I think your topic and approach are much too kind. The SNR is not 1%, but usually negative, in that there is more misinformation than actual information in newsgroup. It is precisely the people who are lying who are most motivated to post and repost their BS. It's been quite a long time since the newsgroups were the best sources for any actual information.
Speculating on the causes, but I think the main one was anonymity and the abuse thereof. I think the default should have been for some fairly strong form of user identification and accountability. Perhaps some anonymity could have been grafted on, but I've basically come to the conclusion that anonymity is almost always worse than anything it is supposed to help. The classic rationale is for whistle-blowing--but that's only a case of trying to fight fire with fire. If the criminal actions were already public, then there wouldn't be anything for the whistle-blower to reveal in the first place. That's mostly a problem with the system of criminal justice and abuses of power, not a true need for anonymity.
It's a simple enough request, even for someone of your eminent stupidity. Just designate me as a foe, and I won't see any of your stupid rants in the future. Even if I should somehow stumble across your mumbling, I'll know by the "foe" flag to ignore you as the idiot you are. I'm almost proud of my collection of moronic foes. You'll be in the perfect company.
I suppose I should feel some moral obligation to try to educate you. I spent a number of years in academia, both in America and elsewhere. However, American morons like you have "educated" me. In my youth, I never would have believed that I might outlive my nation--but you cretins and your leading Dubya have convinced me that I probably will. Actually, it's quite possible that I already have, but the falling tree hasn't hit the ground yet. "I could lead the ass to water, but I can't make it think."
Weeping for my nation or your stupidity accomplishes nothing. Just designate me as your foe.
And so did Dubya. We know you're an ignoramus, but hadn't you noticed it's kind of normal to replace all the U.S. Attorneys when you become president? However, Dubya broke new ground with the mid-term replacements for insufficient political viciousness. Also, it was never supposed to be a purely political matter. While there are philosophic differences that are supposed to justify the replacements, in the end there was still supposed to be one legal system for both parties.
Dubya's version of "justice" was much closer to Stalin's post-purge system than to anything in America's history.
They should have worked out a deal to block the outgoing spam from China in exchange for blocking the incoming "anti-Chinese propaganda". At least in producing spam China is still #1 in my mailbox.
Sad story, even a tragedy--and yet I feel like the spammer deserved it. Actually, I'm not sure whether or not the wife was innocent. It's possible she encouraged him in his spamming ways. However, the child certainly didn't deserve such a parent.
In one sense it's such a sick story that I don't care. However, there is something to be learned there. How about "Greed is *NOT* good" as a moral? I think it's impossible for a sane person to really imagine what is going on inside such a mind, but I'm convinced that greed for "easy" money is part of it.
And I still feel the spammer deserved worse. I hate spammers too much?
It wasn't a grammar thing. The OP was apparently playing a "w" game in the sig, and it seemed obvious that the "is" could be "was", adding "2 points" (?) to the OP's score.
As for the actual topic, I have read quite a bit about the history of the Bible, but I don't have time (or sufficient interest) to say anything substantive about the Book of J. My general conclusion is that information theory has taught us how to transmit messages clearly. Therefore from the Bible we must conclude that either God is not omniscient (since He wasn't aware of information theory and didn't use it for his 'special' message) or that the Bible was not written by any omniscient being. We human beings only learned about the mathematics of information encoding around 1950.
Maybe there is a God, but I hope he isn't an idiot. I haven't met him--but I've met plenty of human idiots, and there's plenty of evidence the Bible was written by regular fools like you and me.
I couldn't believe it, so I tested it--and Gmail evidently *DOES* ignore periods in the left side of the email address.
However, I actually don't regard it as a privacy security hole, though it is an interesting feature with lots of implication. For one thing, it prevents people from using similar email addresses by shuffling periods around. It also means that I could register for various websites with multiple variations of my Gmail address...
How about confusing the issue by using multiple spam-trap email addresses. Of course the one that is based on your real name should be a spam trap, but you can also use real.name.nospam as a reverse psychology obfuscation (that also goes nowhere). Then you should also register real.name.nospam.really and really.my.real.name real.name.might.be.here@gmail.com so the spammers have to try the related permutations, too.
Meanwhile, my actual email address is Mr_Mxyzptlk_esq, but with heavy obfuscation.
(Just joking about the actual email address--but if you think I'm going to reveal it here, that would be really funny.)
Frankly, Google seems to be gathering excessive power and not doing so well on the responsibility part. In general, they have become far too helpful to spammers, so I suggested a way that Google could be much less helpful to the spammers--but there is no evidence they are interested in it. Does their understanding of evil somehow exempt the spammers?
On the general privacy thing, Too many companies are collecting too much of our personal data--and then treating it like their corporate property. I deeply resent it, but at least it isn't anything special about Google. Or maybe it is, insofar as Google is especially skilled at using information, and therefore poses the greater threat for potential abuse... What I want it a privacy option to store my personal information on *MY* computer, and they can ask when they want to look at it--and they had better ask nicely, too. (Actually, I want an automated system of user-controlled privacy preferences to handle most of this...)
You didn't tell me enough about yourself--but I know you're just faking it anyway. In fact, it doesn't have to be a real flaw. For example, maybe you exchanged some email with a boyfriend in high school. It wasn't anything serious, but it sounds a little embarrassing. Let's use that as leverage to get you to do a little favor at the office, say a list of names just so we won't embarrass you with the email...
Oh wait. Now it turns out that you've committed a felony. Ignorance of the law is no excuse. Our next little request...
Thanks. I never knew about that option. The moderation system on/. is just TOO screwed up to bother with. I think it's because of the anonymity, but the dimensional reduction doesn't help, either...
Before I permitted you to copy my personal information, I asked you why. That's a fuzzy big question. For example, if you said because you have asked me to help approve a loan application, then my system is going to respond with a whole string of questions. For example, you're going to have to prove who you are, who you represent, and provide a confirmation link to the lean application you claim to be talking about. In my own personal privacy policy, for sensitive financial information I might well include a final personal double-check with me. Or maybe I would make that dependent on the amount of money? Anyway, it would be MY decision, freely made.
My own privacy policies would also be time sensitive. If you say that you need the information for one week, then I'll let you have it for one week. If you still have the information on the eighth day, then you are violating our agreement or committing theft (depending on the details), and I'm going to come after you. Again, this is a technical question that we can address with existing technology. Basically, when I give out personal information I will also sign it the authorization. Possession of unsigned personal information should be a crime. Trying to ignore the signature won't work, either, because that can be checked with my computer, and it can again be determined that you have committed a crime.
That's one way to put it. The other way to look at ripeness is the appeals judge can choose to ignore some crime by saying the current case just isn't ripe enough. It's basically a subjective call, but I'd love to see the statistics on the 'ripeness' decisions of the current Supreme Court so-called Justices.
The American legal system might do well to consider some judicial reforms based on international standards. In many countries, the courts can actually look at laws for Constitutional questions before anyone gets hurt.
Unless we own our personal information, we will have no privacy and no freedom. If I know *EVERYTHING* about you and have a few henchmen, then I can surely control you and eliminate your freedom. No one is perfect. You must have some weakness that can be approached. Some way to be bribed? Or surely you've made some embarrassing mistakes that could be leveraged against you? What's your hook? Gambling? Booze? Whatever it is, if I know enough about you, then I can eventually make you do whatever I want.
Is there a solution? Yes. We must own our personal data. It cannot belong to the companies to buy and sell like oil futures and shares in gold mines. The strongest form of ownership is possession--the famous 9 points of the law. Once you have possession, then it is up to the other side to show they have some claim on your personal property (in the form of information in this case).
If any company wants to store some information about me, they should be required to store it on *MY* computer. They can sign it so that I can't tamper with it. That's a trivial aspect. However, whenever they want to *USE* my information, they should be required to tell me why. This can mostly be automated in the form of my personal privacy preferences, and for most queries there is no reason I should stop them--but I should always be free to change my mind.
(I only see one other alternative that preserves any personal freedom. That would be the total exposure of everyone's personal information. It would be a kind of war, but at least all of us could be on a kind of equal footing. Yet however much I would like to know the full truth about Dubya Bush, I don't think that's going to happen.)
My suggestion for Gmail to reduce the amount of spam. In summary, make it much easier for good Samaritans to take down the spammers' websites before the spammer finds a sucker to send money. It basically works on the theory that there are more Samaritans than suckers. Actually it does rather more than that, but this/. venue only calls for the very short summary.
Technically speaking, no. However, I still plan to respond to the next mailing by unsubscribing. If enough people do that, maybe he'll get the message.
Actually, I wish Dion would do this--but it would doubtless interfere with their business model of hosting spammers' dating/porno websites. I've been monitoring Japanese spam for a long time, and in terms of hosting the websites, Dion (a subsidiary of KDDI) is clearly the leader--at least for my sample of spam over the last year or two. Their response rate in killing spammer domains averages about one per week--but the spammer just replaces those domains--and all of them point to the same IP address. Currently it's ZF044096.ppp.dion.ne.jp, though I think there are only two or three domains in use right now.
If privacy is to have any meaning, then we need a right to protect our personal information. Well, actually we already have the right, though it's a bit scattered around the Bill of Rights. (Speaking for Americans, and only in theoretical terms as regards the current administration.)
So what's the strongest form of protection for our personal information? The famous "possession is 9 points of the law". We should possess our personal information and we should have to right to say who can see it, and when.
Concretely in Google's case, they should offer privacy options whereby all of your personal information would be stored only on your machine. They could still access it, but they'd have to respect your privacy preferences--and you could always change your mind. (Of course the data should be signed to prevent you from tampering with it, but that's a relatively trivial aspect.) I feel like this approach is the only thing that would really give meaning to privacy in the computer age.
(However, some people would no doubt trade away their privacy for coupon discounts or whatever--but right now we have no choice. Lots of companies (and of course including Google) collect lots of our personal information and treat it like *THEIR* property when it should belong to *US*.)
Why does Al Gore continue to grate so hard on you right-wing lunatics?
Is it the Nobel Prize? Dubya's miserable failures? Or maybe just that the big dick Cheney told you to?
If you want to drag Al Gore into it in a relative way, you need to show some creativity. Perhaps you can somehow link his Congressional support of scientific research to the direction of research so that the American researchers were busy developing email rather than working on the Riemann Hypothesis. Yeah, that's it. You need to blame Al Gore for the spam.
Microsoft got Palm to take their eyes off the ball
on
What Happened To Palm?
·
· Score: 1
Seems clear to me that what happened was that Microsoft got Palm to take their eyes off the ball. It's not that Microsoft ever delivered what they were promising. (A reservation that I haven't really used the latest version--but why would Microsoft even worry (or care) about the promises now? The threat from Palm?) What Palm was originally doing was something very different--and wonderful. But, but, BUT it wasn't Microsoft compatible. With the pressure of Microsoft's advertising, they were able to persuade lots of Palm customers that the PDA should be some kind of Windows Lite mini-monster. The strategy worked. Palm started losing money--and they never had the deep pockets of Microsoft--and they let Microsoft define the terms of the debate. It didn't matter to Microsoft that they were also losing money. Pocket change losses to Microsoft were more than Palm ever made as profits--but Microsoft could just fritter it away--and the latest diagnostic financial report I read (filtering under the camouflage) concluded they were *STILL* losing money on Windows Mobile. If you've used it, you'd know why. It doesn't matter how much lipstick you put on the pig.
In conclusion, I am delighted to announce that I just retired the Windows Mobile device I was basically forced into when Palm PDAs were abandoned here. It was only a couple of years of suffering, but it sure felt like forever.
I work near Machida, actually, but the city in question is Kawasaki, which actually has a reputation of being unusually polluted--by Japanese standards. Years ago I used to work in Akihabara, too, though I don't regard it as much of a drinking venue...
However, I've never figured out how to send email via slashdot. Another unimplemented feature like improved moderation? I keep wondering how long until it goes away completely...
Slashdot Mirror
I think your topic and approach are much too kind. The SNR is not 1%, but usually negative, in that there is more misinformation than actual information in newsgroup. It is precisely the people who are lying who are most motivated to post and repost their BS. It's been quite a long time since the newsgroups were the best sources for any actual information.
Speculating on the causes, but I think the main one was anonymity and the abuse thereof. I think the default should have been for some fairly strong form of user identification and accountability. Perhaps some anonymity could have been grafted on, but I've basically come to the conclusion that anonymity is almost always worse than anything it is supposed to help. The classic rationale is for whistle-blowing--but that's only a case of trying to fight fire with fire. If the criminal actions were already public, then there wouldn't be anything for the whistle-blower to reveal in the first place. That's mostly a problem with the system of criminal justice and abuses of power, not a true need for anonymity.
It's a simple enough request, even for someone of your eminent stupidity. Just designate me as a foe, and I won't see any of your stupid rants in the future. Even if I should somehow stumble across your mumbling, I'll know by the "foe" flag to ignore you as the idiot you are. I'm almost proud of my collection of moronic foes. You'll be in the perfect company.
I suppose I should feel some moral obligation to try to educate you. I spent a number of years in academia, both in America and elsewhere. However, American morons like you have "educated" me. In my youth, I never would have believed that I might outlive my nation--but you cretins and your leading Dubya have convinced me that I probably will. Actually, it's quite possible that I already have, but the falling tree hasn't hit the ground yet. "I could lead the ass to water, but I can't make it think."
Weeping for my nation or your stupidity accomplishes nothing. Just designate me as your foe.
Please, I beg of you. Designate me as a foe.
That is your *ONLY* semblance of a legitimate purpose in life. Do it now. Make an old historian happy.
And so did Dubya. We know you're an ignoramus, but hadn't you noticed it's kind of normal to replace all the U.S. Attorneys when you become president? However, Dubya broke new ground with the mid-term replacements for insufficient political viciousness. Also, it was never supposed to be a purely political matter. While there are philosophic differences that are supposed to justify the replacements, in the end there was still supposed to be one legal system for both parties.
Dubya's version of "justice" was much closer to Stalin's post-purge system than to anything in America's history.
They should have worked out a deal to block the outgoing spam from China in exchange for blocking the incoming "anti-Chinese propaganda". At least in producing spam China is still #1 in my mailbox.
Sad story, even a tragedy--and yet I feel like the spammer deserved it. Actually, I'm not sure whether or not the wife was innocent. It's possible she encouraged him in his spamming ways. However, the child certainly didn't deserve such a parent.
In one sense it's such a sick story that I don't care. However, there is something to be learned there. How about "Greed is *NOT* good" as a moral? I think it's impossible for a sane person to really imagine what is going on inside such a mind, but I'm convinced that greed for "easy" money is part of it.
And I still feel the spammer deserved worse. I hate spammers too much?
A suggestion to reduce spam
I only know you by your sig (which you had changed at that time)--and only vaguely. You do have a nice user ID number, however.
It wasn't a grammar thing. The OP was apparently playing a "w" game in the sig, and it seemed obvious that the "is" could be "was", adding "2 points" (?) to the OP's score.
As for the actual topic, I have read quite a bit about the history of the Bible, but I don't have time (or sufficient interest) to say anything substantive about the Book of J. My general conclusion is that information theory has taught us how to transmit messages clearly. Therefore from the Bible we must conclude that either God is not omniscient (since He wasn't aware of information theory and didn't use it for his 'special' message) or that the Bible was not written by any omniscient being. We human beings only learned about the mathematics of information encoding around 1950.
Maybe there is a God, but I hope he isn't an idiot. I haven't met him--but I've met plenty of human idiots, and there's plenty of evidence the Bible was written by regular fools like you and me.
Shouldn't the sig say:
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who was washing Waldo Woo.
I couldn't believe it, so I tested it--and Gmail evidently *DOES* ignore periods in the left side of the email address.
However, I actually don't regard it as a privacy security hole, though it is an interesting feature with lots of implication. For one thing, it prevents people from using similar email addresses by shuffling periods around. It also means that I could register for various websites with multiple variations of my Gmail address...
How about confusing the issue by using multiple spam-trap email addresses. Of course the one that is based on your real name should be a spam trap, but you can also use real.name.nospam as a reverse psychology obfuscation (that also goes nowhere). Then you should also register real.name.nospam.really and really.my.real.name real.name.might.be.here@gmail.com so the spammers have to try the related permutations, too.
Meanwhile, my actual email address is Mr_Mxyzptlk_esq, but with heavy obfuscation.
(Just joking about the actual email address--but if you think I'm going to reveal it here, that would be really funny.)
Frankly, Google seems to be gathering excessive power and not doing so well on the responsibility part. In general, they have become far too helpful to spammers, so I suggested a way that Google could be much less helpful to the spammers--but there is no evidence they are interested in it. Does their understanding of evil somehow exempt the spammers?
On the general privacy thing, Too many companies are collecting too much of our personal data--and then treating it like their corporate property. I deeply resent it, but at least it isn't anything special about Google. Or maybe it is, insofar as Google is especially skilled at using information, and therefore poses the greater threat for potential abuse... What I want it a privacy option to store my personal information on *MY* computer, and they can ask when they want to look at it--and they had better ask nicely, too. (Actually, I want an automated system of user-controlled privacy preferences to handle most of this...)
You know, like Ubuntu.
Oh. Wait.
Microsoft. Choice. Forget I said anything.
You didn't tell me enough about yourself--but I know you're just faking it anyway. In fact, it doesn't have to be a real flaw. For example, maybe you exchanged some email with a boyfriend in high school. It wasn't anything serious, but it sounds a little embarrassing. Let's use that as leverage to get you to do a little favor at the office, say a list of names just so we won't embarrass you with the email...
Oh wait. Now it turns out that you've committed a felony. Ignorance of the law is no excuse. Our next little request...
Thanks. I never knew about that option. The moderation system on /. is just TOO screwed up to bother with. I think it's because of the anonymity, but the dimensional reduction doesn't help, either...
Before I permitted you to copy my personal information, I asked you why. That's a fuzzy big question. For example, if you said because you have asked me to help approve a loan application, then my system is going to respond with a whole string of questions. For example, you're going to have to prove who you are, who you represent, and provide a confirmation link to the lean application you claim to be talking about. In my own personal privacy policy, for sensitive financial information I might well include a final personal double-check with me. Or maybe I would make that dependent on the amount of money? Anyway, it would be MY decision, freely made.
My own privacy policies would also be time sensitive. If you say that you need the information for one week, then I'll let you have it for one week. If you still have the information on the eighth day, then you are violating our agreement or committing theft (depending on the details), and I'm going to come after you. Again, this is a technical question that we can address with existing technology. Basically, when I give out personal information I will also sign it the authorization. Possession of unsigned personal information should be a crime. Trying to ignore the signature won't work, either, because that can be checked with my computer, and it can again be determined that you have committed a crime.
That's one way to put it. The other way to look at ripeness is the appeals judge can choose to ignore some crime by saying the current case just isn't ripe enough. It's basically a subjective call, but I'd love to see the statistics on the 'ripeness' decisions of the current Supreme Court so-called Justices.
The American legal system might do well to consider some judicial reforms based on international standards. In many countries, the courts can actually look at laws for Constitutional questions before anyone gets hurt.
Unless we own our personal information, we will have no privacy and no freedom. If I know *EVERYTHING* about you and have a few henchmen, then I can surely control you and eliminate your freedom. No one is perfect. You must have some weakness that can be approached. Some way to be bribed? Or surely you've made some embarrassing mistakes that could be leveraged against you? What's your hook? Gambling? Booze? Whatever it is, if I know enough about you, then I can eventually make you do whatever I want.
Is there a solution? Yes. We must own our personal data. It cannot belong to the companies to buy and sell like oil futures and shares in gold mines. The strongest form of ownership is possession--the famous 9 points of the law. Once you have possession, then it is up to the other side to show they have some claim on your personal property (in the form of information in this case).
If any company wants to store some information about me, they should be required to store it on *MY* computer. They can sign it so that I can't tamper with it. That's a trivial aspect. However, whenever they want to *USE* my information, they should be required to tell me why. This can mostly be automated in the form of my personal privacy preferences, and for most queries there is no reason I should stop them--but I should always be free to change my mind.
(I only see one other alternative that preserves any personal freedom. That would be the total exposure of everyone's personal information. It would be a kind of war, but at least all of us could be on a kind of equal footing. Yet however much I would like to know the full truth about Dubya Bush, I don't think that's going to happen.)
My suggestion for Gmail to reduce the amount of spam. In summary, make it much easier for good Samaritans to take down the spammers' websites before the spammer finds a sucker to send money. It basically works on the theory that there are more Samaritans than suckers. Actually it does rather more than that, but this /. venue only calls for the very short summary.
Technically speaking, no. However, I still plan to respond to the next mailing by unsubscribing. If enough people do that, maybe he'll get the message.
Actually, I wish Dion would do this--but it would doubtless interfere with their business model of hosting spammers' dating/porno websites. I've been monitoring Japanese spam for a long time, and in terms of hosting the websites, Dion (a subsidiary of KDDI) is clearly the leader--at least for my sample of spam over the last year or two. Their response rate in killing spammer domains averages about one per week--but the spammer just replaces those domains--and all of them point to the same IP address. Currently it's ZF044096.ppp.dion.ne.jp, though I think there are only two or three domains in use right now.
Just a sec while I sharpen up my rusty old axe...
If privacy is to have any meaning, then we need a right to protect our personal information. Well, actually we already have the right, though it's a bit scattered around the Bill of Rights. (Speaking for Americans, and only in theoretical terms as regards the current administration.)
So what's the strongest form of protection for our personal information? The famous "possession is 9 points of the law". We should possess our personal information and we should have to right to say who can see it, and when.
Concretely in Google's case, they should offer privacy options whereby all of your personal information would be stored only on your machine. They could still access it, but they'd have to respect your privacy preferences--and you could always change your mind. (Of course the data should be signed to prevent you from tampering with it, but that's a relatively trivial aspect.) I feel like this approach is the only thing that would really give meaning to privacy in the computer age.
(However, some people would no doubt trade away their privacy for coupon discounts or whatever--but right now we have no choice. Lots of companies (and of course including Google) collect lots of our personal information and treat it like *THEIR* property when it should belong to *US*.)
Why does Al Gore continue to grate so hard on you right-wing lunatics?
Is it the Nobel Prize? Dubya's miserable failures? Or maybe just that the big dick Cheney told you to?
If you want to drag Al Gore into it in a relative way, you need to show some creativity. Perhaps you can somehow link his Congressional support of scientific research to the direction of research so that the American researchers were busy developing email rather than working on the Riemann Hypothesis. Yeah, that's it. You need to blame Al Gore for the spam.
Seems clear to me that what happened was that Microsoft got Palm to take their eyes off the ball. It's not that Microsoft ever delivered what they were promising. (A reservation that I haven't really used the latest version--but why would Microsoft even worry (or care) about the promises now? The threat from Palm?) What Palm was originally doing was something very different--and wonderful. But, but, BUT it wasn't Microsoft compatible. With the pressure of Microsoft's advertising, they were able to persuade lots of Palm customers that the PDA should be some kind of Windows Lite mini-monster. The strategy worked. Palm started losing money--and they never had the deep pockets of Microsoft--and they let Microsoft define the terms of the debate. It didn't matter to Microsoft that they were also losing money. Pocket change losses to Microsoft were more than Palm ever made as profits--but Microsoft could just fritter it away--and the latest diagnostic financial report I read (filtering under the camouflage) concluded they were *STILL* losing money on Windows Mobile. If you've used it, you'd know why. It doesn't matter how much lipstick you put on the pig.
In conclusion, I am delighted to announce that I just retired the Windows Mobile device I was basically forced into when Palm PDAs were abandoned here. It was only a couple of years of suffering, but it sure felt like forever.
I work near Machida, actually, but the city in question is Kawasaki, which actually has a reputation of being unusually polluted--by Japanese standards. Years ago I used to work in Akihabara, too, though I don't regard it as much of a drinking venue...
However, I've never figured out how to send email via slashdot. Another unimplemented feature like improved moderation? I keep wondering how long until it goes away completely...