down gold farmer bots. I suspect that put a crimp on the market that spurred on the tactic to compromise accounts. Not only are those accounts an immediate source of wealth (liquidating gear and bank accounts), but they act as mules (moving gold and items between servers using character transfers), and utility accounts (spamming advertisements, running bots / exploits to amass wealth) before those accounts get shut down. I've had a couple handfuls of guild mates get compromised over the years and it's interesting to watch what their stolen characters are doing and getting reports on their locations and/or inventory once they are returned to their owners.
Furthermore, the world in the book is a bit different, it's set a few years in the future - and the games are no longer MEANT to be a closed economy there.
Doctorow seems to like writing stories set "20 minutes in to the future" (to borrow from Max Headroom).
The only people I can understand thinking they need ms are the gamers, and really that's on them to vote with their dollars and make the game publishers release for more platforms.
They don't, for the same reason I don't cancel my netflix membership and tell them it's because of silverlight -- because it's very inconvenient. Though I have sent about a dozen emails telling them the silverlight choice sucks...
Right now, I'm typing this on my work laptop that's running Linux. I have a VirtualBox config that runs WinXP. That exists solely because of a select few pieces of enterprise IT software that only exists in Windows and doesn't play nice with WINE. Occasionally I'll fire up Outlook on it to do something particularly annoying calendar operation on Exchange that doesn't work well in Evolution or Exchange OWA. And then there's the odd Word doc that borks under OpenOffice (more so with the latest MS Office that they're kicking around right now).
I've played this game for years now. The only reason I ever have a need for Microsoft is because Microsoft is entrenched in the IT industry. Most of the time we've been able to avoid this trap. But once in awhile, someone sticks their foot in to it and I'm guaranteed to need a VMWare (or now VirtualBox) setup for another X years.
Are there some charlatans out there? Of course. Are there also legitimate treatments that the U.S. FDA just doesn't recognize yet? Of course. Why is it a good thing to take away people's freedom to decide for themselves which is which?
Because there are far more charlatans out there than legitimate treatments awaiting approval. And while I'm a big fan of personal freedom, there are some things that we are simply not equipped to determine. That's why I am not my own doctor (heck - even doctors aren't always the best at self-medicating).
The herbal market in the US is rife with snake oil. And while it's all very nice to look at it as freedom, there's real danger the unwitting "customer" who buys in to these scams. Glymetrol is a great example. How many diabetics have substituted legitimate, effective treatment for this scam?
I'm not calling for FDA jurisdiction over herbal remedies. However, clearly, "buyer beware" isn't the be-all and end-all in medicine. Shutting down scam artists that prey on people who desperately need hope is certainly a "positive development."
Belay that order; Cory Doctorow is the John Katz of the Internet 2.0. Avoid at all costs.
To each their own. I disagree. Doctorow's stuff is worth a read. However, I don't think he's an amazing author. A lot of his stuff leaves me with the impression of being a little under-done; a little raw, in need of a bit more baking to be done. But he writes some cool stuff based on some interesting ideas. And he gives it away free if you're not inclined to buy it.
As for self promotion... well, sure. He's an author. He makes a living writing stuff. You don't sell writing without getting people to read it. And to do that, you have to both get the word out and get people interested. Doctorow's thing is to write about current ideas (I don't even agree with everything all of those). But I've never heard of him claiming that he is, himself, the font from which all modern wisdom originates.
I also heard him give credit during some radio interview. I'd imagine after giving numerous interviews to promote a book, one would slip up on some details here and there while covering the same ground so many times.
It's not just the actions of a third party. The civilians in this case took action as well. And as well intentioned as they might be, they put themselves in harms way. Civilians stop being civilians when they take part in the conflict (in so far as they're defending their homeland if I remember right - that's the difference between lawful and unlawful combatants which is an entirely different kettle of fish).
The real issue here is that the military personnel misidentified the status of those civilians. The key distinguishing feature is whether they're armed. And in the video, civilians are identified as armed at multiple times when there is clearly nothing that indicates that they are armed (not even mistaking camera gear as weapons - which I find to be believable). That mistake leads to the go-ahead to open fire (and the second issue - the military's apparent in-ability to own up to the fact that they screwed up).
The US following the Geneva Conventions is a complete red herring.
The civilians were following the stipulations of the Conventions. The American soldiers were not. You seem to be agreeing with the person you are objecting to.
Don't get me wrong - this incident was, at best, a horrible mistake. The US military screwed up in this engagement. These people shouldn't have been killed.
I'm finding your statement interesting. What makes you say that the civilians were following the stipulations of the Conventions?
The main issues I see is first, determining if someone is a civilian or not. And secondly, that the civilians not take part in hostilities. I don't believe the combatants are covered by the Conventions in this case. And so if a civilian looks like a combatant, and participates in the conflict, they're going to be identified as combatants.
Yes, the insurgents do not follow the Convention. However, the Convention is binding on a party which signed it in any war, even if that war is with someone who didn't sign the convention.
Only if that other party follows the stipulations of the Conventions.
Of course, when that other party doesn't follow it - such as, say, combatants not wearing uniform or other form of identification - then the Convention does not protect them. But all other protections remain in effect, including those of civilians.
I'm not sure that's so clear. If your opposing force doesn't follow the Geneva Convention, then nobody has to. The issue here is that we have militants dressed like civilians. And we can't even really be sure if any given civilian population is represented by a given militant organization.
Are you, basically, saying that US has a right to suspend or ignore the Convention when it finds it convenient to do that, despite its signature?
I'm saying the Convention doesn't apply as clearly to these situations as critics would have us believe. Now - having said that... it'd be a generally good idea to do so despite a lack of requirement. But I see it as a very difficult thing to do in that environment.
I'll repeat myself - read what the Geneva Convention(s) have to say. If you cannot tell if someone is a combatant or not, you have to assume that he is a civilian and thus protected. Helping wounded combatants does not make a non-combatant a combatant. Unless the aircrew actually saw the men pick up weapons, they where not allowed to open fire on them.
Which is all nice as long as everyone is following the Geneva Convention - including wearing uniforms. Unfortunately, there's one side that dresses like civilians. That's only one issue with invoking the rules of war as a criticism. The Geneva Convention is not a be-all, end-all definition on how to conduct warfare.
In the same way that a guy with a fleet of fishing trawlers is passively collecting fish but the guy with a fly rod is interacting with them?
Not at all. Your analogy seems more focused on magnitude. After all, the fishermen are certainly interacting with the waters and fish (medium and data) involved. I would say it's closer to whale watching. You need to go to a location where the whales can be found. And then you have to look for them. You might employ tools like a boat, binoculars, and whale-spotting guide. But seeing a whale surface has no impact on the whale's activities and doesn't involve getting the whale to do anything that it wasn't already doing on it's own.
Contrary to what you may think, I also don't find what google has done outrageous, but I would like the current legality of the practice cleared up so geeks like you and I know where we stand. I don't see anyone with any sort of political clout suggesting we outlaw sniffers. I see a perfectly reasonable investigation into the practice to determine if google broke existing laws.
Pity it takes lots of posturing from Government officials to define the legal standing of an activity. :)