>> You don't "have" to provide your SSN to anyone. Then again, they don't "have" to provide you >> with the services you are requesting.
Nope, you don't have to put in your SSN. You don't even have to file a tax return. You are not forced to provide your information to the IRS. Then again, if you fail to do either part, they may not play very nicely.
By filing your tax return, you are requesting the service that they accept your paperwork and either allow you to pay, or refund your overpayment. By refusing to prove a SSN, they don't have to provide that service. Of course, they'll still come after you, so you're just out of luck.
If (if, if, if) it ever came down to that, there is plenty of room for people like you. I would like to think that not every man would *need* to stand on the front lines, if such a thing could even apply in such a war.
Those that go to the "we will fight" even if they win, will fail. Fighting against something isn't enough. There has to be a plan way beyond that.
If someone says "I don't like the government, I will kill them", what do they plan for after that? Nothing. They have no plan, other than resisting what they don't like. Some sort of government is required to guide the people. We have the wonders of a capitalist society right now. People need, so someone else makes and sells. All is fine and dandy until... well... we're seeing the drawbacks of that. People need housing, yet housing is unaffordable. People need transportation, but they can't afford a car. They can't ride a horse. They can't walk because necessities are too wide spread. Greed has taken capitalism and brought us to the brink of of failure. The golden rule applies. He who has the gold makes the rule. It should be, the more intelligent people make the guidelines to which we live, for the benefit of society.
I'd love to go to a homeless shelter and say, "I will take every willing man and woman. We will build shelter together, and we will grow your food." That won't work. Land is owned, and people can't just say "I need 100 acres to help these people. These 100 acres aren't being used." Is it wrong to want to help people in such a way? They are working, and they are being paid for their work. It may or may not be in gold or dollars, but they are being paid. Of course, our government will want their cut. They want to tax because they use the land. They want to tax because they have improved the land. They want to tax because they have made a product (the food). They want to tax because the product was sold (food produced and sold to those who made the food). It quickly becomes unsustainable. Even a small utopian camp would be taxed out of existance, unless they had a rich benefactor (i.e., he with the gold). It would then grow into what I mentioned before. Peace through superior firepower. These subversives aren't paying their taxes. The would be arrested (nice men with guns), tried for tax evasion, trespassing, non-licensed food production, etc. The homeless you've given a better way to live are now back where they started jailed, and then homeless once released.
It's a game we can't win. I'm on the edge of it, as most of us are. I work hard, I make some money, and I will never be "he with the gold", therefore I will never make the rule.
So, we continue... until something happens.
I've read a few news stories about the government now trying to control and evict people from homeless "tent cities". Previously employed people who now can't afford anything, who just need a place to live are told they can't even live in a tent. I wish I knew what they (the government) expected all of us to do. Get a job? Jobs are fewer and fewer. Buy a house? Not without a job. Buy food? Not without a job. Get a job then. How?
I'm not one of the homeless yet. Well, technically I am. I live with friends now. I pay rent through labor and favors (buy dinner. buy cigarettes). I don't have a place in my name, because I don't have the money. But everyone else likes the money that I do make. They all ask for it. I just want to live and thrive. Is there anything wrong with that?
American citizens are not well armed, compared to the government that controls them.
I was listening to the radio on the drive home today. The DJ made an excellent point.
He was talking about a news story. A guy in Eastern Europe decided his mother-in-law was the cause of his wife leaving him. He went to her house, and shot it with an anti-tank missile. The mother-in-law survived the rocket attack, so he continued his attack with a machine gun. She survived that too, and he was finally arrested. I imagine the police may have noticed all the noise.:)
The DJ said, "I make good money, and I know a lot of people. I have no idea where to get a anti-tank rocket nor a machine gun." He had a point. American citizens cannot own weapons that the government uses. If they are found with them, they will be taken away by the government, and the owner will end up in prison for a long time.
Here in America, we are well protected. We're taught guns are dangerous and we shouldn't have them. Gun owners are vilified. Those with collections are extremely dangerous and should be avoided. Citizens don't own anything more powerful than semi-automatic pistols and rifles.
Should the citizens of America revolt, the first in the fighting will be annihilated by law enforcement and the military. Obviously they are the subversives trying to destroy the American way. They will be made an example of to the rest of the population. Subversive "terrorist" cells will be hunted down and killed, with only a few surviving for prosecution in closed courts.
If (and only if) it continued, some would realize, "these are my friends and family standing up against what America has become", and then they may bring their weapons and training to the side of the civilians. This second wave will likely be annihilated also. Advanced weapons (bombers, UAV's, heavy smart weapons) will be employed.
In subsequent waves (if there are any), the tide may turn, as the sides become equal in power. Military units will side with the civilians. The lucky (?) survivors will live to tell the tales of the worst conflict the world has ever seen.
Other countries will take advantage of the unrest and the unavailability of American forces world wide to continue their "world police" actions.
Unfortunately, if an uprising like this did occur, it would be a disaster for America and large parts of the world, economically, socially, and politically.
The American Revolutionary War would seem like a civil dispute compared to what it would be like if America turned upon itself now.
It's not that I disagree that it couldn't happen. It's very likely that it could.
You don't "have" to provide your SSN to anyone. Then again, they don't "have" to provide you with the services you are requesting.
Your serial number has been issued citizen. Please report to your assigned re-education and work camp via the transport the government has been gracious enough stop in front of your house. Never mind the nice men with weapons, they are here for your protection. You know, there could be a terrorist behind any Bush.
> It's like a game of red light/green light, and the citizens are 'it', > and blindfolded. By the time you hear gov't.'s footsteps running up > on you...it's too late.
Don't worry, you won't hear their footsteps. The snipers are already in place, and the swat team is standing on the roof ledge ready to rappel in to clean up after. There weren't any extra witnesses in the house that "accidentally burned down, killing all the occupants", were there?
Excuse me, there's a knock on the door. Funny, I don't remember seeing that black van [no carrier]
I did, not intentionally, leave out other purposes that are protected by copyright. If they are used as a subset of an academic, comparative, nonprofit, parody or satirical piece, that is looked favorably upon. But, it's not so cut and dry that you can say "Oh, I was using it for satire in my piece", and be let off the hook. Those with the money will fight against those without the money, and needless to say we know who will usually win.
I know if someone quoted my previous posting, even with the copyright marks all over it, I'd have to take them to court. They could draw it out in court for so long that it would be impossible for me to keep up. Even if I did win on the first round, they'd appeal, keeping it in court for even longer. Those of us with limited funds (like, everyone reading this) can't keep up with the big boys and their on-staff legal team who could fight forever. If I ever did win, I could be tied up in court for a long time just trying to collect what the court awarded me (say a few hundred bucks), plus my legal fees, which will amount to so much unless I have had a lawyer friend with nothing better to do, we'd both be old men before we'd see our winnings.
My current employer has been in a patent dispute for years. The first real judgment came down after something like 5 years. That will be appealed, and it'll be tied up in court for even more years. Someday they may get a fat check for millions, or the other side will declare bankruptcy and there will be no one to collect from.
> Has the Guardian's online readership or ad revenue plummeted?
I would guess that their readership has dropped. Ours has had a decline also. Readers have more choices, and will tend to float around looking for what interests them. I still read Slashdot because of the commentary. I won't say it's the best "news" site out there, but the conversation is stimulating.
They may be upset because even though they're listed (I assume they are, I didn't check), readership has declined because new users are able to find similar stories on other resources fairly easily. It's much easier than it was back in the day.
But, is it a reason for Google to pay the news sources? No. Is the phone company responsible for paying the people who advertise in the phone book, because people can find other similar businesses easily in the yellow pages? Maybe back in the day you only knew about Bob the Plumber, but now that you've discovered the yellow pages, you find that there are 100 plumbers in your area, and you can price shop before you schedule an appointment. Sure, it's hurt some revenue.
Back in the day (like before this damned Interweb's tubes got all over the place), I had 1 choice for a local newspaper. That expanded to 3, when the nearest metro area (about 100 miles away) added a local section. Many many people subscribed to all of them, so they could get all the tidbits. There wasn't much sharing of stories between them, except for the wire stories, so you were pretty much guaranteed to get unique news.
Now, almost everyone runs wire stories, and local interest stories aren't anywhere near as common. Readers can go to any site they want or prefer to read them. So, sure, the local boys no longer have their captive audience. Google is just a nice big rich target for threatening. Maybe they'll get a few million and residuals just to make them go away. Maybe they won't.
Actually, I had to REQUEST being added as a Google News source. A little while later we were reviewed and they determined that we were a news source and not just a link spammer, and voila, we were listed.
Being added and/or removed isn't a big deal. The link is at the bottom of the main Google News page.
The first time we were listed on the front page (at the top of the page at that), we were killed. Slashdotted to an extreme, if you will. A bit of improving, and now we don't notice when we're shown on the main page. Sometimes we're on the direct news.google.com page. Sometimes we're on a section, or a national page.
Stories that are linked from the main page frequently get us higher traffic, but not always. Well, there will always be more hits, but it may not outrank other stories that we've historically run. In any case, any publisher that has advertising, that counts their views and clicks (like, ummm, anyone with a clue should be doing for years now), their income will increase from being linked, IF they have a quality story.
I think they want to charge, because there's pretty serious competition. Just because my story is linked directly from the main page doesn't mean that it'll be there in an hour or tomorrow. It can (and frequently does) rotate the links to the more current story. So, I ran my story at noon. You ran yours at 2pm with updates, yours is more relevant.
There are a few here.:) Unfortunately, they're always in a distant city or country (checked, not based on their word). I'll let you know if I ever meet one locally.
My wife and I are separated, you insensitive clod!:)
Oddly enough though, when I take the baby out (she's 2) ya, lots of people say how cute she is, start asking her name, how old she is, etc, etc....
Apparently the line "I have good baby making genes, wanna fuck" is just plain wrong. Sometimes it's fun to experement.:) "She needs a new mommy, she died last week. Wanna come back to my place" is a dead tie for last place too.
I've read varying opinions about men with cats. Some people imply that it's showing feminine tendencies. Then again, I own three, and women generally love cats. Hey, something cute, cuddly, furry that will curl up with you on a cold winter night, and most importantly doesn't stink like a dog.:) I believe (in my amateur psychologist way) that it brings back memories of their favorite cuddle toy from childhood.
Then again, when the action starts, the cat gets kicked off the bed. Sorry kitty, us humans have something to do that doesn't involve you.:)
One of my cats didn't really appreciate that, and she'd jump back on the bed every 10 minutes or so. She (the cat) was possessive of me, so she'd be jealous of any woman I brought home. As she's gotten older, and seen me with more women, she's decided to take control of my chairs instead. There's nothing worse than trying to sit down in a black chair in a dark room, and finding the black cat laying there, who turns into all claws and teeth when you try to remove her.
But, girls love my sports car. They want to touch it. Then they want to ride in it. Then.... well.... use your imagination, you pervert, I'm not writing a dirty story here.:)
A few have said they thought I may have been compensating for something, but when it comes down to it, they find it's not compensation, it's advertising.:)
I didn't realize what kind of problem RFID sniffing was. I know the theory, but not how widespread it is. Someone came over the other night, saying that he had his card information stolen 3 times now. He hasn't actually used the card, so it's not a POS or online transaction theft. Each time it was stolen, he had a new card issued. I asked to see the card, and it's an AmEx with a RFID in it.
He had spoken with someone else who said that he had to be bumped into to read it, like physical contact. I did a little reading, and I already know a good bit about RFID's. I found a kit for $8 that'll read them from about 9 feet. I found another kit that will read them from 20 feet. Probably a higher gain antenna. You can call AmEx and specifically ask for one without the feature, but it's not terribly common knowledge. I advised him to keep his wallet in a static bag, and/or stop carrying those cards.
Now I want to get a reader, just to check friends when they walk in the door. It's not to steal their information, it's to warn them, "Get rid of that card!" I'm a good guy. The bad guy would just stay parked outside a busy store and collect information from shoppers entering or leaving.
Making credit cards RF readable is a really stupid idea. I can't believe they did it. Well, I can, but they should have listened to the countless techs who I'm sure said "DON'T DO IT!" Ahh, the difference between lowly techs and the superior brain trust in management.
It took me a little while to understand how it works. I migrated from ipchains, so it was a world of difference, but I appreciated the larger feature set once I got the hang of it.
Ya, most of the guides are huge and complex, when you can do a lot of things very easily. I've been asked a few times, "How can I block this IP from attacking our SSH port". That's a one liner. You'll be able to derive it from what I posted earlier.:)
That makes it interesting for copyright law. It's my understanding that if you quote an insignificant piece, that's simply a quote. If you quote the whole work, then it's infringement.
Like, it's generally (but not always) ok to quote say one line from an article in a magazine. But if you copy the entire article that's a little fuzzier. If you copy the entire publication, you're just not going to win no matter how it's argued.
So, to quote an insignificant but complete phrase from a twitter is almost always going to be the whole thing.
By quoting a copyrighted work, you'd better be clearly inside the lines of "fair use". Of course, fair use is not clearly defined, so it can be fought by both sides, and the bigger meaner (and usually richer) side will win. The considerations for fair use are:
1. the purpose and character of the use;
2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
3. the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
By quoting a few lines from a New York Times article in a high school student essay, they're likely going to be ok. It's frequently looked at as the impact on the original publication. A blogger with 4 daily readers probably won't get a C&D by the NYT either, even if they publish the whole article. A blogger with 400,000 daily readers, who reguarly reposts NYT material may have an economic impact on the NYT, and therefor be in a bit of trouble. The C&D will generally say "cut it out, or we'll play rough."
So, if some twit you wrote (err, twitter twittlie doo, whatever) got quoted by ESPN.com, either you can be happy that someone actually looked (because the rest of us don't care), or you can call your lawyer and have a C&D sent over. They'll retract that part of the story, and never quote you again. Or they won't really care, and you can take them to court for your (oh my gosh) serious economic losses and personal suffering.
Really though, if you didn't want it quoted, you shouldn't have posted it for the world to read.
To move the SSH port:
# in/etc/rc.d/sshd_config uncomment and modify the Port line.
Port 1222
To block traffic: I have mine in a big script that does a lot of automated things, like looping through friendly networks, enemy networks, etc, and building a full ruleset based on just a few arrays. You could use the following to do it manually. Just replace any variable (things that start with $) with the real value.
$int = your local interface $ip = your local IP $friend = friendly IP or network (like 192.168.1.0/24) $sshport = your SSH port (1222 if used as above)
-- begin example code iptables -P INPUT ACCEPT iptables -A INPUT -s $friend -p tcp --dport $sshport -j ACCEPT iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport $sshport -j DROP -- end example code
That would:
Accept everything (a safe default).
Specifically allow request to that port from your friends.
Specifically drop all other requests to that port.
To wipe these settings out (like, if you mess up), execute: iptables -F
A working example is as follows.
I am at work. My IP is 1.2.3.4
My server is 2.1.1.2
Another server is on 2.1.1.3
I run SSH on port 1234
I want to be able to log in from work, but I do NOT want anyone else, including the network my server is on, to be allowed to access
iptables -P INPUT ACCEPT iptables -A INPUT -s 1.2.3.4/32 -p tcp --dport 1234 -j ACCEPT iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 1234 -j DROP
That's all you need. Now, I can SSH in from my office. If I SSH from another server, it hangs. Because I set the "DROP" rule, it's simply dropping the traffic.
You can set 3 rules by default. ACCEPT, REJECT, and DROP.
ACCEPT lets the traffic go through normally.
REJECT returns a "Connection refused"
DROP simply drops the packets, so to the remote side it's unsure if anything is even there.
A default DROP rule would be:
iptables -A INPUT -j DROP
Only (ONLY!) ever set a default DROP after you've defined your accepted networks and ports!!!!
In writing this, I made a little mistake. I hit the up arrow to rerun the DROP line, but change it to REJECT. I forgot to run the ACCEPT line first. Now no matter where I'm coming from, I cannot get in. The server is still running, but all SSH traffic is blocked. (I had another way in, don't worry.)
You can get fancier with it for logging. For example, you can make a new rule. I use "LOG_DROP". I put these lines in before any drop lines. You only do this once in your script.
iptables -N LOG_DROP iptables -A LOG_DROP -j LOG --log-prefix '[FW_DROP] : ' iptables -A LOG_DROP -j DROP
Then instead of using the rule "DROP", I use the rule "LOG_DROP"
Now all dropped connections are logged for me.:)
I warn you though, when you set a default DROP for everything, this will make your logs get big really fast. If you're on a network with Windows machines, they babble to each other all day with lots of broadcast traffic.
You can give yourself some control over this, by logging say port 22, but just dropping the rest.
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 22 -j LOG_DROP iptables -A INPUT -j DROP
That may not log warning that there's some new nasty that people are scanning for. There's a lot of malware that opens specific ports, which other people will scan for.
I recommend putting all of this somewhere like/etc/rc.d/rc.firewall, or/etc/rc.d/init.d/firewall, and adding it to your startup ap
Mental note: When Lupis42 invites you over for "game night", politely say no, and block his calls.
And as for the pictures in question, I'm not surprised they haven't been released. One charge for the girl is bad enough, if the parents start distributing the pictures, they'd be in for a world of pain. I'm afraid to think of all the charges, but at least some start with 18 U.S.C. 2257. I'm sure there would be many more state and local charges.
The picture as described, with a girl naked, except for a towel around her waist, can easily be construed as pornography.
Then again, would any photo shot at a topless beach or nudist colony be pornography? Not really. I'm sure there can be some that are, but not the general snapshot of someone standing there.
We are a repressed society. Some Americans have open minds about themselves and the form that we live in. Some are offended by people going to the beach in (oh my gosh) bikinis. An amazing number are offended by nudist camps, even those that are adult only. Little do those who are so upset about this know, but even I am naked everyday between the time I step into the shower, and the time I get out of it. I hope they are too, but I'd prefer not to think about most people naked. (oohh, the mental images, I've gone mentally blind!)
So kids are doing stupid things. You know what, their PARENTS should be parenting. Just because you can give a 10 year old kid a cell phone to call home on doesn't mean that you should. Great, you've given them one with a camera and the ability to send text messages. Back in the day, these were more discrete events, where we actually had to sneak away together, and there was no evidence.:)
[flashing back to high school]......
ya, we've all been doing things that we shouldn't have, but it's because we circumvented parental controls. Giving such a blatant way to circumvent the parental controls is stupid.
I like that kids can have cell phones. They can call home in an emergency. "Mom, my friend is drunk, I don't want to ride home with her." is the best call you can hope for that night. Go, pick up the kids, and collect the car in the morning. It's much better than the knock on the door from law enforcement.
I'm not going to try to tell people how to parent, and neither should the law, but the "sexting" thing is something that should be within the parents ability to control. Prosecuting a child for the law that's suppose to protect the child from older predators is stupid.
Wrapping around? Probably and failing.:) Wrapping like a parabola, tube, or plane? Probably with some success.
I really enjoyed playing with 2.4Ghz and parabola's. In the end, it was more effective (cost, time, and results) to buy a decent parabolic antenna. I have a nice one in storage right now. It's about 3 feet across, mesh, 24dBi and 8 degree beam width. It's served me well when I've needed it (and gotten some funny looks when I didn't).
I didn't like the tube antenna (aka enclosed yagi or can antenna). They're good for the size, but I prefer the performance of a real parabolic reflector.
I've seen some that are ground planes or basic reflectors (half your signal from an omnidirectional antenna is going the wrong way, bounce it back towards where you want it). Still, I rather have as much of my signal going where I want it, than going where I don't care about it.:)
I'm still curious about putting a 200mw 2.4Ghz transceiver on an old C-band dish with a wire mesh overlay.:) I've been told that it will be overkill, as the edges won't have a chance of doing any practical work.
The tin foil hat works. We can't read your mind. Feel safe wearing the tin foil hat. You've protected yourself against our evil plot to control your mind.:)
You can still have fun with those though. Give them a special purpose built SSH connection.:) I used to monitor the logs, and when I saw too many denied connections to port 22 (which no one should have been using anyways), I'd just set a default DROP from them everywhere. Ok so you beat on port 22, well, you won't find the real port either.:) More importantly, it looks like they crashed my server. Well, at least to their IP. To everyone else, its still alive and happy.
Ya, decimate is one of those terms that's more often than not misused. For everyone else who has no clue, it's to remove 10% of whatever. As I've heard the Romans would do as punishment, they would kill every 10th person. I wasn't there, so I can't testify to that.:)
I don't see any event, other than say the planet exploding, that would cause humanity to disappear. We may make it bad enough where a large portion doesn't survive though. Losing 10% wouldn't be catastrophic. Losing 90% wouldn't be so bad either. There are an awful lot of humans on the earth. I would just prefer not to fall into the categories of being one of the chosen lost, nor the person choosing them.
With the population clusters that we have now, mass migration is a very bad thing. It wouldn't have been so bad with a tribe of even 100 people, but if a million move from one area to another, that's going to be catastrophic for the destination.
Many times when I've tried to restore from tape, the tape failed. Well, the tape, the drive, or maybe even the backup software wasn't writing anything. Most have been installations that I had nothing to do with, but was asked to help in the recovery.
Tapes are expensive too. I've tried to sell the idea of using tapes to back up the hard drive based backups. It's hard to say to the boss, "you need to spend $x, that will sit in an off-site safe, and you will never recover the cash, other than having the peace of mind knowing that you have your data on tapes that may actually work when you need to restore them."
My latest tape experience reinforced my old opinions. I found a tape changer. It was a beautiful device, just sitting in a back room doing absolutely nothing. It had 9 tapes sitting in their slots, and none in the drive. I asked around, and finally found the answer to why it wasn't being used. "Oh, because we never managed to make it work."
Well, obviously idiots were working it.:) Just kidding if you happen to be reading this. I was able to make the changer work. Unfortunately, as it turned out, the drive didn't work properly. Once I got it online and working correctly, it was able to read and write to three tapes, before the fourth jammed. Not just jammed. I had to disassemble the tape drive itself to remove the tape. I checked everything over, put it back together, and it again went through about 3 tapes fine before another jammed.
I did a little research, and this was a known problem with that particular drive. Since the changer could hold two tape drives, I put in a request for two upgrade drives, so we could use higher capacity tapes. Veto'd within 24 hours. I modified my request, and again it was shot down. I spelled out the wonderful reasons to have a tape archive of the hard drive based backup solution, with a reason of possible "what if" scenarios. Still, veto'd. it simply wasn't happening, even with replacing the drive with an original size drive. The drive itself was just too expensive.
So, what happens when your nice tape drive fails, and you can't get a new one in? Backups stop, and the data you have on tape is worthless. What happens when they stop making that media, and/or that type of drive. Your old backups are worthless.
I like the hdd solution. Most data needs to be recovered within 30 days as an outside window. Most people want the backups from 10 minutes ago (good luck with that), but are satisfied with one from within 24 hours. Really, they don't have the patients to wait for a tape to be delivered from the off-site storage facility, or even downloaded if that facility has means to play your tape. "My data is gone now, I need it back NOW!" God forbid you have two (or 10) pieces of data on different tapes that need to be recovered immediately.
Slashdot Mirror
Please read and quote the entire line.
>> You don't "have" to provide your SSN to anyone. Then again, they don't "have" to provide you
>> with the services you are requesting.
Nope, you don't have to put in your SSN. You don't even have to file a tax return. You are not forced to provide your information to the IRS. Then again, if you fail to do either part, they may not play very nicely.
By filing your tax return, you are requesting the service that they accept your paperwork and either allow you to pay, or refund your overpayment. By refusing to prove a SSN, they don't have to provide that service. Of course, they'll still come after you, so you're just out of luck.
If (if, if, if) it ever came down to that, there is plenty of room for people like you. I would like to think that not every man would *need* to stand on the front lines, if such a thing could even apply in such a war.
Those that go to the "we will fight" even if they win, will fail. Fighting against something isn't enough. There has to be a plan way beyond that.
If someone says "I don't like the government, I will kill them", what do they plan for after that? Nothing. They have no plan, other than resisting what they don't like. Some sort of government is required to guide the people. We have the wonders of a capitalist society right now. People need, so someone else makes and sells. All is fine and dandy until ... well ... we're seeing the drawbacks of that. People need housing, yet housing is unaffordable. People need transportation, but they can't afford a car. They can't ride a horse. They can't walk because necessities are too wide spread. Greed has taken capitalism and brought us to the brink of of failure. The golden rule applies. He who has the gold makes the rule. It should be, the more intelligent people make the guidelines to which we live, for the benefit of society.
I'd love to go to a homeless shelter and say, "I will take every willing man and woman. We will build shelter together, and we will grow your food." That won't work. Land is owned, and people can't just say "I need 100 acres to help these people. These 100 acres aren't being used." Is it wrong to want to help people in such a way? They are working, and they are being paid for their work. It may or may not be in gold or dollars, but they are being paid. Of course, our government will want their cut. They want to tax because they use the land. They want to tax because they have improved the land. They want to tax because they have made a product (the food). They want to tax because the product was sold (food produced and sold to those who made the food). It quickly becomes unsustainable. Even a small utopian camp would be taxed out of existance, unless they had a rich benefactor (i.e., he with the gold). It would then grow into what I mentioned before. Peace through superior firepower. These subversives aren't paying their taxes. The would be arrested (nice men with guns), tried for tax evasion, trespassing, non-licensed food production, etc. The homeless you've given a better way to live are now back where they started jailed, and then homeless once released.
It's a game we can't win. I'm on the edge of it, as most of us are. I work hard, I make some money, and I will never be "he with the gold", therefore I will never make the rule.
So, we continue... until something happens.
I've read a few news stories about the government now trying to control and evict people from homeless "tent cities". Previously employed people who now can't afford anything, who just need a place to live are told they can't even live in a tent. I wish I knew what they (the government) expected all of us to do. Get a job? Jobs are fewer and fewer. Buy a house? Not without a job. Buy food? Not without a job. Get a job then. How?
I'm not one of the homeless yet. Well, technically I am. I live with friends now. I pay rent through labor and favors (buy dinner. buy cigarettes). I don't have a place in my name, because I don't have the money. But everyone else likes the money that I do make. They all ask for it. I just want to live and thrive. Is there anything wrong with that?
Be careful what you wish for.
American citizens are not well armed, compared to the government that controls them.
I was listening to the radio on the drive home today. The DJ made an excellent point.
He was talking about a news story. A guy in Eastern Europe decided his mother-in-law was the cause of his wife leaving him. He went to her house, and shot it with an anti-tank missile. The mother-in-law survived the rocket attack, so he continued his attack with a machine gun. She survived that too, and he was finally arrested. I imagine the police may have noticed all the noise. :)
The DJ said, "I make good money, and I know a lot of people. I have no idea where to get a anti-tank rocket nor a machine gun." He had a point. American citizens cannot own weapons that the government uses. If they are found with them, they will be taken away by the government, and the owner will end up in prison for a long time.
Here in America, we are well protected. We're taught guns are dangerous and we shouldn't have them. Gun owners are vilified. Those with collections are extremely dangerous and should be avoided. Citizens don't own anything more powerful than semi-automatic pistols and rifles.
Should the citizens of America revolt, the first in the fighting will be annihilated by law enforcement and the military. Obviously they are the subversives trying to destroy the American way. They will be made an example of to the rest of the population. Subversive "terrorist" cells will be hunted down and killed, with only a few surviving for prosecution in closed courts.
If (and only if) it continued, some would realize, "these are my friends and family standing up against what America has become", and then they may bring their weapons and training to the side of the civilians. This second wave will likely be annihilated also. Advanced weapons (bombers, UAV's, heavy smart weapons) will be employed.
In subsequent waves (if there are any), the tide may turn, as the sides become equal in power. Military units will side with the civilians. The lucky (?) survivors will live to tell the tales of the worst conflict the world has ever seen.
Other countries will take advantage of the unrest and the unavailability of American forces world wide to continue their "world police" actions.
Unfortunately, if an uprising like this did occur, it would be a disaster for America and large parts of the world, economically, socially, and politically.
The American Revolutionary War would seem like a civil dispute compared to what it would be like if America turned upon itself now.
It's not that I disagree that it couldn't happen. It's very likely that it could.
I am very hopeful Obama can turn quite a few things around, as he is trying to do right now. Unfortunately, as the American economy falls apart, people lose their jobs, homes, and ability to feed themselves, "bad things ©" will happen.
I won't say which side I will be on. I am an American, and as such I will defend the ways of America with my life. We have (hopefully) learned that violence is not the method in which things are changed, but not everyone else believes this way. I choose to protect my family and friends first from anything that may happen. Those who side with me will have chosen the peaceful and right way, but as the cold war proved, "peace through superior firepower" is a well ingrained belief in the government. They are willing to prove it through any group that looks like it may try "bad things ©". IANACT (I am not a conspiracy theorist), but please referenc
You don't "have" to provide your SSN to anyone. Then again, they don't "have" to provide you with the services you are requesting.
Your serial number has been issued citizen. Please report to your assigned re-education and work camp via the transport the government has been gracious enough stop in front of your house. Never mind the nice men with weapons, they are here for your protection. You know, there could be a terrorist behind any Bush.
> It's like a game of red light/green light, and the citizens are 'it',
> and blindfolded. By the time you hear gov't.'s footsteps running up
> on you...it's too late.
Don't worry, you won't hear their footsteps. The snipers are already in place, and the swat team is standing on the roof ledge ready to rappel in to clean up after. There weren't any extra witnesses in the house that "accidentally burned down, killing all the occupants", were there?
Excuse me, there's a knock on the door. Funny, I don't remember seeing that black van [no carrier]
I did, not intentionally, leave out other purposes that are protected by copyright. If they are used as a subset of an academic, comparative, nonprofit, parody or satirical piece, that is looked favorably upon. But, it's not so cut and dry that you can say "Oh, I was using it for satire in my piece", and be let off the hook. Those with the money will fight against those without the money, and needless to say we know who will usually win.
I know if someone quoted my previous posting, even with the copyright marks all over it, I'd have to take them to court. They could draw it out in court for so long that it would be impossible for me to keep up. Even if I did win on the first round, they'd appeal, keeping it in court for even longer. Those of us with limited funds (like, everyone reading this) can't keep up with the big boys and their on-staff legal team who could fight forever. If I ever did win, I could be tied up in court for a long time just trying to collect what the court awarded me (say a few hundred bucks), plus my legal fees, which will amount to so much unless I have had a lawyer friend with nothing better to do, we'd both be old men before we'd see our winnings.
My current employer has been in a patent dispute for years. The first real judgment came down after something like 5 years. That will be appealed, and it'll be tied up in court for even more years. Someday they may get a fat check for millions, or the other side will declare bankruptcy and there will be no one to collect from.
> Has the Guardian's online readership or ad revenue plummeted?
I would guess that their readership has dropped. Ours has had a decline also. Readers have more choices, and will tend to float around looking for what interests them. I still read Slashdot because of the commentary. I won't say it's the best "news" site out there, but the conversation is stimulating.
They may be upset because even though they're listed (I assume they are, I didn't check), readership has declined because new users are able to find similar stories on other resources fairly easily. It's much easier than it was back in the day.
But, is it a reason for Google to pay the news sources? No. Is the phone company responsible for paying the people who advertise in the phone book, because people can find other similar businesses easily in the yellow pages? Maybe back in the day you only knew about Bob the Plumber, but now that you've discovered the yellow pages, you find that there are 100 plumbers in your area, and you can price shop before you schedule an appointment. Sure, it's hurt some revenue.
Back in the day (like before this damned Interweb's tubes got all over the place), I had 1 choice for a local newspaper. That expanded to 3, when the nearest metro area (about 100 miles away) added a local section. Many many people subscribed to all of them, so they could get all the tidbits. There wasn't much sharing of stories between them, except for the wire stories, so you were pretty much guaranteed to get unique news.
Now, almost everyone runs wire stories, and local interest stories aren't anywhere near as common. Readers can go to any site they want or prefer to read them. So, sure, the local boys no longer have their captive audience. Google is just a nice big rich target for threatening. Maybe they'll get a few million and residuals just to make them go away. Maybe they won't.
Actually, I had to REQUEST being added as a Google News source. A little while later we were reviewed and they determined that we were a news source and not just a link spammer, and voila, we were listed.
Being added and/or removed isn't a big deal. The link is at the bottom of the main Google News page.
The first time we were listed on the front page (at the top of the page at that), we were killed. Slashdotted to an extreme, if you will. A bit of improving, and now we don't notice when we're shown on the main page. Sometimes we're on the direct news.google.com page. Sometimes we're on a section, or a national page.
Stories that are linked from the main page frequently get us higher traffic, but not always. Well, there will always be more hits, but it may not outrank other stories that we've historically run. In any case, any publisher that has advertising, that counts their views and clicks (like, ummm, anyone with a clue should be doing for years now), their income will increase from being linked, IF they have a quality story.
I think they want to charge, because there's pretty serious competition. Just because my story is linked directly from the main page doesn't mean that it'll be there in an hour or tomorrow. It can (and frequently does) rotate the links to the more current story. So, I ran my story at noon. You ran yours at 2pm with updates, yours is more relevant.
Hey, there's one I never tried before! Thanks! I'll try it next time I'm on a quest to get shot down. hehe.
And you never know, once I get through all of those, if she's still talking to me, maybe she can handle my slightly twisted sense of humor. :)
There are a few here. :) Unfortunately, they're always in a distant city or country (checked, not based on their word). I'll let you know if I ever meet one locally.
My wife and I are separated, you insensitive clod! :)
Oddly enough though, when I take the baby out (she's 2) ya, lots of people say how cute she is, start asking her name, how old she is, etc, etc....
Apparently the line "I have good baby making genes, wanna fuck" is just plain wrong. Sometimes it's fun to experement. :) "She needs a new mommy, she died last week. Wanna come back to my place" is a dead tie for last place too.
It all depends on the state of the cat.
There. Happy? :)
I've read varying opinions about men with cats. Some people imply that it's showing feminine tendencies. Then again, I own three, and women generally love cats. Hey, something cute, cuddly, furry that will curl up with you on a cold winter night, and most importantly doesn't stink like a dog. :) I believe (in my amateur psychologist way) that it brings back memories of their favorite cuddle toy from childhood.
Then again, when the action starts, the cat gets kicked off the bed. Sorry kitty, us humans have something to do that doesn't involve you. :)
One of my cats didn't really appreciate that, and she'd jump back on the bed every 10 minutes or so. She (the cat) was possessive of me, so she'd be jealous of any woman I brought home. As she's gotten older, and seen me with more women, she's decided to take control of my chairs instead. There's nothing worse than trying to sit down in a black chair in a dark room, and finding the black cat laying there, who turns into all claws and teeth when you try to remove her.
But, girls love my sports car. They want to touch it. Then they want to ride in it. Then .... well .... use your imagination, you pervert, I'm not writing a dirty story here. :)
A few have said they thought I may have been compensating for something, but when it comes down to it, they find it's not compensation, it's advertising. :)
So, what does it say? :)
I didn't realize what kind of problem RFID sniffing was. I know the theory, but not how widespread it is. Someone came over the other night, saying that he had his card information stolen 3 times now. He hasn't actually used the card, so it's not a POS or online transaction theft. Each time it was stolen, he had a new card issued. I asked to see the card, and it's an AmEx with a RFID in it.
He had spoken with someone else who said that he had to be bumped into to read it, like physical contact. I did a little reading, and I already know a good bit about RFID's. I found a kit for $8 that'll read them from about 9 feet. I found another kit that will read them from 20 feet. Probably a higher gain antenna. You can call AmEx and specifically ask for one without the feature, but it's not terribly common knowledge. I advised him to keep his wallet in a static bag, and/or stop carrying those cards.
Now I want to get a reader, just to check friends when they walk in the door. It's not to steal their information, it's to warn them, "Get rid of that card!" I'm a good guy. The bad guy would just stay parked outside a busy store and collect information from shoppers entering or leaving.
Making credit cards RF readable is a really stupid idea. I can't believe they did it. Well, I can, but they should have listened to the countless techs who I'm sure said "DON'T DO IT!" Ahh, the difference between lowly techs and the superior brain trust in management.
It took me a little while to understand how it works. I migrated from ipchains, so it was a world of difference, but I appreciated the larger feature set once I got the hang of it.
Ya, most of the guides are huge and complex, when you can do a lot of things very easily. I've been asked a few times, "How can I block this IP from attacking our SSH port". That's a one liner. You'll be able to derive it from what I posted earlier. :)
That makes it interesting for copyright law. It's my understanding that if you quote an insignificant piece, that's simply a quote. If you quote the whole work, then it's infringement.
Like, it's generally (but not always) ok to quote say one line from an article in a magazine. But if you copy the entire article that's a little fuzzier. If you copy the entire publication, you're just not going to win no matter how it's argued.
So, to quote an insignificant but complete phrase from a twitter is almost always going to be the whole thing.
The 1886 Berne Convention states that the © mark (the circle around a c) indicates that the document is copyrighted by declaration. The Buenos Aires Convention of 1910 established that some sort of copyright warning was required, such as the simple statement on the publication "all rights reserved". To the best of my knowledge, both currently apply inside the United States.
By quoting a copyrighted work, you'd better be clearly inside the lines of "fair use". Of course, fair use is not clearly defined, so it can be fought by both sides, and the bigger meaner (and usually richer) side will win. The considerations for fair use are:
1. the purpose and character of the use;
2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
3. the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
By quoting a few lines from a New York Times article in a high school student essay, they're likely going to be ok. It's frequently looked at as the impact on the original publication. A blogger with 4 daily readers probably won't get a C&D by the NYT either, even if they publish the whole article. A blogger with 400,000 daily readers, who reguarly reposts NYT material may have an economic impact on the NYT, and therefor be in a bit of trouble. The C&D will generally say "cut it out, or we'll play rough."
So, if some twit you wrote (err, twitter twittlie doo, whatever) got quoted by ESPN.com, either you can be happy that someone actually looked (because the rest of us don't care), or you can call your lawyer and have a C&D sent over. They'll retract that part of the story, and never quote you again. Or they won't really care, and you can take them to court for your (oh my gosh) serious economic losses and personal suffering.
Really though, if you didn't want it quoted, you shouldn't have posted it for the world to read.
© (c) 2009, JWSmythe :)
All Rights Reserved
For Republishing Information, Please Reference http://jwsmythe.com
IMHO, YMMV, RTFM MF.
To move the SSH port: /etc/rc.d/sshd_config uncomment and modify the Port line.
# in
Port 1222
To block traffic:
I have mine in a big script that does a lot of automated things, like looping through friendly networks, enemy networks, etc, and building a full ruleset based on just a few arrays. You could use the following to do it manually. Just replace any variable (things that start with $) with the real value.
$int = your local interface
$ip = your local IP
$friend = friendly IP or network (like 192.168.1.0/24)
$sshport = your SSH port (1222 if used as above)
-- begin example code
iptables -P INPUT ACCEPT
iptables -A INPUT -s $friend -p tcp --dport $sshport -j ACCEPT
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport $sshport -j DROP
-- end example code
That would:
Accept everything (a safe default).
Specifically allow request to that port from your friends.
Specifically drop all other requests to that port.
To wipe these settings out (like, if you mess up), execute:
iptables -F
A working example is as follows.
I am at work. My IP is 1.2.3.4
My server is 2.1.1.2
Another server is on 2.1.1.3
I run SSH on port 1234
I want to be able to log in from work, but I do NOT want anyone else, including the network my server is on, to be allowed to access
iptables -P INPUT ACCEPT
iptables -A INPUT -s 1.2.3.4/32 -p tcp --dport 1234 -j ACCEPT
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 1234 -j DROP
That's all you need. Now, I can SSH in from my office. If I SSH from another server, it hangs. Because I set the "DROP" rule, it's simply dropping the traffic.
You can set 3 rules by default. ACCEPT, REJECT, and DROP.
ACCEPT lets the traffic go through normally.
REJECT returns a "Connection refused"
DROP simply drops the packets, so to the remote side it's unsure if anything is even there.
A default DROP rule would be:
iptables -A INPUT -j DROP
Only (ONLY!) ever set a default DROP after you've defined your accepted networks and ports!!!!
In writing this, I made a little mistake. I hit the up arrow to rerun the DROP line, but change it to REJECT. I forgot to run the ACCEPT line first. Now no matter where I'm coming from, I cannot get in. The server is still running, but all SSH traffic is blocked. (I had another way in, don't worry.)
You can get fancier with it for logging. For example, you can make a new rule. I use "LOG_DROP". I put these lines in before any drop lines. You only do this once in your script.
iptables -N LOG_DROP
iptables -A LOG_DROP -j LOG --log-prefix '[FW_DROP] : '
iptables -A LOG_DROP -j DROP
Then instead of using the rule "DROP", I use the rule "LOG_DROP"
Now all dropped connections are logged for me. :)
I warn you though, when you set a default DROP for everything, this will make your logs get big really fast. If you're on a network with Windows machines, they babble to each other all day with lots of broadcast traffic.
You can give yourself some control over this, by logging say port 22, but just dropping the rest.
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 22 -j LOG_DROP
iptables -A INPUT -j DROP
That may not log warning that there's some new nasty that people are scanning for. There's a lot of malware that opens specific ports, which other people will scan for.
I recommend putting all of this somewhere like /etc/rc.d/rc.firewall, or /etc/rc.d/init.d/firewall, and adding it to your startup ap
Mental note: When Lupis42 invites you over for "game night", politely say no, and block his calls.
And as for the pictures in question, I'm not surprised they haven't been released. One charge for the girl is bad enough, if the parents start distributing the pictures, they'd be in for a world of pain. I'm afraid to think of all the charges, but at least some start with 18 U.S.C. 2257. I'm sure there would be many more state and local charges.
The picture as described, with a girl naked, except for a towel around her waist, can easily be construed as pornography.
Then again, would any photo shot at a topless beach or nudist colony be pornography? Not really. I'm sure there can be some that are, but not the general snapshot of someone standing there.
We are a repressed society. Some Americans have open minds about themselves and the form that we live in. Some are offended by people going to the beach in (oh my gosh) bikinis. An amazing number are offended by nudist camps, even those that are adult only. Little do those who are so upset about this know, but even I am naked everyday between the time I step into the shower, and the time I get out of it. I hope they are too, but I'd prefer not to think about most people naked. (oohh, the mental images, I've gone mentally blind!)
So kids are doing stupid things. You know what, their PARENTS should be parenting. Just because you can give a 10 year old kid a cell phone to call home on doesn't mean that you should. Great, you've given them one with a camera and the ability to send text messages. Back in the day, these were more discrete events, where we actually had to sneak away together, and there was no evidence. :)
[flashing back to high school] ... ...
ya, we've all been doing things that we shouldn't have, but it's because we circumvented parental controls. Giving such a blatant way to circumvent the parental controls is stupid.
I like that kids can have cell phones. They can call home in an emergency. "Mom, my friend is drunk, I don't want to ride home with her." is the best call you can hope for that night. Go, pick up the kids, and collect the car in the morning. It's much better than the knock on the door from law enforcement.
I'm not going to try to tell people how to parent, and neither should the law, but the "sexting" thing is something that should be within the parents ability to control. Prosecuting a child for the law that's suppose to protect the child from older predators is stupid.
Wrapping around? Probably and failing. :) Wrapping like a parabola, tube, or plane? Probably with some success.
I really enjoyed playing with 2.4Ghz and parabola's. In the end, it was more effective (cost, time, and results) to buy a decent parabolic antenna. I have a nice one in storage right now. It's about 3 feet across, mesh, 24dBi and 8 degree beam width. It's served me well when I've needed it (and gotten some funny looks when I didn't).
I didn't like the tube antenna (aka enclosed yagi or can antenna). They're good for the size, but I prefer the performance of a real parabolic reflector.
I've seen some that are ground planes or basic reflectors (half your signal from an omnidirectional antenna is going the wrong way, bounce it back towards where you want it). Still, I rather have as much of my signal going where I want it, than going where I don't care about it. :)
I'm still curious about putting a 200mw 2.4Ghz transceiver on an old C-band dish with a wire mesh overlay. :) I've been told that it will be overkill, as the edges won't have a chance of doing any practical work.
The tin foil hat works. We can't read your mind. Feel safe wearing the tin foil hat. You've protected yourself against our evil plot to control your mind. :)
You can still have fun with those though. Give them a special purpose built SSH connection. :) I used to monitor the logs, and when I saw too many denied connections to port 22 (which no one should have been using anyways), I'd just set a default DROP from them everywhere. Ok so you beat on port 22, well, you won't find the real port either. :) More importantly, it looks like they crashed my server. Well, at least to their IP. To everyone else, its still alive and happy.
Ya, decimate is one of those terms that's more often than not misused. For everyone else who has no clue, it's to remove 10% of whatever. As I've heard the Romans would do as punishment, they would kill every 10th person. I wasn't there, so I can't testify to that. :)
I don't see any event, other than say the planet exploding, that would cause humanity to disappear. We may make it bad enough where a large portion doesn't survive though. Losing 10% wouldn't be catastrophic. Losing 90% wouldn't be so bad either. There are an awful lot of humans on the earth. I would just prefer not to fall into the categories of being one of the chosen lost, nor the person choosing them.
With the population clusters that we have now, mass migration is a very bad thing. It wouldn't have been so bad with a tribe of even 100 people, but if a million move from one area to another, that's going to be catastrophic for the destination.
I agree totally with you on the tape problem.
Many times when I've tried to restore from tape, the tape failed. Well, the tape, the drive, or maybe even the backup software wasn't writing anything. Most have been installations that I had nothing to do with, but was asked to help in the recovery.
Tapes are expensive too. I've tried to sell the idea of using tapes to back up the hard drive based backups. It's hard to say to the boss, "you need to spend $x, that will sit in an off-site safe, and you will never recover the cash, other than having the peace of mind knowing that you have your data on tapes that may actually work when you need to restore them."
My latest tape experience reinforced my old opinions. I found a tape changer. It was a beautiful device, just sitting in a back room doing absolutely nothing. It had 9 tapes sitting in their slots, and none in the drive. I asked around, and finally found the answer to why it wasn't being used. "Oh, because we never managed to make it work."
Well, obviously idiots were working it. :) Just kidding if you happen to be reading this. I was able to make the changer work. Unfortunately, as it turned out, the drive didn't work properly. Once I got it online and working correctly, it was able to read and write to three tapes, before the fourth jammed. Not just jammed. I had to disassemble the tape drive itself to remove the tape. I checked everything over, put it back together, and it again went through about 3 tapes fine before another jammed.
I did a little research, and this was a known problem with that particular drive. Since the changer could hold two tape drives, I put in a request for two upgrade drives, so we could use higher capacity tapes. Veto'd within 24 hours. I modified my request, and again it was shot down. I spelled out the wonderful reasons to have a tape archive of the hard drive based backup solution, with a reason of possible "what if" scenarios. Still, veto'd. it simply wasn't happening, even with replacing the drive with an original size drive. The drive itself was just too expensive.
So, what happens when your nice tape drive fails, and you can't get a new one in? Backups stop, and the data you have on tape is worthless. What happens when they stop making that media, and/or that type of drive. Your old backups are worthless.
I like the hdd solution. Most data needs to be recovered within 30 days as an outside window. Most people want the backups from 10 minutes ago (good luck with that), but are satisfied with one from within 24 hours. Really, they don't have the patients to wait for a tape to be delivered from the off-site storage facility, or even downloaded if that facility has means to play your tape. "My data is gone now, I need it back NOW!" God forbid you have two (or 10) pieces of data on different tapes that need to be recovered immediately.