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User: xenobyte

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  1. Re:I do not look forward to this. on Through a Face Scanner Darkly · · Score: 1

    That kind of offenses should not even be registered as a sex offender offense.

    Rape, kid abduction, kiddie-porn and similar - yup, those people doing that are real sex offenders.

    All other may still have committed a crime related to sex, but they're not real sex offenders and should not be registered as such.

  2. The solution is obvious on Rome Police Use Twitter To Battle Illegal Parking · · Score: 2

    Just open up for private companies to tow illegally parked cars and make money (huge fees) from the towing and storage of the vehicles. With hundreds of such companies hunting for illegally parked cars and thus money, the streets will be clear in no time, and all the parking assholes will have learned an expensive lesson. To prevent abuse all towing must be documented using photos showing the parking offense, a copy of which are sent to the offender.

  3. Re:On the contrary: on Yep, People Are Still Using '123456' and 'Password' As Passwords In 2014 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Actually I treat 'forced' accounts on places like Adobe very differently than other places where I use passwords - basically I don't trust a company like that to be secure so I use a different password system there than elsewhere. My password were in the Adobe list, as were my business email, but I don't work for that company anymore so the email is obsolete, and the password... Well it won't be used elsewhere.

  4. Re:Great..... on Sites Blocked By Smartfilter, Censored in Saudi Arabia · · Score: 1

    Post 9/11 Denmark implemented a Terrorism Act in 2002 which included the ability to extradite Danish citizens from Denmark to the US for extremely serious offenses, terrorism in particular.

    It has only been used once: To extradite a woman charged with being an accomplice to drug smuggling; she was dating a guy that smuggled drugs into Florida by boat. She was in the boat with him on several occasions, and yet there's no indication that she knew about the smuggling before he was arrested. An offense like this is not even a felony in Denmark and yet she was extradited to Florida. Fortunately for her the case was too old and the charges were dropped.

  5. Fool on Network Solutions Opts Customer Into $1,850 Security Service · · Score: 1

    Who in their right mind still uses Network Solutions?

  6. Re:So does this mean the TrueCrypt hijacking busin on TrueCrypt Master Key Extraction and Volume Identification · · Score: 1

    Actually they have - sort of. The general idea is to replace the metal thing on your keyring with (a part of) yourself. You can get door locks that uses bionics to unlock/open the door instead of keys, which can be lost, stolen, duplicated or circumvented with picks. Most bionic solutions today are insecure, flawed, buggy or just not good enough, but I'm sure that will change as the technology matures.

  7. Overkill perhaps on Man Shot To Death For Texting During Movie · · Score: 1

    I guess killing the texter is a bit overkill, but how hard can it be to just fucking stop texting when asked to?! Sheesh!

    If he refushed, stand up and point to the holstered gun and ask the texter to leave. No threats at gunpoint, no killing and the texter would have to leave as texting is banned and he has no choice anymore.

  8. Re:Great news on Demonoid BitTorrent Tracker Apparently Back Online · · Score: 1

    There are legitimate uses for torrents, but demonoid wasn't about distributing Linux iso's or other open source projects. It was about pirating movies and music.

    Actually... based on WHY people download movies and music, it's about circumventing geodiscrimination and format-monopolies. If I want to see the latest episode of a tv-show for instance, I have no legitimate way of doing so short of travelling to the US and watch it on tv. I could sign up to a streaming service using a fake name and address and use a VPN service to watch it, but that's grey area at best.

    Why won't they allow me to buy a downloadable episode? - I want to buy! - I have the money right here! - But no, they won't sell.

    Okay then, so I pirate the thing! - You refused my money so now you get nothing!

  9. Obvious! on Extinct Species of Early Human Survived On Grass Bulbs, Not Meat · · Score: 0

    Of course they're extinct! - They didn't eat meat!

    Humans still need meat in order to survive. Adults can work around it but children and especially babies cannot. Stupid vegan parents trusting the goveg-website by the lunatics in PETA have killed their children through malnutrition and are now serving time for homicide.

  10. Re:Well yeah on Pirate Bay Founder's Custody Extended to February 5th · · Score: 1

    Being in a danish prison, he was probably only in solitary because most prisons only have open prison or solitary. Open prison means no locks on the doors and very few guards, anyone considered an escape risk needs to be in a secure prison, and since that usually involves gang crimes most secure prison spots are solitary.

    Actually there are both regular prisons with the usual 20-23/7 lockup (the open hours depending on staffing which is rather stretched out these days), open prisons (used for minor stuff like drunk drivers, tax evaders etc) and of course full-on 23/7 lockup prisons for hardened criminals (murderers, robbers, rapists gang members etc.). All types have solitary which is used both as punishment and protection.

    Now Warg is in jail, not prison. He is not convicted yet so he just has to be kept in custody until the trial. Jails are somewhat more primitive (less facilities) and when it is believed that the jailee can affect the police work and investigation, they're always in solitary. It is not the solitary known from prisons. It is simply cells that allow no contact with other inmates or the outside world. Usually you do have access to books, newspapers and television; I don't know why they refuse him these things as they only allow communication from the outside in.

  11. Re:Years Away? I call Shenanigans on Blackhole Exploit Kit Successor Years Away · · Score: 1

    It strikes me that the solution is virtual disposable machines. Most advanced malware won't run on a virtual machine in order to make reverse engineering difficult, and the data can be continously verified from the outside, and data is stored on devices using a separate OS. If a file with a well-known extension suddenly appears encrypted then you know something's afoot and catch things right away.

  12. Ultimative blackmail on Counterpoint: Why Edward Snowden May Not Deserve Clemency · · Score: 1

    Snowden need to arrange things so that if he's ever prosecuted someone will release all the documents UNCENSORED directly onto the Internet. All releases so far has been censored to protect individuals and current operations etc. but if the NSA pushes things he should push back and put it all out there. It will of course pretty much destroy most of the US intelligence system but then they could decide not to go for him and just leave him alone, and then accept the slow, controlled and censored release of information.

  13. Re:Would not be democratic... on University Developing Technology To Vote On Your Tablet, Smartphone · · Score: 1

    With pen and paper everything is easy to check. You look into the ballot before it is sealed, you check if everyone just throws in one ballot, and on the end you can count the ballots easily. This is something which can be checked trivially.

    It is also something that can be manipulated easily.

    The usual way is to replace entire ballot boxes with ones filled with the desired votes. It's unknown how much this has been used but around the so-called democratic world full ballot boxes have been found at landfills etc. and the best case scenario has them simply being misplaced and not counted, and the worst case scenario is that the votes were replaced. As it doesn't make sense to drop full ballot boxes at landfills (they are usually reused multiple times, and of course always emptied), the worst case scenario must be the reason.

    Some countries seal the boxes and check the seal before opening the boxes and allowing the votes inside to be counted. Sounds secure until you learn that the ballot boxes are only sealed as they leave the polling stations. Until then the full ones are stored in a locked room as empty ones are switched in to allow room for more votes. This locked room is usually just any available store room at the polling location which means that the regular janitor and some staff would have the key. It would not be hard to bribe someone for a copy of the key and then it's just a matter of doing the switch.

    In other types of 'democracies' you push people to vote a certain way. Just like in old Iraq where Saddam Hussein in the last election went from 98% of the votes to 100%. It was an open and free election but the other candidates simply either didn't get any votes or had accidents just before the election and had to retire. Also the ballots with votes for other candidates were examined for fingerprints etc. and the voter usually then got a visit from the secret police that wanted to know why they didn't vote for Saddam. Most people then said it was an accident and after having promised to vote for Saddam the next time, they were let off with a warning. If they didn't... Well, let's just say they didn't get to vote in the next election.

  14. The technology has existed far longer than tablets and smartphones. It's called HTTP/HTML and consists of so-called webpages with so-called forms that allows feedback using buttons and similar. Technology to read a webpage aloud to the visually impared has also been around for a long time.

    Now, how to secure that vote - making sure the right one votes and votes only once - that's the tricky part, but hardly a giant issue. We've had systems featuring parts of this also for a long time so it's just a matter of putting together the appropriate parts. One bit would be fairly important and different from most other systems: While we want a secure login, we don't want to retain who exactly the user is once we're logged in. Usually linking the login to an account is the center of most systems but in a voting system this is exactly what we don't want. But besides that it's all business as usual: Secure communication, login-screen that makes brute-forcing very difficult, data handling that ensures only one vote and that this vote isn't changed later etc.

    It might also make sense to add a full backdoor to the NSA so they can register who votes for what and whatever else they need to know without having to hack the system and thus possibly open up new vulnerabilities that can be exploited by others for vote manipulation... ;)

  15. Re: Land of the Free! on Illinois Law Grounds PETA Drones Meant To Harass Hunters · · Score: 1

    Good. Peta are hypocritical arseholes. Anything that is bad for them, I'm in favour of.

    Well said. I agree 100%!

  16. Re:Land of the Free! on Illinois Law Grounds PETA Drones Meant To Harass Hunters · · Score: 1

    That would be fun! - Give them a taste of their own medicine.

  17. Re:Eventually people will look up... on US Customs Destroys Virtuoso's Flutes Because They Were "Agricultural Items" · · Score: 0

    The dirty wars are certainly killing a lot of Al Qaeda affiliates. They are almost certainly killing a larger number of innocent civilians which will fuel new generations to hate America.

    Well, what did they expect?

    When Al Queda declared war on America and attacked WTC twice (1993 and 2001) they went straight for a 100% civilian target with 100% guaranteed innocent civilian victims so I really cannot accept them whining about civilian victims when America strike them back. They could of course reduce their losses significantly by not hiding behind women and children, but as terrorists are cowards by nature (especially the so-called muslim martyrs) this is to be expected.

  18. Re:All the news that matters on US Customs Destroys Virtuoso's Flutes Because They Were "Agricultural Items" · · Score: 1

    Why in the hell do we put up with such incompetence? Do we not pay enough into the TSA to not hire utter morons?

    Absolutely not! TSA agents are mostly people who couldn't pass the US Postal Carrier exam. Several people I knew who were not "bulbworthy" were getting jobs at the TSA shortly after 9/11. They have a very low bar for entry.

    Heartbeat? - Or may zombies actually qualify?

  19. Re: Yogi Berra on Researchers Claim Facebook Is 'Dead and Buried' To Many Young Users · · Score: 1

    I have not heard any youngster mention privacy in any context so I seriously doubt it has any significant relevance. It's just what popular right now. As apps now enable you to keep snapchat pics and texts forever, the basic privacy idea is long gone. People will return to FB simply because everybody else is there and it's easy to find long lost friends, classmates etc.

  20. Re:Who would believe it? on Researchers Claim Facebook Is 'Dead and Buried' To Many Young Users · · Score: 1

    Facebook is its own worst enemy.

    Their mule-headed instance that *everybody* sees *everything* doesn't work when teens have parents on there.

    Actually Google had the right idea in dividing your friends into different groups ('circles') and only allow certain groups to see any given update. That solves the parents or boss issue. I'm not FB friends with my boss, nor any of my previous bosses, for that very reason. If I want to take a sick day and later feel better and go out and get tagged or do my own update, I'd not want my boss to see it and thus end up with completely unnecessary questions.

    But FB is not dying. Apart from the initial burst I've never added that many new friends as I do now. Sure, I don't have that many new 20-something friends but people my own age (mid 40's) are jumping on FB as never before.

  21. Re:Spinit. on How Astronauts Took the Most Important Photo In Space History · · Score: 1

    The Chinese are getting ready to send a repair guy there, in case they need a tow or a jump-start.
    That picture will be awesome!

    Could be needed soon... Word has it that one of the rovers on Mars may have a flat tire...

  22. Re:Never again on Unreleased 1963 Beatles Tracks On Sale To Preserve Copyright · · Score: 1

    URL doesn't work... Isn't TPB on .pe these days anyway?

  23. Sigh on Harvard Bomb Hoax Perpetrator Caught Despite Tor Use · · Score: 1

    Please RTFA. They only traced him because he used Harvards wireless network to access TOR, and the bomb threats came an anonymous email service accessed from TOR. Had he sent the email from a cafe off-campus they would not have been able to trace him.

  24. Alternative on Red Light Camera Use Declined In 2013 For the First Time · · Score: 1

    A variation on this are cams that records drivers caught in the intersection, blocking cross traffic while being unable to clear the intersection due to the cross traffic. Depending on which intersection it is, at will cost you a hefty fine and points on your license. This pure egoistic driver error and the punishment is appropriate.

    People living near intersections that's often blocked often demand such cams because the usual reaction from the drivers being blocked despite a green light is to honk their horn continously until the blocking car(s) move away. Not legal but most certainly justified as it works to shame the moron that entered the intersection without being sure to be able to pass completely through.

  25. Re:RLC are a money making scheme, always accurate on Red Light Camera Use Declined In 2013 For the First Time · · Score: 1

    The bright flashlamps needed to take a clear picture are also distracting and momentarily blinding for drivers who happen to be looking at them when they pop off a picture.

    What? - All the cams I've seen uses near-infrared flashes which can be seen only as dull red that cannot blind anyone even in pitch black darkness.