Wow. For the past five years all I've heard from politicians is how technically sophisticated terroists are and hwow they have the ability to create a "Digital Pearl Harbor." The politicians then convnced American citizens to give millions of dollars worth of government contracts to technology companies to fight this terrorist technological threat.
But now polticians say that terrorists can't even Photoshop an airline boarding pass without the help some guy's website?
I would probably agree with you about boycotting travelling to the US if I lived outside the US.
But regarding your point about risks to your personal liberty and freedom if you come here; I have to point out that the EU is the one that collects this data on it's citzens in the first place.
Isn't the EU also infringing on on their personal liberty and freedom?
What about Canada? They have to do the same thing. Here's Air Canada's policy. Isn't your government infriging on your personal liberty and freedom as well?
Air Canada (like all other airlines) is required to adhere to the Advance Passenger Information System (APIS), which requires the collection of specific information from every passenger travelling to Canada, to/from the U.S. and other countries. This information is required for the purposes of ensuring aviation safety and security.
Travellers must supply Advance Passenger Information at time of check-in or they will be unable to travel.
Following is a list of information required:
1. Full name (last name, first name, middle name if applicable)
2. Gender
3. Date of Birth
4. Nationality
5. Country of residence
6. Travel document type (normally passport)
7. Travel document number (expiry date and country of issue for passport)
8. Destination address in the U.S. (Not required for U.S. nationals, Legal Permanent Residents, or Alien Residents of the U.S. entering the U.S.)
Ok, first let me say that I'm a happy Firefox user.
That said, it would be interesting to see some data on how many Firfox fixes have introduced new vulnerabilities. If the number is substantial then would more time testing fixes be a wise thing to do or would it not make much of a difference?
"[India] had federally governed voting machines. The US, by contrast, allows each state to dictate which machine or method they utilize under few federal standards."
One reason for the U.S. doing it this way is because of a long standing tradition of "states rights" in the U.S.
Among other things, states rights come from a very justified dislike of central authority in the U.S. and a theory that competition among the states is good for the country because it spurs innovation an ideas.
Maybe an argument can be made for federal guidelines in federal elections, but what about local elections/ What gives the federal government the right to tell states, counties, cities, etc. how to run their elections as long as they're fair?
And if the federal government can tell local government how to run elections, the fundamental piece of our democracy, then why shouldn't the federal government have the authority to tell states, counties etc how to run every other aspect of their governments?
I'm not sure how India compares with the U.S. on states rights, but it sound liek they might do thing a little differently.
And the broadcasters didn't think they would be able to come up with a way to get their advertisements to DVR viewers. They should have more faith in themselves next time instead of trying to outlaw every new technology that puts a dent in their current business model.
Q. Mark an X in a big box CLEARLY beside the candidate you want.
A. What does, and does not, count as an X? If I just have a small dash, should that count? What if I have a small dash in two boxes, or an X in one box and a dash in another box, or X's in all but one box?
Another answer to these questions is no, those choices without an 'X' are void and should be considered blank if the instructions say an 'X' should be in the box. There are people at polling stations to assist any voters if he or she can't mark and 'X' or do not understand what an 'X' is. Just like there are people at electronic kiosks to help people that don't understand how to use it.
A. How many candidates per piece of paper? How big should each candidate's name be written? In what ORDER should the names of the candidates be written? When are the ballots printed?
How's does a computer screen solve these problems? The questions still remain: How many candidates per screen? How big should each candidate's name be? In what ORDER should the names of the candidates be? When has the software been configured correctly?
Q. Mark an X in a big box CLEARLY beside the candidate you want.
A. What does, and does not, count as an X? If I just have a small dash, should that count? What if I have a small dash in two boxes, or an X in one box and a dash in another box, or X's in all but one box?
What if I tap on the screen and I miss the box, but I think it's been selected?
Q. Put it in the ballot box.
A. What if I put two ballots in the box?
What if someone hacks the system and votes twice?
All of these questions can be answered with this: Implement standards and have checks and balances. Both of which are must be implemented with paper voting or with electronic voting.
But electronic voting makes the system much more complicated, closed and open to hard-to-detect fraud. Only a programmer can scrutinize code. Almost anyone can scrutinize a piece of paper with marks on it.
Why should the Internet be different than print media?
Has anyone (other than the Government) ever gone to the Library of Congress and successfully demanded that they destroy print media in their archives? How about digital media?
Well, except that the fuel to transport things like food will shoot up, so the cost of food will jump as well.
I don't know very much about economics, but it would be interesting to know what kind of impact the increase in transportation costs would have on the US economy and what effect this would have in the short and long-term.
Would more agricultural and textile goods need to be produced domestically in order to reduce transportation costs? I guess the argument could be made that this could increase jobs outside of the "Information Economy" which could help diversify the United States' economic base and maybe reduce the US trade deficit and reliance on foreign countries for goods.
Would this rise in the cost of oil help to drive innovations in alternative fuels and energy?
The old adage is that necessity drives innovation. And where there's necessity there's money to be made, which would be good for the US economy. I believe both of these statements to be true.
Increased oil prices are most likely not good for the short-term, but what about the long-term?
"The identity/security company is merging with one of its fellow competitors, Indentix (IDNX - commentary - Cramer's Take), at the end of the month. Both stocks will be de-listed from the Nasdaq on Aug. 29, when the deal closes. The new company will trade under the symbol "ID" the following day, on the New York Stock Exchange."
Viisage Technology, Inc. (VSIG) headquarted in Billerica, MA won the bid to be the sole provider of the US passport RFID chips, in case anyone was interested.
"We are pleased with our second quarter results especially with respect to our bookings, which totaled $50 million during the quarter. Our healthy bookings rate reflects robust growth in our sole source US passport program and increases in our drivers' license business," said Robert V. LaPenta, Chairman of the Board of Viisage
"They're penalizing today's shareholders for events that occurred five years ago. But who is this protecting, exactly?", -Daniel Warmenhoven, CEO of Network Appliances
It's statements like this that make me leary of investing money into the stockmarket, particularly Network Appliances. Does that help to answer your question Mr. Warmenhoven?
This sounds like a good way for citizens to track politicians' activity. As citizens we need better ways to serruptitiously monitor our public servants.
Even if a federal shield law for journalists were to be passed, it still seem niave for a journalist to rely on it for protection of his or her sources.
When communicating sensitive information always take procautions to protect your information and always assume that someone is listening that shouldn't be. When using any means of public communication (telephone, the Internet, the Post Office, UPS, etc.) you are literally handing your message to a third party (or parties) to pass along to the final destination. While encryption makes it more difficult for a middle-man, it is by no means compeltely secure.
The decision to make is which is more imporatant: convenience in transitting the information or security of the information being transmitted?
When I look back at when I was a kid and think about all the things my parents told me I shouldn't do I think about why they told me not to do certain things. Of course the reason is that they loved me and didn't want me to get hurt, but they always knew, regardless of punishments or groundings, that the choice was mine in the end.
It still the same today, except now there are technology companies trying to sell their technology (most of which isn;t even new) to make a buck off of parents fears. The technology companies make a promise they can't keep: We can help you force your kids to make the right decisions through technology.
The kid still makes the choice in the end and the parents still need to be good parents and explain why certain things aren't good. The differnce now is that tech companies have developed a business model to involve themselves in the equation and make a buck without offering anything in return.
The City of Chicago installed surveillence cameras in my neighborhood last week. One happens to be directly outside the front door of my condo building. There has been no public discussion and there has no discussion with the condo association in particular. We all went to work one day and when we came home it was installed... along with three others within a four-square-block radius. This is not a dangerous neighborhood, nor has it ever been during my 10-year residence.
It's my understanding that the pilots and crew of a plane are told when an air marshall is on a plane and where he is sitting. If an air marshall wasn't doing his job and was, for example, "drunk and passed out" (as many people have posted as being a reason why quotas are implemented) wouldn't the flight crew report him to his superiors for repremand?
It seems as if there's already a check and balance: the flight crew.
So what's the real reason for the quotas? Budget? Do I even need to ask?
The Douglas County police should also start looking for unlocked windows and doors as well. Who know's, maybe the ignorant owner didn't mean to leave their door unlocked or maybe they didn't leave the windows open for fresh air. Better just to check every, single one.
Leaky or clogged gutters could also be a problem. Maybe the person didn't know that their gutter was overflowing with leaves and causing a downpour onto the bushes below.
Car windows left open deserve special attention as well. Sometime speople accidently leave their windows open and rain gets in. Perhaps a friendly leaflet under their windshield wiper will cause them to pay closer attention next time.
The list of things police could do other than real police work could go on and on.
Just because some piece of software wants to do something doesn't mean you have let it.
Why not just block it with a firewall? According ZonaAlarm the IP that WGA connects to is (or maybe *was*) 64.4.52.189
From WikiPedia:
Windows Genuine Advantage Notifications and Firewalls
Some personal firewalls, though not the basic one in Windows, may alert on the method by which wgatray.exe is started, in the case of Outpost firewall, it is identified as a "hidden process". The wgatray.exe process itself can be firewall blocked, without apparent problems. Removing the reference to WGALOGON.DLL using HijackThis appears to effectively de-install this update, to the point where it will be offered again if it has not been marked "do not show".
And I'm sure there are a dozen other ways to avoid the WGA.
I suppose the first questions to ask yourself is why you are looking at going into IT. Are you looking for a stable career? Are you looking for fortune? Do you really enjoy computers and programming as a hobby and think it would be cool to earn a living doing something you enjoy or are you just looking for any job that you can earn a living doing?
I went into technology as a programmer/software enginner because I loved working with computers and I saw a way make a living while doing something I love. Ten years later I still love it. I've always prefered hands on development and prefer coding and on some project I like being the technical lead, but otherwise I have avoided the management-side of IT. I could make more money, but at a huge cost to my personal satisifaction.
The people that don't want the.xxx domain want the porn to stay in the.com and.net domains so that they can use pron as an excuse to filter all content whether the content is porn or not. If a.xxx domain were created then the people who want to censor the Net would only be able to use porn as an excuse to censor the.xxx domain and would no longer have the porn strawman to use when trying to censor the Net at large.
Read the article and your question will be answered:
For its part, Fortinet says that it uses "a two-tier distribution model," according to a company spokeswoman, Michelle Spolver, meaning that the company sells all of its products to resellers, who sell to end-users.
Other Ipods don't scratch as easily as the Nano does. I went into the Chicago Apple Store the day the Nano came out and the Nanos on display looked flawless. Two weeks later you can barely see the screen through the scratches on most of them. It was literally like looking through a fog. In comparison, the Mini's (at least two of which I know have been on display for months) looked great with only minor scratches on the body and barely any on the screen. The same goes for the Mini that I've owned for a year. A few superficial scraches on the body and hardly any on the screen. I'll stick with the Mini for now.
Also, The Register as written an article and there are 200+ posts on the Apple Discussion Board regarding this issue:
Slashdot Mirror
Wow. For the past five years all I've heard from politicians is how technically sophisticated terroists are and hwow they have the ability to create a "Digital Pearl Harbor." The politicians then convnced American citizens to give millions of dollars worth of government contracts to technology companies to fight this terrorist technological threat.
But now polticians say that terrorists can't even Photoshop an airline boarding pass without the help some guy's website?
I would probably agree with you about boycotting travelling to the US if I lived outside the US.
h tml
But regarding your point about risks to your personal liberty and freedom if you come here; I have to point out that the EU is the one that collects this data on it's citzens in the first place.
Isn't the EU also infringing on on their personal liberty and freedom?
What about Canada? They have to do the same thing. Here's Air Canada's policy. Isn't your government infriging on your personal liberty and freedom as well?
http://www.aircanada.com/en/travelinfo/APIS/apis.
Air Canada (like all other airlines) is required to adhere to the Advance Passenger Information System (APIS), which requires the collection of specific information from every passenger travelling to Canada, to/from the U.S. and other countries. This information is required for the purposes of ensuring aviation safety and security.
Travellers must supply Advance Passenger Information at time of check-in or they will be unable to travel.
Following is a list of information required:
1. Full name (last name, first name, middle name if applicable)
2. Gender
3. Date of Birth
4. Nationality
5. Country of residence
6. Travel document type (normally passport)
7. Travel document number (expiry date and country of issue for passport)
8. Destination address in the U.S. (Not required for U.S. nationals, Legal Permanent Residents, or Alien Residents of the U.S. entering the U.S.)
Ok, first let me say that I'm a happy Firefox user.
That said, it would be interesting to see some data on how many Firfox fixes have introduced new vulnerabilities. If the number is substantial then would more time testing fixes be a wise thing to do or would it not make much of a difference?
"[India] had federally governed voting machines. The US, by contrast, allows each state to dictate which machine or method they utilize under few federal standards."
One reason for the U.S. doing it this way is because of a long standing tradition of "states rights" in the U.S.
Among other things, states rights come from a very justified dislike of central authority in the U.S. and a theory that competition among the states is good for the country because it spurs innovation an ideas.
Maybe an argument can be made for federal guidelines in federal elections, but what about local elections/ What gives the federal government the right to tell states, counties, cities, etc. how to run their elections as long as they're fair?
And if the federal government can tell local government how to run elections, the fundamental piece of our democracy, then why shouldn't the federal government have the authority to tell states, counties etc how to run every other aspect of their governments?
I'm not sure how India compares with the U.S. on states rights, but it sound liek they might do thing a little differently.
And the broadcasters didn't think they would be able to come up with a way to get their advertisements to DVR viewers. They should have more faith in themselves next time instead of trying to outlaw every new technology that puts a dent in their current business model.
We're proud of you guys!
Q. Mark an X in a big box CLEARLY beside the candidate you want.
A. What does, and does not, count as an X? If I just have a small dash, should that count? What if I have a small dash in two boxes, or an X in one box and a dash in another box, or X's in all but one box?
Another answer to these questions is no, those choices without an 'X' are void and should be considered blank if the instructions say an 'X' should be in the box. There are people at polling stations to assist any voters if he or she can't mark and 'X' or do not understand what an 'X' is. Just like there are people at electronic kiosks to help people that don't understand how to use it.
Q. Take a piece of paper.
A. How many candidates per piece of paper? How big should each candidate's name be written? In what ORDER should the names of the candidates be written? When are the ballots printed?
How's does a computer screen solve these problems? The questions still remain: How many candidates per screen? How big should each candidate's name be? In what ORDER should the names of the candidates be? When has the software been configured correctly?
Q. Mark an X in a big box CLEARLY beside the candidate you want.
A. What does, and does not, count as an X? If I just have a small dash, should that count? What if I have a small dash in two boxes, or an X in one box and a dash in another box, or X's in all but one box?
What if I tap on the screen and I miss the box, but I think it's been selected?
Q. Put it in the ballot box.
A. What if I put two ballots in the box?
What if someone hacks the system and votes twice?
All of these questions can be answered with this: Implement standards and have checks and balances. Both of which are must be implemented with paper voting or with electronic voting.
But electronic voting makes the system much more complicated, closed and open to hard-to-detect fraud. Only a programmer can scrutinize code. Almost anyone can scrutinize a piece of paper with marks on it.
Why should the Internet be different than print media?
Has anyone (other than the Government) ever gone to the Library of Congress and successfully demanded that they destroy print media in their archives? How about digital media?
The answer is no.
Well, except that the fuel to transport things like food will shoot up, so the cost of food will jump as well.
I don't know very much about economics, but it would be interesting to know what kind of impact the increase in transportation costs would have on the US economy and what effect this would have in the short and long-term.
Would more agricultural and textile goods need to be produced domestically in order to reduce transportation costs? I guess the argument could be made that this could increase jobs outside of the "Information Economy" which could help diversify the United States' economic base and maybe reduce the US trade deficit and reliance on foreign countries for goods.
Would this rise in the cost of oil help to drive innovations in alternative fuels and energy?
The old adage is that necessity drives innovation. And where there's necessity there's money to be made, which would be good for the US economy. I believe both of these statements to be true.
Increased oil prices are most likely not good for the short-term, but what about the long-term?
Exactly. For example, Israel could use nuclear weapons developed under it's cladestine nuclear program to destroy Iran's clandestine nuclear program.
The irony would be fit for a Shakespearean tragedy.
Looks like Vissage and Indentix are getting ready for a merger:
l bag/10304937.html?cm_ven=YAHOO&cm_cat=FREE&cm_ite= NA
http://www.thestreet.com/_yahoo/funds/madmoneymai
"The identity/security company is merging with one of its fellow competitors, Indentix (IDNX - commentary - Cramer's Take), at the end of the month. Both stocks will be de-listed from the Nasdaq on Aug. 29, when the deal closes. The new company will trade under the symbol "ID" the following day, on the New York Stock Exchange."
Viisage Technology, Inc. (VSIG) headquarted in Billerica, MA won the bid to be the sole provider of the US passport RFID chips, in case anyone was interested.
n dex.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20060803005845& newsLang=en
"We are pleased with our second quarter results especially with respect to our bookings, which totaled $50 million during the quarter. Our healthy bookings rate reflects robust growth in our sole source US passport program and increases in our drivers' license business," said Robert V. LaPenta, Chairman of the Board of Viisage
http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/i
That fact doesn't appear to have done much for their stock price so far though:
http://www.google.com/finance?q=VISG
"They're penalizing today's shareholders for events that occurred five years ago. But who is this protecting, exactly?", -Daniel Warmenhoven, CEO of Network Appliances
It's statements like this that make me leary of investing money into the stockmarket, particularly Network Appliances. Does that help to answer your question Mr. Warmenhoven?
This sounds like a good way for citizens to track politicians' activity. As citizens we need better ways to serruptitiously monitor our public servants.
Smaller cameras would be better too.
Even if a federal shield law for journalists were to be passed, it still seem niave for a journalist to rely on it for protection of his or her sources.
When communicating sensitive information always take procautions to protect your information and always assume that someone is listening that shouldn't be. When using any means of public communication (telephone, the Internet, the Post Office, UPS, etc.) you are literally handing your message to a third party (or parties) to pass along to the final destination. While encryption makes it more difficult for a middle-man, it is by no means compeltely secure.
The decision to make is which is more imporatant: convenience in transitting the information or security of the information being transmitted?
When I look back at when I was a kid and think about all the things my parents told me I shouldn't do I think about why they told me not to do certain things. Of course the reason is that they loved me and didn't want me to get hurt, but they always knew, regardless of punishments or groundings, that the choice was mine in the end.
It still the same today, except now there are technology companies trying to sell their technology (most of which isn;t even new) to make a buck off of parents fears. The technology companies make a promise they can't keep: We can help you force your kids to make the right decisions through technology.
The kid still makes the choice in the end and the parents still need to be good parents and explain why certain things aren't good. The differnce now is that tech companies have developed a business model to involve themselves in the equation and make a buck without offering anything in return.
The City of Chicago installed surveillence cameras in my neighborhood last week. One happens to be directly outside the front door of my condo building. There has been no public discussion and there has no discussion with the condo association in particular. We all went to work one day and when we came home it was installed... along with three others within a four-square-block radius. This is not a dangerous neighborhood, nor has it ever been during my 10-year residence.
Yes. 1984 is here.
It's my understanding that the pilots and crew of a plane are told when an air marshall is on a plane and where he is sitting. If an air marshall wasn't doing his job and was, for example, "drunk and passed out" (as many people have posted as being a reason why quotas are implemented) wouldn't the flight crew report him to his superiors for repremand?
It seems as if there's already a check and balance: the flight crew.
So what's the real reason for the quotas? Budget? Do I even need to ask?
The Douglas County police should also start looking for unlocked windows and doors as well. Who know's, maybe the ignorant owner didn't mean to leave their door unlocked or maybe they didn't leave the windows open for fresh air. Better just to check every, single one.
Leaky or clogged gutters could also be a problem. Maybe the person didn't know that their gutter was overflowing with leaves and causing a downpour onto the bushes below.
Car windows left open deserve special attention as well. Sometime speople accidently leave their windows open and rain gets in. Perhaps a friendly leaflet under their windshield wiper will cause them to pay closer attention next time.
The list of things police could do other than real police work could go on and on.
Just because some piece of software wants to do something doesn't mean you have let it.
Why not just block it with a firewall? According ZonaAlarm the IP that WGA connects to is (or maybe *was*) 64.4.52.189
From WikiPedia:
Windows Genuine Advantage Notifications and Firewalls
Some personal firewalls, though not the basic one in Windows, may alert on the method by which wgatray.exe is started, in the case of Outpost firewall, it is identified as a "hidden process". The wgatray.exe process itself can be firewall blocked, without apparent problems. Removing the reference to WGALOGON.DLL using HijackThis appears to effectively de-install this update, to the point where it will be offered again if it has not been marked "do not show".
And I'm sure there are a dozen other ways to avoid the WGA.
You sure have that right. Legislation restricts and defines freedom, not expands it.
The only time legislation expands freedom is when said legislation is nullifying a previous law.
I suppose the first questions to ask yourself is why you are looking at going into IT. Are you looking for a stable career? Are you looking for fortune? Do you really enjoy computers and programming as a hobby and think it would be cool to earn a living doing something you enjoy or are you just looking for any job that you can earn a living doing?
I went into technology as a programmer/software enginner because I loved working with computers and I saw a way make a living while doing something I love. Ten years later I still love it. I've always prefered hands on development and prefer coding and on some project I like being the technical lead, but otherwise I have avoided the management-side of IT. I could make more money, but at a huge cost to my personal satisifaction.
Why do you want to go into IT?
The people that don't want the .xxx domain want the porn to stay in the .com and .net domains so that they can use pron as an excuse to filter all content whether the content is porn or not. If a .xxx domain were created then the people who want to censor the Net would only be able to use porn as an excuse to censor the .xxx domain and would no longer have the porn strawman to use when trying to censor the Net at large.
Read the article and your question will be answered:
For its part, Fortinet says that it uses "a two-tier distribution model," according to a company spokeswoman, Michelle Spolver, meaning that the company sells all of its products to resellers, who sell to end-users.
Other Ipods don't scratch as easily as the Nano does. I went into the Chicago Apple Store the day the Nano came out and the Nanos on display looked flawless. Two weeks later you can barely see the screen through the scratches on most of them. It was literally like looking through a fog. In comparison, the Mini's (at least two of which I know have been on display for months) looked great with only minor scratches on the body and barely any on the screen. The same goes for the Mini that I've owned for a year. A few superficial scraches on the body and hardly any on the screen. I'll stick with the Mini for now.
D aaTXUpD.0@.68b94d61_ scratching/
Also, The Register as written an article and there are 200+ posts on the Apple Discussion Board regarding this issue:
http://discussions.info.apple.com/webx?14@823.1UX
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/09/23/ipod_nano