"I wish you, and everyone else here, would stop putting words in my mouth."
Sorry, but it seemed a reasonable analogy to respond to an apparently unreasonable person. Your comment made you sound like a heartless greedy bastard, and evidently I was not the only person to read it that way. If that is not the impression you meant to give, you might want to take it up with your ghostwriter.:-)
On a much more civil note, please remember that the project linkage you call wagging the dog exists for historical reasons: OpenBSD developers wanted a free version of SSH, so they made one. Then they gave it away. That same developer pool still maintains it, because the OpenBSD project requires a free and highly correct implementation of SSH and they think they are maintaining a better one than anyone else is. I'm sure they're delighted that world+dog uses their tool, but that's ancillary to what they're interested in doing. It's not really a separate project, it's just part of the toolkit OpenBSD develops for its own use and gives away freely.
(Also, don't forget that OpenSSH profits from being developed on and by OpenBSD. Their coding and auditing practices with an eye towards correctness and security make it a very reliable tool.)
Of course, you still may not like this. That's fair enough. But I seriously doubt they'll alter their practices to suit you... especially since you didn't ask nicely or say please.
So you have some choices: Stand aside and let other people donate to support OpenBSD and its child project OpenSSH, overcome your objection and donate to them knowing that much of your donation will go towards other projects, or do it your own damn self.
It's BSD licensed code, after all. If you don't like the way they're handling the business, just grab the source and arrange to maintain it yourself. Or start a foundation, or a for-profit, whatever. It's free code.
If, like me, you lack the interest, time, and expertise necessary to do this, then I'd suggest that you stick with one of the first two options. And if, as you said, you use and appreciate OpenSSH, then I'd suggest that the second option is more likely to achieve the results you want.
(Incidentally, the article quoted marco out of context. He mentioned OpenSSH as part of a pitch for OpenBSD donations, not the other way around. See the whole thing here.)
"I like my tax money to fill potholes in the street outside my house, but not the ones in front of your house. Screw taxes, I'm not paying!"
Same argument, only taxes aren't voluntary. This is.
(Don't forget that the money you might give only to the OpenSSH project would go towards ensuring it works on about a dozen hardware platforms. I suppose you'd prefer that such money go only to OpenSSH/i386, because that's all you think you use?)
I tried it too. Here's what happened for me: 1) I went to the OpenBSD website and read the install FAQ 2) I downloaded a floppy disk image and the tools to write it in Windows from openbsd.org 3) I booted from the floppy installer on a computer attached to the internet 4) The installer FTP'd the entire OS from a mirror site 5) I said "This totally rocks!", ordered some CDs, and donated to the project.
Ho-ly cow. I just tried it, and that thing is cool. Like Request Tracker, but much more polished. I like that it's able to use Active Directory for authentication right out of the gate. There's some things that make me nervous about it (how secure is it? how stable? is there a migration path out of it at all?) but on the whole, it looks like it rocks for admins of small Windows shops.
Actually, this can be done under Win2k at least, although it's a tedious procedure. I was desperate enough to work it out once, though, and I've done it a few times since. Prerequisites: a windows-only box, a gig or two of unformatted (or reformatable) disk space, a local (not domain) admin account, several reboots and maybe a shot of courage.
1) Back up whatever you dare not lose. 2) In disk management, upgrade your boot disk to dynamic. This requires at least one reboot... it's often taken me two. ("Dynamic disks" is alleged to make the drive unreadable by other OSs. I do not know the truth of this, as I've only done this on windows-only boxen.) 3) Once dynamic disks are enabled, create a directory c:\Program Files.new. 4) In disk management, create a partition sufficiently large to hold the contents of Program Files and all anticipated future usage. Do not assign a drive letter, but instead mount it at c:\Program Files.new. 5) Reboot into safe mode. (Networking optional? I always do it without net, but it probably doesn't matter. You need safe mode to overcome any "file is locked/in use" problems when following the next couple steps.) 6) Copy the contents of c:\Program Files to c:\Program Files.new. 7) Rename c:\Program Files to c:\Program Files.old. 8) Rename c:\Program Files.new to c:\Program Files. 8.9) [Optional: Down a shot of courage.] 9) Reboot.
At this point, you should have the contents of Program Files mounted in a separate partition, which is effectively linked to the right spot on C:\. It shows up in explorer with a little disk icon instead of a file icon. I've never had a problem with a system once I got this working, but of course that's no guarantee. Caveat emptor and all that.
I will probably try the same trick on Documents and Settings during some downtime this weekend, but as I recall it fails. I'm pretty sure you can't log in without locking a file somewhere in that tree, so it can't be renamed. (Which is a damn shame, because that's where I really need to put extra space on a terminal server.) There might be a workaround via the recovery console, though. And your comment implies there's an easier way to move Docs and Settings anyway? I'll have to look into that.
For reference, I did pretty much the same thing for a new internal webserver I set up on OpenBSD a few weeks ago, mounting/var/www on its own partition. In OpenBSD I could do that as part of the install, and it was about five extra lines of interaction within the installer. (Actually, I forgot to set aside the space the first time, so I reinstalled OpenBSD from a boot floppy/ftp. It was still easier and faster to do that than the Windows process above... and I'm pretty sure I did it the hard way in OpenBSD.)
It's the jury's job to aquit if they determine the law to be unreasonable. And it's the voters' job to choose a new D.A. based on the perfomance of this one.
We expect that each citizen will do his or her duty.
I gotta agree with the AC here... this would be a really strange application for Halon. Halon's chief advantages are that it leaves no residue and acts very quickly. The chief disadvantage is that it'll rapidly kill anyone who doesn't get out of the room, because it eliminates most of the available oxygen.
So Halon would work fine for fire suppression, but it'd sorta fail the life-safety aspect of the residential fire code. In residential applications you can expect to have children, disabled, and other folks who may not be able to understand an alarm or properly respond by evacuating. Residential fire codes need to take this into account, and they focus on life-safety more than structure-safety. (When it comes right down to it, sacrificing the structure to buy a few extra minutes of evacuation time is a good trade in a residential application.) So I'm thinking no fire code would require Halon in a residential setting, and I'd bet it's not even allowed in most residential applications.
Probably what code required was an Ansul dry chemical fire suppression system. Ansul is very effective, but it ain't cheap and makes a frightful mess when its Rube Goldberg-ish mechanical trigger goes off. A discharge would mean hours of cleanup work, kissing goodbye any food in unsealed containers in the whole kitchen or pantry, and calling a contractor to re-set the system before you could operate your range again... but it wouldn't risk killing anyone.
There also exist water-spray systems that properly installed can actually work on grease fires, but that amount of water in a home kitchen may be even more disastrous than Ansul. (Got floor drain? Plus, the key words are "properly installed". Water on a grease fire normally results in an explosion. I've seen video of a bad water dump on a hot fryer... Trust me, you do not want to try that at home.)
There's another thing about commercial gas ranges in home kitchens that your avereage DIYer may not consider. Modern houses (or clever remodels) tend to be highly-insulated and relatively draft-free. Commerical ranges have gawdawfully-huge gas burners that produce a great deal of CO and CO2. There better be a damn good source of combustion air and someplace for all those exhaust gasses to go, or your first fancy dinner party will really knock 'em dead.
Re:Excess power usage
on
Smart Power
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Some folks at work do insist on leaving their space heaters on all weekend to ensure that they do not face fifteen minutes of chilly discomfort on Monday morning. I took this up with their department's supervisor, only to discover that it was her idea.
So your second analogy might be bad for a reason other than you thought. Good effort, though.:-)
That sucks for you. I guess you can stick to your G4 for a while, eh?
But not all is lost. An ExpressCard attaches with both a 1x PCIe lane and a hi-speed USB 2.0 connection. That 1x PCIe lane is capable of about 2.5 gigabits per second in both directions, so it's probably only a matter of time until someone manages to cram firewire 800 into an ExpressCard/34 form factor. Clearly there's going to be a market for such a thing now.
Plus, even though you don't get the fw800 connector out of the gate and maybe not for a good long while, there's so much available bandwidth in that slot that you do have the potential to end up with a substantially faster connection (of some unknown sort) in that slot down the road.
Well, I'm just basing my space/heat guesses on the reported lack of any firewire 800 card in the ExpressCard/34 form factor. Since fw800 cards are available in the/54 form factor, there's apparently a problem squeezing the fw800 chipset down. I think that makes a heat/space issue a more likely explanation for the lack than a $3 margin differential, a conspiracy to kill firewire, or a desire to cheese you off.
I'm guessing they left out Firewire 800 on the laptop due to one or more of the following:
* Too little space for the fw800 chipset * Heat dissipation problems with the fw800 chipset * Laptop hard drives may be incapable of meeting fw800 data transfer rates.
Any of these could have made the performance difference between fw and fw800 irrelevant or worse. Firewire 800 would be nice, but honestly I'm just glad to see firewire still in there at all.
That's interesting. I didn't know what ExpressCard was, so I just looked into it a bit.
Seems that the only reasons to make a/54 form factor device is because you can't deal with the space or heat dissipation constraints of the/34 form factor. There's no other obvious benefit to making the larger card. Your observation that the only available Firewire 800 cards are/54 leads me to think that the reason Apple is moving away from Firewire 800 is that they haven't been able to make it small or cool enough.
The previous snide comment referenced the typical COC's influence over the typical city government. This is quite distinct from implying that any COC is empowered with any actual governmental authority.
I do apologize to any readers who were aware of this fact and may have accidentally read this superfluous explanation.
I'll be away for a few days so I won't be able to write again. But let me just say that the objections to the UPA are generally not a matter of objection to this administration and what it has done, so much as an objection to this large and permanent increase in executive power without commensurate increases in congressional oversight and judicial review.
Presidents come to power through the skillful application of politics, usually including some "hardball politics". No one is elected to the job who is not eager for power and supremely confident of their ability to excercise it responsibly. Yet our founders designed our Constitution with the maxim "power corrupts" firmly in mind, so they limited and checked the executive's powers. They had suffered the abuses of kingly power, and wished to make sure that did not happen here. Yet even with their precautions, Presidential power has been abused for domestic partisan ends on numerous occasions, from Adams' Alien and Sedition Acts to Nixon's enemies list.
The UPA contains broad power barely checked, and much of it operates in secrecy. There is no reason to believe that some future president will not use these new permanent powers to help his party win in debates over the issue of the day, or capture seats in congress for his party, or prevail in the realm of public opinion. There is every reason to think that these abuses will someday come to pass, and that such abuses will be amplified by the powers granted by the UPA.
So If the executive is to have such additional power as the UPA grants, our future liberty demands it must be open to scrutiny to some larger degree, so that other branches of government (and We The People) may determine if the power is being used rightly. Since this is a very difficult proposition to implement well, it is simpler to not grant the executive those powers at all. The cost to law enforcement's ability to intercept terrorists is not really all that large compared to the potential harm to our liberty. (Nothing in the UPA would have made a difference in the 9-11 attacks; the FBI had enough information to roll it up, yet institutionally failed in analysis and action despite the efforts of a few agents. The UPA does not remedy the flaws which led to these failures.)
Simply stated, it comes down to this: If increased risk of future tyrrany is the cost of my physical safety, then I say my safety is not worth this cost. I would rather die free at the hands of a terrorist tomorrow than have my grandchildren live in a United States devolved into a tyrrany.
You know, I believe you are correct. Bad me. Still, if he manages to twist the arms of enough Senators, he's in a position to act quickly. It ain't over 'til it's over, and maybe not even then.:-)
Now that I have a little more time, let me expand on my other comment.
Recall yourself back to the fall of 2001. We had the terrible shock of 9/11 of that year. By October 26th, the USA Patriot Act (hereafter referred to as the UPA) was signed by the President. Forty-five days may sound like it was plenty of time for Congress to properly consider a bill of such potential sensitivity. Indeed, it might have been.
But Congress did not have 45 days.
This bill was introduced in the House on October 23, a fact which you may verify here. The bill itself is three hundred and forty-two pages, when presented in PDF format. (You can read it here.) Now, we may have varying opinions on the intelligence of various members of Congress, but it seems like a safe bet that any particular member would have had a difficult time reading a 342 page bill in three days, let alone understanding the full implications of such a broad bill on such a sensitive subject.
Yet it was even worse than it appears. If you'll be so kind as to look here, you'll see that it was introduced in the House on the 23rd, and passed without amendment on the 24th at 11:03 AM after approximately 100 minutes of debate. It was received in the Senate the same day, passed that chamber without amendment on the 25th and was given to the President. He signed it the next day.
As if the time to consider the matter wasn't compressed enough already, also recall that the Senate was rather distracted at that moment by the anthrax attacks.
I ask you, do you think Congress fulfilled its responsibilities in this matter? Did Congress give this matter the serious consideration which the defense of our Liberty demands?
If your answer is no, then I fail to see how you can object to the proposal to extend the sunsetted provisions by a few months while the matter is considered further. Yet the administration and Congressional leadership are demanding that it be permanently extended as-is, with no more discussion. Does that not seem a bit... odd? What harm can come from further discussions while the law remains wholly in force?
Dismiss the opposition to the UPA as ACLU propaganda if you like. But there's a much broader opposition to the UPA than you might think. Read what William Safire has to say on the subject, or visit the website of the grassroots Bill of Rights Defense Committee. Heck, read the bill.
Note that Sen. Frist voted with the majority. He didn't do this because he agreed that the act should expire, but because it will allow him to call a new vote whenever he sees that he can turn the tables. And given his Senate leadership position, that means he can wait until a few people leave chambers and call a quick vote very easily.
This will not be over even if the act does expire... you can expect to see some provisions stealthily wedged into unrelated bills next year. The only way to really end this is to elect a Congress and President that takes civil liberties seriously.
Get on it, people. The 2006 Congressional elections are coming up fast.
I don't know beans about PCIDSS. (Not even sure what it is.) But the HIPAA rule requires a broad, basic approach to security. It's much more about policies, procedures, and training than it is about technical measures.
It's actually very light on technical implementation details. This is bad in that covered entities are kind of left to fend for themselves in determining which technical measures are appropriate, but good in that the regulation is basically immune to changes in technology. Covered entities are responsible for assessing the threats, picking appropriate countermeasures and changing with the times... which is as it should be, IMHO.
You may be right to worry about the lack of specific technical requirements, but I can flat guarantee that your medical records are far, far safer now that HIPAA is in force than they were before. HIPAA may prove insufficient, but it's a hell of a good start.
Slashdot Mirror
"I wish you, and everyone else here, would stop putting words in my mouth."
:-)
Sorry, but it seemed a reasonable analogy to respond to an apparently unreasonable person. Your comment made you sound like a heartless greedy bastard, and evidently I was not the only person to read it that way. If that is not the impression you meant to give, you might want to take it up with your ghostwriter.
On a much more civil note, please remember that the project linkage you call wagging the dog exists for historical reasons: OpenBSD developers wanted a free version of SSH, so they made one. Then they gave it away. That same developer pool still maintains it, because the OpenBSD project requires a free and highly correct implementation of SSH and they think they are maintaining a better one than anyone else is. I'm sure they're delighted that world+dog uses their tool, but that's ancillary to what they're interested in doing. It's not really a separate project, it's just part of the toolkit OpenBSD develops for its own use and gives away freely.
(Also, don't forget that OpenSSH profits from being developed on and by OpenBSD. Their coding and auditing practices with an eye towards correctness and security make it a very reliable tool.)
Of course, you still may not like this. That's fair enough. But I seriously doubt they'll alter their practices to suit you... especially since you didn't ask nicely or say please.
So you have some choices: Stand aside and let other people donate to support OpenBSD and its child project OpenSSH, overcome your objection and donate to them knowing that much of your donation will go towards other projects, or do it your own damn self.
It's BSD licensed code, after all. If you don't like the way they're handling the business, just grab the source and arrange to maintain it yourself. Or start a foundation, or a for-profit, whatever. It's free code.
If, like me, you lack the interest, time, and expertise necessary to do this, then I'd suggest that you stick with one of the first two options. And if, as you said, you use and appreciate OpenSSH, then I'd suggest that the second option is more likely to achieve the results you want.
(Incidentally, the article quoted marco out of context. He mentioned OpenSSH as part of a pitch for OpenBSD donations, not the other way around. See the whole thing here.)
"I like my tax money to fill potholes in the street outside my house, but not the ones in front of your house. Screw taxes, I'm not paying!"
Same argument, only taxes aren't voluntary. This is.
(Don't forget that the money you might give only to the OpenSSH project would go towards ensuring it works on about a dozen hardware platforms. I suppose you'd prefer that such money go only to OpenSSH/i386, because that's all you think you use?)
I tried it too. Here's what happened for me:
1) I went to the OpenBSD website and read the install FAQ
2) I downloaded a floppy disk image and the tools to write it in Windows from openbsd.org
3) I booted from the floppy installer on a computer attached to the internet
4) The installer FTP'd the entire OS from a mirror site
5) I said "This totally rocks!", ordered some CDs, and donated to the project.
I think my way was easier.
Ho-ly cow. I just tried it, and that thing is cool. Like Request Tracker, but much more polished. I like that it's able to use Active Directory for authentication right out of the gate. There's some things that make me nervous about it (how secure is it? how stable? is there a migration path out of it at all?) but on the whole, it looks like it rocks for admins of small Windows shops.
Thanks for the tip!
Actually, this can be done under Win2k at least, although it's a tedious procedure. I was desperate enough to work it out once, though, and I've done it a few times since. Prerequisites: a windows-only box, a gig or two of unformatted (or reformatable) disk space, a local (not domain) admin account, several reboots and maybe a shot of courage.
/var/www on its own partition. In OpenBSD I could do that as part of the install, and it was about five extra lines of interaction within the installer. (Actually, I forgot to set aside the space the first time, so I reinstalled OpenBSD from a boot floppy/ftp. It was still easier and faster to do that than the Windows process above... and I'm pretty sure I did it the hard way in OpenBSD.)
1) Back up whatever you dare not lose.
2) In disk management, upgrade your boot disk to dynamic. This requires at least one reboot... it's often taken me two. ("Dynamic disks" is alleged to make the drive unreadable by other OSs. I do not know the truth of this, as I've only done this on windows-only boxen.)
3) Once dynamic disks are enabled, create a directory c:\Program Files.new.
4) In disk management, create a partition sufficiently large to hold the contents of Program Files and all anticipated future usage. Do not assign a drive letter, but instead mount it at c:\Program Files.new.
5) Reboot into safe mode. (Networking optional? I always do it without net, but it probably doesn't matter. You need safe mode to overcome any "file is locked/in use" problems when following the next couple steps.)
6) Copy the contents of c:\Program Files to c:\Program Files.new.
7) Rename c:\Program Files to c:\Program Files.old.
8) Rename c:\Program Files.new to c:\Program Files.
8.9) [Optional: Down a shot of courage.]
9) Reboot.
At this point, you should have the contents of Program Files mounted in a separate partition, which is effectively linked to the right spot on C:\. It shows up in explorer with a little disk icon instead of a file icon. I've never had a problem with a system once I got this working, but of course that's no guarantee. Caveat emptor and all that.
I will probably try the same trick on Documents and Settings during some downtime this weekend, but as I recall it fails. I'm pretty sure you can't log in without locking a file somewhere in that tree, so it can't be renamed. (Which is a damn shame, because that's where I really need to put extra space on a terminal server.) There might be a workaround via the recovery console, though. And your comment implies there's an easier way to move Docs and Settings anyway? I'll have to look into that.
For reference, I did pretty much the same thing for a new internal webserver I set up on OpenBSD a few weeks ago, mounting
It's the jury's job to aquit if they determine the law to be unreasonable. And it's the voters' job to choose a new D.A. based on the perfomance of this one.
We expect that each citizen will do his or her duty.
I gotta agree with the AC here... this would be a really strange application for Halon. Halon's chief advantages are that it leaves no residue and acts very quickly. The chief disadvantage is that it'll rapidly kill anyone who doesn't get out of the room, because it eliminates most of the available oxygen.
So Halon would work fine for fire suppression, but it'd sorta fail the life-safety aspect of the residential fire code. In residential applications you can expect to have children, disabled, and other folks who may not be able to understand an alarm or properly respond by evacuating. Residential fire codes need to take this into account, and they focus on life-safety more than structure-safety. (When it comes right down to it, sacrificing the structure to buy a few extra minutes of evacuation time is a good trade in a residential application.) So I'm thinking no fire code would require Halon in a residential setting, and I'd bet it's not even allowed in most residential applications.
Probably what code required was an Ansul dry chemical fire suppression system. Ansul is very effective, but it ain't cheap and makes a frightful mess when its Rube Goldberg-ish mechanical trigger goes off. A discharge would mean hours of cleanup work, kissing goodbye any food in unsealed containers in the whole kitchen or pantry, and calling a contractor to re-set the system before you could operate your range again... but it wouldn't risk killing anyone.
There also exist water-spray systems that properly installed can actually work on grease fires, but that amount of water in a home kitchen may be even more disastrous than Ansul. (Got floor drain? Plus, the key words are "properly installed". Water on a grease fire normally results in an explosion. I've seen video of a bad water dump on a hot fryer... Trust me, you do not want to try that at home.)
There's another thing about commercial gas ranges in home kitchens that your avereage DIYer may not consider. Modern houses (or clever remodels) tend to be highly-insulated and relatively draft-free. Commerical ranges have gawdawfully-huge gas burners that produce a great deal of CO and CO2. There better be a damn good source of combustion air and someplace for all those exhaust gasses to go, or your first fancy dinner party will really knock 'em dead.
Some folks at work do insist on leaving their space heaters on all weekend to ensure that they do not face fifteen minutes of chilly discomfort on Monday morning. I took this up with their department's supervisor, only to discover that it was her idea.
:-)
So your second analogy might be bad for a reason other than you thought. Good effort, though.
That sucks for you. I guess you can stick to your G4 for a while, eh?
But not all is lost. An ExpressCard attaches with both a 1x PCIe lane and a hi-speed USB 2.0 connection. That 1x PCIe lane is capable of about 2.5 gigabits per second in both directions, so it's probably only a matter of time until someone manages to cram firewire 800 into an ExpressCard/34 form factor. Clearly there's going to be a market for such a thing now.
Plus, even though you don't get the fw800 connector out of the gate and maybe not for a good long while, there's so much available bandwidth in that slot that you do have the potential to end up with a substantially faster connection (of some unknown sort) in that slot down the road.
Well, I'm just basing my space/heat guesses on the reported lack of any firewire 800 card in the ExpressCard/34 form factor. Since fw800 cards are available in the /54 form factor, there's apparently a problem squeezing the fw800 chipset down. I think that makes a heat/space issue a more likely explanation for the lack than a $3 margin differential, a conspiracy to kill firewire, or a desire to cheese you off.
But I could be wrong. [shrug]
I'm guessing they left out Firewire 800 on the laptop due to one or more of the following:
* Too little space for the fw800 chipset
* Heat dissipation problems with the fw800 chipset
* Laptop hard drives may be incapable of meeting fw800 data transfer rates.
Any of these could have made the performance difference between fw and fw800 irrelevant or worse. Firewire 800 would be nice, but honestly I'm just glad to see firewire still in there at all.
That's interesting. I didn't know what ExpressCard was, so I just looked into it a bit.
/54 form factor device is because you can't deal with the space or heat dissipation constraints of the /34 form factor. There's no other obvious benefit to making the larger card. Your observation that the only available Firewire 800 cards are /54 leads me to think that the reason Apple is moving away from Firewire 800 is that they haven't been able to make it small or cool enough.
Seems that the only reasons to make a
Maybe it's about heat, not money. Hmm.
The previous snide comment referenced the typical COC's influence over the typical city government. This is quite distinct from implying that any COC is empowered with any actual governmental authority.
I do apologize to any readers who were aware of this fact and may have accidentally read this superfluous explanation.
"The chamber of commerce is a business organization, not an arm of the government."
Yeah, but just try telling them that.
I'll be away for a few days so I won't be able to write again. But let me just say that the objections to the UPA are generally not a matter of objection to this administration and what it has done, so much as an objection to this large and permanent increase in executive power without commensurate increases in congressional oversight and judicial review.
Presidents come to power through the skillful application of politics, usually including some "hardball politics". No one is elected to the job who is not eager for power and supremely confident of their ability to excercise it responsibly. Yet our founders designed our Constitution with the maxim "power corrupts" firmly in mind, so they limited and checked the executive's powers. They had suffered the abuses of kingly power, and wished to make sure that did not happen here. Yet even with their precautions, Presidential power has been abused for domestic partisan ends on numerous occasions, from Adams' Alien and Sedition Acts to Nixon's enemies list.
The UPA contains broad power barely checked, and much of it operates in secrecy. There is no reason to believe that some future president will not use these new permanent powers to help his party win in debates over the issue of the day, or capture seats in congress for his party, or prevail in the realm of public opinion. There is every reason to think that these abuses will someday come to pass, and that such abuses will be amplified by the powers granted by the UPA.
So If the executive is to have such additional power as the UPA grants, our future liberty demands it must be open to scrutiny to some larger degree, so that other branches of government (and We The People) may determine if the power is being used rightly. Since this is a very difficult proposition to implement well, it is simpler to not grant the executive those powers at all. The cost to law enforcement's ability to intercept terrorists is not really all that large compared to the potential harm to our liberty. (Nothing in the UPA would have made a difference in the 9-11 attacks; the FBI had enough information to roll it up, yet institutionally failed in analysis and action despite the efforts of a few agents. The UPA does not remedy the flaws which led to these failures.)
Simply stated, it comes down to this: If increased risk of future tyrrany is the cost of my physical safety, then I say my safety is not worth this cost. I would rather die free at the hands of a terrorist tomorrow than have my grandchildren live in a United States devolved into a tyrrany.
You know, I believe you are correct. Bad me. Still, if he manages to twist the arms of enough Senators, he's in a position to act quickly. It ain't over 'til it's over, and maybe not even then. :-)
Now that I have a little more time, let me expand on my other comment.
Recall yourself back to the fall of 2001. We had the terrible shock of 9/11 of that year. By October 26th, the USA Patriot Act (hereafter referred to as the UPA) was signed by the President. Forty-five days may sound like it was plenty of time for Congress to properly consider a bill of such potential sensitivity. Indeed, it might have been.
But Congress did not have 45 days.
This bill was introduced in the House on October 23, a fact which you may verify here. The bill itself is three hundred and forty-two pages, when presented in PDF format. (You can read it here.) Now, we may have varying opinions on the intelligence of various members of Congress, but it seems like a safe bet that any particular member would have had a difficult time reading a 342 page bill in three days, let alone understanding the full implications of such a broad bill on such a sensitive subject.
Yet it was even worse than it appears. If you'll be so kind as to look here, you'll see that it was introduced in the House on the 23rd, and passed without amendment on the 24th at 11:03 AM after approximately 100 minutes of debate. It was received in the Senate the same day, passed that chamber without amendment on the 25th and was given to the President. He signed it the next day.
As if the time to consider the matter wasn't compressed enough already, also recall that the Senate was rather distracted at that moment by the anthrax attacks.
I ask you, do you think Congress fulfilled its responsibilities in this matter? Did Congress give this matter the serious consideration which the defense of our Liberty demands?
If your answer is no, then I fail to see how you can object to the proposal to extend the sunsetted provisions by a few months while the matter is considered further. Yet the administration and Congressional leadership are demanding that it be permanently extended as-is, with no more discussion. Does that not seem a bit... odd? What harm can come from further discussions while the law remains wholly in force?
Dismiss the opposition to the UPA as ACLU propaganda if you like. But there's a much broader opposition to the UPA than you might think. Read what William Safire has to say on the subject, or visit the website of the grassroots Bill of Rights Defense Committee. Heck, read the bill.
Then tell me it's all ACLU propaganda.
"I would dare say that 99% of the people posting haven't actually read the Patriot Act or even its main provisions. "
I don't see why that should count against Slashdot. 95% of Congress didn't read it before they passed it in the first place.
(By the way, I'm not kidding. They really didn't.)
You can see how your state's Senators voted here.
Don't celebrate too soon.
Note that Sen. Frist voted with the majority. He didn't do this because he agreed that the act should expire, but because it will allow him to call a new vote whenever he sees that he can turn the tables. And given his Senate leadership position, that means he can wait until a few people leave chambers and call a quick vote very easily.
This will not be over even if the act does expire... you can expect to see some provisions stealthily wedged into unrelated bills next year. The only way to really end this is to elect a Congress and President that takes civil liberties seriously.
Get on it, people. The 2006 Congressional elections are coming up fast.
"If Jesus had a better lawyer, he could have saved the world AND avoided that whole crucifixion thing."
That's an excellent case for making every declarative statement end with "YMMV."
YMMV.
It's better to win the good fight.
"Let's name the zones, the zones, the zones.
Let's name the zones of the open sea!"
I have watched Finding Nemo entirely too many times.
I don't know beans about PCIDSS. (Not even sure what it is.) But the HIPAA rule requires a broad, basic approach to security. It's much more about policies, procedures, and training than it is about technical measures.
It's actually very light on technical implementation details. This is bad in that covered entities are kind of left to fend for themselves in determining which technical measures are appropriate, but good in that the regulation is basically immune to changes in technology. Covered entities are responsible for assessing the threats, picking appropriate countermeasures and changing with the times... which is as it should be, IMHO.
You may be right to worry about the lack of specific technical requirements, but I can flat guarantee that your medical records are far, far safer now that HIPAA is in force than they were before. HIPAA may prove insufficient, but it's a hell of a good start.
"Typcially, one compromises the database to get the box. If I own the box, encrypting the contents of the datbase won't help you any."
:-) Thanks for the insight.
That goes straight to the heart of the matter, doesn't it?
You scare me, but in a good way.