Right - but the problem is when they become entrenched. Could we consumers all simply pull our support away from Microsoft and make them fall hard like a giant whose kneecaps were just broken?
Some would say "yes," but the practical answer is "no." If it was indeed practical, it would have happened already. Microsoft has embedded themselves in "us" and getting rid of them is a slow, hard, painful process.
If your cell phone company stores your voicemail, SMS messages, and account info on the same box they serve their corporate website from, you've got bigger problems.
By the time Microsoft became evil, or, by the time Microsoft's evil became apparent, it was too late to stop them.
Giving Google absolute power is no better than giving Microsoft absolute power, the only difference is that Google does not seem corrupt enough to abuse it yet. And yet, absolute power is often cited as a CAUSE of corruption.
The reason that the U.S. Constitution limits presidential terms is because there may come a dictator who begins to tear the country apart. "We The People" have a chance to get rid of him easily after four years, but failing that, he's out for good after eight. It acts as a sort of sanity check - if the people are crazy enough to let him have a second term, they might be crazy enough to let him continue dictating for 20 years. These balances work to temper the power of people who are considered good, because people are corruptible. Corporations are people too.
Google certainly seems like a cool, nice company today, and I agree with that. But turning them into a monopoly over the search market is putting all our eggs in one basket. Letting them into our personal machines with their toolbar and desktop search tool is handing them extraordinary powers. We don't mind because we trust them because they're not evil, of course - but what if they turned evil tonight? We've allowed them to become so deeply entrenched in our lives...
Doctor: We call it, "Three Stooges syndrome".
Mr. Burns: So, what you're telling me is...I'm indestructible.
Doctor: Oh, no no. Even a slight breeze could...
Mr. Burns: Indestructible.
"In other news, officials at the pacific nuclear research facility have denied the rumor that a case of missing plutonium was in fact stolen from their vault two weeks ago. A lybian terrorist group had claimed responsiblilty for the alleged theft. Now, however, officials attribute the discrepancy to a simple clerical error."
Of course, anyone who's seen the movie knows that the "officials" were wrong about that "clerical error."
No doubt, after the U.S. invades Iran, they will discover a huge cache of illegal weapons to justify the invasion, just like the huge cache of illegal weapons they found in Iraq.
This simply can't work. Cameras already exist which don't comply with this schema. Anyone wanting to circumvent this technology will simply purchase a cheap and ancient film camera, or a low-priced and older yet-lower-megapixel digital.
A false sense of security would be imparted to would-be blurred faces, in that they believe that they're impervious to photography despite the proliferation of cameras which don't comply with it. Subsequently, the people who had put faith in the system and supported it through their purchases would quickly discard it in disgust when they find photographs that they expected to be blurred; and the financial support for the technology will flop.
Without destroying all existing cameras and banning production of new ones that don't contain the technology (a move that would be tougher than gun enforcement), this can/not/ work.
IMHO, it's rather arrogant of HP to believe that they can bring about such sweeping worldwide changes with success.
You've just given me, and everyone else, a detailed list of attacks which will not work against you (saves us time, thank you!), and presuming that you've given an exhaustive list, you've also told us what holes are in your methods and where they are. You've given us some hints as to your software packages (Qmail, FWReport, IPTables, Apache, mostly non-windows machines) so we can go look up bug reports and exploits for them...
One gaping hole in your security is lack of obscurity. Security by obscurity is, indeed, bad practice; but the abandonment of obscurity altogether is generally worse. This is a tip that the big government agencies would give you, if they weren't so tight-lipped about their tight-lippedness.
Then again, we're all prone to the occasional brag, it's the best way to social-engineer your way into a good understanding of your mark's system. For myself, I've resisted the temptation to gloat about my awesome system today, in response to this article, but I know I'll give in sometime later.
Don't forget the good ol' hydrochloric stomach acid! Your body has to create ANOTHER chemical to protect your stomach from its effects.
The point is, we still don't entirely understand our bodies, and we don't know what checks and balances exist. If we tip the balances, or isolate and extract chemicals from them for other uses, we don't understand exactly what will happen.
The Hebrew word `ohlam carries the thought of indefinite or uncertain time. Lexicographer Gesenius defines it as meaning "hidden time, i.e. obscure and long, of which the beginning or end is uncertain or indefinite." (A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, translated by E. Robinson, 1836, p. 746) Accordingly, expressions such as "time indefinite" (Ps 25:6), "indefinitely lasting" (Hab 3:6), "of old" (Ge 6:4), "a long time ago," "of long ago" (Jos 24:2; Pr 22:28; 23:10), and "long-lasting" (Ec 12:5) appropriately convey the thought of the original-language term.
The word `ohlam is at times associated with that which is everlasting. (1Ki 2:45, ftn) The prophet Isaiah wrote: "Jehovah, the Creator of the extremities of the earth, is a God to time indefinite." (Isa 40:28) Jehovah is "from time indefinite to time indefinite." (Ps 90:2) Since Jehovah is immortal and does not die, he will continue to be God for all eternity. (Hab 1:12; 1Ti 1:17) However, the Hebrew expression `ohlam does not in itself mean "forever." It often refers to things that have an end, but the period of such things' existence can be said to be 'to time indefinite' because the time of their end is not then specified. For example, the 'indefinitely lasting' Law covenant came to an end with Jesus' death and the bringing in of a new covenant. (Ex 31:16, 17; Ro 10:4; Ga 5:18; Col 2:16, 17; Heb 9:15) And the 'indefinitely lasting' Aaronic priesthood similarly came to an end.--Ex 40:15; Heb 7:11-24; 10:1.
Another Hebrew term, `adh, denotes unlimited future time, everlastingness, or eternity. (1Ch 28:9; Ps 19:9; Isa 9:6; 45:17; Hab 3:6) At times, as at Psalm 45:6, the words `ohlam and `adh appear together and may be rendered "age-during, and for ever" (Yg), "age-abiding and beyond" (Ro), and "time indefinite, even forever" (NW). Concerning the earth, the psalmist declared: "It will not be made to totter to time indefinite, or forever."--Ps 104:5.
The Hebrew term netsach can also denote everlastingness. Among the ways it may be rendered are "forever" (Job 4:20; 14:20), "perpetually" (Isa 57:16), and "always" (Ps 9:18). Sometimes netsach and `ohlam occur in parallel (Ps 49:8, 9), or the terms netsach and `adh appear together. (Am 1:11) All three words are found at Psalm 9:5, 6: "You have rebuked nations . . . Their name you have wiped out to time indefinite [le`ohlam], even forever [wa`edh]. O you enemy, your desolations have come to their perpetual [lanetsach] finish."
In the Christian Greek Scriptures, the word aion may denote a time period of indefinite or indeterminate length, a period of remote, but not endless, time. For example, at Luke 1:70 and Acts 3:21 aion can be rendered "of old," "of old time," "in ancient times." (RS, NW, AT) Often, however, the context suggests that aion is to be understood to refer to a time period of undefined length because of such period being endless in duration. (Lu 1:55; Joh 6:50, 51; 12:34; 1Jo 2:17) Similarly, the adjective aionios (drawn from aion) can, as is evident from the context, signify both "long lasting" (Ro 16:25; 2Ti 1:9; Tit 1:2) and "everlasting." (Mt 18:8; 19:16, 29) Another Greek adjective, aidios, specifically means "eternal" or "everlasting."--Ro 1:20; Jude 6, NW, RS, AT
I'd just like to mention that eternal life on an Earth unblemished by sickness, poverty, or war is an opportunity held out to anybody who wants it. If you do the research you'll find that it's been common knowlege for some time.
The majority of people can't face it, though, because they don't like the repurcussions that acknowlegement would have on their lives. They prefer the false comfort offered by the "blue pill."
Okay everybody, get out your laser pointers, it's time for an exercise.
Try to shine that laser at a target the size of a grape. Easy? Okay, make that grape move. Harder, huh? Now make the grape move at 600 miles per hour. Can you still hit it? Now, try doing the same thing to a grape hurtling through space at 600 miles per hour about half a mile away from you. Do you still think you can hit it?
That grape represents the pilot's eye.
Now, try holding your laser on that target for a couple minutes - as long as it takes to blind a person.
Now repeat the exercise to blind the pilot's OTHER eye.
Now do it two more times to blind the co-pilot's eyes.
And you'd better hope that the pilots don't respond to the agony of their retinas sizzling away by putting on sunglasses, or ducking or moving in any way!
This, friends, is the terrorist threat of the week. Please be frightened.
Is anybody else astounded at the odds of a Chinese satellite crashing in China rather than an ocean or another country? I mean, what are the chances that a satellite would choose to crash in the very country from whence it came? Is there something about orbital physics that I don't know here?
There's a place that a message has been stored in much-more-readable format than lasers or DNA, and it's been stored there for 4,000 years.
This source proclaimed that Earth was round 2,000 years before Columbus was even born. Over 200 years before the event took place, it foretold the fall of the powerful city of Babylon, even mentioning who would participate in the attack, and how it would take place. At a time when humans had no concept of sanitation, when doctors went from patient to patient without washing their hands or wearing a mask, when the Egyptians were using excrement in medicinal recipies; this source dispensed advice about sanitation that is still used today.
It's a number one best-seller worldwide, and has been for millenia. All of these points considered, doesn't it make sense that the Bible should be investigated scientifically before it is discounted as a source of extraterrestrial communication?
Slashdot Mirror
In Soviet Union, magnetic stripe snoops YOU!
Right - but the problem is when they become entrenched. Could we consumers all simply pull our support away from Microsoft and make them fall hard like a giant whose kneecaps were just broken?
Some would say "yes," but the practical answer is "no." If it was indeed practical, it would have happened already. Microsoft has embedded themselves in "us" and getting rid of them is a slow, hard, painful process.
If your cell phone company stores your voicemail, SMS messages, and account info on the same box they serve their corporate website from, you've got bigger problems.
By the time Microsoft became evil, or, by the time Microsoft's evil became apparent, it was too late to stop them.
Giving Google absolute power is no better than giving Microsoft absolute power, the only difference is that Google does not seem corrupt enough to abuse it yet. And yet, absolute power is often cited as a CAUSE of corruption.
The reason that the U.S. Constitution limits presidential terms is because there may come a dictator who begins to tear the country apart. "We The People" have a chance to get rid of him easily after four years, but failing that, he's out for good after eight. It acts as a sort of sanity check - if the people are crazy enough to let him have a second term, they might be crazy enough to let him continue dictating for 20 years. These balances work to temper the power of people who are considered good, because people are corruptible. Corporations are people too.
Google certainly seems like a cool, nice company today, and I agree with that. But turning them into a monopoly over the search market is putting all our eggs in one basket. Letting them into our personal machines with their toolbar and desktop search tool is handing them extraordinary powers. We don't mind because we trust them because they're not evil, of course - but what if they turned evil tonight? We've allowed them to become so deeply entrenched in our lives...
Doctor: We call it, "Three Stooges syndrome".
Mr. Burns: So, what you're telling me is...I'm indestructible.
Doctor: Oh, no no. Even a slight breeze could...
Mr. Burns: Indestructible.
"In other news, officials at the pacific nuclear research facility have denied the rumor that a case of missing plutonium was in fact stolen from their vault two weeks ago. A lybian terrorist group had claimed responsiblilty for the alleged theft. Now, however, officials attribute the discrepancy to a simple clerical error."
Of course, anyone who's seen the movie knows that the "officials" were wrong about that "clerical error."
No doubt, after the U.S. invades Iran, they will discover a huge cache of illegal weapons to justify the invasion, just like the huge cache of illegal weapons they found in Iraq.
Wow... Mr. Mom, right? I wonder if I'm the ONLY person here who got that...
Who didn't see THIS one coming? I was just afraid to say anything about the eventuality...
So I guess I'm saying that I had been enjoying the security through obscurity of Firefox. Bad me. I'll go stand in the corner now.
Somebody else on an unamerican continent is working with nuclear power.... looks like the axis of evil list is going to be even longer!
"Microsoft must deliver an improved version of its browser in Longhorn if it is to "determine the outcome" of the browser war.""
Yes. With PNG support!!!!
"I" didn't lose, because "I" didn't vote. But I witnessed the voting of others.
I supplied cold, hard facts and evidence to back up my assertion. I don't see any evidence in your post, though. I see a lot of hot air.
You get what you vote for.
Stop blaming voters for their government's actions. The last two elections proved that you do not get what you vote for.
This simply can't work. Cameras already exist which don't comply with this schema. Anyone wanting to circumvent this technology will simply purchase a cheap and ancient film camera, or a low-priced and older yet-lower-megapixel digital.
/not/ work.
A false sense of security would be imparted to would-be blurred faces, in that they believe that they're impervious to photography despite the proliferation of cameras which don't comply with it. Subsequently, the people who had put faith in the system and supported it through their purchases would quickly discard it in disgust when they find photographs that they expected to be blurred; and the financial support for the technology will flop.
Without destroying all existing cameras and banning production of new ones that don't contain the technology (a move that would be tougher than gun enforcement), this can
IMHO, it's rather arrogant of HP to believe that they can bring about such sweeping worldwide changes with success.
You've just given me, and everyone else, a detailed list of attacks which will not work against you (saves us time, thank you!), and presuming that you've given an exhaustive list, you've also told us what holes are in your methods and where they are. You've given us some hints as to your software packages (Qmail, FWReport, IPTables, Apache, mostly non-windows machines) so we can go look up bug reports and exploits for them...
One gaping hole in your security is lack of obscurity. Security by obscurity is, indeed, bad practice; but the abandonment of obscurity altogether is generally worse. This is a tip that the big government agencies would give you, if they weren't so tight-lipped about their tight-lippedness.
Then again, we're all prone to the occasional brag, it's the best way to social-engineer your way into a good understanding of your mark's system. For myself, I've resisted the temptation to gloat about my awesome system today, in response to this article, but I know I'll give in sometime later.
Don't forget the good ol' hydrochloric stomach acid! Your body has to create ANOTHER chemical to protect your stomach from its effects.
The point is, we still don't entirely understand our bodies, and we don't know what checks and balances exist. If we tip the balances, or isolate and extract chemicals from them for other uses, we don't understand exactly what will happen.
The Hebrew word `ohlam carries the thought of indefinite or uncertain time. Lexicographer Gesenius defines it as meaning "hidden time, i.e. obscure and long, of which the beginning or end is uncertain or indefinite." (A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, translated by E. Robinson, 1836, p. 746) Accordingly, expressions such as "time indefinite" (Ps 25:6), "indefinitely lasting" (Hab 3:6), "of old" (Ge 6:4), "a long time ago," "of long ago" (Jos 24:2; Pr 22:28; 23:10), and "long-lasting" (Ec 12:5) appropriately convey the thought of the original-language term.
The word `ohlam is at times associated with that which is everlasting. (1Ki 2:45, ftn) The prophet Isaiah wrote: "Jehovah, the Creator of the extremities of the earth, is a God to time indefinite." (Isa 40:28) Jehovah is "from time indefinite to time indefinite." (Ps 90:2) Since Jehovah is immortal and does not die, he will continue to be God for all eternity. (Hab 1:12; 1Ti 1:17) However, the Hebrew expression `ohlam does not in itself mean "forever." It often refers to things that have an end, but the period of such things' existence can be said to be 'to time indefinite' because the time of their end is not then specified. For example, the 'indefinitely lasting' Law covenant came to an end with Jesus' death and the bringing in of a new covenant. (Ex 31:16, 17; Ro 10:4; Ga 5:18; Col 2:16, 17; Heb 9:15) And the 'indefinitely lasting' Aaronic priesthood similarly came to an end.--Ex 40:15; Heb 7:11-24; 10:1.
Another Hebrew term, `adh, denotes unlimited future time, everlastingness, or eternity. (1Ch 28:9; Ps 19:9; Isa 9:6; 45:17; Hab 3:6) At times, as at Psalm 45:6, the words `ohlam and `adh appear together and may be rendered "age-during, and for ever" (Yg), "age-abiding and beyond" (Ro), and "time indefinite, even forever" (NW). Concerning the earth, the psalmist declared: "It will not be made to totter to time indefinite, or forever."--Ps 104:5.
The Hebrew term netsach can also denote everlastingness. Among the ways it may be rendered are "forever" (Job 4:20; 14:20), "perpetually" (Isa 57:16), and "always" (Ps 9:18). Sometimes netsach and `ohlam occur in parallel (Ps 49:8, 9), or the terms netsach and `adh appear together. (Am 1:11) All three words are found at Psalm 9:5, 6: "You have rebuked nations . . . Their name you have wiped out to time indefinite [le`ohlam], even forever [wa`edh]. O you enemy, your desolations have come to their perpetual [lanetsach] finish."
In the Christian Greek Scriptures, the word aion may denote a time period of indefinite or indeterminate length, a period of remote, but not endless, time. For example, at Luke 1:70 and Acts 3:21 aion can be rendered "of old," "of old time," "in ancient times." (RS, NW, AT) Often, however, the context suggests that aion is to be understood to refer to a time period of undefined length because of such period being endless in duration. (Lu 1:55; Joh 6:50, 51; 12:34; 1Jo 2:17) Similarly, the adjective aionios (drawn from aion) can, as is evident from the context, signify both "long lasting" (Ro 16:25; 2Ti 1:9; Tit 1:2) and "everlasting." (Mt 18:8; 19:16, 29) Another Greek adjective, aidios, specifically means "eternal" or "everlasting."--Ro 1:20; Jude 6, NW, RS, AT
Isaiah 45:18 He the One who firmly established it, who did not create it simply for nothing, who formed it even to be inhabited
Psalm 78:69 . . . the earth that he has founded to time indefinite.
Psalm 104:5 He has founded the earth upon its established places; It will not be made to totter to time indefinite, or forever.
Psalm 119:90 You have solidly fixed the earth, that it may keep standing.
More Info
I'd just like to mention that eternal life on an Earth unblemished by sickness, poverty, or war is an opportunity held out to anybody who wants it. If you do the research you'll find that it's been common knowlege for some time.
The majority of people can't face it, though, because they don't like the repurcussions that acknowlegement would have on their lives. They prefer the false comfort offered by the "blue pill."
Good point, superfluous expletive.
Okay everybody, get out your laser pointers, it's time for an exercise.
Try to shine that laser at a target the size of a grape. Easy? Okay, make that grape move. Harder, huh? Now make the grape move at 600 miles per hour. Can you still hit it? Now, try doing the same thing to a grape hurtling through space at 600 miles per hour about half a mile away from you. Do you still think you can hit it?
That grape represents the pilot's eye.
Now, try holding your laser on that target for a couple minutes - as long as it takes to blind a person.
Now repeat the exercise to blind the pilot's OTHER eye.
Now do it two more times to blind the co-pilot's eyes.
And you'd better hope that the pilots don't respond to the agony of their retinas sizzling away by putting on sunglasses, or ducking or moving in any way!
This, friends, is the terrorist threat of the week. Please be frightened.
Is anybody else astounded at the odds of a Chinese satellite crashing in China rather than an ocean or another country? I mean, what are the chances that a satellite would choose to crash in the very country from whence it came? Is there something about orbital physics that I don't know here?
There's a place that a message has been stored in much-more-readable format than lasers or DNA, and it's been stored there for 4,000 years.
This source proclaimed that Earth was round 2,000 years before Columbus was even born. Over 200 years before the event took place, it foretold the fall of the powerful city of Babylon, even mentioning who would participate in the attack, and how it would take place. At a time when humans had no concept of sanitation, when doctors went from patient to patient without washing their hands or wearing a mask, when the Egyptians were using excrement in medicinal recipies; this source dispensed advice about sanitation that is still used today.
It's a number one best-seller worldwide, and has been for millenia. All of these points considered, doesn't it make sense that the Bible should be investigated scientifically before it is discounted as a source of extraterrestrial communication?
Evolution!?? Do people still buy that load of crap?
I agree entirely - that's precisely what I need. And I'm afraid that's all I have to say.