Sorry, I didn't see this response right away... My use of Mailinator is only, *ever*, to satisfy sign up at a Web site that wants an email address.
As you point out, it would be foolhardy to include in the registration any real, personal data. That's the reason for using Mailinator in the first place - an essentially anonymous sign-up at a site that otherwise may be harvesting e-mail addresses.
There is absolutely no danger in such use of Mailinator - especially if your first use of the regged Web site includes quickly changing the password.
I had an item up for auction on eBay. A luser came along and posted the same item and snagged my photo. Not only did he snag the photo - he simply linked to my original storage location on.Mac. When I discovered what he had done, I changed my own link, reshot the photo he was linking to and uploaded again. Subsequent viewers of his auction page were treated to an image of a Port Noteworthy laptop lock beneath a hand holding up the middle finger. I and a few friends got a good chuckle out of that one.
I admit it is an interesting irony, Mailinator's home page advertising for ServerBeach. Don't let that stop you from looking into Mailinator, though. Consider it like frequenting a grocery store that also sells cigarettes?
Duh? Mailinator.com is hardly a "suspicious looking 'mail filtering'" product. It's a cool (and free as in beer) way to quickly get a disposable address for use in registering at a web site that requires an email addy (USA Today anyone?). There's even a nifty Java app (Nator, I believe) that can check your made up address and reforward incomings to other addresses for you. When your registration is done, turn off the forward. Try it, you'll like it.
The hang-up for me comes when exiting the PDF view by going back to the linking page or exiting the browser. Takes a good 10 seconds or so to go back the first time. Seems to be less on subsequent trips back and forth. This has something to do with the interaction between the Adobe plug-in and, in my case, Mozilla.
Good morning Mr. Phelps. The documents you are viewing are... Your mission, should you decide to accept it... This computer will be recyclable in 60 seconds. Please deposit it in the nearest cardboard recycling bin.
I'll second that about BA. My father spent some time there on business some years back and tells two stories about BA drivers:
1. When they come to an intersection or stop sign or traffic lights they typically just honk their horns and drive through without even pretending to stop.
2. When travelling at night and approaching an intersection, my dad's driver would turn off his headlights so as to see if there was another car approaching. Seeing no other headlights, he would simply drive on through without stopping and while barely slowing at all. God help the pair of drivers that *both* turned off their headlights at the same time and thought the same thing.
I used to pull that last stunt when I lived in Ariona, south of Phoenix, where the interesections out in nowheresville were approx. one mile apart with land so flat you could see for miles. Worked a treat till I realized the part about two drivers doing the same thing simultaneously (or a cop sitting in the dark just up the road).
Check out LoopRecorder. You can use it for grabbing anything that gets sent to the sound cards. I routinely use it for 'backing up' in some audio streaming scenario.
The satellite signal "beamed" into your house is very much analogous to your Mom opening your mail. If you haven't paid for the premium channels, then those channels are clearly not "addressed" to you. In fact, there is a security 'wrapper' to prevent/inhibit you from opening it. It is clearly theft if you manage to open them up and view them when you KNOW you did not pay and are therefore NOT authorized so to do.
Last time I checked, it was not possible for a satellite service provider to "beam" their contents to only those specific subscribers that paid for them. The way they get around this is authentication and/or cryptography (weak as it sometimes is).
Grow up and stop thinking that because something is lying around it's yours for the taking.
Your analogy is seriously flawed. Sattelite and cable signals are already coming into your house. You're not taking something that you're not paying for - the signals are already in your house.
This must be one of the most tired, and specious, arguments of all time. Though the signals may, indeed, be "in your house", those that you are clearly not paying for are protected, in some way, to inhibit you from accessing them if not authorized. You breaking open that protection to access whatever you want, to use your words, "is theft". It is that plain, it is that simple.
Here's another analogy like yours: Since you live in your parent's basement still, you must get your mail at their house, right? Every day your Mom picks up the mail that drops through the slot on the front door. Since they're "in her house" she can open whatever ones she wants, including yours, right? Bzzzzt. Wrong answer, thanks for playing. That letter that was addressed to you, though clearly "in her house" is not legally hers to open. Nor are those "extra" signals from the Spice channel that you're not paying for but want so desperately to see.
You are right, of course. Privacy is not guaranteed by the Constitution. I think the point he should have made, and which we should all consider, is that privacy should be guaranteed by common decency, not ignored or otherwise rendered meaningless by "uncommon" techniques (uncommon, that is, for most ot the population).
WIRED ran a story on a similar proposal a number of years ago. (I looked for a link but couldn't find one). As I recall, Alexander Haig (yup, that guy) was deeply involved in the project, then to be pointed towards providing ubiquitous cellular phone access across the country. They planned on using geostationary airship type platforms to get around some of the classical problems with cellular antennas and coverage. I guess it never got off the ground;-)
Awww, c'mon. Don't trash the Baha Men. You must never have sat at the pool bar at Club Land'or, swilling a Kalik, while Island Boy played in the background.
Why does everything have to be about pushing things at us ala Minority Report, or other such conspiracy theories? Why can't location based services be a tech euphemism for at least one feature I've long wanted on either my cell phone or PDA - directions to the nearest X?
As an example... I can't tell you how many times I've been out running errands, stopped at the grocery store on the way home to pick some things up for dinner, then realized I needed some sherry or wine or something for cooking the meal I had planned. Since I'm in a different part of town than I normally shop in, I have no idea where the closest liquor store is. I would love to be able to speak into my phone and say... "Where's the nearest package store" and get back immediate directions, either graphically or verbally via the phone.
My current phone, an LG VX6000, has two modes: locator mode always on, and E911 only. I can switch at will between the two. How about a service tied to the first mode that lets you 'report' your location for just such a location-based information query?
This would be a great use of the location technology and I, for one, would welcome its availability despite the possibility of abuse. (Again, user mode selection could mitigate much of that, with parental lock-out for over-protective parents gifting their offspring with phones for dual purposes of keeping in touch and establishing electronic boundary fences.) I'm not doing anything so illegal that I need worry about that, plus I'm probably already on a different security camera every few seconds anyway. So... when I buy aluminum foil, it's for use in the kitchen, not for making a hat!;-)
Yup. Already had it down before this news "broke", helping my kid learn how to rip, mix and burn. The version says 4.2.0.72. Have to check the Mac version when I get home tonight...
And, you can take this one step further and make things even more confusing (if not more difficult)... Use a secret sharing algorithm and split up the encrypted data, which you then 'hide' in multiple media files. You need to know the media files contain other than media, then you need to know which ones to use (and use together) in order even to get back to the cipher text. Then and only then can you decrypt or (if snooping) try to break the cipher.
Further, I find that, even with a hands-free kit, there is still some non-trivial amount of fiddling that needs be done with a cellphone to initiate or answer a call.
When the law was enacted here in NYS, a lot of people went out and bought hands-free kits (good for Motorola, Sony-E, Samsung, etc. revenue), but I still see people navigating their vehicles while looking down and navigating their phone, their earphones 'safely' in their ears.
My inline 6-cylinder Jeep will tow more than any V8 regardless of the horsepower because it is designed for high torque...
Ahhh, torque... now there's an automotive buzzword. There are even fewer people that have a clue what it is than understand horsepower. I think you made the parent poster's point nicely.
The chances of this happening with a sophisticated hash like MD5 (and its 128-bit output) is statistically insignificant.
A weakness has been found in MD5 and is still being assessed, but it is still extrememely strong, cryptographically speaking. It has been estimated that our sun will have long since gone nova before you could find two different files that have the same MD5 hash.
I believe this will stand up in court as well or better than any DNA evidence statistics.
Any modification, to ANY bit of the file covered by the hash, will change the MD5 hash (that's how hashes work). If you assume the hash includes the ID3 tag info, then simply editing the info (putting something in the notes field, for example) would change the hash.
On the other hand, if I were the RIAA attempting to identify common files in this way, I might be inclined to exclude the ID3 tag from the MD5 computation since it is so easily modified.
Any changes to the actual content, though, will ripple into the MD5 computation.
Short answer: "normalizing" the file for volume, or even chopping off a few seconds of trailing silence with something like CoolEdit will certainly change the hash and make it distinct from whatever their baseline hash value is.
People should be treated as innocent until proven guilty.
And, duh, how do you propose to complete the loop on that one? The only thing that could "prove" someone guilty is software that is checking itself in the first place, which you appear to declare shouldn't be done unless one is guilty to being with. Hoist by your own petard, or caught by your own 22 as it were.
Any piece of software that has a price tag has the absolute right to 'protect' itself against use that is inconsistent with the software license. If you don't want to be "spied" on, then check the EULA carefully, BUY all your software, or write your own (if you are capable).
This hue and cry over privacy in this regard is so tiresome and is mainly from those trying to keep 'private' the fact that they're too damned cheap to pay for something they want to use.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry, I didn't see this response right away... My use of Mailinator is only, *ever*, to satisfy sign up at a Web site that wants an email address.
As you point out, it would be foolhardy to include in the registration any real, personal data. That's the reason for using Mailinator in the first place - an essentially anonymous sign-up at a site that otherwise may be harvesting e-mail addresses.
There is absolutely no danger in such use of Mailinator - especially if your first use of the regged Web site includes quickly changing the password.
I liked this response and I pulled it myself...
.Mac. When I discovered what he had done, I changed my own link, reshot the photo he was linking to and uploaded again. Subsequent viewers of his auction page were treated to an image of a Port Noteworthy laptop lock beneath a hand holding up the middle finger. I and a few friends got a good chuckle out of that one.
I had an item up for auction on eBay. A luser came along and posted the same item and snagged my photo. Not only did he snag the photo - he simply linked to my original storage location on
Is that like... I`ve gone out to find myself. If I should return before I get back, please have me wait here.
I admit it is an interesting irony, Mailinator's home page advertising for ServerBeach. Don't let that stop you from looking into Mailinator, though. Consider it like frequenting a grocery store that also sells cigarettes?
Duh? Mailinator.com is hardly a "suspicious looking 'mail filtering'" product. It's a cool (and free as in beer) way to quickly get a disposable address for use in registering at a web site that requires an email addy (USA Today anyone?). There's even a nifty Java app (Nator, I believe) that can check your made up address and reforward incomings to other addresses for you. When your registration is done, turn off the forward. Try it, you'll like it.
The hang-up for me comes when exiting the PDF view by going back to the linking page or exiting the browser. Takes a good 10 seconds or so to go back the first time. Seems to be less on subsequent trips back and forth. This has something to do with the interaction between the Adobe plug-in and, in my case, Mozilla.
Good morning Mr. Phelps. The documents you are viewing are... Your mission, should you decide to accept it... This computer will be recyclable in 60 seconds. Please deposit it in the nearest cardboard recycling bin.
I'll second that about BA. My father spent some time there on business some years back and tells two stories about BA drivers:
1. When they come to an intersection or stop sign or traffic lights they typically just honk their horns and drive through without even pretending to stop.
2. When travelling at night and approaching an intersection, my dad's driver would turn off his headlights so as to see if there was another car approaching. Seeing no other headlights, he would simply drive on through without stopping and while barely slowing at all. God help the pair of drivers that *both* turned off their headlights at the same time and thought the same thing.
I used to pull that last stunt when I lived in Ariona, south of Phoenix, where the interesections out in nowheresville were approx. one mile apart with land so flat you could see for miles. Worked a treat till I realized the part about two drivers doing the same thing simultaneously (or a cop sitting in the dark just up the road).
Check out LoopRecorder. You can use it for grabbing anything that gets sent to the sound cards. I routinely use it for 'backing up' in some audio streaming scenario.
Learn to swim...
Dear, poor, misinformed AC,
The satellite signal "beamed" into your house is very much analogous to your Mom opening your mail. If you haven't paid for the premium channels, then those channels are clearly not "addressed" to you. In fact, there is a security 'wrapper' to prevent/inhibit you from opening it. It is clearly theft if you manage to open them up and view them when you KNOW you did not pay and are therefore NOT authorized so to do.
Last time I checked, it was not possible for a satellite service provider to "beam" their contents to only those specific subscribers that paid for them. The way they get around this is authentication and/or cryptography (weak as it sometimes is).
Grow up and stop thinking that because something is lying around it's yours for the taking.
Sincerely,
Alex Trebek
This must be one of the most tired, and specious, arguments of all time. Though the signals may, indeed, be "in your house", those that you are clearly not paying for are protected, in some way, to inhibit you from accessing them if not authorized. You breaking open that protection to access whatever you want, to use your words, "is theft". It is that plain, it is that simple.
Here's another analogy like yours: Since you live in your parent's basement still, you must get your mail at their house, right? Every day your Mom picks up the mail that drops through the slot on the front door. Since they're "in her house" she can open whatever ones she wants, including yours, right? Bzzzzt. Wrong answer, thanks for playing. That letter that was addressed to you, though clearly "in her house" is not legally hers to open. Nor are those "extra" signals from the Spice channel that you're not paying for but want so desperately to see.
You are right, of course. Privacy is not guaranteed by the Constitution. I think the point he should have made, and which we should all consider, is that privacy should be guaranteed by common decency, not ignored or otherwise rendered meaningless by "uncommon" techniques (uncommon, that is, for most ot the population).
ooops.
Must... choose.... better.... search terms. I found this reference, from 1997, about something then called SkyStation:
6 ,0 0.html
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,604
WIRED ran a story on a similar proposal a number of years ago. (I looked for a link but couldn't find one). As I recall, Alexander Haig (yup, that guy) was deeply involved in the project, then to be pointed towards providing ubiquitous cellular phone access across the country. They planned on using geostationary airship type platforms to get around some of the classical problems with cellular antennas and coverage. I guess it never got off the ground ;-)
Awww, c'mon. Don't trash the Baha Men. You must never have sat at the pool bar at Club Land'or, swilling a Kalik, while Island Boy played in the background.
One of the best vacations I ever had...
Why does everything have to be about pushing things at us ala Minority Report, or other such conspiracy theories? Why can't location based services be a tech euphemism for at least one feature I've long wanted on either my cell phone or PDA - directions to the nearest X?
;-)
As an example... I can't tell you how many times I've been out running errands, stopped at the grocery store on the way home to pick some things up for dinner, then realized I needed some sherry or wine or something for cooking the meal I had planned. Since I'm in a different part of town than I normally shop in, I have no idea where the closest liquor store is. I would love to be able to speak into my phone and say... "Where's the nearest package store" and get back immediate directions, either graphically or verbally via the phone.
My current phone, an LG VX6000, has two modes: locator mode always on, and E911 only. I can switch at will between the two. How about a service tied to the first mode that lets you 'report' your location for just such a location-based information query?
This would be a great use of the location technology and I, for one, would welcome its availability despite the possibility of abuse. (Again, user mode selection could mitigate much of that, with parental lock-out for over-protective parents gifting their offspring with phones for dual purposes of keeping in touch and establishing electronic boundary fences.) I'm not doing anything so illegal that I need worry about that, plus I'm probably already on a different security camera every few seconds anyway. So... when I buy aluminum foil, it's for use in the kitchen, not for making a hat!
Yup. Already had it down before this news "broke", helping my kid learn how to rip, mix and burn. The version says 4.2.0.72. Have to check the Mac version when I get home tonight...
And, you can take this one step further and make things even more confusing (if not more difficult)... Use a secret sharing algorithm and split up the encrypted data, which you then 'hide' in multiple media files. You need to know the media files contain other than media, then you need to know which ones to use (and use together) in order even to get back to the cipher text. Then and only then can you decrypt or (if snooping) try to break the cipher.
Further, I find that, even with a hands-free kit, there is still some non-trivial amount of fiddling that needs be done with a cellphone to initiate or answer a call.
When the law was enacted here in NYS, a lot of people went out and bought hands-free kits (good for Motorola, Sony-E, Samsung, etc. revenue), but I still see people navigating their vehicles while looking down and navigating their phone, their earphones 'safely' in their ears.
Dumb.
Ahhh, torque... now there's an automotive buzzword. There are even fewer people that have a clue what it is than understand horsepower. I think you made the parent poster's point nicely.
The chances of this happening with a sophisticated hash like MD5 (and its 128-bit output) is statistically insignificant.
A weakness has been found in MD5 and is still being assessed, but it is still extrememely strong, cryptographically speaking. It has been estimated that our sun will have long since gone nova before you could find two different files that have the same MD5 hash.
I believe this will stand up in court as well or better than any DNA evidence statistics.
Any modification, to ANY bit of the file covered by the hash, will change the MD5 hash (that's how hashes work). If you assume the hash includes the ID3 tag info, then simply editing the info (putting something in the notes field, for example) would change the hash.
On the other hand, if I were the RIAA attempting to identify common files in this way, I might be inclined to exclude the ID3 tag from the MD5 computation since it is so easily modified.
Any changes to the actual content, though, will ripple into the MD5 computation.
Short answer: "normalizing" the file for volume, or even chopping off a few seconds of trailing silence with something like CoolEdit will certainly change the hash and make it distinct from whatever their baseline hash value is.
People should be treated as innocent until proven guilty.
And, duh, how do you propose to complete the loop on that one? The only thing that could "prove" someone guilty is software that is checking itself in the first place, which you appear to declare shouldn't be done unless one is guilty to being with. Hoist by your own petard, or caught by your own 22 as it were.
Any piece of software that has a price tag has the absolute right to 'protect' itself against use that is inconsistent with the software license. If you don't want to be "spied" on, then check the EULA carefully, BUY all your software, or write your own (if you are capable).
This hue and cry over privacy in this regard is so tiresome and is mainly from those trying to keep 'private' the fact that they're too damned cheap to pay for something they want to use.